Bridges, Allahabad

Over the 2nd round of fresh lime sodas

Me - "mujhe maloom hai main kya bolne waala hoon, tum batao, main apne gharwaalon ko kya bolun tumhara kya kehna hai?"

C - "meri taraf se to haan hai"

Holidays 07

See, even Google is in on the mood.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year in advance to all who care to go through my postings.

2009 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1

Comes with 15.5" front discs .... very impressive!

Bunked office today & it turns out 2 other guys had the same idea!

N. K. wins .... finally!

"Narain Karthikeyan sent his nation into the A1GP record books by triumphing in the feature race in Zhuhai, seeing off the challenge of Jonny Reid in the New Zealand entry to catapult India up the nations' standings into the top ten."

Go Narain .... if anyone deserves it, it's you boy!

Winamp 5.5

Installed it for the back up XP I'm forced to run at present. Looks quite nifty.

Happenings

Pakistan managed to draw the Bangalore test, albeit India got very close to achieving a result. The lefties had a ball, with Dada, ....

.... Yuvi ....

.... & Pathan ....

.... all getting past 100.

Saurav in fact managed a double in the 1st innings & a 91 in the second. I couldn't catch the Saurav-Yuvi partnership 'cause of office on Saturday, but everybody who did was praising it to high heaven.

The two took India from 61 for 4 to an awesome 350 plus on the 1st day itself. That, by the way, is the most number of runs scored in a single Test day in India, ever. Good show guys.

Shoaib Akhtar ....

.... was a shadow of himself. Are his glory days a thing of the past? We'll see. India have won a home series against the Pakistanis after 27 years. It would have been better had it been against a stronger Pakistan. Even then, Kumble has made an excellent beginning as Test captain.

Moving on, India has caught up with the U.S. on a grim social phenomenon. We've had our first school shooting fatality.

Moving on again, official pics of the new K.I.T.T. are out & this ....

.... is my current wallpaper.

It's been a tiring week. I just hope I won't have to work this Saturday.

Meanwhile, Strings' Sar Kiye Ye Pahaar (the 1992 original) plays on the T.sonic ...... dariyaaon ki gehraaiyon mein, tujhe dhoonda hai .... wah, wah!

Swiped in at 11 today. The latest I've ever reached office. All those late hours are taking their toll.

The weekend

Spent Saturday at work. The team is putting in a lot of effort, but the managers are promising too much & allowing us lesser time than we ought to have.

Sittu came around in the evening. Loafed about at Landmark with him. He came upon a super dart board at a remarkably cheap (for Bangalore) price. Got dinner packed from McDonalds, along with Kobras (I'd been meaning to try this beer for some time now) from MegaMall & headed off to Sittu's pad. It got too late, so slept off there itself.

Returned home around 12 today. Slept off in the afternoon. Spent the evening watching TV with the guys.

Neeta didi called up from Shillong. Spoke to her after almost 20 years!!!! Boy, have I got some catching up to do or what.

I wish life would slow down a little to the pace it used to be back in JSR.

1sts

Had my first experience on a BMTC Volvo today. They should officially be renamed the software engineer shuttles. Very impressive. Now if only we could do something about the Bangalore traffic.

Met Vidi at the McDonalds at Total. The girl seems to have changed for the better after her return from the U.K.

Helped a lady in a spot of bother on the way home. She'd got on the bus with a 100 rupee note & was looking around for change. Paid the fare for her. The sweet 'thank you' was compensation enough.

RAW is Jericho .... again

Chris Jericho is back. I'll post my thoughts on this sometime later.

EDIT: Okay, I have to get around to getting things done. Enough of procrastination in my life already.

Coming to Jericho .... well I won't say I'm not glad he's back. Things had been getting pretty stale of late. I think it all started with Eddie's untimely death. He was a genuine star. Somebody who could not only wrestle, but make people want to see him in action. Since then, it's been one unfilled void after another.

Benoit went, Edge went, Cena's out with injury. No more RVD.

Just look at the roster now .... Triple H, Shawn, Batista, Jericho himself, Orton, the Hardys - all of 'em good wrestlers, but all of them a generation old. Okay, maybe Orton belongs to the present, but who else?

Is there anyone to match the charisma of The Rock, the appeal of Austin, the brute power of Goldberg or the finesse of Bret Hart. No one. None at all.

And instead of investing time & money into developing new characters, all McMahon is doing is going back to the older guys such as Jericho with incredibly attractive offers of money & somehow plugging the holes here. For the time being only.

I think I can see what's missing here. It's the competition. WWE's zenith was during the 90s. They had The Rock, Austin & so many others. But they also had to contend with Nitro & ECW. That is what drove them to give out their best. And now that both these brands are done for good, the pathetic attempts at setting up RAW & SmackDown against one another with ECW running like a sideshow are only gonna come a cropper. Like they deserve to.

WWE could learn a thing or two from TNA. They've somehow survived this far, but the new talent on display there is truly impressive. I can only imagine what being in WWE could have done for Samoa Joe, Daniels, Styles, Dutt & company's popularity. Let's hope Vince & his family come up with something good soon enough. Else they stand to lose a lot of recognition from today's generation.

There have been days when 6 o'clock has taken ages to arrive. And then there are some when 8 p.m. seems wonderfully early for a swipe-out.

Milind is getting married next month! He broke the news today & needless to say, it came as a huge surprise.

Jumbo-speak

"When you struggle to pick up five wickets in both innings, that's no moral victory to me. To me what matters is the result and I think overall we dominated the match over the five days. I've said it in Delhi and at the start of the Test. I'd like to re-iterate it here: toss, pitch and weather are things I don't want to think about." - Anil Kumble on suggestions that Pakistan had won a moral victory after having drawn the Kolkata test.

I like the sound of this. A tough talking, frank captain is something that can only be good for Indian cricket.

They're here!

This is something I've always dreamed of. And it has come true, today! Now, you can walk into a Yamaha showroom in India & walk out with either an R1 ....

.... or the MT-01 ....

.... just like so many other people around the world.

It's been a long, long time coming. But it's finally here. And this should open the floodgates ..... for the Busas, Gixxers & the CBRs as well as the 999s & the Dukes. Gotta start saving up.

R.I.P.

Don's mom succumbed after a prolonged battle with Cancer on Saturday. My heart goes out to the guy.

And Daddy called to inform that S.P. had died of a heart attack at 12 today. Rushed to Manipal Hospital to find Vini & Chhoti didi looking forlorn but remarkably calm. Didn't know what to say, so kept shut almost throughout. What can one say at moments like these?

Archie didi flew down from Bombay. Met her after almost 15 years.

Life is too short .... or so it would seem. My mind is in a whirl right now.

Rest Stop

Interesting in parts.

I've owned Nike, Adidas, Reebok & Lotto & today I bought my first pair of Woodlands.

The new K.I.T.T.

According to this report by Jalopnik, a Shelby GT will be the new K.I.T.T. when Knight Rider makes a comeback next year.


The site also has the photo of the said Mustang with a photoshopped scanner for effect. Doesn't look too bad, but it still doesn't look as deadly as the original .....