Painted Platters @ Koramangala

[Image above: Painted Platters @ Koramangala]

I am sure everybody in Bangalore has been to the Corner House ice cream parlours and also had the very famous mouth-watering DBC (Death By Chocolate). But few know about this hidden dessert parlour called Painted Platters in Koramangala, Bangalore.

Here, each plate used to serve the desserts is spray painted with chocolate paint and comes decorated with witty messages like “You can never make a crab walk straight” (on our plates), “My reality check has bounced,” “If there’s a will, I want to be in it,” etc.. Hence the name, Painted Platters.

First Aid training in Bangalore by Nightingales lifesaving services

[Image above: First Aid symbol]

Following up on the CPR training earlier, we attended a first aid training conducted by the good doctors (got to really thank them to take some time out on a sunday for us) at NIGHTINGALES LIFESAVING SERVICES (NLS) *.

One would have the question: Why do you need to learn First Aid ?

From NLS material:

Many lives are endangered and subject to needless agony due to lack of timely and correct initial treatment. This is primarily due to lack of awareness about correct techniques of First Aid and its benefits and the non- availability of trained people.

In many emergency situations due to accidents on the road, in homes and workplaces, rendering immediate First Aid will help prevent further damage and promote recovery. Delay in timely First Aid leads to greater complications, longer duration of treatment and often loss of life or damage to body parts in addition to greater expense.

William Penn Pen Poster reminds me of my college notebooks

[Image above: The poster outside William Penn, Koramangala]

Not much to say really… This ad poster just reminds me of my college notebooks
let me know if you felt the same..

Bangalore Midnight Marathon 2007

Rotary Bangalore IT Corridor and Crossover Sports are organizing Bangalore’s first midnight marathon on May 19, 2007. For more details check: http://www.coindia.com

Claims to be the first ever midnight marathon in the world. However a simple google search says otherwise (brought to notice by Charles Haynes of bangalore metblogs). I wonder how they ever came up with the “world’s first” thing.

For the true marathoner/leggers or first timers, you should get in touch with the runnersforlife guys. The article written by Arvind Krishnan is also a useful read before doing the marathon. These guys do regular practice runs in different parts of bangalore. Atleast, they did when I took part in the 2005 Bangalore Marathon. Checked their mailing list, apparantly they still do.

Australian for Habit – Cricket World Cup !!

I have not been much of a cricket fan, ever since India’s dramatic loss in the 1996 world cup against Sri Lanka. That was the last straw. But when I saw this billboard, I was pissed !! They didn’t shy away to rub it in.. I liked the Foster’s “Australian for Beer” ads before.. But I don’t think this ad is gonna help the image of Foster’s in India (the cricket crazy country that it is..) But wait.. Foster’s India is owned by SABMiller, the UK based company. Hmm.. What are the Brits upto ??

But think about it, this world cup was little more than joke to me. Felt like the Aussies stole an ice cream from a bunch of kids. Even ICC chief Malcolm Speed has admitted that 2007 cricket world cup was too long. So they have decided to shorten the duration of the next world cup and keep it short & sweet: opening ceremony, photo session and presenting the world cup to Australia !! (I received this as a forwarded SMS joke today, thanks subhash)

Printo – the one-stop printing store at Bangalore

[Image above: Printo's flagship store in Koramangala, Bangalore]

The nice-looking (good logo) store in Koramangala with an aptly named printo (simple and well communicating name) aroused my curiosity to check-out what the store was all about. On entering the store, I was quite impressed by the BPO kindoff ambiance (with youngsters) behind the counter on their respective terminals. Anyways, my excuse to be there was a simple color printout for a project report. I was totally surprised when the sales person brought up a form on the terminal and started filling up an online form where she needed to fill my name and contact details (whhyyy.. I just needed a simple single print). Then I was given a choice of paper size (reasonable question) and various paper types (which reminded me of selecting a Cappuccino, Macchiato, Chococinno or Espresso at a coffee day). When I asked for the price, I was told she would have to look it up (how tough is it to remember that ??). On enquiring, I was told that the price varied with the number of pages (ah !! that way). Then, she fired the print and it took about 10 mins for the printer to warm up before it printed out my precious page. The quality was very good actually, no complaints there. Then it was time for the billing and I thought, there would be no more surprises. But like true printing professionals, the lady pulled out an adobe software for the bill and kinda checked it for something (alignment/formatting maybe) and fired a print.

Ta ra rum pum. A review.

Is almost typical in the kind of BULL CRAP movies one used to get in the late 80s/ early 90s.
Reality is an illusion caused by lack of alcohol – or so some wise soul said. The movie lives it up, aptly. And apparently everyone was totally floating in alcohol there.

Well, we werent on alcohol, so we had to deal with reality. And in reality, its a nice premise but utterly butterly bad execution.

A Posh restaurant is next door to a slimy residential area. Racers race on 800bhp cars that can do 200mph and try to win by taking each other out. “I dont like you. I am gonna slam you into the next barrier, and NOT be penalised for it – so am gonna win!” And from eating a burger that was just then thrown into the garbage bin, the kid gets a piece of glass into the stomach. (Of course they only use styrofoam in that canteen is a different detail altogether)

Big Bazaar’s Guerrilla Marketing !! (Guest Post)

I’m sure you have seen at least one of the below ad campaigns by Big Bazaar.

 

 

[Image Above: "The Keep West-aSide. Make a smart choice !" Billboard on Hosur Road (Just Before Forum Mall), Bangalore]

Apparently its part of Big Bazaar‘s (owned by Biyani’s Future Group) new Guerrilla Marketing Strategy according to agencyfaqs.com Surely one must have heard about the guerilla warfare strategies during one of those boring history sessions in school (generally its boring!!), wherein guerrilla force is divided into small groups that selectively attacks the target at its weak points. Wah lah, enter the future and in the world of cut throat competition, corporates use extension of the same strategy in marketing…hmmmm never imagined this while we were in our shorts !! Corporates like coke, pepsi, etc have been using the same for quite some time now and the latest entrant is our very own ‘Future Group’- Big Bazaar, Pantaloons, Future Bazaar, eZone are all part of this group and they are taking on the biggies like Shoppers Stop, Lifestyle, and Tata’s Westside.

Bangalore Photography Festival – 2007 (Guest Post)

It all started when I received an unexpected mail from my friend about “Bangalore Photography Festival”. I rushed like a cyclone to the ADLABS printed out 10 photographs, headed to Crossover Sports and handed over the same to Prem. A mail from Yolande Berlie made me glad and surprised, all 10 of them had been selected for the exhibition.

BPF commenced in all its glory on 15th of April at Leela Galleria. There were photographs of the professional lensmen like Balachandar, Mahesh Shantaram, Pallon Daruwala, Rudra Sen, Ramya Reddy, Neha Bajaj, Shibu Arakkal, Vivek Mathew and others. Balachandar’s work was mostly from Shravanbelagola and he had published the book “Gommata”, which was kept for preview. Mahesh Shantaram had featured his works from Srilanka, which were quite green, and few works from Bangalore (Air show I presume). Ramya Reddy’s artsy-craftsy works were as charming and gorgeous as her; I immediately fell in love with a backless lady on the couch. Neha Bajaj’s portraits were mesmerizing; I particularly liked the composition and lighting in the portrait of a smoking man and the cute street kid. Vivek’s few works were displayed but all three were magnetic, especially the rooster one had nice colours and vivacity. Rudra Sen’s landscapes were amazing, the dawn at Manipal was so aesthetic and artistic that many people reckoned it to be a painting and the black and white Himalayan landscape was brilliant. Sai Darshan’s photographs were simple yet elegant. Dazzling by their novelty and brilliance, Wasim Khan’s works grabbed maximum attention. The genre of fashion photography itself is so alluring, add to it Wasim’s creativity, a perfect combo for the viewers. Pallon Daruwalla, an alumnus of Brooks, had displayed mostly his black and white works; they carried a huge price tag along. His sunset shot tremendously impressed me, it was his masterpiece. The ambience of the exhibition was decent, mellifluous music of the grand piano performed by artists with deft fingers soothed and pacified the people watching photographs