China beat Serbia and eliminated them from the knockout rounds. A sad ending for a team that was supposed to give US its biggest challenge.

I guess this Olympics has been completely out of sync with the ‘form’ and ‘seedings’ and such established before the games began.

Let’s see who wins. I still think USA has it in them to go far, but who knows how the youngsters' minds are thinking.

What a waste. Went from home at 11pm to watch the cricket match between India and Australia. Slept from 11 to about 1.25am and realized at that time that there was rain and the match was going to be delayed.

Snoozed the alarm and woke up again at 2.30am and realized that they had not started yet. So I took off and came back home because I had an early meeting, so I did not want to go there with swollen eyes :-)

When I was about to leave at about 7.30am I checked and realized that the match did start! It was a 32 over match and Australia was batting first.

After my meeting was over I checked scores again and saw that the match was abandoned! And there is no reserve day in this tournament. So for all practical purposes, India is out. The only way India can come through is if Pakistan beats Australia by a bigger margin than they beat India. Wonder if the first portion is realistic in the first place. In fact, the way they have played, I don’t even want the Indians to come to the finals. It would be useless.

Hopefully they will plan better for the future games.

After much hesitation and in fact, a strong desire to not give in to dish network’s high price, we decided to sign up for the Holland Cup!

Watched in pain on Friday night as we saw rain pouring down. The match finally started at about 5.30am, so we were able to sleep for a few hours in peace. Luckily for us, we had a DVR (like TiVo), so we were able to see the entire innings.

Pakistan scored 194 in 33 overs, when they should have not scored more than 160. They scored 31 in the last 2 overs, which was a pity.

And once again, India was completely outplayed by Pakistan. The hurt is not as bad as a World Cup loss, or a series loss, but to see the Indians getting completely outplayed is sad. I thought this was the team for the future, but once again, there were no partnerships.

Yuvraj and Kaif were once again the culprits in not setting up a partnership. What is the point of having seven batsmen when the #5 and #6 cannot last more than 20 runs each?

Gavaskar, Pathan, Agarkar and the rest had no option but to come out and hit blindly. So can’t blame them. Dravid unfortunate run out started the slide, and Laxman’s lack of rotation of strike caused the slowdown after Gangs and Sehwag had given a decent start (64 for 1 in 9 overs).

On to Natwest trophy in England. India has now become 0-2 in tournaments in this season. :-(

Did not realize where the last weekend flew by. I already want a vacation :-(

Spent most of Saturday in the city. Took my wife’s cousin sight seeing in the city. Was fun and relaxed. Before we went to the city, we stopped at Saravanaa Bhavan. They used to be in Mountain View and now they have moved to Sunnyvale.

Their earlier place probably seated 100 or so. They have taken over a Denny’s which is at least 4 times their earlier capacity. Still, the crowd is still the same. We had to wait about 45 minutes to be seated at 1.30pm on Saturday! Its amazing.

In the city, the highlight for me was driving up those steep streets and more importantly, driving down. The driving down part was scary because the grade was almost 60 degrees and so when we started the climb down, I could not see anything in front of me on the road. It was a classic moment and truly, the highlight for me there.

Came back and dropped him off at the airport at about 7.45pm and went to an Indian restaurant for dinner with some friends. After a pretty heavy (as usual) dinner, we went to one of the friends' place and played taboo till well past midnight. It was too much fun.

Good end to a good day.

This is from a Thums Up bottle at a local Indian restaurant

Check out a new blog in the family: http://nyk23.blogspot.com

Wow. What a fast week. But TGIF.

Plan to be in the city tomorrow. Take my wife’s cousin around. The usual - Golden Gate bridge, Ghirardelli Square etc. Hopefully it will be a nice and sunny day.

I may be succumbing to the pressure of watching India play the Holland Cup. Still not sure if I really want to see it or not. Will wait till the end to determine.

Went laptop shopping with my cousin. It was fun. To visit Best Buy, Circuit City, Fry’s, etc. And look at what’s out there.

Of course, I never like to go shopping when I know I am not going to buy anything. That’s the worst kind of shopping. But at least what I was looking at, was something I am interested in.

Plus, it feels good to see someone is going to use a brand spanking new laptop ;-)

Videocon trophy in Holland.
Natwest series vs Englang.
ICC Champions trophy in England.

I think I will miss watching some of these games live. I hope there is some place we can go watch, in case there is a good finals matchup or something.

Tonight is India/Pakistan.

He was planning to stay till Sunday and was trying to convince someone else to stay back or come back from LA for the weekend. In the end, he left early - with his parents and sister.

Loser.

Been busy the past few days…the cousins have left. Back to the armpit of America - New Jersey :-)

I did try what she asked me to try and played RPM vs RPM and I crused the computer RPM 6-0. Did not bother to play the next set.

Then yesterday, I tried playing RPM/Grosjean vs RPM/RPM where RPM/RPM were both computer controlled. It was a tough match. I still won 7-5. But I think I am done with Top Spin, unless there is a challenge.

Madden looked interesting, but I am so sure that I will be addicted to it, that I really don’t want it :-)

Crap! Out in the semis. To an unseeded team. Straight sets. Oh no. I really had my hopes high for maybe a silver at least.

Never mind.

Hershel Dennis has been suspended indefinitely by Pete Carrol. Check out the story here: http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=1862885

That, in addition to Mike Williams' issue has made this team slightly less formidable.

Hopefully the other backs will be able to take the load. Cross my fingers.

I have realized that this blog has become a lot like my thoughts typed aloud. So a natural topic to talk about here would be my pet peeves.

Let me start by saying that one of the biggest annoyances I have is 2 people whispering/giggling when there is a group of people in the room. It is not only impolite, but also spoils the main conversation.

I also don’t like people who start side conversations in public. This is different from the point above, which is mainly whispering. I am talking about ‘cross conversation’.

More to follow.

Check out http://usctrojans.collegesports.com/sports/m-swim/spec-rel/081704aaa.html. USC has won a gold medal in every Olympics since 1912!

Nineteen hundred and twelve. Amazing stat! :-)

Fight ON!

They beat the 4th seeds Black/Ullyet. Next up is the winner of the #8 Israeli team or unseeded German team.

Not sure if a bronze is secured or they need to play a semi-final losers' playoff for #3 spot.

So last night, ‘Anonymous’ came by to seek revenge. She wanted to play Top Spin tennis on the XBOX till she beat me. We played 4 more matches, and I crushed her again.

The closest she came was in the last match, where she came back from being 0-3 down in the first set to make it 4-4. I won that 6-4. And then in the same match, in the second set, she was 3-0 up, but I won it 6-3.

All in all, 7-0 in matches. I told her how to beat me, but she could not. She gave me a good idea though - I should try to play my own character and see who wins.

hmm…interesting.

Roddick and Venus Williams lost today. That basically throws out all realistic hopes of winning medals for the US. Which also means that fuggeddaboutit as far as tennis coverage is concerned.

Sucks.

Roddick and Venus Williams lost today. That basically throws out all realistic hopes of winning medals for the US. Which also means that fuggeddaboutit as far as tennis coverage is concerned.

Sucks.

Not that I am too bullish on them, but they overcame Federer and the other guy. Second set tie break went to 9-7.

But still, I don’t want to woof it. Knock on wood.

Looks like the docs found something in her spinal tap. They are going to have to do some more stuff (MRI?) before they discharge her and she comes back home.

Waiting.

So Real Networks announced today that they are having a ‘song sale’ - each song is now only 49 cents and they also have half-price albums.

Who did not see this coming?

And how long before we start seeing ads before and after songs that are free? Or worse, voice-overs on ‘free’ songs?

Web reloaded?

Yay! SS Rathore wins a silver medal in shooting (men’s double trap).

Congratulations, Rathore! I am proud of you! :-)

But now, on to something more yellowish - anyone willing to stand up and claim it? It’s been a while :-)

So blogger finally realized that they need to have their own search built in. So they created the NavBar at the top. Since blogger is owned by google, the navbar features a search by google. The search is limited to your site, provided you have submitted your site to google for indexing. You can do that here: http://www.google.com/addurl.html

Also, another neat feature is the ‘next blog’, which just goes to a random blog that was recently updated. Of course, you need to have a lot of free time to do these things :-)

So, in light of this update from blogger, I am removing my search button from the right side.

Again, from sify.com:

When asked about Sachin Tendulkar’s rather sedate batting in the recent times, Ganguly said, “Yes, the team management has asked Sachin to phase his innings according to the situation of the match as both Virender Sehwag and Sachin are attacking batsmen. It is better one of them slow down and try to play the full 50 overs.”

Maybe they need to re-think this strategy. Why do we need to curb one guy? If there is an early wicket, then maybe we can change the plan. Why have a rigid plan from before the match? Let’s say both start hitting and one fails and gets out - let the other one slow down from there, or let the #3 bat become the anchor.

Why slow down someone who plays well fast?