McDonalds in Hyderabad

08 Jul

Ronald is here in Hyderabad. My kids are a big fan of him about half-a-decade ago, before we relocated to India. They used to visit McD when we make a trip to Bangalore, but they still love the symbol and the toys that come with kids meal.

Today (July 07th) they opened a McDonalds in Prasad’s (IMAX) Multiplex. I knew about this for the last couple of days because I went to that place to book tix for today’s movie outing. Wanted to surprise my daughter, but she got the news from her schoolbusmates.

Being an weekend eve, most of the kids who knew about this appeared to be in line to get their tastebuds cranking. We had to wait for about 10 minutes in a line just to get in. Once we are in, the service was faster though. Needless to say, kids enjoyed the meal and then we proceeded to watch the latest Indain Superhero in the block, Krrish.

Alec Injured

08 Jul

Came to know a few hours ago thru emails and blogs that Alec Muffett of Sun Microsystems, a very popular person in computer security land, met with a motorcycle accident in France. His condition is said to be critical. We hope he recovers fast and gets out of critical situation soon.

His latest blog entry at dropsafe is being updated with his latest condition.

Away For A Few Days

04 Jul

Was away for a few days from my home and work, visiting parents. The travel from Bangalore to West Godavari district of AP by train, during monsoon season, is very pleasant. Spent Saturday and Sunday with parents, with a few hours of teaching Solaris 10 and DTrace at S.R.K.R. engineering college, is a good break from daily routine. While doing so, missed most of the football matches, but its okay.

The local body elections in Andhra Pradesh exposed me to a scene I haven’t been part of in the last couple of decades. Every vote counts, hence there is lot of election campaign activity in the area. The election at my village started on Sunday with lot of excitement in the air, only to be drenched by the rain from that afternoon.

Over to Cricket. One very interesting outcome during the last couple of days is the record win of India in WIndies in a test series. The team that bats first and gets only 200 on board hardly wins, but you never know. I think Dravid’s score in both the innings made a huge difference.

Gearing up for watching Semifinals of football.

Outing with team

29 Jun

Went to Confident Cascade resort with team today. Played football/soccer? for the first couple of hours that exhausted most of us. Also played cricket and spent some time in swimming pool. That completely drained me physically, but have a fresh mind to take forward the work! Thanks team, for joining today. Its a very good day!

The India Comeback

27 Jun

The game of Cricket is as unpredictable as weather. A good example is the final day’s play of the third test, where WIndies had to go for a rush hour declaration. Delaying the declaration might leave not enough time for WIndies to win. Preempting the declaration would mean that India gets a gettable target.

The day was filled with interesting moments, when the game tilted away and towards India. However, at no point, WIndies looked like it is going to win.

The India team managed a good total, given that its first four batsmen got a 50 each. This is the kind of batting a team would like to see, when it has to come out from the follow-on situation a day ago. Hope they continue this spree in 4th test.

Whats the Game Plan, My Dear Watson!

25 Jun

Didn’t get a clue about what the WIndies thinktank’s game plan is, on day 3 of the test 3. Just before lunch, they spent 14 overs scoring a mere 21 runs, where as they did make that many runs in just one over after lunch. Here is the state of the match in the pre-lunch session:

  • Drinks: West Indies – 515/5 in 148.0 overs (S Chanderpaul 65, MN Samuels 60)
  • Lunch: West Indies – 536/5 in 162.0 overs (S Chanderpaul 76, MN Samuels 69)

Both batsmen scored 60+, 515 runs on the board, and what would you do? Just play for lunch? Do they think the extra 45 runs they got by wasting all the critical time would matter?

Just one session of time wasted on the second day of the first test made India face the agony of coming so close to win, but not win. After all the good performance they have put in, hope WIndies don’t go thru such agony in this test.

Keeping the result aside, here are a couple of thoughts. First: Lara, undoubtedly a great player, is always criticised for being a fan of records, not results. With this strange strategy today, is he going to give more evidences for such criticism? Second: The test match version of cricket is said to be loosing its charm because of its slow pace. If a team that is in command is going to play so defensive as WIndies, probably that loss of charm is being fasttracked. Let us see how many spectators can be spotted in the stands on day 4 and 5.

Coming back to the match, Laxman, the lone player who couldn’t make his mark yet in the series, looked vulnerable, but stayed put. Building partnerships with Dravid is part of his track record, hope he continues with that record. With a WIndies loss practically out of equation, India should be happy just with a draw.

Germany, Argentina

25 Jun

Well, the day’s matches didn’t disappoint at all! There is continuous action in the middle, in fact, more action in the form of extra time for the second tie, that saw both Genmany and Argentina to quarter finals of FIFA WC 2006. The Swedish goal keeper did an excellent job, otherwise we would have seen a much bigger margin for Germany, which held the ball for a grasping 61% of the total time. The first 10 minutes of the Argentina-Mexico tie saw 2 goals scored, and it took another 90+ minutes for Argentina to score the decider. However, the action in the middle was gripping all the time!

Good start for the second round! Hope the rest of the Cup goes like this!

Ghana It Is!

22 Jun

Well, Ghana made it to the round of 16 in the FIFA WC 2006! Impressrive run by these underdogs! Really enjoyed watching one of their earlier matches in the league. Waiting to watch a replay of their today’s match against USA.