21

winner winner chicken dinner....

blackjack players know what the above line is all about.

Caught this movie named 21 a couple of weeks back. Its about a bunch of MIT students..a group of card counters cracking the game of Black Jack and robbing the vegas casinos on weekends.



They did well till the time they faced another counter :)

...A very fine movie with some really good background score and fine performances from everyone including Kavin Spacey.

Snow, T5 and FA Cup

There was this confusion of terminals for BA when i took off on saturday. BA used to work from Terminal 4 at heathrow and they are shifting it to the new terminal 5. The news is that its pure chaos at T5..flight cancellations, baggage misplacements etc. So not surprisingly my co-passengers were also worried and not sure which terminal we are heading to, but cabin crew confirmed that its going to be T4 till this month end. Another thing that added to the T5 problems is the snowfall. My first experience with the snowfall has been amazing....but its sometimes scary to see cars covered with snow :)..

another big news in this part of the world have been Cardiff city making it to the FA cup final after some 70 years..and i thought only the indian cricket team takes years in doing things.

Street Kings

KR is back!!

The Jag comes to india...

TATA goes shopping and brings home...Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford.

Now can we expect a hatchback Jag??!!! :)

Image Courtesy + More Details: Economist

Good Enough II

Good Enough

Good Enough to qualify for my next bike!

Engine and transmission

Displacement:346.00 ccm (21.11 cubic inches)
Engine type:Single cylinder
Stroke:4
Power:18.00 HP (13.1 kW)) @ 5600 RPM
Torque:27.50 Nm (2.8 kgf-m or 20.3 ft.lbs) @ 3500 RPM
Compression:7.3:1Bore x stroke:70.0 x 90.0 mm (2.8 x 3.5 inches)
Fuel system:Carburettor.
CVFuel control:OHV
Ignition:Digital TCI
Starter:Kick
Lubrication system:Dry sump
Cooling system:Air
Gearbox:4-speedTransmission type
final drive:Chain
Clutch:Wet mulitiplate

Physical measures

Dry weight:163.0 kg (359.4 pounds)
Ground clearance:140 mm (5.5 inches)
Wheelbase:1,370 mm (53.9 inches)

Chassis and dimensions

Front brakes:Expanding brake (drum brake)
Front brakes diameter:178 mm (7.0 inches)
Rear brakes:Expanding brake (drum brake)
Rear brakes diameter:152 mm (6.0 inches)
Speed and accelerationTop speed:110.0 km/h (68.4 mph)
Power/weight ratio:0.1104 HP/kg

Other specifications

Fuel capacity:14.50 litres (3.83 gallons)
Color options:Black, red
Comments:Available in India. Optional electric starter and front disk brake.

Twin Wins

Congratulations to both the teams, Under 19 and the senior team for their wins on this real super sunday.



Sachin finally showed his capabilities in a final against Australia, in Australia. 1 down, 2 to go!!

The Under 19 skipper Virat ("Why-rat" as an oz commentator calls him) Kohli, is quite at-your-face kinda guy. South africans were quite zapped by the whole indian team going after them...verbally i mean to say!!:)



Image Courtesy - rediff.com

Vantage Point

Caught this one on saturday..had no idea about the storyline etc so took a chance basically. It turned out to be real cracking one. Nice strong crisp storyline and a "8 Strangers. 8 Points of View. 1 Truth." thing going which actually creates a certain kind of suspense.



It was nice to catch a near perfect thriller after a long long time..!! Dennis Quaid and Forest Whitaker creating magic as usual..!!
And by the way, just in case if you have just been bitten by the "Jodha-Akbar" bug recently, this one is only 90 mins long. :)

A Long day....

The day started just like any monday. the expectations were also just like any monday. There was a meeting planned for monday which was supposed to stretch over 4 hrs...and it actually stretched to 8 hrs...longest meeting ever for me. It was supposed to be more of a fusion meeting that we generally do for Requirements Analysis and after that design starts. My head is still ringing with that meeting. Someone called up in the morning..i said "am in a meeting" ...same person called up in the evening..same status "am in a meeting"....in came reply.."how many meetings you guys have?"....answer "thats the same meeting!!".....

Damn... its tough to lead five tracks....3 websites... 2 web apps...1 CRM tool and few (forgot the count actually) microsites!! Insane!!

GrandCentral

not the station in New york..no not even the London one.....its Google's newest acquisition!!
So what is GrandCentral ??......
its a free service from Google, through this we can receive phone calls and post voicemails right on our blogs. GrandCentral is currently in a private beta test, and also within US only, however an invite regsitration is on with Email and Country so whenever its up for a particular country, an invite will be sent.

An accident and a vote out

For the first time in 5 seasons there is an accident on Roadies. Rider - Ayaz, Pillion - shambhavi.....injuries - bruises and scrtaches nothing serious..damage done - immense on Ayaz's part as people are questioning his riding skills and riding is a major part of Roadies. I won't be surprised if moving onwards or may be from next season they introduce proper riding gears which is missing right now specially considering the fact that they are using HH Karizmas, pretty fast ones right?
Right at the time of accident is became almost certain that Ayaz was going out next..but Roadies is never that predictable and Snehasish along with Sonel played a game which came down heavy on someone least expected to go out this early, Vikrant (Vik, as they call him). There was an advantage task played and 5 of the roadies, including Vik, got the advantage. the advantage actually was that only those 5 will vote in the vote out, others were not allowed. Vikrant got 3 of those 5 votes. Vik, not my favorite kind but also a very overconfident kind, even i was surprised of this vote out.
This season is going right along with roadies theme:



ghar se hum chale
bas ek backpack aur ek guitar
paison ki fikar nahin
bike pe hum sawar

raahon ki hai khabar
na manzil kaa hai pata
phir bhi chal diye
jaane ab hoga kya

woooho
ohhhh..yeah
okkk....
jeet lenge aaj

ab kisi bhi baat kaa mujhe darr nahin
mushkilon se hi toh hai himaat meri
khelni hai aakhri baazi yahin
humsafar hi ban gayi manzil meri
raaste wahi..raahi naye
raatein wahi.. sapne naye

jo chal sako..tum bhi chalo yaaron
choo lenge hum assman
h
wooowho ohyeah okkk....
jeet lenge aaj

At 23....

am not talking about someone's age...not even some batsmans's score. yesterday my bike clocked 23Ks and my car clocked 2.3K today.

Hows Bike doing: the way a P150 is supposed to do. kicking B**t!! One Km of warm up lap in the morning and then ready to rumble. Amazing mileage added with a smooth ride. Even after numerous servicings spanning over 2.5 years the service center guy always tells me "sir, this time you must get that leg guard up" ..my reply as always remains "kidding me?"...that reminds me..its service time again!! Someone suggested, its high time to sell your bike....get a new one..may be go for a exchange...i somewhat agree with that.....lets see how it goes. A phone cam pic taken in 2005:

Hows Car doing: the way a new hyundai i10 machine is supposed to do. kicking B**t!! Few meters of warm up and its ready to make my day!! After first service mileage actually improved a notch as expected, amazing balance and dynamics are worth mentioning. Went out on a trip to jaipur with that and that also straight after first service......a memorable drive!!

I hope both of them keep kicking....:)

the heat is on....

The heat is on and blazing in Roadies 5.0.

This time Vibhor ended up on the receiving end..and Prabhjot got lucky...whatever they plan..whatever they decide .....eventually every individual does whatever he/she feels like. Thats the beauty of roadies. An interesting conversation from the latest episode:

Host: Vote out is the worst part of roadies ..right?

All contestants: Yes.

Host: Get used to it... :)

another hike...

well...another one....this one is a bomb....real one.....petrol price hiked by Rs.2/Litre :((



Now am seriously considering to take the "Fill it up" approach and that also from delhi not in gurgaon where the prices are higher than delhi. Another factor supporting my thoughts are the quality of fuel in haryana. There is a distinct performance difference, i sometimes actually feel my bike/car coughing when fuelled up in gurgaon and the case is totally different when fuelled up from delhi.

memories....

a song very close to heart....some very sweet memories attached with it....



A very happy Valentine's Day to everyone.

Roadies 5.0 ..The journey begins...

The Roadies were in for shock of their lives even before starting their journey on those new sparkling HH Karizmas. They have been divided in two teams, Blue and Red. Blue team lost heavily in the activities and lost the immunity. That meant..someone needed to get voted out from the blue team. All types of typical Roadies groupism and regionalism happened and right at the time of vote out...the roadies got shocks..2 to be more precise.

First, someone came back to haunt them......none other than Raghu.....

Second, Raghu then disclosed the news, 2 to be more precise: Good news - There will not be any ONE voted out. Bad News - There will be TWO to be voted out........and that cracked the whole scheme up. ...

Man!!its getting crazier than ever...!!

Now the two voteouts: First a guy, and i dont remember his name .....second, my favorite ..Ankita Sehgal...:(.....damn she got thrown out in the first vote out itself. .......

nazar....

this one surely stands out as one of the best from Atif

its tough.....

talking about its being tough another thing that comes in my mind is the MTV Roadies 5.0 auditions.....the judges Nikhil and Raghu are literally kicking some serious a**es. I get goose bumps while watching every episode.

Reason: Some real dumbo candidates....and two really pi**ed of judges.

I actually saw a signboard in the delhi audition episode or i think it was kolkata...it was placed right outside the audition hall and it said "Beware, judges are in a bad mood today!!"....seriously...the craziest thing to do right now is to show up in a roadies audition right in front of Nikhil and Raghu!!

More Auto Expo Coverage

A little bit more of Expo

National Institute of Design showcases their designs.

Image Courtesy: A very dear, sweet, young lady..!!:)


Rahul puts up his pics taken from his N series nokia

Expo ..reloaded

I have been to pragati maidan before in the last international trade fair.so i knew it's a tiring task to visit a big expo there. I parked my car at CP's MCD parking and took the metro to pragati maidan...considering the traffic jams that any kind of event triggers at pragati maidan. i was there from Gurgaon in 45 mins...a good start!!

Looking for pics?...they are right here!! Tried my best to get close shots everywhere and somehow managed to achieve that. However quite of few of them were blind shots luckily coming good. My personal favorite is the angle i got for the MT-01's dashboard. Again, there sre some pics in portrait mode, please flip them to see becuase that was the only way i could have got what i wanted in the pic.



all-in-all a nicely managed expo considering the daily turn-out there. TATA's pavillion was raising hell as expected.

Talking about TATA and NANO, here's what i have heard ....a survey was conducted with Auto-Rikshaw drivers/owners, most of them said, if given permission they would like to replace their Autos with Nano. The reason, an auto rickhsaw costs around 3 lakhs(i wonder how) and this car goes for 1 lakh, with seating capacity a bit more. Now did i hear someone say "Nano..The People's Car" :))!!

Skoda and Chevrolet did some nice presentations, Hyundai was spot-on and meant business, Maruti was a bit messy but it was really nice to see M800 phoenix.....they are raising it from ashes or what?? SX4 sport is really sporty.

No one was allowed inside BMW area...touch me not huh?....anyways..nice cars!! Volvo cars with their really heavy duty engines are making inroads for sure. Mahindra goes for an automatic transmission scorpio.

Honda was good and nicely arranged. Hero Honda pavillion was a bit strange ..and kind of disappointing....bajaj was quite modest but right on...suzuki, yamaha, honda all went all-out on bikes.

Mahindra and Renault were doing quite good....The long queue for GM pavillion was awesome...and they didnt disappoint once you are in. Missed the Yamaha Roxx concert..it went house full in a jiffy.

Royal Enfield's Small outdoor stall fitted right in the Enfield Spirit with dirty and rugged looking bikes put on show.It was nice. I'll wait for the day when Harleys make their debut at an Auto Expo in india.

I was supposed to visit the expo on saturday itself but some work popped up in office for saturday. So re-planned it with Rahul and Nishit for sunday. Will share more pics as both of them put their cell phone cams to good use.