An idea for a novel

I think I have a great idea for a thriller.

Now I just need to work out the details. Hmm, wondering if I can trick one of my friends to chip in on the project. After all, it's the age of co-authoring, isn't it?

Get a grip

Actually, the title of the post should be "Loosen your grip", but that wouldn't make a lot of sense.

I went to the driving range today. Found out that I was only going to get further depressed about my golf game. You have to remember that I haven't played a game for a really long time and the only time I came close is the time a couple of weeks ago where I landed up in Malaysia intent to play, but without a valid VISA.So obviously, I was feeling extremely low about my game.

Today, I realised another crucial mistake I was making. I was squeezing the grip a lot more than I should. That automatically made the swing a lot more stiff and all the problems came up. As soon as I relaxed the grip, the contact was really sweet.

But I am still fading. If you remember from my earlier rambles, I used to be a natural draw'r of the ball. But now, the fade is a part of my swing.

Not sure if that's a good sign. I am reading this book called "Tiger's new swing" which analyses the big man's swing change under Hank Haney. The book elaborates all the swing changes Tiger has made to go from a big draw to a power fade. And it seems that I have, accidentally of course, made the same changes to my setup. And believe me, I have not been trying to make my swing go to a fade from my most loved and reliable draw. So it's a bit strange to see my swing go this way.

Anyways, I tried, unsuccessfully I might add, to get my swing back on track. One of the things I think is the problem for the fade is that my back is not used to turning as much as it used to be. Because of that, my swing is very much handsy after a few balls on the range. So as long as I get the break between strokes on the course, I should be OK. Only time will tell.

Pray for me, all of you.

Gong Xi Fa Cai

A happy new year to all my Chinese friends!

So, it's the year of the Dog (according to my Chinese friends). Hopefully it will bring me a lot of good luck, health and prosperity.

Here's hoping!

In a Dream Theatre

I just came back from the Dreamtheatre 20th Anniversary tour live concert!

And boy, what a concert it was. The guys just freaked out and the music was just unbelievable. To listen to Dreamtheatre live has been a dream of mine and so this was a fantastic experience for me.

When I entered the stadium, I had a row number and seat number on my ticket. And to my horror, I realized the concert had seating!

Now this was going to be the first rock concert where I was seeing seating positions. All of the other times, we just stood and freaked out.

So I sat at on my seat and waited for the guys to come on. And when they did, I rushed ahead to the front near the stage, just like everybody else. Luckily for me, I was in the premier section and so I could do that.

Three hours of fantastic music followed and I went back home with a ringing in my ears and a light feeling in my heart.

That was a great concert!

Bluntly said

Have you heard the songs by James Blunt?

In his debut album, "Back to Bedlam", Blunt unleashes a brilliant set of songs which are refreshingly original and the lyrics, subtle and smooth.

"You're beautiful", "Goodbye, my lover", "Wisemen" and "Cry" are some of the best of this great album. All the songs are exceptional and great to listen to, whether at work or leisure.

I hear that the album has shot way high on the charts and all of Mr. Blunt's concerts are sold out.

I think he fully deserves it.

Need to renew my passport

How time flies!

I still remember the day I applied for my passport. That was, in the same manner as most of the people at that age, made in the heat of GRE fever. In anticipation of securing an admission for a MS course.

And now, ten years later, I am looking at my passport and thinking of the ten years that went by.

How my passport grew from a small, unstamped novelty to a more-than-a-hundred-pages behemoth, how it accumulated more than fourteen Singapore and six US VISAs, how I almost forgot it in the hotel safe (luckily I didn't, thanks to my habit of checking the hotel room a few times before I leave). Sigh!

Gone will be the old number. I will get a new passport in a week and a half's time. That is what I was told at the Indian High Commission this afternoon.

I have to tell you about the Indian High Commission. As I walked into this decent colonial looking building, I was surprised to see that there were very few people loitering around the place. My recollections of the Passport Offices in India are full of people everywhere.

I need to find a place where I can submit my application for passport renewal, but there is no sign of it anywhere. There is a sign which says "Travel Agents only", but no passport application. Finally I ask one of the people at the gate and he tells me to go through the door labeled "VISA". Supremely intuitive!

Like everything Indian, the Passport / VISA Application room caters to a mass of humanity in a small under-developed space. There is only enough space for a hundred people to stand in the room and there are already more than that number which I can count with my eyes.

There is a huge queue in front of me and I have no clue what it is for. So I try and be adventurous to see where it goes. Luckily for me, my adventurous nature helps (not always the case in the Indian version of the story) and I see a number vending machines with the clear label of "Passport" over it. I pressed the button and waited my turn.

When my turn finally came, which was surprisingly quickly, it was only to go to a counter where a woman checked my form, gave me a few more forms to fill and asked me to come back. I thought this was a non-scalable model of operation. I should be given all the forms needed in advance so that there is no need for this back and forth business. Anyway, I persevere.

When I go back to the lady, she tells me that all is in order and then writes some stuff, obviously in Indian Government code, on my form and then, to my horror, asks me to submit this at the cashier. When I look around, there is only one cashier and there is a huge, and I really mean huge, queue of people waiting to pay for their sins...oops...applications.

So I walk and join the queue. And then I realize that the cashier has a window on the other side as well. This side faces the VISA section. So I join the tiny queue on this side. When the guy in front of the guy in front of me gives his application and money to the cashier, the cashier asks "Cashornets?" The fairly progressed-in-age man could not understand what he was saying. So the cashier repeated "Cashornets? Cashornets?" till someone deciphered that he meant "Cash or NETS?" (NETS being the Network of Electronic Transactions in Singapore...which in other words, is the electronic banking network here in Singapore)

Then, to my amazement and the other people's dismay, he pronounced that THIS side of the window was only for NETS and THAT side of the window was for cash. Ironically, the NETS machine was closer to THAT side of the window. Since everyone in front of me was a "cash" person, I slid to the window and passed my NETS card along with my application. The cashier extended the NETS machine from THAT side of the window to THIS side of the window so that I could punch in my PIN.

After an hour of this penance, I was out with the knowledge that I will get my passport in a few days time.

Hopefully, the new year and the new passport will bring me luck.

Here's hoping!

Spring Cleaning

One think I detest here in Singapore is the amount of unsolicited mail you get.

Most of the times, my mailbox at home is full when I open it. When I go through the stuff that has piled in, there is maybe 10% of useful stuff and the rest is just junk.

I just spent the better part of the evening getting to know what I can throw and what I need to keep. Apart from the fact that I had a full day's work to keep me occupied.

I only wonder how many trees have to suffer to put up with this gross misuse of paper. Not to mention the annoyance of having to shift through tons of junk to ensure that you don't miss something that actually might be useful, even important, to you. Like a bill or a statement.

The junk mail has not yet caused me to cross my threshold, but after it does, I am going to have a nice little chat with the Singapore Post people and the guard who sits on duty at my condo.

What I hope to impress upon these fine individuals is that I have better things to do than to sift through garbage.

Memoirs of a ... Who, again?

We celebrated our wedding anniversary by watching a movie together and then lunch.

We had advance booked tickets for the newly released "Memoirs of a Geisha", based on the best selling novel by Arthur Golden. I am a personal fan of the book and think it is one of the best I have read. Not because of the story, but the way it is written.

Alas, the movie falls woefully short of the book. Not only does it NOT do justice to the book, it also deviates quite a bit from the book and to an extent, the theme.

I have to admit, though, that the movie is shot brilliantly. Technically, I cannot really fault the movie. Fantastic performances from almost every member of the cast and visually stunning images recreate this half-a-century-old era. If only the attention to detail had been given to the actual story in the book.

One thing to note. The musical score is absolutely fantastic. It's haunting melody does wonders to helping me feel calm and peaceful. "Sayuri's theme" is a fantastic piece. Check it out.

The movie just confirmed my opinion, for the zillionth time now, that a book is far more preferable to it's movie version.

Manchester United 1 - Liverpool 0

What a game!

The much awaited clash of these two historic rivals was a feast. Not the best of football overall, but a cracker of a match nonetheless.

The first half clearly belonged to Liverpool. They were the team coming into the game with the better record. They had not lost a game for a long time and had taken 16 points of a possible 18 in the last 6 matches. United, however, were coming on fresh from a defeat at the hands of Manchester City just last week and were not in the best of form. They also had a lot of people injured or suspended.

Liverpool looked like a team, United just looked like eleven men on the field. Except for some stellar work by Ryan Giggs and a few sparks of brilliance from Wayne Rooney, there was nothing for me to cheer for.

Thankfully, the half ended with a 0-0 score line.

The second half began with Liverpool showing the same form as the first half and United looking just as haphazard. But then, I guess United pulled up their socks and the rhythm started to flow.

There were far more attempts on goal than the first half and better ones at that.

Finally, in the first minute of stoppage time for the second half, Rio Ferdinand headed in a Giggs delivered corner into the back of the net. Three points to United.

The next couple of minutes saw flared tempers with even Stevan Gerrard getting booked for a nasty challenge.

All in all, it was a match worth staying up for.

Oh...Woe is me

The day started out with such promise.

As I mentioned yesterday, I was going to play a round of golf at Sebana Cove as part of their Monthly Medal competition. So I woke up real early in the morning to catch the 7:55am speedboat transfer to Sebana.

As this was the first time I was going to Sebana all alone (last time I was there with more than 60 people), I was unsure about the procedure. But to cut to the chase, I was safely boarded on the boat and headed towards Sebana.

About an hour later, I jumped off the boat and walked the short walk to Malaysian Immigration at Sebana. As I offered my passport, I coule feel the round coming alive and was looking forward to teeing off in 10 minutes.

And then the man looks at me and says "Have you got another VISA?" I thought he could not find the VISA stamped on my passport, so I located it for him. He calmly pointed out to me that my VISA had expired four days ago.

Oh, the agony! Oh, the feeling one has when one feels like slapping one's face so hard.

I could not enter Malaysia.

The guys who I was playing the round with were so disappointed. I know I was too, but I couldn't play with them because of this silly oversight from my side. So I boarded the boat to go back to Singapore.

As I began to see the Singapore skyline and was thinking "Well, at least I am back without too much trouble", the Singapore Police / Coast Guard pulled our boat over (not on the curb, but you know what I mean).

Three guys with bullet proof vests and in full combat attire boarded the boat and did an inspection. Thankfully, they got off in ten minutes and I was on my way home.

So I spent half of my day just going to Sebana and returning back.

Sebana, here I come... Again

Yep, I am going to brave the Sebana Cove course again.

See, Sebana is having it's monthly medal competition tomorrow. I played there the last time with a couple of friends. The dude who arranged the whole golf outing had paired me up with a scratch handicapper (thinking I would get slowed down by the majority 24+ handicappers in our troupe)

What eventually happened was a disaster of a round with me slowing down the scratch player. After the game, I just hung my head in shame and wanted to just go jump into the lake and join three of my golf balls at the bottom of it.

I guess that humiliation was enough for me to try and cure the problems with my swing. So with a freshly restored swing (I hope it is still in restored state), I will attempt another round around Sebana, that too during a medal round and to top everything, with a scratch player as my partner.

You have to appreciate my guts!

Wish me luck. I am going to need lots of it.

From an extremely busy day to a completely slow one

Today was going to be a real busy day. A couple of meetings, a few presentations to prepare, a few things to take care of.

Well, some meetings got cancelled and I finished a lot of the things at warp speed in anticipation of the meetings.

So now, time is real slow.

RTFM

Don't you just hate the way some people never read the manual.

They will send a stupid little mail asking "How do I do this?" or "Why doesn't this work?" But they will never bother opening the manual that came with whatever they are asking about and try to fix it.

Most of the times, I am patient. I understand that not all people have the inclination to discover and search for answers. But sometimes, the stupidity of the queries just drives me nuts. NVTS, Nuts!

Today incidentally happens to be the day where I got asked too many stupid questions.

Pardon my frustration. Now I will go chew on my pen.

I miss these guys

I am talking about my golf buddies, before you get any ideas.

Before I moved to Singapore, these two guys were the ones I spent the most time with outside of my family. Other than the mostly twice-a-week golf rounds, we used to meet up for a drink, an F1 race viewing, a dinner once in a while, a quiz.

And these are the guys who are single handedly responsible for the improvement in my golf game. They were the guys who made me move from the driving range to the golf course. They motivated me to get better. They made it competitive and fun.

It was like the three of us knew each other's game so well, we could tell when any of us was wrong. And while the rounds were always competitive, they were never at the expense of each other's game. We were always watching each other to keep an eye for a mistake.

After I have moved here, my rounds with these guys are the ones I miss the most. Especially when one of them calls to tell me about their last round. It makes me feel great talking to these guys, knowing that they missed me when they went out to play, but also makes me question why I moved.

"You are the reason our golf game is getting worse." "Why did you have to move?" I don't know how many times I have heard these guys say this. I guess I am responsible for it. It's just that I could not take what I was doing in back home any more.

So here I am, alone in Singapore, once again searching for golf partners. But one thing is for certain. I will never get golf buddies like these guys ever again. And I know that these guys will be waiting for me if I go back.

Guys, if you ever read this (and there is an extremely thin chance that you will), this post is for you. You made my life a lot better by just being in it. We might disagree on which F1 driver we support or which Premier League club we stand behind, but we are one great team. I think we all helped each other in our own way.

I just wish this part of my life was a bit different.

What a swing change

I finally figured out what's wrong with my swing.

I know you're going to snort when I tell you what I did to figure it out, but I am incapable of feeling ashamed. So I'm going to tell you anyways.

I made my wife stand behind me in our living room and handed her our Nikon 8700 which I had setup to take high speed shots (20 frames per second). And then I made my swing. Yep, right there.

And this is what I found.

1. I was addressing with a broken wrist
2. I was slouching and not standing with my back straight
3. I was dropping my shoulder during backswing
4. I was over extending my swing beyond the level position at the top
5. I was pulling during the follow through

Hmm.

So I went down to the driving range and kept in my mind 4 simple swing thoughts before I started each swing.

• Don't slouch
• Don't break your wrist
• Drag the club straight as much as possible for a half swing
• Finish high

The ball flight spoke. My swing was back.

I can once again draw and fade the ball whenever I want to. I, however, need to keep reminding myself of all these swing thoughts before I have a whack. I tried just taking one without running the thoughts in my head. Oh, disaster!

So I guess the swing is back. It only needs to be tested on the course now.

Let's see how it goes.

Sack all of these guys

Manchester United is paying a lot of good money for a lot of bullshit players.

Now you know from my previous posts that a lot of anguish comes out every time ManU have a bad game. But tonight was the worst game I have ever seen.

You already know my opinion of Ruud Van Nistelrooy. I think he is a jackass of the highest order and does not have enough ball control for a striker. While a lot of you will cry foul over the fact that the only goal that was scored for ManU (by him) was a great finish. But if you look at the number of opportunities he passed over, it's not even funny. He cannot hold possession to save his life. I think he gets surprised with himself if the ball is still with him for more than 3 seconds.

Then a player I thought was a great discovery for ManU in the last couple of seasons is getting too big for his own good. I am talking, of course, about Christiano Ronaldo. This guy's ego is getting bigger than his ability to play the ball. He is increasingly getting selfish with ball possession and loses it in the easiest fashion. This match was probably his worst. He gave the ball away too many times, he stuck with the ball when he should have passed it and then got sent off (on a rather harsh decision, I must add) to leave United a goal down and with ten men to salvage the match.

And finally, Michael Silvestre. I have no idea why United still have him. I dont think a more disasterous defender exists in the whole world. Silvestre made possibly every mistake possible by a defender in tonight's match. Throw him out. Forget the starting 11. He does not deserve to be in the side.

Oh, woe is me! Why am I condemned to wathing United have such horrible games?

To add insult to injury, Arsenal is thrashing Boro 4-0 at half time. Oh, woe is me!

Chef Chan's Restaurant

"Have you been to Chef Chan's Restaurant?"
"No. What's it called?"
"Chef Chan's Restaurant"
"Yeah, that's what I am asking about. What's his restaurant called?"
"I just told you. Chef Chan's Restaurant."
"I know it's his restaurant, but what's the name?"
"Chef Chan's Restaurant"
"For the love of God, what's the name?"
"Chef Chan's Restaurant"


Now I confess I made that all up, but believe me when I say this. I saw a restaurant called "Chef Chan's Restaurant" this morning. Personally, I think it's a rather unimaginative name for a restaurant and would have preferred the owner, presumably Chef Chan, to have taken a bit more time thinking up a decent name for his restaurant rather than plugging his own name.

It did make me smile a lot today.

The sun is out, but I'm not

Oh God, why do I still feel terrible?

The skies have opened up and the rains are having a breather. Singapore is back to being hot and sunny. At least for today.

But I'm not feeling any better than the last few days. So I don't even feel like posting much.

But then, I think about what my body is putting me thro and I think I should at least give my mind something else to do. So here I am.

I am hoping my next post will be a lot better. Hoping that my body will not interfere with what my mind wants to do.

Blech!

A century of posts

Just discovered that I crossed a 100 posts today.

Cool, huh?

My very own Photoblog

I just created another blog for uploading my experiments with photography. I will, over the next several months, play around with the settings of my Nikon Collpix 8700 camera and post my results here.

You can see the photoblog at http://bakwasphotos.blogspot.com.

Some pictures from the cruise

This is the ship.
Sunset on the open sea!
The main lounging area.
Gorgeous Sunset!

Where the hell have I been?

Good question!

But before I tell you, here's wishing all of you a Happy New Year!

Now, back to business. As you must have noticed. my last post was on Christmas day. I wanted to blog for most of the holiday season, but I got an attack of wheezing which made me stay away from the computer most of the time.

Then, there was the planned vacation to go on. We (my family and my sister's family) were planning on taking a cruise for a few days to Thailand and Malaysia. We, and especially the kids, had a bang of a time. It was almost like every minute they spent with us was torture for them and they longed to go and play by themselves in the nice little play area on the ship.

I have some lovely picture from the cruise. Maybe, if you people are interested, I will post them here.

Then the weather in Singapore had to get all muddy. It's horrible, even now. It's been raining for God only knows how long and it's almost always overcast. Temperatures have gone down significantly.

And so my lungs are complaining again. So there went another week nursing myself.

So now you know why there has been no posts from me for the last 2 weeks.

I hope to do justice to my blog this year. Think of it as my new year's resolution :-)