Interesting weekend

Had a really interesting weekend. Though the “activities” that I did were much less than what I thought I would do, time flew by, and was sad when it was time to crash to bed on sunday night.

Saturday morning dawned clear and sunny. Cricket season-2 took guard at 9.00 am, and we wrapped up our first win of season 2 about two hours after that. Muscles were rusty, and even though I got a wicket, gave away too many runs. But in the end, it was a satisfying win, and we started the season off well .

In the evening, went for a seminar with Naveen. He answered a question and got a t-shirt as a gift, and overall it was good. Motivated me for a coupla things I had been postponing.

Sunday was relatively lazy. Went and got the KP look. Has not come out as well as I hoped it would, but not bad. And the advantage is, if I put on my cap, its hidden and I look “decent” .

Went to Ebony with Naveen, Vanch and CT in the evening. Ate a lot, had an interesting chat, with Vanch dishing out a few gems from Aithihyamala (sorta Mythology. Correct me, Vanch, if I am wrong ). On the way back, raced past Naveen and had to wait for 5 mins for him to catch up… Dude said he was enjoying the wind (surprising, since he had a helmet on..). Suggested a slow race b/w self and Naveen, but the pilions (Vanch and CT) got bored.. spoilsports..

Then we tried to go in parallel… even that was vetoed by the pilions.. Gotta choose them more carefully next time .
Got home, read “Pelican at Blandings”, crashed to bed around 0100 hours…

And, to top things off, a good friend of mine in Dalls, Texas, reported that he was safe. Phew….

Shooting the wrong man

The Aussie selectors have done it again.

One of the reasons for Aussies rising to the top in cricket has been their tough selection policy. It does not matter if you are Mark Waugh, if you are not scoring runs, out you go. It does not matter if you are Steve Waugh, if your team does not make it to the finals, out you go. This time, after the first Ashes loss in 16 years, they have made some tough decisions. Like dropping Hayden from the one-day side (totally justified) and dropping Martyn from the test side (as ridiculous as it can get).

Martyn’s batting has definitely seen better days. And those brainless run-outs he played a part in definitely did not help. But drop him from the team ? Thats crazy. While looking at his series returns, one *must* look at the contributions made by those “blind as a bat” and “deaf as an adder” umpires Bucknor and Aleem Dar.

It has been well documented elsewhere how Martyn has carried the Aussie batting line-up in the past series’. And his knocks, under tough conditions in India will remain in memory for a long long time. Here was a laddie brought up on hard bouncy pitches in Perth taking on a couple of good spinners in their own backyard, and coming out on top. He did well in Sri Lanka, and did well in India. Without him, the results of these two series’ might have been different.

Given his age, and given the track record of the Australian selectors, we may never see him again on the field in a test match. Thanks, Marto, for the memories. I enjoyed your knocks in Chennai and in Nagpur.

Samsung support

The monitor (Samsung Sync master 793 MB) which I have had for over an year started giving some trouble. While booting the pc, I could see some white lines scrolling all over the place. After that, I could see some lines scrolling from bottom to top. The scrolling was minimum at 75 Hz refresh rate. Lower and even *higher* refresh rates worsened the problem. Eye fatigue increased.

Wondering whether it would be cheaper to repair this one or buy a new monitor, I dug out the warranty card, and found that this model had a “3 year warranty”. Cool ! Then found out that the dealer had not stamped the purchase date . Nor did I have the bill .

Anyway, just registered the product at Samsung site (an year after purchase ), and sent out a mail to them mentioning the problem. Given my past experience with some other customer support mail ids, I expected no response. I thought now I will have to make a dozen calls, take the monitor to their service centre etc etc.

I was surprised when I got a response the same day, asking me to call up some number and register a complaint. Was even more surprised when I got a *call* from them the next day, telling me that someone would pop in the same day to check the monitor . He did come, at the right time, found the problem (something to do with a flaky UPS) and took two signatures of mine, pushed off… All this after I had sent *ONE* mail, and did not even call them up to register a complaint. Pleasantly surprised to know it works like this even in bangalore….. Good work Samsung. I am happy to have purchased a Samsung monitor.

Ashes to Ashes… Dust to Dust

End of an era. The glorious days of Aussie domination are over. Now, we (meaning Aus fans) will have to suffer at the hands of gloating Poms. Even though I love KP, I could not bear to watch him bat this time, the final nail in the coffin…..

Warne must be the best captain Australia never had. Without his contributions with bat and ball, England would have steam rolled Aussies. Ponting’s tactics looked extremely defensive. Aussies have a lot of work to do now …