Police Car? Or Civilian?

This is something that struck me as strange.

The other day, I saw a couple of Singapore Police cars which were being driven by people in civilian clothing. What's more, there was always someone in the passenger seat.

Now, this I found puzzling. Maybe they were undercover. But then they were broadcasting that they were cops by driving around in a Police car.

Maybe they were not undercover, but were on leave. In which case, shouldn't they be driving their own car?

So if I need help, are they the right people to ask?

Maybe that's not such an important thing cause Singapore is a really safe place.

I feel sick..

Feel like I'm going to throw up. Yeck!

Why am I in office? What am I doing? I cannot even concentrate on what I am doing.

Maybe I should just go home and rest. Maybe I'll do that.

Not exactly a bad round, but could be better

This is what you are most likely to hear from me if you ask me how my round of golf went.

And it's probably the right thing to say.

Another round at Sebana Cove came and went. And I landed a 93 this time. Which is an improvement of a stroke over the last time. Only this time, I was brandishing the TaylorMade R5 driver that I bought with such high hopes. And it didn't let me down that often.

The longest drive that I made with it (without tail wind, of course) was 310yds. This is by far the longest I have driven...and I have the R5 to thank for it. With tail wind, I hit it to 334yds. That sounds great, but if you consider the fact that I hit my 3i to 310yds because of the tailwind, that should tell you about the kind of wind that was going around the course.

The wind played even more havoc on the approach shots, so more often than not, I was bumping and rolling them on to the green rather than hitting a high approach.

Chipping was attorcious. The feel is just missing. I am going to try and practise only chipping and short distance pitching for the next few times on the driving range.

Putting was not bad. Not a single three-putt and a few single putts to save par.

All in all, "Could do better" (which is incidentally also the most often written comment by me teachers when they remarked - read "Branded on my report card" - on my performance in class)

Drool, Drool, Drool

Yes, I am slobbering on the floor.

I test drove th Mizuno MP-32 clubs. And I am in love.

I went over to the Golf House, the distributors for Mizuno in Singapore, to try out the MP-32 clubs. In all my research, there is no sweeter club to hit. So I decided to check them out.

On first looks, they look like forged blades, but not quite. Mizuno has this cut muscle design which allows them to redistribute the mass on the club. So the clubs dont look like classical blades, but look very very similar.

So I had a go with them.

Now before I tell you how they felt, I should tell you something about my swing. I very rarely miss the sweetspot on my existing Adams GT set. In case I do, which is mostly because I screwed up at address or pressed, I tend to shank the ball. So it's not just a mishit. It's a disaster.

Armed with the knowledge that the MP-32 rewards hitting the sweet spot and the fact that I more often than not hit it where I should, I took a few swings with the club.

Pssst.....

The sound of the ball leaving the club face.

Felt like cutting thro warm butter. No harsh sound, no vibrations. Just good, solid contact and a rocket of a ball. I even tried to deliberately hit it off the toe. I got a lot of feedback about the shot not being so good, but the ball still went in the general direction of intent. Super Cool!

I tried both the NS Pro and the Dynamic Gold shafts, both obviously in Stiff flex because of my swing speed. And then I had a long chat with the Pro who fits the clubs.

He setup a couple of radars for sensing my swing speed for a 6 iron and we clocked it between 85 and 90 mph. That, according to the Pro, is a fast swing. And then he mentioned that the NS Pro may not be the best shaft for me, mainly because of the swing speed.

Now this is the opinion I had as well when I hit balls with both types. I felt that my contact with the Dynamic Gold was much better than the NS Pro and that the ball flight was also a lot better for me with DG.

Of course, DG is a bit heavier than the NS Pro. But I am used to playing with heavier clubs, especially since my fitted Adams GT are about an inch longer than standard length and therefore a lot heavier. No matter how much the DG weighs, it will still be lighter than my Adams GT.

Fact is, I am sold on the clubs. I need to confirm with Golf House on whether they have stock for the MP-32 and when I can get them. And then I am just going to go get them.

The fitting schedule is going to be fixed shortly.

MP-32, here I come!

Din Dugni, Raat Chauguni

Roughly translated from Hindi, it means "Doubles during the day, Quadruples during the night"

Yep, that's right. The IndiPPC forum, since it's inception on the 17th of Feb, has accumulated more than 82 members and there have been 208 posts there so far!

The forum has kicked off a blaze and the level of participation has definately gone up a notch as compared to the old xdaindia group.

I have to say this again, and you have to bear with me cause I said this in my last post as well, that this is a stellar effort from the founder admin of this forum. He single handedly has taken this collaborative effort to a different level and we all have a lot to thank him for.

Keep up the good work, people. And the community will prosper.

A gallant effort

To quote the Sun Microsystems philosophy, it's the age of Participation. And I have rarely seen an effort which qualifies more under this philosophy than the one I am discussing now.

Try out IndiPPC, a stellar effort of a single person on a quest to create a better community for people (like me) who own and are interested in playing around with their Windows Mobile based PDA phones.

I think it all started with the growing irritation that comes with the moderator of our yahoo group going AWOL. As we could not moderate any of the messages or files getting uploaded to the yahoo group, we were very quickly running out of disk space and flexibility.

Then the will of a single man took over and in a short few days, he had the IndiPPC forum up and running. He is still ironing out the chinks that you would find in any new venture and the forum looks like it will be an explosive success.

Mind you, he has managed to do all of this while still remaining employed at his current day job. And that is what makes the effort extraordinary.

CLAP. CLAP. CLAP. CLAP. CLAP. CLAP.

Cost of the War in Iraq

Here is an interesting site I came across. It's the National Priority Project site and it keeps track of the amount of money being spent on the "War against Terror"

Hmmm....

Now I can only imagine how much good this much money would have made to worthwhile causes.

I personally think spending money on peace and harmony makes a lot more sense than on war.

Funny how governments never spend a lot of money on stuff that people like Mother Teresa used to do. They just keep accumulating more weapons and create more mistrust.

It's gotta stop some time, doesn't it?

94

Yep...Hit 94 on Saturday.

The start of the round was a complete disaster. Started playing with a single handicapper and both of us were having a lot of trouble. In fact, he was hitting worse scores than I was. So he decided to leave after 6 holes and I started afresh from the 1st tee with another group.

And after the front 9, I think I finally found my swing. There were a few glitches where I shanked a ball here and there, but overall, the swing was there. Approach shots are getting a lot more consistent than ever. And my putting yesterday was mindblowing. As you can see on the back 9, I single putted 5 in a row to either save par or bogey. That was really cool. And most of the time, I was not reaching the green because the wind was really unpredictable and so the approach difficult to control.

Chipping is not good at all. I have completely lost the feel that I had got when I moved here. But there is hope that it will improve. 94 with a disasterous front nine and an unpredictable swing is not bad. Not good either.

Now for the changes made. Major changes to the grip. Don’t think I can describe it, but the grip feels so much different. The outcome is that the ball flight is arrow straight and consistent trajectory. No more fade or draw. With the longer irons, I get a lot of roll too as opposed to the earlier swing where it would shoot high and stop without a roll.

Other change is on the top. When I am at the top after a full swing, I have a slight pause before I start the downswing. Almost a quarter of a second. I realized that it allows for a full uncoil and a better swing and stops me from rushing the shot.

All I was doing the last round was saying "One...Two..." in my mind when I was swinging. Just keep rhythm and everything else will follow, I thought. And it paid off to an extent.

Now that I know what I need to work on, I am going to get hard to work.

Emotional blackmail approaches

The mother-of-all emotional blackmail days is here. Tomorrow, the world celebrates Valentine's Day with most people not knowing who St. Valentine was.

And it's not individuals who pile on the pressure emotionally. This is mostly the media and the shopping malls. Of course it makes sense for them to do it... it earns them a lot of moolah.

So everywhere you turn, there's an advert for Valentine's Day and a "good deal" lurking around the corner.

And yes, most of the stuff is targetted to the obvious segment of the populace which gets swayed by all the soft sell. So there's cuddly teddy bears with hearts and chocolates going right up to a Tiffany's solitaire being hawked as possible Valentine's Day gifts for "Your Valentine".

So I decided to do a little bit of research on this. And this is what I found.

The popular customs associated with Saint Valentine's Day undoubtedly had their origin in a conventional belief generally received in England and France during the Middle Ages, that on 14 February, the birds began to pair. Thus in Chaucer's "Parliament of Foules" you can read:

For this was sent on Seynt Valentyne's day
Whan every foul cometh ther to choose his mate.

For this reason the day was looked upon as specially consecrated to lovers and as a proper occasion for writing love letters and sending lovers' tokens.

So I guess we have taken something and blown it right out of proportion. Like always, we have taken a simple thing which would have communicated genuine love to making it a commercial, media hyped, consumer event.

And for the record, there were three St. Valentines.

I am sure all three of them are turning in their graves at the modern interpretation of love.

Renewed Indian

By that I mean I just got my passport renewed. :-)

Yep. My passport was expiring in the next few months. Since most countries dont give out VISAs if the passport if not valid for more than 6 months, I had no choice but to get it renewed immediately.

If you recall "Oh, Woe is me", I did not get to enter Sebana because my Malay VISA had expired. The reason it expired so soon was my passport was valid only for a couple of months beyond 6 months. So instead of getting a 1 year multiple entry VISA, I got a 2 month VISA, which expired before I knew it.

So I went ahead and got it renewed. And I must say, the process was extremely smooth, especially if I compare it with the way things went when I got my passport extended in India.

I did not have any trouble, did not have to follow up at all and got my new passport in my hand within a week's time. I am told that it took this long because our President, Dr Kalam, was flying in with a delegation of my countrymen and the consulate was busy with arranging that. It could have been quicker.

So now I have a passport issued in Singapore and valid for another 10 years. I also got my Singapore employment pass transferred to my new passport yesterday. That took another hour's wait at the Ministry of Manpower and was pretty straightforward.

So from my international validity point of view, all systems look like they are GO.

Come to Singapore and buy a Latex Pillow

Ok, maybe they don't actually say that on the brochure, but that's a standard feature on this tour.

Let me explain.

The office building where I work gets these regular Korean tourists. Every couple of days, a bus pulls up with between thirty and forty people with cameras and the whole shebang. For a long time, I was puzzled why my office building would fall in the category of a tourist attraction. But now I know.

There is a shop in the building which sells latex stuff. Before you get any kinky ideas, I will elaborate: they sell pillows and mattresses. Someone recently told me that the shop was owned by koreans. Cool, huh?

People from Korea fly to Singapore, visit all the attractions, then visit a latex pillow store owned by koreans and then leave.

I am really curious to see how they mention this on their brochure.

Moonchild

This Iron Maiden song was my initiation to the world of Hard Rock music a long, long time ago.

Why am I posting this today? Cause my iPod just shuffled the song this morning and it was a real treat to hear it after a long time. It is, of course, a wonderful song (for people who like that kind of music).

I still remember the day I heard the song. Until then, my music was limited to Michael Jackson, Madonna, The Beatles, Phil Collins...the pop variety. I had heard bits of Hotel California someplace, but didn't know the name of the song.

So when I hummed it out to a friend of mine (he who was God at that time and had the largest collection of music I had ever seen) and he immediately picked it up and said "You've heard of The Eagles. There's hope for you yet."

And he played the song which I probably (and I am quite sure, most of you as well) have heard the most number of times in my life. Then he told me that I should give hard rock a try.

Until then, I had classified all rock as noise and filed it away, but something told me this guy knew what he was doing. So I sat there as this guy put on "Moonchild". And I was hooked.

He then proceeded to play "Hallowed be thy name", "Paranoid", "One" and so many songs which have gone on to become part of my all time favourite list.

That day was a major milestone in my music appreciation.

Thank you, Bhataa.

What kind of freedom of speech is that?

Some Danish idiot went and printed cartoons of the Muslim prophet Mohammed.

Why? I mean, this is asking for it, isn't it?

Of course, there is going to be an uproar. Of course, people are going to get mad. People got mad at the concept of Jesus Christ having a wife and a mortal blood line. Why wouldn't they get mad when someone made fun of their messiah?

Here's my point. Why in the hell does anyone have to talk about somebody else's faith? The concept of faith is exactly that. Singular. What you have faith in is your business. Someone cannot go about pushing their faith into somebody else's faith.

Why don't people just lay off?

Some time back, some idiot tried to get the pictures of an Indian goddess on underwear. Duh! Of course, you are going to get stoned for it.

My question is, why do people even WANT to write about something that is NONE OF THEIR BLOODY BUSINESS!!!

The press is crying "Freedom of Speech"! Yes, it is freedom to say what you want, but we all live in a society where actions have consequenses.

Considering that, I think "Freedom of Speech" should be changed to "Freedom of Comprehension"... The ability to understand other people's point of view and to be able to "Live and Let Live".

But, if the world would have learnt from past mistakes, why would I be even blogging about this?

By a professional?

This is what the lady across the counter asked me when I walked into the salon near my house and said that I needed a hair cut.

For a moment after she asked the question, I was completely speechless. Then I managed to wake up my brain enough to ask her "Is there any other way?" To which she smiled demurely and laughed it away.

I must admit I was skeptical as I walked towards the chair.

But I am quite happy with my hair cut. It's not as long as it was a few hours ago and therefore quite manageable. What can I expect, having gone for a cut after five months.

Now it feels really good.