WOW! Blogger has new features! I really did not think they (Google) was working on anything at blogger. But I was so wrong. Thankfully!

Looking forward to using the new stuff.

So what if it was only a preseason game? Tennesse defenders were made to look like a lot of USC opponents after Reggie Bush had this excellent run. I love the way it ended, with Reggie going head on into a bunch of defenders.

He’s no weak runner who will go out of bounds to end the play. Mind it! :-)

Well, knocking on wood after this high praise. But I just could not resist it. I hope they show a lot of Saints games here on the West Coast.

Hat tip - Trojanwire.

[youtube www.youtube.com/watch

Blake Ross of Firefox recently had a great post about how the current crop of companies have started getting used to high valuations (legit or not) and only talk of millions and nothing less.

Read it here and enjoy. It just shows that we are dangerously close to repeating history from 5 years back. I hope it does not come down to it, but a portal snagging 15 mill???? I don’t know how that can be justified. How much money will they have to make to give their investors a good return on the 15M?? The only way a portal can justify it is perhaps having insider information about someone like Google gobbling them up in some time for multiples of that number.

Otherwise, how could anyone justify such a huge need for capital???

Had a wonderful weekend this past weekend. Had hosted a function for an important event in our lives and it was attended by about 50 people. Family flew in from out of town and a lot of friends came in and joined the fun.

The ceremony was done in a sort of traditional format, with prayers and the rituals, and some of the people did comment that everything went according to how it is supposed to be done. Some were surprised how “traditional” it was.

Everyone enjoyed it a lot, including us. There was a little less hassle because we hosted it at a restaurant, so the cleaning and everything was taken care of by the restaurant staff.

Both of us missed our immediate family members. It almost felt like a wedding ceremony and it was sad that no one from immediate family was there to witness it and be a part of the experience. Anyway, there is quite a bit of detail captured in the video and hopefully they will be happy to see it.

And now starts the fun. It is surely going to be a hectic period from now to the end of the year. Can’t wait!!

A quick note about Rockstar too … I think the talent is slowly getting filtered and the crap shows quite clearly from the good stuff.

The first song was probably the best, though I must say the Queen song was also performed quite well. One of those two may get the encore.

As for the kick, I would have to say once again that the Puerto Rican showgirl must go.

Just came back from dinner - do not have much time to write about yesterday’s show before we start the DVR-ed version of the finale.

Chris Porter deserved to go, and the voting was thankfully in line with that …

As I have said before, I think it is a toss-up between Ty and Josh Blue … let’s see what happens.

This is one of the reasons Coaches Poll should be made public every week and let the media debate it with the coaches. How could Steve openly say that he “throws in” a vote for Duke just because he feels he owes them a vote???

He is making a mockery of the entire voting process and if there are enough knuckeheads like him, it could throw the whole thing off.

Hmph.

Interesting hypothesis from F1 News about why Michael Schumacher may be retiring at the end of this season.

Some things that could break the hypothesis:
Massa being confident about his ride next year. How good an indicator is his confidence?
Kimi cannot go to Renault and so he will go to Ferrari. Therefore, the team is going to have Kimi and Massa.

Think about it as much as you want. In a few weeks it has to come out - Kimi’s home for the next year is key to fitting all the remaining pieces together.

I was reading earlier this morning about the AOL screw up with exposing search histories of 500,000 users! Paradigm Shift has listed one such user’s history and it is scary stuff.

Begs the question - are we better off not knowing such creeps' searches (denial) or is it better to know that your neighbor could be the one searching for how to kill someone??? In any case, it is not a pleasant situation to be aware of.

I am so sick right now I want to puke.

What a freaky race! First, the qualifying, which actually points to the Friday practice where Alonso was penalized 2 seconds in each of his qualifying sessions. So Michael Schumacher only had to qualify well enough so that he has a clear gap between him and Alonso so that he can chew up some points in the lead. But no, it was not that easy. Schumacher got a 2 second penalty of his own and that became to be known/confirmed only on qualification day morning!

As a result, Schumacher ended up 11th and Alonso, 15th. Combine this with some engine changes and there were a total of 5 drivers with penalties on the grid. Kimi was on the pole and had a good chance of winning his first race of the year. About time, right?

Race day sprung another surprise. Rains! Never happened in the last 20 years! Everyone was surprised and did not know how exactly to react - what tires to use, and how to strategize. In the end, it looked like Michelin had the better tires, because after the start, where both Schumy and Alonso made up tremendous ground (and Massa got bumped down badly in the process), it was Alonso, Kimi, de la Rosa who were all coasting along in the wet track compared to the Toyotas and the Ferraris who seemed to be struggling.

Just when things were going awesome for Alonso, with a comfortable gap between him and Schumy - he in fact lapped Schumy!! - things went wrong for Alonso. After his pit stop he came out and almost immediately, spun out with a tire/wheel issue! Out of the race! Out! Yay, for Schumy fans! He was already 3rd by that time, so he only needed to finish the race to chew up 6 points off the 11 point lead.

But there was another twist waiting to happen - Schumacher was on intermediates and the guy behind him, de la Rosa was on dry tires and he was certainly going quicker than Schumy. It was either Schumy takes a pitstop and sacrifices 3 spots and finishes well, or he goes on, losing maybe 1 spot but risking not completing the race. Knowing Schumy, it was a no-brainer - he continued with the risk. He did something silly at one corner when de la Rosa clearly had him but Schumy went across the chicane and came up ahead of de la Rosa. Schumy should have given up one spot there, because it was clearly unfair. But he did not.

But de la Rosa eventually got him fair and square and Schumy was now 4th. With two laps to go, the final twist (race-wise) came about and Schumy’s car gave up! He had to pull in and get parked! Oh no! There go the freebie points.

Jenson Button claimed his first F1 victory and I am happy for him. Finally he gets the big one.

And this morning I read about Schumacher getting bumped up to 8th spot becauise Kubica’s car was found to be too light! So the lead is now 10 points.

Can’t wait for the next race!!

It was a toss up between Michelle and Chris Porter and it was Michelle who left us last night.

Chris Porter has turned out to be such a disappointment. All he focuses on is drunks or drugs or something to that effect. Sad writing for such critical rounds.

Josh Blue continues to impress with his jokes. Ty I think has the best delivery.

I say Chris is out this week and between Ty and Josh, it is a 50-50.

It was actually not a bad show last night. Except for one or two … ok three … performances, all the rest were quite superb.

The best though, was the Losing My Religion version by whats-his-face from New York. I won’t be surprised if he gets the call tonight for the encore.

The young chick amazes me with her childish comments. At some point she said ‘I even headbanged’. Last night she said ‘I might get a tattoo, I am that bad!’ ;-)

Oh, and that Puerto Rican girl?!?!?! What a shocker last week that she stayed and Phil went (though he was not that great, but between the two I would have imagined she would have gone). I do believe Supernova is keeping her for the humor. Which is sad - to have her hopes lifted for nothing. But of course, I do believe she is not minding the publicity at all. After all, no publicity is bad publicity.

Anyway, I think Jill and the weirdo looker guy along with the Puerto Rican girl will be the bottom three. And I will really be shocked, no matter what, if the Puerto Rican does not get knocked out tonight.

And I am terribly sorry I have not memorized any names so far. I will do it when it gets down to top 5 or so.

So far, no real favorites … it keeps changing week to week, so I think there is no clear favorite or two.

I feel it is very sad to see how Agassi’s career is ending. He is losing in first and second rounds of mid-tier tournaments, if he has not pulled out of them already.

He had a nice spike in performance last year and he should have called it quits then. His wife Steffi Graf knew exactly when to do it, and Sampras had a nice moment to leave on. Agassi chose instead to prolong his illustrious career and in the bargain, made me feel bad for him.

We’ll certainly miss him, his personality, his return of serve and his presence in general. I wish I could go to Flushing this year to see his last few matches.

I never liked him or his movies (did not see the ‘hit’ Passion of the Christ), and after this incident, I don’t think I will see any more of his movies or any other work.

Such damage is hard to undo - no apologies will take back what he said in a drunken state.

Sad day for Hollywood, I must say.

Two weeks back, I had set up a directv installation. It was for a Monday and they said it was going to be between 8am and 12noon, so I stayed at home for that time. I had given detailed instructions to the rep who took my order, about how to get to our complex and what to do when the installer gets there, so that I can let him in.

So the first thing that went wrong was that guy did not follow those instructions and landed up at some nearby hotel. What was he thinking? In any case, when he called, I told him to drive on the same road that he was on, pass the convenience store and get into the next set of gates.

Guess what? He actually went up to the convenience store and called me and said ‘I see some market or something, where are you located?’. What?!?!? I told him he did not have to go in there, just use it as a landmark and take the NEXT right. He somehow, after much trying from my part, got it. He drove back out and went to the next set of gates.

Now, I had clearly given instructions about what to do to get in. They were supposed to enter a code which would then let me buzz them in. He did not have that information at all. So I had to explain the whole thing to this guy, who by now I realized, was not interested in this sale.

So finally, he understood what he needed to do and suddenly, he asked me if I could see the sun from my balcony. I was a little puzzled, and I had to respond with the vague ‘I guess so’ :-)

As he drove in to the building, he kept saying if I do not see the sun, I cannot get service. And I kept pushing the decision out by telling him, yea yea yea, just come up and let me know.

Then, to my most shocking surprise, he got out of the car, and started yelling from down to me, saying it was impossible to get service. No compass, nothing. Just not possible. I told him he should at least come up with a compass, and see if there was any chance of getting it. He said it was a waste of his time and mine!

What?? Are you kidding me? I had already wasted time and I would damn sure want you to confirm and put it in writing that I cannot get the signal. Also, he had bloody driven from wherever his office was, and he might as well spend 5 more minutes, come up and check it out!! It was that simple. But no.

He did not come up at all. He said I am free to call DirecTV and complain about it. He said he has 3 years experience in this stuff and he wanted to guarantee that I cannot get the signal. Then I told him I used to have dish network which 3 different installers said I cannot get. And he did not respond to that, but started walking away.

Ultimately, he did not come up! He just walked away from me and went to his car and drove off.

I was SO angry at that attitude. I am just shocked how a business can allow such a thing. Pathetic.

It was an exciting race, but it was complete domination from the Ferraris. Suddenly, with Alonso not being on the podium, the difference between Alonso and Schumacher is down to a reasonable level and it keeps my interest in this season alive :-)

Schumacher/Massa and the Ferrari team had a total blowout performance. Kimi did well to be on the podium despite a 3-stop strategy, which was essentially because of a glitch in the qualifying that ended up with him having too little fuel on race day.

In any case, it is on to Budapest next weekend and I do hope that Schumacher eats up a few more points (not 2) in the lead so that the last 4 races are the most exciting of the season.

Has Renault lost its confidence?

Kimi Raikkonen is on pole for tomorrow’s race! Yay! Finally, right? Hope he wins!

What happened in the pits with Alonso and Schumacher?? Alonso was showing the fist and some team radio comments they had were things like ‘Did you see what Michael did?’ and the team seemed to be saying ‘Yes, we sure did’. What did he do??? Try to take him out in the pits? No way! Alonso has started crying.

And starting at 7th is going to be a good test for him. Let’s see how well he copes …

I have come to realize that the talent on this season is much worse than last season. Coupled with the sad band, it makes for quite a so-so experience watching the show.

Last night, at least for the first few guys, the panel had only negative things to say, and that too quite harsh. Some of it, I think deservedly, but some of it I would challenge.

I think the crazy woman with a lot of piercings on the face is the best female vocalist and may even be the best singer/performer in this group. The only thing is will she fit into Supernova the band? She may get the encore for the superb version of Time after time.

Either she or the crazy makeup dude will get the encore.

What the heck was that blue dress thingy that Puerto Rican chick wore??? Gosh. It shouted of ‘I cannot sing, so I might as well be slutty’. And similarly, even before Gilby mentioned the grinding, I told the wife that the woman was unnecessarily grinding with Gilby. Pathetic, cheap and sad.

As for kicking out tonight - my feeling is the Puerto Rican chick is gone. But who knows what Tommy Lee is thinking. He is crazy and totally unpredictable. She should have gone two weeks back but he shockingly kept her in the running - was it for face/body value??

It was a good show last night. I was a little surprised to see Roz go, but oh well.

Ty was funny - he writes well. Michelle’s jokes were not well received, I don’t think. But in some ways like Roz, her delivery was not that great - the punchline was not delivered with enough punch to let it sink in.

Chris Porter was better than last week, but still not the funniest. The fact that he repeated the first joke from an earlier show meant that his writing skills are a little limited. Of course, this also matches the fact that last week he sucked in terms of joke quality.

Josh Blue was hilarious, just like last time. He is probably the best and may win it all if he continues his streak of well-written sets.

Balan may go tonight.

I was laughing to read this nonsene piece on Yahoo Sports about Reggie Bush potentially sitting out the entire season and coming back next year and doing something different then.

What??? Sit out the entire season? For a guy who contributed $50,000 even before he started in New Orleans, for a guy who pledged to donate 25% of his earnings from jersey sales of #5 and then choosing to give half of his earnings from the #25 jersey to McAfee (who in turn will donate it to Katrina relief), it does not seem like something he would like to do or would do.

I hope he does not sit out the season. I want to see him play this year!

The Indian team is going to be away from the media for 3 days of training before they start one of the most important few months of cricket leading up to the World Cup.

I think it is a good idea. I do believe that the media has a tendency to distract the team for no reason, just to make stories. So it is a good thing that they are going to be away for 3 days and they will get a chance to bond with each other (more) and take care of their stuff.

I wonder if they are allowed to keep their cell phones and stuff, because more than the media, that could be a problem. I am sure their phones are taken away, unless there is a Gabriel in the team ;-)

It has been a nice, relaxing, lazy Saturday today. Not much to do, work-wise or chores-wise. Woke up without an alarm, and watched last night’s Conan and some other random stuff.

Surprisingly, I actually slept in the day. It has not happened for a very long time. But here I am, at the end of the day, well rested and ready for a chore-filled Sunday :-)

Thankfully, it was not the final episode last night. I was happy to see that only one comic is going to get booted this time.

Chris Porter was pathetic. I mean, not relative to his earlier stuff, but in general his performance was sad.

Ty had a good set. Roz was just too loud. I know it is her style, but she did not even have good pauses between her jokes to let the audience digest the jokes.

I think Chris Porter or the Balan chick may get booted out.

Note: This is being written before I watched the show tonight - it is on DVR and I have not got to it yet.

The show is not living up to the expectations generated from the INXS season. But I repeat myself.

Tommy Lee sucks. As a judge, and as a bandmember (and future band member). He is moody, and crazy and offers absolutely no positive, constructive comments. All he can say is show me your body, or you were hot or ho-hum and such. Useless. Compared to him, any member of INXS was awesome.

The others are ok, including Dave Navarro.

The best performance was from the first woman (Helter Skelter), but I think the encore will go to the crazy-looking dude with the ton of eye shadow. Sorry, I don’t know names yet - maybe after it gets down to last 5 or something.

The bearded guy from New York is going to go tonight …

Verizon announced a 50 Mbps connection @$90/month. Forget the price for a moment, but 50 M?!?!?! What can I do with 50M that I cannot do with lets say 6M? If I can get decent (read: steady, uninterrupted, consistent) 6M download speed, I can do what I normally do and some more.

I guess 50M at home is going to target Online Netflix movie downloaders who can get their movies 5-10x faster with this service. But other than movie downloads, I don’t know what could motivate me to go to that speed.

Unless my internet provider offers a ‘free upgrade’ ;-)