Worst race..

..I’ve ever seen, next to Spain 2001. Kimi’s penultimate-lap retirement wasn’t nearly as unexpected as Hakkinen’s final-lap clutch failure, which I clearly remember watching at college as the merciless tifosi seniors crowed over me. Heidfeld was the star of y’day’s race. Spiteful Alonso really rubbed it in. This week is f***ed for me..

Barron’s..

The last few days have been very discombobulating, thanks to my perpetually vengeful disposition. I wonder why I’ve gotten acrimonious for every peccadillo, censuring even the protagonists of my book of life gratuitously. For venial slights they accorded me, I’ve rebutted hyperbolically. I proffer a heartfelt apology for my unwonted acerbity and desire to endear myself, though in what fashion I shall attempt this is beyond my ken..

[Listening to: Yellow – Coldplay – (4:29)]

Räikkönen wins..

..again!! 🙂

My fortunes seem to really have taken a turn. My wallpaper is a shot of Kimi taking the chequered flag at Sepang on 23/03/2003, his first win. The second win came more than a year later last August at Spa-Francorchamps. The third win was at Spain last fortnight and I hope that the fact that the next one was successive means an imminent change of order at the top of the C’structors’ table now.. and the Drivers’ table later. He has already relegated Trulli and Toyota to 3rd place, though I favor ’em more than I do Renault. Alonso is still way ahead, but the darling Williams boys did an excellent job rubbing his face in the dirt off the podium. I hope this happens more often in the future.

When I saw Kimi’s Qualifying 1 lap on Live Timing, I knew he’d do it. Pure brilliance reminiscent of Senna, who outdid his teammate (none other than the illustrious Alain Prost– McLaren in 1988 won 15 of 16 races, a record that stands today) by over two seconds. Inhuman, as Senna himself put it, its when the driver becomes a passenger n’ God takes over.

Heidfeld did a great job. I always felt guilty that McLaren chose Kimi over Nick from Sauber even when he’d done better n’ wuz elated when Williams chose him this year. Now he’s justifying the decision, even though I like Webbo a wee bit more. Great for him- the clean way he overtook Alonso was nothing short of wondrous. Monty did good to come fifth from last, but I wish he hadn’t screwed practice. Schumi’s underhand tactics sucked..

Hoping for a repeat performance at the Nurburgring.. Have a great week ahead, folks! 🙂

Unexpectedly..

.. I’m home, sweet home! I felt sick all day on Monday ‘cuz of the long, hot train journey. Anoop msged from EKM to tell me he’d reached and the doc had diagnosed him with chickenpox!! At night, I had a raging fever. Fearing that I’d got the pox too, I caught the first bus home [1.30 p.m. non-A/C non-air bus]. The rickety thing rattled my bones n’ my already-frayed nerves all day n’ delivered me as a lump of squishy-squashy pulp at 3 a.m.

Slept luxuriously in A/c n’ woke up much better. Thankfully, I’d been affected only by a mild viral fever. I’ve been sorta weak ‘cuz I’m on anti-biotics.. Y’day I took a c-pox vaccine. Leaving for B’lore tomo. so that I can catch the race there. The screwed-up local Cable TV service provider here doesn’t provide STAR Sports. Poor Chechi’ll have to do with Live Timing like last time. I finished reading my 2nd fave book The Fountainhead once again y’day. Also finished SS2 in Single Player-Tourist mode.

Maram-van-chenda-weekend

I bought a writer on Wed. night for a little over Rs.4.5k. Though detection was successful, it wasn’t even reading CD-ROMs. I was so p*ssed off I didn’t go to office on Thu, so that I could get it replaced. Got a working model by 3 p.m. and wrote Harith’s F: (4+ GB) into a DVD 😀

Left by the night train to Trivandrum with Chandra, Kicha, Sundy, Zaki, Yasas, Dheesh, Bhat n’ Dham for Rakesh’s bro’s wedding reception. The guys had brought along a dozen shots for the road and I’d taken my cards along, so we had a nice time in the train after we woke up on Friday morn. I particularly liked the Orange Twist. We reached TVM Central at 4 n’ Rakesh picked us up from the station. We proceeded to Hotel Chaithram to freshen up before catching an auto to Hotel Mascot for his bro’s wedding reception at 6 p.m. Etchi joined us for the wonderful feast. We crashed out afterward in the a/c double bedroom at Chaithram..

   

   

On Sat’day, Kicha, Chandra and I woke up at 7 a.m. to go to the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Kshetram. We changed to mundu etc. at Kannammavan’s [Rakesh’s relative] and he gave us a detailed temple tour! Afterward, we went to Rakesh’s place for a yummy breakfast with his bro n’ SIL. Then we got back to the hotel and woke up the others while we waited for Etchi. We took a cab to the beach at Veli, where I ventured into the muddy waves.

   

   

We got back and after a bath, went to Hotel Horizon for the party Rakesh had arranged for us. Etchi and I had a quart each after a looong time.. on the rocks with a dash of lime. It felt great. We called up Darsan too. The quality of food was again unsurpassable. On our way back to the hotel at 9, we [n’ Kicha] decided to watch a movie. So we walked to New theater, where we watched Chandrotsavam. I went just ‘cuz Subhash, after watching it, said that the villain (Ramanunni) bore a huge resemblance to me. I have to agree..

   

On Sunday, we woke up in time for the complimentary breakfast and then treated ourselves to the a/c before setting out to the station to board the train. Our tickets, which were RAC a month ago, had been upgraded to berths in the same coupe! So we really enjoyed the return journey undisturbed.. Played UNO again. I finished ‘Five Point Someone‘ and really related to it. Slept well and got here at 7 a.m. Made it to the bus-stop at 8.10 comfortably.

I can’t wait for this weekend to record and write the race..!!

[Listening to: An Ode to Maybe – Third eye blind – Blue (2:38)]

Dream result

My favorite URL of 2005 is up. I was too busy watching Kimi to notice the rest of the race. The best part was where Schuey came out of the pits beside Monty followed by KR. KR slipstreamed past JPM, who also made it ahead of MS, which didn’t matter anyway, ‘cuz MS punctured his left front. No, I didn’t in the least bit feel sorry for him. Rubinho finished a second behind DC, just out of the points. Alonso n’ Trulli finishing on the podium and lessening chances of a C’ship challenge from MS later completed my dream result.

I would want them overthrown only by Kimi. Monty taking Alonso’s place would have been ideal but too much to wish for. Besides, with that spin, he didn’t deserve it. With this win, Kimi has leapfrogged from his place outside the top ten in the Drivers’ C’ship to THIRD!!

May he advance more..

[Listening to: Red Summer Sun – Third eye blind – Blue (0:-1)]

B.A.R. debarred

Hee hee, nice title, eh? Yup, not only shall BAR not race at Spain or Monaco, but they’ve also had their Imola points stripped. I’m happy ‘cuz with Alex Wurz claiming the last step of the podium for them, McLaren have regained my support before the next race this weekend! 🙂

Happily, JV is now 4th at San Marino- with Sato stripped of his points as well. However, there is something fishy about the whole thing and it has incited many an angry protest. Past incidents, unknown to many, have been raked up in the process of teams having won c’ships with illegal devices. The Ferrari barge boards incident of ’99 and Benetton’s victory in ’94 with illegal traction control spring to mind. Neither team was banned. Did it have something to do with Ross Brawn, Rory Byrne and Schumi being there or was it just coincidence?!

On the other hand, in 1997 when Adrian Newey of McLaren devised a fantastically innovative device, a fourth brake-steer pedal (when there were actually three down there) that helped the car turn in, Ferrari protested and the device was banned even when the FIA passed it. Funny.

Homely weekend

Thanks to the soporific nature of Ekm’s current weather, I spent most of the last three days sleeping at home.. interspersed with watching ‘Million Dollar Baby‘ and ‘Finding Neverland‘. Deepu n’ I spent some time discussing how the foreign movie industry has the guts to take chances with making movies like those. I didn’t find them scintillating but they were entertaining in merely being departures from the norm..

The few Hindi movies I’ve seen are all stereotyped hit-formula. I watched ‘Ghulam‘ too this weekend and did like it, but I just discovered from IMDB that its ripped off too.. from Marlon Brando’s “On the Waterfront”. So at the end of it, the only person who deserves any credit is Aamir Khan. Creativity just doesn’t exist in the Hindi movie/music industry. Oh yeah, I’ll get a lot of comments on this post raking up vague exceptions to disprove me. Luckily, there do exist A. R. Rahman, Ilayaraja, Manoj Shyamalan and their ilk to save face of Indians as a whole, but the majority remains brainless and plagiarist. Long live Hans Zimmer, John Williams, Tom Hanks, Walt Disney, …

Y’day, I woke up at 4.45 am to go to the temple for a puja at which I squatted for an hour and a half.. phew!! Got back home, had breakfast and crashed out for three hours!! Packed, wrote a CD and went out with Deepu for the now-customary Cold Coffee Shake at Madhu Madhuram before boarding the 8.15 pm A/c sleeper (Yesbee).

I got here an hour after Anoop (who came by the 9 pm Volvo!!) did. Suddu picked me up n’ I caught the 10 am shuttle. I skipped lunch to play SS2 and beat ‘Terminator‘, the acclaimed SS2-god of our LAN by a margin of 3.. Not to be modest, but he’s much better than me, which he demonstrated conclusively by proceeding to the next session and pasting me 😦

Beginner’s luck..

[Listening to: 07 – KNOCKIN’ ON HEAVEN’S DOOR – DYLAN & THE DEAD – (6:48)]