San Francisco Indian Consulate Experience

The Indian Consulates and government organizations in general are a pain to deal with. The processes are too slow and one never knows what is going on till the finished product comes out of the process.  I was pleasantly surprised with my experience with the SFO Indian Consulate over the past year. I had a baby boy last year and we wanted to visit India with him so I had to apply for a PIO (Persons of India Origin) card for him. I sent the forms and all the paperwork and the PIO card arrived in less thatn 2 weeks. The original timeline was much longer.

A couple of weeks ago, I had applied for a new passport for my wife and I decided to check ths status of the application. I had two options

•  Via Phone - Call between 2 and 4 everyday or
•  Via Email - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

I decided to send an email expecting a response in 3-4 days but was surprised to get a response in about 10 minutes. I thought it must be an auto-response. When I opened the email, all the details were listed. Kudos to the consulate for improving their services. I had a bad time when I went there personally a few years ago. Hopefully that aspect has also changed. Two Thumbs up for the SFO Indian Consulate. !!

If you have anything to share, please leave a comment.

79th Annual Academy Awards

The 79th Annual Academy Awards were held here in Los Angeles last night. The "Oscars" are one of the biggest events anywhere in the world and when it happens in your town, there is a certain added excitement. I guess most of my excitement disappeared when I heard that Ellen Degeneres was the host. Is it just me or are there others that don't find her so funny. Bring back Chris Rock anyday. I guess some of the interest came back when I saw that Deepa Mehta's water was on of the films nominated in the Foreign Language Film category. Unfortunately it did not win the award and I was a tad disappointed. Its probably a bit ironic that India being the largest movie churner has never won an Academy Award. I guess Rajanikanth flinging a cigarette in the air, lighting in the air with a gun and dropping it in his mouth or Govinda gyrating his hips (Main to raste pe jaa rahaa tha) is not award winning material.  What does the academy know, right?

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Ferrari Los Angeles

I guess I should not have been too surprised to find out that the term "Ferrari Los Angeles" was the third most searched term with the word Ferrari in it. With the money that people have in LA, its hard not to think that Ferrari's are popular here. Having lived in Los Angeles for the last couple of years, you spot Ferrari's drive by or parked on the street every so often.  One of my most memorable days was when I saw three Ferrari's drive by within a span of 2 minutes. It had to be on Rodeo Drive  in Beverly Hills of course.  I happened to be "window shopping" there and I use the term window shopping very loosely here. :-)

I happened to be standing outside the Bijan store and there was a Ferrari parked there. Just as I was admiring that car, another red one drove by right in front of me. Just as I was turning my head back, another one drove by. I don't think I will ever be rich enough to buy a Ferrari unless Ferrari starts mass manufacturing. I think I will be grateful if I get to sit in one of them,. Click on the read more link below to find some Ferrari show rooms in the Los Angeles area.

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Rediffmail-Chotte Se Break ke baad

My wife uses Rediffmail, the mail offering from Rediff.com. I was quite surprised and shocked to see the number of hoops she has to go through get to her email. The moment she hits the home page, there is a pop-up ad that is presented. Fortunately, the popup blocker did its job, but the browser pauses and hangs while that event is handled.  The days of the pop-up are long lon and I am surprised such a big site still resorts to such underhanded gimmicks.

Even if you manage to avoid the pop-up, there is another annoying blow-up ad that expands to occupy most of the screen. If you carefully manage to avoid it and hit the close button, you can sign in. Once you sign in, there are more ads waiting for you before you proceed to read your emails.

Rediff.com is one of India's leading portals and is also a publicly traded company. I wonder how much revenue they take in because people inadvertantly click these ads. A lot of techno-savvy users probably manage to avoid it, but I think a lot of the average users do click on it. I think this is a shameful tactic.  With some many ads before getting to the actual email, I am tempted to say "Rediffmail dekhiye - Ek chotte se break ke baad".