Disappointed at the result of the game..

I didn't actually go and watch the match. Had to go in to work today. But, I did wake up early morning and follow the game on cricinfo. Thank god for that site.. Ball by ball commentary is a bliss for cursed individuals like me!

But, well, I was disappointed at the result of the match.
Its amazing how unlucky Rahul Dravid is. Whenever Ganguly was the captain, Dravid was there giving support to the team as a giant pillar of strength. When Dravid is the captain, usually half the talent in the team is injured. For the first time I realised how badly we need Sachin The Bowler at the dying overs of the game. He could always be trusted to give a break. Sehwag was trusted with the ball towards the end of the game today, and well, honestly, he lacked the sting.

Sachin, where art thou?

You may be a redneck if...

I'm sure everyone has seen a lot of those.. But here's one which I found amusing.

"You may be a redneck if your medical plan is not to fall sick!"

Cricket Fever!

The excitement is slowly building up. The BCCI is keeping its cards a big secret. Who will open with Sehwag? Will it be Dhoni or VVS Laxman or Suresh Raina? Former Indian spinner Maninder Singh has even suggested Yuvraj Singh! Add Ganguly's shortened ban and you have more confusion. He's eligible to play from the 3rd ODI. So, will he be considered as another opening in the absence of Sachin Tendulkar? My head reels on thinking at the number of possible combinations. The BCCI has kept their strategy so low key that even former Indian cricketers have no insight as to who will open with Sehwag.

A bunch of us from work are planning to get together to watch the matches (as much as possible). Problem with being in the US is that subscribing to the cricket matches as an individual is prohibitively expensive. Something like 250$ for every series. Even if we somehow all pool in to pay for the games, the friggin time difference is enough to drive one nuts. Among the bunch of us who watch cricket together, I'm probably the only bachelor. Unfortunately, I live about 15 miles away from the town where I work. The rest of the guys live near my work place. So invariably we end up subscribing for the games from someone's place close to work It takes a REALLY understanding wife (ofcourse.. not mine.. Duh. I'm not married) to agree to have a bunch of highly emotionally fanatical guys at home in the middle of the night.

However, all the games this series are day - night matches which gives us a good chance to catch atleast a big part of each match. Now comes the convenience of subscribing to the games from someone's place nearby. Hehehe, nothing like slipping out of work for a 15 min break to sneak a peek, especially when the game is at a critical stage. We will all probably be up at 5.00am driving over to the "match-watching" venue to try and catch atleast one innings before we get to work at 9.00am :-).

I am already having visions of Sehwag coming down the pitch, first ball of the innings and dispatching the opening bowler for a SIX. A HUGE six into the crowds!!

World's Smallest Mp3 Player!

Wow.. Check out this new player from mobiBLU!!

Photos © www.walmart.com

These things play wma and mp3 formats. It comes with a built in FM receiver, FM/Voice Recorder, SRS WOW Sound Effects, Clock Display and Sleep Timer. And they have a display too! Ha.. take that Ipod Shuffle!

And oh.. they come out in really cool colours like black, silver, orange, red and pink (er.. ok, the last one was not so cool). Click here to see the available colours.
Someone's already got a review out for this player. [Review]

4 years and counting!

I just realised that it was exactly 4 years ago on 2001 July 26th, I landed here in the US as a nervous "I don't know what the heck I'm doing" guy at Raleigh Airport in North Carolina.. So many things have changed in the last 4 years. But, my love for my home land and desire to return to Singara Chennai still remains as strong as ever..
Like Robert Frost wrote in his "Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening"

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Lots of duties to complete before I can make that sort of a move.

Mark Knopfler at the Red Rock Amphitheatre...

Mark Knopfler framed against the glowering red rocks..

Throw in a good musician and a good concert arena together and the audience will usually have a good time. When the musician happens to be Mark Knopfler, and the arena happens to be the Red Rocks Amphitheatre.. we're talking only in superlatives here. It was MIND BLOWING! Mark Knopfler was GOD on his guitar, and the Red Rock Amphitheatre was heaven last Tuesday! This is one of the best concerts I've been to in my life.. and I should say it was totally worth the 80 bucks spent on it.

This is probably a good opportunity for me to talk a bit about the Red Rocks Amphitheatre. It is one of the most famous concert arenas in the world. It is unique in that it is an accoustically perfect, naturally formed amphitheatre up in the Rocky Mountains. The stage is set in a gorge. The audience are seated on the sides of a mountain looking down into the gorge. There are two gigantic walls of streaked red rocks on either side of the amphitheater which act as perfect accoustic reflecters enriching the audience to the sound coming from the gorge. The high rise buildings of Denver provide the back drop when you look far beyond the mountains into the plains. A perfect setting for a superb concert.

Here are a few pictures from one of my previous visits to this place.. and some from the concert itself.

This is the way to the North East parking lot of the Arena.. through the rock.
The gigantic left and right walls of the concert arena. Two huge slabs of red rocks which give the arena its perfect accoustics.
At the concert..
A view of the arena from the stage..

Words of wisdom ... Indeed!

Someone sent me this..

How true!!!

"Hormonious" Introspection...

No.. It isn't a spelling mistake. I meant to say "hormonious".

A very common happening in Madras.. women being molested on public transport services. I cannot comment about anywhere else because I have never lived anywhere else.

Here is an account of someone who was directly affected. She did something about it. A very bold move by this lady.. Kudos to you..

Train to Chennai..

A very interesting post by Fierysinews on Mangs' Train to Chennai.
The Dumb Stick

I couldn't agree more with Fierysinews' views. I don't know what to feel when I hear about such incidences.. It is always a mixture of shame (that the offender is a fellow male), sympathy (for the affected woman), understanding (from a guy's point of view). No, don't get me wrong when I say understanding. I am in no way justifying what happened. It IS wrong and deplorable.. But it is nevertheless a struggle I think most guys face. What does one say to something like this? I don't know..

I don't expect women to understand 'cause even I don't understand us fully..

Thiruvasagam in symphony

Photo © www.raaja.com

I am VERY excited! Just heard all the songs once (kindof in a rush). Looks like I'm going to spend the whole of tommorrow listening to the 6 songs over and over again. So far I've liked all the songs even though it was a rushed hearing. Ilayaraja's voice is fresh and suits the songs very well I must say. The entire album hasn't let me down and has lived up to the hype surrounding it.
Unfortunately having ZERO knowledge on Thiruvasagam hasn't helped me understand the lyrics and appreciate it. I need some of the Tamil literates to post some info about the Thiruvasagam and its fine points.

Edit : I listened to a couple of the songs once again and I realised I am actually not all that illiterate about the Thiruvasagam afterall. I was surprised that I knew most of the lyrics by heart(????). Its been 4 years since I've lived with my parents. But it looks like I have actually picked-up quite a bit of the Thiruvasagam because of many years of subconscious listening to my dad pray when I lived with my parents :-). To date, I think he still recites the entire(?) Thiruvasagam every morning. Ofcourse, I still do not claim to understand any of it.

Hotel Rwanda

Photo from amazon.com

Only two words for this movie. SEE IT!
A very very touching movie. A must see for any human being from today's world. There were a lot of times during the movie that I felt ashamed of being a human being. I felt ashamed of the atrocities we are capable of doing. What is it in us that makes us so fanatical?

This movie is based on a true incident which happened nearly 10 years ago at Rwanda. This incident is one of the worst cases of genocide of the modern era. Nearly a million people were brutally murdered in a matter of 3 months. That's a MILLION. It went almost unnoticed. Think about it. The 9/11 incident which happened 4 years ago had less than 3000 people killed and we all know how much publicity was given to it and the amount of awareness about that incident. The director scripted this movie to show the world what actually happened there. The story is based on the true incident of an ordinary man saving a thousand people in the face of such brutality.

Watch the movie for what it represents.

Guess who's back?

Okay.. Now I'm all recharged and good to go for another year. Just got back from a 10 day vacation to Detroit and Niagara. Had a good reunion with my cousins, nephews/niecs, aunts and uncles. Nothing like a good dose of family to recharge my cells. And true to my idea of a true vacation.. all I did was sit around, yak, eat and sleep! Spent some quality time with my ever changing nephews and nieces.

And now.. back to the grind!! A new financial year begins tommorrow at work. Lets hope I do a good job of balancing pleasure/spending with saving. And ofcourse, now that I've gotten into the habit of blogging, hopefully I won't lose interest and let my blog fade away into oblivion.