Wow! that’s ribbonny ribbon!

What can I say..

Doctor Who?

Looks like the next Doctor has been revealed, ending months of speculation. At one point, it was being rumoured that the next doctor could be a woman. Now, that would have been really interesting! And maybe they’ll try that at some point, but for now the next incarnation of our favourite time traveler is Matt Smith. I hadn’t heard of him before this, but I’m sure that’s going to change!

Eccleston and Tennant (and Tom Baker much before them) have set some very high standards and we’ll have to wait and see if Smith can do justice to the role. The only unfortunate part of this whole thing is that we’ll have to wait a rather long time to find that out. With Tennant and Davies both leaving, it seems the show is going into a sort of sabbatical. Only 4 specials are scheduled for 2009 and the regular episodes starring Smith and with Moffat at the helm won’t resume until some time in 2010. Ah well!

Zune Touch?

Ah yes.. What better way to start the new year than with some nice little rumour mongering. Are we getting a full touchscreen Zune, or did someone have way too much free time with Photoshop? Looks pretty neat! And with the next leap year not coming for another 4 years, we should be all good!

Found via TechEBlog.

News Breaking?!

See what I did there? Clever, huh?! Anyway, the reason for this post is to express my utter disappointment with the hordes of Indian news channels that seem to have mushroomed over the last few years. Years ago, when I migrated over the seven seas, I used to take pride in the Indian news channels, at least when compared to the louse Komo4 and Kiro7 for whom, as we used to joke around, the typical headline of the day would involve something about how a cat somehow ended up on a tree and how the friends, neighbours, fire deparment and half of the city got together to reunite it with the anxious owners.

Years later, NDTV and AajTak are probably still better, but only marginally so. And as for the likes of IBN7, I don’t think I can say even that. The mantra of the day seems to be total sensationalism, taking the smallest of stories, or non-stories, and blowing them up as if our very existence depended on whether or not Kareena Kapoor was still size 0.

Things were quieter when I was here earlier this year. As a result one of the news channels, I forget which one, seemed to have dedicated itself almost entirely to an Indian police officer who had managed to make it to WWF (or is it called WWE now?). Khali, I think his name was. Day after day, all you saw were headlines and stories about how Khali had threatened one or the other of his opponents, how much he ate, how he was on a fake sick leave, how much he ate, how is his family, blah blah blah. Or as my esteemed chairman would say, blah di blah di blah. And yes, as much as I despised it, I did watch all of it. I was on a vacation! What else was there to do!!

This time around, because of all those unfortunate events in the beautiful Mumbai, these news channels have had a real issue to report. But even then, even in the face of one of the worst tragedies, they just can’t help it. Yes, I understand you are doing a great service to the police by not relaying the live pictures or revealing operation details, but do you really have to shove it down our throats every other minute? And at the top of your voice? And the reports were almost like they had been produced by Ekta Kapoor. So bad was it that I had to turn to BBC World to get some decent, sane news. Even if they weren’t too heavy on details, they are world news after all.

Maybe something happened to Indian journalism, or at least the news channels, over the last few years that I completely missed.. Maybe they happened to catch a broadcast of Fox News and mistook it for a training video. That’s about the only thing that can explain it!

Saddest day

It’s been over 24 hours since all this craziness started in Mumbai and still no idea as to when it will end. I spent 4 wonder years in Mumbai when I was studying there and ever since then the city has had a very special place in my heart. I have several friends and a few relatives living there, one of them working in the Oberoi in fact, and so far it seems they are all okay, but so many people dead and injured, it’s really tragic!

Painting the town Gold

Even in a country where sports basically means cricket and not much else, Abhinav Bindra is a name not likely to be easily forgotten. First Gold medal in 28 years and first individual Gold ever! Very impressive!

What a day!

India lost. Ferrari lost. Federer lost. Not quite the sunday I had been looking forward to!

Gates without Microsoft

Yesterday was Bill Gates’ last day at Microsoft as a full time employee. A lot has been said and is being said all over the world about Gates, Microsoft, the impact the two have had on the world over the last 30 years and what lies ahead for both over the next few years. A couple of those that I really found interesting were this article on BBC featuring the original Microsoft employees, who got together to recreate that famous photogaph, and this one on CNN featuring some rare photos from Microsoft archives, accompanied with a commentary by Gates himself. And, of course, there is a whole lot of stuff over at Engadget, who declared June 27 to be the Bill Gates Day.

Will Microsoft survive without Gates? And Gates without Microsoft? If Microsoft is not doing too well a few years from now, will he be tempted to jump back in and take control? It’s certainly happened before.. Steve Jobs and Michael Dell are two names that come to mind, there are probably others that I’m forgetting. Of course, only time can tell..

Great Expectations

Sunday evening and not much to do, so I decided to play some games over at Live Search Club and managed to accumulate enough points for a nice little pair of Zune premium headphones. I’ve heard quite a bit about them, both positive and negative, and thought it will be nice to check them out! (that and the fact that the rest of prizes are totally useless for me) All my excitement vanished, however, when I got the confirmation email..

Please note, in most cases prizes will be delivered 6-8 weeks from the date your order is processed, unless your prize is in limited quantities or backordered

6 weeks?? wow! I guess the shipping department needs some serious looking into.. or someone has taken the Scotty Principle to heart. Ah well.

Wacky Races!

Even before the start of the race, the commentators called it the ultimate Wacky Races, and they were absolutely spot on! If there was ever a list of the best ways to crash out of a race, Lewis Hamilton will be the undisputed leader! The incident is supposedly under investigation, it was clearly Hamilton’s mistake and it’ll be interesting to see if he incurs any sort of a penalty.

Once that piece of drama was done and over with, it was clearly BMW’s day. A lot of history being made, with BMW’s first victory as a constructor, first victory also for Peter Sauber who remains on the team as an advisor, first victory for Robert Kubica and first victory by a Pole. Also I think it’s only the second time a team has managed a 1-2 with their first victory. Jordan did that back in 1998 Belgian GP with Damon Hill and Ralf Schumacher.

To say that Kubica won because of the incident after the first pit stop would be a little unfair, especially after those consecutive flying laps he did to open up the gap from Heidfeld. In the post-race interview he said it was like doing 7 qualifying laps one after the other. In the end that proved crucial as he came out of his second pit stop in the lead. One year after his horrific crash on the same track, this is surely a victory he’ll never forget.