We watched the new Kong flick over the weekend. I think it was quite good, but given the hype, it fell short of my expectations. The start was a little slow but once they got on the boat, it got entertaining.
The movie went too long in the middle with those insects and stuff, but in general, a very well made movie. The special effects were great, I really believed the insects, the dinosaurs and of course Kong.
Naomi Watts has done well, and so has Jack Black. Adrian Brody was wasted. What was the deal with the scary tribal crap at the beginning???
The wife had her birthday on Sunday. We went out with a cousin to San Francisco on Saturday night. It was a very good evening. Saturday started with King Kong in the afternoon. It was quite a long movie (3hr+) so by the time we got out, we did not have much to relax before heading out to San Francisco for the evening.
First, we popped a Korbel champagne bottle at home, and then went to get pizza at Pizza Orgasmica. We got nice seats, to sit on the floor and no one else around us. So we decided to just hang out at the pizza place. They had a full bar of course.
My cousin and I had a few round of drinks and of course we had a traditional round of shots for the table. I was surprised how easily I was able to handle the drinks given that I have not been drinking much of late. Not only was it enjoyable in the night, but the next morning also ended up being normal.
After ringing in her birthday and much later after that, we decided to head home. By the time we slept it was about 3 in the morning.
My non-material gift to the wife was a day of going shopping with her. No complaints, no whining, no pressure to get out of the stores. No cribbing at all. And it was quite sad that she was not able to find ANY of the things she was looking for. I ended up buying some of the things on my list!! Quite ironic.
But hey, the point was not who buys what, the point was spending quality time together and that is what we did.
Saw some of the Atlanta/Chicago game and frankly, I like Vick and so I could not bear (no pun intended) seeing that game. Chicago is really too good on defense and they could actually cause some damage in the playoffs.
As for Atlanta, they had only themselves to blame. Now they have gone quite deep into a hole and they may not be able to get out of it …
This week I had to fly out on Monday so the weekend flew by really really quick. Of course, add to that the fact that it was the wife’s birthday on Sunday, and we celebrated it Saturday night (late into the night) and you have a recipe for a quick end to the weekend.
But hey, a real 3-day weekend coming up soon! Also, since we will be done on Thursday this week, I will get Fri-Mon off!
Yesterday I ordered some stuff from amazon.com and realized something quite strange.
First of all, 2 items were going to be shipped from some other stores, not amazon. That’s fine. But what was bad was that each of them actually sent me separate emails confirming the order was shipped and each had their own tracking numbers.
On top of that, amazon was able to ship the other two products in two different shipments!
So at this point I have apparently one order, but with 4 shipments! Unbelievable.
Amazon should tweak their software so that those notification emails come from and are managed through amazon’s shopping interface. At least that way I am not scared of so many different stores for one shopping outing.
So now, I have to wait for 4 different shipments at the door :-(
Could be the teachers. Could be the curriculum. Could be the method of teaching. Could be all of the above and many more.
But I never liked History in school. All I know of the subject is memorization of key dates and black-and-white pictures of historical figures in text books.
I wish I had a storyteller teacher, and of course video aids to learn History as a subject. It would have been so much nicer and so much more interesting to learn.
Come to think of it, deeper knowledge of History would actually make me better off than the random Chemistry class or worse, the ‘Book Binding’ class that I took! :-)
Why is it that any time I have Thai Iced Tea I have a brain freeze?
Maybe it is because I have all the tea at the end, after my meal. I don’t like to drink anything while eating. Before is ok and after certainly is ok. Just not during.
And the Thai Iced Tea for some reason causes me the most pain.
Bizarre. That’s the only way you can explain the Indian selection committe.
First of all, the selection of Ganguly in the test side was strange … he was brought in as an allrounder - a batsman who could bowl. In fact that was the reason they decided to drop Zaheer!! Can you imagine how Zaheer must have felt at the time? And worse, can you imagine how Ganguly must have felt at that time?? But hey, these are Indian selectors - they can do what they want and justify in such pathetic ways and not be held responsible.
And then the kicker. The first test gets rained out and in the second test Ganguly does not-so-bad, and he gets dropped. Midway through the series??? What the heck!! Why is a team announced only for a part of the series in the first place? Especially since it is a home series and especially since it is such a short series. Why not keep the team intact for the entire series?
Anyway, that is besides the point. The point is that Ganguly did not need to be dropped midway through the series. It is basically indicating that he performed badly and he needs to be let go and Jaffer needs to be brought in because we need an opener. Well, if you need an opener, drop Sehwag since he is unwell! Why drop a middle order bat who is fit and has played ok, and keep the opener who is unwell?
Aaaargh. When will the selection committe be held responsible to the public?
Congratulations to India in winning the second test in Delhi against Sri Lanka. Good batting performance, especially in the second innings and good bowling by the ever dependable Anil Kumble made it a comprehensive win for India.
I think Sri Lanka is slumping. They seem lost, much like India looked last year. They have the talent but they just cannot put it all together. Maybe the captain needs some inspiration. Could be internal politics, could be anything. My point is that more than India winning, which it did indeed, it was Sri Lanka who lost the match.
In any case, we are off to Motera for the third match. My thoughts on the weird selection next.
No way…just days after he claimed that he was not interviewing for any job, ESPN comes out with a rumor that he may be looking to see what he can get so that he can renegotiate his contract at USC.
That is ok - he has a right to get more money what with the current streak and the greatness he has brought at USC. But going to the NFL would be quite atypical of him - he looks like he enjoys coaching at USC, he looks like he is more at home in college, his program is doing excellent…why should he leave?
Pathan as a test opener? Done. And he did not disappoint. Looks like he had a good innings there. Neutralized Murali (despite being a lefty) and actually set up the innings well for India to dominate on the final 2 days.
A lead of 297 already, and two days to go. I suspect another 80-100 runs in the first session should be good to finish out the match.
Gangs has a chance to remove the doubts that people have put in his abilities.
Although invited to join Bush and Leinart at the Marquee, Texas QB Vince Young declined. Last year Oklahoma RB Adrian Peterson and Utah QB Alex Smith joined Bush and Leinart after the Heisman ceremony. Young said he was “emotionally upset” about not winning the Heisman. “I’m disappointed for my fans, especially for my teammates and my family for not representing them in the right way,” Young told reporters at the post-ceremony news conference. “I feel like I let my guys down, let my family down, let the cities of Austin and Houston down."
There are so many things wrong here:
1. He had nothing to do with the Heisman, especially not after he played his last game. The voters were voting. Vince was not playing. He did not ‘lose’ the Heisman. He just did not win it. Can somebody whisper that in his ear? 2. Not sure how being second in the Heisman voting is a ‘letdown’. It is a proud achievement, I think, to even be considered for the Heisman, let alone be a finalist, and be second in the voting. 3. Cities of Austin and Houston??? Are you kidding me? He let two cities down? What a joke. 4. He should have known that he is the underdog in the race - come on, does he not read the papers and watch ESPN? Does he not go online? Or has Texas limited the information that is let out within the state? I mean, come on … was he really thinking he could win the trophy?
These comments and some others he has made in the recent past lead me to believe that he really lets things get to his head. Now it does explain the bad outing he had against A&M. It does not bode well for the team though. If he lets this ‘big game’ build up get to him, he will be tight and get emotionally out of the game. The coaches need to calm him down and let him know that the National Championship is at stake, not personal glory. Even then, I am not sure if he is mentally ready to be calm.
Congratulations to Reggie Bush on winning the Heisman Trophy. Now, USC has 7 winners, the same as Notre Dame, the highest for a school. USC now has 3 of the last 4 winners in Carson Palmer, Matt Leinart and Bush.
I liked Reggie’s quote of finally being invited to a fraternity after 3 years of being in a college! That was funny.
One of the marks that I thought would be unachievable, especially since Test cricket was on a decline, was the number of Test centuries mark set by Sunil Gavaskar.
And no wonder then, that Sachin Tendulkar has proved me wrong and broken that record at the same ground where Sunny equalled Don Bradman’s record of 29 centuries.
Congratulations, Sachin. You have done so much over the past 16-17 years that this is just icing on the cake. Keep it going and keep entertaining us for many more years! Hope to see you in the West Indies in 2007! :-)
Now, if only I could get a hold of India/Australia one day matches in Sharjah where he single-handedly put India in the finals first, and then won the trophy for India with his explosive innings back-to-back.
I felt emotional reading Sachin’s quotes on the 35th…
More emotional than most people have ever seen him on a cricket field, Tendulkar reacted with a long look up to the heavens when he reached the hundred, and admitted it was different from what he had felt before. “That was for my father. I miss my father very much. I’m sure he would have enjoyed every moment of this if he were here. There have been very few moments in my life when I have got emotional. But this time I felt very different."
With No. 35 out of the way, the question of where to next popped up, and Tendulkar’s reply was spontaneous. “Back to the hotel!” On a more serious note, when asked what could be expected of him, Tendulkar said, “I can’t say what heights I am going to achieve. But what you can expect from me, what is in my hands, is 100% commitment and sincerity and playing for the cause of the team."
In all the adulation, Tendulkar has somehow managed to remain remarkably humble. On the day when he broke Gavaskar’s 22-year-old record, he said, referring to the little man with the title Mr, “Heroes will always be heroes. Mr. Gavaskar will always be a hero of mine. I would say to him, `Thank you for the support you have given us. Not only me but other batsmen as well. It really helps to have senior cricketers who can speak to you about your game.' I have often gone to him for advice and he has set such benchmarks and standards for us that you needed to have a disciplined and dedicated life to get to a landmark like this.”
He is so humble, modest, committed and sincere…no wonder he has lasted for so long and broken all the records that he has broken. Hats off, sir.
After a long long time (including past few weekends) I slept last night without setting an alarm for this morning. And I must really be sleep-deprived because I slept at about 12.30 and woke up only at 10.45!!
Usually I don’t like oversleeping and in fact my eyes get swollen if I oversleep! So, usually I am afraid of oversleeping. But today, it felt really good. I woke up quite relaxed and rested. Even though it was ‘late’ in the morning, it did not feel bad.
I am regular listener of Yahoo’s Launch and love it a lot.
But since the past 2 days I have had trouble connecting to it so I started AOL Music just to check it out. There are some good things there, and some bad - compared to Yahoo.
The most important ‘cool’ thing I liked about AOL Music is their station ‘All Led Zeppelin’! How wonderful is that? Only Led Zep playing on your radio! Simply too good.
Other than that, the existence of some XM stations is good, and having presets is good.
The bad thing is that you cannot skip songs (at least not in the free version). Also, you cannot put more than 5 stations in your customized preset station. And finally, there is no mix and match - so if I have Classic Rock and 80’s, my station will only play one or the other. Which compared to Launch, is unbelievable.
So will keep with Led Zep till I get tired of it and want some change.
I have to thank USA Today for making my cross-country flight home from Los Angeles on Monday go by a lot faster than usual. No in-flight movie could possibly have provided as much amusement as the first-ever publication of the coaches' final Top 25 ballots.
Allow me to share a few of my favorite moments:
• Miami coach Larry Coker – apparently every bit as delusional as the ‘Canes’ own fans – voting his team No. 4.
• Ohio coach Frank Solich, who apparently got the score of Saturday’s SEC title game backward (or was tipping the bottle again), placing LSU fifth and Georgia 15th.
• Oregon coach Mike Bellotti – his team about to be squeezed out of the BCS by Notre Dame – placing the Ducks fourth and the Irish ninth, while OSU’s Jim Tressel, his own team battling Bellotti’s for the Fiesta, had the Buckeyes fourth and Oregon ninth.
• Arkansas coach Houston Nutt ranking SEC rival Auburn third and Big East champion West Virginia … nowhere.
• South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier burying Notre Dame at 14 and ranking his own team 21st – higher than on any other ballot.
• A long list of coaches ranking their teams notably higher than they finished in the actual poll: Notre Dame’s Charlie Weis (fourth), Auburn’s Tommy Tuberville (fourth), Wisconsin’s Barry Alvarez (16th), Clemson’s Tommy Bowden (20th), Oklahoma’s Bob Stoops (21st), South Carolina’s Spurrier (21st) and Northwestern’s Randy Walker (21st).
Ladies and gentlemen, as if you needed proof, the fortunes of the nation’s college football teams – not to mention tens of millions of dollars – are being determined by the equivalent of a high school student-council election.
Every week, my inbox is clogged with people complaining about various media biases in the sport. While I would never suggest my profession is 100 percent ethically sound, I can’t imagine too many writers have as obvious an agenda as a group of men who are employed by the subjects on which they’re voting.
While my own “analysis” of the coaches' ballots was largely informal, a couple of guys with significantly more time on their hands, Jay Barry and Jeff Steck of the Notre Dame blog Blue-Gray Sky, actually ran the data to discern which biases could be detected. Among their findings:
• On average, coaches voted their own teams 1.7 spots higher than did the other 61 voters, and ranked other teams from their conference about one spot higher that they did teams from other conferences.
• Eight of the 13 coaches who voted Oregon seventh or lower came from the two conferences that had teams vying with the Ducks for a BCS at-large spot, SEC (Auburn) and Big Ten (Ohio State).
• Similarly, while half the poll’s voters had Ohio State fourth, eight of 12 SEC and Pac-10 coaches had the Buckeyes lower, while the same percentage of that group had Notre Dame eighth or lower.
Meanwhile, in the Harris Poll, Notre Dame great Rocket Ismail made it clear which Fiesta Bowl matchup he wanted to see, ranking the Irish fourth, Ohio State fifth … and Oregon 11th.
Let me make it clear that any college football poll is inherently subjective, that there’s no such thing as a right or wrong ballot and that every voter is entitled to his opinion. But these kind of voting patterns aren’t some sort of giant coincidence. The voters in the BCS' two polls exhibit blatant provincial favoritism. Perhaps Congress ought to hold some hearings on that.
So it is clear that some coaches are really trying hard to make their team (and conference) get more money. Nothing wrong with that. What I feel is wrong is the fact that the same coaches' poll was used to determine the actual match ups!
How could we tolerate such ‘oops’ like missing the Big East Champion from the ballot completely! This is a farce. About time we switched to a process that gets audited and some way the pollsters are made to justify why they put their teams where they are, and at least take a look at the top 2-3 teams from each conference to ensure they have not caused any gaping holes!
In reverse order, the three hardest things to do in sports are: (3) eating your cheese nachos at Lambeau Field before they become ice sculptures, (2) listening to Tony Siragusa mutter through an end-zone report on “A” gaps, and (1) finishing a season with a perfect record.
Perfection makes us slobber all over our TiVo remotes. Perfection turns us into “Stump The Schwab” geeks.
Last college hoops team to go undefeated? (Bob Knight’s 1976 Indiana Hoosiers.) Last thoroughbred to win the Triple Crown? (Affirmed, 1978.) Last golfer to win the pro Grand Slam? (None, though Ben Hogan almost did it in 1953.) Last Manny-not-being-Manny season? (1997.) Last NFL team to finish unbeaten? (Miami Dolphins, 1972.)
Everybody is talking about the Dolphins these days. Apparently there isn’t enough cushion edge on America’s couch to handle the drama of the Indianapolis Colts' run at Miami’s 17-0 perfect season. Tweety Bird and the fellas are 12-0, with regular season games remaining at Jacksonville, San Diego, at Seattle, and home again in the RCA Decibel Dome for the finale against Arizona. Then come the playoffs and the real quest for football immortality.
Only five teams in NFL history have started a season 12-0, so this is a huge deal, right? After all, do you have any idea how hard it is to win 12 in a row of anything? Even if the Colts finish the regular season with an unbeaten record and receive the first-round bye, they still have to win one more game to match the ‘72 Dolphins’ victory total and two more games to earn perfection.
Think about it: 19-0. Can it be done?
“In college, it’s almost impossible,” says Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville, whose Tigers finished 13-0 a season ago. “It’s impossible in the NFL. It can’t be done."
Tuberville’s logic: 53-man player rosters … no absolute Purina Dog Chow teams (though, the Houston Texans are close) … too hard to get your team up each week … too many variables (you have to catch almost every break, as well as avoid injuries).
“I don’t know if that Miami record will ever happen again,” Tuberville says.
I don’t know either. And I don’t care – at least, not right now.
Forget about the Dolphins and Colts. If Indy beats the Jaguars, Chargers and Seahawks, then we’ll talk. Until then, we ought to be naming babies, buildings and freeways after the greatest dynasty this side of Ming.
The USC Trojans.
The Colts are 12-0, and we’re treating them like they’ve been canonized by Paul Tagliabue. I love the way the Colts play (I’d pay money just to watch Peyton Manning and Marvin Harrison in pregame warm-ups), but the Colts haven’t even clinched the AFC South yet. Meanwhile, Pete Carroll’s USC program has won its last 34 games and is going for an unprecedented third consecutive national championship.
The Trojans haven’t lost a game since Sept. 27, 2003, and it took three overtime periods at Cal to do it. Since Oct. 6, 2002, USC is 45-1. Freaks.
In those 45 victories, only five were decided by less than a touchdown.
Thirty-three of those wins were decided by 20 points or more. Colts, who?
This is Tuberville’s “almost impossible” to the 10th power. The Trojans are on such a championship roll, they have their own parking space at the White House Rose Garden. The only downside to this remarkable run is having to hear the Trojan Marching Band play “Conquest” 11,000 times per game.
I haven’t decided whether USC is going to beat Texas (which has its own 19-game win streak) in the BCS Championship Game at the Rose Bowl, but the smart guys in Vegas have. USC is a 6½-point fave, and deservedly so. The Trojans have their soft spots (Notre Dame and Fresno State can tell you all about them), but they also have taken every opponent’s best body blow (Notre Dame and Fresno can tell you about that, too). If nothing else, you have to respect the streak, respect USC’s inner resolve and respect a loaded roster that, by Jan. 4, will feature – for the first time ever – two Heisman Trophy-winning teammates playing in the same game. The two stiff-armers: Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush.
Nothing against the ‘72 Dolphins – or the ‘05 Colts if they win out – but a third consecutive USC national title, a second consecutive unbeaten season and a 35-game victory streak is at least the equal, if not superior, to an NFL single-season 17-0 or 19-0 record. And if it happens, here’s guessing some NFL owner tries to money-whip Carroll into returning to the pros to start his own streak there.
Tuberville is right about the NFL; there are no gimme games. Five of Green Bay’s 10 losses are by three points or less. The 2-10 Jets beat NFC wild-card leader Tampa Bay. So did 2-10 San Francisco. Even the Texans are no sure out.
But USC has beaten the last 16 ranked opponents it has faced. Since the 34-game streak began, the Trojans have beaten Notre Dame, Arizona State and UCLA three times apiece, Cal twice, and Michigan, Virginia Tech, Oklahoma and Oregon once. They’ve done it despite injuries, early defections to the NFL, graduation, coaching departures and the law of averages.
So enough about the Colts, or whether the Dolphins of ‘72 will pop champagne corks in the next few weeks. The real question is this:
Can someone sneak some bubbly into the Trojans’ locker room at the Rose Bowl?
Saw Derailed today. I wanted to watch it since the time I saw the previews, but the wife was a little hesitant. She thought I wanted to watch it only because of the presence of Jennifer Aniston. She did not know what the movie was about or who else was there in it.
But as the story unfolded, she realized that it was in fact a good movie. At the end of it, we both liked it.
Go watch it. Quite a good watch. I did not expect the storyline to take the path it took. Clive Owen is really a good actor and has done a great job in this movie after his earlier movie Closer.
Gosh, its been such a long time since we watched a movie, and even longer in the theater. Felt good.
Notre Dame is fast becoming a bigger rivalry for USC than ucla. Last year’s game was 29-24 and this year they were coming off a great 9-1 year till this game. I really thought it would be closer than what it ended up being.
But USC game out with all guns blazing. The offensive power was too much for the Bruins.
Anyway, as today’s BCS selections show, USC is going to meet Texas in the Rose Bowl (not a surprise there). It is going to be a fanstastic matchup. Some idiot from the Longhorns has already made some comment about dominating USC. Going from last year’s idiotic nonsense from an Oklahoma defensive guy, it really surprises me that this new idiot said what he said. It is better to be like Mack Brown who in the studio made sure he put all the pressure on USC as the favorite and take all the pressure of his team.
Being an underdog is such huge game sure helps the young minds of these kids. Both coaches know it well enough and I just hope the Trojans prepare well for this matchup.
The bad part is that I will have to live through this media nonsense for a month now. And worse, the game is on a Wednesday and again, like last year I may not be in town to enjoy the game with friends and family here. :-(
