A bit of a scare

For the past few days, I had struggled with shortness of breath. Now, this by itself, was not a cause of concern as I suffer from allergic asthma and go through repeated attacks of breathlessness and wheezing, especially at this time of the year. I got concerned when I started getting chest pains which I hadn't really felt before. I felt lousy with fever like symptoms and couldn't walk very far without wheezing. With these symptoms, I got a little scared that I might have got infected with tuberculosis from someone very close who was undergoing treatment for that. So, I went in for an XRAY. The XRAY report, showed left hilal lymphadenopathy seriously scared me. I was told that this could be a result of an infection, an abscess, or cancer. So, I was advised to undergo a CT Scan the next day. That night was the longest in my life. I could see the tension written on dad, mom and namz face. Worrying comes very easily to my family and here there was enough to worry about. The night was spent with very little sleep. Fortunately, the CT Scan revealed no abnormalities. Doctor tells me that due to chronic asthma and allergy , there may be inflammation of the wind pipe and the surrounding area causing pain and enlargement of lymph nodes. Although this is a big relief, I still am concerned about the continuing fever like symptoms. I hope with proper care and attention those would pass soon. I realise that this is as good a slap in the face as I need ... a great reminder that I need to be more health conscious and need to take better care of myself.

Season of giving...

Give children the chances in life they deserve. Donate online at www.giveindia.org

Twenty-20 World Cup: India in finals after beating Australia

What a great match it was.

The hero of the match was once again Yuvraj Singh who played the innings of his lifetime to help India amass a formidable score of 188 for five after India won the toss and chose to bat.

Yuvraj, who had earlier against England, hit Broad for six sixes in an over, continued with the same form to hit Australia bowlers for five fours and five sixes to score 70 runs off just 30 balls.

Credit is also due to great bowling from Harbhanjan Singh, Sreesanth, Pathan and R P Singh who did not let the Aussie batsmen get away.

And not the least to Dhoni for his smart captaincy all the way.

India, now play Pakistan in what could be the greatest final ever. Let's just hope that it lives up to the hype.

Twenty-20 World Cup: India in semis

The ongoing Twenty-20 world cup is turning out to be more fun than I thought it would be. Thanks to Dhoni's Durbanators, Indian fans have got plenty to cheer about in the last week.

Who would have thought that this Indian team of youngsters, without the Big 3, would advance to the final 4 stage. Yesterday, in another must win match, India beat South Africa by 37 runs. And once again it was a team effort.

On a track that had plenty in for the seamers, young R Sharma with captain Dhoni helped India post a decent score of 153. And then RP Singh, Pathan and Harbhajan Singh bowled beautifully to restrict SA to 116 runs.

SA is now out of the tournament, once again unable to shrug the 'chokers' tag which they have earned for themselves.

The best moments of the match for me were :

- R Sharma's six off the last ball of Indian innings. India needed a boundary to reach the psychologically advantageous score of 150. R. Sharma did better to hit a difficult high fulltoss over midwicket for maximum.

- D. Karthik's acrobatic catch in the slips to dismiss G. Smith. Karthik is fast turning out to be a great utility cricketer for India. Over the last few months he has shown some great all round skills.

- R. Sharma's quick pickup and throw to run out the danger man Kemp. The young Mumbai lad was rightly adjudged the man of the match.

India will now face the Aussies in the semi finals. As we all know, when it comes to big matches, the Aussies lift their game a couple of notches. I just hope that this fearless till now Indian side do likewise and manage to give Aussies a fight.

Switched to Debian

Yesterday, I removed Fedora Core from my PC and installed Debian etch. The
installation ( good gui based installer) was a breeze, except that I had to reformat and repartition my swap space.

With this, I also switched to KDE desktop replacing GNOME. So far it's been lovely.

Using 'aptitude' was a little confusing, till I got a hang of it. I love it now.

I managed to install wvdial and configure it for my tata indicom net connection. No
problems in that too.

As of now, I am happy with the change...

Uthappa's match winning knock

India, with a rare display of gutsy batting went past England's total of 316 runs to level the series 3-3, with one match still remaining. The victory came in the last over with 2 balls to spare. Robin Uthappa, in his first match in the series, played a delightful knock of 47 runs. It surely was a match winning knock coz when he came out to bat India needed almost 9 runs per over with Sachin, Sourav, Dravid and Yuvraj back in pavilion. The innings showed a lot of character and ensures Uthappa's place in the side for the final at Lords.

This was a must win match for India and the win now gives India a great psychological advantage going into the final.

Ofcourse, the anti climax came in with the man of the match announcement. The less deserving Tendulkar ( as has happened so many times before) got the man of the match
award.

Interesting Facts About Rajni...Hilarious stuff!!!

1. There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of creatures Rajnikant has allowed to live.

2. Outer space exists because it's afraid to be on the same planet with Rajnikant.

3. Rajnikant counted to infinity - twice.

4. When Rajnikant does a pushup, he isn't lifting himself up, he's pushing the Earth down.

5. Rajnikant is so fast, he can run around the world and punch himself in the back of the head.

6. Rajnikant doesn't wear a watch, HE decides what time it is. (LOL)

7. Rajnikant gave MonaLisa that smile.

8. Rajnikant can slam a revolving door.

9. There are no races, only countries of people Rajnikant has beaten to different shades of black and blue.

10. Rajnikant's house has no doors, only walls that he walks through.

11. Rajnikant can divide by zero.

12. Newton's Third Law is wrong: Although it states that for each action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, there is no force equal in reaction to a Rajnikant turnaround kick.

13. When taking the GRE, write "Rajnikant" for every answer. You will score over 1600.

14. Rajnikant has 12 moons. One of those moons is the Earth.

15. Rajnikant grinds his coffee with his teeth and boils the water with his own rage.

16. Archeologists unearthed an old English dictionary dating back to the year 1236. It defined "victim" as "one who has encountered Rajnikant"

17. If you Google search "Rajnikant getting kicked" you will generate zero results. It just doesn't happen.

18. Rajnikant can drink an entire gallon of milk in thirty-seven seconds.

19. Rajnikant doesn't bowl strikes, he just knocks down one pin and the other nine faint.

20. It takes Rajnikant 20 minutes to watch 60 Minutes.

21. The Bermuda Triangle used to be the Bermuda Square, until Rajnikant kicked one of the corners off.

22. There are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Rajnikant lives in Chennai.

23. Rajnikant once ate an entire bottle of sleeping pills. They made him blink.

24. James Cameron wanted Rajnikant to play the Terminator. However, upon reflection, he realized that would have turned his movie into a documentary, so he went with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

25. Thousands of years ago Rajnikant came across a bear. It was so terrified that it fled north into the arctic. It was also so terrified that all of its descendants now have white
hair.

Chappell Quits

Greg Chappel handed in his resignation on Wednesday. The news was unexpectedly expected. The world cup debacle followed by his showdown with the team seniors had left him with no option but to put in his papers. Given the circumstances , I don’t think he would have been allowed to continue even if he so desired.

Greg Chappel took over as India coach in May 2005. His tenure had a few triumphant moments like India’s win over Sri Lanka 6-1 , victory against England 5-1 and the test series win in the Caribbean.

Having said that, I am afraid he would be largely remembered for being one of the main reasons, if not the only one, responsible for India’s world cup fiasco.

His public fall out with Saurav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar , his disregard for the Indian cricket lovers and Indian cricket at large, would have been overlooked by all, had he only delivered what he promised when getting the job.

Now that he’s gone, we can atleast look forward to a better coach, coz getting a worse one would be a daunting task even for BCCI.

Set Max's pathetic coverage of the world cup

The pathetic standard of the world cup telecast on Sony TV makes my blood boil. The advertisements shamelessly pop up even as the live action is still on. Mandira bedi looks completely out of sorts and Charu Sharma can't touch Harsha Bhogle even with a barge pole. How I miss the good old ESPN Star days. Their fantastic team of commentators and the pre - post match shows made the dullest or the most disappointing of matches watchable. Mind you, the adverts were there even then, but not at the expense of live action. Can't BCCI be more judicious in awarding the television rights? (slap, slap) how did i even use BCCI and judicious in the same sentence?

The day after the defeat.

Well, so India has suffered it's worst ever defeat in the world cup. And news channels are asking people who should be blamed? Sachin Tendulkar's perennial ineffectiveness in bailing India out of crisis is now being expressed in studios and as for Dravid, he is fast becoming the perfect example of how great players do not necessarily translate into good captains!!! Anyways, well done Bangladesh!! U really deserved to win.