Comfortably Numb

Season has Begun!!

2007-03-20T09:50:00.000-06:00

Yes!!! The wait was finally over, and it has been a very very long wait. I am not talking about the Cricket WC Season but about the Formula 1 season (I still can wipe the smile of my face). I decided to wait to write this blog since I knew there will be some very interesting post race events too :).

Everything started out on Saturday at Albert Park, Melbourne Australia. There was already some complaining about the Red bull sister team Toro Rosso and Super Aguri Honda. The complaint been they were not using team built chassis but using Red bull's and Honda's Chassis respectively. Well that did not stop them putting up a show. That's when the first surprise came. The two Super Aguri cars qualified actually entered the Q2. They had last years Honda engine and to qualify ahead of Ruben Barrichello of Honda, I have no idea what Honda has been up to in development side (I will get to the color of the car later). First upset came when Felipe Massa's Ferrari had gearbox problems when he went hard into a curve. So the only hope for me was the Kimi Raikonen who was driving for Ferrari this season after his switch from Mclaren. Mclaren looked strong; I was really surprised to see the Rookie Lewis Hamilton do so well in that car. At the end of Qualifying It was Kimi ahead of Alonso with Nick Heidfeld in the BMW doing a terrific job to come third. One of the scenes that were funny during qualifying was to see Jarno Trulli's Toyota driven out of the pit lane with the jack still attached to the car. They were fined later.

The Race had some interesting questions to be seen. Since this was the first race of the season, Questions were Can Kimi hold off Alonso and Hamilton? Can Kimi get that Ferrari back safely? Can Hamilton perform the same he did in Qualifying?

The start was amazing, Hamilton overtook Alonso outside the first corner, and it was a great sight to see a rookie taking on the two times world champion. Kimi took off well and started extending the gap from the very first lap. Massa was getting held up by the Red bull and also the Honda's. The Hondas pace was so bad the commentator told, "They are one second slower than their previous years pace" Ouuchh!! The fact they have paint their car with the earth and trying to promote green environment, they have not done anything much otherwise. Now, about the paint job on the car, I had an argument with my friend saying the car looked amazing with that earth on the car at least on high resolution and good lighting pictures I had seen. But, I seriously had second thoughts after seeing it on TV. He actually coined the Honda "Puke Car" for all the obvious reasons. I had to agree with that later. There were no major incidents in the race except for David Coulthard crashing....no no...Flying into Alex Wurz (I was reading this guys press conference; F1 needs more funny guys like him). I know the Red bull was expecting the start of the season to be a flyer but DC actually did fly. What on earth was he driving like that? Other than this the race went fine and Winner was Kimi and Alonso and Rookie Hamilton were 1st and 2nd runners up.

It was interesting to read the post race comments and reactions. First, Ron Dennis blaming Nick Heidfeld. He was blaming BMW for their strategy used which spoilt Mclaren to catch up with Ferrari during the race. Well, that’s the whole point of racing isn't it, to overtake the slow cars. It was not like Mclaren was breathing down BMW exhaust and weren't able to overtake. How can someone make such silly remakes? The Second, well this surprised me totally, Ferrari blamed for their barge board acting similar to the flexi wing they has been warned last year. Let’s say that is even true, how on earth were the other team spot something like that which is underneath the car. It is always that when Ferrari does well people want to whine about it. Well, I guess it is easier to whine about a good car than to beat it.

I just can't wait to see what happens to see these comment made about both the incidents, more importantly, cannot wait for the next race :D

Iron Maiden in India!

2007-03-13T10:29:00.000-06:00

I was reading about Iron Maiden coming to India, their first ever tour to the sub-continent and came across this poster of in their website. It brings a synergy between the metal fans with the Cricket Fervent India. It is Eddie, Iron Maiden's Mascot playing cricket. Iron Maidens surely know how to rock India!

I was surprised to see their New Album "A Matter of Life and Death" Reaching #2 in India...lot of Metals Heads!! Rock On!!

Super Blow XLI

2007-02-15T10:08:00.000-06:00

You don't need to know the rules of the game to know a team is preforming badly. This was pretty much the case with Super Bowl or should I say "Super Blow". I have never really made an effort to watch American Sports, they somehow have never given me enough attraction to get me glued into the sport. For me it is always been Football (The European one), Formula 1, Tennis and of course, cricket. I decided to give a chance watching the Super Bowl, and I was cheering The Chicago Bears.

It did not take me too much time to understand the Rules of the Game and know how the points are scored. I have watched rugby few times and was able to co relate the two sports. It was a good start for the Bears in the first quarter to lead the colts by 14-7. This was the only happy time for the Chicago based fans. From the second quarter things started to shift and shift fast. It looked the Chicago bears were substituted by some high school team cause the way the Colts were defending and charging at the Bears, it was disheartening to watch. I was surprised to see that the way Bears played, How did they even get here in the first place? The Final score was 29-17 to the Colts. Everyone was blaming Bears Quarterback Rex Grossman for the failure. Due to his performance and strategies the team did not have the triumph. How could someone or a team perform low in such a Big stage? Well, This reminded me of India playing Australia in the World Cup, which was by far a rampage done by a team in a big stage. Compared to that the Bears had actually played well. I was happy to learn the sport and though bears lost. In the end it all boils down to how a teams performance in the big stage than what they have achieved.

Weekend Drama

2007-01-30T09:42:00.000-06:00

Well, I finally got down and decided to watch two movies that I had been waiting to watch for a while. Both been more of a Drama and long, I took my chances.

The First one was Munich. Though I knew the story and seen lot of documentaries on this, I really wanted to watch the masterpiece created one of the successful directors in Hollywood, Steven Spielberg. The story is about the events following up the massacre of Israeli Athletes by Black September Organization. It depicts how a worker of mossad and few other men kill the people responsible for the massacre. The movie had been shown well, though some parts of the movie remain a bit obscure as it does not show few details of the plot clearly. The main pain I faced watching this was that I had to watch the movie literally twice, not because I did not understand, but the movie was so long that I fell asleep. Though I have been trained from my childhood to watch 3hour length movies, It is a different thing watching an English movie so long. It was not long before I had fallen asleep watching "The Good Sheppard", when I woke up the movie was still in the same scene. The movie was longer than or at least equal to a Bollywood movie for god sake. But anyways other than that the movie was a great. This was the first time I have seen Eric Bana in a leading role, and he was good.

The Second Movie, I watched was another classic movie from a great director Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange". I have had few attempts to watch this movie before but never got past the first 20minutes because I found the movie a bit too shady. The movie plot is about a boy Alex who is a hooligan with three friends of his. He leads his group with all kinds of crime committed. But during a robbery he is betrayed by his friends and caught. The story then revolves around his life in the correction facility and how the government finds permanent cure to criminals, for which Alex is the guinea pig.

I would not want to spoil the full story by giving away the full plot. I like movies with narration in them and this definitely did not disappoint me. It is a classic movie; the depiction of the characters and situations is great!

Busy week ahead, hope I can catch more good movies during the weekend.

First Blog!

2007-01-16T15:02:00.000-06:00

Finally, I have created my own blogspot. Hopefully this is a great inception for me to dump or write my thoughts!!