It's Gerard's birthday today & there was a good old college style celebration .... with lots of "B'Day Bumps". Happy B'Day dude.

POTC .... the sequel

Loved the 1st part .... hope the 2nd will be just as good. About time Jack Sparrow was back in action!

Hmmm ....

F1
The Monaco GP had Schumy reaching back into his bag of dirty tricks & trying to deny Alonso the pole during qualifying .... by 'stalling' his car on the penultimate corner just before the session was to end. He later claimed it was not deliberate .... yeah, right & Saudi Arabia will win this year's FIFA World Cup.

Alonso deservedly went on to win the race, but the thing that's been on my mind is Kimi's DNF. He'd been all over Alonso's tail throughout the race & there was every chance of his finishing 1st but, .... I think this season is over for the Silver Arrows now .... the best they can hope for is a credible finish in the Constructor's.

Cricket
The Windies completed India's rout in the Digicell ODI series. The 5 match series ended with a 4-1 scoreline .... & there was me thinking that India would end up with that sort of a margin at the end of it all. I think that 1 run defeat in the 2nd ODI ripped the heart out of the Indians & it's been downhill ever since .... too bad. The Windies deserved it by the way, they've been fantastic.

Chopsticks
Went to this new Chinese place with Sid, Arni & 2 of Arni's colleagues, Shayan & Avik. The place was kind of deserted .... strange, because the food was great & the prices were reasonable. Reminded me of Frank's Chinese back home.

And in passing .... the Ducato
The residents of the land of the Ferrari always designed the world's best looking cars, but look at what they've done to a truck! This is Fiat's Ducato Truckster Concept .... & incidentally, Fiat owns Ferrari.

Trust them Italians to make something as utilitarian as a truck look like an exotic racer .... & no, the babe isn't part of the design.

Home front news

After years of seeing & rejecting prospective brides, Bunts finally got engaged yesterday. Must say it came as a bit of a surprise. The marriage is scheduled for October. I might be home that time .... let's see.

Jolly's been enjoying a 2 week leave at home & leaves for Vizag today. Talked to him yesterday .... didn't seem too happy to be returning back to work .... I can understand .... it's never easy leaving behind a place like JSR.

Gu-ri-ya made it to the interview at XISS, but couldn't get through to the final selections. Sounded dejected .... I feel sad for her. She'll be joining the college at Jaipur for her MBA in July.

The new Zen?

Maruti killed Zen production in March this year, but it is no stranger to the fact that the brand carried immense recall.

So, if the June 2006 issue of Autocar India is to be believed, the Zen name will again be on the market soon, although it will now grace what is known as the Suzuki MR Wagon in Japan.

The car looks modern enough, but I think the styling is a bit anonymous & lacks the previous car's appeal.

Going down ....

The Indian team is stumbling from one bad performance to another against the Windies. They lost their way badly after a dream start in the 3rd ODI, ending up with 246 when they could well have gone on to get >300. Predictably, they lost & the series is now at 2-1, Windies leading.

At the same time, credit is due to the Windies bowling & Lara's captaincy. They have done really well in all 3 games so far. The fact that Dhoni hasn't fired as yet has hurt India more than they had reckoned it would.

About 6 months ago, India were ranked 6th or 7th in the ODI ratings & whipped 3rd ranked Sri Lanka 6-1 in the ODI series to begin their remarkable streak of victories leading upto the Carribean tour. Looks like the Windies (ranked 8th as against India's 3rd presently) are getting set to remind them what it's like to have the shoe on the other foot.

#10

My T.sonic is 10th on rediff.com's list of Top 10 MP3 players .... battling it out against intense competition in the form of the iPod Video 30Gb (#1); the Creative Zen Neeon 5Gb (#3); the Sony NW-HD5 20Gb (#5) & the iRiver U10 1Gb (#7).

It's been over 8 months since I bought it & it's good to see that it still makes the cut (albeit by the skin of the teeth). Sweet!

Check out the list here.

Bohemia

This guy's good.

So what if there's a lot of 50 Cent & 2Pac in his act? He's desi after all.

Connected

Dad, Jolly & me have had cellphones since as long as they've been on the scene, but Mummy would always insist that she could do without one. Well, not anymore, because yesterday she finally got her own cellphone.

That leaves Chhotu (the dog) as the only one in the family without a phone of their own, but I think he can do without one, regardless of the fact that he once tried to bite into Daddy's Motorola C131.

Incidentally, all 4 of us will be on different networks .... Mummy on CellOne, Daddy on Reliance, Jolly on Airtel & yours truly on Hutch. Not that that would make any difference.

While I was away ....

The stomach became REALLY upset & cost me whatever little of the sick leave I had left for the year. And this in May! God help me make it through the rest of the year sans any illness.

Visited Deepanjan's place at J.P. Nagar where he puts up with Santosh & a lot else. But the one redeeming feature they've got is an Airtel net connection which made me want to get one for myself too .... maybe once the appraisal comes through. Managed to lay hands on Alanis' Crazy which I'd been wanting since a long time .... thanx guys!

India have begun their Calypso tour kicking off with the 5 match ODI series. They managed to bag the 1st ODI quite professionally, but the Windies pulled off a heart-stopping 1 run victory in the 2nd .... also bringing to a halt the Indians' world record run of consecutive run-chasing victories (17). The batting looked shaky throughout India's chase & they better shape up before the remaining 3 matches if they want to win this series .... it's not gonna be easy.

Here Without You

A hundred days have made me older, since the last time that I saw your pretty face
A thousand lies have made me colder and I don't think I can look at this the same
But all the miles that separate
They disappear now when I'm dreaming of your face

I'm here without you baby, but you're still on my lonely mind
I think about you baby, and I dream about you all the time
I'm here without you baby, but you're still with me in my dreams
And tonight, there's only you and me (yeah)

The miles just keep rolling, as the people leave their way to say hello
I've heard this life is overrated, but I hope that it gets better as we go (ooh yeah yeah)

I'm here without you baby, but you're still on my lonely mind
I think about you baby and I dream about you all the time
I'm here without you baby, but you're still with me in my dreams
And tonight girl, there's only you and me

Everything I know and anywhere I go (yeah)
It gets hard but it won't take away (yeah yeah yeah) my love
And when the last one falls, when it's all said and done
It gets hard but it won't take away my love

I'm here without you baby, but you're still on my lonely mind
I think about you baby and I dream about you all the time
I'm here without you baby, but you're still with me in my dreams
And tonight girl, there's only you and me (yeah)

(I'm all alone)

Lyrics from Here Without You by 3 Doors Down

This was WWE's tribute song for Eddie Guerrero (which is what made me want to hear it in the first place). It's songs like these that sometimes make me wish that I had a girl in my life .... but then, .... better sense prevails ;-)

Kya haalat hai !, what say Sittu & Arnie?

Split!

Jatin & Lalit are splitting up. The siblings apparently have 'personal problems' & Fanaa's music will be their last finished product. They'll branch out independently from here on.

Post Anand-Milind & Nadeem-Shravan, they were the last remaining composers who rose to fame during the late 80s-early 90s period (if you leave out Anu 'I'm-the-best' Malik, who actually started out in the early 80s). Sad! However, they are & will remain amongst my favourite Hindi music composers ever.

Infiniti G35

Check out the rear end of the 2006 edition. Good to see Nissan finally getting things right.

This one's a looker .... even better than the 3 Series Beemer.

What the .... ?

Yamaha India has lost it. Totally.

What else explains the launch of another 125 cc econo commuter with thin tyres & run-of-the-mill styling into a market already filled with the likes of bikes like it? What's more, they've replaced the Fazer with this! I think that bike had much more of a personality than the Gladiator.

The company that gave India icons like the RD 350 & RX 100 is a laggard today. Wonder when they'll realise that Yamaha's appeal lies in bikes like the Rd & RX?

Digital Fortress

B-O-R-I-N-G !

Yaqeen

aaj dil dukha hai
tum yaad aaye
anjanay log hain
apnay kahaan dhoond payein

jagay hain soye nahin
aisi hai yeh meri bechaini
din bhi wohi raatein wohi
sanson main sansain hain nahin

shamain ab dhalti nahin
anchal jo tera simat jaaye
aap yahan hamesha rahein
duuri rahay na ho faaslay

ab agar tum milay to
itna yaqeen hai
hans denge hum to
rona nahin hai

Lyrics from Yaqeen by Atif Aslam

Great song & an even better voice!
Thanks for the song Arnie.

Been having far too much Coffee lately. Just realized I'm into my 7th cup today. That makes it 1 cup every hour, if you don't count the lunch hour.

It's been a pattern this whole week .... temperatures nudging 40 deg C till 3/4 o clock & then the sky suddenly becomes overcast. The rains come down at about 6 in the evening & Hosur Road traffic reduces to it's crawling worst. I hear they'll be starting work on the flyover this week & complete it within 5 months. Sounds too good to be true.

The 3rd installment will be out soon .... although it will be sans the Walker dude &/or Diesel. Still, should be good.

Deception Point

The right amount of tech specs; a breakneck narrative; special forces; conspiracy theories & the perfect blend of fact with fiction .... the amount of research that goes into Dan's books is amazing.

This is one of the best I've read .... ever. Thanks for having lent it, Sittu.

Wonder why .... ?

Pramod Mahajan lost the battle for his life on Wednesday.

But what comes to my mind is this .... Rajesh Pilot; Madhavrao Scindia & Pramod Mahajan .... all young, charismatic leaders with huge appeal among the urban middle class .... all of them viewed as potential state chiefs (if not prime ministers) .... but, all of them meeting a violent, unnatural & tragic end .... in the prime of their political careers.

One can't help but feel .... is this generation of Indian politicos jinxed?

They've finally gone ahead & made it into a movie. I was expecting something like this .... although I'm not too sure if it's a good thing.

Dhoni's bikes

MSD is 1 of the nominees for MTV's 'Youth Icon of the Year' & featured in an interview with Cyrus yesterday regarding the same. Said he currently owned 5 bikes .... a CBZ; a Thunderbird; 2 RD 350s & a Yamaha R6 .... plus he'll soon be buying a Suzuki Hayabusa.

Man! to be able to indulge your passion like that ....

On the 'home' front ....

Sid & Prav are back after their holiday. The noise levels at #77 are back at their usual highs after the forced silence of the last 2 weeks.

Arnie has finally bitten the bullet on his quest to becoming a guitar strumming cool dude .... Sunday saw him become the proud owner of a matt black Signature Spanish.

Ajay has at last been allotted a project by his company after cooling his heels on the 'bench' for a full 9 months .... the similarity seems too uncanny!

The 25 bows out

An important member of the 20s odd numbered Mig series of the IAF went out of service yesterday. According to The Telegraph ....

Bareilly, May 1: The MiG 25 aircraft that holds the world record for the highest altitude at which an aeroplane can fly today went into the history books in this Uttar Pradesh town.

The Indian Air Force was the only one flying the MiG 25, the superspy plane from the Cold War era, and it has now flown its last sortie.

The MIG 25’s lenses have captured photographs across the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir and the Line of Actual Control with China that have often changed military thoughts in India since the aircraft were inducted in 1981.

Yet, the MiG 25 is today going the way of the typewriter and the grandfather clock.

“We inducted the MiG 25 in 1981 and along with it, its Cold War culture. Even I am not aware of many of its operations. We worked it on a need-to-know basis. You can see that culture here in Bareilly — the MiG 25 hangars have extra-protection with a full complement of watchdogs,” said Tyagi. He was asked for some examples of MiG 25 sorties to illustrate its role for the IAF.

Air Marshal (retired) Trevor Osman, who commanded the MiG 25 squadron named Trisonics in the 1980s, says the aircraft flew between 20 to 25 sorties a month. Most of the sorties were across the border.

The MiG 25 was actually in the nub of the dirty business of spying.

No other Indian aircraft can claim to have flown into Pakistani and Chinese airspace as much as the MiG 25. But the fact is official secrecy rules forbid the Indian Air Force from making such a claim.

The MIG 25 is a strategic reconnaissance plane fitted with powerful cameras that photograph even as it flies at thrice the speed of sound (Mach 3) from an altitude three times the height of Mount Everest.

In May 1997 — a demi-official claim suggests — a MiG 25 flew over Islamabad and rattled the Pakistani air force with its sonic boom. Even before Pakistan’s F-16s could scramble, the MiG 25 was crossing the border into India. It flies at 50 km per minute, faster than a bullet and can outrun many kinds of anti-aircraft missiles. Despite its phase-out today, the flying records of the MiG 25 in the IAF will remain shrouded in secrecy.

Technologically challenged, the Cold War era artefact is too expensive for the Indian Air Force to fly because there are better options available. Even Google Earth — the Internet business Google’s imagery site — can perhaps produce better pictures today than the photographs captured on the MiG 25’s film rolls in the 25 years that it illegally transgressed into Pakistani and Chinese airspace.

For surveillance and reconnaissance, the Indian Air Force — and all its armed forces — now have more reliable images from satellites and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (imported mostly from Israel).

With the phasing out of the MiG 25, the Indian Air Force is also announcing that it is seeking to break out of the Cold War era in terms of technology. The MiG 25, despite its remarkable functionality after a quarter-century in the IAF and its unmatched ability, is essentially an artefact from the Cold War.

The pic shows an Indian Air Force MiG Reunion: A MiG-25R (No.102 Trisonics Squadron) leads a MiG-27ML (No.9 Wolfpacks Squadron), a MiG-29 (No.223 Tridents Squadron), a MiG-23MF (No.224 Warlords Squadron) and a MiG-21MF (No.101 Falcons Squadron).

The article (as usual for The Telegraph) is too good. TT is so different from the crap one comes across on TOI.