The Veg Zinger

For the folks who are blinking at the name -- Zinger burger is the name of the crunchy chicken burger that most non-vegetarians love to eat at the Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) outlets. I know because the Arien is total Fida over a Zinger burger. Whenever we visit KFC, I usually have the veggie burger to give the Arien company.

Yesterday, we went to the KFC outlet on Commercial Street and the new veg option was the Veg Zinger. When I stated that I did not want a zinger and I would prefer the veggie burger, I was told that the other option was a veg snacker. Now, a veg snacker is a teeny, tiny, burger that def cannot be my lunch. I decided to try the Veg Zinger. The picture on the right is for representation purpose only. After I finished it, with great difficulty, I had the following questions for the folks at KFC:

• Why would anyone create a Veg Zinger at KFC?? (Considering that KFC caters primarily to the non-vegetarians.)
• Was it maybe a marketing strategy gone wrong? (Lets fight competition (read McD) with the all-new Veg Zinger.)
• A survey whose results could not be verified? (Vegetarians want to have this crunchy taste and look for their burgers as well)

I was totally uncomfortable with the Veg Zinger. I want the veggie burger back which looked and tasted the way I wanted it to. Has anyone tried the veg zinger? How do you like it? How does it compare to McVeggie? Share your views as comments.

Lunch @ High Note and a Movie

On a boring saturday, the Arien decided we had to see Predators (the movie) and I agreed if only for an excuse to go out. I have been wanting to eat at High Note for a while and so I tried to sell that idea to the Arien. After stuffing my face, I may fall asleep during the movie and miss it completely. Thats like a double yeah!! (I am so evil ;P) Planning, planning, and more planning - which show to catch? Do we ask the Taurean? Does the Arien still want to catch Predators? Can we catch the 4 pm show? There is no show at that time... Grrr.. In an hour, it was all settled: We were having lunch at High Note, catching Inception (yes, not Predators) at 6 pm.

Lunch was not the yummy affair I wanted it to be - the Arien did not like the food very much (Dragon Chicken and Lamb chops) - but then he is very much a kebab person. He liked the ambience though. The Taurean freaked out on the Veg Melange and Bruchetta. I had the Potato Au Gratin and could not do justice to it. After a while, it was simply too much of cheese, helluva lot of potatoes and I was ready to Guz it. When the bill came, the Taurean offered to treat us and I accepted his offer graciously (I think).

The movie experience was so awesome that I did not obsess over the unclean restroom facilities, the awful seats, a bunch of north-indian guys who for the life of them could not understand the movie, or any other stuff that I usually obsess over. The movie was simply that good. In fact, while Shutter Island solved the mystery for us and we all had this Whoa?!! feeling - in Inception, it was open for interpretation and you never really get rid of the Whoa feeling. The Taurean had already seen the movie but was game for watching it again - I could totally understand why. The Taurean and myself spent the drive home, discussing - nah- fighting over what we considered was the actual sequence of events in the movie while the Arien decided not to join the fray. This is the second movie this year that has totally exceeded my expectations - Ya, the first was Shutter Island. So, if you have not caught it, yet - DO NOT MISS IT.

Dinner for Schmucks

This was supposed to be a laugh riot. In the trailer that I had watched, Steve Carell looks at a picture of Nelson Mandela with the home owner and says "Wow - this guy is frends with Morgan Freeman", and I thot - tht is seriously funny! Ufff!!! I think I laughed maybe thrice and never uproariously.

Ok first things first -- if you have already seen the movie Bheja Fry, and did not like it much -- do not go for this movie. If you have seen Bheja Fry and liked it - do not go for this movie. If you have not seen Bheja Fry but are willing to get ur bheja fried - go for this movie. Both Bheja Fry and Dinner for the Schmucks are remakes of the French movie (The Dinner Game). Most folks have mentioned that every dialogue is funny and blah de blaah.. but seriously, NO! Maybe you can crack a smile... but after the Intermission you are thinking of walking out! I stayed and watched the entire movie :(

Counterfiet Notes - How to identify

I had been delaying the writing of my 100th post for some time. I wanted to write something that was useful to my readers for the 100th post but I had no new ideas. It was the Arien who gave me the opportunity to write something useful but b'cos of the surprise result of the "I write like.." quiz - this has now became my 101th post.

The Arien wanted to deposit Rs. 10, 000 in his account in the branch near our home. Because the bank employee was taking forever to individually validate each note, he was slightly irritated until he was told that one note was a counterfiet. Naturally, being a very curious person (in a good way) the Arien wanted to know how to identify a counterfiet note. The banker showed him two easy ways to identify a counterfiet note.

First, all notes now have this really funny cloud like design which seems to have a lot of commas on the left side on the vertical band. When you turn the cloud design towards the light - you will notice that the commas actually denote the denomination.

Second, there is a specific geometric shape associated with each denomination, triangle for a 100 rupee note, a circle for a 500 rupee note, and a diamond for a 1000 rupee note. There are actually 12 ways of identifying if the note that you have in your hand is a counterfiet or not.

One of the easiest ways to identify a fake note, one that I use is the missing year of printing. A note that does not have the Year of Printing is clearly a fake. When I find that missing, I check for the first two options. I noticed that there are a lot of fake notes in circulation. In fact, more than twice, I have received a fake note from an ATM. I have never really paid attention to the Notes that I receive from shops, ATMs, ppl but the teller refusing to accept that note had me shocked too.

After googling for additional information, I found that this year, Bangalore was in the news for the counterfieting racket and the police have nabbed a gang that circulated them. Scary eh?? Well, anyway, I also found this useful web-page:
http://jaanlo.com/howto/how-to-identify-counterfeit-currency-notes

Share this with everyone you know so we are all more aware of this menace. Take a printout of the images for the higher denomination notes - and share it with ur ofc junta. You must consciously check if the note in your hand is genuine or counterfiet - after all - it is our money.