BusyBee!

Thatz me of corz! What with all this workload and all…..I’m unable to take out some time even for some casual chit chat! There have been some changes at the workplace that has necessitated some longish working hours and thatz having an impact on my online presence and the stuff that I put therein! I still regularly visit the blog and the FreeHyderabad forums but apart from those, my online sojourns are restricted only to work-related stuff and emails!

Lemme see what all I’ve been missing and since when….

• Orkut: Haven’t been there since like 5+ months!
• SportzForumz: Last visit was 15 days ago and the previous one wasn’t even in this year!
• ThinkDigit: No visits at all in 2007!
• Chip-India: – ditto -
• Wired: More than a month ago
• Gizmodo: 2 Months ago….when the iPhone was launched.
• Engadget: – ditto -
• PagalGuy: No visits this year!
• Raaga: January methinks was my lats visit…Aap Ki Khatir was the last-listened
• IndiaFM: Was there to read the review of Honeymoon Travels
• IMDB: Last trooped there to check out Luke Wilson’s filmography
• Hollywood: Peeped in a month ago to check out Hills have eyes 2…and errr…I’m talking about the website

So thatz how lacklustre and sedate my web travails have been! Wish I could chuck it all and get a nice li’l web-surfing-for-money work somewhere…….

Wishful thinking!

P.S: Adding the 50th Tag

Leonidas Versus Mario

In the recently-released war movie 300, there is an acerbic exchange between the Persian Emissary and King Leonidas of Sparta that stands out as a precursor to the war between the 300 brave Spartan soldiers and the massive Persian army. Now here’s an exchange on similar lines:

Bahrain Grand Prix – Massa the Victor

After last F1 race’s debacle, I was determined to see this race but fate sometimes can be a cruel enforcer! First, there was the FreeHyderabad meet on Sunday; which went fantastic BTW. Secondly, my rooms were getting painted and I had to cool heels on the stairway monitoring the goings on!! Luckily, the neighbors were going out and I quickly asked them if I could watch the race at their place…and thus I got to see the latter parts of the race

Ferrari had the initial advantage as their driver was on Pole position. But there was an Both the Ferraris were strong in the middle stints as their pitstops allowed them to beat the McLarens for position. Massa, was in no mood to repeat his Sepang mistakes and was belligerent in securing a Pole-to-Flag victory. Lewis Hamilton was a strong second for McLaren as he took advantage of a smart second pit-stop to come in front of Kimi Raikkonen. Kimi finished third and was quite sober on the podium…maybe because his teammate was better on the day! BMW’s Nick Hiedfeld was fourth – that after he pulled off a blinder of an overtaking maneouvre over Fernando Alonso! Alonso had to settle for fifth in a sedate race, with the commentators saying that he was conserving his engine/tyres/car/stamina for his homerace – the Spanish Grand Prix at Catalunya on the 12th of May.

Race Reports: Formula1.com | BBC | GrandPrix

Goals Galore!

A total of 11 goals were scored on the first matchnight of the UEFA Champions League Quarterfinals’ return legs. Manchester United slotted in 7 of those past a hapless Roma who could put in only one! In the other match, Chelsea pulled off a late late goal to won 2-1 and 3-2 on aggregate against an unlucky Valencia. I could watch neither encounter

Carrick, Smith, Rooney, Ronaldo and Evra were the scorers for Manchester United as the EPL leaders came up with a mesmerizing performance at their homeground to overturn a 1-2 deficit from their first leg encounter.

Chelsea were facing the prospect of an exit from the UCL after their 1-1 draw in the first leg and when Valencia scored through Fernando Morientes. But a second-half strike from Andriy Schevchenko brought the two teams on level (with one away goal apiece) and a late goal from Michael Essien in the 90th minute led Chelsea to a well-deserved victory.

The second matchnight today sees PSV take on Liverpool with the english side favorites to go through. But the real deal would be the Bayern Munich vs. AC Milan encounter which is tantalisingly poised at 2-2

Match Reports: Chelsea 2-1 Valencia | Manchester United 7-1 AS Roma

Alonso Triumphs in Sepang

 The first F1 race I missed watching in 2007 and bang! Kimi Raikkonen loses out on a victory! Now if those two are cause and effect, then I’d better watch all the remaining races without fail

Anyways, McLaren’s Fernando Alonso won the Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang in some dominant style….that after pole-sitter Felipe Massa was passed at the very start of the race, first by Alonso then by Mclaren’s Lewis Hamilton. Teammate Kimi Raikkonen and BMW’s Nick Hiedlfeld also managed to pass the Brazilian, who eventually finished sixth. McLaren claimed their first 1-2 finish since a long time and while it can be attributed to their pace at the start of the race, it also can be said that the Ferrari’s were slightly lacking in speed. Especially since Kimi Raikkonen was constantly hankering Lewis Hamilton for 2nd place but was never able to pass him. Credit to the Rookie though, for holding Kimi off.

Reminder to self: *must-see-the-replay-or-highlights-or-whatever*

Race Reports: Formula1.com | Grandprix | BBC Sport

Finally!

Plus Marks the Spot! The Circle is the Rajiv Gandhi Circle at Somajiguda Circle.

After almost a month and a fortnight more I finally moved into a new place. I’ve talked about how I was moving and then how the day was drawing nearer….and today was the day when the plans were translated into actions and the transition was done! Though its not my own house but only a rented place, I kinda have the knack in me to make any cosy place my home and look after it real nicely. This place is tucked away behind the busy Raj Bhavan road in Somajiguda and is a 2BHK. I’ll be sharing this with long-time friend Mr.S and he’s equally enthused to be my new partner-in-arms. Though a few other things need settling down…like the cable being connected…a net connexion being procured ( late-night-surfing and torrents….here I come!!!)…kitchen to be set up. And once that’s all done, a big burned will be off my head and then I can concentrate on more serious stuff…like a career change for instance

Draws, Wins & Losses

Er….Though these three are (most commonly) the only possibilites of a soccer match’s result, the heading’s meant to convey the results of the UEFA Champions League Quarter Finals’ first leg matches! Liverpool & Roma were the winners with Manchester United & PSV Eindhoven the losers. Chelsea & Valencia and Milan & Bayern Munich played out draws between them.

The matches were telecasted quite late in the night and it was with bleary eyes that I saw the Man U Vs. Roma match. The build-up to the match was filled with much talk from both sides. Man U had pooh-poohed their star forward Francesco Totti and Roma had returned the favor with ridicule for Wayne Rooney. Both the players must’ave taken the comments to heart because both of them played exceedingly well. Totti though didn’t score a goal, was instrumental in the first and came close later on whereas Rooney scored the equaliser for Man U. I don’t remember much of the match owing to spells of slumber in between goals but will try to catch up with the highlights show. The other match of the night also saw a frenetic build-up with Valencia rubbishing Chelsea’s away-team changing room as a rathole - a claim which the English club swiftly sought to negate by allowing TV crews into the shower room and see for themselves! On the field however, the match was a draw with David Villa’s strike on the half-hour negated bu Didier Drogba’s goal in the 54th minute.

Liverpool drubbed PSV Eindhoven by 3-0 as the reds’ skipper Steven Gerrard became Liverpool’s leading scorer in the Champions League. In the other match, Bayern Munich salvaged a 2-2 draw at AC Milan with defender Buyten scoring both of Bayern’s goals to negate strikes from Kaka (penalty) and Andrea Pirlo.

Final Scorelines were:

Milan 2-2 Bayern
PSV 0-3 Liverpool
Roma 2-1 Man. United
Chelsea 1-1 Valencia

Roma Vs Man U | Chelsea Vs. Valencia | Milan Vs. Bayern | PSV Vs. Liverpool

Normalcy

After yesterday’s minute of madness, a panicky me set about immediately to repair the damage! Unfortunately our senses get sorta numbed whenever we are in a panic-stricken mood and we tend to do all the wrong – or too tedious – things in an attempt to set things straight! I too embarked upon a long-drawn process to salvage the lost posts as soon as realization about the mishap dawned. What I did was:

1. Searched high-and-low for the XML backup that I’d taken some days earlier (How thankful was I to that!)
2. Found it ultimately but was dated 27th or March So 3 days posts would be lost!
3. Created a Backup Blog on WordPress.
4. Uploaded the XML onto that blog.
5. Selected those posts that I’d deleted and manually copy-posted them onto this one!
6. Edited the time stamp so as to closely mirror the original post’s time stamp.
7. Published the post and patted self for the nifty work done

Unfortunately, all the comments were lost! And so were the Digg links and in one case, an entire post which was dugg by a meagre 5 users was completely gone! It was much later in the night that I realized what a nincompoop I’d been. It would have been infinitely easier if only I’d tweaked the XML to contain only the deleted posts and then uploaded the same onto this very Blog, instead of onto the backup!And on top of it all, Harsh comes along and – in an action that is akin to rubbing salt into the wounds – and sez today that it would have been easier if I had my blog’s feed handy! I do subscribe to my own feeds and a quick visit to Google Reader would have saved a lot of time & work for me! But then again, there was no comments feed, so they were gone no matter what!

So I decided that a cool n calm-headed approach was the best way to solve the problem rather than do something on the spur of the moment and rather hastily! Then I got the simply super brainwave – even if I say so myself – of how to get back the lost posts. What for were the Google’s Cached pages!!! I promptly launched a Google search for the posts and using the search string of “google sleeve site:wordpress.com” and the search result’s cached feature I was able to retrieve the post, its links and even the digg button! Am I a genius or what!!!

[Cached page]