4 HBO channels and no ESPN channels!!! How could they? This hotel is good except that I am so used to watching SportsCenter that I would not come back for that sole reason.

But on the other hand, I hardly get to watch TV in the hotel! :-)

I never thought I would say it. But this time, I am saying congratulations and well done, Pakistan. They beat England in a close game, where they actually came back from behind and struck back in the second innings - with the bat and the ball. Great job!

England on the other hand, is brought back to earth. Beating Australia in the Ashes now seems more like an Aussie loss than an England win, which I have tried saying in more than those exact words in the past. England was lucky in the Ashes in two main ways - winning the toss and being able to put up a good total batting first, and even more importantly, the Aussie bowlers and batsmen being clueless with very few exceptions.

England may be good, but I don’t think they are worthy of their #2 ranking.

Of course, this post could be ripped apart later, if England somehow can come back in the series, but I will still maintain that England is overrated, and overhyped and they don’t deserve!

I think I mentioned this show when it premiered on Fox before the baseball playoffs. I want to mention it again since it has restarted after the break.

Reunion is about a group of 6 friends who have grown up together in a New York suburb and it goes from 1986 to present day, advancing one year every episode. The present day situation they have shown is that one of the friends is murdered on the night of their high school reunion. The prime suspect is of course one of the remaining 5.

The show keeps going from past to present and tells two stories at the same time. The present day investigation progress, and the progress of the friends' lives in the past 20 years.

So far, the show’s plot is moving well towards a great climax which will put all of the sub plots together, and I hope it does get to that point. It has several places where it could fizzle out and become a damp squib. But for now, the show is quite interesting and keeps me interested every week.

One thing to alert you though, is if you are seeing it for the first time now, you may be confused about what is going on. I suggest you catch up with the storyline on the show’s website - Reunion Website.

I am back to renting cars every week. The first week I got a Dodge Stratus which is the perfect car to rent. Last week was freaking Taurus and this week it is Dodge Magnum (“with Hemmmmmi inside”).

Who approved the damn design for this car? Pretty much everything about it is bad. The doors are bloody heavy, the drive feels like a bad boat ride, the trunk space is extremely inefficient, the windows are too small to be able to see outside while reversing or changing lanes. The car just sucks.

Of course, the gas mileage is going to hit me when I return the car and have to fill up. I am sure it is going to be worse than the Taurus.

Maybe next time we book the car, we should ask for the smaller car, not the bigger car :-)

It would be very easy to say the the ‘Team India’ concept was bogus and just beating a hapless Sri Lankan team does not make India the world beaters. That losing to South Africa in the first one dayer proves that it was a fluke against Sri Lanka. That the joy was short-lived.

I think not. I saw most of the game. And realized some important points. Yes, the top order failed, but hey, yet again there was someone who stepped up and played the innings that the lower order could play around. Yuvraj played extremely well and first Pathan, then Dhoni and finally Agarkar and Harbajan kept their heads (for the most part) and put up a decent total. From 30-odd for 5 to get to 249 in 50 overs against a pretty good South African bowling attack showed that the spirit still exists.

And then, to keep pegging away at the batsmen, striking every now and then, making it not-so-easy for them to get to the target, also proves that the process is working. Of course, because of the early collapse, India had to sacrifice Kartik as a bowler and choose Gambhir to bat, but all it would have taken is one wicket. If Kemp had gone early in the innings or if Kallis had gone at any time, it would have made a huge difference.

Anyway, the subscription is not cancelled and I am looking forward to seeing some more games. This team India reminds me of the World Cup times.

If Texas or USC loses, will they have enough pull to keep their #2 or #1 spot in the BCS?

I am not crunching numbers here, but I feel neither of them can keep their spots. I think Miami and LSU could both go over. Unless someone corrects me of course.

I have subscribed to the India/South Africa cricket series on willow.tv.

Let’s hope that they do something worthwhile.

Of course, the first one day started rough - 5 down for almost nothing! Yuvraj and Pathan did some good stuff and Pathan and Dhoni threw their wickets away. How good was Bajji’s knock at the end?!

I know this is a highly delayed post, but just wanted to put it out there. USC destroyed Cal and made it look so easy. The offensive power is just too much, and this weekend, the defense showed how they have improved over the season.

The defense is what I liked more than the brutal offense. Of course, the defense had some help in a pathetic quarterback in Ayoob, but still, to take advantage of it the way they did, is creditable.

Fight On!

It was a weekend of hosting. Friday night, we had some friends over, the usual group, getting together for a potluck weekend. It was quite a hectic day for me, because I had woken up early (5am) for a busy day, including a very important presentation to the client, and I landed at about 7.30pm in San Jose and reached home at 8.15pm.

People started coming in at about 8.30pm and it lasted till about 12.30am! Not that I was complaining, or even sleepy. I was just physically tired.

Saturday was ok, since we declined a lunch and took it easy. Watched the USC-Cal game and chilled rest of the day.

Sunday was ok till about 5pm. We had invited my co-workers for dinner at 6.30pm and to avoid hassles, we had the food ordered at a local restaurant. The restaurant told us to come by at 5.45pm and pick it up. We reached there at 5.50pm and it was not ready. On top of that, they had made one thing incorrectly! We ended up calling the guests and asking them to come late! Can you imagine? I had to actually ask them to take it easy and come late :-(

The restaurant (Badal, in Cupertino) is apparently very good with their food, but very bad with their service. And they proved both the things right. But we were really really late with everything and to top it off, my boss and his wife made it on time! Even though we asked them to come late, they were there on time and called me to let me know that they were going to walk around in the neighborhood. The pressure increased and we tried our best to multi-task. We ultimately were able to arrange for the food to be brought up and not make it seem like we were very very late.

It all turned out well - explained everyone the concept of IST not being Indian Standard Time but Indian Stretchable Time and went with that. The dinner was quite good and everyone had a good time.

Thank goodness it is done and over with. Looking forward to a busy week now.

One TV show that I have forgotten to mention on this blog is Extras on HBO. The show is created by Ricky Gervais, the creator of the original Office.

The show reminds me very much of Seinfeld, but in a different setting - particularly, the life of an extra on a movie set. His interactions with his fellow extras, his ambitions of making it big, his ideas to get a line in the movie or on the show, etc.

The script is funny and the acting is very Seinfeld-ish, with matter-of-fact dialog delivery and obvious fumbles.

I think the season ended last Sunday, but catch it while you can. Extras, on HBO.

After last week’s miss, I am so far back in my Yahoo Fantasy League that I have given up on picking NFL games now.

But what a shocker that was - Packers beating Atlanta. Where did that come from??

And what a shame my 49ers have become! Could not score an offensive touchdown for 3 games in a row now! And what a run by Vasher from 8 yards into the end zone to get a TD!

On the positive side, Keary Colbert got a TD.

Since TO is gone, I am not sure which team is my favorite in the NFC. I think Cincinnati is my favorite in thte AFC, but I guess I don’t have a true favorite in the NFC. Maybe Vick’s Falcons?

Wow! That would be fantastic. Two of the best in the business hooking up in Atlanta. Of course, this is according to ESPN ‘sources’ and I have started disliking the abuse of the power that ESPN has nowadays.

Remember the altercation between TO and Knapp down in San Francisco? How could the two of them work together again? I guess, from TO’s angle, any job is better than no job. With all these antics at various teams, he has burnt a lot of bridges and soon, the only job he can take will be the job he will have to take.

But is Knapp ok working with TO? What if he does not call his name on a critical play? What if he goes for a screen to the TE instead of a long pass downfield?

In any case, if Atlanta gets him, it will be a great boost to a team with some huge weapons already.

We’ll just have to wait and watch.

My manager and I like to have a lot of arguments, all friendly, about a lot of stuff. Since we are flying together and hanging out together, we get a lot of chances to argue over seemingly simple topics.

For example, over the weekend, I told him about a company in Mendocino called Thanksgiving Coffee Company, which picks coffee only from the countries and companies which don’t employ kids in sweat shops. A simple statement with an absolutely innocent intent on my part.

He jumped on this statement and said that it was b.s. His point is that if the kids were not employed in the sweat shop, they would not get any money to eat and would die anyway. It is in fact a better option to have them employed, in any fashion, than not at all.

And that sparked an argument which went on for about 15 minutes, till we got distracted with something else.

Other similar thoughts occur all the time, and we engage in a lot of structured, fact-based arguing. I love it. But the wife probably hates it because I am getting ‘trained’ in arguing :-)

Not only have I started traveling for work, but because of the mini vacation over the last weekend, and the Microsoft launch event on Monday, things are getting quite busy. There is no time to rest because this Friday we have people over for dinner, and we are planning to host some company folks on Sat/Sun.

I hope to sleep in on Saturday at least. Things have been crazy both at home and at work, so I need to slow down a bit.

We were in a place with no cell phone signal, no telephone in the house, in the middle of the woods with golf course on one side and the Russian River on the other, but there was cable TV!

And on cable TV, we were able to find tbs station, where we saw an awesome display of offensive power by USC over Stanford. I could not believe how the first quarter and much of the second quarter went. It really did feel like a video game, and more importantly, it seemed like the other player did not know how to use the controller! :-)

Anyway, won’t say much, or else it may jinx it, but the point I wanted to make was that I was able to see the game with some of my co-workers and they were quite impressed with the team!

Next game is the most anticipated game before the season began - USC at Cal.

We went to Russian River for the weekend with some folks from my company. It was fantastic! We rented a house and enjoyed the stay doing pretty much nothing. Well, that’s not true exactly.

We went wine tasting, and something that we have not done before - champagne tasting. It was a wonderful sight - the vineyards were yellow at the top from the changing colors of the fall season, and greenery in general in the background made it look very pretty.

Inside the house, we played some poker, some bridge and a variation of bridge. It was good break from work and the usual uneventful weekends.

What was surprising was that there was no cell phone signal in the area. Our house had the river on one side and a golf course on the other side, and given the proximity to San Francisco, I would have imagined that there would be cell phone signal. Anyway, it was not that critical to get the signal, except that one of our buddies was coming in later on Saturday, and if he were to get lost, it would have been tough for him to get in touch with us. Fortunately for us, he did not get lost and made it fine.

But there was cable TV available and that meant that we were able to watch Stanford getting drubbed by USC. It was an superb display of a highly efficient offense. I loved it.

Went for a quick vacation over the weekend - Friday evening through Sunday afternoon. So I did not get a chance to make my picks this week. Too bad. I am virtually out of the reckoning in my Yahoo Sports league :-(

Originally from WSJ, excerpts here from post-gazette.com:

Google Inc.’s two billionaire founders, both 32 years old, will soon be cruising the skies in a Boeing 767 wide-body airliner. They bought the used plane earlier this year, Mr. Page says.

Mr. Page acknowledges that the purchase might seem ostentatious. But “we tend to have an engineering approach, to be fact-based,” he says. “We looked at this and we just did the economics and we said, ‘you know, it makes a lot of sense.’ “

Aviation-industry experts estimate that the airplane, because of its age and history, cost under $15 million, and maybe less. That’s roughly one-third the price of a new Gulfstream 550 business jet. In addition, the 767 can carry more passengers and can include sleeping accommodations. The Google co-founders wanted to fit more than 50 people but were limited by federal aviation rules, Mr. Page says. Filled to capacity, it’s potentially cheaper to run, per person than a Gulfstream.

Looks like they are rolling out comment moderation in blogger now. I see a ‘moderate comments’ tab now.

Not that I am going to turn it on (yet). If I get spammed even after word verification, I will think about turning moderation on. For now, I am just glad they are doing these things.

When is comment RSS feed coming?

I really thought India would get thumped in this series against Sri Lanka, but look what happened. India is up 3-0 and is in a position to close it out!

If I am a gambler, I would imagine India is going to lose this one … the advertisers have a lot at stake to make it meaningless in the last 3 games. But on the other hand, who knows, the thinking may be ‘well, if India wins, we can probably get back some old viewers who have given up on Indian cricket’.

In any case, I will have to check the scores in the morning since I refuse to subscribe and continue to ‘boycott’ Indian cricket till I see some consistency. The only thing I feel bad about is that Sachin is in form, somewhat, and I am missing his innings.

Oh well.

Another pathetic week.

Washington beats Giants - what a joke! (0-1)
Cincinnati beats Green Bay (1-1)
Dallas beats Arizona (2-1)
Carolina beats Minnesota (3-1)
Cleveland beats Houston (3-2)
Detroit beats Chicago - what a costly INT by Garcia - (3-3)
Tennessee beats Oakland (3-4)
Jacksonville beats St Louis (3-5)
KC beats San Diego (3-6)
Miami beats New Orleans (4-6)
Tampa Bay beats SF - what a shocker! - (4-7)
Denver beats Philadelphia (5-7)
New England beats Buffalo (6-7)
Pittsburgh beats Baltimore (7-7)

So 7-7 again. Hey, it is better than going less than .500. :-)

From the Daily Trojan (and pretty much every sports publication):

The prank started when White got into a yelling match with USC coach Pete Carroll and then offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin.

Kiffin, however, had no clue that it was all a ploy and really told White to leave practice. White told the coaches and players that he was mad and yelled that he didn’t get enough carries.

“I tried to get my teammates to really believe it,” he said. White then stormed off of the field and told a reporter that he quit the team and was carted away.

“When a Fox (Sports) guy asked me what’s wrong, I said, ‘I quit,'” White said. Practice then resumed as normal until the team’s final meeting, when Carroll told players that they could win without White.

“I told them, ‘We won with him and we can win without him,'” Carroll said. Then the players heard White yelling that he hated football from the top of a building.

“I had to duck down so they wouldn’t see me,” White said.

Then a dummy with a No. 21 jersey was thrown off the building and the team and media realized it was all a joke.

Wow, as I read the first part, I thought it was for real. Lendale is getting fewer carries than Reggie and what is frustrating is that he is not able to plow through as he was doing earlier in the season.

Thankfully, it was only a prank and we’ll see #21 going through the middle much more in the next few weeks!

I am back on Tuesday morning flights to San Diego. Surprisingly though, the plane was a little more crowded than it used to be.

Of course, with 24-hour checking-in window, I had checked in way in advance and had the ‘A’ group and as a result, got the nice exit row seats.

This project is going to be quite challenging, so can’t wait for it to gather steam.

So what if the Bowl Crap Sham (BCS) has them at #2? USC showed off today in many ways:

1. Offense: Who did not have good numbers? Steve Smith with 53 yards was ‘low’ but he had 2 TD’s. Leinart had 3 TD’s. Jarrett had ‘only’ 1 TD but 200 yards receiving. Lendale White, who practised very little in the week, had 2 TD’s and 150+ yards rushing. Bush did not have a TD, but he had 150+ all purpose yards (that one TD where he fumbled the ball, was in Justice’s name). USC had 700+ yards of total offense
2. Defense: Held a Wazzu team which was scoring an average of 39 points to only 13, and of that, the last 7 were on a turnover by JD Booty, the second string QB.
3. Second string offense and defense: The first team was off the field at the end of the third quarter and the second team had a good 12 minute game in the 4th quarter. Heck, we even saw McDonald at QB, and at one point on the defense, USC had 7 TRUE freshmen on the field! Also, at a point in early 4th quarter, there was only one starter on the offense, and that too was a backup center!

Pete Carroll does not like embarrassing the opponent. The team had to make a statement and they did it in many ways. I know the margin of victory will not sway the computer polls much (or at all), but it does send a strong statement to the human voters. Especially to the ones who don’t get to see the game as such.

Next week is going to be a scary weekend with a strong-ish Stanford coming home. We’ll wait and watch. Today’s game was worth watching! :-)

Oh, and it was hearening to see the Georgia lost. One more unbeaten is gone.

The cowards have struck. Again. This time it is in New Delhi. Serial blasts in India’s capital have killed at least 30 people. (Links to news sites: NDTV, Mid-Day, BBC News and supposedly live blogging here)

What a shameful act. Bombing the place and running away to hide. Or worse, influencing young minds with stupidity and passion, enough to have them go and commit such ghastly acts.

The timing is important - right around Diwali (Hindu New Year’s Day) and Id. The motive I guess is to spark a communal disharmony, and let the normal people take care of chaos. I suspect such a thing will not happen. The average Indian has now become aware of what is done internally and what is the handiwork of terrorists from across the border.

Which brings up the next point I want to make. This political goodwill has to slow down and India needs to bring up the terrorist ‘clean chit’ option before moving ahead and opening up the borders and such. We cannot have porous borders if all we are doing is bringing more bad apples into our baskets.

Bombay has already seen serial blasts. More than once in the past 10 years. Now it is Delhi. Who knows where the next one is going to come up.

It is time for elimination, nothing else.