I had a dream

I know you will not believe this, but it's true.

I dreamt that I was playing new MP-32 irons on the golf course!

I know because in my dream I commented that it was a good thing I moved to these irons and that they have really improved my game. Even in my dream, I think of these beauties.

I think I should just go ahead and buy them.

But then again, maybe not. My Adams have served me just fine. Though I dont have a 7 iron in my bag (I broke the shaft almost a year ago) and the set is not helping to stabilize my game, Adams is responsible for getting my game to where it is.

I am seriously undecided on this topic.

To be or not to be...that's the question.

A great week for sport (for me, at least)

First, Arsenal went and tied with Tottenham, thus staying out of the hunt for the Champions League qualification spot.

Then Chelsea lost to Liverpool in the semifinals of the FA cup. Yea! Go Liverpool! That's showing people who think money can buy trophies.

And then Schumi went ahead and took the 66th pole of his career, breaking the long standing record of 65 set by the late great Ayrton Senna. And what better place to do it than Imola where Senna set the record before the fateful crash that snatched one of Formula 1's greatest drivers.

And to top it all, Schumi led from start to finish to win his 85th career victory ahead of Alonso.

So Ferrari are back in the hunt after a dismal performance in the first four races of the season. Of course, the sweetner on the whole even was the performance (or the lack of) shown my the McLaren cars. While JPM managed to make it to the podium, the Retard (read Kimi) complained about getting caught in traffic. Boo Hoo!

All of these events took the pain out of my golf game yesterday. Yep, I was brave enough to play another round, this time in the middle of Palm Spring's monthly medal tournament.

I played to 95, a single stroke lower than my last, also my first, round at Palm Springs two weeks ago. And just like my last few rounds, my putting let me down.

I hit 11 out of 14 fairways and hit 8 greens in regulation, but made 40 putts! I was between eight and ten feet from the pin on six of my eight GIRs and I bogey every single one of them with a three putt. If that's not disgusting, I dont know what is.

And to add to my misery, I shanked two balls on the same hole into the water. I played that hole to 9 and positively cursing myself. Thankfully, I parred the next couple of them and my mood wasn't so bad.

All in all, the round was a warning and hinted very strongly on putting practice. I am going to spend the next full month practicing my putting, every evening.

Again, the saving grace for the round was something that happened afterward.

The organisation committee was holding the prize distribution and was handing out gifts on a lucky draw basis. I was just there having a bite as we hadn't eaten the whole day. And so I was really surprised when they pulled my name out of the bowl for the second most expensive prize of the evening.

An Ashworth travel bag.

So I walked out from Palm Spring with a nice bag under my arm and a welcome addition to my golf accessories. Now I don't need to take my backpack when I go and play golf. I can just carry the Ashworth.

All in all, a very good week for sport!

Wah! So fast, ah?

Just over two and a half weeks and already my hair has grown quite a bit. Enough to make me feel my hair move in the wind.

This co-worker in my office looked at me and said "Wah! How come so fast?" to which I had no real response but to put up a sheepish smile. She went on to say that the "women would kill for this kind of growth"... which I took as a complement.

To be honest, I myself did not expect my hair growth to be that fast. I thought that it will be a while before I have hair on my head and so will be able to experience the "Baldy" feeling for a little longer.

Now, my scalp is on the verge of disappearing and I think I will have my hair back (not as long as it was when it was tied up in a pony tail, but enough to not look bald) by the end of four weeks.

If this kind of growth keeps up, and I start missing my long hair, I think I will start growing my hair again.

Just to see if I can :-)

So How?

This is classic Singlish that you get to hear almost once a day here in Singapore.

"So How?" is a truely versatile rhetoric which is as much in avoidance of English grammatical laws as Singlish is.

What it means depends on the context in which it is asked.

In it's most basic form, it sounds like "What's up?", a friendly greeting between friends or collegues. It can also take the form of "So what is your plan?" or "What are you going to do about it?" when in the confines of a conference room with your boss firing that at you. And towards the end of the day, it can mean "So where do we meet for a beer?"

So much variety in two words.

"So How?" epitomises the economy that characterises Singlish. Seldom are sentences spoken which are gramatically correct. The point, I guess, is to convey the maximum amount of information with the least number words.

For someone who is used to appreciating British humour and language, it sometimes can sound a bit harsh on the ears. It takes me a few milliseconds to absorb the question and understand the meaning of it before I can fire back an answer.

After spending more than nine months here in Singapore, I think I am getting better at it.

It's her birthday, but I got the present

Yep...today's my wifey's birthday.

I was scheduled to have a meeting at 10 this morning, but that got pushed to tomorrow. So I decided to stay home for the morning and do lunch with her before I came into office.

So it was a good time (!) spent with her alone in the morning and then the lunch was great too. And while we were there, she spotted this shop which had a sale on sunglasses.

I have been looking for good sunglasses with polarized lenses which I can use when I golf (it can seriously get bright on the course), but could not find one to my liking. So she pushed me into walking into the store and we walked out with cool Oakley sunglasses with Black Iridium Polarized lenses.

She insisted that this was a gift for my birthday (coming soon) and bought the glasses for me.

I felt so stupid accepting a gift from her on her birthday.

How low can I go?

"Your responses are strictly confidential and will not be individually identifiable"

This was part of an e-mail I got from my company HR department.

Interesting part was, every employee got a seperate login password for the survey. The e-mail even came with a statement saying "BECAUSE THIS INVITATION AND PASSWORD ARE UNIQUE TO YOU, DO NOT FORWARD THIS EMAIL OR PASSWORD TO ANYONE ELSE."

Now I might be dumb, but I am not that dumb.

If you have information on which password answered the survey in what way, you can relate that password to the person it was sent to and so, in a matter of a few seconds, find out who was responsible for the glowing tributes and who made the rotten remarks.

All in all, the message is contradictory.

If my responses are confidential and not supposed to be individually attributable, why have a seperate password for every person?

Beats me. And I am not completely sure about that "not individually attributable" part. But it does not matter. I am always honest in my survey responses, whether people know I responded or not.

If I think a person did a good job, I will say so. If they suck, I will say that too.

Oh well, I guess I will have to submit my responses for the survey soon enough. Just don't feel like doing it today. Just the possibility of answering such stimulating questions like "If you were offered the same salary and compensation package at another company, would you leave us?" is more than reason for me to avoid it for as much time as I can.

But I cannot avoid these questions, which I sincerely feel should also have a "Duh!" option as an answer choice, and will have to spend ten minutes of my life going rapid-fire-click.

Oh, well...at least I don't have to do it today.

The desert is moving

I saw this on the news yesterday.

Beijing was being swamped with sand blowing in from the Gobi desert near by and all the residents of the city were forced to wear face masks to move around. Smaller villages outside the Chinese capital did not fare as well. Here is a picture of a house almost completely under sand.

I was quite surprised to see so much sand in Beijing, but after reading a bit (on the net, of course), I found that more than 27%, or 2.5 million square kilometers, of the country comprises of useless sand!

And here's another (disturbing) fact...just 7% of Chinese land feeds about a quarter of the world's population!

And all this while, people have been predicting that the desert will move closer.

I am in the middle of reading this book called "The coming collapse of China" by Gordon Chang. The book is mostly about the economics and the politics of economics in China today. The point, however, is not the apocalyptic pronouncements of the book but a startling prediction the author has made which I am seeing before my very eyes.

Chang says China's countryside is suffering "the worst environmental crisis in the history of the world. Flooding and deforestation are making the rivers run black and promoting the encroachment by the desert on arable land."

This is a very strong pronouncement. Of course, the sand has blown in from the desert for decades. This is not news. What is new is the intensity and the increase year on year.

Since I have not yet finished the book, I cannot say whether I get the author's point or not.

I will say this, though. He does make some very serious assertions. None of them look pretty.

Any ideas for de-jinxing this guy?

I wrote about him a long time ago (see "Goodbye, My Friend"). Today he went through something really terrible.

As you know, there are three of us (one of them being the guy I'm talking about, the other being the Incredible Hulk) who are collegues-turned-friends. From the day we met, there was something that went way beyond being collegues in office. The camaraderie was palpable. A lot of people noticed that. Especially because I have a reputation of being unapproachable. And here I was, having a great time with these guys.

There is so much time we have spent together, laughing our heads off while making fun of each other. The butt end of the jokes is usually the Hulk, who is actually a really cute stuffed Winny The Pooh. This guy has the most luck I have seen a single person carry. And it is in this singular aspect that the other guy falls short.

This guy's luck is so bad, things go out of the way to happen to him. If there is shit to happen, it will happen to him. If there are bugs in a particular piece of software, he will hit every single one of them. The only display to konk off on the new Mac Book line happened to him. The list of incidents just go on.

But today, something happened that really shook me. And I am sure it shook him as well.

The pair of them, along with a couple of friends, decided to go to Lake Tahoe (since they stay in the Bay Area and it's a relatively short drive). When they started driving up towards Tahoe, they got stuck in a blizzard with extremely low visibility. Even with this guy having a 4WD Merc with snow chains on, driving was not easy.

So they decided to not proceed and to turn back. Before they started on their way back, they needed to clear the ice that had formed on the windscreen which was stopping the wipers from working.

While this guy was clearing this, he realized that there was a car, with no snow chains on and a hysterical woman at the wheel, hurtling towards him. The car was completely out of control and was headed right at him. There was no way for him to move out of the way quickly because of the five feet of snow they were standing in.

Luckily, for all of us, the car slammed straight into the Merc and the impact threw this guy a fair distance, right on the snow. The Merc suffered a broken axel and my buddy a few bruises.

After a long tow back to the Bay Area and a visit to the doctor the nect morning, all of us can now take a sigh of relief. He is hurt a bit, but not seriously injured.

Thank God!

I don't know why these things keep happening to him, but they invariably do.

Anybody know a fairly fool proof de-jinxing method?

No hopes for the title

Sir Alex put a lot of words in press talking about the pressure Manchester United were going to put on Chelsea for the Premiership and that the fight for the title was not over yet.

It all started with ManU's fantastic victory over Arsenal, with one of the best display of footballing skill from Wayne Rooney. He scored the first and then provided for the second. In that match, ManU did not look troubled at all and Sir Alex was hoping to carry that momentum into the next match against already-resigned-to-relagation Sunderland.

The only topic of discussion before the ManU-Sunderland match was the margin of defeat Sunderland would be humiliated with. Nobody talked about a draw. After all, Sir Alex had already said that the title would come down to goal difference and ManU was going to do everything to lower the goal difference, starting with this match.

But after 97 minutes of lackluster football, Manchester United finished their game with Sunderland with goal-less draw and a single point.

All hopes of catching up with Champions Designate Chelsea are over.

Doesn't Kimi look like Frank Burns?

For all the people who did not see the series "M*A*S*H", I forgive you. For people who have, you may see a similarity.

For the benefit of the people who have not seen the series, MASH is a hilarious series on the American involvement in the Korean war. MASH stands for "Mobile Army Surgical Hospital" and the series is about a bunch of doctors who are positioned close to the front to patch up casualties of the war.

Frank Burns is the idiot of the series. He is a Major by rank, but a major A$$hole by behaviour. He is hated by almost everyone in the unit and is the butt-end of almost all the jokes at the MASH 4077 unit.

Now back to the subject.

Look at these pictures of the actor who played the character of Frank Burns and then compare it with Kimi Raikonnen, McLaren Mercedes' hope for the Formula 1 title.



Don't you see a similarity?

I wish I could find photos of both in similar poses, but this is the best I could do.

Still, even in the above pictures, Kimi looks a lot like Frank Burns.

And behaves like him too...the Retard!

You can make out from the post that I don't really like Kimi Raikonnen very much.

I would do better if I hit it on my head

I am, of course, talking about my putter.

I was at the Palm Springs course at Batam for my first golf round in five weeks. Of course I was raring to go after such a long lay off, but was also extremely apprehensive about my game, especially the short game.

The round began with a double bogey caused mainly because of a three putt after my chip had landed 10 feet from the hole. This trend carried on all over the front nine which I completed with a heart wrenching 52 out of which I had 24 putts.

TWENTY FOUR PUTTS OVER NINE HOLES!!!! Oh the agony!

I was having trouble dropping short putts in. I had completely lost my feel with the putter. The only thing that was a saving grace was my long game.

I am now almost always teeing off with my R5 driver and doing a fairly decent job of it. Except for the occasional fade, I am hitting the driver absolutely straight and to considerable distance.

I am averaging about 285 yards with my R5 and my longest drive was a 335 yarder monster which allowed me to be 10 yards from the green in two on a long 568 yard Par 5. From there, after being in a position to either chip in for eagle or to chip in close and putt for birdie, I chipped horribly to 20 feet past the hole and then three putted for bogey. Oh the agony...aah the shame!

By the way I was going, I was predicting that I would be on my way to another worst unless I did something about it. And slowly but steadily, my feel around and on the green improved. My chips started to get closer to the hole and my putts started to drop.

And then I did something that pleases me immensely.

I parred five out of the last six holes! Four in a row from the 15th to the 18th! Aaah...

With that final burst, I hung my head low with a 95 and 41 putts! 41 putts! Can you believe that? Only relief was that the back nine was 17 putts as opposed to 24 on the front nine.

If only I had putted to my average, which is around 33 putts a round, I could have played to my regular scores of high 80s. But then, if wishes were horses, putts would drop!

All in all...Thumbs up on the driving, thumbs down on the putting. But at least one thing is for sure...if I get my putting feel back, I am in a much better position to attack the pins thanks to my long driving. Because of my driver, most of the par 5s are now reachable in 2 shots and most par 4s are a pitching wedge away.

The only way for my game, I hope, is up.

Let's see how it goes.

The doctor recommends more practice!

Wimple?

Apple announced that, with the use of their BootCamp software, users of their new Intel based Macs could run Windows and Mac OS side by side.

This is a new strategy for Apple, who until now have been steadfastly a single operating system (OS) company. Ever since the first Mac rolled out, Apple has refused to buckle down to the increasingly Windows centric world. Until now.

So what does it mean to the world?

Well, for one, you can now run Windows and Mac OS X on the same computer. You can choose to boot your computer either on the traditional Apple OS or on to Windows. This opens up a plethora of options for users who like the design and the looks of the Mac, but have applications which dont run on the Mac OS.

I hate to be a spoilsport, but I dont find this announcement to be anything great.

I have tried dual booting my computer for years now (thanx mainly to the Linux revolution and now the Solaris effort by Sun Microsystems). What I have realized is that, while I have the option to boot multiple operating systems, I tend to prefer using one of them. So that OS keeps all my files and my preferred applications. I rarely go to the other OS, mainly because it does not have most of my applications.

So if you bought the Mac, you bought it to run Mac OS X, which is a really cool OS, but does not run some of my most critical applications (Intelligolf is one of them, if you must know).

If you run OS X and Windows on your Intel based Mac, you still need to install all your applications TWICE. You have to maintain two copies of your data, cause you cannot see Windows NTFS file systems under OS X and OS X file systems under Windows. So you cannot really share data between the two OSs that you have installed on the Mac.

One of the biggest differentiators for the Mac so far have been the OS. OS X, and it's ease of use, has been the reason people buy the Mac. And there is also the fact that the Mac looks a hell of a lot cooler than most computers out there. But nobody buys the Mac because of the internals. The selling point for Apple is always what you can do with the computer, not how it is built.

Another problem I see is support. Bootcamp does allow users to "Install" Windows on their machines. But what about drivers for all the Apple hardware? What about updates?

As far as build quality is concerned, the PC market has matured quiet a bit and is almost as good, if not as good, at making computers as Apple is. They may not have the flair at making their computers as attractive and "cool" as Apple has, but they are not extremely far behind either.

I user an Acer Ferrari 4005 laptop and it turns a lot more heads than I have ever seen a PowerBook do. It is also far more powerful and allows me to do unbelievable things. And it runs Windows without complaint. And runs all of my favourite, and critical, applications.

So while the news of Apple actually promoting the installation of Windows on their hardware is a big one, I dont think it's of any great consequence.

If you are in the market for a Mac, it's because of OS X. Not because it runs Windows as well. If you are in the market for Windows, you have a lot of options and Apple may not be the best choice for you.

If you want both OS X and Windows, I think you are confused. Or you just want it to feel good that you can run Windows as well.

But I dont think you will use it as much. That's just my opinion. Feel free to disagree.

The Reason

Not sure if you have heard this song from Hoobastank.

It has an extremely catchy guitar piece running through the entire song. Heard it on the radio while I was having my head shaved and loved it the moment I heard it. But as I complained in one of my earlier posts (See "Why dont you tell me the name?"), the RJs forgot to mention the name of the group. So had no clue until I heard the song being played by a collegue of mine. Promptly jumped out of my seat to ask him which song it was.

And I'm glad I did. Been listening to it for the last hour or so and love it.

Try it.

Now I have to buy a new shirt

Manchester United signed a new deal with AIG, the massive Insurance company, in a 56.5 Million Pound Sterling deal to replace Vodaphone on the ManU player kit.

They could have signed a bigger deal with Mansion, the Gibralter based gambling company, but chose not to. And I thank them for it. It would be wierd to wear a ManU shirt endorsing a gambling house.

Now I will have to buy a new shirt in the new season. More money into ManU coffers.

My contribution to help ManU regain the "Richest Football Club" place which they lost last year to Real Madrid.

Feels a lot cooler

So much so that I have to wear a woolen cap whenever I am in an air conditioned environment.

So the first couple of days without hair have passed without any incident, hair wise. People are still doing double takes when they see me for the first time and asking why I did it. I am now into making excuses on the fly, a different one each time :-)

On the work front, its been a really busy couple of days. I am feeling so tired right now.

Maybe I'll just pack up and go home.

I'm not Hair

Yep...decided to trade off my ponytail for a skin head.

(SCREAM)

Have had long hair for more than 3 years now and yesterday, I just decided to take it all off. And I went all the way.

So for the first time in my entire life, I have a bald pate. It's a funny feeling after being used to long hair for such a long time. No pony tail to tug away from my collar. No unnecessary hot feeling at the end of the day. No need to worry about carrying rubber bands in my wallet. Don't have to care about shampoos and conditioners any more.

But the flip side of it is, I really loved my hair. I mean I really liked it long. There is nothing like head-banging with long hair to a rock song. That is reward in itself. So who know, maybe I will go back to growing my hair long again. Depends on how much I like being bald.

See, one of the biggest contributor to my decision has been Singapore. Or more precisely, the weather here in Singapore.

When I was in Bangalore, you could go through the entire day and not sweat much. Here in Singapore, you start the day with a whole lot of sweat. I cannot live without my Jockey inners any more. And it's even harder if you have long hair. So off it went.

I must say, people around me make a double take when they see me for the first time in this avatar. For them, they saw me yesterday with longer-than-shoulder-length hair and this morning they are seeing me completely devoid of it.

So the customary questions come from everyone. "Why?" "How does it feel?" "Do you miss your hair?" The last one is pretty funny...as if I lost my hair against my wishes and now I really miss it.

Of course there are the people who make fun of a situation like this. But then, I never looked like a person who cared.

So there you go...Hair today, gone tomorrow. Well, actually it's hair yesterday, gone today.

I'm thinking of going BALD!

For those of you who don't know me in person, I have long hair.

I have been growing my hair for more than three years and getting them trimmed so that they are slightly longer than shoulder length. I have been walking around with a ponytail for quite some time now. And I love being able to do that.

It's a great asset, especially when you are in a pub playing rock music and you can head-bang to your hearts content.

But Singapore is the absolute wrong place for long hair.

It was completely different in Bangalore. Where even a whole round of golf would not force your body to break into a sweat.

Here, I am sweating even before I tee off. And longer hair makes it even hotter.

So I have decided to go in the opposite direction. I am going to shave my mane off!

I have never done this...never! But then again, I had never grown my hair long until 3 years ago. So there's always a first time.

Looks like tomorrow will be the day.

What say, you people?

My mom is leaving today

Sigh!

Yep, it's true. She's leaving tonight. And I cannot stop her from going.

You see, she has been suffering from an ailment for a long time. She had a fairly serious operation a long time ago because of which her left leg is very weak. So she has trouble walking correctly. After all these years, the leg is causing her a lot more trouble as she is now walking with a distinct limp.

The last few days, she has been having pains everytime she walks. So it is better she goes back and get the condition checked. That is the reason I cannot stop her. I cannot even say that we should get her treated here because I know for a fact that she will get better medical care in India. One of the leading Neurosugeons is a family member and so she will get the best treatment possible.

I only wish she was here a bit longer. She happened to be around when I was the busiest and I was planning for more time with her when things calmed down. But I guess that is not to be.

So she leaves today.

And there is nothing that I can say to stop her.

What a disaster of a Grand Prix

Not so for Fernando Alonso, but for Schumi, Montoya and a lot of other people, it was pathetic.

Albert Park was a demon today as the track slipped and slided away from a lot of people. Almost half of the cars running crashed out in dramatic fashion.

Full marks, of course, to Alonso for taking the GP by the scruff of the next and winning it without contest. Kimi, as usual, was a dull overtaker. It took only two corners for Alonso to overtake Button. It took a few laps for Kimi to do the same, despite being in the faster car.

The ugliest moment was seeing Schumi being overtaken by a Toro Rosso car. That was the lowest point I have seen Ferrari go through. At first, I thought Ferrari were on a single stop strategy and that's why they were slow. But they were on the same strategy as all the others and were still excruciatingly slow.

All in all, a very disappointing race for me.