However if you are talking about the other parts of the country or if i say it right the cosmopolitan area’s of Pakistan.  People are busy doing relief activities and celebrating the holy month in full flow.  Celebrations??? Yes, I have visited a local mall here in Karachi last weekend and one of my fried rightly said that if anyone see the rush and excitement here they wont gonna believe that our nation is in such catastrophic situation.

I think its a good thing if people are out and doing what they supposed to do in the holy month (Shopping, Eating outs, Iftar parties and Practicing their religious activities)  after all we only have one Eid in an year and with the gloomy situation of the country the public already lack such celebrations or events.

I believe that while considering the fact that what has happened to our country and to our brothers we should open our hearts to those who are not in a good shape to celebrate Eid this time around and we should help them.  But, we should not turn our backs to this religious festivity and should take the full of it because “Life must go on”.

This weekend i got a chance to go out with my friends to Rangoli Restaurant located at Karsaz, Karachi.  I was quite excited about it since i have visited arena quite a few times and i was carrying a perception for Rangoli equivalent to it.  Anyways, we have booked a table for 5 and move forward.  If you look around there wasn’t much theme based decor which was expected as now a days almost all restaurants are theme based and highly decorated.  The ambiance was quite normal like you can find in Lasania or Usmania.  Clean sheets, clean floor, clean dishes and that’s it.

Now starts the worst part.  The table arrangements was way too congested  and you need to make double sure of not hitting on other tables while your way in or out.  There was a family right next to us and when they pulled out their chairs they were literally hitting on our table.   One cannot able to talk properly since every time you laugh there are few faces turning around.  Now the food, I cannot say much about it because i haven’t had much.  Whenever i went to fetch me something i ended up eating french fries because that’s the only thing available in some quantity.  In a buffet iftari/dinner worth rupees 799/=, can you expect that the supply of food will be cut offed by half time?  you cant right? but that was the exact case there.  No Prawns after 8:00 PM – No Katakat after 8:15 PM and No Sajji after 8:30 PM.  Everything else tasted like fried with washing power.  Cherry on the top that there was a constant announcement going on, at which an irritating voice was telling you not to go or stand in the buffet lounge and sit on your tables to wait for a ugly looking guy keep on bugging you to clear the bill.

I know it wasn’t totally their fault, the people around us wasn’t pleasing enough either and the rush on food stalls was insane.  I think its in our culture and if you  adopt the attitude of letting them take it first, you are very wrong.  Because you will end up eating nothing.

Overall the experience was not as it was expected.  I believe Lalqila, Village and Shan-e-Mughlia are doing a great job.  And there is no reasons to rate Rangoli as one of the top three buffet here in Karachi.

I remember back in the years when i came across with her for the first time I was a little surprised to see it but i was more concern about how they have created this illusion.  It is quite sick to see a dead fox infront of you with a head of a she-male but it is a must have experience and highly recommended to all who are planning to visit Karachi Zoo.

Rumours are out that Noori has filed a lawsuit in the International Court of Piracy and Copyrights, Switzerland against famous American Band LINKIN PARK.  According to a popular blog, they have submited a clain of $5 million in damages, citing “emotional, physical, and creative distress” from Linkin Park’s alleged thievery.  For now no one from both sides either Noori or Linkin Park are ready to comment any further on the news.

However, according to the resource Ali Noor claims that Linkin Park copied several guitar riffs and melodies from material legally owned by Noori.  If you see the genre of both bands, there is a major difference between the taste and moods of the bands.  So, it is hard to swallow the fact that Linkin Park really stole something from Noori intentionally.  Linkin Park itself is a huge band with a massive fan following and we all know that EP (Entity Paridigm) is basically a desi version of it.  This means LP should also sue EP.

In my point of view, we should take a tolerant stance on this and Noori should appretiate themselves for the quality of work they are doing and set a positive example infront of the whole world about our community and Pakistan as a talented and tolerant society.  Lets see if this is really true or not, we will keep you posted on the story.

Source: Maila Times

In Karachi, we have seen local uni-branded CNG feul pumps popped out here and there like mashrooms.  But I have noticed that those CNG pumps failed to attract major chunk of the business pie towards them.  I, my self never use such stations for CNG refills and my reason is that they don’t have facilities to charge plastic money which I use all the time for the refills.  It is my firm belief that this factor is one of the major reasons behind the failure of such investment.

Not now, last week I have noticed from my way from Gulshan-e-iqbal to Nagan Chowrangi in a taxi.    Almost 4 – 6 CNG pumps with a banner “We Accept Credit Cards” and I feel happy about it that finally they got it right.

Email is overflowing with information. It’s hard to find what you need. It’s hard to know what you have. Xobni creates an information profile for each person you interact with, and surfaces historical information that is relevant to what you are working on. Xobni displays contact information, threaded conversations, attachments, related people, email usage statistics, and information from the web.

Xobni organizes your communication data and makes it available through intuitive navigation and super fast search. Xobni currently integrates with the popular Microsoft Outlook email client and will extend to integrate with other email clients, instant messaging applications, and social networks.

The capabilities introduced vary but highlights include:

Yahoo!Mail : Message previews are availabe from within Outlook and are fully searchable using Xobni. Contacts and attachments from your Yahoo! Mail accounts appear in the Xobni sidebar.

Facebook: View status messages, profile pictures and other recent updates your contacts have made via Facebook

Linkedin: Outlook add-on Xobni has integrated with professional social networking site LinkedIn to enhance your contact information with job and employer details when possible.

Skype: Big improvements here as you can now view status, send messages and initiate Skype to Skype calls all from the Xobni sidebar.

Hoovers: Pulls company information like description and size based upon the email domain of your contacts.

I am seeing a big increase in the number of aggregators and universal inbox applications like Gist, which seeks out more information about your contacts, or Fuser which brings all of your communications together in one place.

As we connect with people through so many various channels, having a way to tie these communications together and connected to your contacts is becoming more critical. If you’re an Outlook user, these Xobni improvements look to be a step in the right direction.

Xobni is a free download and is available for computers running Windows and Microsoft Outlook 2003 / 2007

You knew it was coming, right? Hot on the heels of getting leaked a wee bit early. Microsoft has made official the rebadging of a device desperately seeking a new name: “Project Natal” is no more, replaced by Microsoft Kinect. At a circus- and celebrity-filled affair, MS wrapped everyone in high-tech panchos (pictured after the break courtesy of Joystiq) and then took the wraps off of the new title. Quite a few game demos were shown, ranging from Star Wars to tiger petting, the Kinect interface to the Dashboard was shown (said by some to be Minority Report-like), and a video chat app called, wait for it, Video Chat. Through here you can naturally talk to friends (up to four total people at once was “shown”), and also share photos.

Releasing November 2010 with expected price $150