Singapore GP

I have never been a fan of street circuits & this race proved to be similar. Low speeds, frequent crashes & almost no overtaking. And since this was the 1st ever night race in F1's history, it was all too dark as well.

Alonso won a race after a long, long time. Massa crashed out & that means Hamilton retains his lead in the Driver's even though he finished 3rd.

Honda City 2008

Honda launched the latest City in India today. This comes a fortnight after it's launch at the 'mother plant' country Thailand from where it's components will be sourced. India thus becomes the 2nd country where it has been released.

It's been 1 year

.... sine this.

Equinox

Another summer/monsoon season ends. Sometimes, I feel there's a druid inside me.

'Feather In My Cap'

So this is how it feels.

It took a long time coming, thanks to the number of projects/locations I've been into. Anyway, feels good.

Yamaha FZ-16

Launched today by Yamaha India. Tata, launch the Nano soon, else I blow my stack on this.

Singh is Kinng

How the hell did this movie rake in the crores??

Large Hadron Collider

One of the best Google logo twists ever. Because of this.

HR Access

The project is almost over & goes into support soon.

The ramp down had begun with Deepak & Divya's departure. It's Akshay & Thiru's last day this Friday & Bhuvi will be leaving next week. It's been one year of a hectic project, but with a great set of team-mates. Uma was a good boss & Kuppu a superb tech lead.

There is a tinge of sadness seeing all of them go, but hopefully Prashanth & Karthi continuing in support should make up for that.

Congratulatory mails have poured in from MSBU; business heads & client side on the successful go-live. Ah well, all's well that ends well.

On to the next one now.

Belgian GP

Hamilton wins a rain affected race, but is later penalised 25 seconds for cutting a chicane. He drops down to 3rd handing victory to Massa & his lead drops to 2 points.

Force India finish on 13th & 17th. Nice!

Weekend trash

A record number of pizzas ordered. Happy b'day Sittu!

Mercedes coaches

Mercedes has launched it's O 500 R / RF 1830 chassis based buses in India. Good to see competition for the now ubiquitous Volvo B7Rs.

Done deal?

All the news channels are going gaga calling it a historic day for India & an end to the nuclear apartheid. The NSG's unconditional waiver at Vienna means the Indo-US civilian nuclear agreement is almost a done deal now barring last minute hiccups in the US Senate where it goes under vote at the end of this month.

Credit goes to the team of negotiators led on the Indian side by Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon and on the US side by Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns. This was truly a major foreign policy & diplomatic initiative lasting over a long & convoluted 3 years.

There were spoilers of course, not the least of these being old snake-in-the-grass China. That is a country that India is more & more likely to run into in the future on various issues.

This deal will also mark unprecedented closeness between India & the US. The payoffs will be positive for both sides - India gains in advanced nuclear tech, while the US will win most of the contracts & dare I say, probably the MRCA contract too.

Whatever the hidden clauses, & whatever the compromises that Indian negotiators have made (which shall be revealed in due course of time), I'm all for this deal if it ends up benefiting the average guy on the street. Also, the improved relations with the US will prove a key factor in future. With a neighbourhood as hostile & dangerous as ours, we need all the friends we can get.

Corolla Altis

Toyota launched the latest Corolla in India today.

kkumaru, er Sittu has bought himself a fridge & washing machine. Hmmm ..... hmmm .... hmmm ....

Chamku

I had high expectations from Kabeer Kaushik after Sehar, but he dissapoints here. The intention is visible, but the execution somehow falls short. Most of the film appears to go on in a haze & the songs distract totally from the narration.

Google Chrome (BETA)

Initial impressions -

• 1st impression is that there's a lot of white to be seen .... like on the Google homepage
• New tabs at the top of the window take some getting used to
  
• 'Intellisense' on the address bar works well
  
• Love the pop up blocker & the way you can pull those pop ups 'up'
  
• Speed is almost same as for Safari
• And the page loads are a bit novel. Type your URL; press Enter & .... for some time nothing happens. And then the page rapidly 'explodes' on screen.

Rock On!!

Farhan acts well on debut. Prachi Desai is composed while Shahana Goswami just blew me away with her performance. The revelation though is Arjun Rampal. His role suits his limited repertoire of expressions but he has performed superbly within his limitations.

The music is great & the story keeps it simple yet appealing. Lovely movie. Wish I had watched it at the theatre.

Life throws up some strange surprises .... Luke Kenny's character in this film has eerie similarities with me. My friends call me Rob .... & I used to play the keyboard once! Don't wish to end up like he did though,.... scary thought.

Phantom!

My 1st ever Rolls Royce sighting. This morning, a white Phantom stuck in the jam near AXA. 

It's a barge, no doubt about it .... easily dwarfing anything & everything on 4 wheels around it. And those wheels! They wouldn't look out of place on a truck, they're that huge.

Bus Flix

15 hour journeys to & from Pune allowed me to take in 3 flicks -

God Tussi Great Ho

What can one say about a shameless lift of Bruce Almighty? Salman sleepwalks as usual. Priyanka is pretty.

Bachna Ae Haseeno

I was expecting another Yash Raj Punjabi style DDLJ rehash. But it's actually quite watchable. The girls turn in commendable performances, while Ranbir comes across as someone with a lot of potential for the future. He's not there yet, but definitely on his way. The songs have been shot superbly.

Bhoothnath

A watchable comedy. The kid has acted well. SRK's guest role is well executed & Juhi is her usual effervescent self.