From the days of Seinfeld and Friends, NBC has ruled Thursdays. But unfortunately for them, they have lost me on Thursday.

For the 8pm slot, I will be watching The OC.

For the 9pm slot, I will be watching North Shore, but not as dedicatedly as I would watch The OC. The Apprentice may get some of my viewing time. But again when I saw it last night, I was not impressed. There is more drama in the show now than there should be. Than what it was intended to show us. So for now, NBC has lost me on the Thursday 9pm slot too.

And surprisingly, I happened to watch some of E.R. last night and it is actually quite a good show! Yea, I know a lot of people would say ‘D-uh!’ and ‘I told you so’ and even ‘This year is one of the bad years’, but I like it a lot. Its just around my bed time, so I am not sure how much I can watch it ;-)

There are only two shows that make me want more as soon as they are over. They make me feel like the episode should not have ended. They get over too fast and yet, I feel quite satisfied watching them.

American Dreams on NBC Sundays at 8pm

The O.C. on Fox Thursdays at 8pm

Ok, so the big night came and went. The OC is back on air and the season premiere, I must say, was a little punch-less. I know it is difficult to pick up from such a climactic ending, but still, it looks like it is going to be back at Newport Beach from next episode onwards.

Still, there were some moments - “Hobos are hot nowadays” by Seth was funny. And as usual, kinda cheeky.

And Kirsten’s “Sandy, are you trying to see if I am not listening to you by saying some gibberish?” and Sandy replying “No, so you did follow me?” and the “No” after that was good too.

I think it is going to be a lot of fun though. The whole Teresa pregnancy thing and Seth finally coming back though he detests the Newport life, is going to have enough punch. Besides, there are going to be 4 new characters, and we already saw one of them - the almost-ugly-buff-to-the-limit garden boy.

Can’t wait for the next time!

Hungary pulls out of the ‘big’ coalition. Smells like a good kick in the face to me.

BBC News link here.

What is W planning to do to make us feel better and hopefully more comfortable as US Citizens of the future?

Show me the plan now! :-)

Today the newly reorganized NBA kicks off. A lot of things to look out for:

1. Kobe leading the Lakers
2. Detroit going for a repeat
3. Shaq in Miami
4. T-Mac/Yao in Houston
5. Minnesota/San Antonio again coming strongly in the West
6. The Eastern Conference

Let’s see how it plays out. Like baseball, the NBA season is long. So I will not bother following it till it is time for playoffs.

Oh, I will try to watch Christmas Day - Miami/Lakers :-)

The exit polls are being a little muted this time, esp the television networks. After the fiasco of 2000, no one wants to commit anything.

Fingers still crossed.

The crown on the right bottom molar (yea, there’s crowns on other teeth in my mouth) has come off. It happened late afternoon.

I am scared to go to the dentist here. Crowns are freaking expensive. Wonder if I can stretch without a crown for about a month. I can get it fixed in India for much lesser.

Let’s see what the dentist has to say. Again, fingers crossed.

Meanwhile, on to a light-on-teeth diet.

If anyone reading this is in the Bay Area (Cupertino) or is visiting there, don’t forget to get the pizzas at Cicero’s.

The crust is thin and crisp, but not hard.

The sauce is very different from the chain stores like Domino’s and Pizza Hut.

And the cheese is perfectly proportioned and perfectly melted.

Oh and btw, it is 98% Indian-populated. Not sure what it is about the place, but Indians can’t get enough of it.

I am sure I will be going there a lot. Ummm, I am hungry now! :-)

Went for Shark Tale on Sat night, but we went for 10.30pm show and I slept through most of it. Poor wife. She was pissed, again. It’s not like it was a bad movie - just that I was too tired and it was wayyyy past my bed time :-)

Also saw Bourne Supremacy. Great movie. I really liked it. All the action was done well, not only with the actions themselves, but the camera motion, that made it seem like you were there. I like Matt Damon’s acting and he has done well in this one. Also.

Americans are going to make a huge decision tomorrow. It is bound to make history, whichever way it goes. Good luck to America, and good luck to the candidates. I hope Bush does not win, but that is only my hope.

The odds are that he will win. Which will certainly not a good thing, from the way he has handled the last 4 years. But its only a matter of a day now. Hopefully it won’t be a long process like the last time around.

Fingers crossed.

Don’t know what it is, but it just feels good to be back home. Even if things are lying around and the place is messy, it feels great to come back home.

I started working on another project from last week onwards, which in a way makes me stay in the Bay Area for 3 days, instead of just the weekend. For now, it seems I will be here on Mondays, which is cool because I can fly out on Tuesday which is normally a slow day on the plane.

But it seems like the airline has changed its schedule and there is no 8.30am flight anymore, which means we’ll take the 7.30am flight, and so, waking up even earlier on Tuesdays :-(

It was all almost over in the first half of the first quarter. 21-0 in no time, and Wash State was clueless.

Felt quite bored, actually, to see the game from there on. USC brought on their second and third teams and in fact, the 12 points they gave, were 2 TD’s scored at the expense on the new QB, who fumbled an exchange with the center once, and just fumbled the ball the other time.

All in all, a nice confidence-boosting victory 42-12, and with it, another week at #1.

Last trip out of California next week. Hope for the best.

The company where I am working, has motion-detected flush systems in their rest rooms. That’s a good thought, but only if the sensors don’t blow out on you every few weeks. In the past 3-4 weeks that I have been here, I have seen a breakdown twice already!

So instead of saving water, they are ending up losing so much water.

Begs the question - how far do we go in terms of automation?

I finally saw some lively dinner place in San Diego area. Of course, to give credit to the place, we don’t stay in San Diego proper. We are about 25 miles from downtown and so we end up staying in the area and getting bored to hell.

So it was fun that we went to Pacific Beach tonight and got dinner at a place called Fred’s. Nice, sorta-authentic Mexican dinner.

With all the brouhaha over India taking on the mighty Aussies at home and all that, I think we missed an important point - the Aussies are much stronger and much more prepared and hungry to win than the Indians.

At the end of day 3 (only!), the Aussies are already 415 runs ahead with only 3 wickets down in the second innings. I suspect they will bat for at least one hour, but more like 90 minutes, and get about 100-125 runs, and give a target of 550 to get.

Not impossible, but with this level of Indian batting confidence and form, I think if the match goes into the 5th day, it will be a surprise.

So the curse is over. Boston has won the World Series! What a sweep.

That offense in Boston really came through - I really did not follow them much during the regular season, so I was kind of skeptical, especially considering that the Cards have a great offense too. But man, those guys do perform and put pressure on your right from the start.

Great series, Boston. Now enjoy for many many more years to come! :-)

Oh yea, A-Rod - what do you think about your decision now? And sorry, Nomar.

So the third test is finally on the way between Australia and India. No Ganguly, no Pathan, no Harbajan.

At the end of day 2, it is 146-5 India. Very familiar story. I think Chopra will be knocked out of the squad, and Laxman will stay till the end of the series, even though he needs to stay out and get mentally stronger.

What’s wrong with Dravid??

There’s enough time for Australia to force a series win. All India has to focus on for now is to avoid the follow on, and then reduce the lead as much as they can. Anything above 100 will be a disaster.

I don’t feel hungry at all nowadays. Sometimes, I do skip meals, but sometimes I actually eat a lot despite not feeling hungry at all.

What could be causing it? It’s not like I feel full or anything - I just don’t feel hungry.

:-(

Great game pitched by Pedro. I really thought he was not that good in this post-season but this game, he changed. Maybe he was playing his last game for Boston and he thought he’d give it all he’s got? Maybe he was playing for his future?

Whatever the case may be, to humble the Cards in a game that they were expected to win, is quite an achievement.

No jinxing - sssshhhhh.

Have been hit hard with some irritating car expenses. On one car, had to get brakes fixed - they were completely gone on the rear wheels. I kept postponing the inevitable because I was hardly driving that car. But finally got it fixed.

And then last night, the front tire on the other car went flat! Unbelievable! Just when you are trying to save up and not spend on unnecessary stuff, you get such unexpected expenses to throw you off.

Luckily, the wife was ok (she was driving the car when the tire went flat). And looks like, luckily, the wheel does not have be replaced. Only the tire re-fitted. Luckily, the last time there was a flat tire on that car, instead of buying just one tire, I had replaced two, so I had one spare tire. That was good, because the tires themselves are also not cheap.

All in all, pretty rough times. :-(

Rental car cost for mid-size from Tues-Fri is $187, and from Mon-Fri or Tues-Sat (considered ‘weekly’) is $155.

How does that make sense? Will they let me rent weekly and return ‘early’? If I return early, will I be charged per day, rather than per week?

Any way, it does not make sense.

So for the past two weekends, I have started playing squash again. The body hurts a lot. Luckily, the people I play with, are also not in shape too much, so it was not all one-sided.

But I really need to make sure that I play more, so that at least on the weekends, I can take care of the body.

21-0. Amazing. Truly, the most balanced team which knows what it takes to win. They don’t create a splash when they win, and I think the coach has done a wonderful job in making sure the players don’t create too much pressure on themselves in keeping the streak going.

Can they go unbeaten for the entire season? Who knows? I thought the Jets would be tough, but looks like they handled them well.

I am not really a big fan of the Pats, but I can surely say, hats off to them.

Wow, who saw that one? With all the hype that was surrounding the ‘new and improved’ Giants, it was almost a gimme. But well, well, well - for a change, the NFC North division is not a done deal :-)