Piece of History!

Little bit of Aviation History here.. The last of the Concorde Fleets which has been exihibited at Aeroport de Charles De Gaulle in Roissy in Paris. Doesn't it look awesome? Cant imagine this has a beast of an engine and the only Commercial Supersonic aircraft in the history of Humankind.. Quite a view! Sad indeed that this has to be sitting like this instead of flying like a Monster at supersonic speeds..

So much to write about..

Back home after almost one year and vacationing with parents, met old friends and made new friends, relaxing at home.. Its seems like Bliss to just laze around and sleep in the comforts of home with someone to make your coffee and meals.. :) .. Well... got a lot to write, but need a faster connection for that.. So Keep staring at this blog for a longtime and one day some posts with lots of Pics will appear.. :-)

Another Yoohoo.. Bought my first Ski set

I finally bought my first new pair Cross Country Ski Set for a very good price. Now I need to figure out how to put them to good use. I have never skiied before and its going to be a very interesting project for this loong winter weekends. :) . and thats something I am looking forward to right now apart from the Idlis and Dosas I am going to eat for the next 3 weeks, back in Good Ol' Madras..

Yoo..Hoo... Going Home finally!

Finally going home after almost an year in Norway..
I feel good.. So good.. So good.. well.. u get the drift.. :)

Of Brazilians and their Football skills

There is a memorable dialogue from the movie "Ice Station Zebra", a movie set at the height of the Cold War era.
The British Commander says this to the American Nuclear Sub Captain "The Russians put our camera made by *our* German scientists and your film made by *your* German scientists into their satellite made by *their* German scientists".

Similarly these days, you can find that Most of the big names in European Football, ought to have a brazilian in their team if they are going for championships. A weak analogy, but an analogy nevertheless..

Matchday-1 of UEFA Champions League has been very entertaining so far. I loved Barca and their awesome Ronaldhinho.... What an entertainer!, especially his late burst on rainy pitch in Nou Camp.. Eto' wasnt left behind either... But a striking thing is that every one of the big names had one or more famous brazilians and they played a very important role in their team's victory(Ronaldhinho, kaka, Juhinho).. Seems like thats the winning strategy...

Barcelona - Ronaldhinho, edmilson, sylvinho
Real Madrid - Legendary Ronaldo, R. Carlos, Cicinho, Emerson, Young Robinho
Arsenal - Veteran Gilberto Silva, Julio Baptista
AC Milan - Kaka, Veteran Cafu, Dida, Serginho, Young Ricardo Oliviera
Bayern - Lucio
Inter - Adriano
Lyon - Juninho, Fred and other teams as well...

One way or another Future looks very bright for Brazil with Robinho, Rodaldhinho, kaka and Juninho up front and Gilberto and Lucio holding up the Defense... But only problem with such a start studded team is that they never play well as team as they do individually for their clubs..

Did you hear this news that during our prime minister Mr. Manmohan Singh's visit to Sambaland they signed some economic treaties and some cultural, which included Brazilians helping Indians with their football... I dunno how thats going to be implemented.. But would be nice to ship some of our buys to their B or C level clubs and get them trained so India, boasting of more than 1 billion population, can atleast fare well in Asia...

Known and Unknowns...

As I was walking the corridors in my office and looking at the notice boards, this caught my attention. Ofcourse this was aided with some analogies in the office.

But take a guess who came up with the poem or write-up below, w/o googling???
Take an intelligent guess...

The Unknown

As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.

—Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing

Wah.. Indian Judicial system ka jawab nahin...

13 years later, some decision has been made and but its not over yet! They still havent given the verdict to the guilty and havent finished their complete judgement either. 13 years!... I am amazed at the snail pace of this Indian Judicial system.. No wonder there is prevalent corruption everywhere.. People dont even want to take the pains to lodge a complaint against anything these days, instead pay some money to the right person and get your job done. A common man cannot afford any lawyers fees for any of his problems and he may not even live to see the judgement being made. Thats the sad status of our judicial system.. Then again, the system is not completely dead either... there is hope and optimism.. afterall some decision was made even after 13 years.. and I wouldnt be surprised even if Munna Bhai was acquitted for the lack of evidence or something like that.. Hope the younger and new blood into the law system of India bring in some pace and sanity...

Existance and Laws of probability

Have you ever wondered that your existance in this planet is just by a mere chance or governed by laws of probability? Though Science would say, one's existance was decided nine months(or lesser) before when your genetic material was decided... but your characteristics and what you are now, would it all have changed if you have been born a second earlier or later?? Do you beleive, You(however u define it even in a deepest philosophical sense) could have been born in a different time with different genes in a different part of the world? If you seperate soul from body, then you could say my arguement holds good.. though scientifically I am not sure if I am making sense or even otherwise :)... But thats my thought for the day, however wierd it sounds.. or however profound it may come across... or is there a big flaw in my arguement??

Trip to the Norwegian Fjords - Aurland, Flåm and Gudvangen

If you’ve read Slartibartfast talking to Arthur Dent in Hitchhikers Guide to Galaxy, you would have heard that he received an award for designing the Broken Coastline, full of Fjords, of Norway, when they designed the Supercomputer called Earth to find the Ultimate Question to Answer (Meaning of life). Now having been to the Fjords myself, I can say that maybe he really deserves such an award even if was reality. Such a wonder, these Fjords are... Truly amazing!

To read more, Please Click HERE or go to my Travel Blog.

For Photos, click HERE

Wanna scratch you head?

Here is a hot online game(well.. dont get any ideas !! :), which was brought to my attention by a good friend and fellow blogger.
http://n.nfshost.com/1.html
Well.. at first it looks silly.. But what you see is th clue to next level...
Hints: After a level, if you think you are stuck, try modiying the URL to get to the next level.. Thats the mantra of this game... There might be visible clues, invisible clues, hidden clues and many more... So nalla Mandai-Odanjax (loose translation for Go bang your head)

Sail Boat experience

Summer is the time you would want to be in Norway :) Nice weather and Good sunlight lets you do lots of fun activities in the evenings after work and in the weekends. and July is the Vacation time. Even some shops close for Summer vacations. Thats quite a contrast to many other places.
One of the evenings on a weekday, we had been on a sailing trip with some colleagues who are good in sailing and all the Summer Interns for a Team Building excercise. We split up in 2 boats which are owned by 2 of our colleagues. The boat where I sailed in, was owned by an expert sailor who has travelled around the world ( I mean a complete circle around the world) in his sail boat for 4 years. That is quite impressive. He gave us some basic tips about the sail boat structure and how to use the Main sail and the auxillary sail named Genova and booms to line up with the wind and use the wind speed to go faster. Then he let us work in teams to figure out how to sail into the wind and also with wind on the side and then how to make turns or tack, as it is called in sailing terminology, by shifting the sails from one side of the boat to the other side using the sail ropes. It was a great experience. Since he is an engineer, he also gave us some insights into the fluid dynamics of the wind around the sail which makes it move forward.
It was a pretty interesting trip. I also got to steer the boat for sometime and it felt great to be the sailor. I wonder how it must have felt for him to be on the boat for so long in the seas and then hopping on to many islands along the way. Its so fascinating to read about Travel advntures and I cant imagine how he must have felt about this. He told us he took 2-3 years just for preparation for his Around the world in 4 years trip.
We stopped on a small island to relax and have some food and drinks and then we used to Motor to get back to get back to Oslo. For a first timer on a small sailing boat, it was a wonderful trip for me and weather was just perfect and made it memorable.

Click here for more photos.

Need a laugh?

After so much of serious football, if you need a laugh read this post from a friend of mine.
http://maduraiarian.blogspot.com/2006/07/everybodys-writing-football-why-not-me.html
The questions from a Non-football fan or Non-Sports fan... If you can answer his queries... :)

Au Revoir Zi Zou...

What a sad way to end one's glorious career!!! Head-butt someone and pick up a card and in the process walk away from glory, a certain glory which he could have easily acheived like he acheived so many championships with great ease. He lifted the spirits of the whole team and the nation and made them beleive in their team and their abilities only to throw it all away in a moment of madness. Why did he do it?? Why .. why.. why??? Couldnt he have just shut his ears off to that Frikkin Italian guy's chattering..?? I take back my comparison of Zidane to God, which I had mentioned in my previous post, as he proved that he is nothing but a mortal...
I feel so sad for him and yet can't accept that he actually head butted someone in the finals of the world cup. His Momentary madness cost him and his team so badly. I am sure the Italian guy provoked him to such an extent that he just lost his cool. The ref. wasnt any better in the game. So many times he turned a blind eye to what was happening on the pitch, when all of the italian defense was all over zidane and roughing him up. But Italians did what they always do the best. Just sit back and defend and wait for the other team to make a mistake and make the best of the situation. They did win it fair and square alright. Congrats to them and for many of their players, this is their trump card for their Pardon for all the cheating and match-fixing they did in their league.
Materazzi will always be remembred as the bad guy who effectively sent off Zidane from the game.. and Zidane will always be remembered for the great player he is, yet walking away from the glory and away from the World cup as one of the TV replay showed him walking with his head down and looking away from the trophy and disappearing into the tunnel. That was a poignant and symbolic moment of this worldcup which will haunt him to his death. What a player and what an end!.. Certainly, not the end he wished for and neither did his fans.. Just one of the bad incidents on the field.. Mr. Cool losing his cool in the Most important game of his career.. Shit Happens...
I was watching in a pub which was packed with both side fans who were waving their flags proudly and singing their Anthems. French fans were going crazy until this incident happened and then there was just absolute silence. Nobody knew how to react and what to do. Sorry guys.. You were robbed off your victory by the indecent action of a certain Italian guy and Most stupid reaction from your captain.
I still can't digest what happened and maybe tommorrow, I will wake up and move on.. But what will I do tommorrow? Everyday, for the last one month, I always had a game to look forward to and now it seems like I have fallen into an Hopeless Abyss.. Both teams I supported so vociferously just lost out. One team didnt play to their potential and lost and other one surprised everyone by reaching the finals and lost out because of a single moment of madness from their Captain, Marshall and Leader. I will just have to forget about this and wait for 2010.

P.S1: I took this pic from this website.. To read their full-story on this please click here

P.S2: If you are still speculating why zidane may have done what he did.. read this..More speculations..
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,28783-2263995,00.html

Azzuri Victory

I didn't quite expect a thrilling encounter between Germany and Italy. Seems like they both play a very attacking game of football, which every fan wants ofcourse, especially when they are in search of a goal rather than trying to defend a goal advantage. Thats when the coach brings in an extra defender in place of a forward and then the whole game becomes extremely boring to watch. But this game was really interesting with both teams attacking and taking shots at goal. Italy on couple of occasions came so close that Woodwork denied their goals. But in the end they were deserved winners with couple of really good goals.
So one finalist is decided. Whos going ot be the next? I so cant wait to see the Fracne - Portugal game tonight. Its going to be very interesting or atleast I hope that it will be so.

Some history and Coincidences...

Euro 2000 in Holland...
Semi-Final 1 - Italy Vs Host Holland with Italians winning on Penalty Shootout... (*Except this time it was Host Germany)
Semi-Final 2 - France Vs Portugal with France winning with a Golden Goal by the God Zidane himself...

Finals: France Vs Italy and France won with 2 late goals from Wiltord and Trezeguet and Zidane was voted the player of Tournament...

Can History repeat itself?? We will wait and see... Atleast Italy are through.. We have to wait for France or Hope for France to get through to Finals... Both teams still have many players from their 2000 squad playing current team.

A Happy day for Indian Cricket :)

After drowning in sorrow in the wake of Brazil's deserved defeat to the Much better French 'Les Blues' team, this news is something to cheer for.. Atlast after 20 something years Indian cricket has finally won a test series outside Indian Sub-continent.. Isnt that great?? Again the Unpenetrable Wall of Indian cricket, Rahul Dravid - the Indian Cricket captain, leading from the front with 2 half centuries made it possible. After the controversies surrounding Ganguly's exit and all the drama and the media criticisms, Dravid has finally lead the team to Series victory which none of the captains in recent past could acheive. Hail India and sing praise for Dravid... the unsung hero on most occasions standing up to the challenge everytime India needs him to deliver. This has more than made up for Brazil's loss for me..

Sad day for Brazilian Football

It was so sad to see the mighty brazilians just go down so tamely. A team filled with stars and worth more than any other team on paper and also on bank accounts, but unfortuntely just didnt gell so well as a team and didnt play much like they were supposed to. Then again they lost respectfully to a much better team in a game, which was not marred by any bad incident or bad ref. decisions. It was a graceful exit for the brazilians well scripted by the Master himself, the one and only Zidane. There is a saying that 'Wine only gets better with age'. and theres another that When a tiger is cornered, all it can do is bounce back with a mighty growl. So did Zidane.. All the criticisms against this Geriatric, but highly experienced French team, pegged them back on to the wall and the only option was to fight back. Fight back they did, but with great spirit and some wonderful football. Its just Zidane and Viera at their best and Henry with his clinical finishes. If they continue this way, I dont see any Portugal, Italy or Germany stopping them. Personally I wouldnt like the blue eyed italian sissies winning it, cos they are just cheaters and they also play a very boring game. Germans are Ok with a decently attacking team, but just not as good as this Resurgent French team. Portugal seems to be getting better and especially if the game goes to Penalties, I have no doubt esp. after Ricardo showed England that he can block anything. I expect a very boring First Semi between Italy and Germany and a very exciting attacking game of football between France and Portugal. I would like Zidane to announce his retirement with the Cup in his hand as the Captain of the Winning team. Go Blues...

P.S: Remember, in 4 years time, the trophy will be back in Brazil with Ronaldhinho...

Allez les Blues!

Allez les Blues.. Allez les Blues.. That seemed to be the chant all over the stadium once the game was over and doubts put to rest by the most graceful footballer in the current era.. A finishing touch by the Maestro put spain out of their misery and booked a place for France in the Quarters against Brazil. For Spain, Its a series of continuous misery. They just cant seem to proceed ahead in the Knockout stages and the sadness continues. They had such a good team and good budding stars, but didnt help against a great team with proven winners, though fading.
Even I didnt like the way France was playing in the first round, but they seem to have found their old winning ways once Zidane is back in action. Oh.. What a player.. He is the Grace at large, Mark Waugh of Football and the most lazily elegant football you can find.. and he played like one yesterday. Every touch of his almost created an opportunity for a goal. Spain had many but they wasted their chances. One thing that would bother me was the way Henry faked to get the Freekick which resulted in the winning goal for France. Poor Carlos Puyol.. he had to get a card for nothing and France got through... I didnt expect Henry to do this... but in the end France won..

Well what now.. France meets Brazil.. Another classic encounter with both teams finiding their magical tough.. replay of 1998 finals... Brazil would like to avenge their defeat 8 years ago which robbed them of 3 consecutive WCs and France would like to give Zidane the best possible retirement gift.. and I am still supporting Brazil.. Too bad for France.. Wish they met Brazil in the Finals.. So the World cup gets more exciting .. Ger Vs Arg, Bra Vs Fra Eng Vs Por .. what a classic encounters all of these... VIV LA BRAZIL....

Buffet's Generosity

Did you guys hear about Warren Buffet's generous donation to charity?? Just 85% of his Personal assets, which runs in billions of dollars, go towards charity and most of it to Gates Foundation. isnt that amazing?? What kind of a person would do that? He said he doesnt beleive in inheritance.. So he doesnt want to leave so much of his smoney for his kids.... Cool guy, i would say..

Good Show Socceroos

Too bad for Ozzies that they had to lose out to lackluster Blue eyed Pretty boys who fake injuries and fall in the box just to get ref's attention.. Poor Ozzies, after putting up a fantastic display had to lose out on a Spot kick in the last minute of the game. It was a total heart break for them... then again materazzi's foul was not so bad that it deserved sending off. Both teams had so many chances, one italian was a good actor whereas none of Ozzies could manage to pull of a fake fall like he did to get a penalty kick. Well.. all said and done, at the end of the day if you dont score, when you get a chance you just have to wait for your luck to win it and luck may desert you at the very last moment just like it deserted the Socceroos today... Well now Italy even with their substandard display can easily beat Ukr or Swiss to get into Semis easily.. Germany vs Arg will be a classic replay of their 90' Finals when Lothar Mathaus, present coach Klinsmann and Co. beat maradona's argentina... Just cant wait to see that... and tommorrow is Brazil's game with Ghana.. Hopefully Brazil should breeze through to Quarters ...

Football mania

Yipeee.. finally its here.. After a long wait of 4 years, World Cup football is back in action with the best of the best fighting it out for the most coveted trophy in the world. I beleive the FIFA World cup finals is the only sporting event watched by most number of people in this planet, although the americans would claim the same for SuperBowl. If the World were just the US of A( as it is often joked about them), then their claim would be true.
The Entire world is going crazy over football and so is Norway. Every pub/bar/cafe is busy with Television sets showing this Mega event. There is a even a big screen close to the Pier called Aker Brygge. Lots and lots of fans come here and watch the game on big screen where they also sell drinks. Its amazing atmosphere here watching the games with so many people, just like watching cricket or football in big screen in besant nagar beach or watching formula one in the Forum Mall in Bangalore.
There are so many diferent people here living in Norway from different countries supporting their teams. So its a great experience watching the games with fans supporting their countries. On Odd occasions you can see tempers flaring up between two country fans or small fight between two drunken fans. But its cool. I watched the Brazil Vs Socceroos game here and the whole place was full of yellow and green.
Needless to say, I was also wearing a Brazil Yellow Jersey except that I was wearing a wrong shirt, Ronaldo instead of Ronaldhinho. Ronaldo looks like a spent force with nothing to prove and absolutely no motivation to play out his 5th world cup. Hope someone kicks his ass and gets his game to very top and lead from the front. So you can see, I am very busy with Football. Between Work, Football, Food and Sleep, I just dont have time for anything else until this event ends...
So until then Adios - amigos and Senoritas, Au Revoir, Ciao and Shukriya and Nanri... Catch you all in July... Hopefully I will still be wearing a Yellow Jersey celebrating the Brazil's 6th World Cup victory...

P.S: One question I always get from many people here is : India is the second in Population and you still cant field a good team in the top 32 to compete in World Cup?? Someone Please answer this question for me.. I hope someday India will also compete on this level.. Until then I will support the samba boys..

Squishy... Squishy...

Only Nemo and Dori are missing.. :) .

This was taken from my boat trip during part of my field testing related to job offcoast Bergen in the west coast of Norway. Nice trip, it was. Will write about it someother time. Now is the time for watching football... Go Brazil.. go

Another sad day in Indian History

I hope there doesnt come a day in the future when you sit and wonder.. Jeez what went wrong.. and then you go back in time and see the stupid decisions made by such stupid Blood sucking, money minded, conniving theives, who call themselves Politicians that serve the people of India...
This is an excerpt of the Interview given Arjun Singh to Karan Thappar brought to my attention by one of my friend.. Thappar rocks..

Karan Thapar: Let’s approach the issue of reservations differently in that case. Reservations mean that a lesser-qualified candidate gets preference over a more qualified candidate, solely because in this case, he or she happens to be an OBC. In other words, the upper castes are being penalised for being upper caste.
Arjun Singh: Nobody is being penalised and that is a factor that we are trying to address. I think that the prime Minister will be talking to all the political parties and will be putting forward a formula, which will see that nobody is being penalised.
Karan Thapar: I want very much to talk about that formula, but before we come to talk about how you are going to address concerns, let me point one other corollary - Reservations also gives preference and favour to caste over merit. Is that acceptable in a modern society?
Arjun Singh: I don't think the perceptions of modern society fit India entirely.
Karan Thapar: You mean India is not a modern society and therefore can't claim to be treated as one?
Arjun Singh: It is emerging as a modern society, but the parameters of a modern society do not apply to large sections of the people in this country.
Karan Thapar: Let me quote to you Jawaharlal Nehru, a man whom you personally admire enormously. On the 27th of June 1961 wrote to the Chief Ministers of the day as follows: I dislike any kind of reservations. If we go in for any kind of reservations on communal and caste basis, we will swamp the bright and able people and remain second rate or third rate. The moment we encourage the second rate, we are lost. And then he adds pointedly: This way lies not only folly, but also disaster. What do you say to Jawaharlal Nehru today?
Arjun Singh: Jawaharlal Nehru was a great man in his own right and not only me, but everyone in India accept his view.
Karan Thapar: But you are just about to ignore his advice.
Arjun Singh: No. Are you aware that it was Jawaharlal Nehru who introduced the first ammendment regarding OBCs?
Karan Thapar: Yes, and I am talking about Jawaharlal Nehru in 1961, when clearly he had changed his position, he said - I dislike any kind of reservations.
Arjun Singh: I don't think one could take Panditji's position at any point of time and then overlook what he had himself initiated.
Karan Thapar: Am I then to understand that regardless of the case that is made against reservations in terms of need, regardless of the case that has been made against reservations in terms of efficacy, regardless of the case that has been made against reservations in terms of Jawaharlal Nehru, you remain committed to extending reservations to the OBCs.
Arjun Singh: I said because that is the will of Parliament. And I think that common decisions that are taken by Parliament have to be honoured.

To read the Full interview, which you must in my opinion.... CLICK HERE

Eddies in Space-Time Continuum

Eddy who?? whats he doing in Space-Time continuum?? What the hell is space- time continnum?? What the frikin hell is continnum anyways?? ahem.. ahem... Who cares...
I have been re-reading the master work HHGTG - 5 series novel by Genius Douglas Adams.. Hence the title inspired from that....
Was watching this Romantic comedy "Kate and Leopold" on TV. Now dont ask me why am I watching such Tear Jerkers or Chick flicks... and why the second post on a such kind of movies.. When you live in a place, where you dont have much of a choice to see English Programmes, you have to put up with what you get.. evening movies that incl. the 3 hours epic Titanic.. Pity me... buhu.. buhu..
Well anyways.. In the movie, a guy travels back in time , not using a time-machine unlike most of the Time travel movies, but due to the Gap in the Time Field... I thought that was pretty interesting concept for a romantic movie and got me very interested in the movie. So a guy travels back and forth between 18th and 20th century by falling off Brooklyn Bridge. Apparently, thats where there is a GAP in Time field or Domain(if you want to gt very geeky). So he can jump off that bridge in the 20th century and land on the ground in 18th century and vice-versa.
Now call it a Black hole or Worm hole or Eddies or Currents in the Space-Time Continuum as Douglas Adams likes to call it.
Isnt that prety interesting to stand in one place on Earth(itself an insignificant part of the whole universe) and then just travel back and forth in time to see how this particular location would be in different time periods?? Wouldnt it be amazing to see the history of that place and how it evolved into the present and how the future shapes it?? all this w/o needing to invent a time machine... and all this is just One-dimensional travel.. Time travel and space coordinates fixed...
What would be even more interesting is to travel in multi-dimensional Time-Space coordinates.. But I am not sure if we can comprehend how it will be... Like for instance travel from one place in the present to go to a different place in the past through several different places in-between the present and past... I would go nuts if even to imagine such a phenomenon... But wouldnt it be amazing just to "fall and fly" and then catch this train journey through the Gap in the Time Domain by falling onto the right spot and then keep traveling .... Seems like a fantasy.... Seems like you are on ecstasy.. Is it really so?? I dunno... What d'ya think?? Lemme know if there is a real time gap in the brooklyn Bridge, I can risk my life for such an experience even if its One-D Time travel.... :)
P.S: Oh.. Space-time geeks(Scientists incl.)... Pardon me, for such reckless usage of High level Geeky words like Worm Holes and Black holes and Eddies and even Space-time w/o understanding them properly... then again they are just some english words to me and I can use them how I want to, depending on my understanding of those words, which may or may not be the same as what your dictionary says... So Sc*** you if you ve got any problems with it.. :-D)

Homer Simpson - The Philosopher

Homer Simpson rocks... and so does Bart.. :)
Check out this article on BBC

I love the Simpsons....
Forever the 10 year old kid... the Kid who never grows up... the bratty bart....

and zimbly amazing Homer...
his funky hairstyle (just 2 strands of hair) and the efforts he takes to maintain it that way, his totally cool and awesome lifestyle - sitting in front of TV with a beer can and doughnuts and creating craters on the sofa bcos of his big fat ass... well..well.. If you havent watched Simpson, you aint lived your life.. well thats just a phrase which sounded nice... So dont take it too serious and argue with me on it.. Just read what BBC has to say and post some nice comments about Homer and Bart... or else "Eat my shorts"

London Trip - April, 2006

Time line: April 1st and 2nd, 2006

Took my own sweet time to write this ... Infact the previous post on Lord's Cricket ground should be associated with this post...

Another training and another weekend to spare.. where to go... when the training is in Milton Keynes, UK and an hour away from London, there wasnt much of a debate there... to London obviously...

Highlights of the trip... Saw the Aston Martin Workshop from the outside on a dull and rainy evening in Milton Keynes, Big Ben and the House of parliaments, Lord's Cricket Ground and Baker Street... if you have played the board game called "Scotland yard" you will be even more excited to follow the map and make your way through the Undergrounds and buses to get to your destination quickly in London...

To read the complete Travelog, CLICK HERE

Photos of my London trip

Photos of my guided tour to Lord's Cricket ground

Recent Late-night Anti-Bush Jokes :-o)

Did you guys hear about the Stephen Colbert's Speech at White House Correspondent's Dinner... I watched the video on the net and it was damn funny. Check that out...

"Best of all, I got to meet my main man, George W. Bush. I shook his hand -- very soft hands by the way. ... I delivered the closing speech. Needless to say the audience could not contain its excitement [showed footage of the audience looking bored]. ... Very respectful silence. The crowd practically carried me out on their shoulders. Although I wasn't actually ready to leave." --Stephen Colbert, at the White House Correspondents' dinner

On Faith-based initiatives: "When President Bush was in New Orleans, he said 'We pray there is no hurricane coming this year.' This is what we call faith-based disaster planning." --Jay Leno

"President Bush says he wants to find alternative sources of energy. He says they're looking towards solar power. In fact, he and Rumsfeld are planning an invasion of the sun." --Jay Leno

"President Bush introduced former Fox broadcaster Tony Snow as the new White House Press Secretary. See, this is the perfect example of wasteful government spending. I mean, why is the president paying someone to join his staff and tow the party line when he was doing it on Fox for free?" --Jay Leno

"At a press conference, President Bush introduced his new press secretary Tony Snow, and the president said, this is a quote, 'His job is to help explain my decisions to the American people.' Yeah, then Bush turned to Snow and said, 'Good luck, you poor bastard.'" --Conan O'Brien

"It's been announced that White House adviser Karl Rove will not be creating the day-to-day policy for the president anymore. You all know Karl Rove, he's the man they call Bush's brain. No, that's what they call him, Bush's brain. Now he's only going to be working part of the time, just like Bush's brain." --Jay Leno

and just one more... :)

"Republicans in Congress are demanding that President Bush investigate whether oil companies are now gouging consumers on these gas prices. That's a good idea, Republicans asking Republicans to investigate other Republicans. And you know who they're going to blame? The Democrats." --Jay Leno

These are just select few jokes picked from the following website which regularly updates with jokes from all the late-night comedy shows...
http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/bldailyfeed3.htm

Tidbits from TV

Did you guys watch CNN International's 'The End of AIDS' - Talk show by Dr. Sanja Gupta featuring Former US President Bill Clinton?? Did you notice the lady sitting behind him?? It looked to me like Hot Property - Vasundara Das from Hey Ram. As always she looked hot.. :)
Did you guys hear about the recent stunt from the Man from texas... Dubya... He and his lookalike had lots of fun in some presidential dinner at Washington. Dubya standing on the podium with his lookalike, who is poking fun at Dubya's scholastic skills in in English. What has the world come to?? Dubya is actually poking fun at himself, in front of his own crowd in Washington?? I should say, it was a bit funny.. those jokes.. Among the two, who do you think was "The Decider" :-o) there? Take a guess... Looks like Karl Rove is doing his job well... Tring to get some attention before the Mid-term elections... Something like President Clinton appearing on Jay Leno show and playing Guitar and singing a song to catch the Youth's attention when he ran for his second term... What do u make out of this?? His popularity is going to increase bcos of this stunt?? I say he has set some standards which no future president can even dare to dream of.. I mean how low can u stoop down than our own Dubya??

Paris trip - March, 2006

Bon Jour.. Mesdames et Messieurs..
I am just very lazy when it comes to new posts and this sorto post takes quite sometime to put together... Finally, I have logged my trip to paris a month back...

Timeline: March 4th week, 2006

I had a great time this week. Last time when I came to attend a training, I had very little time to explore this wonderful city. But this time around, I had plenty of time to walk around and see some of the famous monuments in Paris and just roam the streets of Paris, hop on and hop off the Metros and RER's(Fast trains) from Point A to Point B. It was just fascinating, that you can go anywhere with very little difficulty with just the help of a map. Its like a dream come true, though I really never dreamed so much of visiting Paris, dunno why and pls. dont ask me, why not. Def. Heard from friends and read in a few books, but being there and seeing it, was totally a different experience.

Veni, Vidi, Felix Sum... (rough translated as I came, I saw and I am happy).. Blame google, if this translation is wrong :-o)

Let me try to summarize my visit in Chronological order...

Read on....

Check out for more photos HERE

My Best Friend's Wedding

Well... this is not about my best friend(s) or his/her wedding. This is about the movie which goes by the same name. Again this is not a review or critic. The movie had two gorgeous women (Cameron Diaz and Julia Roberts) which basically tempted me to watch the entire movie flipping the channel between the Champions League game between Aresenal and Villareal. I started focussing more on the movie after it was clear that Arsenal were going to Win.
I thought it was pretty interesting movie. Two women going for the same man kind of story. Just in case if you havent watched it, Julia and the guy were going together in the past but then remained closest friends. Then the guy falls in love with Cameron Diaz and they both decide to get married. But Julia after a long gap suddenly finds her in a position that her best friend is being stolen away from her and she also realises that she actually loves him. So she is making desperate attempts to stop the wedding at any cost, but in the end just gives up and lives with the fact that she was just too late to realise that she actually fell in love with him.
Now comes the point of my blogging about this. I agree it was more hollywood and dramatical, but in reality do people realise that they actually love something only when they lose it/him/her the most(I know this cannot be generalized)?? Like in this case the women had the guy all ga-ga over her in the past, but she was just happy to be his friend and nothing more. In a casual conversation with a friend of mine, he was saying that women, when they date guys dont want to commit, but want to keep their options open, sort of like window shopping. Maybe there is a better guy outthere. Some I heard even handle 2 or 3 guys at the same time, by calling them friends. It was his opinion from his personal experiences perhaps. But interesting thing is, when the same woman finds the guy taken away from her, then she realises how badly she likes him and how much she wants him. There is another point of view that most Indian women always start things with guys as good friends. They somehow find this very comfortable to start with. But does this phenomenon lead to a stage that they actually become close friends and then suddenly something tells her that how can u go for a guy who is your closest friend. Ofcourse I have seen the cases where 2 very good friends have ended up being together and things have worked out too. So I am not trying to generalize, but merely trying to see what other people think about this situation.
What I am wondering is that, is it human nature which common to both men and women or is it more feminine charecteristic?? I know its kinda silly post to even talk about this. But consider this as a Tea-time or Coffee table talk over a coffee table with your friends and post your opinions or comments about the same. You could go anonymous if you want to share personal experience and dont want to be public with it. I would def. love to hear the opinions from the fairer sex on this.

My trip to Luxembourg

After so much of confusion and indecision, I finally made the decision of buying the train tickets to Brussels from Paris upon my friend's insistance. He was nice enough to offer me a ride in his car from Brussels to Luxembourg and back to Brussels, in time, so I can catch my train back to paris. After lot of considerations, what if my plane gets delayed, what if there are strikes in France (which is so common these days!) and lots of other what ifs, I booked my tickets in Thalys for the TGV train from Paris airport to Brussels.
I was quite excited to make this trip. I was traveling in a TGV and average speed of that train is about 250 kmph which is almost double the speed limit in most highways except Autobahn in Germany where there is no speedlimit . I know I sound like a small kid out of rural village saying 'oh. thats a train. I would like to go on one of those'. That was precisely my feeling back then about TGV. I realised the high speed only after we zooming past a few cars in the adjacent freeway or motorway(however u call it).
After reaching brussels, I went and parked at my Friend's colleague's place for the night. Just went out for a couple of hours in Brussels city late in the evening, but did not get enough time to see the city properly. Old and typical European buildings, Some palaces and Museums in the city center are the main attractions. It was quite amazing that they have about 3 languages spoken there and most official business is done in 2 or 3 languages (French, German and Dutch). Just had enough time to walk the streets for an hour or so and headed back.
Next day, we started early to Luxembourg. Having lost the way initially and losing some time enroute, we finally reached luxembourg. As lonely planet describes, it is a tiny country on the map with not enough space to contain the letters of its name. Considering the size, you can easily travel north to south or east to west of the country in about 2 hours time. As expected it was a very beautiful city. We took the map and started making our way through the streets, full of fellow tourists. We went to a old Fortress which consisted of 2-3 levels and long corridor which was mainly a hiding place and a bomb shelter during the WW2 from the German attack. We then walked the market place and saw the Grand palace from outside and a few old cathedrals.
We were then told that there was a beautiful old Castle in a place called 'Vianden', an hour's drive from Luxembourg city. The drive through the country side was the most fascinating part. Those Valleys and Lushgreen countryside was very picturesque. Maybe it seemed even more so, bcos I was just starving for a change from snow. However the Castle trip didn't let us down. It was a very beautiful Medieval Castle with lots of old artifacts and armours, swords etc etc. We went inside and on to the top and got a good view of the entire areas surrounding it. They also lots of Wineyards nearby that area. Thanks to my friend, we were back to Brussels intime for me to catch my train back to Paris.
Click HERE for more Photos

Home of Cricket

I assume it must be every cricketer`s dream to play for his country and to play at Lord`s Cricket Ground some day. Just for the same reason, it must be every cricket fan`s fantasy to watch his team win at Lord`s. Well I got pretty close, except that noone was playing and tt was open for Public Viewing.
Yes... I went to Lord`s Cricket Ground and..My god.. It was a great feeling to be Up Close and Personal with the Lord`s Lushgreen Outfield where many a great cricketing heroes have stamped their authority. Well this is how my trip goes...

As an ardent cricket fan I had to make a trip to the two of the great cricket grounds in London city, the Lord`s and the Kennington Oval. I couldn`t get a sneakpeak of Oval ground bcos the security wouldn't allow me inside. But I found out that they have a Guided Tour of Lord`s ground in the Off-season. Its an hour and half and it covers almost all the parts of the ground. Off I went and bought a ticket to catch a glimpse of Cricket History and enter my name in the guestbook of the Lord`s.

First we were taken to the Pavilion and into the Visiting team`s Changing room. It is the same room where the visiting team uses when they play any game against England or the Host team(if its a World cup game), however the case maybe. It was just great feeling to be in that room. There were couple of boards which carried the names of Visiting team Batsmen who scored centuries at Lord`s and Bowlers who took 5`s and 10`s. Saw some of the familiar names on that board. The room led us to the Visiting team balcony. It was a Grand view of the ground from there. Its the same balcony where Kapil`s Devils celebrated their 83` World Cup Victory and where Saurav did his Famous Strip tease and thumped his barechest after beating England to clinch the Natwest trophy in 2001. Many a great cricketing moments come to my mind right now related this same balcony.
After taking a couple of snaps, we were taken to the Museum of Lord`s where the Prudential World Cup, Famous Ashes Urn and the Recently won Ashes Crystal cup and also the Diana Memorial Cup are preserved. I also saw framed photographs of some of the great moments of Cricket like Kapil Dev's Famous 4 sixes against England to avoid follow-on, Brian Lara's Wagon Wheel when he scored Record 375, Original Scoresheet of Indian's Victory against West Indies in the World Cup '83 and several others.

Then we were taken to the side stands to get a closer look at the ground.


Later we went to the Media center end and got a closer look at the outfield from there and then we went upto the top of the Media center. There were 2 levels, one for the Journalists and other for the Commentators. It was much like the Media Center at Aggie Football stadium at Texas A&M with many small rooms for different channels(Closest I can think of in Comparison - then again not trying to compare these 2 gounds. That would be a sin). We were breifed about the Design and planning of this Odd Space ship like structure. Infact it is just an inverted Hull of a ship which was actually contsructed by a shipyard company in England. So many times we have seen the view of the ground from this center on TV, but it was a different feeling to be there to see it. Then we came down and we were shown the practise ground where players usually practise before the start of the game. Finally before we left, I signed the Guestbook, the same book where the 'Pigeon'- Glenn Mcgrath had also signed.

For More photos Click HERE

Some Tips: Nearest Undergrounds: St. John's Wood or Baker Street. I suggest Go to baker Street and take a Bus.
Timings for Guided tours: http://www.lords.org/lords-ground/tours/

March Madness ... !!! :-o)

If you are an ardent basketball fan and expected to read about NCAA basketball I am terribly sorry :-o). I just borrowed the term as it sounds cool. Anyways this March has been totally crazy for me. First I moved into my new apartment and had to settle down with all my stuff in my not so big but centrally located apartment in the City of Oslo. Needless to say, that my House is a total mess right now. I still need to do tons of work cleaning up and arranging and re-arranging stuff which I haven't gotten around to, yet.
Then comes the best part.. I had a couple of training programs to attend. Guess where?? One in Paris and One near London :) My last week to Paris was so hectic that I barely got a chance to go around the beautiful city of Paris. This time around I had lots of time and an excellent company to tour paris(You wouldnt believe if I said We had people from pretty much from each continent except Australia and that in a small group of 10 or so). I had 2 weekends and the weekdays in between. 4 days went off for training, but we still got the evenings to ourselves and the Friday off-work. So thats a lot of time to see paris.

First weekend I went to Brussels upon my friends invitation and from there he took me to
Beautiful Country/City of Luxembourg. Tiny as it may seem on a map, it was really picturesque. The city had lot of history and also the country has some of the oldest castles. We also visited one of those. I didnt have much time to go around Brussels though.

Then back in Paris, I was able to visit almost all of the main tourist attractions and enjoy the most beautiful and romantic city in leisure using the Metro trains and buses and ofcourse 'with a little help from my friends'. I will blog about each of these trips seperately with some pictures taken later.

Following week I had to attend another training program in Milton Keynes, an hour or so from London city. Very calm and nice place, it was. Come weekend, I went to London and stayed right in the dead center of city, Piccadily circus. I found out later that it is the most happening place on a saturday night in London where all night clubs and famous pubs are located. Got lucky I guess, but at a high price(Had to shell out close to 50 pounds for a room/night with shared failities and it was the cheapest I could find.. ridiculus maximus!!). Got to see many a famous places incl. the Lord's Cricket ground (which was on top of my list), 221 Baker street (which actually doesn't exist !), Former house of H.G.Wells on Baker Street, palace, Big Ben and all that. But couldnt find time to knock on 10 Downing street or to see the Famous London Tower Bridge(I feel like an ass for having missed out on this). Also did the Famous Open top London Bus tour(which I feel is very overrated and not cost effective). I felt more comfortable taking a map and using the underground to go different places. Anyways Will Blog in detail later. Never thought touring is so easy in such big cities esp. when you are single.

I am still on a floating high from the last 3 weekends. I am not sure if it was from the sheer thrill of seeing these places or just excessive French Wines and Warm English Beer from London(Asterix takes a dig at British for drinking their beer warm:-). After such a hectic touring (or should I say official touring!), I am back in Oslo in the middle of an extended never ending winter which is just not giving away to Spring. I miss the wonderful and Sunny weather from Paris and London :(. But snow is slowly melting now and thats a welcome sight for me. Spring is coming.. yee..haw.... Watch for more travelogs..

Of Commas, and Dots...

Why do we really need punctuation marks to convey our message? Most of time I am more comfortable writing without any of those commas and fullstops.. but more generous with my dots which I think is more cool than just one dot for a fullstop.. Why does the language have to be so complicated so that we lose the meaning if the commas and dots dont fall in the right places? Why do we need them at all?? For instance I ve pretty much managed so far without the dots and commas but then again I have not written anything so complicated that it will lose its meaning if I dont include these marks... I frikkin hate them... Again there is no standard way of using also.. In the US you will find that USD 4,000.00 means that it is 4 thousand dollars and Zero cents... The same amount has to be written as 4.000,00 in Europe ... Isnt that crazy?? Anyways now that you ve come this far you can put commas and dots as you wish and decipher this code .... Watch out for more Travelogs to come...

Sledging

Sledging is lot of fun. Not the sledging between players in sports, but Snow Sledging. It was a small sledge where one person can sit and go down a hill packed with snow(see pic). Last sunday was fantastisk with Bright and Sunny day and perfect for outdoor activities. Getting used to the idea of sitting on a sledge and going downhill at reasonably high speeds negating some dangerous turns and quite a lot of dangerous bumps was bit of a challenge. After couple of trips we sort of figured out how to steer the sledge in steep turns and to avoid hitting fellow sledgers.

Since it hadn't snowed for couple of weeks the course was more of hard packed snow than fresh snow. So sledge picked up speed very fast as you go down hill and those bumps were very dangerous for our Bums. We almost fell off the sledges few times, but it was total fun. Plan to do some more this weekend with lot of fresh snow and also try snowboarding.

Cosmo Kramer - The Assman

I was watching 'Seinfeld - Merv Griffin Show' yesterday night and I decided to dedicate atleast one of my blogger posts to the Legendary 'Cosmo Kramer' a.k.a Dr. Van Nostrand.

There are 2 types of people in this world, among those who regularly watch sitcoms. They are Seinfeld fans and Friends fans. If you are a die-hard Friends fan, there is still a possibility of appreciating Seinfled and become a seinfeld fan. But once you become a Seinfeld fan, you will probably never become a fan of any other sitcom. Guess its the Famous Seinfeld curse, which extends to its fans also and not just the actors.

Well, coming back to Merv Griffin Show, its just simply amazing the way Cosmo Kramer character picks up the old furnitures and Tv-show setup from the trash and creates a Virtual talk show environment in his own house and invites people(ofcourse his neighbours and friends) to participate in his fantasy. I just love this character 'Kramer' and his Kramerisms(his signature sliding in act when he enters Jerry's house is my numero uno). He is the life of the entire show. I can't even imagine Seinfeld w/o kramer(well i can extend that to every main character :-o). Such is the genius of Michael Richards who brought this character to life.
Kramer and his fantasies, his new and bizzare money generating ideas like collecting cans for recycling in Michigan state or Coffee table book and so many others just makes you think, if this character were in the real world how wierdly creative he would have been.

To sum it all up, Goerge describes Kramer's lifestyle in episode - The visa

"Kramer goes to a fantasy camp..??. His whole life is a fantasy camp. People should plunk down two-thousand dollars to live like him for a week. Do nothing, fall ass-backwards into money, mooch food off your neighbors, and have sex without dating. *That's* a fantasy camp!"

Hail the genius of Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, for having created Cosmo Kramer !

Love actually is all around you

Well.. that was the tagline for a stupid but funny, bollywood type romantic comedy which Sumit(my friend and ex-roomie) would call a total chick flick. And here I am writing my review for this movie in another one of my Boring posts, which completely lacks imagination and creativity. Oh.. wat the hell... I need to update my blog with something.
I was surprised to see such a heavy weight cast which incl. liam neeson, hugh grant, colin firth, emma thomson and so and so forth...
The film started out to be just yet another romantic comedy which wouldnt make sense in real life. Totally stupid at times and very loose story line with lot of loopholes and many things unexplained. But in the end, i really felt good after watching this movie. So I would say its a feel good movie. As usual High grant being the king of such Romantic english comedies takes the lead role and also that of the narrator. He always gets lucky with his dialogues in many of his movies, catchy and funny at times. But I liked Chick who plays his assistant. She was Sexy and Chubby. I especially liked Mark(Friend of married couple)'s character.

Message was very simple - No matter wat, Love is all around you. Something that is definitely needed with so much violence all around the world. Didnt mean to end in a philoshical way, but it just happened.

So if you havent watched the movie yet, I suggest its a good timepass and you wouldnt regret watching it.

Sexual Harassment in Indian Court of law

http://us.rediff.com/news/2006/feb/13guest.htm?q=tp&file=.htm

Can you beleive this? Sexual harassment right in the middle of the Court of Law. How low can the judge stoop down to? I sincerely feel sorry for this Lady lawyer. Only goes to show that Our judicial system, a corrupt system heavily influenced by Money and Politics, needs a big revamp.

Letters

Oh.. boy. doesnt it feel good to make contact with those old friends from good ol' school days... ?? ... Out of the blue I got an email from my old friend my Primary School (or do you call it middle school). I had no idea about internet until I came to College. So you can imagine how communication would be with your old pals, esp when you keep moving from one place to another and one school to another every 3 years or so. I guess we wrote couple of letters (hand written). Cant even imagine that I actually wrote a letter... Anyways got tired of that and we lost touch. and today I get an email from my good ol' friend and hence restoring that lost contact. It definitely feels good to read his email after such a long time and knowing that he is doing very well in some part of the world(well.. not that far from where I am actually).

My Go-Carting experience

for the racing fans.... yesterday i went for go-carting as part of a group activity. It was fantastic. it was bloody cold , almost 5-6 Deg C and it was raining on the track and it was night time and floodlights all over. basically vision was blurred bcos of misty, rainy and cold conditions and on top it track was bloody slippery. well def not a great way to have a first time experience on carting. We were given a pair of thin cotton gloves which didnt help much and got wet and was even more difficult to drive with. after making whole lot of spins on track bcos of slipping and hitting ppl with full speed headon.. i can feel how diff it must be out there even for the best F1 drivers... it was bit scary and fun... ofcourse carts are not at high speeds.. but was nice experience to know that YOU DONT BRAKE HEAVILY when it rains and also DONT Go at HIGH SPEED when roads are slippery... out in the cold and rain after 10 mins i really wanted to run back in.. cos my hands were just frozen and were dead meat in those conditions... but was a fun excercise... you guys should try some carting if you get a chance and opportunity .. i highly recommend.. esp for racing fans...

Oscar '06 Host - Jon Stewart

Yo ppl.. My man 'Jon Stewart' has been chosen to host this year's Academy Awards. Its going to be one heck of a show. I can already imagine myself laughing at all his jabs at the right wing conservatives and his short & quick punch at everybody in general. This guy knows how to make people laugh. If you 've watched Jon Stewart's 'Daily Show' on comedy central, you would also agree with me in saying that this is an excellent choice and for once the Academy has chosen a right person than the likes of Whoopi Goldberg. Go Stewart, go... and for those who lives outside of USA, you can watch weekly edition Daily Show on Saturday around 11PM on CNN international. Check local timings just to make sure.