Check out http://anmiblog.blogspot.com for more gmail invites.

Wow, suddenly the supply has outstripped the demand.

The Colts and the Patriots just kicked off. Wow. Feels AWESOME to see pro football.

Brady finished 2-2 to start, with no backs. Looks like it will be a cracker of a game.

But wait, it has started raining. May be a muddy affair after all.

Let’s see.

Rooting for the Colts. I don’t like the Patriots (Brady) much.

So it is final. What was ‘in the works’ for quite some time, has now become real. We have won a project in San Diego.

I will be on it.

The project kicks off next week, and I will get started on my tasks the following week.

It is kinda bitter sweet. On one hand it is a great project with great potential, but on the other, it is out of town and I will be away from my wife for most of the week.

It is out of town, but if we want to look at the positives, it is in the same time zone and the flight is only an hour or so. So technically, I can fly as late as Monday morning.

So on paper, it should be ok. There is even talk of maybe working 4 days a week there and coming back Thursday night. If that works out, it will be even better.

Its going to be tough to leave my current company, especially because we have now formed a good chemistry here. But c’est la vie. I will start afresh with the new client and hope that it is same or better than this one.

Wish me luck, and make sure my wife does not feel too lonely! :-(

Check out: http://madsummer.blogspot.com/2004/09/i-have-too-many-gmail-invite-codes.html

All you need to do it drop a comment there with the email address where you want the invite to be sent.

It so happens that amazon.com does not publish it’s number anywhere on the website. Once you write them an email question, they respond to you within 24 hours (or so), and in that email, there are links for ‘if this email did not answer your question, please click here’, and that click takes you to a page with the customer support number :-)

For everyone’s sake, the number is 1-800-201-7575 ;-)

Great pic, eh?

Check it out…I saw a great picture on his blog, so I asked him through a comment, and he made a big deal out of it. Yay! :-)

http://vinodc.blogspot.com/2004/09/vc-makes-new-friends.html

Btw, the picture will be put up in the next post.

Check this also:

http://www.asile.org/citoyens/numero13/pentagone/erreurs_en.htm

Check out this site and see for yourself what they are saying:

http://pixla.px.cz/pentagon.swf

Strange, huh?

I just realized - Ravi Shastri is a partner at a pretty large sports management company. He is also one of the better known commentators in the business.

The fact that he represents a lot of the cricketers playing today, raises a question - is there a conflict of interest when he is a commentator? Does he praise Harbajan even if he gets a wicket on a bad ball, just because he is his company’s client? Or is it a fantastic opportunity for Shastri to put a different spin on his players' bad plays?

I think it is a conflict of interest, and it would take a bad businessman or a true professional to be a very impartial commentator.

It was quite unfortunate that Serena had that experience in the US Open. I think the chair umpire’s career is over.

But what is interesting to think about is what would have happened had the opponent been non-American, and especially if it were someone like Sharapova, who had beaten Serena in Wimbledon, or Justine Henine, who is the current #1.

Because it was Capriati, another American, maybe the press has not gone ballistic about this whole thing. Of course, a lot of noise has already been created about instant replay and such, but still, not the same as I think it would have been had the opponent been non-American. No?

Sharapova crashed out as I predicted. But my other prediction about Justine Henin went bust when she lost earlier.

Right now, an awesome awesome game going on - Agassi/Federer. I wish it was the finals, because that is how good the match is. The other matches are going to be anti-climatic.

Rooting for …. never mind, don’t want to jinx him. :-)

From The O.C.’s blog

Check out the news item on Cricinfo and on the ICC release! He also won the Test Player of the Year. Nice!

They also released a World ODI XI and World Test XI - no Sachin in Test XI :-(

Pathan was the Emerging Player of the Year. Deservedly so.

The flight from San Jose was at 6.24am, so we had to leave by 4.45am. My cuz came to drop us off at the airport, which is only 7 minutes from home.

Because it was the Saturday of the Labor Day weekend, there was not much crowd at the airport, and we were through security by 5.25am! So now we had 1 hour to kill, and not a single store was open, so that I could pick up the Sports Illustrated with the NFL scouting reports.

Killed some time trying to watch other people walking by, and in the end, at about 6am, the store opened. I went to the store to pick up some snacky stuff and also the magazine. They did not have the latest issue of SI, so I picked up ESPN The Magazine, which had a similar story on NFL. Boarded the plane and went off to sleep. It was after all, a Saturday morning :-)

Landed in Dallas on time, and we did not have too much time, so just went to Pizza Hut and had some pizza and bread sticks for lunch. Landed in New Orleans slightly early, at about 2pm.

We took a cab to the hotel because it was the most optimum transportation from the airport to downtown, where the hotel was located. Picked up some flyers about things to do in New Orleans, from the airport information desk. It was HOT in New Orleans. But since it was cloudy, it was not as bad as Miami when we were there for the 4th of July weekend. Here, there was a slight breeze too, so even though it was warm and humid, it was bearable.

We rested for a bit, and started going through some of the flyers. The hotel front desk gave us some names of tour operators for the swamp tours and alligator watching tours that they knew of and had partnered with. The one big advantage that they had was those tour operators would pick us up from the hotel and drop us back off. We looked at what’s available and what’s do-able and decided to do a plantation/swamp tour combo in the day time the next day.

After deciding that, we set off to go to the French Quarter. As we were walking down we decided to actually take the day pass on the street car and take the entire trip of the St Charles Street trolley. That way, we could see the entire city, or at least the main portions of it, in a quick manner.

So we went to the trolley stop and waited. As soon as we reached, we saw the trolley on the other side pass by, and we were tempted to cross the tracks and get into that one. But for some reason we did not. That direction was actually the correct one. Where we were standing was going to take us to the French Quarter, rather than the city. But the entire thing is a loop, so we decided to go to French Quarter, but not get off at the last stop, but take the entire loop and then come back to the French Quarter.

It was a nice ride. It rained for about 10 minutes, but we got to sit for 95% of the entire loop, so we had a good time seeing the sights. New Orleans is quite a run down place, or so it seems because it is ‘historical’ or whatever. One way or the other, the place looked quite old. The houses were nice - huge, as well as well done in terms of yards, lawns, etc. Took some pictures of the houses on the street. Passed by Loyola College and Tulane University. I guess school’s just starting, so it was not that crowded there.

By the time we reached the French Quarter it was almost sun down. So we walked through the main streets (Canal street was where we got off the trolley), and went straight to the Hard Rock Cafe. I had to collect my pin from there to add to the collection ;-). We thought we’d eat at some local place, but since we were hungry, and I did not want to experiment, we settled for Hard Rock dinner.

Walked back to the station and came back home. Watched some TV and went to sleep. Had a relatively early day next day. Phew, this was a long day, but a lot of fun already! :-)

I noticed how grown up human beings also act like kids. You know how at the time of take off and landing, they ask you to get your seat back up in the upright position and fasten your seat belts?

We took 4 flights total this past weekend - San Jose to Dallas, Dallas to New Orleans and then New Orleans to Chicago, and Chicago to San Jose. All four flights I noticed that the stewardess had to come through and tell at least a few people every few seats to fasten the seat belts and/or take the seat back up.

Why can’t we listen to the announcement that is made? I understand that we typically ignore those announcements, but if you notice someone else making their seats straight, why can’t you make your seat straight too? Do you need to be told personally?

It was amazing to watch that phenomenon repeat itself multiple times :-)

What’s up with the barf bags in the planes? You know, the paper bags that they have in the sleeve, with the airline magazine and the escape manual? It is meant for you to ‘discharge’ your puke if you have air sickness.

Have you ever made sure there is one before you get settled?

Today, on the way back, I had the misfortune of seeing the person across the aisle from me, use the bag. To a great extent. Yea, I really mean it.

But after he gave his bag to the stewardess, it was not replaced in that seat. Which means, especially in this day and age where each place is constantly on the move, that most likely that bag will be missing for that seat for a while. I guess until the next person who is on the seat, needs it.

Never thought those bags are used. Was proved wrong today.

Uggghhhhhhhh!

But my thoughts are flowing faster than I can type, plus I am really tired.

Need to sleep…but did you enjoy the two pics?

Thought they were cool, in their own ways.

Gator feeding in Louisiana swamps

Oak Alley Plantation - New Orleans

Another brand new blog!

http://backlogs.blogspot.com

Check it out :-)

Change the batting order, esp if we bat first:

1. Sehwag (last chance)
2. Yuvraj
3. Pinch-hitter Pathan, or Karthick
4. Dravid
5. Kaif
6. Gangs
7. If Karthick does not pinch-hit, he will be #7 or else, Pathan
8. Bhajji
9. Balaji
10. Kumble/Agarkar
11. Nehra/Kumble

Some justification:

1. Yuvraj can’t bat against spin. He will be best used at the top, facing the new ball, with the field open for his shots. Plus he will get more time to play. This is his chance to prove that he is ok opening.
2. We need a pinch hitter because invariably what happens is that after the first wicket, Laxman comes in and slows things down, taking time to settle and stuff. We don’t need any of that. Let Pathan come in and stroke a few 4’s and keep the run rate up.
3. We need to try out Karthick - one way or the other, we have to make sure we have a keeper who can bat. IF we want to prepare for the ‘07 WC, this is the time to start. Sorry, that means Rohan is out.
4. Dravid is perfect for #4 because depending on what is going on, he can either come in and calm the boat, or start doing what he does best (or used to do best) - rotate the strike. He just needs to spend some time in the middle to regain some of his lost form.
5. I put Kaif ahead of Gangs because in general, Gangs can start striking from ball 1, but Kaif cannot. And Kaif will get one more wicket and one more partnership to work his singles and twos in.

The rest is self-explanatory.

Whaddya think?

What’s up with this team? They’ve suddenly forgotten how to bat? What is going on? Is there a rift inside the team that is causing lack of performance to trickle down to the last batsman?

Ok - granted Sachin is not there. But there are 7 other ‘world class’ batsmen. What’s wrong with Sehwag? What’s wrong with everyone else?

Or is it too early to raise red flags?

Great teams learn how to cope with such temporary loss of form. They always have someone who steps up to the plate and delivers when the regulars fail.

Dravid has been a failure of late.
Sehwag even bigger flop.
Gangs has no idea how to cope with pressure and gets out trying something stupid, even when he is looking good.
Laxman is neither here nor there - stays long enough with 60% strike rate and then gets out to a rank bad shot, or to a lazy shot.
Yuvraj has been the biggest disappointment this season. Forget his chances of making to the test squad. His position should be questioned in the one day XI at least for now.
Kaif I have documented for a long time that he is wasted at #7. Finally they sent him up and he did something, but again, did not close out the match for India.
Rohan was also a disappointment. Last two matches were his chance to shine and at least stay till the end and go down fighting, but he was not able to convert that chance to a passport to the Indian XI.

Basically the team has forgotten how to win. They are running like headless chicken and more and more fingers are being pointed towards Ganguly. I am hoping this is not something internal to the team. I am just hoping that is a misfortune plaguing the entire team at once.

We need Sandy Gordon. Someone who holds each person by the shoulders and shakes them up and drills it into their heads that they have to win, no matter what.

They have one match to redeem themselves. All the wins (all? sorry - one or two) this season have been pathetic. Barely beating UAE and somehow surviving against SL. On the other hand, they have played too few matches. But there is no point in giving them any benefit of doubt. They have played badly and they need to wake up.

Quickly.

Phew. It was a long week. Glad its almost over.

Looking forward to this little trip to New Orleans. Am quite pumped. First time there.

After reading certain ‘personal’ blogs regularly, you tend to start following their lives. For example, if someone who I didn’t know, was reading this blog, they would understand sorta what’s going on in my life. What I am doing, what I am going through, what some other people in the family are going through.

Is it ok then, after following someone else’s life through their blogs, to post comments there, as if you were a part of the life?

By creating a public blog, are you making your life public?