High Resolution

Today is my 25th birthday. Since I haven’t celebrated a birthday at home in the last 7 years, my family went a little nuts this year. They wrapped up 25 gifts (my favorite one was a bag of peanuts). The day started with the opening of gifts, followed by 3 Rava Masala Dosas. The excessive breakfast put me to sleep for a bit. For lunch was Ambode. I ate about 20 of those. I then played some Call of Duty: Ghosts on my PS 4, and fell asleep again. A most delicious Chocolate Truffle cake was brought out in the evening for cutting. I thoroughly enjoyed eating a rather large piece of it. For dinner, we went to the nearby Ritz Carlton. It’s new, so there were a lot of people there. I ended up eating a really good white penne pasta, some noodles, paneer kebabs, and rasmalai for dessert. I estimate that I’ve eaten somewhere in the vicinity of 3000 calories today.

I had forgotten how much fun it is to celebrate something like a birthday with family. I’ve really missed this sort of thing, and it really makes me happy to be back home.

High Resolution

I finally got around to setting up my PS4 today. I had been putting it off since I had to move spike busters around, and clean up a bunch of really ugly wiring behind my TV (it’s still ugly, sadly). I played a couple of games of FIFA 14, and man it feels great to be playing real video games again! Unfortunately, FIFA 14 isn’t next gen. It looks and plays a lot like a game that would be very similar on an PS3 or 360. I wasn’t really expecting it to be next gen though, so no real complaints yet. Hopefully next year’s games are more impressive. I also can’t wait to pick up an XBone.

I’ve also got Black Flag (I may finish AC3 before I start this, not sure yet) and CoD Ghosts (yes, really – I bought it because of the dog) lined up. I also wanted to finish The Last Of Us on my PS 3, but the customs people appear to have stolen it! It’ll have to wait until I get another copy.

This week’s theme is “Gathering/Appreciation”. I believe it’s in the spirit of Thanksgiving. I’ve never really related to the concept of Thanksgiving. It makes total sense in America where families are usually all over the place. However, the way I grew up, it was quite common for families to almost always be together. It’s never really made sense to dedicate a week just to meet family and get fat. We do that with far more regularity thanks to our numerous festivals.

In any event, I am very appreciative of my bike today. I finally took my bike out to Eagleton and took her out on a ride. It felt really good to be riding her again. I wish there was more space for me to ride there, but I’ll take what I can get.

On a somewhat related note, I came across this funny Slate post about Thanksgiving.

High Resolution

This is a cymbal from my brother’s drum kit. Like me, he also hasn’t played in a while. Back when I was in high school, we would often play together. I would be on guitar, and he would be on drums and also do some vocals. We even recorded a cover or two (they were pretty terrible, but it was still fun to do).

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This is my latest guitar. I bought it in San Diego a few years ago. It’s an Epiphone Les Paul. Before this one, I had a B.C. Rich Warlock (picked it up during freshman year in Canton, MI). Before that, I had a Yamaha electric guitar that I picked up in Hong Kong (I forget the model number). Before that I had an acoustic guitar that I picked up at Veena Musicals. I used to go to that store almost every day with my grand father and brother when I was a kid. I also had another acoustic guitar as a little boy (4-5 years old). Apparently I’ve always wanted to play guitar. Unfortunately nothing really came of it until I was in 11th grade. That’s when I started to get into extra curricular activities, and I thought playing guitar would “get me the girls”. Sadly, that never happened. I was really into playing guitar for 2 years, but somehow when I got to college, I got too busy and I’ve never picked up the habit again. I’ve been thinking about getting back into it. Who knows, I just might.