From sify.com (before the team’s departure to Amsterdam):

“Even though Irfan Pathan has come a long way and has been contributing with the bat and Ajit Agarkar is back in the side, I still feel Dravid has to keep wickets so that we can have an additional batsman in the side,” Ganguly said.

He really thinks Agarkar is as good as Pathan?

And does he know that if Dravid is surely going to keep wickets, then there is no need for KKD Karthik to be there? Especially if the squad is only 14?

And then:

“I know we have many wicketkeepers but the issue here is not about the wicketkeepers as such but about the ‘keepers who can deliver as batsman. We have picked Dinesh Karthik (the new ‘keeper in place of Parthiv Patel). I am told that he is been scoring heavily in domestic matches and I hope he will get a chance to prove his worth,” Ganguly said.

So he thinks there is a possibility of playing Karthik as #7 batsman? Hmm, at least the thought is noble. I think it would be better to fly in a ‘keeper if needed, but have a batsman in the squad because an extra bat like Gavaskar or Badani needs to get acclimatised more than a ‘keeper bat.

And a good point about Kaif:

“Judging his form will not be fair as he goes down the order when there is hardly any assistance from the other end. If he gets 30-40 odd runs and stops another 20-25 on the field, he will have done his duty.”

For reaching the 10K barrier. Unfortunately, not many of your runs have ended up with your team winning the matches.

You and Sachin can go for a beer and talk about it. ;-)

Yes, they have a team. Not a superstar. Are you listening, Team India?

Team USA lost a basketball game in the Olympics only for the 3rd time ever (since 1936, when basketball was first introduced). And the first time since NBA players were allowed to participate.

I don’t think all the talk about team chemistry and all that is justified. I think the problem has been lack of attitude and motivation. They don’t look like they have the fire in them to win. They are just going through the motions, assuming that the opponents will be scared of the ‘star’ status that USA has, and give up to them just like that.

And I heard on the radio, and I think it’s true to a great extent, the roster has not been constructed properly. All the players USA has today, are good in the lane and under the basket. Maybe short range jumpers too. But no one is real good with perimeter shooting. They need those key three pointers. Especially with the zone defense that most teams around the world play. And USA does not have any. And if they cannot penetrate and score layups, they are going to fall behind all the time.

And what’s up with the defense???

Went to the batting cages twice last weekend. It was so much fun! I think even more exciting was the prospect of actually playing in some office softball league. On Friday night we went to a place which had quite a few flood-lit softball fields, and there were leagues playing their games there. It looked like a lot of fun.

But today my back hurts a bit ;-)

Another win for Ferrari. In fact it was the 7th 1-2 for Ferrari, I believe.

They have captured the constructor’s championship already.

Schumacher has a clear goal now - to lock in the driver’s championship and then see if he can go all the way. Good luck to him.

But I am yawning.

Did nothing special though. There were two festivals organized this time - one in Fremont and another in San Jose. But since we were doing so much anyway, we skipped them and focussed on other stuff instead.

Saw Collateral over the weekend. Take it off the list.

Great movie, gripping from start to finish. The background score was unbelievably in line with the storyline. Loved that too. The acting is marvellous. Cruise and Foxx make a good combo, and Foxx especially had great expressions during various scenes.

Now, just two remain - Bourne and I, Robot. Will knock them off one by one. :-)

Is it already Monday? I can’t believe it. I wish there was some more time to sleep. Relax.

Did a lot of stuff over the weekend, at least in terms of being kept busy. Gave the car for its 30K service to Sunnyvale Acura. First time at that dealer, because Stevens Creek Acura was more expensive, for apparently nothing. We told them to call us on my cell phone when the car is ready to be picked up.

Went back home and did some laundry and got some other chores done. By that time it was almost 1pm. We then went to Malibu Grand Prix for go-karting. On the way, we stopped by the hospital to check how the baby was doing. She is feeling better. Knock on wood. After we reached Malibu GP, most people who had not been there, realized that there was no racing as such. It was one track where you had a time trial, basically trying to beat your own and your friends' times. So most of the people including me, dropped out and went to the batting cages. Two of my cousins went to the go-karts and since we went in the afternoon, and there was no rush, they were able to get to the karts with no wait times. Mental note - next time, go in the afternoons!

Then, since we were so hungry, we went to Chaat Cafe in Sunnyvale for lunch. We stuffed ourselves there and then checked with movies are playing where and at what times. Found out that there were some who wanted to see Open Water, and some who wanted to see Collateral.

I saw Collateral. It was awesome. Worth it. Worth the hype. Tom Cruise has done a great job, and so has Jamie Foxx. Great film.

Then after dinner, the party shifted to home. Came home and played some XBOX tennis with a cousin who is visiting from NJ. Crushed her. And felt good ;-) I may be ready for showtime in that game ;-)

After playing the game and boring the rest of the crew, we thought of watching Once Upon a Time in Mexico, but that was not to be. Everyone was tired and went to sleep.

Sunday my wife took some people to Gilroy for shopping. We went to San Francisco for lunch at Straits Cafe and then came back to the hospital. When I reached the hospital, everyone went to dinner. My wife and I stayed back and waited for a little bit more and went home for pizza later. After pizza, there was an idea of watching the movie White Chicks in the Cinema Savers theatre. But I was too tired, and so were some others. So it was decided that we’ll watch Kal Ho Na Ho. A lot of stuff was at the house, so someone had to come and pick it up, so I suggested that we watch it together at the house, but it did not look like there was much response. So I skipped out of the movie and came home and watched some of the 49ers pre-season game and some SportsCenter while my wife worked for a bit and then slept, while the movie did happen elsewhere.

Wow. It was quite a busy weekend.

ebay has made the first attempt to gobble up craigslist. Craigslist.org is one of the best local sites in the SF Bay Region at least, and now ebay has bought 25% stake in it.

Oh no. I am not sure if I like the complexity of ebay. I love the simplicity of craigslist and neat and clean interface. ebay-SF is not a good idea :-(

I have noticed that more and more people are now using the invisible mode of instant messaging. This is called ‘eye’ in AOL Instant Messenger, I believe.

What’s the point? It is utter selfishness that you become invisible to others, but others are visible to you. It goes against the whole utility of instant messaging, which is to be able to quickly check with friends and family (and now, co-workers) about a point or two and then go back to usual business.

I understand that nowadays, those buddy lists are getting longer and longer, and there is ALWAYS someone who wants to talk to you, but I think if people seriously follow the etiquette and understand that if someone’s status is ‘busy’ or ‘do not disturb’ then they should not be disturbed, then I think it won’t be too distracting.

But making oneself invisible will ultimately lead to the demise of instant messaging. If a lot of people are becoming invisible, I will become invisible too. One day, no one will be visible to anyone else, and there won’t be anyone to chat with.

Is that what we aimed for, with this free chat medium? Or was it more presence-awareness and an increased ability to communicate inexpensively across the globe?

I say, disable to invisible feature and make the ‘do not disturb’ feature such that messages to someone with such a status will bounce back to the sender with the message ‘I told you I am busy, don’t disturb me’. What say?

Not so much of a superstitious guy, but the radio stations and the people around are all talking about it. Just something to put the blame on, for slacking off :-)

Not sure about others, but I am just waiting for the Olympics to end soon. I was never a big athletics fan, and Olympics watching used to be fun in India. With most of the events shown tape-delayed over here in the US, it makes no sense to watch them.

There is no way you can avoid not seeing the results before they show the event.

So, I would rather fast forward this period and get it done and over with.

Kumar Sangakkarra scored his third double century of his career against South Africa. That’s amazing, considering that the others have come against Pak in Pak and against Zim in Zim.

While the superstar Indian cricketers are dreaming about double centuries in one day cricket, here is a guy who is a dependable wicketkeeper who can score double centuries in tests, many times over.

I strongly believe that the Indians should focus less on their marketing efforts and focus more on staying at the wicket and scoring runs. Big runs. Big innings. Against the big opponents. And then we’ll see.

Edited on 8/13/2004: Made a typo, not triple but double. But the point remains the same.

The baby is not feeling well again. In fact, the condition never really improved much. But it has come to a point where it is beyond us normal people to work with the medicines and the dosage and stuff, so she was admitted to the ER 2 days back.

I have not got a chance to go see her. Will be doing so today. I am hoping that the ‘magic potion’ is made soon, or I should say ‘discovered’ soon, so that she can come back home.

Fingers crossed.

On Monday, my company was hit with another virus. The anti virus software was able to reject most of the problems, but one of the bad bad fallouts of the attack was that my calendar got corrupted.

I not only lost the ability to receive reminders, but more importantly, I lost some of my meetings! On Tuesday, I blew off two meetings and was 30 minutes late for a one-hour meeting on Wednesday! It is amazing how dependent I am on technology, and how vulnerable the technology itself is, to such massive attacks.

I thought I had a good way to backing up data with Intellisync for Yahoo, but little did I know that the virus would not only spoil my calendar, but destroy the intellisync also.

So here I am, trying to scramble to meetings, asking everyone to re-send their invites.

Meanwhile, the IT support person could not help me much, so they are going to restore my stuff from Sunday. So everything I did between Sunday and today (or whenever they restore it ultimately), will be lost.

So more scrambling and coveruing my backside.

It sucks. Big time.

‘Its been a while’. Because really, it’s not been a while. It was only one day that I missed :-)

I have been having long days of late. And that too, completely booked days. No time to relax. It is becoming tough, because we are getting close to the ‘Go Live’ date of our project. But ‘close’ is probably an inaccurate term. It should actually be ‘closer’.

There are so many things needed to be achieved and so little time. Plus people are used to taking it easy, so they are not used to any stress at all. It is going to be an interesting few months coming up.

At one point in my life, I was too thin. I was asked again and again why I am not putting on weight.

Of course, since I came to the US, and got a job, my weight has gone up. And now, recently, I was asked how come I am so fat.

I am not fat. No way. I am not proportionate in my weight distribution, but I am not fat.

But my point is, isn’t it ironical that now I am being asked why I am putting on weight and not losing it?

Take Manchurian Candidate off the pending movies list.

It was scary, and Denzel once again proves that he is a great actor. I love to watch his acting - always delivers.

Two thumbs up. But beware, don’t tell I didn’t warn you that it is scary. :-)

The producers may have heard me. Looks like the Seinfeld DVD’s are going to be out soon! They have split it into Season 1+2 and Season 3.

The price is not that bad, and my question from earlier has been answered :-)

Added to my Wish List ;-)

Saw parts of the first pre-season game yesterday between Denver and Washington. Can’t wait till it gets into full season.

Woo hoo! Happy days are here again! :-)

Well, well, well. After 5-6 more years of playing with team, Ganguly wants to be the coach of the Indian team.

Will he choose Zaheer as the physical trainer? ;-)

And Bhajji as the spinner’s coach.

And Nehra (or Srinath) as the bowling coach.

Sehwag as the batting coach.

More suggestions for his coaching staff?

If you are planning a vacation, I would strongly advise you to keep a day buffer after coming back from wherever you go. You need to recover from the vacation, or else, you will never be rested enough.

I realized that after 2 days of almost no sleep in Vegas. I was so tired at work yesterday. And on top of it, being a Monday, it was most hectic day of the week.

Maybe it’s me, but I really think vacations should be spent relaxing, doing nothing. Chilling.

So I treated my Vegas trip basically as a reunion of my MBA class. It was great to see them after a long time. Even though I reached at 1am on Friday night/Saturday morning, the guys were out, and I ended up playing some roulette and some slots and being down already.

Never gamble when you are tired. Never gamble when you lose beyond a certain amount. Obviously I am not going to write how much I lost on that one day - just believe me when I say it was not that much. ;-)

Went up to the room at around 3am, watched a little bit of SportsCenter when one of my roommates came up. We talked for a bit and went to sleep.

The next morning, I woke up at 7am! Yea, after sleeping at 4am, I was able to actually wake up at 7am. Actually, I was woken up by one of my other roommates, who lives on the East Coast and he wanted everyone to think it was 10am. In any case, I showered and was ready for coffee by about 10.30 am.

Went for buffet brunch at Alladin. I think they have the best spread in town. Awesome food, but just so much choice that you get tired eating in no time. I still stuffed myself beyond limit. Could not walk at the end of it all.

Somehow, we made our way out. Some of the gang was going to watch the Cirque Du Soleil show ‘O’ at the Bellagio. So they went to pick up the tickets, while some of us stayed back at Alladin, trying to play some roulette or blackjack. Made up some of the money in roulette. Still down on the trip’s gambling.

Then after a couple of hours of gambling, we went back to the room for a quick power nap. After all, Saturday night was the big dinner planned, and most likely there was going to some some sort of post-dinner activity. So we took a quick nap and started getting ready. We were meeting at the lobby at 5.45pm. We were going to eat at Roy’s, which is Hawaiian Fusion cuisine. I did not know what to expect - never had Hawaiian cuisine. As we walked in, I knew this was going to be a high price place.

There was nothing on the menu that was clearly vegetarian. My friend and I were the only ones vegetarian. Everything was focussed on sea food, and everyone on the table was salivating. The only thing we could get was vegetarian sushi. So we both got that. The dessert was rocking - Chocolate Souffle. Still remember the taste ;-)

After that, everyone went to ‘O’ and I stayed back at the Bellagio casino. Wandered for a bit, and found no place to sit in the lobby or anywhere else. Found some slot machines where I could sit, but I did not want to play. Finally, after getting bored for 30 minutes, I went to a roulette table. In 30 minutes I was down even more. I felt low because there was no real need for me to play at that time. And I lost all of it there.

Then I went across to another roulette table. It was not crowded, and there was this lady who was on a hot streak. She had made so much money, she was putting $50 on 10 numbers at once. And winning! The payouts for numbers are 35-1. So if she hit a number with $100, she made $3500 in one shot! What I decided to do was to follow her good luck. I kept playing on the columns in which she had the most bets. I kept winning too! OF course, my payouts were 3-1 and my bets were small, but hey, I made up ALL of my losses for the entire trip! In a cool 30 minutes. As soon as I hit my breakeven point, I cashed out and left.

It felt good to break even. I started walking aimlessly again. Still could not find a place to sit. One thing that amazes me about Vegas is no matter what time of the day it is outside, it is always 7pm inside. There was no place to walk in the casino because there were so many people. That lucky lady was still winning after I came back from my walk. The table had changed the minimum bets to $25, so I could not play anymore. But the crowd at the table had increased, probably to witness her luck playing out over and over again.

At around mid night, those guys came out of the show. We met up and they wanted to go for some post-dinner activities. Some of us opted out and went to Paris to sit and enjoy a coffee. We sat and caught up on some of our current lives. It was fun.

Finally, went back to the hotel Luxor at around 2.30 or so. We were 4 of us. They were playing some blackjack while I stuck to my lucky roulette. I made some more money. I was ahead. I was AHEAD! I made money in Vegas! Yay! I cashed out, still ahead.

But then, the Vegas luck caught up with me. I was tempted to play some blackjack since those guys were playing. I played and was up. Again. But only for a while. I lost some and some more and ended up walking up with some of the initial stuff still remaining. Cut short my losses and decided to hit the sack. After all, I had a plane to catch at 10am next morning.

So once again, slept at 4 and woke up at 7. Took the taxi to the airport with of the roommates and spent some time chatting with him at the airport and came back home. Not ahead of Vegas, but not a complete loser.

I loved this little vacation.

I wanted to simply write ‘What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas’ and close out the entire Vegas story. But it would raise unnecessary questions about what exactly happened.

So even though what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, I will write a little more about my thoughts on the trip.