a couple of social evenings, some music and moroccan chicken

Aside from the rain and severe drop in temperature (severe with respect to prevailing weather conditions, mind you, not based on the plight of the people up north), it's been a relaxing weekend.

We had two social get-togethers at our home, with me in the role of resident guest (as also assistant to the host). That covered the evenings of Friday and Saturday. Dinner comprised tortilla chips, cheese dips, soda, brownies, salted peanuts and tiramisu. Needless to say, there were quite a few trips to the restroom to address the issue of inundated bladders.

Saturday was a day of firsts. I won my first CD (read: my first anything) in the US, courtesy the Asian Variety Show that airs on PAX every Saturday morning. The CD: Adnan Sami's new album Tera Chehra. Thanks to Chris (once again) I also got my first Beatles CDs: Revolver and The White Album.

The Indian eating place of choice to add a bright spot to a bleak rainy Saturday was Daabha in Smyrna. Best ambience and layout I've seen for an "Indian café in Atlanta". Harked back to the days at Smoking Joe's back home in Pune. Except for the standard American ceiling, everything clicked. And the food was good too -- try out the chicken hariyali kabab if you're tired of chicken 65 and the like. Songs from Rangeela, Dil Chahta Hai and finally Dil (which incidentally featured in the muzak for one our previous Indian outings, Annapurna).

Finally finished watching Out of Sight with the accompanying commentary track featuring Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Frank. I'd recommend this commentary track. Lots of trivia, in-jokes, and laughs as the two consciously mock each other, everyone in the film as well as the convention of doing a commentary track {To paraphrase them: "here we go again ... two white guys sitting down to talk about a DVD ...}. I also caught an AMC documentary on the Alien movies. It was great to see H. R. Giger on screen (I've never seen him before) and also to know that he was actually involved in the production of the movie.

I discovered the joys of the slow cooker yesterday. My inaugural effort was moroccan chicken. Add the ingredients, start the cooker off, go to sleep and return in the morning. Low-effort, low-cost. Of course, for some weird reason, the moroccan component seems to have either (a) left the building (b) forgotten to assert itself.