JAP

--- I'm a sports freak, though don't play as much I'd like to but still watch any damn sport they show on TV, ohh yes....no Golf plz, and my current obsession is NBA play-offs, first I was cheering for the local team Warriors, after their loss in Semis to Jazz, I'm hooting for Spurs to win Western Conference finals. That doesn't mean I miss Piston-Cavaliers’ action :-)
At times, delve too much and start discussing time-out strategies with wifey, someday I'm sure she'll break TV or my teeth or both!

--- managed to to catch some French open action before rain washed away the day, game between huge Serena and petite Pironkova, Pironkova ranked 95 fought hard for each and every point, and her forehand was fantastic, I guess she was lil low in stamina and that cost her the match.
Well, to someone who grew up watching Martina-Chris Evert contests, with occasional Pam Shriver or Gina Garrison thrown-in, this was an eye opener, man this game is changing so rapidly.....anyone can beat anyone!!!
Anyways my money is on Justine Henin lest some Russian babe derails her, though I sorely miss heartbroken Kim Clisters, and wanna write more about her but..... but ...wifey reads this blog :-(

--- in men's section, would like to see Baghdatis or Davydenko to spoil another Nadal/Federer party!

--- Ahh another nice guy bows out, may be just like Lehmann he too born in the wrong era!

--- Last night a family friend visited us for a 'planned' dinner, but his wife ended up cooking, while I enlightened him with intricacies’ of Basketball.

--- Well, wifey’s birthday is approaching fast, though to girls most useless gifts (flowers/teddy bear eeksss...) makes most likeable ones, I always advise people to go for them, but in own case as usual ‘m clueless, what to do….jewellery/fragrances/shades/literature…. ahh this world is too materialistic B-(

--- See, in this whole post, I didn’t mention a word about cricket :-)

da(RED)

da(RED)

I’ve this feeling that Yousuf Yohana aka Mohammad Yousuf will hang his gloves pretty soon.

Weekend well spent!!

We had fantastic time this weekend, Wifey's friends from Virginia were here, everything was just perfect from wifey's delicious meals* to 'Tonga'(horse cart for angrezez) ride in San Francisco.

Golden Gate Bridge was as freezing/windy as ever, met some strange characters at Fisherman's wharf; almost ran into a old colleague, but preferred not to say hi ;-)

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My favorite team GS Warriors lost again in NBA play offs, they are 1-3 down, and now I don't think they can pull it off from here. Anyways Jazz are a better team!!!

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Btw, Happy '39th' Anniversary mom and dad :-) , hahahaha..no one reads this , and also I can never say this to my dad :-))

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My CEP exam is now less than a month away, so its high time to start studying seriously....that reminds me during school days I had this badge 'Get Serious' ...so 'Get Serious' :-)



* -- specially chaane-ki-daal stuffed allo-tikki were too good!

Random

These angrezes have a strange bemmari of shortening names, of males only.
Stephen becomes Steve, Timothy becomes Tim, James (hell which already is short) becomes Jim, Mathew becomes Mat, Michael -- Mike, Donald -Don.

There is this something abt them to shorten every male-name to 3 or 4 letter word. May be coz thats easy to speak but sometimes it becomes funny here in our office between all these Tim Toms Jim Don etc.., surprisingly females always have longer names and they prefer same however long they are. In fact females don't like their short names, trying calling Elizabeth just Beth or Jess to Jessica and see what I mean.

Its ok as long as this trend is limited to them but when they start renaming desis it start to sound weird...Jagadish becomes Jag, agreed their tongues can't bent that way to pronounce it right but still....its lil difficult to associate K.V.S.Pondhaisamy with Sam or Pon.

Also I hate it when desis live their fantasies of changing their names :-) , I know a lot of desis working in nearby Dominos with name-badge identifying them as Dave,Tez,Dez,Pete etc in reality they are Devinder,Tejinder, Preetam, Deepak etc.

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Places I want to visit::

1) Calcutta
2) Venice
3) NY
4) Pune
5) Lansdowne

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-- I always feel like taking a long break after every meeting I attend.

-- I get very restless if I don't know the solution of a problem, and the moment I figure out solution I lose interest and don't feel like implementing it.

Fitting end to agonizingly long and boring world cup, only 3 matches out of 51, were competitive (though two of them hardly had any effect on table standings), and rest were hugely disappointing one-sided affairs.

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Saturday night on a major freeway interchange a truck carrying 8300 gallons of petrol overturned and caught fire, resulting heat weakened the part of one overpass, crumpling it onto another. These huge trucks always scare me, yes they do, and I’ve seen many mindless truck drivers tailgating, speeding, and zigzagging on freeways as if they are driving a sports car.
Damn, now it'll take at least 2 months and 20 millions dollars to repair the damaged freeway, caused by truck carrying $30,000 worth of petrol. Now, probably Arnie will have to re-adjust his budget allocations, or will introduce a hidden tax, and living in a county with highest sales tax in US doesn't help either :-(


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Try this prank with your co-workers, press left alt + left ctrl + print screen on their computer while they aren't watching, press enter and see how long it takes them to work out how to reset it.

Need of hour :-)

There is always a distinct charm in an inning when a captain leads from front, takes all load on his shoulders and wins the game for his mates.

Stephen Flemming has done this many times, in fact he scored all his 8 hundreds while chasing.
Ponting/Waugh, Smith, Jayasuriya/Jayawardhane, Lara, Inzy have done this at some amazing consistency.

But in comparison, India never had one such leader, to some extent Kapil was only one in Indian History. (At least at some stage of his career, he led either by bowl or bat)

-- Under Kapil, either Vengsarkar/Azhar were mainstay of batting line-up,
-- Under Azhar, mostly Manjrekar was the main guy, later on Sachin took over forever.
-- Under Ganguly,Sehwag florished and Dravid established himself as THE WALL.
-- And now under Dravid, Yuvraj shows some glimpses of his potential.

Captains performance/form plays a huge role on the morale of a team, only a successful captain(with bat or ball) can infuse positive energy in his team, think of positive impact Ponting have on his team, likes of Clark/Symonds/Hodge/Hogg/Watson have now clearly become a better player rather than bright prospect.

On the other hand, imagine the plight of a dressing room where captain himself is struggling with his form/technique, in that frame of mind he cannot trust himself or fully trust some other guy to deliver, all that shows up in tactics in field, his bowling changes or field placements. A reluctance in approach of affairs becomes quite evident and has adverse affect on fortunes of the team.

Being captain of Indian side is not easiest of jobs, agreed, there is a hell lot of factors involved, maintaining good relations with BCCI bosses and with media are the foremost.
After all it’s the media hype which leads to public frenzy.

I feel it’s high time, BCCI decides for separate teams for ODIs and Test matches and of course with separate captains.

Tera saaya kabhi to bolega....
main suntaa raha parchaaiyaa!