Gloomy Onam :(

So one more day goes by... well, took up that book on GATE and tried out some objective questions in the noon. Then, what else... watched TV after that.

There was this New Zealand-Sri Lanka game which Sri Lanka threw away or like I prefer to say "They snatched defeat from the jaws of victory" Chasing ~140, they made a great start and Dilshan was on fire - 50 from 23, but wickets kept falling at the other end... soft dismissals, and two moments of brilliance from Jesse Ryder - how does that guy field with that bulky body! I should say McCullum's catch (the eighth wicket) was also vital, as till then, Sri Lanka was still in the game with a target achievable at approximately a run-a-ball. But New Zealand's fielding was uncharacteristically bad throughout... Their batting (which I didn't see) - only Ross Taylor performed I think, the overthrow and 3 runs on the last ball of their innings will haunt the Sri Lankans. So a good T20 game to watch.

Marat Safin was on at the US Open... Thankfully the fellow seems to be in his better moods and is playing well. When I was watching, he was one set up, and playing well. The guy can be a top-ranked player if he plays consistently - its there in him even now.

Meanwhile, news channels are having a field day reporting the mysterious "missing" YSR, the Andhra CM... this time around it seems a serious matter, but when these guys report about it as Breaking News for hours on end, you never feel like following it (atleast I don't!) And thats what I did - I'll catch up the updates on that issue in tomorrows papers.

Nothing else, Onam, our traditional Malayali festival, was spent at home all gloomy with the weather outside and other matters in mind :( Food was special with the payasam and chicken curry (even though Onasadya is traditionally all-vegetarian) So no floral carpets to be seen (except on TV) this time around.

Getting into bed early today because I've got to be at T.I.M.E. tomorrow at 10am. I'll be missing the test this Sunday (cause of that DRDO exam at Coimbatore)...

A New Month - Happy ONAM!

So here's a new month... what to talk about?

On my front I'm still at home, nothing much to tell, Onam tomorrow, so everyone getting geared for it. Other than that, I've got an exam (for DRDO) on the 6th of September, and trying desperately to prepare for that... just can't get into the groove. Anyway, what can one 'study' when almost the entire syllabus is being prescribed... I'll maybe check out some objective type questions and something about the organisation (DRDO) too.

US Open has started... and I just happened to see Dinara Safina's first round match, and she was really given a tough time by an Olivia Rogowska (who). Apparently an Australian wildcard entry, she never gave up against Safina's big returns. She got the first set on a tie-break and lost the next one... Safina managed to win the match, after being 0-3 down in the third. Unlike most unseeded players, who play well in the start only to fade away, Rogowska managed to fight till the end. So this match turned out to be good, with some good play by both players (but so many double-faults!?) Safina managed to keep her cool most of the time, but she'll have to do better in the coming matches, after just avoiding being the first No. 1 seed to be knocked out in the first round of the US Open.

NoDjo is playing right now, has a tricky one against veteran Ljubicic... now 3-0 up in the first set, so I think he's going good... can't follow that match. No other upsets it seems. Our Indians, Somdev and Sania are through to the second round too. All the best to them!

Transfer Window is closing... don't think Arsene Wenger will be going for anyone considering his frugalities and  (can tell for sure though, maybe Marouane Chamakh?!) And definitely can't say anything regarding Real... they may even pull off a Ribery transfer! Miguel Torres has gone to Getafe... he was a hard working defender (with some frailties though), but with Marcelo and Ramos, maybe he doesn't stand much chance. Robben and Sneijder have been offloaded... they've given their best for the team inspite of injuries and all, so hope they have a good career now on (hope not at Real's expense) Grosso has come to Juve... Juve's transfers this summer have been surely one of the best in Europe - Diego, Melo, Caceres, now Grosso... remains to see how they click now.

N900 in promos! With new Maemo 5 UI!

The Maemo 5 UI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au_uRmoy8Fs&feature=sub

Great OS its seems like... will hopefully put to rest all the complaints from ppl who claim that the Symbian 60 is too old-fashioned. Hopefully, my next phone will be one with this OS in it!! (So do I have to survive with my present 6681 till then!?! And till when?)

Movies...

Some of which I'd seen earlier in the month, some lately... mostly good ones (thats because I usually check the reviews online before venturing to watch a movie, else I watch the ones already in stock)

The Machinist is a great movie to watch.. Dark, and so a little disturbing. But comparing with all the other similar movies, this is one movie I comprehended much more. No major gaps or doubts regarding the story remained after watching it. Christian Bale stars as a machinist who leads a very solitary life... And due to some reason, he doesn't get any sleep (he says he hasn't slept for a year - a bit far fetched?!). From this disorder, starts all his problems... He starts imagining people, he creates problems at work - his whole life becomes a mess. Ultimately, he sorts out all the issues he faces - talking of which, the mysterious hangman game is quite fascinating. Not spoiling the suspense, but in the last scene, he finally gets down to have a calm, undisturbed sleep. Acting by the cast is great. Christian Bale looks quite ghostly as the 'hero'. Overall, I would give it a 9 rating, maybe because I . Worth a watch.

The Shaun of the Dead is a movie which tries to delve into all possible genres - but basically its horror and comedy - interesting mix. Our protagonist, Shaun is an employee at an electronics shop. He is lazy and absent-minded to say the least, which is why he loses his girlfriend. Meanwhile, London sees an incident which results in dead people turning into zombies... Its zombies everywhere and our hero has the duty of rescuing his girl and his mom from the situation. The movie is a fresh break from the American brand of comedy... dialogues are humorous too. Rating 8-8.5

Watching too many 'dark' movies could become boring, so for a change I went on and watched Open Season. The movie is about a grizzly bear who has been adopted by a forest ranger. The bear does shows to entertain people with her and lives in her garage, so he doesn't know what the wilderness is like. Due to some circumstances, his owner feels that its time to release him into the wild. So, she releases him to a faraway part of the forest (since he should be safe when the hunting season begins). The bear struggles to survive initially and is ridiculed by all the other animals. He also has a deer with which he happened to rescue earlier. When the animals happen to be in the midst of Open Season, the bear and the deer plot against the hunters. All the while, our grizzly hopes to return back to his owner's place. The movie is quite bright and colourful - especially the outdoors - even though the characters are not as good as those in Pixar animations (this one is by Sony Pictures) Story is also not bad, though Over the Hedge is maybe better. Overall a 7, and a good watch.

Others I've watched include The Shining, Apocalypto and RocknRolla... will write about them later.

Life goes on...

Yes, life's goin' on... Went to Palakkad one day to get my Transfer, Course and Conduct Certificates back. So that was a break from the monotony of home, and a chance to meet up with everyone at hostel. In between, saw some movies which I'll review in short and some matches of football (which the coming blogs will be about). By the way, joined T.I.M.E here in Kannur for mockCATs, so will hopefully spend time for that (blogging will surely help out in my verbals too!)... Rains are coming back to Kannur, though not so heavy.

Mom's cooked some wonderful, spicy biryani after a long time... bit dry, but spicy (which is what i prefer) - brought me back to the days of old in Abu Dhabi, when mom used to cook biryani on weekends and it would last for 3-4 days! Usually, we buy biryani from outside over here, which varies in taste and has a lot of oil mostly... certain restaurants dry-fry the chicken which is what i prefer (though thats not the norm in biryani)... but usually its less spicy in most places i've eaten out at.... Biryani is what i normally order whenever i'm at a new restaurant - will be of an expected quantity, taste and price. Back in Palakkad, biryani at most places is devoid of much hotness and spice - 'dilute', although some places offering 'hyderabadi dum' and other varieties are tasty. But at home, mom never tones down on the amount of spices - and experiments every time she cooks, which makes it all the more tasty and unique! Biryanis at weddings too (where they hire ppl to cook at home instead of hiring caterers) are outstanding... though i've forgotten the last time i've had one like that. So thats enough for biryani!

I've got to check up on some of our mechanical engg. subjects coz of an exam on the 6th of Sept... hopefully will start today (which is what i've been saying for quite somedays :P ) Gotta go now for dinner, which is... biryani from afternoon, and the spices must've adsorbed more onto the rice making it all the more tasty! I smell it now, mmmm...

New Football Season, Ashes, Rogers Cup

Sports front- yeah.. Peace Cup got over, and Aston Villa win it! After being unbeaten throughout, Juve manage to lose in the final! I had watched the Real-Juve game online (streaming at justin.tv :( ) coz its not available on tv... Juve just held strong at the defence, and Real showed their frailties from setpieces again - even Cannavaro scored from a set-piece! CR9 showed flashes of brilliance (of course he should do better, considering the money he's earning!), Benz didnt shine much... No one else did anything special. And what else... Other friendlies happened too, interesting ones were Espanyol beating Liverpool 3-1 (who said La Liga was inferior), and other "cups" such as the Audi Cup... Friendlies and qualifiers too, and I tried to follow the Mexico-USA one and the Netherlands-England one, but in vain. Again these two are not shown on TV and I had to resort to our justin.tv where the "bandwidth for my country exceeded its limits" :( England managed a draw from 2-o down, and Mexico remained unbeaten versus the US at the Aztec arena... the shock among the matches was when Spain went 2-0 down versus Macedonia... but they saved themselves and won 3-2... phew!

Now EPL has taken off, and Chelsea eke out a win against Hull with great goals from Drogba and Abu Dhabi F C, oops, Man City win too... But it was Arsenal's win - 6-1 away at Everton which will really silence the sceptics who've doubted our position in the top 4... a dominant display. Bendtner, Song and Fabregas was impressive and Vermaelen had a good debut, scoring as well... Almunia was notable too, even though he wasnt threatened much. Apart from the defence which seemed disorganised once or twice, it was a great start to the season... I only hope the team's performance is consistent through out the season, and we are injury free. ManU have started too with a narrow win against Birmingham City. Other match-ups to look forward to include the Champions League qualification round on 18/19th and the week after that(Arsenal-Celtic!! and Athletico too has an interesting matchup) and Real-A. C. Milan - on August 25 i think... And of course the start of the La Liga!

Ashes, and the Aussies've thrashed England... Indian cricketers are adamant about not meeting the WADA guidelines (while so many other athletes, who have security threats and more guarded private lives have signed on maybe) The guidelines look too strict, in my opinion too, but cricket cant be an exception right, especially when it hopes to be featured in London 2012? Dont know whether footballers under UEFA and FIFA have similar doping tests from WADA...

Tennis, and Rogers Cup looks interesting with all the first 8 seeds into the quarters. But Rafa and Federer lose! Ferrero seemed promising, but finally went down... Del Potro and Tsonga seem to be going strong. Hope NoDjo goes on... Men's tennis seems to be 'decentralising' from FedEx and Nadal!

C. B. S. E. bans mobile phones... will it be effective?

Well, have you heard the news about the C. B. S. E. wanting a ban on the use of mobiles in schools? The use of mobiles in educational institutes is perhaps one of the most discussed and debated topics... Whats new about this one?

Well, on the part of the kid.. He may say that its an essential gadget, helps keep in touch, etc etc.. (although schools are meant for study alone, you can argue!) Well, I hardly ever used a mobile at school if I remember right (back then, it was the black and white ones, then a few ones with 4k colours) And only few guys had mobs, and a cell would've been more handy had it been more common. The thing is that the mobile revolution was just starting (or just started) back then.

Come college life - staying away from home, a mob was a prerequisite to living at hostel... At first, no one never really took mobs to class (or didnt we?! dont recall..) partly not wanting to appear flashy in front of the seniors. But then later in the second year, the mobile "revolution" really happened... Breaks between classes were the time for loud music and sound fx (courtesy the Sony Ericsson Walkman series models and other phones like the Nokia 6233 which had atrocious decibel levels) Boring class hours were spent in browsing via GPRS, bluetooth data exchange, SMSing, misscalling, etc., etc... Only possible misuse I could agree with was the use of mobiles in the exam hall, else it was just a distraction (yes, could be described as a big distraction in a place of study ;) ) But I could not simply agree with a ban on mobiles... especially when we needed to communicate from one end of the college to another, and get essential info via GPRS. I also remember using my camera mobile as a mini photostat machine to scan and keep images of pages... so you can see how 'essential' it was to a student like me...

Anyway, coming back to our topic, whatever my views on mobile use at college, a ban at the school level would certainly be a great step forward... especially when it extends to teachers (who otherwise usually practise double-standards in the case of mobile phone use). But the thing is we have heard of countless 'bans' which are usually laws meant to be broken... effective for a week or so and then forgotten. This one seems to be a bit more serious... time will tell how effective it is.

One way of keeping the ban effective would be the use of jammers... but I dont know whether the devices are costly or not. Else, it would be quite useful in making an institution mobile-free... Else, an idea would be counters at a school's entrance where you could deposit your phones and collect it back when you leave. What ever the solution, an alternative should be provided for communication within a large campus - every department and block should be connected by a centralised network of land-phones - by which you can communicate within the campus, and parents/relatives of students/teachers can keep contact in case of emergencies.

To conclude, whatever I said earlier about how mobiles, an effective 'ban' on mobiles would really be welcome at school and even college level - after all it is a place of study ;) And remember... our moms and dads went through their schools without mobiles. Not being averse to technological advances, but the point is - 'mobile-free' study is possible.

Laziness...

So its August 15th, Independence Day, and time again to reflect upon where we've come along as a free nation... Long time I've written something, so just writing something down for a start. New EPL Season has also started, just now Chelsea-Hull going on... In the meanwhile, went to Bengaluru, saw few movies, self-learning a bit of Solidworks 2008, Adobe Illustrator CS3, etc... so not that wasteful either. Started reading Not A Penny More, Not A Penny Less and moving at a slow and broke and pace . More comments, and blogs when I'm really in the mood to do so... And trying to type everything in the full - trying to cut down on chat language as much as possible ;)

Meanwhile, hoping to start preparations for CAT 2010 soon!!

Calcio Debate: Raul And Alessandro Del Piero - Birds Of The Same Feather? - Goal.com

Check out this comment of two of my fav players....

Calcio Debate: Raul And Alessandro Del Piero - Birds Of The Same Feather? - Goal.com

movies

well, as u've seen in the previous post, my headphones were out of order for some period of time, so cud watch only few movies in the meanwhile (considering all the free time i had and the movies in my laptop)

mirrors was one... stars kiefer sutherland (24 guy). had guys tellin me it was obscenely bloody and gory (2 scenes are a little gory btw)... but finally went ahead to watch it. our protagonist is a suspended cop, who is living away from his wife and kids... he gets stationed at an old mall which had seen a devastating fire some time back. some history behind the place - it had been a mental asylum once where a schizophrenic young girl was held for treatment... so our hero gets to undergo the strange experiences which the policemen before him had suffered - its something with the mirrors at the mall - they seem to show ppl performing horrible things to themselves... so the hero goes on and investigates the case before members of his family come under harms way.

the concept is quite good, and the plot goes okay but couldve been better... 1-2 scenes really startled me (thats what u expect from a horror movie) i liked the ending too (perhaps making way for a sequel?!) anyway a good watch for horror/thriller buffs! i can give it a 6 maybe...

another movie i saw was the grudge with sarah michelle gellar. shes come on to live in japan for a while as a social worker, and comes upon a house where a lady who s suffering from dementia lives. theres a spirit there which results from 'a person dying in a fit of rage/sorrow'...  the spirit passes on to all those associated with that house. our heroine goes on to investigate the happenings behind the spirit and stop it before any further deaths occur. a sequel has come out... this one is quite okay and the setting in tokyo makes it interesting (its a remake of a japanese film btw)... a 5.5 - 6 from me

nadodigal is another movie i got to watch with friends... this ones a tamil one - so cant give a good enough review coz i dont follow the language. its a story of 3 friends who live happily with their families till another friend contemplates suicide following a split with his love... they travel all the way to namakkal to get the couple united - all with disasterous consequences which throw their lives off track...  they live happily thinking all is well with the friend they helped. but what happens when they learn that the couple is thinking of splitting?! a good story of friendship which is quite realistic... good watch for tamil film followers - 7

borat: cultural learnings of ameri....  is one other one ive watched... a satire of american society (and making fun of kazhakhstan all the while) borat is a kazhak tv reporter sent off to america to cover all the stuff that makes america 'great'.... he reaches new york with his producer, and happens to see baywatch on tv. he becomes obsessed with pamela anderson and persuades his producer to travel across america to california... all the while trying to adapt to american society and etiquette, and with humorous experiences throughout. sacha baron cohen is really funny as borat (but real crude at times) and pulls off a convincing performance. the film captures few aspects of american society. The only thing against it is its potrayal of kazhakstan - too harsh maybe, whod like their country to be shown this way - which is enough to create stereotypes among ppl. a 7.5 (pts reduced for the crude humour)

thats it for the movies ive seen lately...

Sennheiser Headphones and other tech musings ;)

Well, nothing particular about this blog... but its can perhaps be said that one of the things we fear most is - thanking others for what theyve done?! yea, its true to an extent....

the topic is about my headphones - sennheiser mx-50, which i had been using for the past one year... its sheathing (the wire insulation) had torn off at certain places and was looking awful. being covered by a 2 year warranty (one of the reasons i chose it) i contacted the customer care, and was ultimately able to replace it with only the little money and effort involved in sending it back... got back an mx-51 in 2-3 days! customer care at sennheiser is good and responsive, thanks to all of them and a certain vinod kamble there!! now im back to listening music clearly and tastefully with all the bass which was missing for the past few days - so to conclude, sennheiser is certainly recommendable for both their product quality and service!

the dvd-drive of my lap (toshiba) is similarly malfunctioning and refusing to burn any dvds - and even read some in recent days. have to take it to bengaluru/chennai to get it fixed.... hope to receive good customer service from toshiba india too!

what else, considering products in the recent months, its been war between nokia n97 and apple iphone 3gs - most tech forums seem to be devoted to articles regarding the same. nokia seems to have come up with a good touch phone after the 5800 (which was good enough for its price, but with its share of problems). being a dedicated nokia lover - all the phones ive bought ve been nokias - i would certainly choose the n97 over the iphone 3gs. iphone will sell well in the usa (appleland!!) and worldwide too - with all the hype behind the brand name and stylish features too... anyways, theyve got to brush up on some features essential for a mobile phone - and that includes a removable battery for one!

inspite of disliking apple corp. (except for maybe pixar for all the amazing animated features they make!!), i commend them for the bringing about the new touch generation in the mobile industry (maybe htc can stake a claim here too)... ipod was one hell of an innovation too - but my creative zen vision m has got a recorder, fm radio and can play formats other than *.mov ;) apple sure makes products for the american market - destined to have buyers in usa - but they are surely innovative...

good to find a fight brewing up between microsoft and google... both are companies i admire, so it will be interesting to find what comes from it... microsoft want to release free online editions of office, but office has always been fine the good old way... i cant imagine what life would ve been without word and powerpt and excel... all ve been indispensible!! btw, msword has recently celebrated 25 yrs - and its still the undisputed leader!

google too has been in the forefront in the search arena - have to check 'bing' out by the way... ive perhaps seen the google homepage atleast once whenever i went online for the last 5-6 years maybe... and any info to be researched is immediately 'googled'. the company has gone on to become a giant in the internet and is expanding further perhaps (android, etc) - one big example of the 'integrative growth' ive studied in marketing mgmt. google s perhaps growing by expanding in all possible directions...

thats it for this post regarding products and lifestyle... all the ppz livin under IST, check out tv.burrp.com for tv schedules, quite a useful site it is, has been recommended to me by sriram... thnx to him!

College/Hostel Life OVER!! Sports too...

so last one was from my mob... but im just too lazy to do it again via mob. spent the week at palakkad, visited hemanth's place at pattambi (vadanamkurushhi to be exact) with all the guys at hostel... spent the remaining days with 'send off ceremonies' organised by our juniors, unichetan (the person responsible for our mess, btw), and then uncle at our hostel... ensured that almost 2 weeks went with chicken occupying the menu for 1-2 meals everyday!!! that made sure that by the end of it all, we were actually craving for masala-free mild food! so vacated the place on 28th, finally...

sports and its off-season friendlies - real madrid and juventus are participating in the peace cup (and meeting in the semis on 31st) but no chance of watching it on tv. have to check up some site online... cr9 made his first dive in a real shirt, scored his first goal... the team seems to have become injury-proof now! also good that granero, raul, negredo also got on the scoresheets - and arbeloa is coming back to the club where he started... hope they make the right decisions in transfers out of the club now.

meanwhile, arsenal ve lost ade and toure :( ade was perhaps a bargain being sold for that much money.  but toure was a good fellow... sad to see him go. only hope that man city dont live up to all the hype theyre creating! also good if eduardo will be back in the line-up and vela gets a stint following his form in the gold cup - btw, the u s of america are so inconsistent!? was it the same team which took part in the confeds - donno...

no cricket action too (ie after england won that test with certain questionable decisions)... pl count out the wierd bangladesh tour of  bangladesh too. pak-sri lanka is going on, but donno whether im in the mood for it - kulasekara was bowling quite well today, donno what happened later...

Blog from mob?!

Yup.. Here i am, blogging from my mob... (the word "blog" is nt there in the t9 dictionary of my mob btw!). right now returnin to palakkad, and in the train... So hoping this gets posted successfully.

--
Sent on a phone using T9space.com

...After Exams...

what happened after xams? well yes, some days went into organising stuff for our project report, and the presentation on the 30th. everything went well thankfully, with minimal grilling from the staff panel. what then... we had our course viva, which also went okay - even though those guys told me i wasnt upto mark in my basics. we also had all the formalities for getting our certificates ready which is not as simple as it sounds... gotta get signs from all corners of the college.

 

in between, all those days spent in enjoyin the very last days of college and hostel life... spending time at college, playing, eating out, sitting late gossipping, and sometimes slumbering for long periods... only in the past few months ve i started realising that things will never be the same again - the freedom to take your own decisions, the deadlines for tests, assignments, exams... the time ahead looms ahead like a great void.. gotta get work somewhere.

well, also went to kollam on 11th, for a frnd's (sreeraj's) sis' engagemt... so two days went like that at kollam. went to jatayu "para" (jatayu rocks) - where jatayus wings r said to have been cut off by ravan in the ramayana. infact, many features - the crater where jatayu's beak s said to ve landed, rama's footprints, the pond from which rama is said to ve fed jatayu (which never dries!) - correspond to incidents from the ramayana. the place is thus a great visit for tourists with a little bit of adventure, trekking or some spirituality in them - on the highway too i guess... check out http://www.jatayusculpture.com/ - theyre developing the place with tourists in mind - good thing to see considering how some other potential tourist places in kerala are....

next day, soon after the engagement ceremony, went on to trivandrum (the train would be startin from there) where we had just a few hours.. saw kovalam beach - just too busy n cluttered with tourists from everywhere... stayed there till sunset, n then went on to board the train. had some broken sleep in the midst of all the rush and reached early mornin at palakkad.. next day, made for kannur. nd thats where ive been till today! heavy rain at irregular intervals, and then sleep and "inertia" too, and matters at homeve kept me grounded...

noTHING IN PARTICULAR... Sports once again

Well, have been thinking of writing something for some days, either the time or the situation just doesnt permit it (...or perhaps my laziness)

so, what... well, nothing much to talk about in sport, now that that epic finale at wimbledon got over n fedex got his record. team india ve won that rain affected odi series n in football, real madrid are snapping up almost every player they want!! cr7 (cr9 now) and kaka and benzema and albiol (and hopefully negredo stays) - hopefully no. 10 is on the way - every real fan knows what i mean! arsenal ve just got vermeulen - but a good signing i guess, with the troubles at the back. they sure should make a bargain from selling ade n perhaps get huntelaar or some one else who's highly rated. 

just now watching the ashes... test cricket has got its appeal especially the ashes. england just sneaked thru with a draw in cardiff, n now well on top at their jinxed venue - lords.. havent won there in quite some time it seems. at times feeling sorry for the aussies (even though im supporting england) coz nothings going their way. mitchell johnson is wavering in form, ponting just dropped a catch... what not. theyll be hoping for the rains i guess, with the way things are going.

nothing more for the time being... got to get going...

XAMS OVER - what next?

well, blog after 1 month!! quite a pity cant post anything from mob :(

what to tell... hmm, last blog was all about sport (didnt mention a word about xams though they were 3 weeks frm then!!) so finally xams r over n done with!! started on the 11th and ended 19th - got over that fast... most of them not bad though (one or two were quite ___ u can fill it) but anyway whats done is done. now we ve only got the project presentation and the course viva left - and its goodbye to college life :( have to do something regarding future - and fast - n not get caught up in "inertia of rest" :P

what else, real are on the shopping spree everyone predicted - already kaka n cronaldo - villa not coming as things stand, but lets see whos next, and whos going... arsenal ve acquired vermaelen - hope the fellow ll bolster our defence - selling ade could generate money for more transfers perhaps... juve ve got diego - hes gonna be a prized asset...

confed s going on and brazil and spain are unstoppable... most probably theyll be finalists. india happened to mess up their campaign in t20 (lost 3 matches - sloppy fielding and extras given are the reasons i attribute to). now everyones back to bashing their own team, hehe...

saw a movie after so long... cloverfield - good one to pass ones time - in the lines of blair witch project, seen thru the eyes of a guy with a handheld cam... so sort of difft from the other monster movies. decent effects too.

ending for now... will be back in palakkad by night tomorrow hopefully. till then...

Sports round up

Well, talking about sport... all my fav terams seem to be faring badly in the recent past.

real madrid ve performed well over the months but ve made it a habit to mess up once the big games ve come up (and also the previous games vs valencia and villareal were depressing to say the least) even the 2-3 loss vs villareal was one in which we were pathetic... our defence alone needs to be relegated to the segunda (or whatever is the second div called in spain).

we simply need to offload heinze (good only in the villareal game) and cannavaro (time up mate!). guti needs to be in the team atleast as sub. the guy can still be amazing even though hes inconsistent. and dont necessarily need cronaldo... hope the new mgt gets/retains more players from spain itself, and guys with real roots - granero, garay, bueno, negredo, etc etc

arsenal ve also performed well over the last few months - infact done pretty well considering the dip in form at the start of season. managed to get into the semis of ucl... but as of late the finishing at goal has been bad. arsenal still play the beautiful football they re renowned for... but what we desperately need is a master finisher... like henry, berkamp. rvp is the best out of the lot but needs to be fitter... was unfortunate in the semi vs manu... one slip and the cronaldo spot kick and the match was gone... didnt ve that fighting spirit too - but scoring 3 goals more vs manu is a big ask. the games vs chelsea (both fa cup and league) were bad... we need to be more physical too and deviate from the beautiful game to get results at times. we need more physical players like viera, keown, parlour... our red card count is pretty bad now, considering the past!! ;) hope arshavin gets better too... 4 goals agains pool nd good performances later too!!

juve ve seen them throw away their second place to ac... thats too bad. and inter ve gone unchallenged :( hope diego coming over will boost the existing squad

ipl.. and brc started off with a shocker by crushing the reigning champs - good performances by the veterans kumble and dravid... later matches saw depressing losses - the teams performances started resembling last seasons - but managed to get back and become a real contender for the 4th place. last two games are tough ones though - dc and dd - but win those two and we r through. only thing we need to do is bat sensibly and keep up the pressure soon after we get wickets...

Saw the highlights of djokovic-nadal in the madrid masters - the guy did quite well actually but what to do - he was up agnst nadal of all ppl. reminds me of what verdasco said - for u to win agsnt nadal, u need to be in the best of form and he in poor form...

well.. the problem is that i cant blog from my dear ol mob. or i dont know how... ive tried, but just can give the title of the blog and nothing else. should try other means.

else, i could very well ve described life at college and other things on my mind (or i wish i could ve done so, considering my laziness)

FREE MONEY?!

This thing is working i guess... use a paypal account to redeem your dollars!

First day at krl

QEM Paper

here is the QEM question paper... hope its clear.