Shame!

Yet another bomb blast in India!


Maharashtra was under the wrath of terror attack once again, this time it was a muslim area that was targeted. Clearly an attack aimed at inciting communal tensions.

I wonder how long we would continue to move ahead 'doggedly', quoting that the spirit of [place affected area here]/India would not be affected, after every such shameless act. Now refusing to be terrorized is great, and some countries can learn from India about that, however being obstinate and acting as though nothing happened also reeks of spineless character. And great insult to those killed.

Are we still using non-violent protest? with terrorists!??
or do we just don't have the balls?

A pitiful excuse

Well, the blog has been idle for the past few days. I am going to cite work & travel as reasons for not posting.

[Sounds, a lil pitiful as I couldn't even write about Andre Agassi's departure, at the hands of B. Becker, or his dramatic victories over Andrei Pavel or Marcos Baghdatis]

:-|

Food for thought!

The President is famous for calling himself the decider and insisting that as a wartime president, he does not have to obey the usual norms and policies. Given that, I was pleasantly surprised to see this news article: HOV Traffic Waits for No Man, Even the President.

Synopsis: Bush needs to go to a fundraiser, which involves an hour's drive. Secret service makes phone call to Virginia Smart Traffic Center requesting if the HOV lane could be shut down for 6 hours including peak hours, so that the President could zip by. After doing the math on how many people would be inconvenienced by the closure, Virginia officials manage to convince the President to take the chopper. Neat!!

And causes me to wonder how much people have erred, back in India, and let politicians become completely unaccountable.

The Legend bids goodbye: Andre Agassi

I was reading my friend's blog, a post about 'Federer moments' by Wallace. Wallace goes on to describe certain parts of Federer's play where, when pushed to the edge and there seems to be no way out, Roger Federer digs out an impossible shot. He actually says "It was like something out of The Matrix".

As I read it, and watched the accompanying video, I wasn't thinking about Federer. He, as everyone suspects, is probably from some other planet. No! What I kept thinking was... the guy who was pushing Federer to the limits was my idol, who was written off back when I was in still in school! Wallace was talking about the 2005 US Open finals match between Andre Agassi and Roger Federer.

This time around it would be tough on Andre, with an ailing back and a not-so-great year he faces Andrei Pavel tonight in the first round. Assuming he gets through, he could be facing No. 8 seed, Marcos Baghdatis, in the second round. The guy who has had an inspired year so far, he was stopped in the earlier Grand Slams of the year only by the top two names in tennis now - in Australian Open finals by Roger Federer and in Wimbledon Semis by Rafael Nadal. Reason would say that Andre wouldn't make it past the second round.

Then again, Agassi's career has been one where he has defied reasoning throughout, like last year when he reached the finals only to be stopped by Roger "Superman" Federer.

Me, I would be following the last appearance of my favorite star, and wishing for a dash of magic; the Agassi magic :)


Note: US Open 2006 also marks the debut of Instant Replays.

Yahoo! Beta

I wrote up a decent post about Yahoo! Beta. But decided to leave it as draft.

It seems to be such a dead thing, no one is talking about it, no one knows if people are converting to it. It looks to be an unfasionable thing to write about.

Am a lil sorry for Yahoo! I was a sworn Yahoo! mail user even after I got my gmail account, until one day I discovered that all my communications were happening through gmail and all my subscriptions were with Yahoo!

Life is learning and embracing change.

I recently checked out YouTube. I know, pretty late you say.

But, it's not like I stumbled upon YouTube yesterday. I have seen a few videos in YouTube since it's been around but didn't realise that YouTube was more about video blogging until I explored the site a few days back. Google Video is for video hosting (aka a tool), YouTube is a community where people communicate using home made videos and comments.

Anyway, geriatric1927 is one of the most popular video blogger on YouTube at the moment. He's a 79 year old gentleman, from UK, reaching out to the YouTube community and speaking about his life and most of the younger people adore him. He was discovered and brought under spotlight by his reply to renetto, another video blogger.

I thought he was pretty cool too, embracing video blogging at 79 and talking about his passion for motorcycles.

This is the start

There, I have decided to try blogging. The influences are Steve Yegge's rambling about writing blogs and writing in plain English.

Writing in plain English because this is an excuse to practice it.

Local arrives...

Chumma to reserve this page.