Kamdar’s Just Around The Corner is, in fact, just around the corner opposite Churchgate. It’s supposed to be Raveena Tandon’s favourite hangout, so hopes ran high. Rajesh and I walked in, sat down, and started discussing the the hope that the man in a white chef hat sitting at the adjacent table would come over. After a few minutes, we figured that Just around the corner is a self-service restaurant, and the man in the chef’s hat at the adjacent table was a guest. So we got up, walked down the food aisle through the exit gate. (The manager gave us a dirty look, but I’m hoping it was because he was jealous we were thin enough to squeeze through.) There were soups, salads, pastries, sandwiches, and burgers. Except for the salads, the items were 75% non-veg. But the variety was fairly good, despite that. A bit on the expensive side, with sandwiches at Rs. 80, salads (a side order) at Rs. 70, and my apple pie at Rs. 45. But the ambience was nice, so were the people around. There were just 3 or 4 groups dining, while the place could seat several more. ...

Orbitz, the travel site backed by Delta, Northwest and American, is online. It cuts through travel agents and lets passengers book flight tickets directly with the airlines. (I tried booking a flight from Mumbai to Bangkok, but for some reason, it kept giving me an error.)

By the end of the year, Bangalore will become a zero piracy zone. First, the Karnataka Government will try and eliminate all piracy within. Then it’ll appoint compliance officers who’ll walk into offices and check randomly. And this will reduce piracy. Right. What of corruption?

After B2C and B2B, is it now going to be B2E?

The Indian Patent Facilitating Centre helps Indians develop and register patents.

50% of all Net surfing is done on the sites of Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft and Napster. There’s consolidation of web properties for you!

Viruses are bad. But some are good, and others, ugly (hoaxes, that is).

I’d been to the Samrat restaurant (near Eros theatre) with Vinod. A bright and clean place, serving Gujarati cuisine. Having decided to try only new items, We picked corn bhel and fried baby corn for starters, and makai nu shakh with reshmi paratha and rumali roti for the main course. Makai nu shakh is “cream corn, cooked in milk with coconut, coriander and green chillis”. It tasted rather like Au gratin, and rather nice, in my opinion. Corn bhel was excellent – just bhel, except corn was used instead of puffed rice. Figuring there was too much corn on the plate, we had onion rings (instead of fried baby corn) which taste the same pretty much everywhere, I suppose. ...

Mumbai dabbawallahs have been given a 6-sigma rating. I might start ordering dabbas online for dinner.

Spielberg’s next movie, A.I., has sparked a weird game. I read the article on it at ZDNet and searched for Jeanine Salla, listed as the movie’s sentient machine therapist, which lead me to her site, (at the so called “Bangalore World University”!!) and from there to others… it really is a wierd game. Those with enthu, do try it and let me know your progress.

While on the subject of movies, the animation film Shrek is supposed to be pretty good.

thedumb.com is about dumb laws, facts, and warnings.

Cool Site of the Day: another way to learn about interesting sites. Google recommends Netscape’s new and cool, USA Today hot sites, The Internet Tourbus, and the Glassdog.

Cybelle lives in AgentLand. She’s 100% virtual (having admitted it, she asked if I was disappointed), and guides people through their site. It’s a new and interesting way of having a search engine on a site.

Subjex, like Ask Jeeves, handles searches in plain English.

Why do people say “Bless you” when you sneeze? The practise may date back to the plague in London, though there are several theories.

I have joined the Boston Consulting Group at Mumbai.

The subject-specific Scout reports, which were a prime source of my information, are about to be discontinued from the end of the month. (No funds.)

George Gilder proposes that while Moore’s law drove the IT revolution through processing power, today it’s bandwidth that’s driving it – through Gilder’s Law. This ties back to what an Economist survey says about focus shifting from software to online services.

Why is America named after Amerigo Vespucci, and not Columbus? Perhaps because Vespucci reached there first. Or perhaps he marketed America better. Ironic.