The bustle is in the air. Christmas shopping in full swing, Robson Street is packed. I don’t exchange too many gifts this time of the year, family is small and besides, I come from a Hindu family, if anything, I should be giving at Diwali.

I’m generous to my friends year round – not just at a couple points in time during the year so festive gift-giving seasons during the year for me are usually a non-event. But still, I enjoy the action on the streets. Kinda feels like Hong Kong or Tokyo – two places which I enjoy very much.

So, Saturday morning, I’m in the mood for something good – no, actually, great. I still have fond memories of a brunch that Pino (Cioppino’s) prepared for me once. Nothing has compared since. The first choice that pops into my head is O’Douls in the Listel Vancouver but I eat there enough and although their Florentine Benedict is to die for, I’m not in the mood for it. They also have a good Haida Benedict (with Salmon) amongst other things, but I’m still not in the mood for it. Two items, the service at O’Douls isn’t the best and I was in the mood for something new. Bacon was a definite must as well, I was craving this after my trip since I was pretty much vegetarian throughout my previous trip and I believe good bacon is the essence of good breakfast.

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Adam Hurstfield (aka Adam H) is one of the most talented artist/producers around. He’s worked with music greats such as George Clinton and Max-A-Million and has toured to the far corners of the globe with top selling albums in Japan, Europe and South America. You can read his bio (probably outdated by now) by clicking here. I’ve always enjoyed his music, his great attitude and overall, his comraderie. When I asked him to create a soundbyte for Clear Choice a long while back, he met the challenge by throwing back some concepts to me in a matter of minutes.

To hear the chimes, you can click on the links below:

Clear Choice Technologies Chimes wav file
SSID Chimes wav file
SSID Chimes (vocal) wav file

I got more than I could ever ask for during the creation of the SSID Chimes. Adam, the consomate promoter and workaholic gave me a little taste of what Adam’s up to next. Here’s the working session (approx. 15 minutes) as well as a more polished version of the track (approx. 2 minutes) he was working on. He also showed me the stuff he was working (approx. 2 minutes) on for with Banana Toons. You’ll probably hear J.Lo spin this out in the future as some of it was written with her in mind.

Lots of activity in India as of late. When I initially arrived, Richard Branson and Cherie Blair were hanging out in Delhi, Vladimir Putin was sighted in and throughout India (he followed me to Hyderabad and Bangalore on my trip there but we didn’t get a chance to meet) amidst the possibility of enlarging the UN Security Council, and Aishwaria Rai was hanging out in Agra promoting the Taj Mahal as one of the new seven wonders of the world. Have you cast your vote yet?

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I’m back in Delhi. I initially arrived here and found that outside of the marked decrease in air pollution, not much has changed. Traffic is still killer, the old ‘hood is still the same, dogs and cattle still roam freely in the street.

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I still wear a handkerchief over my face when in a three-wheeler (aka auto-rikshaw) as not to inhale all the crap floating around in the air. Of course, within 12 hours, I noticed that when blowing my nose, it all came out black – this is standard fare for some pretty polluted places on the planet – unfortunately, I happen to be in one of those places – I can see my life expectancy decreasing.

I have to buzz through this entry as I have someone who will be picking me up in a moment to go back home – Internet access is sporadic – I go to five star hotels to get WiFi access. In Delhi, I used the Intercontinental Park Hotel in Nehru Place and now that I’m here in Hyderabad, I’m using the Taj Krishna hotel. They both have pretty good access – everywhere else, ADSL is sitting at about 40kbps, this hotel has a 512kb pipe but the cost is pretty high. I paid about 500 rupees (about 40 rupees to a dollar) for three hours of access in Delhi, I’ll be paying about 1500 for the last six hours.

Hyderabad is way less polluted than Delhi, the streets are nice and I like the weather but that’s all for now. I have to buzz. More later with pics (which are already up in my photo album starting here).

Ciao.

The event was hosted by Gabriel and Zac who also have published the Passport to Beer. They gave us one of the books to give away, which we did as a part of our latest Social Empire invite – strangely, the responses didn’t roll in as quickly as they did with the Urban Mixer – probably since people expect Frances to be more structured, long term planning and less random than moi.

The event went off without a hitch – there were tonnes of different foods to try – even some stuff that wasn’t on the menu. My favourite part was the signature martini, the Empire City martini as was described by the attentive bartender, Melon Vodka, Melon Liqueur and Cranberry Juice. A nice drink for a rainy evening.

Lots of new people at this event as well the pictures are located in my photo album here.