200mts and still going

Yippeeeeeee!!!

If you don't understand why I am so happy, let me elaborate.

For all the while I have played golf, I have never used woods. The biggest reason for this is that all the driving ranges that I have practised at, my 3i would very regularly cross the range boundary. Being a long hitter, this causes a problems. I need to know where my ball is going to go before I hit it (cause if I hit it long in the wrong direction, that's not of any help) and so I need practise to know where the ball will go (generally).

So I never played woods thus far & thanx to that strategy, I am very very comfortable with my iron play. Cause I tee off with my irons, I approach with them. So I know how each of my irons feel. And I don't have a problem with my long irons like most amatuers do.

Now that my handicap has been stagnant around the 16 mark for a while and my swing has been quite consistent, I thought that moving on to the woods makes sense. Mainly because if they get me closer to the green, chances for par & birdie go up & therefore lower scores.

So I bought the TaylorMade R5 driver a couple of days back. It's a 10.5 degree, stiff shaft, Type-N driver. And it's a thing of beauty, I tell you. It's just gorgeous.

I took it to the driving range on the weekend and had a go. And boy, was I pleased.

I was hitting the ball consistently into the fence at the other end of the driving range (which is 200mts away from me) 20 feet in the air. Consistently.

Then I pushed my luck to see if I could work the ball with the club. Cause I regularly try and work the ball to the left or right depending on the way the course shapes. And to my astonishment, I could do that too. I could do a fade or a draw. I could do a slice or a hook (tho, I had more trouble making the slice than the hook, more because of the way I swing...not the way the driver is). And that's just terrific! Cause now I have a club that I can shape like I normally shape my other clubs.

I don't have to overswing or hit it too hard. My swing speed is enough to hit the ball really long.

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Thank you, Mr Taylor!

186 goals and a brand new record

Thierry Henry (Arsenal Football Club captain, premier stiker, one of the best players in the world) added another distinction to his already formidable list.

Yesterday, he became the highest scorer for Arsenal by scoring his 186th goal.

In scoring twice in Arsenal's Champions League match, Thierry broke the long standing Ian Wright record and became the Gunner's most prolific scorer ever. What is even more interesting is not the goals that he has scored (which is huge) but also the number of goals that he has helped to create.

A truely classy player, Henry currently stands alone at the peak of Mount Football as the best striker in the world.

As if to emphasize this, he came back into the Arsenal side after weeks of recuperating from injury. He came on after half time and, within 5 minutes, had scored the first goal. He would score another.

I wish Manchester United had him.

Snow? In Singapore?

A place smack on the equator getting snow? Not possible, you say huh?

Singapore goes out of the way to prove you wrong.

The Singapore Science Center has a fairly large facility where the temperature is maintained at 2.9 degrees below zero (or sometimes lower). And there is a lot of snow in there!

That's where we went on Sunday. The initial plan for the Sunday was a visit to the Singapore Zoo. But the rains here don't have a 5 day week. They have a 2 day week, starting on the weekend. The heavens opened up & showered Singapore with all gusto. So in this marvelously wet condition, we didn't think the zoo would be the best place to go.

So the Snow City it was. The place is a bit far from our house & so my daughter did her famous impression of Donkey from "Shrek" (going "Are we there yet?") about 20 times. Boy, were we glad when the cab stopped in front of the Snow City Lobby.

Here's the deal. You get jackets & gloves & snow shoes. And then you get into this vault kind of thing, which by the way, gets you starting to feel really cold.

And then you step into a space which is dominated by white. Snow all around! They even have this snow ramp where you can sit on rubber tyre tubes & slide down.

So we did a lot of snowballing, especially my daughter as it was her first experience with snow. Then some more stuff like putting the nose back on the snowman. A crawl thro the metal igloo (wow, that rhymes!) and then we headed for the slopes.

Now this is no slalom slope, but it's good enough for a slide! The three of us sat ourselves on these rubber tubes, locked our arms together at the elbow & wheeeeee......

I thought my daughter would crib about the place being cold & the ride being scary. But she was the first one on her feet going "Let's do that again". So we did. Again. Again. Again.

We must have climbed up to the top of the slope & slid down around 20 times! And each was better than the last. Cause we were spinning around & going down faster than the last time. Wheee...

Great fun. Nice place to go. You should try it.

What image association!

My daughter and I were sitting in the living room watching TV on a lazy saturday night. And "The Parent Trap" was playing on cable.

So we're there watching it. And suddenly my daughter has a glint in her eye & she goes "that's woman is Violet's mother from Willy Wonka".

And I sit up & realise that she's right. The woman playing the part of the to-be-stepmother (don't ask me her name, I couldn't care less) was actually the one playing the mother of the obnoxious, constantly gum chewing, self possessed teenager in "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory). And I say "Wow, that is amazing face recollection for a face that you've seen in a movie just once, that too a month ago".

And then, my wife stunned me with another. She just went "Isn't the little girl in the movei the same as the one in Herbie Fully Loaded?" And it's only then that I realised that it WAS indeed Lindsey Lohan who acted as the twins in the movie.

Wahow! Talk about face recall!

All you potential writers out there...

This is a great opportunity to get from being a potential writer to an actual writer.

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) allows people to register on their site & write a novel of more than 50,000 words within the month of November.

And in case you do manage to write one which is 50,000 words and more, then your reward is....

Ta tara rattaraa raa...

Your very own novel! And a certificate from NaNoWriMo confirming that you, in fact, submitted this novel & appreciating your effort.

It's a great way to encourage people to write. I think all of us should have a go.

I think I will.

Only problem is...What do I write about? Writer's block setting in already? This is not supposed to happen! Aaaaaaaaaaaa........

I can't wait...

I know that my Home Theatre setup does not land up until this evening, but I am getting impatient as hell!

I just cannot wait to get my hands on the little devils & set them up & configure each and every component to sound the way I like them to sound.

AAAAAAARRRRRRGH! Why does time have to move so slow when you want it to speed by? Why? Why? Wwhhhhhyyyyyy?

I wanna get to 5pm now.

I went, I saw & I floored

That is exactly what happened. Exactly. "How? Pray tell", you say? Then lend me your ears, cause that's what this is all about.

Have I confused you enough? He he.

I was in the market for a home theatre setup for quite some time. I left my old Yamaha home theatre back in India with my parents (my mom would love to watch all her Hindi TV serials in surround sound). And so I was living with the really crappy sound of my Panasonic TV.

Now, for those who don't know me well, there is this quirk in me. I am extremely picky about a few things. Most of all, about my music. When it comes to my music, I think I have OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, for the uninitiated). My CDs have to be in a certain order, my iTunes library is always with all information including album picture (which shows quite well on my colour iPod), and I like my music to sound just this way.

So you can imagine the frustration that I put this poor sales guy when I sampled some of the speakers that he had to offer.

And then I heard the KEF Q series. And I fell in love with them! Cause the sound is so clean, so pure that you just want to keep listening to them. And I decided right then and there that I wanted these particular speakers. And so I bought them, just like that. Of course it helped that my wife loved them too & my decision to buy had her blessings :-)

So my setup is going to be the following:
Two KEF Q3 front floor standing speakers (main L & R)
One KEF Q6c center channel speaker
Two KEF Q Compact rear speakers (surround L & R)
One Wharfdale PC10+ (a 10 inch bottom firing subwoofer to add that slam)

To drive all of this, I chose to go with a Cambridge Audio Azur 540R amplifier. This is a 100 watts RMS per channel DTS 6.1 capable amp. From all my research, this was the best in the price range that I was looking at.

All of this gets delivered to my place in the evening tomorrow. I can hardly wait.

I can almost see myself inventing a reason to get back home early.

And that's the car right there

Did I tell you? Or did I tell you? Here is the great man's car again.



It was something...standing right next to it. The machine looks gorgeous!

What a way to end a great weekend

Now this, I gotta tell you.

We had planned on going to Sentosa island on Saturday, but it rained durians on saturday morning. So we had to push our Sentosa plans ahead by a day. And assuming that the rain would hold up for the whole day, we decided to just go around for a bit of shopping (the other sport widely practised in Singapore).

Only thing is, the rain just disappeared by afternoon, leaving half a saturday with perfect weather.

And so, shop we did. Not anything to write about, but a tiny hole in the wallet nonetheless.

And so my daughter, my wife & I were looking forward to a clear sky on Sunday. But the rain had other plans. It came crashing down on Sunday morning as well. So we decided to take a chance with the rain & head out to Sentosa anyways. And it turned out to be a good decision. The rain vanished, just like it had on the previous day, by afternoon & we were heading out to Sentosa with perfect weather on our side.

I have been to Sentosa a few times (as a tourist) and so most of the attrations were not new to me. But my daughter was going there for the first time (technically, her second time...but she was just two years old then & so could not remember anything from her last visit).

So we took the cable car ride into Singapore. I have a photograph with my daughter's awestruck face as the cage hovered over the Singapore water on the way to the island strip.

Then we took her to the Underwater World. My daughter was a bit hesitant on touching the live fish in the "Touch Pool" they have there. But it was cool to touch a shark!

They now have this cool ride called Cinemania which is a 3D ride which simulates a Roller Coaster. And it is pretty convincing too. Something that all 3 of us enjoyed, mostly my wife.

Then we hopped on a Sentosa island bus (they have free shuttles running around the island every few minutes) and made our way to the Dolphin Lagoon. There we got to see two Pink Dolphins perform amazing tricks & had a great time. We even stepped into the water to pet Jumbo, a 30 year old dolphin, on his back & got our pictures taken with him.

After that, we decided that only knee deep water was not going to be good enough. So the beach it was.

We went to the Tanjong Beach which also has the lively KM8 bar. This piece of the beach was packed with people sunbathing, playing beach volleyball, sipping their favourite (or not) cocktails & just having a great time swinging to the rhythm of the music.

My daughter had her first experience of sea water swimming & she was a bit scared of seeing the waves come on the beach & leave. She spent most of the time on the sand making a castle (it didn't look like one, but the intent was there) and then making bunny rabbits next to them. That gave me and my wife some time by ourself in the water. And that is always welcome, if you catch my drift!

We intended to stay for some good time at KM8, but my daughter, tired from the busy day, was sleepy. And so we headed out to a place somewhere close to home to catch a bite.

And here is the great ending to my weekend.

There was a Bridgestone booth on Orchard Road. And they actually had Michael Schumaker's F1 Ferrari car on display, obviously flaunting the Bridgestone tires with it.

So we all got our pictures clicked alongside the car. Being a complete Schumi nut myself, this was a great gift at the end of a superb weekend.

That just set the bar pretty high for all the weekends to come.

1-0 and ridiculous refereeing

Yes, I am talking about England's World Cup qualifier against Austria tonight at Old Trafford.

The one thing I took away from the game was the competency (or the lack of) of the referee. There were enough and more controversial decisions made during the game.

First, there was a penalty accorded to England when Michael Owen's arm was tugged inside the box as he was moving towards goal. A penalty beautifully converted by Frank Lampard. The second was another tackle on Owen inside the box which was a sure shot penalty, but was ignored by the ref.

Then there were the 2 quickfire Yellow Cards handed out to David Beckham. Neither of them was a bookable offense & repeated plays of the incidents showed extraordinary playacting skills on part of the Austrian team members.

And so Beckham, captain of the England side, was sent off & England was forced to defend their slender one goal lead with 10 men for more than 30 minutes. And the Austrians piled on a lot of pressure, action concentrating mainly around the England box.

But when the final whistle came, England collect full points from the match & moved into near certain qualification position for the 2006 World Cup in Germany.

Hope the refereeing in Germany is better.

Two months and Bogey Golf

Aaaah! It's good to be back.

I played 9 holes a few days ago. And I was playing golf after almost 2 months. You cannot imagine the feeling I had on the first tee. One side of me was elated to be back on the course. The other side of me was petrified at the fact that I might have lost my swing & that the first ball I hit would, in fact, go out of bounds.

All my fears were for nothing. Despite a poor start (I blame it solely on my layoff from the game & therefore the loss of touch in my short game), I made 3 pars in the last 4 holes to end the round at a net bogey round. Three pars, bogeys & double bogeys respectively.

And most of the bogeys because of poor chipping & putting. And I realised how much feel I have lost by not playing all this time.

But what was great to see was my swing hasn't disintegrated as I though it would have. In fact, there was no change. The same predictable draw. The same distance. The same unhurried downswing. COOLIO!!!

Now that I have started, I intend to keep going. The goal is to get as close to single digit as possible.

Please don't scoff at the goal. "You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one" - John Lennon.

Anfield ... Or Lost Battlefield?

I just had to write about this.

Chelsea just decimated Liverpool at home by 4 to 1.

And for those who dont follow the English Premier League (EPL) or soccer in general, this is going to be completely Zamonian to you.

Liverpool, as the champions of Europe, took on the EPL Championship title holders Chelsea at their home in Anfield. And the match prefaced with the Liverpool coach Rafael Benitez making rather loud statements about Liverpool being the one team handing Chelsea their first defeat of the season (Chelsea were 7 wins out of 7 since the beginning of this season). And the reason these statement were coming was that Liverpool held Chelsea to a draw during their Champions League fixture a few days ago to a goalless draw.

What eventually happened was Chelsea handed a humiliating 4-1 drubbing to Liverpool!

And if you watched the game, you cannot fault Chelsea. They played magnificently...in all departments of the game. And Didier Drogba was superb. He had a hand in all the goals Chelsea scored.

I don't see any side in the Premier League which looks so much like a well woven unit as Chelsea (and coming from a hard core Manchester United fan, that's saying a lot).

Jose Morhinho (Chelsea Manager) has done a fabulous job (there's an understatement right there) and Chelsea deserve to be at the top of the table. They just happen to be top of the table by 8 points.

Many a team would love to have this kind of leadership at the end of the championship. Chelsea has it at the beginning. And they only look like they are going to extend the lead.

Looks like the record Tottenham set back in the '60s of 11 straight wins at the start of the season is in jeopardy.

I got myself a Ferrari!

Ok, maybe I'm being overdramatic here.

I got myself the limited edition Michael Schumacher Ferrari miniature car (my serial number stands at 4907 out of a total 15000 made world wide).

It's an exact replica miniaturized to an 18th of the original size. This is the one made to commemorate his win at the Bahrain Grand Prix at Sakhir last year (incidentally winning on the date 04/04/04). It was also the car that made all sorts of history in Formula 1.

And for an out-and-out Tifosi, it's a beauty that just begs to be taken home. Schumi with his fist in the air, doing the customary victory lap in the beautifully crafted scarlet Ferrari.

The only difference is... the tyres dont look worn out at all :-)