OH No!

Well, it was going to happen I suppose. But a foregone conclusion can still be disappointing, especially after a string of sporting events that anecdotally seemed to favour Kerry. After all the Red Sox came back from 0-3 against the Yankees in the ALCS to take the next eight straight and win the World Series. Five of six major football teams from the 2000 battleground state of Florida - the Dolphins, the Jaguars, Miami, Florida and Florida State - lost over the weekend (Tampa Bay had a bye week). The Redskins lost at home to Green Bay. And although the New England Patriots finally lost, they did so in Pittsburgh's Heinz Field. It seemed that the sporting Gods were backing the challenger. But they were always fighting an uphill battle at best. And the traditionally Republican Ohio spoilt the party. Ah well!

Boon And Bane

Could this be the answer to our traffic problems? And a scary article about a little girl's genetic inability to feel pain, heat or cold.

Big (Ten) Day

Two big games in the conference. Northwestern's cardiac Cats beat Purdue (eat dirt, VK - I called it!) in the final minute of their homecoming game. Go Cats! And in a game that took four hours and forty minutes to possibly become an instant classic, Michigan came from behind to beat Michigan State in the third overtime. Luvshack, I bet you're celebrating. EJM, tough loss - how's your heart doing after this nailbiter?

My Luck Might Be Changing... In Bed

Here are my last three cookie fortunes:
1. You are entering a time of great promise and overdue rewards.
2. You will travel to many places.
3. You have a reputation for being straightforward and honest.

The third one is not really a "fortune," but I hope the first two come true... with or without the title's postscript.

Boo-rs

I hate Hallmark holidays. And kids. Ergo, I hate Halloween.

How can anyone condone a "festival" where children have the right to demand candy (as if they're not fat and diabetic and lazy enough already) from total strangers and can deface you and/or your home if you foolishly choose "trick" over "treat?" If I had my way these kids would all be brought in front of our good old Father Boris D'Santos for some much-needed correctional treatment of the wristier variety. But God forbid parents here do anything to upset their kids and "emotionally scar them for life."

And what does Halloween offer adults? A unique opportunity to dress up, go out and look & act even more stupid than they usually do. Honestly, I didn't think that was possible, but somehow they manage to pull it off.

Festivals in the US mean two things and two things only - shopping and alcohol - and the only thing that varies is the ratio of importance between the two.

Images And Words

Go Boston. Curt Schilling did his team name proud by pitching through a painful stitched-up tendon that was evident from his bloodstained right sock in the third of four must-win games that Boston pulled out of the hat to win the ALCS. I don't even like baseball and I still couldn't help but admire the heart of the man and his team.

Here's a recipe for a killer cocktail (do not try this at home): One Red Hook. One Long Island iced tea. One "Sex on the Beach." Two Cosmopolitans. One Blue something-or-other. One generous slice of caramel fudge ice-cream cake. One shot of Jose Cuervo. One shot of Jägermeister. Two more assorted beers. Mix and chug. Now you know why I used the word "killer." Strangely enough, I wasn't nearly as hungover as a previous night when all I had to drink was about two pitchers worth of Miller Lite.

Fantasy football is an inordinate but mesmerising waste of time. I don't understand why I keep picking these damn teams week after week, but my guess is that I hate to lose. And it's even more annoying when the leader after Week 6 is a person who couldn't spell Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila or Adewale Ogunleye or Brandon Manumaleuna or any of the number of fascinating names around the NFL if her life depended on it.

After schmoozing my ass off these last few weeks, I've learned a few things:
1. A "deck" is a set of presentation slides.
2. "Going forward" is the only way to talk about the future.
3. The job search is like trying to get a phone number from a chick you like. Seem desperate and people run away from you. Act like you're not interested and all of a sudden everyone's wooing you and your uncle. (For further information I refer you to "The Tao Of Steve." It's a movie you retards!)
4. For the benefit of the depressingly-populous last-mentioned category, if 1, 2 and 3 have not already made it abundantly clear, 24/7 schmoozing is not something that agrees with me.

You've Got Gmail

Gmail rocks!

Sure, it takes a little getting used to, but once I got it figured out, it's far better than any other email service I've used. And a thousand megabytes of storage isn't a bad thing either. Now I have a place for all those pictures I worry about saving on my computer at work and I don't have to be guilt-tripped by my parents because I deleted some of their old emails.

It's Getting Hot In Here

And before you start taking off all your clothes (call me, if you're a hot woman, and God, PLEASE stop if you're a man) let me hasten to expand on that theme. I watched Fahrenheit 9/11 last night.

Superb documentary. The most damning denunciation of the little clique of greedy SOBs that surrounds our great president. Far better than the strident albeit justified rant that was Bowling For Columbine.

That tens of millions of people can ignore hard facts and choose, as they most probably will, to re-elect the village idiot and his corrupt cronies, is not only astonishing, it's inexplicable. No wait, it is explicable. After all, ninety-five per cent of this glorious country's population combines the stellar ingredients of three parts mind-numbing stupidity and one part total political apathy. Which makes for a pretty lethal cocktail.

Can anyone say Bloody Mary? Or "bloody hell" will do just as well. I'm outta here - I need a drink to help me with my depression.

Would You Like Fries With That?

Watched "Super Size Me" a couple of days ago and found it educative and highly entertaining but also quite chilling.

A while ago I had a long conversation with my uncle about the whole issue of obesity and how it's absolutely ridiculous for it to be declared a national crisis etc etc. I'm of the view that barring disease and genetic predisposition to obesity, what you eat and how much you eat is a matter of personal and parental responsibility and should not and need not be dealt with by passing legislation and using government resources. My uncle had a different opinion and thought that if the problem is of the scale that the US is experiencing now, the government needs to step in and control it, much like China and India are doing with the population explosion and South Africa is doing with AIDS. I suppose I do see his point, but I still think it's incredible that there is a such a hue and cry over something that really can and should be taken care of at home.

People say portion sizes are too big in restaurants (and they are). Well, eat some of it and pack the rest and take it home - practically every restaurant allows doggie bags except all-you-can-eat buffets! And if you're fat, you should be steering clear of those anyway.

They say fast food is too cheap and too tasty to pass up. True, and I crave it too from time to time, but I can't imagine eating fast food three or four times a week let alone every day like some people do. And no matter how cheap it is, it simply cannot be cheaper than cooking at home.

People even complain about the all the soda vending machines, cookies and candy that pervade schools, offices, supermarkets, shopping malls. Well, WALK PAST THEM man, have you no spine??!

And how do people fix their problems? Exercise? Nooooo that's almost a bad word. Dieting? That's something that few people actually do for any length of time, and the people who do diet are usually people who're already responsible enough to not be morbidly obese.

No, the majority of the really fat (sorry, "large" or "horizontally challenged") folk try miracle cures like diet pills or gastric bypass surgery. Ah, gastric bypass... can you believe that there is now an entire branch of surgery devoted to such procedures? It's called bariatric surgery and is now one of the most lucrative specialisations, along with plastic surgery. In fact one of my cousin's friends and one of three final-year surgical residents in his class, is now in Florida doing just that and will probably be making upwards of $350,000 a year in a little while. This, by the way, is a man who, in his original statement of purpose, spoke humbly and glowingly of doing volunteer work in underprivileged countries.

To put things in perspective: about two-thirds of the population is overweight. Chicago is, I believe, the third-fattest city in the US. And of the two girls who sued McDonald's and started a chain of events that resulted in "Super Size Me," one was fourteen years old, 5' 1" tall and weighed one hundred and seventy pounds. The other was nineteen, 5' 6" (about my height) and two hundred and seventy pounds (about double my weight!)

During the Olympics an NBC reporter was asked why Americans do so well in the sprints but fail to perform at anything over 400 m. His response was, well if an American had to go anywhere more than 400 m away, he'd get into his car and drive there. It may be funny, but it really is true. And that is the real reason behind the obesity epidemic. or as i like to call it, the "fat frenzy." Politically incorrect? What're you going to do, sue me?

An Eye For An Eye

A few days ago, after long deliberation and doubt, I downloaded and watched one of the recent beheading videos. What I saw made me sick to my stomach. That one human being can do that to another in cold blood is horribly disturbing in itself. But when you realise that the victim could have been literally anybody, that he was a completely innocent, completely accidental casualty, it becomes absolutely unfathomable. I thought I was a fairly pacifist and non-violent type, but al Zarqawi and his henchmen fully deserve to have their throats sawed through for that. And I would gladly do it.

A lot of people feel that those videos have no place in regular reporting and showing them only furthers the terrorists' goal of more media coverage. I disagree. I fervently wish more people saw them. Because believe you me, the images cannot and should not be ignored. Because the scum who perpetrate such acts would find the world a very difficult place to hide in if more people were hit with the reality of their atrocities.

There's a message in all of this about the human species as a whole being an experiment gone horrifically wrong, but that rant's going to need its own (and much longer) post.

Election Fever

An NPR correspondent's revealing look at the use of electronic voting machines in India's last general election and how the US could (but won't) learn from them.

A Northwestern professor's attempt to get college students to use their votes wisely. College students in the US are allowed to vote in their home state or college state. The website encourages students to vote in a swing state for maximum impact. If you fall in this category, please remember to check your state's voter registration deadline.

The Force Is (Finally) With Me

So in true geek form I went and rented all five Star Wars movies the day the original three were released on DVD. And I couldn't watch a double trilogy that has quite possibly the largest cult following of any movie in the world without throwing my two cents in the ring along with all the others.

I should mention here that this is first time I've watched any of the movies. And to be honest, I didn't think I'd like the original three. In this day and age of near-perfect special effects, watching a twenty-five-year-old sci-fi movie is like being forced to write a letter when email is readily available - the shortcomings are all too apparent and the painful additional effort makes for an impatient watcher/writer.

Surprisingly, I thoroughly enjoyed them. Like hand-writing a letter is far more personal than typing an email, the original Star Wars movies have a personality that is sadly lacking in the more recent duo-soon-to-be-trio. And it is the personality that is largely responsible for the continuing popularity of the SW franchise.

Episode IV set the tone and laid a sound foundation for each character. Carrie Fisher as spunky Princess Leia and Harrison Ford as maverick Han Solo were instantly appealing and so was James Earl Jones' distinctive baritone for Darth Vader. The constant undercurrent of humour provided largely by C-3PO and R2-D2 was also a key attraction, something that seems to be a George Lucas speciality based on this and the Indiana Jones movies. And although Return Of The Jedi was far less appealing, there was a consistency and continuity in the personalities that tied the trilogy together, despite weak performances by some peripheral characters and a not-too-original storyline.

Unfortunately, in Episode I George Lucas goes so completely overboard with the special effects that the development of the characters suffers tremendously. Add to that some fairly obvious racial stereotyping, a disastrous comic relief character in Jar Jar Binks, depressingly wooden performances by Liam Neeson (Qui-Gon Jinn), Ewan McGregor (terrible as a young Obi-Wan Kenobi, given the serene yet intense gravity of Alec Guinness' earlier performances) and especially Keira Knightley as Sabé, and the disconnect becomes even greater. The only saving grace is Ray Park's menacing Sith apprentice Darth Maul, who gives the movie some much-needed flavour and punch. Which makes it kind of unfortunate that he dies in the end, but which also holds out hope for next year's final chapter, Revenge Of The Sith.

Episode II is far more watchable, as long as you don't expect a "Star Wars" movie. Attack Of The Clones is a run-of-the-mill potboiler, with the usual mix of action, romance and comedy that the genre demands. Some better-than-average emoting by Natalie Portman and Hayden Christiansen and impressive CG kept me entertained but the movie doesn't recapture the original mood.

For more views, check out the IMDB opinions. (The trivia is pretty cool too.) May the force be with you!

Floats Like A Butterfly, Stings Like A Bee

With due respect to Muhammad Ali, that description fits one Roger Federer to a T. There are no words to describe just how good he is. So, I'll take recourse in the superlative. Roger Federer is simply the best.

He reminds me of so many different creatures, it's like walking through a zoo. With his un-photogenic face, flat-footed slouching stroll between points, skinny arms and flabby physique, he is like a penguin - ungainly and unattractive out of its element but gorgeous in it. If you've ever seen him hit a tennis stroke, you'll know what I mean. His langurous yet deadly groundstrokes are reminiscent of a cobra-strike, and his silent but lightning-quick court coverage can only compare with a panther on the prowl. Hewitt, Agassi and others get noticed more for their scramble ability, but I think that's only because they're much noisier and expend a lot more effort doing it.

And just when you think you've seen it all, he slips effortlessly into a higher gear, like some incomparable sports car pulling away from the competition. With about as much fuss as the radar blip of a B-2. He started off the second set by breaking Hewitt and going up 2-0 and I think he just relaxed a little too much, probably surprised at how easy it was. Result: he was down breakpoints in four service games in the second set - he saved all but one of six. Down 30-40 at 3-2 he served three straight aces to win the game. Down 30-40 again at 4-3 he hit a volley winner, a service winner and an ace. He had twenty unforced errors and a first serve percentage in the 30s in the second set and he still took it to a tie-break. Compare this with a measly two unforced errors in the first set and it puts things in perspective.

People say this (wrongly) about lots of athletes and teams in every sport and I don't agree with them usually, but I don't think anyone wins a match against Federer - he loses the match. I honestly believe that the only person who has seen Roger Federer play at his best is Roger Federer.

The only weak link in his armour used to be that he wasn't the best volleyer around - well, he's on his way to fixing that. He won 31 of 35 points at the net in Sunday's final. At one stage he was hitting so many lines that Mary Carillo said that unlike most players, Federer probably aims for the white lines instead of the green stuff in between.

At the presentation ceremony, Dick Ensberg said to him, "Well, you can serve, you can hit groundstrokes, you're volleying much better, you've got great court coverage. So what more can we expect from you in the future?"

Federer paused, smiled and said, "That's all I got."

And scarily, it's true. When you've mastered everything in a sport, what else can you do?

Open Forum

A Study In Contrasts

The men's semifinals are so different this time. There's Lleyton Hewitt with his grungy skater boy look and the tall stoic Swede Joachim Johansson. And then there's the classic matchup of Roger Federer and Tim Henman.

Without trying to take anything away from his obviously effective game, Lleyton Hewitt's counterpuncher style is not the most attractive to watch. And Joachim Johansson is one of the slowest and stiffest players I've seen. How he got this far is a mystery and I will be very (pleasantly) surprised if he doesn't have lower back problems in the future if he persists with his current serving style.

In stark contradistinction, Federer and Henman are two of the most silky smooth players on the tennis circuit today. Lithe, graceful and catlike, the second semifinal should be a joy to watch.

A Country Affair

This seems to be happening more and more of late:

US Open 2003, women's singles - Justine Henin-Hardenne vs. Kim Clijsters, both Dutch.

Australian Open 2004, women's singles - Justine Henin-Hardenne vs. Kim Clijsters, again.

French Open 2004, women's singles - Anastasia Myskina vs. Elena Dementieva, both Russian.
French Open 2004, men's singles - Gaston Gaudio vs. Guillermo Coria, both Argentine.

US Open 2004, women's singles - Svetlana Kuznetsova vs. Elena Dementieva, both Russian.

And this list does not even include the eight all-USA matchups between the Williams sisters or between Venus Williams and Lindsay Davenport in the last five years. Or the intense Agassi-Sampras US Open final of 2002.

Backhanded Compliment

The classic single-handed backhand seems to be making a comeback. Federer and Henman use it. As does Johansson. Henin-Hardenne and Amelie Mauresmo do it on the women's side. I hope it catches on. There is no sweeter sight in tennis than a well-struck one-hander and anyone who grew up watching Pete Sampras, Martina Navratilova and Stefan Edberg has got to be hoping that this current trend continues.

Ad-Vantage

I've seen some really cool ads at this year's telecast of the US Open. The Canon Rebel T2 ad with Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf is my favourite, but the American Express ones with Andy Roddick and Venus Williams are quite funny too. And then there are the various IBM, AIG and MassMutual commercials that aren't too bad.

Old Friends And New

Labor Day weekend was action-packed, relaxing, fun and just what the doctor ordered. San Francisco, Part II involved navigating the twists and turns of Lombard Street in a Dodge Grand Caravan - something I wouldn't recommend doing on a regular basis, and a drive across the Golden Gate Bridge, neither of which I had gotten around to doing the last time I was in the Bay area. Throw in a trip to a really funky restaurant that shall remain unnamed, about thirty beers and other assorted drinks in the course of four days and an absolutely great bunch of people and the result is one long party - a party I think I'm still recovering from.

Coming back to a string of international student orientations does nothing to help one get over a tiring trip. What it does do, however, is far better. Already I've met a Greek guy who trips on bhajans (!) and Ravi Shankar, a heavily-tattooed gay British art history major, a Chinese-Canadian piano virtuoso and an Indian who is the daughter of one of the Bajajs! And those are just the new students. Re-establishing contact with some of my co-volunteer friends from previous years has also been loads of fun and I'm looking forward hanging out with them once we're done with all of these events.

Sound Suspension & Powerful Change

Fascinating looks at an engineering feat by an unlikely candidate and the resurrection of a hitherto-dormant scientific achievement.

Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head

Wow. Warm rain is the best thing in the whole world. NV, DKN, this one's for you.

Poor Losers And Winning Losers

My heart goes out to the USA men's basketball team. No, not because they lost to Argentina in the semifinals at the Olympics. But because they were robbed of their birthright to complain about unfair play by one of their own.

Now that Paul Hamm, the USOC and the entire US media has established ad nauseam that bad calls by judges are part and parcel of sporting competition and should not be used as a reason for future dispute, the basketball team has been deprived of a stock excuse for losing. Now Iverson and Le"Bronze" James and the rest of the multimillionaire stars might have to actually admit they were well and truly outplayed by a better basketball team. With emphasis on the word 'team.'

They still might use the excuse anyway, but it will no longer be universally accepted. They're not poor losers the way you're thinking. They're really are the poor losers.

And on a diametrically opposite note, hats off to Anju George. For not letting the weight of a billion hopes crush you like it has so many others. For placing a very creditable sixth in the long jump finals, a mere two centimetres behind Marion Jones. You may not have medalled, but you're the winningest loser out there.

It's All Sport

The last time I watched the Olympics I was a kid who couldn't really grasp the magnitude of the athletes' achievements. Sixteen years, two tarred lungs, a game leg and a beer gut later, I now have a fuller appreciation for how hard it is and how incredibly talented all the athletes competing in these Games are.

I sometimes wonder where some of the events originated. Most of the sports seem to have some historical necessity. I'm sure being good at throwing a hammer or a discus or a javelin would have won the approval of your reigning local feudal lord. Being able to run fast and jump high probably helped you escape from a rival local feudal lord. And we all know the storied history of the marathon. But dressage? Badminton? Synchronised swimming?

And for God's sake what sadistic marijuana-induced stupor produced the various gymnastic events? The thought process probably went like this: Hey, how's this for an event? Let's hang a couple of rings from the ceiling and have men try to suspend themselves by their outstretched arms alone. Not painful enough? Wait a minute. Waaaait a minute! Something else is coming to me. How about this? Why don't we take a really narrow plank, turn it sideways so it's even narrower and have women do impossibly intricate somersaults on it. Yeah, I think that'll do it. Sheesh!

But in all the multitude of events, my two favourites apart from aquatics and track & field have got to be keirin (cycling) and women's beach volleyball. I like the former because it is a mad sprint with hardly any rules (except I don't think you're allowed to actually bite your fellow-racers). The latter is a no-brainer. Any sport that requires its impossibly tanned, toned participants to wear two-piece outfits gets my vote, not to mention my undivided attention.

Setting The Bar High

Alexei Nemov. What an athlete! And it's not because of his spectacular routine on the high bar in the individual gymnastics events. Six, count them, six release skills in one routine. But the real reason he's a great athlete is because of what he did after the horrible judging fiasco that followed his routine.

When the crowd held up the next competitor, Paul Hamm, for almost ten minutes, booing Nemov's low score, he could have basked in the attention. But that would have made him arrogant. He could have at the very least ignored them. That would have made him a competitor.

But Nemov actually got up and requested them to settle down. And that made him a champion. That made him a man who competes in the true Olympic spirit. Who appreciates the true meaning of the Olympic oath where athletes "...promise that we shall take part in these Olympic Games, respecting and abiding by the rules that govern them, in the true spirit of sportsmanship, for the glory of sport and the honour of our teams... "

It may be that already having won four golds, two silvers and six bronzes gives him a slightly better sense of perspective. But it's hard to ignore an act of magnamity and grace in an event and a week that has seen Hamm's childish I-did-nothing-wrong-so-why-should-I-be-the-bigger-person-waaaaah act and fellow-Russian Svetlana Khorkina's preening and complaining.

Talk about a "high bar!"

Blog Post Outsourcing (BPO)

This morning I wrote a beautiful long post about how gymnastics and similar sports that rely on judges to determine the outcome should not be a part of the Olympics. Unfortunately the post is lost forever because IE crashed before I could hit the "Publish Post" button. But not to worry, because this article covers it perfectly (hence the title).

Don't get me wrong. I think gymnastics is a great sport and worthy of a spot in the Olympics. But until they figure out a way to make it judging-error-free I also think it is criminal to subject the participants to the kind of trauma that Hamm, Young, Bhardwaj, Urzica, Jovtchev and Nemov have had to go through in Athens this past week. They and their coaches work too hard and sacrifice too much to deserve this.

The Olympics motto is "Swifter, Higher, Stronger," not "Swifter, Higher, Stronger Subject To A Judge's Decision." So why include sports like gymnastics, diving, synchronised swimming where subjective judging is the only way to select a winner? Sure all sports have referees, umpires, line judges etc. But their job is make the right call on specific plays, not decide the outcome of a match. (Although in a purely scientific and sadistic way I'm curious to see what the outcome of an England: 2 - Brazil: 1 football match would be if the referee then had to choose the "better" team on the field, whatever that means.)

Look at the rest of the events. There's hardly ever a problem with the 100 m dash - the swiftest sprinter wins. In the pole vault, the highest jumper is declared the champion. And in weightlifting, the strongest athlete is the gold medalist. Even in fencing, boxing and other sports that rely on accurate judging the system is fairly objective, barring blatant error or obvious bias.

I could simply say, shoot the judges that made the mistakes. But that would be treating the symptom, not the real illness.

Road Runner

I'm riding my bike to school the other day. Beautiful sunny morning, not a cloud in the sky, not a care in the world. OK, that's not entirely accurate but work with me here. I spot a squirrel about fifty feet away, in the middle of the road doing whatever it is squirrels do in the middle of the road. I'm immediately reminded of the Geico ad where a squirrel runs out into the path of an oncoming car causing it to crash and then we see the culprit high-fiving another squirrel by the side of the road in celebration.

I don't want that to happen to me, so I decide to keep an eye on this particular rodent. A very close eye. But there is no other traffic on the street, and so far he (or she?) seems oblivious to my presence. I'm now ten feet away and he hasn't budged. Five feet. Now I relax a little bit. Surely the danger has passed.

And then it happens. In a blur of fur, the dumb beast makes a mad dash for the sidewalk, right under my front wheel. I squeeze the brakes for all I'm worth and swerve hard left to avoid making squirrel pie. I barely manage it. The squirrel is unscathed and all I can do is laugh at the incident. And as I ride by, I glance back at the sidewalk, fully expecting to see a second squirrel congratulating his protégé on a superbly-timed and executed performance. I didn't see him, but I know he was there.

Athens Diary

And now the fourth of four men's tennis medal matches has gone the full distance in four gruelling hours. Who the hell are these Chileans?

Athens Diary

What is going on with the men's medal matches in tennis? Doubles final goes three hours and forty minutes. Doubles bronze medal match takes three hours and forty-some minutes. Singles bronze match took a heartbreaking three hours and twenty-five minutes. And the last two were just three-setters! Bring on the Gatorade.

The Big Five-Oh

Not what I would have liked my fiftieth post to consist of, but this article is too good to pass up.

Our Tryst With Destiny

Jana Gana Mana
Adhinayaka jaya hey,
Bharata bhagyavidhata.
Punjaba, Sindhu, Gujarata, Maratha,
Dravida, Utkala, Banga,
Vindhya, Himachala, Yamuna, Ganga,
Uchchala jaladhi taranga
Tava shubha naamey jaagey,
Tava shubha aashis maagey,
Gahe tava jayagatha.
Jana gana mangaladhayak jaya hey
Bharat bhagyavidhata.
Jaya hey, Jaya hey, Jaya hey,
Jaya jaya jaya jaya hey!

Citius, Altius, Fortius? Sure, With Steroids

Is it me or has the Olympics lost some of its glory? The last Summer Games that I can remember following with any interest were the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Barcelona, Atlanta and Sydney came and went with nary an impact, except the negative one of Izzy (short for, believe it or not, Whatizit), the ridiculous mascot of the 1996 Games.

The Olympics started yesterday and I wasn't even interested in watching the opening ceremony until I saw pictures of the spectacular show online. That may be because NBC, hungry for prime-time material like every blinking network in this country, saw it fit to delay the telecast by six hours. But it still doesn't explain why the only thing about these Games that interests me is whether Michael Phelps will get the seven golds that people expect him to. Am I just too busy with other stuff to care? Or am I (gasp) becoming as apathetic as the average American about any sport or sporting event outside the US? No wait, that can't be the reason - I hate baseball and watch as much cricket and soccer as I can possibly find. So then (cringe) whatizit?

I think at least a part of the reason is all the corruption and cheating that has tainted the IOC and the athletes in the past few years. Tales of IOC members selling their votes to the highest bidder and the recent drug scandals have taken some of the shine off what should be mankind's greatest tribute to health and fitness and general sportsmanlike behaviour.

Another possibility is the complete absence of promotion. Maybe this is just true in the US, but it seems to me that ATHOC has done precious little to advertise the Games like it ought to. After all, this is the biggest multi-sport event in the world. And it only happens once every four years. That should be plenty of time to get your act together. Terror threats or not.

Which brings me to the final nail in the Olympic coffin. Given the state of the world right now, it is small wonder that sports is taking a (hopefully temporary) backseat. When one country's population hates another country's enough to destroy it in a retaliatory (oops, pre-emptive) act that is only topped by the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki forty-nine years ago, the milk of human kindness becomes slightly hard to distinguish in the river of blood.

Maybe the modern Olympics has outlived its usefulness. Or maybe, just maybe, it is the only hope for an increasingly cynical and destructive species to unite and find peace. But before that happens, everyone involved in the Games has to first clean up his/her own act.

"A Good Day To Be A Bad Guy"

Just wanted to see this date and that line together.

Dead Man Walking

I'm supposed to play tennis with some friends at the exact instant that a convicted rapist-murderer is scheduled to be hanged halfway across the world in my home city. And try as I might to put it out of my mind, I can't. The damn thing is giving me goosebumps as I write. It's a feeling I recognise all too well from the time I watched Sean Penn in the movie whose title I have stolen.

I'm conflicted. On one hand, I fully subscribe to the view of an eye for an eye. All these tears that are shed for the "victim" killer are a lot of baloney. How about shedding those tears for the real victim? The kid who'll never celebrate another birthday, who'll never drive a car, who'll never again feel the warm monsoon rain on her face or see the sun rise.

On the other hand, there's something about state-sponsored and state-blessed murder that is equally spine-chilling. The government and judiciary are set up to protect the citizens of a country. Even as we speak people are working round-the-clock to secure the release of Indian hostages in Iraq. How can we put so much effort into saving one individual's life and actually be responsible for ending another's in cold blood?

But I think the most gruesome factor of a death sentence is its inevitability. The dispassionate, almost clinical, nature of the preparation that would be commendable if it wasn't so terrifying. The clock ticking inexorably to the final moment... What must go through the mind of a human being who knows - absolutely knows - that he is going to be killed at a given point in time in the future. I'm not on his side, not by a very long shot, but at the very least his victim didn't have that to deal with. I wonder if he is sleeping. I wonder what he's feeling right now. Hell, I wonder if he's still sane. I know I probably wouldn't be.

Fat Psychopathic Wives And Cardboard Boxes

Take one huge wall. Add a psychedelic light show, an unlikely assembly of musicians, the military orchestra of the Soviet army, gigantic blow-up dolls and close to half a million spectators and what do you get? "The Wall" live at Potsdamer Platz in Berlin. Roger Waters' mega-spectacle-cum-benefit-cum-socio-political-commentary. Only a Pink Floydian could pull off something of this magnitude. Only a Pink Floydian should.

Not everything about the show was perfect. The motley assortment of guest singers was surprising to say the least. Cyndi Lauper? Bryan Adams?? Dave Gilmour and the rest of the megaband were conspicuous by their absence. And it was Waters' show all the way, whether he was throwing furniture out of a "room" perched high up in the symbolic wall that was constructed on-stage during the show or singing in full Soviet military regalia complete with de rigeur dark glasses.

But that's how it should be. No rock concert is, or should ever be, perfect, musically or otherwise. A rock concert is about the experience. The crazy extended jams that nearly-but-not-quite snap a guitar string, the shrieking vocals that nearly-but-not-quite crack, the flashing, spinning, sparkling lights that nearly-but-not-quite blind you and the solid wall of sound that nearly-but-not-quite deafens you. Which is why, as rock concerts go, this one's as big an event as I've seen, because it was about all of those things, but also managed to be nearly-but-not-quite all about the music.

The only band that could even begin to compete is The Beatles. My personal favourite, Led Zeppelin's "The Song Remains The Same" is spectacular, but only because it's mindblowing to watch Jimmy Page shred a violin bow to bits during a super-extended version of "Dazed and Confused." The Who, The Rolling Stones, Rush - all the greatest rock acts through the years have been about the music. It took a Roger Waters to top that.

Word Peeves (contd.)

You don't "get someone back", you "get back at someone!" Grrr.

Armstrong's Strong-Arming

OK. We get it. No-one messes with The Boss. But is it just me, or did Lance Armstrong go too far when he stamped out Filippo Simeoni's breakaway attempt in the eighteenth stage of the recently-concluded Tour de France just to prove a point?
 
Don't get me wrong. I religiously watched as much of this year's Tour as I could, just to watch Lance decimate his challengers. I think Lance Armstrong is one of the greatest athletes in the history of sport not just for his physical ability but more for the incredible focus and determination that is so apparent every time he rides. I think he is an absolute animal who could ride much much faster and harder than we have seen, if only he had someone to push him to those limits. (After all, the greatest feats are generally the products of the greatest rivalries: Ali-Frazier, Warne-Muralitharan, Sampras-Agassi, USA-USSR.) I think his comeback to the top of professional sport from a near-death cancer affliction is nothing short of miraculous and is a testament to just how strong his fighting spirit is. I think all the criticism of his year-round focus on winning the Tour and the fact that the US Postal - Berry Floor team is handpicked and trained for that one purpose is just sour grapes because nobody likes dynasties - just ask the West Indies, Steffi Graf, the Chicago Bulls, Brazil or even the Nehru family. And most importantly, I think his cycling immortality has been achieved fair and square, regardless of all the doping allegations floating around. As Armstrong himself said in a recent interview, extraordinary accusations must be followed by extraordinary proof. Hell, if I didn't think all of these things, I wouldn't be plugging his fundraising efforts.

Unfortunately, I also think that not being a gracious winner is far less excusable than being a poor loser. Losing is never easy, but although whiny losers are annoying and annoyingly plentiful, they at least have the semblance of an excuse to whine - they did lose after all. So what's the excuse for the person who's on top? What more does he or she have to prove? In chasing after Simeoni, something the leader of a team hardly ever does, Armstrong just showed that he is not above petty rivalries. That holding a grudge can be taken too far. That true magnanimity is so rare because it is so difficult.
 
Lance Armstrong the cyclist inspires awe. Lance Armstrong the boyfriend of Sheryl Crow inspires envy. Lance Armstrong the cancer survivor simply inspires. Lance Armstrong the person doesn't inspire much of anything.

UNReal

I did Chicago Cycling Club's (CCC) "Ultimate Neighbourhood Ride" yesterday and had an absolute blast. The ride consisted of three loops taking about six hundred riders through various neighbourhoods of Chicago. I had pre-registered online and had to reach the venue, a building in University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) campus, just south of downtown Chicago between 7 and 9 am to pick up my rider packet, which included a route map with cue sheets listing every turn, a small pre-ride snack and a pair of free CCC cycling gloves.  

I had planned on waking up at 5.30 so I could leave home at 6 and take the L down there, but I slept through my alarm and only woke up around 6.15. By the time I got down to UIC on the train it was almost 8 and I started the ride at about 8.20. The weather was perfect barring a fairly stiff northerly breeze, but that didn't affect my ride, as I chose a speed that allowed me to look around and take in the scenery. One could do any one or more of the three loops in any order, so I decided to begin with longest of the three - the twenty-mile northwest route which went through neighbourhoods like Greektown, Little Italy, the Ukrainian Village (with some beautiful Russian Orthodox style churches), Wicker Park, Humboldt Park, Logan Square and Bucktown and past United Center, the home of the Chicago Bulls. Given how early it was on a Sunday morning most of the streets were empty, and the ride was a really pleasant one.  

After a brief rest stop back at the start to refuel with brownies, cookies and Gatorade I set off on the twelve-mile-long south loop which went through Pilsen and the heart of Chinatown (bustling with people and very unlike the one restaurant-lined street that most people visit) and by McCormick Place (Chicago's main convention centre, which hosts several events throughout the year, including the annual Chicago Auto Show). We also rode past Soldier Field, home of the Chicago Bears and through the Bronzeville neighbourhood past the Illinois Institute of Technology (Chicago's very own IIT!), which had a huge corrugated pipe-type structure surrounding the closest train station, presumably as a bizarre tribute to the Institute's focus on engineering and technology.  

Returning to UIC, I again stopped briefly for an American staple - a couple of PB&J sandwiches and some more Gatorade - before I started on the last loop, a short nine-mile ride through the Magnificent Mile, Gold Coast and River North neighbourhoods in the heart of downtown Chicago. I enjoyed this one the least, probably because I've been downtown so many times in the past four years that nothing was really novel, and also because the increased traffic on the streets due to the later hour made riding a little less pleasurable.  

On the whole, unlike last week's L.A.T.E. Ride, this one was excellently organised, with clearly visible road markings for every turn, and course marshals guiding us at locations that required us to leave the road or make a more complicated manoeuvre. Having a cue sheet listing all the turns was also a great boon and I only missed one turn in the whole ride. The entire forty-two miles took about four hours because I wasn't really riding hard and because of the stop-and-start nature of any ride on city streets with stop signs and traffic lights. I think the smaller number of riders also helped the organisers make the ride far more efficient and and easier to regulate. 

Riding with clipless pedals for the first time was quite an experience, and unable to unclip in time at an intersection, I took my first (and fortunately, only) tumble of the day on a busy street in Chinatown. Incidentally, the "clipless" moniker is quite misleading and dates back to a strange historical anomaly in cycling nomenclature. An older accessory that performs the same functions as a clipless system is the plastic or rubber "cage" attached to a regular pedal, which you slip your foot into. This, funnily enough, was called a "clip." To differentiate the clip from the newer invention, the new system was called "clipless" and the name stuck.

Long After Twilight Ends

The L.A.T.E. Ride on Sunday morning was interesting but I'm not sure I want to to do it again unless the organisation is a little better and I can get people to ride with me. There were about 7,500 riders starting in four waves of about 2,000 riders each depending on what your rider number was. Since mine was 1123, I started in the first wave around 1.30 am, which was a mixed blessing of sorts; starting early meant that I could set my own pace and not be slowed down by the pack and also reduced the chance of accidental collisions with other riders at crowded intersections. Unfortunately, it also meant that I was riding pretty much alone or with a small group throughout the twenty-five-mile course and didn't savour the experience that comes with riding in a large group.

Still, the route was fun and covered areas of Chicago I hadn't been through before. A part of the ride took us through Lincoln Park, Chicago's popular bar and restaurant district, where we got a lot of cheers (and occasional jeers!) from hundreds of people heading home after a Saturday night out. Immediately after that we went through a much quieter residential neighbourhoods in Lakeview and Ravenswood where there weren't too many people stirring and there were hardly any cars on the road. 
 
Throughout the ride the Chicago Police Department did an excellent job of manning major intersections, sometimes even halting oncoming traffic and waving riders through red lights, recognising that it's really frustrating for bicyclists to come to a stop at intersections. At other less important crossings we were on our own, and it is here that riding with a group would have helped, a la Critical Mass. If you're a lone rider you are forced to stop and wait for the lights to turn green again. 
 
Despite the halts and one rest stop for food and water, I made good time, paced by the other riders, who, being in the front of the pack, were relatively fast. 

Hung around for about half an hour after the ride consuming the bag breakfast, with energy bars, a banana and a milk shake, so by the time I left for the train station it was past 4 am and around sunrise at 5.30 in the morning when I finally got home. Despite sleeping the previous evening my sleep cycle was thrown completely out of whack and I slept till noon on Sunday and then again from 8 to 10 pm before I met up with some friends for a few beers! Fortunately, I slept another ten or so hours last night and today I'm back to normal after a fairly fatigued and sleepy day yesterday.
 
Next Sunday's "Ultimate Neighbourhood Ride" should be more fun, as it is early in the morning and is a much smaller affair (about six hundred participants).

In Memoriam

Sniff sniff! My homey is a bachelor no more. Well, Luvshack, congratulations on the engagement man - hope you guys have a great life together. Bring on the champagne!

It's All Greek (Part II plus)

As every true-blue dyed-in-the-wool geek that ever performed a triple partial differentiation knows, next to the ubiquitous x, the most common variable names used are all the Greek letters alpha through omega, presumably to ensure that equations do not have even the ghost of a chance of degenerating into those horrifying and flimsy entities that ought to remain the prerogative of lowly arts students - words.

Which begs the question: faced with similar mathematical situations, what do Greek geeks do?

Oh and here's a bonus for you people who actually read this post:
Q: What is the difference between a science student, an engineering student and an arts student?
A: A science student asks, "Why does it work?"
An engineering student asks, "How does it work?"
An arts student asks, "Would you like fries with that?"

Word Peeves (contd.)

The word is burgled, dammit! Not burglarized.

Against The Odds

No WWE fight is satisfying unless the hero comes back from being completely demolished to somehow beat the bad guy. I can't think of a single Hollywood sports movie ("Rocky", "Major League", "Tin Cup", "Cool Runnings", "The Replacements", "Miracle" - have I missed out a sport somewhere?) where the eventual victor is anything but a rank outsider in the beginning. Any number of Hindi movies depict, with widely varying degrees of accomplishment, the same thing. David and Goliath, St. George and the dragon, Tolkein's hobbits - the win-against-all-odds hero is everywhere, in history and in fiction.

What is it about the underdog that fascinates the human race? Are we a bunch of losers who therefore relate to the prospect of an unexpected victory? Are we eternal pessimists trying with all our might to be optimistic? Or is it just the element of surprise that we, as vicarious thrill-seekers, crave?

It's all Greek to me:
I was delighted when Greece won the Euro Cup semi-final, and I would dearly love to see them win the whole thing. Unfortunately, a lot of people seem to be pretty upset that Greece has reached the finals of the Euro Cup. I have a sneaking suspicion that it's just a case of sour grapes because all the so-called powerhouses didn't fare too well.

Granted Greece is not the most attacking or fluid team in the world, but they're extremely good at what they do and their defence thoroughly deserved to hold France and the Czech Republic goalless. Their tackling is crisp and on target (I can't really remember a single missed tackle in either match), and the marking is absolutely phenomenal. To be able to completely shut down such accomplished forwards as Zidane, Thierry Henry, Milan Baros, Nedved and Poborsky is not just commendable, it's a revelation!

And so what if their attack plan is somewhat predictable and ineffective. If they can score when it counts, I see no reason to deny them their just reward. They have now beaten all three of the "favourites" to win the Cup at some stage and it's fitting that the last match of the tournament will be a rematch of the first one.

Unfortunately, if the officiating in the final starts up from where it left off in both of the home team's knockout stage matches, then I don't see how Greece is going to win. While I will admit that Portugal did deserve to beat Holland and England just got unlucky, I have to say I was disappointed with the referees, especially in the semi-final.

Sharap as a knife:
Moving on to another underdog, Maria Sharapova completely blasted Serena Williams off the court in the ladies' singles final at Wimbledon. I haven't really watched her play at this year's Championships before this, but I couldn't believe the power of her groundstrokes. It takes a lot to out-hit Serena and more still to drive her so far out of a point and off the court that she gives up the chase. Going by the semi-finals and the final, women's tennis may not be doing so badly after all.

The Chronicles of Roddick... not:
Underdog or not, I hope Andy Roddick loses tomorrow. Not a big fan of his and a loss would give the American commentators, especially Cliff Drysdale and Mary Carillo, a little less to crow about on Independence Day. I shudder to think what would have happened if Serena had played Lindsay Davenport in the ladies' final.

Staccato

Haven't posted in a while, but I still like to rave and rant and ramble, so...

Bike the Drive rox. So does 911, a reggae fusion band that performed at the post-ride festival.

Sprint sux. Lost my phone last Friday and I've been thwarted in my attempts to get a cheap new phone by all the stupid conditions they have.

French Open rocked. Go Gaston. What a joy to see someone actually have fun on court.

American television coverage of the French Open sucked.

Junoon rox. Great band, great music, great live act.

"Troy" sux. A few spectacular fight sequences, but that's it - don't even watch it for the steroid-pumped testosterone-y stars. What the hell was Peter O'Toole doing? Not acting, that's fo' shizzle. As for the rest, well Pitts was just that, Bana was banal and Bloom definitely did not.

The Detroit Pistons rock! If you aren't watching the NBA Finals, you're missing out on some riveting basketball - one of the best contests I've ever seen. Who knew!

Chondromalacia sux. I'm out of commission for the next two weeks. No tennis and no cycling. To use Hugh Grant's unforgettable opener from "Four Weddings And A Funeral," Bugger! Bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger!

Smarty Jones didn't win the Triple Crown. Boo-freaking-hoo.

Going back to dial-up when the WiFi connection you're tapping into is unavailable - free (but extremely frustrating.) Getting the WiFi back in four days - priceless.

The bad news: Fleetwood Mac's concert this Saturday has been cancelled. The good news? That's an extra $46 I could really use right now.

And for the stupid folk:
"Momentarily" means for a moment, not in a moment.
"Wind up" means finish up not kick it up a notch.
The phrase you're floundering for is "couldn't care less" not "could care less." Because if you could care less, you would.
There are a few more, but they escape me at the present time.

My Cinderella Story

In other tragic news, my trusted pair of slippers that has lasted me nigh on eight years, through inordinate rough use in four years of undergrad and four more years of less strenuous use in grad school, has finally given up the ghost. The strap on one of them broke yesterday evening and has rendered me temporarily slipper-less. While I mourn the passing of an old friend, I intend to go on a slipper-shopping spree (try saying that fast, btw) sometime this week. OK, so I may not be in a fairy-tale (though some people may have smartass ripostes to that) and my slippers may not be made of glass, but the loss is still a painful one. My heart, like my slipper-strap, is irreparably broken. :(

Ruminating About Race, or, I Should Have Been a Social Sciences Major

Amidst all the hue and cry about how the Hindu caste system is archaic and inimical to Indian society, my dad has an interesting point of view. According to him, the caste system actually lets different communities find their own niches unlike the un-stratified social structure of Europe and America. I would have to say that I agree to an extent.

It is a theory of mine that the caste system allows the various Indian communities to pursue different wants and needs and life expectations, compared to the US, where I think the biggest problem is everyone aspiring to the "American Dream" of a house with a white picket fence, a garage, two kids and any number and breed of dogs.

Going off on a slight tangent, I think the reason racial discrimination is prevalent in certain Western societies is that a large part of the socio-economic structure of countries is based on race, especially in the lower strata. Thus, in the US, Indians and Pakistanis drive taxis or own convenience stores and motels, East Europeans are janitors, Mexicans serve as house help, gardeners or window-cleaners, African-Americans drive the transportation systems and form the bulk of the general service sector. Here, people are doubly compartmentalised, by race as well as by profession and economic status.

Contrast this with India. Here everyone may be of the same race (I'm ignoring the Dravidian-Aryan divide as a more macro-scale issue) but there are several similar possible divisions based on caste and religion. But, since it is well-nigh impossible at first glance to tell what caste or religion a person belongs to if one doesn't know the person's name and he/she doesn't display a clear distinguishing characteristic like the brahmin's sacred thread, the Christian's crucifix or the Sikh's turban, in this situation it is much easier and hence more likely for different castes to share an economic stratum, which in turn makes "casteism" (if there is such a word) less severe. Here, caste considerations really only come into play during social choices like marriage and the more powerful economic discrimination is diluted.

The foregoing discussion should probably not include small rural communities where everyone essentially knows everyone else. Furthermore, as the level of education increases, these racial/caste-based distinctions begin to dissolve, but that is already well-known.

A Love of Labour

Interesting how differences in the way labour is valued can affect reactions one gets in the most unexpected of situations.

Sometime towards the end of last year I bought a charcoal grey suit from Men's Wearhouse. Cost considerations dictated that I get a machine-stitched bottom-of-the-line item that does, nevertheless, more than serve its purpose. This January, I increased my suit collection to two. Only, this one is a beautiful hand-tailored blue pinstriped item.

If you're in the overly-mechanised US, you're thinking, "Holy crap! How, in the space of a few months, did he go from a penniless mass-produced-suit buyer to being a rich snob who must have his couture, like his soup, haute?"

Funnily enough, if you're in cheap-labour-is-everywhere India, you're thinking, "Damn, the grey suit was machine-stitched? Wow, you don't get that kind of quality in this hand-tailored crap!"

So, how did I make the transition, which, depending on where you are, is either a step up or a step down? Simple - the second suit was stitched in Calcutta. And, as it turns out, both cost almost exactly the same!

To PM Or Not To PM

In latest news, Sonia Gandhi is expressing her reluctance to be the Prime Minister, which I think is quite impressive and foresighted of her. One could already sense this whole foreign origin thing becoming a huge issue, and I think she's doing the right thing under the circumstances.

But I couldn't say that and let it go without throwing my two cents in, so...

Personally, I do agree that it seems strange to allow a person of foreign origin to head a government, but the question then is, where does one draw the line? For example, if, say, Rahul Gandhi had been born in Italy but had moved to India for good within a matter of months, would that (and more importantly, should it) render him ineligible for the post of PM? I don't think it should. Then should there be a minimum residency requirement in India and/or a maximum residency requirement outside India? That might be the way to go.

In any case, in this particular scenario, when I don't really see a viable leadership alternative, and when there is nothing (yet) in the Constitution that doesn't allow it, I think it would make sense for Sonia Gandhi to be PM. Granted she is a political novice (although given her handling of these elections, I'd say she's learnt a few tricks of the trade from the family she married into), but does anyone else in the Congress really command that kind of support for PM? I'd have to say that the Manmohan Singhs and Ghulam Nabi Azads don't inspire the kind of national sentiment that a Gandhi would.

I must hasten to say here that I only support this idea in the interests of governmental stability. Unfortunately, governmental stability doesn't necessarily translate into socio-political stability, which might be the bigger issue here.

For once, the Times of India had something interesting to add to this whole issue - they said that if Sonia became PM, that would only indicate the robustness and inclusiveness of the Hindu-dominated Indian democracy, which already has a Muslim bachelor President and would add to the mix a Roman Catholic foreign-born widow as PM! This compared with the other "great democracy of the world", USA, which, has never had (and most probably never will have, at least in my lifetime) anyone other than a white, Christian, married man as President.

Ru Paul for President, anyone?

Tossed Salads and Scrambled Eggs

And "Frasier" ended the way it began. Smooth, subtle, poignant without being cloying and with a delectable twist even when the major events were already pretty much common knowledge. So much better as a finale than the lame "Friends" closer last week, which, even with all the secrecy and the airport adventures, wasn't really able to surprise us with the Ross-Rachel outcome.

The show even managed to weave in a tribute to Tennyson's epic "Ulysses" via the flash cards between segments, which were then masterfully brought together in Frasier's farewell speech to his family and then to the extended family at KACL and Seattle. This is what tying up loose ends is about, and MSN does another excellent job in reviewing the finale - read the perfect report here.

And so I leave you with these diametrically opposite glimpses that are a trademark of the show that managed to walk the fine line between slapstick and highbrow comedy with all the grace of a seasoned circus acrobat...

Niles (looking at Daphne feeding their baby): God, they are so beautiful!
Marty: Yes. And they'll stay like that as long as she keeps breast-feeding.

"It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
... and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are -
...
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
- An excerpt from "Ulysses" (Alfred, Lord Tennyson; 1842)

Goodnight, Frasier. The building won't be the same now that you've left.

Psephologise This!

Whew! The great Indian election is finally over. So stand up and take a bow for a job well done, India! The large turnout (especially in rural areas) and the outcome are ample proof that the world's largest democracy is not only very much alive, but vigorously kicking too.

I've been following the election results since last night and I have to say the NDA's defeat is quite comprehensive and not a little shocking (so much for all the exit polls and psephologists and politics pundits and gurus and maharishis and sadhus and the such!) I think the most surprising thing was how the BJP lost ground in what I thought were its strongholds - AP, TN, and even Gujarat and Maharashtra.

Going by those results, as well as the results in Karnataka, it appears to me that the flogged-to-death phrase "anti-incumbency" is an important factor in Indian elections, which, I would think, is an unhealthy sign - it implies that the whichever party is elected rarely satisfies the electorate during its reign and is thus replaced the next time elections come around.

Another thing I noticed this time is that a number of younger, well-educated contestants (some of them the children of politicians) seem to have done well. Rahul Gandhi, Sachin Pilot, Omar Abdullah, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Milind Deora and Akhilesh Yadav being the more prominent ones. This seems to be a general reversal of the trend of an increasingly aging parliament.

Most of the "stars" outside politics seem to have done well too, from Navjyot Singh Sidhu (he will be a sight to watch in parliament!) to Govinda. And at the same time, I can't believe leaders like Yashwant Sinha and Murli Manohar Joshi were defeated. This election must have quite a sobering effect on the party.

Here's an article that I think does well in summarising the result. The authors have the benefit of being objective observers and are thus able to bring a sense of perspective to their analysis.

But far and away the biggest thing about these elections is the fact that they were completely, 100% electronic. And this in a so-called Third World country with a population of a billion people. Compare this with the mighty USA. It has only a quarter of the population and is the most powerful and technologically advanced country in the world. But despite all the resources at its disposal and despite being still haunted by the "chad" fiasco of the 2000 presidential election, this November's election will see the return of the same old paper ballots and (hopefully) the same old fiascos. After all, what would we do for entertainment otherwise?

What The...

The gratuitous use of the word "fuck" in a perfectly grammatical and otherwise perfectly respectable English sentence is like (and as satisfying as) having great sex with the language.

And in other news, you know what the difference between people in California and people in the rest of the country is? The people everywhere else are human.

Where Should Your Vote Count?

One thing that has always bothered me about voting is how one chooses. And by that I don't mean choosing between candidates because, of course, that is dictated by which one you think is better. But isn't there sometimes a conflict between what would be good for your constituency and what would be good for the country overall?

For example, in the current scenario in India, I'm sure there are numerous non-BJP candidates that are better options than their BJP counterparts in their respective constituencies. But, looking at the bigger picture, isn't it more important to give the BJP-led alliance the majority it needs to have a stable government for another five years? I'm inclined to agree. But then again, if everyone did that, then there could be a significant number of constituencies where the weaker candidate got elected. (In all of this I'm assuming here that there is no alternative group with nearly enough seats to form even a marginally stable government.) Tricky! And of course the staggered polling schedule combined with the exit polls only make this decision harder for the people voting in the later phases.

Interestingly, this conflict of interests would probably be avoided to some extent in a presidential form of government, where you pick the best president for the country as well as the best congressional representatives for your constituency.

Another Sort of Blog

The Bicycling Log makes its debut. My thousand-mile goal started off well this week. Logged a total of seventy-two miles, with two rides of sixteen miles each and one slightly longer one today of twenty-two. Quite happy with the way today's ride went - I was able to achieve a decent speed of about 14 mph, but it remains to be seen whether I'll be able to maintain that on longer rides leading up to the thirty-mile Bike the Drive at the end of the month.

All Things Beautiful

Beauty can be captured from existing objects or created from seemingly mundane things that are not immediately apparent as being beautiful. Both can be tricky work, but each has its own challenges.

Here is an example of a website that does the former. Sujai is a good friend and just an amazingly cool guy from my undergraduate days. The website documents his recent trip to Turkey, a place which I'm am now sold on.

This is a link to the website of a friend of a friend. The "Photography" section is a fantastic example of what a discerning eye and an artistic mind can do with anything from Coca Cola cases to a cow's face.

Amigos Para Siempre

Well, it's finally over. And I have to say, the final episode was quite a letdown. After knowing for more than a year that this would be the final season, the "Friends" finale seemed a very hurried, disorganised attempt at tying up all the loose ends. "Frasier", on the other hand, by all appearances, seems to have done an excellent job in that regard. Everything's been well-primed, and while the element of surprise may be slightly lacking (not that there were any surprises to speak of for "Friends"), it should end on a much more memorable and dignified note.

The hourlong retrospective before the "Friends" finale was far better, well-choreographed and with some great songs in the soundtrack. But I still wish they'd focused more on some of the supporting cast that has become as much a part of the show as any of the lead characters. I missed Gunther, Janice, all the assorted parents, Ugly Naked Guy, Susan and so many more.

And a segment on all the guest appearances would have been appropriate too, methinks. Jon Lovitz as the pothead restaurateur, Bruce Willis as Elizabeth's dad, Elle MacPherson as Joey's red-hot roommate who singlehandedly destroyed Joey's immortal "How you doin'?" pick-up line, Reese Witherspoon and Christina Applegate as Rachel's neurotic, sorority-girl sisters, Charlie Sheen as Phoebe's chicken-pox-afflicted Navy man, Denise Richards as Monica and Ross's smouldering cousin, Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt as Chandler- and Rachel-haters respectively: the list of memorable cameos is well-nigh endless.

But at the end of the day, in spite of the clichéd ending, in spite of the well-below-par last couple of seasons, in spite of all the (undeserved) hype of the past weeks, I can't help feeling sad that there will never be another new "Friends" episode. Not so much for the show itself, but for the characters that I have grown to know and love. This article sums up my feelings perfectly. While "M*A*S*H" is quite possibly the best TV show ever, it's end did not affect me in quite the same way, because by the time I started to watch and appreciate it, the show had already ended. "Seinfeld" I never really liked that much - I think it tries to be too smart by half. So "Friends", and next week, "Frasier" are the ones that will be remembered and missed.

Can anyone say "box set"?

Past, Present and Future Tense

So after yesterday's ride I'm no longer sure about the STP. Granted it was windy and the damn wind was swirling around all over the place. Granted it was my first long ride of the season. And granted it wasn't on a road bike. But I don't see how I'm going to get into shape in a short eight weeks for a two hundred mile ride (even if I do it over two days), especially in the Pacific Northwest, which is endowed with more than its fair share of ascents. Sixteen miles in eighty minutes. That's like 12 mph. But more importantly, I'm feeling it enough today to cancel plans of riding this evening. Now try a hundred miles in one day, a night's rest, then doing it all over again. Not happening. Not this year at least. Which kind of sucks, because I was hoping I'd be able to make it.

Still, my goal is to hit a thousand miles on my bike by the end of the season, including my almost-four-mile daily round trip to school and back. Now that's a lot more doable. I figure if I ride fifty miles a week for sixteen weeks, interspersed with random events like Bike The Drive, Cricital Mass and BLT, I should be able to hit that mark, even allowing for fickle weather.

In other news, my parents' old apartment back in the old country has finally been rented out. And despite the fact that I'll probably never live in that apartment again, it's not the most pleasant feeling to imagine strangers defiling what was my home for sixteen years and still has a very special place in my heart. But so it goes.

And while on the subject of nostalgia, the "Friends" finale is tomorrow. I've not really been following the last couple of seasons, because it really began to get stale and the newer episodes weren't even that funny any more. But I felt sad nevertheless when it finally hit me that after tomorrow their lives will no longer be even remotely intertwined with mine. So, barring the Apocalypse, you know what I'll be doing from 7 - 9 pm CDT tomorrow. And it's made a little more poignant by the fact that another of my favourite shows, "Frasier", is ending the following week. I wonder what NBC's going to do to fill the void left by these behemoths. "Scrubs" is the only sitcom worth watching on TV these days (yay for Zach Braff btw), but even that's going to find it hard to follow these heavyweight acts.

Oh and here are my predictions for the two:
1. Friends: Ross and Rachel finally hook up. Monica and Chandler move out.
2. Frasier: Marty and Ronee get married. Niles and Daphne have a baby. Frasier follows Charlotte to Chicago. Roz anyone?

Sci-Fi no more

How on earth do people even come up with this stuff?
Laser vision
DNA computer

Contemplating Cuisine (or Food for Thought)

I've come to realize over the past few days (and this might come as a surprise, given that I've been cooking for quite a while now) that less is more when it comes to spices. I used to sprinkle red chili powder and cumin seeds and other exotic spices with gay abandon until now - naively assuming that the more spices I add, the more flavour they will impart. Having recently been exposed to two consecutive nights of savoury cooking where that wasn't the case, I have been forced to come to the conclusion that that is not true.

Now my parents might contend that I have been exposed to it from a much earlier age, and they would be right, but there is a subtle difference. When one's own or someone else's parents do it, one just nods sagely and accepts it as that holy grail of the culinary arts: home cooking - something that you can seek for the rest of your life, but can only truly be achieved by your elders "at home." It is only when your own clumsy inept contemporaries start to do it and do it well that you are filled with self-doubt and, paradoxically, excitement (if they can do it, so can I!) and begin to wonder if indeed you might possess the same hitherto dormant skills.

And thus begins a new, and hopefully delicious, chapter in my on-going culinary saga. Will he try a real recipe? Will he actually measure out quantities? Will he (gasp) go easy on the cooking oil??? Tune in next week to find out these and other more tantalising details.

Now why am I in this crazy mood today? I have no idea but I choose conveniently to blame it on the beautiful weather outside.

Anyway, in other news, I seem to have some sort of a slight crick in my neck today - must have slept funny last night. What's really upsetting about that is now I can't play tennis this evening like I had planned. Ah well....c'est la vie.

Spoke to Luvshack this morning and he's flying out at 11.30 pm tonight. Have a safe trip man and get your ass back here in the Fall so we can party some more. BTW Jeamish, if you want to bid him bon voyage, and here's my lame attempt at a puzzle a la Dan Brown, you can call him at FDFXETDI.

I should probably get some work done now :(, but before I leave, here's some "food for thought" as it were (man, that phrase works on so many levels):
Q: What is a hooker's least favourite spice?
A: Cumin!

And on that terrible terrible note...

Code? What Code?

Finished "The Da Vinci Code" and I have to say, it's not as good as people seem to claim. The story is extremely contrived, the research is sketchy in parts (I found a couple of possible discrepancies in his research in half an hour of surfing the Internet) and are often a thinly-veiled attempt at "showing off" his so-called knowledge. Some of his "riddles" and "codes" are laughably amateurish and juvenile and can be cracked in a matter of seconds. I will say that the second half of the book is fairly racy and readable, and some of his revelations are interesting, specifically his main claim about Da Vinci's "The Last Supper." However, as a "master storyteller" Dan Brown cannot hold a candle to Frederick Forsyth.

"The Da Vinci Code" is not so much a mere book as it is a marketing phenomenon. Dan Brown has exploited both the reach of the Internet and his readers' curiosity to their fullest and supplemented the novel with photographic tours of various locations and artefacts used in his books, puzzles based on them, and an introduction to the amazing world of ambigrams, courtesy John Langdon. These peripheral attractions are far more interesting than the book itself.

For those who are interested, there are five codes that can be broken fairly easily scattered on the dust jacket of the book. You can play the game (and a couple of others) on the book's official website. For further reading on one of the codes, visit this site. The speech claims a historical connection between Prophet Joseph Smith's Mormon faith and the ancient Masonic cult. The subject of another code is described here in pretty interesting detail.

The original Quest is another series of puzzles that took a little more effort and was more fun.

Grrrrr....

I was down at the Chicago campus of Northwestern this morning helping law and medical students with their tax returns. Now I was only supposed to be there for two hours, but since the clock in the room hadn't been adjusted for Daylight Saving Time, I ended up staying an extra hour!

While that was kind of annoying, what's really frustrating is that most people are either unaware or just don't care about maintaining their visa status and being responsible enough to keep their tax stuff in order. You'd think that graduate law students would be aware of the consequences and know better but noooooo!

So many of the international students treat this whole thing as if it were an optional burden. Now while the rules can be confusing sometimes, it's hard to be patient with people who don't even make the effort to do it on their own and expect you to basically do their tax returns for them.

Unfortunately, asking them to do it on their own is not always the best alternative because many of them take their friends' advice or try their own creative interpretations without getting the information verified by anyone and then end up having to re-file or pay fines if their returns are audited by the IRS.

And it's not like they have to make too much of an effort to figure their stuff out properly - there's a tax presentation covering the basics that we prepared last year up on the International Office website, we've already had two tax presentations specifically for people who have no idea where to begin, and the IRS website itself has a wealth of information that you can use.

In my experience it's the know-it-all Law and Kellogg types that are the most annoying. I'm always tempted to tell such people, who come in without doing their groundwork, if they've heard of the RTFM directive (RTFM = Read The Fucking Manual!) but I end up phrasing it a little less abrasively. I honestly don't know how the International Office deals so patiently with these retards. GRRRRRRRRR!!!!!

Whew! Now that I've got that off my chest I feel a lot better. :) So then what happened?

Eternal Sunshine

Of The Spotless Mind." Quite a mouthful, but quite an extraordinary movie. Charlie Kaufman is a mad genius - I saw his "Adaptation" and was suitably impressed, but this one just blew me away. Excellent story, excellent script, some fantastic acting. Kate Winslet is absolutely superlative as Clementine as is Mark Ruffalo as Stan. In fact, based on this and "In The Cut" I'd have to say he's quite versatile. Jim Carrey, Kirsten Dunst and Tom Wilkinson are extremely good too.

All in all, well worth the extra $5.75 I had to spend today. Why "extra" you ask? Because (and this seems to be happening more and more often these days) I wasn't able to watch it right after "The Ladykillers" two days ago. The reason? "ESOTSM" was playing in the other section of the multiplex. Dammit!

And apropos, don't waste your time on "TL." Sorriest excuse for a Coen brothers movie I've seen. Tom Hanks is good as usual, but completely wasted in a puerile story with insipid stereotyped acting.

A Tale of Two Books

So I just got done reading Michael Ondaatje's "The English Patient." And all I can say is, "Wow!"

I don't think I've read a more absorbing and well-composed work of fiction. The peculiar style of the book takes a little getting used to, and doesn't make for easy reading, but completely engrossed me from start to finish. I'm usually a fairly rapid reader and get easily turned off by books that slow me down, but this is one book that, despite my having to re-read paragraphs and, on occasion, whole pages, actually made me thoroughly enjoy the effort I had to put in.

Rules of writing and grammar are often ignored, the writer jumping without warning between different times and juggling present, past continuous, present continuous and past perfect tenses with gay abandon until the result is just that - perfect. Superbly researched yet effortless, languid and measured yet maintaining its thread of intensity throughout, second only to Arundhati Roy's "The God of Small Things" in its gorgeously descriptive narrative style, its characters rich three-dimensional entities, it is no wonder that "The English Patient" won its author the Booker Prize in 1992.

A hard act to follow indeed, and Jhumpa Lahiri's "The Namesake" is probably more of an anticlimax as a consequence.

I never was a big fan of hers, and couldn't really understand how she won the Pulitzer for her first work, a compilation of short stories called "Interpreter of Maladies," but her second attempt is, in my blinkered opinion, even poorer. Her hurried, one-dimensional writing style is best suited for the short story where one has neither the time nor the mandate to build characters or do much other than relate events. Which is probably why her deficiencies went largely unnoticed in her first book, but are glaring in this second work.

The only appeal this book can have is for the Bengali and larger Indian immigrant population in the US, who will relate to the experiences of first and second generation expats she deals with. But at the end of the day, it is a juvenile, strained, slightly supercilious novel that definitely doesn't deserve the reviews it so arrogantly displays on the cover.

Idol Chatter

Here's an article that seems to have gotten American Idol figured out very well indeed.

I'm not a big reality TV fan, but the glimpses of the show I've caught in passing allow me to agree wholeheartedly with this author's comments on the judges, the contestants and the show in general.

And How Stuff Works has excellent April Fools' Day articles on Hydro-Ordnance and a revolutionary automobile called the N-Car. Had me going for quite a while.

New York: Day 7

So here we are. Six days and nights, four boroughs and a million photographs later, there's still so much that I have left undone, unclicked and unexplored in New York, New York. As I gaze through the window of my Northwest flight to Minneapolis in Terminal 4 of JFK International Airport, (which, by the way, has now replaced LHR as my favourite airport) I notice an Air India aircraft parked at the next gate; the sheer international representation of aircraft at the terminal (Aer Lingus, Swissair, El Al, Bangladesh Biman, Virgin Atlantic, KLM, Delta, Air India, Singapore Airlines, Lufthansa, Alitalia to name but a few) is unlike anything I've seen before; the Chinese lady in the seat next to mine is starting on Jhumpa Lahiri’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Interpreter of Maladies” at the same time that I start on her next book “The Namesake” – it is such small pleasures that make life joyful.

I also know now why no-one ever mentions the all-important fact that New York is not at all flat but slopes every which way - there's so much other stuff to talk about that this obscure factoid gets lost in the bright lights of Broadway.

I can't wait for my next trip to a new destination.

New York: Day 6

Monday was again a tourist day, albeit not nearly as busy as the previous week. After a refreshing night’s sleep I continued my touristy ways by visiting the United Nations headquarters at 42nd Street and 1st Avenue.

I took the one-hour tour that is the only way visitors are permitted to enter the various halls, and while it was impressive to actually sit in the General Assembly Hall and the Security Council Chamber, I didn’t learn much more about the UN than I already knew. They did have some fabulous gifts from member nations on display and a moving exhibit on the immense destructive power of the atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Other exhibits documented the UN’s peacekeeping efforts around the world and activities of the various world organizations under its umbrella. And as a bonus, I finally was able to get a good photograph of the Chrysler Building from inside the UN.

I then headed west on the M42 cross-town bus to Pier 86 on 12th Avenue to see the Intrepid aircraft carrier that now houses the Sea-Air-Space Museum, only to discover that the museum is closed on Mondays in the winter season.

Cursing myself for forgetting that all-important fact (I had made a note of it while planning my trip), I headed back towards Times Square to visit Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum on 42nd and Broadway.

While it is more expensive than any of the other attractions, I thoroughly enjoyed the hour or so I spent there, walking through a celebrity party “hosted” by Ru Paul and “attended” by anybody who was anybody, from Julia Roberts to Tony Bennett, then a room full of famous political and artistic figures and through to an excellent display of popular cultural icons like Madonna and Michael Jordan. Along the way I discovered that Salma Hayek is absolutely the perfect height for me, which just about made my day and week and decade!

The statues were so lifelike I could have sworn I saw a couple of them move while I was walking around the exhibit. In fact, on one occasion a lady was standing so completely still in front of a statue of John F. Kennedy that for a brief embarrassing second (until she blinked) I was honestly unsure if she was part of the exhibit or not!

The Empire State Building at 34th Street and 5th Avenue was next, but there’s nothing really spectacular about this one (especially if you hate waiting in line) if you’ve been up the John Hancock or Sears Tower in Chicago, or the Gateway Arch in St. Louis or any tall structure in other cities. It was a hazy day too, which meant that the Statue of Liberty and points south were practically invisible, so after spending the obligatory five minutes walking around the observation deck I proceeded on to the B&H photography store at 34th Street and 9th Avenue, which is reputed to the largest of its kind in North America.

The store is absolutely fantastic – huge floor area to begin with, and an even larger warehouse in the basement, and all the employees are extremely knowledgeable, able to immediately tell you the specs on any make or model of any type of camera you could care to mention. While I went there to pick some photographic paraphernalia for a friend, I ended up buying a great camera case that fits the 270 mm Vivitar zoom lens on my Minolta X700 as if it was custom-made.

But the really mind-blowing thing about the store is its delivery system. When you make a purchase or want to look at a particular camera, all the salesperson does is punch it up on the computer. In a matter of seconds, a robotic manipulator down in the basement picks up the equipment from a shelf, drops it in a basket, which then rides up a chute onto a system of conveyor belts that run all over the ceiling of the main floor and sends the requested item to the appropriate counter. The entire process is automated and works so efficiently and beautifully it gladdened the engineer in me.

Finally done with all that I had time for, I headed to the subway station to take the train uptown, but not before I squeezed in a quick shot of Madison Square Garden at 33rd Street and 7th Avenue.

New York: Day 5

Sunday dawned bright and early for rest of New York I’m sure, but I only woke up around 10 am, already late for my planned trip to the Bronx Zoo, located at Fordham Road and the Bronx River Parkway, which has the reputation of being one of the best zoos in the world. Between getting ready and convincing Luvshack to do the same, we managed to leave the house only after noon and it was already 1 pm when we got the Zoo, which meant that we had to curtail our visit and limit it to specific exhibits that we wanted to see.

Thus, we raced through Jungle World, the Congo Gorilla Forest and African exhibits and then stopped for lunch at the Dancing Crane Café in the Zoo, where I was able to observe in detail the feeding habits of Homo sapiens. Another friend of mine had driven up to the city from Allentown, PA that afternoon and we met up with him in the restaurant en route to Tiger Mountain which due to time constraints was the last exhibit we were able to visit.

I really liked the displays at the Bronx Zoo and their signal service to conservation of various species such as the lowland gorilla. I would dearly love to return there and spend a whole day or two or a lifetime going through all the exhibits.

After about an hour of R&R at home, we rode the subway down to Greenwich Village where we stepped into a bar called The Pure Lounge for a brief while to listen to some live jazz. The place looks kind of shady with dim blue lighting and the band seemed pretty listless too, although Ginnetta, the main performer (and I use that term in several senses), was quite adamant, and not a little irritating, about getting the audience involved even against their wishes.

They wound up their show by 9 pm and there was another band scheduled to follow, but we decided to get something to eat as my PA friend had to get back to New Jersey by midnight to pick up his car. So we ended up at Wild Ginger, a nice Thai restaurant on Grove Street just off Bleecker Street. Excellent décor and ambience and great food.

New York: Day 4

What with two days of walking and staying up all night Friday, I only woke up at one in the afternoon, fairly disgusted with myself for having wasted a whole morning in New York. In hindsight though, the relatively relaxed day rested me enough for another assault on the city starting Sunday.

Saturday afternoon my friend and I took the subway down to Soho, with a view to people-watch and take in the World Trade Center site in the process. Our leisurely stroll took us down Broadway through Soho (after South of Houston, a street in Lower Manhattan) and Tribeca (after Triangle below Canal Street), passing the western edge of Chinatown along Broadway.

These areas reminded me very strongly of Brigade Road in Bangalore or the Chowringhee area in Calcutta. Teeming masses of people everywhere, roadside stalls selling drinks, hot pretzels and hot dogs (I couldn’t leave New York without buying a hot dog from a hot dog stand!), and people hawking wares on the sidewalk. Everything is available here, from pirated copies of the latest movies to $5 ties that look so good that I couldn’t resist buying one.

The walk brought us to the corner of Fulton and Church, the site where the World Trade Center stood until recently. While not as poignant a scene as you would think, Ground Zero did give us brief pause for thought. Here, while re-energizing ourselves with cheesecake and hot chocolate, we got a frantic call from Kai, one of Luvshack’s colleagues at AIESEC at whose place we were supposed to be having an international potluck dinner that evening. Forgetting that Americans tend to eat earlier than we are used to, we had assumed that the dinner had been scheduled for 9 pm, but the call reminded us that we had only forty-five minutes to get to Kai’s place. Not being able to cook anything in such a short time, we stopped off at a hole-in-the-wall Bangladeshi restaurant in downtown Manhattan for four orders of chicken curry, vegetables and rice on our way to Queens.

The potluck was fun – AIESEC, being an international student organization, has a very interesting group of people. There was Simonetta and her boyfriend from Germany, Kai from China and her boyfriend Juan from Colombia, Oussama from Tunisia and his roommate Yacina from Morocco, Rickesh from India, and Suzanne from the US. The food was great: another session of brik courtesy Suzanne, Simonetta's "German fruit" (thanks a ton for that btw!) and Kai's delicious beef and chicken dishes. Oussama and Juan contributed as well, but unfortunately by that point I was too full to taste what they had brought or remember their names. However, it was, by all other accounts, superb.

We were supposed to go to a Greek club called Cavo at 31st Avenue and 42nd Street in Queens after the potluck, but being in sneakers, I was denied entry, which actually suited a few others and me just fine. So, while most of the people went in, Rickesh, Luvshack, Oussama, Yacina and I hopped on the subway back to Manhattan.

I followed the India-Pakistan score for a little while but soon the quantities of exotic red wine I had consumed got the better of me and I drifted off into a deep dreamless sleep.

New York: Day 3

Four words. Metropolitan Museum of Art. This gargantuan museum is situated in Central Park at 82nd Street and 5th Avenue, a convenient twenty-minute stroll from Luvshack's shack.

The Met, as this museum is popularly known, houses collections from ancient Egypt through to the modern day. Unfortunately, it was something of a letdown for me, since I had been expecting something more along the lines of the Art Institute of Chicago, which consists predominantly of paintings and sculptures. The Met is, as its name implies, a museum rather than an art gallery – with more artifacts and less art than I would have liked. While the Egyptian exhibit was quite fascinating (as my trigger-happy friend and I will testify), I didn’t find anything else particularly exciting until I reached the nineteenth century paintings section on the second floor. There I spent a happy three hours staring at Gauguin, Degas, Manet, Monet, van Gogh, Renoir and Rodin. In doing so I realized that my fascination for the Impressionist period only grows stronger with each new museum I visit. I also realized, to my surprise and pleasure, that I had begun to be able to identify different periods of art by their style, from the twelfth through to the early twentieth centuries.

Although the Met is open till 9 pm on Fridays, I had to leave earlier to get to Carnegie Hall at 57th Street and 7th Avenue for a New York Pops concert at 8 pm. I had serendipitously obtained two tickets to this show the previous week via an online miles auction on the Continental Airlines website while looking for cheap tickets to New York.

The concert, consisting of popular American film themes, was decent. The guest conductor and pianist, Michel Legrand, theme music from “Lentl” and a song called “The Windmills Of Your Mind” from The Thomas Crown Affair were particularly memorable and I would probably have enjoyed the evening more had it not been for the fact that the main singer, Monica Mancini, Henry Mancini’s daughter, was insufferably arrogant and annoying and that Carnegie Hall, for all its hype and amazing acoustics, is more cramped than the average subway train. Still, being there and (again serendipitously) attending the same performance as former astronaut and current senator John Glenn was a fairly unique experience!

That night, Luvshack and I did the unimaginably geeky thing of playing Unreal Tournament online till 5 am.