Sat this one out

but I shouldn't have. No TV at home and its the first season in over a decade that I have missed. (I also missed most of the 94, and 95 seasons). From what I saw on Youtube (via), it must have been heartstopping at Brazil last night.

I went to bed early last night, but got up at around 10.30. I knew it was the last race and that I needed to follow it. So, it was formula1's live timing for me. Trust me, I thought that McLaren have messed it up yet again. That's they have succeeded in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. But looks like the Gods were smiling and they finally won a driver championship. I was really astonished to see that LH passed Glock on the last lap. My first thought was that the timing was wrong, but then I saw the commentary which confirmed it. Wow!

Maybe I'm cynical and maybe I read too much into the FIA favours Ferrari line of thinking. I went to bed after SPA thinking, hey! that was a great drive by LH. Even though I was rooting for KR at SPA, I felt that LH really did a fantastic job. Then to wake up and read the newspaper that he's been penalized, made it seem that the results was being scripted and that we were watching a puppet show.

I got up today morning, with a sense of dread. Maybe the newspaper would say that LH was doing something illegal (as per FIA Stewards) or that Glock is reinstated or that Luca D M strode manfully into a certain tinpoint dictator's house and cracked the whip (if you know what I'm saying :-)) or yadda yadda yadda. But that was just my cynical self. So, it was with a sense of relief that I read the headline that confirmed what I knew - LEWIS HAMILTON's THE 2008 F1 CHAMPION! Ya!

Tough luck to Massa and it was really sad for him and his family but today was about LH. I'm not a natural Massa fan, but this was perhaps a touch too cruel. It must have been in the stars and his destiny.  He crossed the line the WDC but for no fault of his ended up losing by 1 point just 20 seconds later. Man! That's tough.

And finally, a bit of gloating.. Guggu, Koli, Gana - BWAHAHAHAHAHAHHA (Evil but satisfied Laugh!) And Kudka - Great huh?. Let's celebrate (when I'm in NYC).

Perhaps, we will buy a TV before next season's starts and perhaps I will follow it. But till then, I can only sit back and wonder - how on earth did they snatch victory from the jaws of defeat?

Myopic view of f1, formula1, mclaren, ferrari, lewis, hamilton,

Had to turn it off

I'm a Batman fan and make no bones about it. However, I haven't yet seen the latest Batman movie - The Dark Knight. I wanted to setup an office party and get everyone to see this movie. However, it never materialized and I missed catching it at PVR. 

So, when I was channel surfing today and came across the movie on HBO, I stopped. It was the beginning of the movie and so, I hadn't missed much. However, I could only watch it for 10 minutes or so. Why? Because of the stupid subtitles. 

Looks like HBO has done a half-assed job for the sub-titles for this movie. Its so bad that its not just distracting but just plain irritating and very frustrating. To top it off, (since we don't have TV at home and watching at my in-laws' place), the neighbourhood and household noise made it nearly impossible to follow. The end result? I switched channels. 

Thanks a lot HBO. You just ruined my day. 

Let's see how long it lasts

This may be interesting.

No negotiations

2 nights back, Dew started wimpering at around 4.30 AM. Both Eva and Me were fast asleep but she continued till we got up. Eva took Dew and tried to put her back to sleep. But the wimpering grew and soon she was wailing.

Here's the conversation (Mind you, Dew is just 1 year old)
Eva: Taa chi maa dumma. (Editer: Go to Sleep, while patting Dew)
Dew: Waaaaaa
Eva: Taa chi maa doo. (Editer: with sleep deprived irritation)
Dew: Nana (Editor: Short for Banana)
Eva: No Nana, Taa chi maad doo. (Editor: Quite firmly too)
Dew: <short pause>, Doodoo (Editor: A.K.A milk)
Eva: No Doodoo (Editor: with a tinge of exasperation)
Dew: Doodoo
Eva: Theo, you $%*^&*(#^. Get up and hold her. I will get the milk.
Me: Eh?? Ok... Dew come..
Dew: Doodoo. (Editor: and the wailing continued)

This morning (if you can call it that), 5.30 AM (God forsaken time)... Again, it starts. Wimpering + Doodoo (no banana and no negotiations).
Eva: Theo, you $&%$^. Get up and go get the milk.
Me: Eh?? Ok.. (Stumbling out of the room, reached the kitchen).

After that, I don't remember if I heated up her milk or was it mayo or was it a jar of ice cream, but either way once I got back, and handed the bottle, Dew kicked back and relaxed!

Hmm. My daughter has now reached the age where negotiations with Dad and Mom has begin, and she doesn't take no for an answer. My mom used to keep complaining to me that I would throw a fit if I didn't have milk at 6.00 AM sharp. Apparently, I won't even wait for a minute and I wanted the bottle ASAP.

Looks like karma does exist. One more milestone passed.

Google Chrome - a review

This is my take on Google Chrome. Mind you, I'm a long time firefox user (and occasional opera user). I'm not even going to pretend to be objective here :-)

The Good:

1. Speed. Javascript heavy sites seem to be blazingly fast as compared to Firefox
2. Tabs. I really liked the fact that you can very quickly split a tab into a separate window and vice-versa. I have a dual monitor setup and this is a killer feature!
3. Automatically set up my office proxy without even my asking. Looks like it is using IE's settings directly without any proxy on its own (Unlike FF or Opera)
4. Doesn't crash on Eva's laptop which runs Vista Home. This is one problem with FF3.0 but Opera sails here as well.
   

The Bad:

1. No gestures. I keep trying to use mouse gestures and get frustrated with the lack of them. Once you start using gestures there is no going back.In general, the lack of configurability or more specifically lack of extensions. No Scribefire to publish to this blog, no forecastfox and most importantly for me, no single click mechanism to change proxies. The Proxy item is pretty important for anyone who has to use a office laptop from home. Mind you, this is absent in opera as well but Gestures works out of the box.
   
2. No rss based bookmarks. I keep a lot of bookmarks as delicious tags and organize them as folders on my FF setup. Even though Chrome imported my FF bookmarks, it just couldn't import these
3. Auto Dial. Don't quite like the feature, because I want to be able to open blank tab. I definitely don't want anyone to see my browsing history.

Overall, its a good beta but a lot more can be done. With FF 3.1 moving to Tracemonkey, I expect javascript heavy sites to be as fast on FF as well.

In other news, IE 8 is out, but who cares?

An important milestone

Its said that the bond between a daughter and a father is amongst the closest in the world. Daddy's girl is pretty much the norm in our house.

This week my little Dew (all of 11 months) and I took one more step in father-daughter bonding. I had to put in quite a few hours this last week at work and could not spend much time with her. However that all changed over the weekend, when she and I spent a lot of time together.

It was during this weekend that she did a couple interesting things.

Firstly, on Saturday, she left her mom and crawled all the way from her room to the master bedroom where I was having an afternoon nap. She climbed on top of the bed, and then she coo'ed into my ears. She wanted to wake me up!

Next, on Sunday afternoon, again she came up and woke up, but this time accompanied by Eva and a half eat apple. She continued to eat the apple and then decided to give me a piece. She pulled my half asleep face towards her and force a small piece of half eaten apple into my month and made me eat it. LOL!

Needless to say, Eva is very jealous :-)

G 'n' R too, on a violin

Bobby Yang "Sweet Child O' Mine.

Let's Jazz it up!

This is really good stuff...

paul dateh

Now, some metal...

and nothing else matters...

MJ on a Violin

Whew! This is breathtaking stuff...

Chanced upon this on del.icio.us! Who says that Violins don't rock?

Weird'est story of all time

This has to be the most weird cops and robber's story of all time. link. via. (NSFW)

An Aussie man (39) was caught by cops but that's not the only thing.

1. He was being naughty.
2. With himself
3. While driving
4. At 150 km/h (in a 130 km/h zone)
5. Plus, he had with him 5 kilos of cannabis
6. And a Rifle (that he said was to shoot Kangaroos)

LOL!!! This has to be the funniest, if not the weirdest story ever!

But it doesn't end there.

The court granted Mr. Genius bail.... That's so he could marry his Girlfriend! Not just that the guy has 3 kids!

He paid the bail ($10000) and his Dad paid surety ($8000).. I can't imagine they way he would have told his Family. LOL.

I can almost imagine his GF telling his kids that Daddy needs to be away for a little while because he was .....???? LOL

Myopic view of funny

Don't go to this place

I'm p*ssed off. Poor Dew has had a slight stomach upset, diarrhea and so we wanted to take her to the doctor. Nothing serious, just precautionary. She's active and looks ok except that we need to change her nappy 3 times a day. Its a bit green but that's not the point of this post. The last time this happened, we were a bit late on things and so it got a bit worse. This time we did not want to take any changes.

A friend (unmarried, no kids but has plenty of sisters and so has experience with kids that way) suggested this doctor near Deve Gowda Petrol bunk. The last time around, there was a huge rush, and we had to go in the afternoon. However, this time we decided to take an appointment.

Step 1 - 9.30 AM. Eva gives a call to the clinic. Does not get through. Keeps trying.
Step 2 - 10.00 AM. Eva gets through but the receptionist is very rude and says that all appointments are full. She asks if she can walk in. He says no. She asks for an appointment in the evening but he still says NO. Its not possible to give an appointment in the evening. If we need an appointment in the evening then we should call in the evening.
Step 3 - We feel that the doctor is good and so we decide to walk in anyways after lunch. We reach the clinic at 1.15.
Step 4 - We ask the receptionist if he can take down D's name. He haughtly says - NO but we can wait. I talk to the low-life receptionist about the process to get an appointment. He says that people wait in a queue from 8.45 onwards and that they get appointments for 9.30 onwards. Calling at 9.30 does not guarantee an appointment. WTF?? Essentially the idiot says that there is no way to take an appointment even the board outside loudly proclaims that there will be no consultation without an appointment.
Step 5 - At 1.45 we ask again how long it will take. The nasty receptionist just says he will let us know. We wait for a few more minutes and ask again. This time he takes down her name and says that there are 3 people ahead. A couple of women walk in with kids and ask if the doctor is available. The receptionist takes one look at them, decides that they are economically disadvantaged and tells them that "they should call before coming". The feisty lady replies saying that she tried but didn't get through. So, there was no option but for her to come directly.
Step 6 - At 2.00 doctor leaves for lunch. That's not a problem because its a tough day for him as well and as a human being he needs to eat.
Step 7 - We ask the psychopathic receptionist how long will the doctor take. He rudely replies 10 mins.
Step 8 - Its 2.30. No sign of the doctor and the mad receptionist is no help.
Step 9 - Its 2.45. Decide to leave and go back home.

There's another doctor in BTM that we will go to. Atleast the reception is pretty friendly. 6.00 PM I will pick up Eva from her workplace and we will go there.

Note that I have no complaints about the doctor but the whole setup is rubbish.
1. The doctor charges more than Sagar Apollo Hospital OR the other Paediatrician in BTM.
2. There are no kid friendly material in the clinic to keep Dew busy. Just some sterile handouts on immunization. Compare this to Sagar Apollo where there is huge room just as a kids play area. Even the doctor in BTM has a few toys and eye catching posters for kids.
3. The whole clinic is stuffy and one cannot breathe. Sagar Apollo has excellent ventilation and is bright, clean and vibrant. The BTM clinic has the added advantage of being next to my in-laws place and so we can wait there if required.
4. More than all this, the receptionists and support staff at Sagar Apollo is unparallelled. This LKB receptionist at Dr. N's place near Deve Gowda petrol bunk is a real SOB. The doctor is very good but I'm never going back. At Sagar Apollo Dr. B is fantastic and very gentle in his prescriptions. Dr. V in BTM is very enthu and more than happy to listen to what we have to say. So, in no way will I say that they are not as good as Dr. N. The key difference is the receptionist. I remember the BTM clinic guy once even gave me a call back because the Doctor could not come and changed my appointment. That's exceptional service, but that's not what I'm complaining about.

Health care in India is not universal but this is rubbish. Hospitals such as Sagar are jam packed but they are well equiped and have trained support staff to make the whole heathcare package painless.

I lost a whole day of work, Eva lost 1/2 day's work and the worst part is that Dew still hasn't been able to see a doctor. I'm a pretty patient guys but this takes the cake. Even though we had to wait for 3 hours in the Registrar's office when we bought our apartment, it was clear that there was some work going on. People were moving in and out. Our lawyer kept us up to date on things and finally our job got done. At this clinic neither did our work get done nor was it pleasant and it definitely isn't worthwhile.

DONT GO TO THIS PLACE. The Doctor is good but the practice sucks. The receptionist will make the most patient of fathers tear his hair out and blog this rant. I love my daughter and I will NOT take her to this place where its stuffy, intolerable for not just me but her as well, where we have to wait in small room stuffed like sardines in a can.

No F1 Report this time around

Have decided to renounce TV for some time. Hence no reports on F1.

Winners:
Dew

Losers:
None.

Its crazy

For a family of 3, Eva, Dew and I, have 4 vehicles between us. Two cars, One Bike, and One Scooter. No bicycles or tricycles.

Car No. 1 - Battery died tonight and didn't start.
Car No. 2 - Haven't started for months now. Eva tried to start it a couple of days back. It didn't budge.
Bike No. 1 - Less said the better. Haven't started it in years.
Scooter No. 1 - Rear tyre punctured couple of months back. Haven't started it since.

So, we have 4 engines, of which 3 haven't been cranked for sometime, 4 batteries, all of which, I suspect are dead, 15 wheels with tyres (including the stepney for 3 of them), of which one is definitely punctured, 2 haven't had air put in them for years, atleast 5 are low on air and the list goes on...

As they say, the most important part of any vehicle is the nut that holds the steering wheel. Here the DoNut (a.k.a me) is not just grounded, he's up a creek without a paddle. Not good!

Myopic view of personal, funny

He's right where he belongs

F1 Testing has started. Kimi and Massa were in their Brand new Ferraris. De La Rosa and Heikki led the McLaren charge, but its the big boss - Alonso who is in charge!

That too not in the 2008 car, but the old 2007 car. Fisi and Heikki didn't do much with it but Alonso tops the test times.

Myopic view of f1, formula1, alonso

Time for a change

Yes, Yes we all know about the Nano. Not the iPod variety but the one you drive.

So far all the TV channels have been gushing about it, but there are a couple things that struck me.

The Nano employs a CVT gearbox. I remember reading a newspaper article long back, that the Tata's are sourcing this from Kinetic. The Kinetic was famous for bringing the gearless scooter to the Indian market and thereby changing the market forever. "Gearless" essentially is a CVT.

The question is whether the Nano would do the same to the Indian car market. Unlike the US, where a "stick shift" is unusual to find, in India its the norm. The main reason being that Automatics are more expensive and give lesser mileage. But CVTs are different from Automatics, and yet provide the same basic user experience - no manual shifting.

Given the state of traffic in our cities, its logical that we all drive "gear-less" cars. Its less stressful especially for folks who drive on Hosur road and through Koramangala!

Myopic view of CVT, tata, nano

Monkey See Monkey Do

Forget calling someone a Monkey. Here's 11 other animals.

1. McGrath - Pigeon, because that's what they call him.
2. Ponting - Fox, cunning as ever, but he's probably bitten off more than he can chew.
3. Harbhajan - Male Goat (Ram), since he's always charging into controversy.
4. Greg Chappell - Vulture; he picked Ganguly's flesh off his bones!
5. Ian Chappell - Eagle. Says what he means and doesn't beat around the bush.
6. Hayden - Bull Moose, whatever... you know the reason!
7. Warne - Definitely a Rooster. He has his flights of fancy when he tries to surround himself with chicks
8. Viv Richards - Peacock, most certainly
9. Ishant Sharma - Giraffe... Adam's Apple the size of a cricket ball.
10. Boon - Walrus, great Mustache too.
11. Ian Healy - Porkus porkus. Always reminds me of the 3 little pigs.
    

P.S. I'm not condoning racism but here's a chance for caricaturization.

This also reminds me of an anecdote concerning Javid Miandad. JM was considered to be really cheeky, and a past-master when it came to the art of "mental disintegration". He even called Ravi Shastri by his nickname "Rambo", on live tv.

So, this one time, it seems JM was playing Australia and it was Merv Hughes who was bowling to him. MH completed his follow through when JM walked towards him and tried to catch his eye. MH continued towards his runup area when he found JM was still following him. Out of curiosity, MH asked JM what's he doing. JM said, "I wanted to know if you were going to the parking lot". MH was apparently puzzled and asked JM why. JM supposedly said, "I wanted to see you truck because you look like a Lorry driver!". LOL! The mother of all insults!

Myopic view of cricket

Which year is it?

Come Feb 07, 2008, we will start the Chinese year of the Rat. Till then it will be year of the Pig.

Going by all the cricket controversies, you would have thought that it was year of the Monkey. If anything, I think this whole stop-the-tour thingie is all Macaque excreta. If Harbhajan was acting like a Chimpanzee by ignoring express instructions not to bring Race into sledging, then he deserves to be banned. However, if its just a case of the Boarish Aussies, then a better solution could have been thought of.

In the end, I think it was a case of high emotions. The Indian team felt robbed by the Umpires. I don't necessarily agree that they should feel so, but that's just my view.

Its a bit funny that emotions have been brought up this way. The Monkey-God Hanuman is one of the most revered God in the Hindu Pantheon. To compare someone with him, would actually be a compliment. Having said that, there really is no place of racism. If Harbhajan was being a racist, he deserves all that he gets, and the BCCI must also apologize to Symonds.

Lets not forget a real case of Racism. Just a year back it was desi, who was called a Macaca and the American Neta who called him that had such a backlash that he had put his tail between his legs.

In my view, its the ICC who are bunch of Langurs. They have screwed up so badly here, that they have a 800 pound Gorilla in the form of India to contend with and if they toe the Indian line, they will end up looking like a bunch of squirrels. If not, Hanuman help them. As for the Aussies, I really hope they improve their humility. They needn't look any further than, Cliff Young, a 61 year old Aussie who in 1983 beat the best of best in a super marathon from Sydney to Melbourne. Sadly Cliff Young passed away recently.

Myopic view of cricket

That's not cricket

I don't blame the umpires. They could have had a bad test as well. What I'm really dissappointed about is the way the Aussies have appealed. Gilchrist is one of my favourite cricketers. Its not just the fact that he's probably one the greatest Wicketkeeper-batsman of all time, but also the way he "walks" when he knows he's out. He's done that a number of times and he also typically appeals only when he knows its out.

Today, either he was really convinced that Rahul Dravid nicked the ball or he was had a change of heart. If its the former, then its ok. But I doubt it and that's what really irritates me. Had it been some other Aussie cricketer, I wouldn't have complained, but the fact that its Gilchrist makes it hard to believe.

In the Mahabharata, its said that Yudhishtira's chariot would always travel 3 inches above the ground because he always told the truth. The moment he succumbed to weakness and "lied" to Drona, his chariot too touched the ground. Due to this human failure, its said that he spent 1/13th of a hour in hell before seeing Swarga.

You let your fans down!

Myopic view of cricket