Alive and well, and married!

So it has been months since I actually wrote a post to this blog, whether it be my thoughts or items in the news that is of interest to me.

I do however have good excuse. I got married.

Yep, my biggest project that I have taken over the last eight months has been planning my marriage to the wonderful Supreet Kaur. From my side of the family, I was the one on point to plan and execute the the whole shebang. So whether it was meeting with various vendors or planning the actual reception, yours truly had many long nights to get the whole fun item created and up and running.

So I’m sure you can forgive me for my tardiness. Below are some photos from the Anand Karaj event and lunch reception on the day of the wedding for you to enjoy. I’ll be sure to send the link out of all the photos once Mr. Glenn Barnett posts all of them online on Pictage.

Getting on the horse was half the battle.

Ahh yes, a moment of bliss.

The fish eye shot makes the hall look packed... well, it was though.

The newly weds. Hey... that's me on the right! =)

If I have time, I’ll devote one whole blog post to my ordeal on getting on the horse that was used for the Bharat. That damn thing was huge and it had no stirrups what so ever.

I do want to give a big shout out to my boy Shane Gill of Jeeta Jatt and Where Not to do Bhangra fame who hooked up an awesome comical video that we played in the Sunday night reception. I’m in process to get it online so that you can see it, as it was another film project completed this year, along with the notoriously seen Nihang Singh promo videos on the SikhNet website for their Youth Film Festival. I’ll have to create two new web pages to showcase these.

If you haven’t seen, all the video projects that I had on YouTube were pulled offline. I guess in the last couple of months, YouTube had a big crack down on videos that they felt violated copyright rules.

I know for a fact that the parent company that creates Indian Idol complained over the video segment that I posted online of when they went to Punjab which showcased Punjabis dancing and singing near the grounds of Harimandar Sahib (Golden Temple to you Goras).

Oh well, I’ll just start to looking for new alternatives for posting videos. Recently I’ve done a lot of research on SwishZone technology. Cheap man’s alternative to the Adobe Flash line.

So that’s about it. In the next post, I’ll share some of the honeymoon pictures of Supreet and my trip to Kauai which was beautiful.

Is there a way to embed pictures from Flickr into websites? I guess I’ll have to research that.

Alright, I’m settled and ready to get back to more fun projects. I recently helped Ish and her team promote her new Sixth River project here in DC, and good ol’ Gurumustuk wants me to brainstorm some Blabber projects for the SikhNet online fund raiser.

Man, it’s good to be back. Hopefully I can finally update Bhai Sahib’s website sometime soon.

Wedding Planning Information

For all of you who are in stages of wedding planning, these are the only vendors you need to have a kick booty event… especially if you are in the DC area. Thanks to my bro Kabir, he’s schooled me on getting the following top knotch photo and video team:

Video – Blue Sky Films. Check out there section on Indian weddings and be sure to work through Mr. Neil Benjers.

Photo – Glenn Barnett. Check out his website as his team has covered a slue of Sikh weddings. Great team to work with and they will make you look good (they even did it for me).

As for other items, here’s what my family and I went with:

Cards – UniversalWeddingCard.com. Their staff did a good job with a very quick turn around.

Venue for Gurudwara Ceremony - Guru Nanak Foundation of America

Venue for Reception – Sheraton Primere of Tysons Corner. Ask for Shaier Heidar. I know many Indians who wish to choose the Hilton at Dulles. Personally, I’d avoid it all costs.

DJing/Lighting – EventEQ. Simply the best team in the DC area for all lighting and DJing. You will not be disappointed when they make your whole reception look like a private concert. I worked through DJ Jag, but their whole team is great. DJ Lucky at Platinum Productions was used for our Saturday lunch reception, and his team rocks as well. Two excellent vendors to work with.

Decorations – L’Ambiance in DC did a nice job for our Sunday reception.

Later.

From Sarna to Snake

Well the last couple of weeks have been interesting and busy for me. Hopefully by now, you are in the process of making a video for this year's SikhNet Online Film Festival. I've been busy with fun, fun, fun wedding planning (wow!), however here are two quick items that I wished to comment on that recently hit the news waves.

I want to applaud the efforts of Paramjit Singh Sarna and DSGMC for taking a stand in enforcing simple traditional Sikh marriages that are not elaborate and not cash excessive. Although his stance is hard line against the dowry system (which Sikhism is against but for some silly reason still practiced by some Sikhs), this type of measure is needed to jolt people especially with newly coined term of "Big Fat Sikh Weddings" (thank you Mr. Chatwal). And with the silly "Indian mentality," people are too ego driven and try to show off by outdoing one another.

You wouldn't believe how many times I have refrained from talking to vendors that I'm a Sikh of Punjabi descent. Once they know that, they have one stereotype in mind: Vast amounts of alcohol, big decorations, flamboyant and huge. Worst part, this is coming from Non-Sikhs who have come to learn this by catering to previous customer needs.

My folks were curious to do my wedding reception at this one Hilton location near my home. Once the wedding planner asked me if I was of Indian descent, she pressed me to share more where I'm from in India. She went on even to say "People from Southern India are reserved and have boring parties. People from the North, especially Punjab, have big huge bashes."

Luckily this was done over the phone because my face had a really funny looking frozen expression because of how shocked I was listening to this. So when I finally broke down (I still don't know why to this day) and told her that my origins are from Punjab, she told me this:

"Oh, so what you want is a big, fat, huge, Punjabi bash for your wedding reception."

Really? Is this what I want?

I quickly ended the phone conversation and told my parents that the Hilton was a no go.

Just the other day, I met with a decorator to see what type of decorations we can do for the wedding reception. The Desi decorator quickly knew I was of Punjabi descent with my distinctive turban and beard, and proceeded to tell me that Punjabi receptions are huge and big on visual decorations. Then she proceeded to ask me what my budget potentially would be to meet the decoration request.

I simply gave a one sentence reply: "Simple and beautiful."

I went on to explain my rationale to this and she was presently shocked and happy. "Wow." she said, "Your personality and style is of the Anti-Punjabi nature. I like it."

Anti-Punjabi. Yes that's me, and I'm proud of it. Hopefully the next generation of Singhnees and Singhs can lead the way and remove this horrible stereotype towards the principle and values behind Sikh weddings. It small steps, as Mr. Sarna has done, which will hopefully take us in this much needed direction.

Okay, enough babbling. Time for fun. Time for Snake.

I'll have to devote about one-two weeks once Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of Patriots comes out. When the following trailer below was shown at E3 a couple weeks back, I watched it like four bajillion times driving my Mom crazy as I quoted the lines of Solid Snake. This is the game that will make me buy a PS3, but only when it comes out.

I'm no hero. Never was.
God Bless you Solid Snake!

Quick nerdy observations to the trailer if their are any other Metal Gear fans out there:

- Naomi Hunter is seen with Liquid Ocelot in the beginning and is in the chopper that he is about to board at the end.

- No one is effected by the "mind control" that is invoked on all the various soldiers by Ocelot except for Snake and the masked guy with the glasses who is with Meryl. This type of mind control, as shown by Gene in Portable Ops, had no effect either on Big Boss. I'm curious to see who the masked guy is, and how he may potentially continue the Metal Gear series.

Solid Snake is my video game hero.

That's it. I'm out. Time to wash my hair.

Later.

I hate making wedding invitee lists

Well World, it looks like I'm starting to learn what all the other previous Uncles have gone through... which is making a wedding list.

Oh how I love it!

So my partner in crime for Dashmesh Pictures will be my partner in crime for life. Ms. Supreet Kaur and I will be marrying with a goal sometime late this year (congrats to us).

But before booking a venue and setting up all the wedding preparations, I've learned that the hardest task is making a wedding invitee list.

Why is this so hard?

Because you have to pay anywhere up to $50 to $100 a head for whoever attends. So that's been my struggle for the last couple of weeks.

My rough list started with 267 people, and then went down to 200 people, and now I'm down to 100 people. And that's not including Supreet's, Supreet's Parents, and my Parent's list.

Oh boyyyyyyyy. The fun is just beginning.

No offense to anyone out there who gets cut. If it was my way everyone and their mama and bama mama would get invited. But, such is life.

So since this is an obscure web log, enjoy the following video:

"The ultimate battle: Ryu VS Scorpian. Go Ryu, Go!"

My good ol' buddy Harinder sent this video my way. Looks like my new hobby (one day) will be getting into M.U.G.E.N. editing.

Hasta!