The Final Frontier and the Curse

I'm writing this post even has laxman pulls one straight down to mc grath....another miserable indian loss, nothing new there I guess. But this loss is even more significant than ever especially since we finally give into the australian juggernaut. The Final Frontier has finally been conquered ! Steve Waugh's all conquering aussies weren't able to win a series in india, for that matter any aussie team that visited in the past 35 years. Its probably a historical event, if I can call it that, in the world of cricket.

Another event of "historical" importance took place in the world of baseball this week, the Boston Red Sox finally won the world series after 84 years, breaking the " The Curse of the Bambino". I'm no great fan of baseball, even though it has more similarities with cricket than any other sport. I find it quite boring actually, although the game is probably much shorter.(One of my pet peeves, why is it called the "World Series" ,when Boston is playing against St. Louis and the american baseball team can't even qualify for the olymics??). But I really rooted for the Bosox to win....I didn't know squat about the game till about 3 weeks back. So what brought about this change in me...well, the red sox were 0-3 in the division finals, facing none other than the mighty New York Yankees, what do you expect from a team that is 0-3 in the best of 7 series, just one match away from elimination.... well, they gave it all they had and beat the yankees 4-3, the biggest comebacks i've ever seen, made me an instant fan!!!

The only reason I'm writing this blog is because this week I was witness two great events in sporting history....one established by pure brilliance and the other by sheer incompetence. I don't think I need to explain which is which. But what pains me most is that India lost withouht even giving a fight, I didn't think the aussies were special this time. I think its fair to say that the Indians lost rather than saying that the Aussies won.

I guess the Indian team always finds a way to sink to the depths of infamy even after showing glimpses of glory....I really shouldn't be complaining, its been the same story ever since I started following cricket.

Work , Work & more Work!!

The past week has probably been the most I've worked in almost 4 months. Spent the whole week....literally 7 days, working on an application with PHP. The week started off kinda badly I guess, now that I think about it , it was actually funny. Went to sign some papers for the job at UC Davis...lost my way on the way back. Ended up walking for close to 2 hours coz my pride wouldn't let me call somebody for help. Finally figured it out and returned home dead tired....well, that should have normally slowed me down, but for some crazy reason , I started coding then and sat for 5 hours straight. I think its because I have been out of the loop for such a long time that I really looked forward to doing this....I actually felt happy to be coding. Well, thats something I always bullshit in interviews and SOP's, but maybe I can make a career out of this....hmmmm....maybe that masters won't go for a waste afterall.

Am I the Jinx???

Have been following the India - Australia test match at madras for the past 4 days( the first day on cricinfo and the rest on TV). And during this period , I haven't seen one aussie wicket fall, all the wickets fell only when I went to bed , duly disgusted by the Indian bowling.

So I thought today would be a pretty good day to watch some aussie wickets fall, given the fact that our indian team thinks so highly of its bowling and the aussies themselves think that they "might " make 150......he he he....well, its 12.20 now, almost 3 hours since the start of play and not one wicket has fallen!!! They're so desperate that ganguly himself has started bowling now. Imagine Gillespie facing a 128 balls and still not out, I truly am the jinx!!!

I'm not going to sleep for another hour, just making sure that the chennai crowd gets value for their money and I get to watch some more cricket tomorrow!! he he he !!!

One reason why I shouldn't shave so often!!

8.30 Am - Look in the mirror and see hair all over my face, been a week since I shaved, no wonder people were giving me strange looks at Trader Joe's yesterday.

8.35 Am - Gilette Sensor Excel does the honors!

9.20 Am - Door bell rings , guy says

"I'm from 'XXX' company , we are talking to everybody in this
community about their roofing needs, Are your parents at home?"

WTF???? I need my beard back!!!

This one says it all!!! 

SETI@home

I finally downloaded SETI@home , have been wanting to do it for such a long time, but don't know why it too me such a long time. My usual laziness is the main suspect I guess. Anyway, I'm happy that I'm atleast contributing something to some important research! SETI has always interested me, coz I feel its probably the single most directed effort to solve the biggest questions of our existence. We as a human race may have made immense progress over the ages, we can now send up man to the moon and machines to mars and dig up the deepest trench in the ocean, but we still don't know why we are here! Sometimes I wonder why we live the way we do, man toils his entire life and achieves what he thinks is something valuable and one fine day his life is over. We seem to live to fulfill our ambitions and goals in life, but is that really significant or does it matter at all in the grand scheme of things ??? I could go on and on....but there is no solution, the more you think of it , the more you see how helpless you are. I will probably never know if extra terrestrial life exists or what was the origin of life. Sometimes , I guess its more easier to accept things as they are and flow with the crowd....and that is what I will do!

The Presidential Debates

Well, yesterday was the third and thankfully the final debate. At the start of the debates, I was frankly quite excited about the whole process. I had even wished that maybe someday in India we would have vajpayee talking to sonia and even maybe even "The Mother" -- jayalalitha take on the karunanidhi. But after 2 weeks and 4 debates (1 vice presidential), I'm sick of the whole thing. My head is filled with tax-cuts, healthcare costs, iraq, gay-issues.......a load of crap. I just can't take it anymore, once the bosses stop talking, the spinners start and its more of the same , again and again and again......I wonder if they will ever stop. Undecided voters shouldn't be allowed to vote, these morons don't deserve the right to vote if they couldn't make a decision looking back at the 3 and a half years but need somebody telling them how bad the other guy is in the last 20 days...man,these people are stupid. I'm much more happier with the indian system where the only issue is which guy is giving you more money to vote....nobody cares about issues , because its 5 more years of the same no matter who is in power.

I am rabidly anti-Bush, I really wonder sometimes how people can support him after all that he has done or maybe not done, depending on what issue you are talking about. The polls show that he is drifting down, just hope he doesn't pull off something spectacular before the elections. Something like catching the elusive OBL or UBL as he calls him, rumor has it that they have in secure in guantanamo bay....boy that would just be horrible!!

BBspot - Which OS Are You?

Take this quiz to find out what OS matches your personality. Apparently I'm OS X type......now, what is OS X??? beats me..!

Miserable Weekend!

The Gators lost to LSU this weekend, it was miserable. The offense totally sucked, it was pathetic. I've never seen a team struggle so much. And what pisses me off even more is that we lost in the final quarter with 27 seconds to play. This is the second time in the season that we've lost in the final minute. Whats more intersting, this is only our second ranked oppenent and we've lost to both, which begs the question, should we even be ranked?

Imagine a team who gets thulped by georgia just the week before, has 2 new quarterbacks,ranked 24th in the country, comes to the swamp(supposed to be one of the loudest in the nation) and still manages to beat the "#12 Florida Gators". I get a feeling of deja vu when I say this, reminds me of the Indian cricket team(oh yeah, they got beaten too this weekend)......why does every team I support with all my heart have to be like this?????

After the game, I was MAD....promised not to watch college football ever again, a couple of hours later, I thought maybe i'll watch next season onwards. Today I checked the gators schedule, thought I will watch them if they beat georgia.......well,now I'm checking to see what time they're playing this saturday.......oh my god, i'm just an insufferable sports fan!!

Lou Dobbs and India!

For the uninitiated, Lou Dobbs hosts a show on CNN every weeknight. He is what I call the "self proclaimed knight in shining armour against outsourcing". An extremely conservative guy who takes pride in bashing up china ,india and every other developing country for its economic growth.

I understand that outsourcing is a touchy subject and I would probably feel pissed off too if my job was taken away just because somebody else is doing it for cheap. But I think Lou Dobbs just goes crazy with it. Take for example, this story that ran on wednesday. They were talking about outsourcing animation work to India. They start out the story from South Korea, would you believe that..... the republic of South Korea, it turns out that the work was being outsourced to South Korea from the 70's and is now being sent to India, and that is supposed to be bad for Americans.....

I have no clue as to why that is supposed to be bad for the American economy, if anything it should be the South Koreans who should be complaining. His India , China bashing has reached such a stage, that it doesn't even affect me anymore, I feel its kinda funny to a certain extent! Yesterday, Argentina happened to be the target of Mr Dobbs's crusade, and this is a classic..he says "Companies in Argentina succeed because labor costs are cheaper than costs in India", does that mean he supports India now???

And some people feel, that he should be voted president...God save the world!!!

Google Time Bomb - Will Weblogs blow up the world's favorite search engine?

Google Time Bomb - Will Weblogs blow up the world's favorite search engine? - Microcontent News, a Corante.com Microblog

Sunday Night Blues

It's the same feeling every sunday night , no matter what. I could be on vacation or have nothing to do during the entire week, but I just hate the thought of getting up on a monday. Guess the feeling is somehow ingrained deep and just won't go away. Just hate the thought of getting back into the grind, the weekend means freedom! I don't have a history of ever doing anything constructive during the weekend. Although I have nothing to do tomorrow or for that matter the four days after that, sigh...the weekend's gone :-(

I went out shopping in the morning , since my folks were coming back from vacation today. Started out at around 9.45 am and there were hardly any souls on the road. On Hazel Avenue, where I usually come across like a 100 cars , I spotted 2. It was pure pleasure driving today, nobody in front to dictate your speed, no speed freak breathing down your neck from the back...and more importantly no worries changing lanes. Boy, wish everyday was like sunday morning traffic.

The weekend was good overall I guess. gators won on saturday. Started out slow, had an explosive 2nd quarter and then let the razorbacks come back in. Typical zook game, gets on the defensive too early and in the end it gets too close to comfort. I guess I see shades of myself in the gator game, I start out early, get all the hard stuff done, but then when I know i'm on top of things, I let go. Finishing up is such problem, get too complacent too soon. My father used to say this all the time, I used to disagree at first,but I'm beginning to see it myself.

Well, all said and done , I'm glad i'm getting this posted. Hope to make blogging a habit. I've been following blogs by other indians for the past couple of days and it seems pretty intersting...
Well, I guess this is a nice way to spend time now that I have got over chatting, gaming, online gaming, orkutting....hope blogging lasts longer.

Sayanora....

I'm Back Again

Well, It's been a long time I guess. Had pretty much given up on blogging, but had a long conversation with Shanawaz yesterday and saw his blog and that made me think about blogging again. I guess its a nice way to spend some time, since I have so much time on hand. Also, its probably a good way to hold on to memories !!!

Anyways, was at rajkumar's place last night, had dinner and watched a couple of movies. Saw parts of the scorpian king, I thought it looked exactly like a indian movie, same crap , same bullshit. The worse thing is they are showing it 3 nights in a row..man, talk about a boring weekend. Saw "Fida" next , with fardeen, kareena and another guy whose name I don't know. The story was a little different from the usual hindi movies, but I guess they messed it up somewhere in the middle , thankfully the movie was a short one, must have been only 2 hours, thank goondness for that.

Drove home late at night and called Bangalore, was happy to speak with everyone and guessed they were happy too. I guess nikhi was keeping everyone busy! Didn't a good sleep last night , kept tossing and turning, had lots of weird dreams, was either dead or someone was killing everyone I knew....actually got up tired in the morning today. The Gator vs Arkansas game is going on now, florida up 7.

Dont' know whats wrong with leak , hardly any downs, just one good pass till now, its the 2nd quarter. Hope he improves..

I guess I'll sign off for now, got to get back to the game. Hope to keep blogging....daily would be good!