Entertainment book is one of the topics, which I selected for this week. The reason why I selected is, because some people are not aware of it, when they hear about it they might have a plenty of questions like.

What is entertainment book? Why we need entertainment book? Is it necessary to a buy an entertainment book?
Entertainment book contains a lot of deals and coupons, which includes restaurants, movies, shopping, car service, travel, attractions, furniture’s for home and lot of free coupons like free movie ticket on our birthday etc.

All the coupons in entertainment book covers only cities within the state for example, if we buy in Albany, it covers only cities within the New York state. We can use this entertainment saving coupons either by entertainment savings card (in order to use the card, we need to register through online)or printing the coupon through online or cut the coupon in entertainment book.

This is first time I’ve purchased the Entertainment book for this year. I felt coupons in this entertainment book are very much useful because all the coupons in this entertainment book are valid from December 1st 2009 through November 31st 2010. This Entertainment book is very much useful to me because I bought this book for 20$ and saved 50$ up to now.

Now that Australian Open Grand Slam tennis tournament is on, I got reminded of those moments when we used watch tennis in India when I was a teenager. At that time, the most popular grand slam tennis tournaments were French Open and Wimbledon open. Because the matches played in Europe during day time were aired live in evening in India because of the time lag. The evening being a popular time slot, tennis coverage gained popularity.  When we watched tennis, there were at least 5- 6 people including cousins.  Not all of us were following one player.  We used to have arguments, discussions and celebrations during tennis matches. There was this guy Becker who was called boom Becker for his style.  Then there was Steffi Graph, Jim Courier, Stefan Edberg and many more.  Then in 90s, I watched Pete Sampras dominating Wimbledon finals. He did not loose even a single Wimbledon final which I watched. His technique, serve and volley were impeccable. During the course of the match he stayed very composed. I don’t remember him loosing his temperament any time. He was a true champion. While Sampras dominated Wimbledon, Jim Courier and Andre Agassi came good in Australian open and French open grand slam tennis tournaments.

Much waiting apple tablet PC finally released today, it named as iPad. It has 1024 x 768. resolution, 91/2 inches screen, feels like bigger size iPhone, runs on iPhone OS 3.2, no camera and priced ranging from $499 to $829 depending on the capacity and with optional 3G.

Cool features of this is browse web, read and compose email, view and share Photos, watch Video, listen to Music, play Games and read ebooks.

It is between smart phone and laptop. All the above things can be done on smart phones and of course on Laptop too. It is like Net Book and has better performance. Here I can consider iPhone, Palm Pre, Motorola Droid and Nexus one are smart phones when compare with iPad.

Laptop: It is bulky to carry but you can do every thing

Smart Phone: With this we can do all the things iPad can do except eBook reading.  No extra gadget to carry and very handy, Of course it is not comfortable as iPad/Laptop/Net Book

Net Book: It is handy compare to Laptop when traveling for pleasure. But the performance is not great when browsing.

iPad: It is handy compare to Laptop when traveling for pleasure and performance is amazing. I feel main draw backs are no multi tasking, no camera and no video conference. Plus points are eBook reading and amazing experience and excellent performance. Various capacities available are 16GB($499), $32GB($599), 64GB($699), with 3G it costs $130 more for each of the above model.

Conclusion: It is good to have,  if you have fashion and looking for amazing experience or rich.

Today, being January 25th, should have been a typical winter day. By “typical”, I mean it should have been maybe in the 20s or 30s throughout the day, maybe even snowing. However, Mother Nature threw us a curveball and gave us a 55-degree day in the heart of winter. It felt like spring, and with all the rain, it reminded me of Manila.

Rains are a big part of life in Manila. Growing up in the Philippines, you learn to live with rainy weather at an early age. As kids, we would go outside to play when it rained very hard. I remember me and my brothers would play with mud and create makeshift dams on the side of the roads where the water flowed (the culverts). These were way before the so-called acid rains, of course.

Along with the rains come also the floods. The Philippines being a tropical country gets about 30 typhoons a year. That meant that as a student, you were assured of at least a few days of no classes because of typhoons. It was good if they declared schools closed in the morning, because you wouldn’t have to get up early. But sometimes the storms would hit in the middle of the day and you would already be in school. One time my brother picked me up from school and we had to wade through knee-high water in the streets. You weren’t a full-fledged graduate until you experienced this at least once in your student life.

I think it was 5 years since I had a chat with Gabe about getting in to using a digital assistant. He was kind enough at that time to loan me his Palm M505 pda to try for a week. I was really amazed with the capabilities that this little thing had. From then on I am not alone any more. Though Gabe is no more kind, I have to thank him a million for his help.

Since then, I been using a pda and finally in this smart phone era, Pal Pre. I love this devil which is capable of doing so many things. I use Pre basically for, email (personal & work), games, chat, sms, blogging, notes, calender, facebooking, chat, music, internet radio, tasks, photos and many more. Can you believe that I am posting this from my pre?

My friend’s house in PA is in a very remote place and there is no Sprint signal. I was really really holding my self from coming out of the house in search of signal and finish mails and SMS.

Just because of my Pre, I was able to use facebook app and getting in touch with my very old friends that I lost touch. This friend in PA got in touch after 15 years and it happened just because of my Palm Pre.

Falafel Stand (Street vendor) in New York City (Near Wall Street).

My colleague and I went out for lunch. Actually it was one of my colleague who told us about the Sam’s Falafel Stand. We saw the huge line for falafel sandwich and we figured the food must be good. We waited about 15 minutes, but totally worth it. There is usually a big line during lunch time, but the line moves very quickly. Pita chips that you can grab and eat while on in line. The food is tasty and cheap ($4 for the works).

So I went for the Combo Platter ($5) and the food is AMAZINGLY good which includes
11 falafels (crispy on the outside, moist and tasty on the inside and less spice),
Fresh pita bread
Fried eggplant
Stuffed grape leaf – Which is not that great?
Salad – Chopped lettuce, tomato and sweet onions.
Creamy hummus
Jalapeno pepper
Baba ganoush – Perfect dipping sauce for falafels.
Hot sauce – If you want it.
Deep fried pita chips in bag

My colleague went for the Falafel Sandwich ($3) was also available. They stuff the pita with falafels, hummus, baba ganoush, fried eggplant, salad, sauce and get one pita chip in bag.

For those of you with a smartphone ( a real one like an iPhone, a Pre or and Android), have you noticed how much you life changes?

You are connected all time: no matter where you are , there is always a way to get to you, IM, Text, e-mail, facebook, or a simple call.

You can loose a lot of time: want to check e-mail while in the john? No problem. Want to read the new york times while waiting in line to pay for your groceries? Or what about listenning to the radio news? From Mexico City of course!

You can be really effective: of course, just as it can be very distracting and annoying, it can be very helpful as well. Think about your boss sending you a late afternoon e-mail requesting your opinion on an urgent matter due next morning, this is of course in  the day you decide to leave early! No problem when you have a smatphone, get the e-mail and reply ASAP!

What do you think? Are smartphones good or bad?

I would like to post about current issue going in A.P, India, which is spilt of AP. I call this as political drama because this is created by political opportunists.

There are mainly three regions in A.P. They are
1) Andhra, 2. Telangana, 3) Rayalaseema

There are Ten districts under Andhra, Nine districts under Telangana and Four districts under Rayalaseema. We have common language called Telugu through out the state.

Before formation of AP, Andhra and Rayalaseema were part of Tamilanadu state and Telangana was under Hyderabad state(under Nizams(kings rule)) and was independent.

With dream and great efforts of some great leaders, AP was formed as separate state for Telugu speaking people. Now Telangana leaders asking for separate state claiming that Telangana is not developed after formation of AP. Some Andhra leaders claims that all the development in Andhra was happened before Independence under British and Telangana got benefited lot compare to Andhra after Independence.

Initially separate Telangana was started by the Political opportunists for their survival and now they are multi milliners. Now this agitation spreads to students and common people some extent.

At the end of the day students and common people are suffering lot and every day AP Government loosing around $20 millions directly for last 8 weeks, other than that there are hundreds of millions loss considering man hours and business which is going out of state.

Will be continued next week..

This is about happenings in  NBC over late night shows. A while ago, about  1 year or so, NBC’s  Jay Leno show was broadcasting at 11:35 PM exactly at CBS’s David Letterman show. Conan O’Brien Show followed Jay Leno show.  These are two shows in TV which I like to watch. Since they were both aired at the same time, it was very inconvenient to watch both of them.  After sometime, NBC moved Jay Leno show to 10:00 PM and Conan O’Brien was given 11:35 PM slot.  Looks like Jay Leno show is not doing as good as they had expected.  NBC is also going to broadcast the winter Olympics.  So they want their prime time 10:00 PM slot back from Jay Leno. So they ask Jay Leno to go back to 11:35 PM at the cost of Conan O’Brien show which would move to 12:05 AM.  Looks like Conan O’Brien did not agree for this.  There was some news that he may move to Fox Network.  Looks like the things are settling down now. NBC is paying about 40 million to Conan O’Brien to walk out of NBC network.  In addition to other items,  the package prohibits Conan from saying bad things about NBC.  Events like this since a month or two have made these late night shows very entertaining.

Last time I wrote about some snags in the ongoing negotiations for the fight between Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao and Floyd “Money” Mayweather. It all centered around Mayweather’s demand to use Olympic-style blood testing for the fight. Well, a few developments have happened since then:

• Pacquiao pushed through with the defamation suit against the Mayweather camp–Floyd Jr., Floyd Sr., Roger Mayweather, Oscar De La Hoya and Richard Shaefer (of Golden Boy Promotions). Pacquiao is not suing for the money–he’s basically asking for the minimum amount for a defamation suit, and besides, he has tons of it–he’s suing because he wants to clear his name. He doesn’t want people to think that he is indeed using steroids. His success is the result of years and years of hard work and discipline. Short of a public apology, this is the venue for reclaiming at least some of your tarnished reputation.
• The impasse with the negotiations went to an arbitration with a retired judge. They tried negotiating for a few days, and the negotiators for both sides agreed on a compromise: Pacquiao and Mayweather would take the blood tests 24 days before the fight. Pacquiao was ok with this, but Mayweather wasn’t. This was the end of the negotiations. The next day, Bob Arum, Pacquiao’s promoter, declared the fight dead and said he was looking for a new opponent for Pacquiao.
• After looking at different fighters, Pacquiao has decided to fight Joshua Clottey next. This should be an interesting fight, because Clottey is strong, but of course this is not the fight that everyone was clamoring for.

We’ll see what happens in the next few weeks. Maybe a miracle will happen and the fight pushes through. If not, we can only hope it happens later this year.