Another b’day

Wifey’s birthday was on Saturday, had a mini family get together here with all her cousins and their families coming over. Kids from age of 2 to 10, boys and girls. 4 hours of absolute mayhem and noise, I loved it :-)

Pretty much crashed whole of Sunday, little one has picked some Asthma related problems once more with a nagging cough and slight fever. The weather is so dry here that the dust never settles, that must explain it for sure.

Chokers

However much Graeme Smith and the South African team deny it, the tag is becoming more of a tattoo on their foreheads.

Here is an account of six memorable chokes : http://www.espncricinfo.com/icc_cricket_worldcup2011/content/current/story/508048.html

Out with the old, in with the new

Blogging from my brand new desktop. Not ultra high-end, but a respectable Core2Duo with 2 GB DDR3 and 500 GB hard disk, with a rather nice 20 inch LCD monitor !!

Still stunned by the less than 30 second boot up to Windows home screen time . Compared to close to 4 mins on my older computer.

The breaking point

You know, sometime you look at a person and can just sense that they are just about to break. One tiny provocation and they will just come at you with all that they have got.

I am reminded of this each time I see Dr.Manmohan Singh. Don't think so, check this out

• Got taken to the cleaners in the 2G scam. Opposition just stopped short of accusing him of taking money himself.
• Announced a JPC to probe the scam, opposition slammed him for doing it "without grace"
• Supreme court quashed the appointment of Thomas as CVC and after supporting his appointment for long, sadly PM was left with an egg on his face
• To his credit , he tried to own up responsibility a bit faster this time, still got murdered by opposition for 'un-satisfactory' statement
• Got blamed for everything from onion price rise to Bofors, still managed to cling on
• Tried to hold a press conference to clear the air, ended up in shooting himself in the foot badly with the 'pressures of coalition politics comment
• And don't forget, the MP bribery scam following the No-confidence vote following Indo US nuclear deal in 2008. Guess who backed the deal to the hilt ? Right answer, our PM himself. Expect a lot more heat to be piled up on him in the coming weeks

What I expect is a spectacular breakdown when he takes on his opponents with a choice of four letter words in Punjabi :-)) Who knows, he may already be at it behind the walls of his house !! :-D

I have the deepest sympathies for our PM. Politics is indeed the most fickle of all professions. Ask V.S.Achuthanandan from Kerala. CM today, not even an MLA tomorrow. Such is life .....

The Worst cup

Is this the Cricket World Cup or is this a competition to showcase incompetence ?

I thought India and England put in strong claims for the most incompetent performance of the tournament during their match-up. India for miserably failing for most parts to contain England in-spite of scoring 330 odd runs, and England for their classic muck up in going from needing to score just about a run a ball with a ton of wickets in hand, to somehow scrambling to a last ball tie ! Now that would a tough one to better, wouldn't it ?

Hah !! Said Graeme Smith and South Africa . The dreaded "C" word applied yet again. How they managed to lose after destroying England for 170 odd runs, only God knows.

They say that South African team does not like solid food. Why ? Because they are scared of choking on it :-)

England entered again with quite a creditable claim to the King of Incompetent Teams (KIT, I like that !!) with a stunning display of standing-with-your-thumbs-up-the-backside approach when the unknown Kevin Obrien carted them all parts of Bengaluru.

India staked their strong claim for the KIT trophy by thoroughly un-inspiring performances against Ireland and Holland. But the performance that might have sealed the trophy for Dhoni and his team was when they lost close to 9 wickets for 30 odd runs while batting. South Africa did make a valiant effort to snatch the coveted KIT title by tying themselves up in knots during the chase and somehow ending up requiring 14 runs of the last over. But India was too strong, there was just no match for Ashish Nehra that day

Just when Dhoni must have putting his feet up thinking that the KIT is in safe hands, on comes Darren Sammy and the West Indian team. To go from 222/6, needing just 22 runs to win in 7+ overs, they Calypso Kings collapsed to 225 all out. That is right, 4 wickets for 3 runs. Now that is really tough to beat

So the competition is really between West Indies and India now. And they play each other next. Brace yourselves folks, this is the real one. The KIT final !!

Whose name will be plastered on the ICC Wall of Shame ? Let us wait and find out

Umbrella : The poem

I came home from work yesterday, pretty exhausted. My little one ran up to me with her rough note. In that was scribbled a small poem, on an Umbrella, for which her teacher has given her a very very good rating. Apparently her teacher told her that it should be published in a news-paper. Well, I don't own a newspaper, but I certainly own this blog. So here it goes, reproduced in full :-)

It is cold, It is cold

I want your umbrella to hold

To hold and sing and laugh

To play and Jump.

BTW those exactly define her activities at home too. Sing, Laugh, Play, Jump. Maybe I should add dance too . Life is great when you are six !!