Had my first verbal duel with a manager. Feels good to have stood up for the rest of the guys.

2 incidents of shoe theft in 2 months have left me pissed off at a certain class of people. The bastards deserve the life they live.

Captain Jumbo

A heart warming performance from India saw them put it across Pakistan in the 1st of 3 tests at Delhi. It was a see-saw match with fortunes fluctuating throughout.

Dada put in a superb all round performance grabbing 2 wickets in 3 balls when asked to take the new ball by Kumble!

Misbah is emerging as a superb performer for Pakistan, even though he keeps running out of partners.

It was Anil 'Jumbo' Kumble's 1st match as test captain. He deserved the MoM that he got.

work, life etc

The last 2 weeks have been quite hectic.

It was my good luck that Roma sent out my resume to Sophia who put me into this project just when it was about to start. I was dreading the prospect of another spell on the bench like last time.

Sudarshan appears to be a chilled out boss (he's nicknamed me 'Stud'!) but will he match up to Prasanth's levels of coolness .... only time will tell.

The 1st week on the project was devoted almost completely to training. Rauf flew down all the way from Hamburg to impart us code-jocks the tricks of the trade for handling Sitrion's latest. It was the man's 1st trip to Asia, & needless to say, the chaos & crowds here were a huge shock for him. He kept using the word 'unbelievable' during the 1st day.

Got talking to him during one of the breaks & got all the dope on autobahns, mag-lev trains, Bundesliga & other German stuff. He was depressed with the levels of income-tax back home & thought that the political process slowed down decision making .... hmm, that sounds familiar. What impressed me most was his punctuality & technical proficiency. These Germans definitely are something else.

The best thing about the training though was something else ..... since the training was at M4, all of us got to eat the gourmet stuff that was prepared for Rauf & that, my friends, is something you gotta experience to believe. Loved it.

This week has been spent in getting the setup up & running. The team members are quite easy to get along with .... Dev looks up to me as if I'm some kinda expert coder; Baishaly & Vasudha are two of the nicest girls I've worked with & Karthik is a maverick.

On the home front, Sittu & me finally went for the much postponed eye checkup. Good old Dr. Andrew was still there & St. John's remains unchanged. Not that I expected any changes. However I have changed loyalties when it comes to lens brands. Carl Zeiss has given way to Essilor.

Vini is here looking after S.P. who had to be admitted to hospital for knee replacement surgery. Visited them & it was good to see familiar faces in Bangalore.

A lot of my friends have been getting married of late & Sid was saying something about the same. However MG, Nil & me are still single as ever. Hell, even Pritish & Soumya are. I dunno what it is about me & my friend circle, but most of us seem to be averse to marriage. At least for now. However things are getting tight. And next year will most definitely herald major changes. For a lot of us.

Symmetry @ the park

Clicked on a Sunday afternoon in October.

Om Shanti Om

Kya nautanki picture hai .... that was my 1st reaction. It's a nice timepass movie, worth watching once in the theatres.

Farah Khan lays out spoofs galore & Akshay Kumar's was the best. Shah Rukh hams it up as usual & Arjun Rampal is at his wooden best. The '31 stars' song is pretty cool. Shreyas' role is very endearing. Deepika makes an impressive debut. Vishal & Shekhar's music is super.

Movies such as these used to be made back in the 80s. They were made after suspending all logic & belief but used to be quite entertaining. OSO follows on those lines & makes no bones about it, which goes to it's credit.

My fav line was this one, "Ricky Sandu, saala Ga...", heh heh, reminds me of somebody who was with me in college.

Jetset

This week's edition of BusinessWorld features an ad for the Cessna Citation.

I remember the time back in school, when MG & me used to go through the 60s & 70s editions of National Geographic in the library. They featured such ads for private jets & both of us would marvel at the standard of living in the US & the exalted state of it's economy.

Cut to now, & India isn't doing too bad either & ads such as these in Indian magazines are proof of it. We may not be at par with America yet, but are definitely getting there.

Bunty has been blessed with a baby boy!

44 Minutes: The North Hollywood Shoot-Out

Should have included some insight into the robbers' lives like it did for the cops. Oh, & Michael Madsen should do more films.

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

It takes more than a sense of humor to make a film such as this one. It takes guts & irreverence of the highest order. And the results are there for everyone to see.

I have not laughed so hard while watching most other films. Should have seen it earlier.

Rock 100

Yup, that's India's cheapest bike today at 19,900/- rupees.

Xenitis, hand in glove with some Chinese bike maker has decided to unleash it on the unsuspecting Indian bike market.

The looks are typical 80s-Honda-100cc-copied-by-the-Chinese & tarted-up-to-look-stylish-in-today's-context.

Crap like this overflows in markets like Pakistan & Ethiopia besides China itself. It would be a tragedy if this happens in India too.

However, the intentions of the maker are noble & if some poor cycle riding guy manages to trade up to the bike world through the Rock, it's not such a bad thing, is it?

3-1 & with that the series

The Pakistanis were beaten with remarkable ease to clinch the series.

With that, India have beaten Pakistan in 8 out of their last 11 matches.

The Simpsons Movie

The film starts off superbly but gets out of hand in the end. Overall it's like watching a TV episode that's gone on too long.

Not boring though, that's something The Simpsons never are.

2-1 up

Yuvi & MSD put up their fourth century stand against Pakistan in seven innings as India beat Pakistan by 47 runs in spite of a fighting century by Salman Butt.

The fascination for Diwali has long been gone, but the smell of gunpowder still excites.

Young Guns

Jon Bon Jovi's Blaze Of Glory always held a special, mysterious appeal for me & so I thought of watching the movies that inspired the song in the first place.

The first part was released as a chronicle for Billy's role during the Lincoln County Wars & shows his induction & eventual takeover of the 'Regulators'. The film moves at too fast a pace & felt rather arbitrary with an abrupt ending. Even so, you're left with a feeling of wanting to know more about these guys & this is where the sequel comes in.


Much better than the first part in the sense that there's a sort of logic & continuum to the proceedings. The manner in which Doc & Chavez (this is probably Lou Diamond Phillips' best role ever) are introduced stands out.

By the end of the film you start identifying with Billy's character & Bon Jovi's song rounds it off beautifully in the end.

1 all

Pakistan leveled the series at Mohali today.

Need for Speed: ProStreet

Days ahead of it's release this month, screenshots for the latest version of NFS .....






..... have started appearing on the net. If these are anything to go by, ProStreet will be the best NFS ever.






Every car a street racer could dream of & customize-ability to the limit, not to speak of the super realistic graphics & racetracks.

One word: awesome!

Diwali!

The company has declared Thursday & Friday off in view of the coming Diwali weekend. People in the office though had already taken off on leave last Friday. Consequently attendance this week had been thin & plumbed the depths today.

A holiday mood prevailed since morning & the office was only a quarter full by the end of the day. The prevalent silence had to be heard to be believed.


So here's wishing everyone a Happy Diwali!

1 down

MSD took MoM as India managed to put it past the Pakis on a dodgy pitch in failing light at Guwahati. They go 1-0 up in the 5 match series.

Raka ki vaapsi

Rakesh "Kaabil" Kumar has been transferred to Bangalore.

Emergency! Emergency!

Pakistan's generals are back to doing what they do best.

But there's a twist this time. According to The Telegraph, "Pervez Musharraf today staged a coup against himself, suspending as army chief the Constitution that lends him his authority as President".

Go figure.

Jab We Met

Nice movie. Probably Kareena's best after Yuva. Shahid does well. And salaams to Imtiaz, the director who shares my native place.

Pakistan in India 2007

Afridi & Shoaib during Pakistan's first practice match at Delhi yesterday.

Pakistan's tour of India comprises 5 ODIs & 3 Tests. Action begins from Monday.

Soumya's got himself a tattoo! Not bad dude, not bad at all ....

FHM India

FHM has launched it's Indian edition with the sickly Ujjwala Raut on the cover of the inaugural issue. Blah .... why can't these model types eat properly?

Tried my hand at frying Chilli Chicken. The results weren't bad at all.

Hyundai i10

Bang on time for the Diwali season, Hyundai has come out with the i10.

The front looks well designed, but Hyundai succumbs yet again to copying from the Japs, this time lifting the grille idea from the Honda Civic.

The rear looks like an afterthought. I don't like the rear light cluster. It's got angles whereas the front has none. Probably 2 different designers unaware of each other's work.

The interiors ....


.... are quite refreshingly new. Beige is the new Black in the Indian auto industry & the i10 furthers the trend.

The pricing starts from approx 3.5 lakhs I hear, which is very good. Notch up a winner for Hyundai then.

Die Hard 4.0

Too freakin' unbelievable! Why'd they have to go so over the top?

Willis' still got it though.