rout

recovering from cricket injuries, especially to the ego after we got licked proper in our first match of the tournament. it is strange how myself being neither a good batsman or bowler, having retained my slot in the team through a concatenation of circs, should feel so strongly about being licked by a team who can only be described as "formidable"... the reason i probably feel this way is because we didn't play badly. in fact if one were of a generous disposition one would be inclined to say that our efforts were pretty good. yet the fact remains that at the end of the day, we were the ones who had to swallow the bitter pill of defeat and keep our cool as those condescending buggers came over to say "good show" with a smirk :-(

now don't get into the assumption that this is the lament of a poor soul who for some uncertain reason lost his duel with another guy. this is the frustrated groan of a raiding infantry who having burnt the bridge behind them triumphantly, turns around to find heavy artillery. we had done a good job in the first innings and were pretty pleased with ourselves when we took to the pitch and maintained a good run rate in the initial few overs. and thats when they brought out the panzers and t-72s. after that all that was left for us to do was to turn over and give up the ghost. i patriotically took 3 blows from their pacer on the thighs and am pretty sore today, a constant reminder of the valiant reversal. looking forward to kicking some ass this weekend :-)

gloom...

the last couple of days have been quite an experience. its not everyday that one gets to witness a "corporate reshuffle". and now that i have seen one all i can say is that it ain't pretty. and what's even worse in this case is that this is more of a "this is our chance" than "we need to do this". and the irony here is that most, if not all of those who got the axe, would have been pretty happy about the takeover that caused it. well, larry never was a saint :-)

though relief was amongst the foremost emotions in my breast when the "streamlining" was over, it wasn't that soothing feeling that is generally associated with relief. the whole office was a gloomy place, with people too unsure of themselves, some trying to put on a front as if this was just another day at work. if one has ever been to a funeral, one would quite understand some of it. though a watered-down version, it was nevertheless one equally uncomfortable. not sure if a smile would be out of place, what words might give offense... so most of us just adopted the easy way out, opting to just stay put and keep silent. and balls to all the buggers who say silence is golden. its goddamn more disturbing than the screech of a hundred engines.

but /me's dealing with it in my own perfected way, making inappropriate comments and kind of joking the whole thing away. may be its time i got some therapy...

extreme academics

another cool windows based game :-)

my planet sucks... cool :-)

been moving into a new apartment recently. one helluva mess. so i look around and find that everyone are opting for the easy way to fill blogs. well, i'm never one to lag behind :-)

You Are From Uranus

You shine with brilliant creativity, and you're more than a little eccentric. You love everything unusual and shocking. You're one far-out chick or dude. Anything unconventional excites you - and you have genius potential. Just don't let your rebel side get the best of you, or else you'll alienate everyone. Your original thinking and funky attitude is all you need to be you.

What Planet Are You From?

now that this post looks pretty long lets get down to some glam-bashing. the poor guy is going through some pre-mid-life crisis. he wants to look cool like this and ends up looking like this. well i wouldn't say that his new style is not of the low-temperature category, but when he couples it with this, it makes one feel a shiver going down one's spine. i wonder where he got that css from! and then he goes and makes comments like this. i mean, who doesn't know that people read playboy for the articles!!!

one for the karate kid

this is a quickie for kk. heard his sob-story about not being able to find an abridged version of atlas shrugged and my hear kinda bled for the bugger. so i thought i would put him out of his misery. so here goes:

dagny goes around being frustrated in life because of a lot of reasons one of which is her brother jim who is pretty much a loser. hank rearden goes around being frustrated in life because of a lot of reasons one of which is his brother (forgot name) who is pretty much a loser. john galt and francisco d`anconia and ragnar danneskjöld go around being frustrated in life because somewhere down the line they realize that they aren't losers. so galt guy makes an engine, francisco loses a fortune and ragnar becomes a pirate thereby showing the world that they are indeed the salt of the earth and galt meanwhile manages to woo dagny but not before she manages to have a fling each with hank and francisco. oh there is also a railroad and a steel plant involved in the story but they are just minor distractions. also there is a peppering of villains but all of these are negligible and are in the story only to have someone flinching when each of the heroes start rattling out their monologues. so there u have it - a great book.

light stuff

i read this blog entry today and that has kind of made me all philosophical and stuff. but since i don't want to be quite philosophical right now (best time to be that is when you have alcoholic beverages in plenty. sort of strengthens your theories), i thought i would make this light-hearted to kind of bring on a mood change. and thinking back on all the light-hearted moments i've been having, the recent team evening out (pradyot has given this a once over, still...) comes to mind. it was to this (pseudo)ethnic-retreat-resort place called alankrita. the place is actually quite nice and is very well-designed to cater to its niche of corporates and snowed tourists who think in dollars.

the thing started off well with a lofted ball which in golfing terms could have been said to have gone into the 'rough' but since it was cricket, we just conceded the game to the bowling team and moved on to other things. this turned out to be musical chair and though it was something i would have rated pretty low in my choice of outdoor-games, i figured a bit of running around chairs would do me good ;-) but as things turned out i became the second person to be thrown out and in my case that was rather literal. one of my team members of the gentle sex thought i had slipped one by her by running in the opposite direction to the one of progression and grabbing the last chair. i was going to explain the whole "all is fair..." theory and preparatory to this, had raised my hands for gesticulation, when the aforementioned teammate with an astounding display of a complete lack of the gentleness which i had earlier attributed to her, grabbed me by the hand and probably with a firm belief that actions after all speak louder, flung me from the chair right across the lawn. i don't know if you have ever walked down the beach and just when you were feeling that this surely is a bit of alright, been hit in the small of the back by a charging humpback whale. for those of you who haven't, let me state that it makes you feel a bit silly apart from the severe damage inflicted upon one's posterior.

anyway that sort of set the tone for the evening and when i took master of cerems role for a dumb-c contest (i had, in a moment of weakness agreed to do it) i had the sort of impending-peril feeling which one gets when there is impending peril if you know what i mean. but people took most of the stuff i dished out sportingly and there were a few moments when i had to use the utmost restraint; like this time, when another of the gentle sex (this time an authentic one), who hadn't seen "there's something about mary" came up to me and asked me if i could give her some easily identifiable scene from the movie, and i so desperately wanted to tell her to just show as if she were rubbing on a bit of hair gel... i think i have pretty much effected the mood swing i wanted by now. so here's a quick wrap up of the evening - another couple of games, dinner, home.