Thursday, December 29, 2005

A snippet of surprise: Drive to IKEA, Renton

I have many friends who are ardent fans of google service. I, myself, am a strong advocate of yahoo services. But today, live.com impressed me completely.

A friend called asking me for directions to IKEA, Renton. Google did not disappoint me at all and helped me find the address("600 SW 180th St, Renton, WA 98055"). Next thing I did was ask Yahoo Driving Directions by entering my address and IKEA's address. It couldn't resolve the destination address at all. :(

Okay, now I ask Google Maps for help. I start off by entering IKEA's address. Wow! It found where IKEA is. But there's no hint of what's North or what's East. I see a nice balloon proferring a "To Here" link and as soon as I enter my address (so that I can figure out directions) - Google completely sweeps me off the floor by asking "Did you mean: 7300 S 180th St, Renton, WA 98055". God knows what happened to it's previous memory of where IKEA, Renton was. :((

Now - i go to local.live.com and enter IKEA's address followed by my address as source. It resolves it pretty smoothly and gives me all I want. Now, the new service by Microsoft neither has the orientations pointed out (just like Google) nor has the flexibility for me to enter source and destination addresses at the same time (unlike Yahoo) but it offered a solution to my problem and that's what matters!

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

The escape

Phew! It has been quite an experience. It wasn't easy but still we managed. I am talking about the CRIMSON ROOM.

A game which is very enchanting and is an ultimate test of your patience. Though, there's a bug (read comments to see the way around), it is one of the most popular games played around the world. A quick google and msn search yields me back 1,810,000 and 435,054 results, respectively.

The whole essence of the game lies in finding appropriate things in the vicinity and figuring out a way to open the main door in the room.

Besides CRIMSON, there are a few more rooms and games available on the main site. But for the VIRIDIAN ROOM, as of today, we (Nitin & I) have escaped successfully from the others. I personally have enjoyed the WHITE ROOM the most.

Care to DARE? Then, if you have nothing better to do this holiday season, ENTER these rooms.
Warning: Risk of Addiction

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Yummie!!

That's what I say when I have a coffee ice-cream filled with walnuts and roasted almonds in cold stone creamery. Let's do it the Hemingway way. (Influenced from 'City of Angels').

Giving you a mild coffee flavor, proving existence of milk, rich in flavor, smooth on tongue, giving almonds and walnuts to munch - that's what a spoon of this ice-cream has to proffer. Not only is the ice-cream thick and creamy, but soft at the same time too.

And next time you are at a cold-stone creamery outlet, don't forget to try this combination... :)