NOT TRUE BUT

ALL TOGETHER--VIVA LES SINGAMPALLIS!

Over-by-Over Commentary

The Guardian sports page has a good OBO or over-by-over summary of the ODIs between England and India. It is typical Brit humour and sarcasm, mostly directed at the English team...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/nov/19/england-india-third-one-day-international

Try it. Also, 'The Spin' is an entertaining but comprehensive weekly summary of what is happening in the cricket world. You can ask for it to be delivered as a mail to your inbox as well.
http://sport.guardian.co.uk/thespin

10-6-4, Bungalow St on Google Maps

SS mentioned that he could almost identify the house, so I decided to take a shot at identifying. I worked to it by looking at surrounding landmarks. Did I get it right?

Who is the real monkey?

Cricket Quote of the Week - From The Guardian, UK

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"He has been talking a lot, and by getting him 10 times I've shown who is the boss" - What a lovely man Harbhajan Singh is! Here, he delicately assesses his head-to-head record in Tests with Mr Ponting.

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What an uncouth character our Bajji is!

INDIA -AUSTRALIA CRICKET SERIES

2-0 win of india truely represents present strengths of 2 teams.
the aussies dont have batting , bowling,fielding and captaincy that fetch wins.
indians are true champions.

FAVOURATE SONGS

HINDI:

pyar hua ikrar hua

dost dost na raha

jane kaha gaye oh din

gun gun raha hi bramare khil rahi hi kali

rasik balama

jyothi kalash jhalake

suhana safar

rain song in" lagan"

kya huva tera vada

neele gagan ke tale

tum mujhe dekh kar muskurathi raho

mere mehboob kayamat hogi(mr x in bombay)

din jhal jaye (guide)

koi lautade mere beethe huve din

many more ...........but for the present enough

తెలుగు

చిన్ని చిన్ని ఆస

రాజశేఖర మోజు తీర లేదురా

హాయ్ హాయ్ గ ఆమని సాగే

ఎంత హాయి ఈ రేయి నిండెనో

ముద్దబంతి పూవులో

నిదురించే తోటలోకి

కొమ్మ కొమ్మ కు సన్నాయి
వివాహ భోజనంబు

బొమ్మను చేసి

మువ్వ గోపాలుడే నా ముద్దు గోవిందుడే

నిలువవే వాలు కనుల దాన
వగల రాణి వి నీవే

Architecture Lesson

Srinivas was giving Aditya a geography lesson, and he showed him NewYork City on the map, which was represented by the Statue of Liberty. Aditya got all excited, "Wow, she is carrying an Ice Cream Cone in her hand!!!!!!!"

A very good read

What does an occupier feel when he is in the occupied country? USA had the experience in several places. But the recent Iraqi occupation has given them lots of problems. The returning GIs had a high rate of mental problems due to the constant atmosphere of hate and fear they had to live through. Along with Papillon, Pied Pier, there are several books that deal with this aspect of human(inhuman) behaviour of people during the wars. Should we have wars?
Anyway read this and empathise.
Go over to the groups page and read moonisdown.

Divali in our house

Agreed, babai. The President is just one man...very difficult for him to make any difference, specially in a lobby 'democracy' like the US. It is improbable that there will be much of a difference in the way the US is going to do things- specially for us here in India. But I am still impressed with Obama as an individual. He breaks the mould of the career politician. He is erudite, he is middle-class, he is an orator, he is black, and above all, he seems sincerely to want to change things. He may not achieve it- but he seems to want to try.

The entire campaign was a good testimony to the man's character- first the attacks from Hilary, and then McCain- you got to agree that he is pretty unflappable. If you have not heard the 'Towards a more perfect union' speech, you should (on Youtube). It was a bracve speech, given the circumstances.

And as for the anti-incumbency being the primary reason for his selection- I am not sure I agree. For instance, he had fought and won a pitched battle with Hilary. A desire to kick out the republicans would have been met by electing Hilary too...so why choose Obama? Probably because people are tired of the Clintons too- which is the point: people wanted something different. But the true factor probably is that Obama is very compelling- like I said, he reminds me of Lincoln in many ways.

Obama presidency

Me! I am the eternal dissident/Cynic.
So, let me say a few things--
1. A country lasts thousands of years and there will be many firsts. Really nothing to get excited about!! like a headline I saw in a newspaper yesterday.--the headline said record even for the young age (???). Inside it says --5th youngest. What kind of a record is that? Ok. There will be a woman sometime ( though they are still lagging behind--even their alter (old) egos-the brits had a woman premier already)
2. The career is not that great, as you can find several people with that kind of a thing and I donot believe that the American people chose him for his ideals etc. It is a pure anti-incumbency vote and if the candidates were reversed, I am sure McCain would have won. Poor McCain- a departing Bush left the legacy- of dissatisfaction and resentment of the people- to him and retired. He was the guy at the wrong place at the wrong time.
3. What is said in the campaign speeches and what is said in acceptance speeches is seldom followed through. Let us give him 2 yrs and then judge. ( even his stand against Outsourcing, H-1 visas and his relationship with India.) Most of the time Pragmatism rules the Whitehouse and not policy.

Obamas election.

Turning cosmic elegy into creative psalm
that was the wish of late Martin Luther King during
his acceptance speech at the Noble Peace Prize Ceremony.
we tell the children the same has become true now in U.S.A.
but in India we have already dalit president,woman president,
muslim president.dalit speaker etc.So Indians are true torch bearers
ofDemocracy and secularism in the world .

Will the social sciences teacher comment?

On this momentous occassion (Obama coming to power), what is the teacher telling her students? What is her opinion about the whole thing? Cmon SSKgaru!

Kennedy or Lincoln?

People compare Obama to Kennedy- but I think he is closer to Lincoln. Be his oratory, his collectedness and his generally high self-belief, he rings familiar to Lincoln (as much as I have read of him). If you have not seen it, you shoud see his acceptance speech at Chicago on Nov 4th- it is really good. His career also seems to smack of a similar unorthodoxy as Lincoln's.

It may not make too much difference to us here in India or ultimately even to the US, but I do think this person is definitely breaking the mould for US Presidents. Check this link about his times in Harvard.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/01/28/at_harvard_law_a_unifying_voice/?page=full

Calif Bans Same Sex Marriages

California passed an amendment that limits definition of marriage to "between a man and a woman". Any comment?

Micheal Crichton dies of cancer

Michael Crichton, the million-selling author of such historic and prehistoric science thrillers as "Jurassic Park," "Timeline" and "The Andromeda Strain," has died of cancer, his family said.

He died Tuesday in Los Angeles at age 66 after a long battle with the illness.

Crichton was a brand-name author, known for his stories of disaster and systematic breakdown, such as the rampant microbe of "The Andromeda Strain" or dinosaurs running amok in "Jurassic Park," one of his many books that became major Hollywood movies.

Happy birthday Ranganadham and Manasa

A history making US presidential election

If Obama wins, which seems to be the most likely outcome, US will have its first "Black" president. If McCain wins, US will have its first woman vice president.

Sources of JKR's character names

Sometimes, JKR picked the names for her characters from the map. Snape, if you don't know, is the name of a small town somewhere in England. Today's Hindu talks about Grindelwald- it is a place in Switzerland (the author visited the place). Here is the link: http://www.hindu.com/mag/2008/11/02/stories/2008110250230800.htm
The author also went to Reichenbach Falls (no prizes for guessing its literary significance).

Some HP names that have roots in language, instead of being named after places on the map:
Dumbledore - Means "Bumblebee" in Old English. J.K. Rowling has said that she chose this name because she imagined Dumbledore walking around the castle, humming to himself.
Albus - In Latin, it means "white" (maybe for white beard). Wisdom.
Voldemort= Vol-de-mort= flight from death (which was the driving purpose behind the character's actions)
Severus - Sever means "to cut off." Snape appears to have "cut off" his ties with the Dark Lord through the first five books, and then with Dumbledore and the Order in Half-Blood Prince. "Severe" means "cruel, strict" - two characteristics that accurately describe the Potions Professor. Sounds very similiar to the Latin word "servus," meaning "servant." Is he still a servant of Voldemort's? In ancient history, Lucius Septimius Severus restored stability to the Roman Empire after the tumultuous reign of Emperor Commodus (See Albus) and the civil wars that erupted in the wake of Commodus' murder. To read more on this story, go here. The name Severus is also mentioned in Mansfield Park by Jane Austen, a favorite book of J.K. Rowling. Additionally, a Saint Severus of Alexandria (Egypt) was martyred along with a Saint Peter and a Saint Leucius for publicly proclaiming the faith around 309 C.E. Severus, Peter, and Lucius - quite a coincidence!
Sirius-the "Dog Star," the brightest one in the Canis Major ("Great Dog") constellation; a pun on the fact that he can change into a big black dog, and that Sirius black's defining characterisitc was loyality to friends (like a dog)
Malfoy - In Latin, "malus" means "bad" and "mal" means "pale." "Mal foi" means "bad faith, an act with bad intentions, or a malicious act" in French. "Mal de foi" means a "loss of faith." The similar French phrase "Mal fait" can be interpeted as "badly made" or "evil deeds." In Portuguese, (J.K. Rowling taught English in Portugal for a few years) "Mal foi" means "was bad" or "is bad."
Draco - Draco is a constellation that looks like a dragon but is a snake. In Latin, Draco means "dragon." There was also a Greek ruler named Draco who developed a system of severe punishments for the smallest of crimes. "Draconian" means "harsh or cruel." In Romanian, "drac" means "devil."
Lupin - "Lupus" is the Latin derivative for "wolf." Canis Lupus is the scientific name for wolf. To be described as "lupine" means to "resemble a wolf."
Bellatrix - "Bella" is a construct of the word "bellum" meaning "war" and "trix" refers to "a woman in power." Bellatrix is therefore known as the "Female Warrior" and is also the pale yellow star indicating the left shoulder of the constellation Orion, the Great Hunter.
Lestrange - To be "estranged" means to be "removed from society." In French, "etrange" means "strange" or "weird."
Hagrid - J.K. Rowling said: "Hagrid is also another old English word meaning if you were Hagrid, it’s a dialect word meaning you’d had a bad night. Hagrid’s a big drinker. He has a lot of bad nights."

sources: Mugglenet.com & HP Lexicon

Jobless for the weekend

For this weekend my status is home-maker :) as 31st October was my last day in Sonata. And will join Dell from 3rd November. So in case I break my bones this weekend there is not medical insurance cover :)

Mera Bharat--

OUR Achievement.First picture from Chandrayaan--1 recorded at Byalalu.
Image: The northern coast of Australia from a height of 9,000 km.
Photographs: ISRO

Tale of two cities on Google Groups

Most of you probably already have the book, but I posted in Google group anyways.