The Training Begins!

So I have already registered for Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon, this one would be my second Mumbai marathon, and the first full in Mumbai. I have been running since quite a while now, so its high time I graduate to the next level every year! Its fun, challenging your body each time, believe me nothing feels better when you break your own records! So what am I planning to do ? Well the plans are huge this year:

1) Kaveri Trail Marathon in mid Oct
2) Vodafone Delhi Half marathon in early Nov
3) Bangalore Ultra in mid Nov
4) Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon in mid Jan
4) and then maybe Standard Chartered Hong Kong marathon in mid Feb

Yeah I know that this is too much! But then I have started rigorous training for it. I am planning to run daily now, the idea is to run atleast 8K on weekdays and long run on the weekends (~25-30K). The only day when I plan to rest is Friday, in order to prepare for the weekend long runs.

Lets see where I land up, but I am determined !!!!

Will keep giving the training updates here

Running: In this religion, there are no holidays

Calvin

Of course we dont want Mayawati as PM

Behenji has started cribbing again, read here. Of course behenji we don't want you as the Prime minister of India, whatever be the reason, and I just want to clarify that the Dalit lame excuse you are giving the entire nation is baseless. It is only you who is a "manuwaadi" nobody in my neighbourhood distinguishes between a Dalit and a non Dalit, stop playing this dirty game. You have wasted the clear mandate given to you by the janta of Uttar Pradesh. A majority in today's date is a biog power, a blessing, you could have changed the entire state, you had the power , and the means to do all the reforms which you have been blabbering your entire life. But alas you are more interested in the power politics, becoming a PM. Just take Narendra Modi and Gujrat for example, no I am not defending him for the Godhra kaand, but whatever he has done for the state needs to be appreciated. See the law and order situation there, see the number of NRIs willing to invest in Gujrat, see the electricity / water / Road / litracy rate there.

You should be ashamed of yourself that you have let your people down, they gave you a clear mandate, to make UP a batter state, and you in turn packed your bags, ready to flee???

OF COURSE WE DONT WANT YOU AS PRIME MINISTER.

Also Read Pheonix's entry on the Political Drama

A fool with a tool is a dangerous fool

Old saying, but seems true in case of the duo: Mulayam Singh and Amar Singh. Suddenly the two fools have shot to fame and importance because of the crisis created by the Left. Now these two are making proposals left, right and centre.

1) Today they asked to rename the Amausi Airport's (Lucknow Airport) name to Chaudhary Charan Singh Airport. Now who was Chaudhary Charan Singh ? What did he do for the state, apart from bringing his good for nothing som Ajith Singh into politics, who inturn is demanding a seperate state. Read it here

2) Some days back, Mr Amar Singh gave his formula of how to Solve inflation. Read it here. I don't even want to comment on it.

Sometime back Congress was busy screwing Amar Singh and Party, and Amar Singh in turn was busy abusing Ms Sonia Gandhi and party. I guess the entire nation knows about it! But still if you want to brush up your memory read here

I dont know where we are heading towards

Runners, yeah we are diffrent

in 1999 Adidas ran an advertisement campaign for its supernova (running Shoe) line of shoes, well this is one of the best advertisements I have ever seen.

Saw it again on Prateek's Blog

I can relate to most of them as a runner, Enjoy!

http://www.chayden.net/Runs/Adidas/index.htm

Optimize iPhone Battery

I have been using iPhone since two months now, and I have to admit that this is an amazing piece of gadget. However I faced some issues in the beginning with the battery life of this device. So here are some tips to improve the battery backup of your iPhone.

-Set the brightness of the display to the lowest level possible, and put the auto brightness feature on
-Turn off the graphic equalizer of your iPod
-Switch off WiFi when you don't need it, as the device keeps searching for WiFi even when you are on the move, and ends up eating a lot of battery
-Turn on the auto lock feature of your iPhone

Earlier I used to get a battery backup of half a day, and I needed to completely re-charge the iPhone every night, but these points has actually helped me improve the battery back up! Further I would recommend everybody to read about the Li-ion battery information: http://www.apple.com/batteries/

For those who doesnt want to go to the link, I am copying and pasting the important stuff there:

Lithium-ion batteries pack in a higher power density than nickel-based batteries. This gives you a longer battery life in a lighter package, as lithium is the lightest metal. You can also recharge a lithium-ion battery whenever convenient, without the full charge or discharge cycle necessary to keep nickel-based batteries at peak performance.

Most lithium-ion batteries use a fast charge to charge your device to 80% battery capacity, then switch to trickle charging.

Most Important: Charge Cycle (Important for all Notebook / Mobile Phone users)

A charge cycle means using all of the battery’s power, but that doesn’t necessarily mean a single charge. For instance, you could listen to your iPod for a few hours one day, using half its power, and then recharge it fully. If you did the same thing the next day, it would count as one charge cycle, not two, so you may take several days to complete a cycle. Each time you complete a charge cycle, it diminishes battery capacity slightly, but you can put notebook, iPod, and iPhone batteries through many charge cycles before they will only hold 80% of original battery capacity. As with other rechargeable batteries, you may eventually need to replace your battery.

Truth is stranger than fiction

This is the only thing that comes to my mind when I read anything on the Arushi murder case, the investigation has been going on since ages, and now most of us are bored reading about it. Even the television channels are bored reporting the murder investigation. But I do empathize with CBI, all the evidences are gone, Noida police screwed up the case, and the case is not as simple as it looks. All the possible aspects have already been talked about, by the media, but I still believe that the "truth would be stranger than fiction".

Rajkumar, Krsihna, Rajesh Talwar, the suspect list is huge, and it only grows each week. The media is doing every possible act to misguide you on the investigation. Today two different channels reported two different stories:

NDTV reports that Rajesh Talwar is innocent and CBI is going to crack the case in the coming week, Read it here

CNN-IBN on the other hand has just reported whatever we are already aware of, the events in chronological order, and reports nothing as Rajesh Talwar is innocent or not

Somedays back the good for nothing news Channels India TV and Zee News again tried to assassinate the family's character by reporting that the Talwars were partying out in South Delhi when the murder took place. Read it here.

I think these news channels are only bombarding us with data, with no information value attached to it. The other day I was talking to a Retd IPS officer (whom I met somewhere), he was of the opinion that the media can never figure out the way CBI functions, probably there are multiple teams working on totally different aspects and scenarios, each team investigating one suspect seperately. And these news channels find out about some team someday and they report it, the very next week, they try to find out about the investigations of the other team ,and report it again, obviously with the statement "CBI sources say". Can these channels tell us who are these trustworthy sources, I think its high time that Janta demands this piece of information, they are assassinating a family's character. 15 news channels, 15 new theories.

And then this morning I see these set of pictures, I found these very offensive, the girl is gone, SHE IS DEAD, please for God's sake leave her alone, what connection does her childhood photographs have with the case? Why are they out in public ? Please have some moral values and let her soul rest in piece at least for a week ?

Rock on Website and Music Launched

Website: http://rockon.bigadda.com/

Cast and Crew:
Farhan Akhtar: Aditya Shroff
Prachi Desai: Sakshi
Arjun Rampal: Joe Mascarenhas
Purab Kohli: Kb
Luke Kenny: Rob
Koel Purie: Devika
Shahana Goswami: Debbie
Nicolette Bird: Tanya

Jane tu... ya Jane na

First things first, I would give the movie a rating of 4.5 / 5. I would say that there is nothing new to the story, just an old formula, retold, re crafted. But Aabbas Tyrewala's style of narration is superb. I would say that the movie is a tamed down version of Dil Chahta hai, no not a masterpiece as DCH, but yes you will identify wioth the crowd somewhere. Be it the crush amonst the friends, be it the indecisive nature of Aditi and Jai, be it the foolishness of Jignesh Patel, or a very closely knit relationships between friends.

The movie starts with a group of people waiting for somebody at the airport, and in them is a girl who actually is an air hostess, and she hated the idea of waiting at the airport for a delayed flight, she is pissed off, snapping everybody. And then the remaining four guys starts narrating a story, a unique Love story, Jai and Aditi's love story. The director with the help of these people explained every aspect of their relationship. Some aspects which were not very obvious, some which were underlying aspects in their relationship, is beautifully explained / highlighted with these friends! I loved the side story about the "ranjhaud ke rathore" and the cameo by Naseer.

What I liked about the movie was the fact that Jai (Imran) and Aditi (Genelia) are always with each other, the best friends ever existed on this earth, but still they are not in love, OK, at least they don't think about love. But they cant live without each other. The way Jai cares about Aditi, the way Aditi fights for Jai, everybody except them know that they are in love, but good thing is nobody in the group interferes this love / friendship relationship of theirs. They just leave it on time, or rather Jai and Aditi!

Acting wise Imran and Genelia has done a good job, yes he is the new Chocolate boy, and believe me he is good at it, I was just amazed to see the reaction of the girls in the movie theater :-). I think Genelia needs to work on her Hindi accent, but somehow I found that cute, the cute Goan Hindi accent! AR Rahman's music is fresh and amazing!

Overall a must watch.

And yes Harman Baweja: Dont compare yourself with this dude, he is here to stay!

Boris Becker: Serves 5 aces in a row

From being behind 0-40 on his serve Boris serves 5 aces in a row