freedom?

I was reading this article... and I think it nicely illustrates a point I was making in an earlier post regarding how conservative, unaware and indifferent our current generation is!
http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/01/31/students.amendment.ap/index.html

Out of Office Replies

I quite dislike Out-Of-Office emails. Not all of them. The verbose, banal ones.

Recently I came across this message:
At XYZ Corp, we are committed to the highest quality in products and the greatest satisfaction for the customers. To this end, I hope you will bear with me while I am unavailable at the moment. I will reply to your email as soon as I can. In the meantime, please contact *** for emergencies.

Redundancy. Shameless advertising. Waste of my time. Some of the flaws as I see them.

Another message:
I will be unavailable at my office from *** to ***. I will be in Madrid and Chicago. However, I will regularly check my email, and hope to respond as soon as possible.

If you're going to check email regularly, why bother telling me u are unavailable? Or where you are. It's bad enough that I'm sitting at my desk while you're off seeing the world.

My guidelines for the messages:
(1) Do not send these messages if you're going to be in touch with the world (emails, checking messages etc).
(2) Do not tell me where you're going unless you think it's necessary.
(3) Do NOT give me unwanted and frivolous information, making it longer.
(4) DO check your emails when yuo get back - and REPLY !

*End of Rant*

gutsy

... and as if to further reinforce my point in the last entry - Hewitt beats Roddick. A classic guts vs power brawl. And just yesterday I was hearing tons of stuff from people saying there's only so far that Hewitt can go - and that Roddick's power and Federer's class would undo him.

Receding new wave?

Federer lost to Safin today - in a stunningly close match. Sharapove lost to Serena yesterday - in a stunningly close match. Serena and Safin are hailed as the 'old' brigade... rallying against the upstarts... Federer and Sharapova - who monopolized the tennis pages last year.

The way I see it though - it's a good thing. For all of last year, Federer wasn't given enough credit for his wins. I think he's good... very good. And in some strange way, this fighting and scrapping for wins... and losing every now and then - would help cement his place as a really good player. A player for the ages.

The new brigade has arrived. And it's here to stay. It's rather presumptuous to assume that the 'old' champions (Safin, Williams, etc) would just die away and allow the newbies to win everything! It's going to be tough competition. A constant fight. And that's the way it should be. That's the way I like it.

I love the snow!

It snowed all of the last 24 hours or so... a blizzard. A snowstorm. There's over a foot of snow outside. Streets are deserted... and I love it. I got to snowskate, play in the snow and generally have a ball goofing around!! I have fallen in love with fresh snow (not the muck left afterwards)over the last few months in NY after the infrequent exposure I had to it earlier. I've loved skiing. And now I'm learning to snowskate and it's incredibly great fun!

A snowskate is a skateboard top attached to a small snowboard below it (a gap of about two inches between the two) to allow for elevation enough to powder out fresh banks of snow. I went snowskating to neighborhood haunts with a friend who's been snowboarding since he was ten.. a crazed fan ogf skateboarding, surfing and snowboarding! Apparently snowskating is still an underground phenomenon - exclusive to snowboarders who are (unfortunately for them) confined to urban areas. In the absence of slopes, they took to this adaptation. It's great fun!

Last night (at 11pm) we went out to long, steep driveways and hilly streets and steep frontyards...and generally had a ball snowskating. I fell a few hundred times trying to learn to do it, but I was told even skateboarders and snowboarders take a few tries getting the hang of it. That made me feel much better. So much more because I managed to learn the elements of balance and poise on it... without prior experience with either of the parent sports!! (Majorly kicked!) Loved it so much that we went out this afternoon as well - to a park a mile away from home... with steep grass and concrete banks - that are perfect for fast snowskating when covered in a foot of snow! Wicked!

I can't wait for another blizzard to drive everyone indoors and give me a chance to party in the snow! Something I've wanted to do on my last ski trip as well... but for which I have an increased resolve now - is snowboarding! I HAVE to do it asap. What a rush!

Sania

Sania Mirza is the encouraging face of Indian tennis (yes... she trains abroad for the most part!). At 18, she reached the third round of the Aus open...a nd it's not a one-off because she's been in the mix for a while now... first in the juniors, and now in the main draw.
She lost to Serena Williams int he third round (6-1,6-4). But just by getting by the first round, she's done better than any other Indian woman, the previous best being a first round defeat by Nirupama Vaidyanathan in the late nineties.
I sure hope she can keep her nose to the grindstone and a level head... and make giant strides for all of Indian tennis.

Cheers!

I love wine !
I have always loved the merlots and the cabernets, but of late, I've really grown to love the Chardonnays and the Pinot Noir (please see Sideways for a nice analogy on the Pinot).
It's an expensive pirsuit... one that forces you to go higher and higher on the scale of cost and palate - the more you grow to like it. And for now, I'm restricted to the local Wine store - no vineyard tours and Napa Valley tours.
Soon... I will do that too. We will do that. And it'll be wonderful. For what is a good wine without someone good to share it with?!!

I've also decided - for the sake of cost cutting... on a compromise. I will indulge in a (not very expensive) wine every week. One bottle to get home. No more. No less.

This week: A Cabernet Sauvignon. A deep, dark, intense cabernet from the Napa valley.

Hmm...

Why do we spend half our lives making plans and the other half explaining to ourselves why it's ok that we didn't meet our expectations ?!

Justifying inclusion?

Bangladesh tasted a series victory for the first time in thweir fledgling test career, albeit against a weak Zimbabwe side. It's still a good thing for them. A victory is a confidence booster. They may begin to believe in themselves. Also, this might generate more interest and money might pur into the board coffers a little more... generating infrastructure improvements. All good. Let's hope it does spark off a start for them. More teams in the fray - always a good thing! Especially in an international sport as elitist as cricket.

On the flip side, Zimbabwe.. once on the brink of a truly competitive side... ahs slipped. Sure, they've had more than their share of troubles... with bans, segregation, fundamental disagreements and shattering of their team . It's still sad to see that a team, that once pushed the big powers real had to beat them... are now searching to see how they lost to B'desh.

Italia and the Standings table

Wins: 6 Draws: 13 Losses: 0
Thus reads the points tally for Inter Milan in the Serie A. A 19 game undefeated streak. The only undefeated team in the Serie A this year. Even the mighty Juventus and AC Milan have lost a game each.
And yet, they are 4th in the standings table. 4 point sbehind Udinese, who have lost five of their 19 games this year!!
I refer to my earlier post about streaks. This is a classic example of an insignificant statistic. An anomaly of a streak. Of what use is a 19 game unbeaten streak, if it gets you nowhere - and you cannot win often enough? They can't seem to lose (characteristic of most streaks), but they also can't seem to win! Is a 0-0 draw and satisfying the fans (are they really?) and shareholder money enough of a reason to stifle all interet in the game? To be totally risk averse, and stop playing? I wonder.

Another issue: Is it a pervasive phenomenon in all of Italian football? If you went through the table, NO team has a '0' in the draws column. What's more, the teams collectively average about 5 draws in 19 games! A quarter of all games are draws? What's happening?

I used to love Italian football. Now I'm concerned.

Million Dollar Baby

Superb!
A really great movie... an example of what great subtle acting can do. No overtly theatrical performances. Very, very natural. Clint Eastwood ahs become a really, really good filmmaker of this genre. And Hillary Swank was great! Morgan Freeman gave a very controlled performance - very nice. All in all - a great movie.
A narrative of a deadbeat, overage boxer (Swank) who has the heart to go all the way - and solicits Eastwood's training. He helps her get her 'shot' and in the process we discover the passion, the stories and the unfulfilled dreams behind their compelling journey.
Highly recommended.

Rating: 5/5

PS: I've been really lucky of late... I've watched a string of really good movies. Either that, or I've become very good at picking the movies I want to watch! :)

Of late, I've (re)discovered my love for...

Song: Englishman in New York (Sting)
Album: Sketches of Spain (Miles Davis with Gill Evans)
Book: Hmm.. lemme see... haven't read any fiction for a while. Just finished Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen (loosely explains his nobel-prize winning work)
Movie: Hotel Rwanda
Food: Shrimp Tacos with tomatillo salsa
Drink: Alabama Slammer (Souther Comfort, Gin, Amaretto, Orange Juice)

Premier Hockey League in India !!

Very exciting. India's national sport... and one of only two they are really good at. And it's not cricket ! About time hockey got the infrastructure and attention it deserves.
Corny names and doubts on longevity apart.. I think the beginning fot he Premier hockeay league is a great step forward!!
See: http://www.premierhockeyleague.com/phl/phl_index.html
Cheers.

Just some more thoughts

- What is the right balance between 'I want' and 'I need' ?
- Is there ever a wrong time to do the right thing?
- Is ignorance bliss? Is it sometimes better in the comfortable shade of no accountability ?

Hotel Rwanda

I loved this movie. Based on facts, this movie is a gripping narrative of Paul Russesabagina, a soft-spoken hotel manager (for a Belgian owned international hotel) and his family. Even more, it is a tale of how a little compassion and bravery goes a long way in times of strife. The movie is quite graphic in its depiction of genocide (or the more poignant phrase "acts of genocide"). If nothing else, it provides the western world with a face to associate with the millions of africans being slaughtered in regular ethnic and political wars.

Don Cheadle (Ocean's Eleven, Twelve) is great in his role. So is Nick Nolte as the good-hearted UN colonel. It gives a very human look at the many hours of BBC news that I've watched over the years and footage of the african unrest and the resulting massacres.

It's a great movie. A must-watch.

Rating: 5/5

A love song for Bobby Long

Southern. Sweet. Set in New Orleans, the story of an alienated daughter of a local singer reuniting with (what is revealed at the end) her father [no real surprise]. Hates him, gets to know him, annoyed with him, then likes him. John Travolta plays the deadbeat but likeable ex-english prof, now turned bum. Gabriel Macht seesaws between hopeful and insignificant. Scarlett Johansson gives a good performance as the daughter... spunky, vulnerable and stunningly beautiful (even as a hick). While the characters all play their part well, the story dawdles and is drowned in its saccharine self-indulgence. Some things particularly the southern tongue (which I heard a lot of in Texas), some good music and the beautiful Scarlett Johansson kept my interest. IMO, it falls just short of being a good movie.

Rating: 3.5/5

Sideways

Very nice movie. The group I went with had a very mixed opinion about the movie. I loved it though. Shot well. Paul Giamatti is great. So is Thomas Haden Church. Shot well... and lots of subtle humor. Not a laugh-out-loud movie... more of a reflective chuckle.
I recommend it.

Rating: 4.5/5

Happy New Year

Here's wishing you all a great year ahead.
Cheers!