Green and white salad - a favourite salad

Ingredients
Ganth Ghobhi/ patta Ghobhi 1cup
Spring onions chopped 2cups
Safed Mooli grated 1 cup
Lettuce leaves to line the plate

Lemon dressing
Lemon juice  1/4th cup
Oregano       1tsp
salt to taste
red chilli powder 1/2tsp
artificial sweetener  2tabs
cheese grated   1tbsp
Dahi (yoghurt) whisked well 1/4 cup

Method
Mix the gobhi, hara pyaaz and mooli; leave to chill
Mix the dressing ingredients well and keep aside till ready to serve
Just before serving, mix the dressing into the salad. Place on a serving dish lined with lettuce leaves and serve.

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Party game - Accessories from your partner

A couple game, the couples stand together and the stopwatch is set at 30secs. The wives remove all possible accessories from their husband's person. The couple which removes the maximum accessories is the winner.

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Party game - Small Tables with biscuits

A party game for children. Take a pack of Marie or glucose biscuits and a bundle of toothpicks. Each biscuit is balanced with the help of 4 toothpicks. Person balancing the maximum no. Of biscuits in one minute, wins the game.

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Printing with iPad

Since I purchased my iPad in October I've been trying to print from it. I thought if I connected my mac to a printer and as both the iPad and Mac were on the same wireless network that the printer may get selected by apps while printing but no such luck! I kept touching the print button with no printer getting selected.

So I started printing from the cloud as these were bigger files with photos. I discovered iWork.com was a great way to put your files on the net. I would share through iWork, directly from the app and then print through my laptop. A tedious process nonetheless it still works nicely and I saved my files on the cloud as well.

Then I started looking at apps to get my printing done. The first app that I found was Printershare which had a free version and a paid version. It made printing possible but I had by then purchased Pages, Numbers and Keynote from the app store. I like these apps tremendously esp. the way they work on iPad, it's a pleasure creating documents on them. I've started making my colposcopy reports etc. on Pages and it's literally child's play and so much fun.

It was not possible for me to print these reports from the iPad. I had purchased Pages, Numbers etc. for my Mac so I thought that I might as well may make my documents on Mac, but it wasn't fun doing it on that. The first time that I printed directly from my iPad, it was through Printershare. But I could not print from Pages or Numbers.

Then came the jailbreak era. My son convinced me to explore the benefits of Jailbreaking. He was so enthused about it that I did not have the heart to say no, besides I was curious too. More about jailbreaking in another post. Now I had the freedom of trying all the paid printing apps before purchasing them. At the same time I was desperately searching for a calendar app to print my appointments directly from the app. That is how I came to explore all the printer apps which were printing directly from the calendar as well. I tried printcentral, and other similar apps but I was not at all satisfied. In fact Printcentral was quite a let down.
Truprint (for jailbroken iPads only) makes it easier for the iPad to print to wireless printers. As I was trying to print with my existing printers, it was not of much use to me.

In the end I came across during my search on the web of the airprint activator. I started to think in a different direction altogether. I downloaded the latest activator and tried printing without any luck. I even created another user account on my Mac , still no luck. So I downloaded the version v2.0b9,

Meanwhile we had purchased an Airport Express
from Chicago The Apple store, to extend my wireless network at home. I thought that maybe I could print with it, so I connected that. By chance my Mac, iPad and printer were all on the apple network created by the Airport Express


and for the first time I saw an option of printers on my iPad!! voila!

Now I just tap print and print directly from any app of the iPad with my printer connected to airport express, my Mac open nearby connected wirelessly to the same apple network.
(since I downloaded the activator there have been 3 more versions of it. But I am so happy with mine that I don't want to upgrade).
On the eve of the iPad2 being launched in India I am happy to come out with my first iPad post.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Lucknow,India

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A variation of Musical chairs

All the participants stand in a circle and the music plays in the background. A dupatta is knotted at one end and converted into a round loop, a hoopla can be used instead. Each participant passes the loop from his head to feet that is over his/her body and passes it on. Whoever is caught with the loop when the music stops intermittently is out of the game and the game continues till the last person, who is the winner.

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Queen of Sheba

A party game for teenagers/small children. In which the host plays the Queen of Sheba. She asks for something and the first participant to fulfill her wish correctly wins a point/prize. She keeps asking for one thing after another.Examples:
1. Red rose.
2. A fifty paisa coin or maybe two coins.
3. 3 balloons or purple balloons.
The list is endless. The person with the maximum points wins or a small prize can be given immediately to the winner of each wish at that time.
Adults can play this game with a slight variation. All the participants can be divided into teams and then a team representative is chosen who goes up to the queen with the fulfilled wish. The nature of wishes can be changed according to the level of the participants.

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2012 - an amazing movie

This is a must watch movie. It does get melodramatic at some places, but the effects are amazing and involvement of all nationalities is ensured to make it a global hit. It is a Hollywood masala movie. It is to be watched in the theatre and not on the television or computer. One feels one has seen it all - the superhero movies and action movies, but this movie goes beyond that in terms of special effects. While watching the movie, the theatre response was tremendous, the crowds were cheering the caste of the movie and were held totally spellbound. If it had been three dimensional !! It would have beaten Soaring! Its a movie not to be missed!
Rating *****

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Sweep - Rules of a favourite card game

Lately I got the idea of teaching my children, some of my favourite card games. I had spent hours playing some of these games in childhood. We started with teen do paanch, rummy and then sweep. Try as hard as possible, but I could not remember the rules of the game of Sweep at all. I asked mom but still nothing came back. Sweep used to be a favourite game which I used to play with my grandparents. I found the rules on the net and then everything came back. I have vivid memories attached with this game of my late grandfather. It is a great game which involves mental  maths and logic. I felt my children were the right age for this game. I have copied the rules of the game from ehow.com but a more detailed description is given on pagat.com.

 
Sweep (or seep) is a popular Indian card game played with four people divided into two-player partnerships. The partners sit across the table from each other. The game uses a standard 52-card deck (the jokers removed).

Points and Values

1. All cards are played at face value for each hand, regardless of suit. For instance, each ace is a 1, each four is 4, each jack is 11, each king is 13.
   However, only the following are actually worth points when scoring at the end of a hand:
   All spades are worth their face value. For example, a king of spades is 13, a queen is 12, and so on down to the 1-point ace.
   The 10 of diamonds is worth 2 points.
   The other three aces also are worth 1 point each.

Beginning Play

2. Choose a dealer at random (or draw and let the player with the high card deal). Deal four cards face-down to each player in counterclockwise fashion (the player to the dealer's right--whom we'll call Player A from here on--gets the first card, and so on).
   
   Everyone can look at his cards. Player A goes first by announcing a number between 9 and 13 that corresponds to the point value of one of his cards. For instance, if he has a jack, he can announce "11." If he has more than one card worth nine points or more, he can choose from them. However, if he has no cards worth nine or more, the dealer must re-deal.
   
   Once Player A is able to announce a number, the dealer lays four cards face-up on the table. Player A then has the opportunity to lay a card from his hand onto one of the four on the table. To do this, he must lay a card down that, when added to the card on the table, totals his announced number. For instance, if he has a nine in his hand and there is a two on the table, he can lay the nine on it to total the 11 that he announced. If he cannot put a card from his hand onto a card on the table to equal his announced number, he must lay down one of his cards onto the table, face-up. Play passes to the right.

Houses and Tricks

3. From the first play on, each player attempts to build "houses" of cards or take a trick (picking up a house already built).
   
   To build a house, a player places a card from his hand onto a card on the table. A "house" must always add up to between nine and 13, and must total the value of a card in the player's hand. For instance, if there is a three on the table and a player has both a nine and queen in his hand, he can lay the nine on the three and announce "twelves." He has to wait until his next turn to take the trick (pick up the house), if it's still there.
   
   
   
   Houses can be picked up by any player once they are built, unless they are cemented (explained below). For instance, if Player A builds twelves and Player B has a queen in his hand, he can take the house built by Player A.

Raising and Cementing

4. Houses can also be raised higher by adding smaller cards onto them. For instance, if a twelves house is built, a player can add an ace onto it to build thirteens. Again, the player adding the ace must have a king in his hand (to equal 13).
   
   
   
   Houses can be cemented by a player putting a face card equal to the house value on top of it. For instance, if a "twelves" has been built, a player can lay a queen on top of it to cement it, so that only a queen can take it--it can no longer be raised by a smaller card. The player doing this cementing must have a second queen in his hand before he can do it (in other words, he must be able to pick up the trick).
   
   On his turn, if a player cannot pick up a trick or add to or build a house, he must lay down one of his cards face-up on the table.

Scoring and Winning

5. If at any point no player can add to or build a house, the hand is over and all remaining cards go to the player who took the last trick.
   
   Partners then add together their point cards (see the Section 1) for a team score. The team that took the most cards in the hand gets an extra four points. There will be a total of 100 points divided between the two teams (though it is possible for one team to collect all the points).
   
   Most sweep games are played until one team scores 500 points or more, but this is arbitrary and can be determined by the players.

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Latest Hindi Movie songs for free - musicindiaonline

I love Hindi movies, well I guess that's not a unique characteristic of mine, I'm just one of millions. Every week I like to hear the latest hindi songs, like top ten songs or top twenty or top fifty according to the time available. I like a ready-made list of songs, kind of "ready to listen". I usually listen to songs while I work on my laptop and luckily I am blessed with a laptop which has an excellent pair of speakers - Toshiba A205-S4577

My favourite site is Musicindia online.
Its a fave site also because their list of most user requested songs matches my taste. In my Bookmarks toolbar I have the following Bookmarks.
1. Most user requested 50 bollywood songs
2. Most user requested 10 bollywood songs
This site works great with Internet Explorer.
I use Firefox, because due to its hundreds of add-ons Surfing and blogging are very easy and enjoyable. On clicking these bookmarks another window opens and if you are using Firefox open the bookmarks in an Internet explorer window inside firefox and when the player tab/window opens that too opens in Internet explorer inside firefox (This can be done by adding on the IE tab addon). You can choose your player (Real or Windows) in the trident player and then select the songs you want to listen. The sound quality is good.

Another popular site for hindi songs is Dhingana.com. The advantage with this site is that you can embed the song list in your website or facebook or orkut. On the home page, just click on the top songs. Another window opens and you can play the songs. One can make their own songs list.

I have embedded the top songs from Dhingana on this post.

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Rangoli '09

This year's rangoli at the hospital was amazing. Lot of work put in by children and staff.


The origin of rangoli painting is traced to a legend recorded in the Chitralakshana, the earliest Indian treatise on painting. When the son of a King's high priest died, Brahma, Lord of the universe, asked the king to paint the likeness of the boy so that Brahma could breathe life into him again. This is how, it is believed, the first painting was made. Also, the son of the king painted a portrait of a girl whom the son liked very much, although the king would not let his son see her. Rangoli also became a form of self-portraiture for women.
Coloured powder can be directly used for fancy decorations, but for detailed work, generally the material is a coarse-grained powder base into which colours are mixed. The base is chosen to be coarse so that it can be gripped well and sprinkled with good control. The base can be sand, marble dust, sawdust, brick dust or other materials. The colours generally are very fine pigment podwers like gulal/aabir available for Holi or colours (mentioned above) specially sold for rangoli in South India. Various day-to-day colored powders are also variously used: indigo for cloth staining, and spices like turmeric, chili, rawa, rice flour, and wheat flour. Powder colours can be simply mixed into the base. If the base is light like sawdust, it can be used to make floating rangoli on the surface of stagnant water. Sometimes sawdust or sand is soaked in water-based colour and dried to give various tints (though the result of this process may not itself float on water). If a rangoli is to be made on water, the colour should preferably be insoluble in water.
The rangoli in the photograph was made with sooji/rava mixed with colour and thermocol was used to give it a layered effect.

Diwali '09

This year we celebrated an environment friendly deepawali with only diyas and candles no fireworks at all. There were mild protests from the children at the nth moment, but nothing could be done about it at that time.

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