Life of Brian

Watched Monty Python's life of Brian. It is an awesome movie.

Why did I not watch this movie for this long mates !

Michael Palin's acting in the Biggus Dickus scene is hilarious.
It should have been the inspiration for Vadivelu torturing
his soldiers in the movie 23rd Pulikesi. Most of the techniques
used in Lollu Sabha should have been taken from Monty Phython.

Another hilarious scene is the stoning scene. So is the opening
scene when three wise men from the East come to see Jesus
Christ. Every scene is funny and it is a must watch movie.

Sundar

It is 8 days since I quit smoking. The reason is it is just too cold to go out to smoke.

Sundar.

It is 80 days since I have been in France. Ok I am not that happy to be away. But now I am beginning to get used to things and maybe this will get rid of unhappiness.

I will keep posting my experiences from now on. Tomorrow I am gonna cook chicken for the first time. Initially I struggled so hard to even boil rice. Now I know how to make dal, sambar, rasam and egg curry.

It is only six months more here. In some sense it is sad too. I have applied for the carte de sejour. France is very slow in the adminstrative things and so is my university.
It seems that I will get the carte de sejour in another two months probably. This makes it 5 months before I can go anywhere in Europe. Not that I am a kind of person who travels a lot. But I wanted to go to Germany to meet a friend.

A friend of mine came to Germany in Nov and within 15 days he got the residence permit and he is already going to Netherlands.

People here in France are very laid back unlike in India. Nothing will be open on Sundays and streets will be deserted all the time.

Today is the first day of snowfall in Caen. I have to buy good shoes tomorrow.

Cars wont wake me up in the mornings anymore for a while. But again public transportation has gone for a toss. Guess what I just bought a one month pass to use public transport and it wont be working regularly.

Bidding

Things to do to really improve my dancing.

1) Should be fit. For that the first thing that I should do is to quit smoking. It's f***ing it up.

2) Stretch everyday. Do warm up.

3) Do the routing whole heartedly. No OPying.

Soon a good version explaining Bridge will be put up.

Learning Powerjazz now. Routine for Stamp.

Great moments in cricket in the last decade

Hi folks,
This is another one on the great moments in cricket during 2000-2009. These are just moments not performances.

1) Mark Waugh's catch of VVS laxman in the chennai test in 'that series'. India were chasing 150+ and Laxman in the form of his life had already scored 66 ( I think) when he pulled Collin Miller and Mark Waugh dived to his right to catch it. It was just brilliant. It almost won the game for Aus. He took four catches in that innings.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psmUu65N3Ec

Ricky Ponting's diving catch of SRT was also equally good in that same series.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Xmq5R-RdMg&mode=related&search=


2)Collingwood's catch of Mathew Hayden during the Ashes series. Great catch at point. He repeated it in the 2007 World cup against WI.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHyL0S4_h4s

3)Steve Waugh's four of the last ball in the Sydney test against England. Just a cover drive when Hussain brought all the fielders in. Check here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKKVFAe5ZHg

4) Simon Jones's ball to bowl Clarke in the Ashes. Clarke just left the ball hoping the ball would miss the offstump. It came back and hit the top of offstump. Simply genius! Too sad that he can't play anymore. Poor guy. He injured his leg in his very first test at Gabba when he dived to save a four. Check this out mate. Just awesome

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeoxS70CtKM

5)Mallinga's four of four in the 2007 World Cup when SA almost proved their chokers tag for the umpteenth time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkWyzU0iMTk

6)Lara getting his 400 and regaining his record. Even though he batted far too long it was a remarkable achievement getting back the record after 10 years. I miss his sixes of the spinners when he dance down the track to loft. You can just keep watching. Soumya Paul would say only a Federer forehand can match that beauty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkWyzU0iMTk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juPqTbTU4cU


ssundar

Great performances in the last decade in cricket

Hi folks,
I keep reading lot of articles in the sports pages and in cricinfo reviewing the last decade. In cricinfo there was an article about great performances in the last decade. Here are my personal favourites.

1) VVS Laxman,281 against Australia at Eden Gardens. Great century against the Aussies after following on. My dad ( It is really true and he is a die hard aussie fan)told me that it was wrong to put India again and his words came true.

2)Warne's 40 wickets against England in 2005 Ashes. He was the lone reason why the result was 2-1 to England. Otherwise it would have been 4-1 for England. Who can forget his delivery to Andrew Strauss. How ironic it was for him to drop Peitersen on the final day in Oval.

3)Dravids run of form during 2002-2004. Scored four centuries on a trot including his 148 against England at Headingly under swinging conditions. Did a Laxman at Adelaide with Laxman doing a Dravid.

4)Shewags 201 against Srilanka at Galle. Negated the mysteries of Murali and Mendis while carrying his bat through.

5)Graeme Smiths fourth innings centuries against England and Australia. His 154 not out against England was awesome. His innings at Perth set the stage for the Proteas to upstage aussies in Australia.

6)Nathan Astle's blitzkrieg against England. His fastest double century included towering sixes of Andy Caddick. I wanted to be in Nzland when it happened. Chris Cairns was partnering and injured at the
time luckily for the poms. Just imagine what would it have been otherwise.

7)Glenn Mcgrath's five wicket spell at Lords in the 2005 Ashes. What a reply after getting allout for 170. He bowled Ian Bell, Vaughan and Flintoff with identical deliveries which pitched on off stump and came back to bowl them.

8)Gilchrist's second fastest century at Perth when he hit Monty Panesar for 22 runs in an over. Also his sucessive sixes of Muralitharan to reach 100 sixes were awesome.

9)Sanath Jayasuriya's double hundreds against Pakistan and against England. He shared a 100 run partnership for the 9th wicket against Pakistan when the tailender scored just 1 run.

10)A team effort: The swing bowling of England in the 2005 Ashes. Simon jones, Hamirson ,Flintoff and Hoggard didn't allow the Aussies to post a single 400+ total in the entire series. Sadly for England and World cricket Simon Jones got injured and their bowling attack faded away after that series.

With the retirements of Warne,Mcgrath,Kumble the bowling in World cricket is very bad that it makes uninteresting to watch world cricket nowadays when Batsmen chase unimaginable scores and it is not at all thrilling. I had almost stopped watching cricket in the last two years.

Note: I missed Brian Lara's series against SL when he scored more than 600 runs in a 3 match series when his team lost 3-0. It should have been gr8 to watch. Missed it!
ssundar

Moved on.

ssundar

finished Rock n'roll. It is a choreagraphy for the song Grease lightnin' from the movie Grease. Loved it.
Now started on Jazz.

ssundar

finished line dancing in the school of verb. They taught ten steps. Cowgirl twist and alley cat are my favourites. Started Rock'n roll now. Can't wait to learn hip hop which is still far. Has to learn Rock N roll jazz and power jazz for that. The verb school is flexible in that you can go to classes at anytime,anyday. They charge 1700 for 8 classes which is little costly. Will give a try for the next two months and see how it is. I am going on the weekends and one or two days during the week usually in the evening.

ssundar

joined dance class.
learnt three steps in two days called slide,triangle and thumb step. The thumb step is totally gay. Shoulder shoulder,thigh thigh,..... shit totally gay.

ssundar

The King Federer

Injured my leg. Did not rest at all during the earlier 5 day rest period. Having a heavy leg from Friday. Had knee pain for the first few days. Now there is no pain but there is the general stiffness. I can't stand to give a lecture for 1 and a half hours. Went to the general physician today. His name is Satish Chandran. He comes to ISI. I went to his clinic. He has given me some tablets and some calcium tablets. He has asked me to eat non-veg. I opted for veg food in the mess for this month. I am paranoid you know. Yesterday I slept all afternoon and hence I couldn't sleep in the night well. Around 4-30 I felt a vomitting sensation and found the bathroom door locked from the inside. My neighbhour had locked. But fortunately I did not vomit. It was not there today. I checked my temperature with Chandru and he said ok.

The King is back.

Did a 45 minute run on Sunday ? Ever since then I am having a heavy leg and troublesome knee. Today I went for a jog can't do my usual 30 minute. I think I have injured my knee. I am going to take a week off and start my running only from next thursday. Hope I don't get over enthusiastic and start running after a 2 day break.

35:18 today with 21 rounds. I won't be blogging my running details anymore. I have opened a training log in the runnersworld and soon the link to see my training log will be given. Only the interesting things will be blogged say for instance if I take part in some race.

ssundar

33:29:15 today with 20 rounds.

30:17 with 18 rounds.
Struggled a lot today. Is it due to walking the entire Lodhi gardens, Janpath yesterday or am I giving some lame excuse ?