The morning after

The after-life of a Wimbledon champ.  Here's a quick peek on what happens the next day as various media outlets try to find a nugget of information that will make for a different story than the rest of the competition.

My admiration for Roger Federer goes up even more.  What a gentleman!

The best form of flattery

If imitation is the best form of flattery, where does that put someone who imitates and plagiarizes himself?!

Aaron Sorkin is one of the more sought-after screenplay writers for political TV shows and movies.  Here's a mash-up of the many times he "repeats" himself.  While you may have never seen any of the shows, the self-plagiarism is oddly hypnotic.

Wandering thoughts of a random mind

As I listen to songs and let the pressures of the past week slowly ebb away, my mind jumps hoops, stopping along the way to let some of the nebulous thoughts coalesce into these points.

Hard hat area: Men at work

The NCAA men's basketball tournament (March Madness to some) is in full swing. After an exhilarating Day 1, Day 2 is playing more true to form. Watching the video feed from the matches on a computer is a lot more fun than on TV, as you get to pick and choose which games to follow.

Let's say you are at work (as some of us are) and you are watching the game when your supervisor walks in on you. What do you do? Well, look closely. Do you see that Boss Button? Simply click on it...

And voilà! Just like that the screen turns into:

To read, perchance to dream

I hardly watch the idiot box these days. (The only time I am glued to the set is on Monday nights, as my regular readers will know by now). Sometimes on Sundays I follow some sporting event (last weekend it was the Buick Invitational tournament, where Arjun Atwal frittered away a chance to enter the playoffs; next weekend it shall be the Super Bowl).

When I come home, reading a book (and cooking) relaxes me. Most nights, I usually read till I fall asleep. Within arms reach I can see a few books as I type this post. This material can be broken into some distinct categories:

a) Books already read (for casual reading on the days I don't feel like paying too much attention to detail). Right now the books in this category are ...

• The Collected Short Stories of Jeffrey Archer
• Asterix the Legionary (by Gosciny and Uderzo)
• Partners in Crime (Agatha Christie)
• Cricinfo - The Magazine (edited by Sambit Bal)

b) Books that I am currently reading (once again, the genre I read depends upon my mood; and yes, I have read a little bit of all of them).

• Foul Lines (Jack McCallum and L. Jon Wertheim)
• The King Must Die (Mary Renault)
• The Best American Mystery Stories-2005 (edited by Joyce Carol Oates)
• Two Lives (Vikram Seth)

c) Books that I shall read

• The Bull from the Sea (Mary Renault)
• The Last of the Wine (Mary Renault)
• The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
• Scaramouche (Rafael Sabatini)
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Robert M. Pirsig)

So what am I in the mood for tonight? I think it shall be Foul Lines, "an explosive, fast-paced satire that will do for today's NBA what North Dalls Forty did for the NFL a generation ago".

The Irascible Defender

"I am Federal Agent Jack Bauer, and this is the longest day of my life".

The inimitable raspy voice of Kiefer Sutherland introduced me to the world of "24". I saw the complete first season of this television show, albeit a couple of years later on DVD. I came to respect Dennis Haysbert as the POTUS-to be, while watching a show where surprises are the norm and no character (except Jack, of course) can safely be assumed to negotiate the day unscathed.

Now, years later (I think season 5 is currently in progress) I picked up this show again and every Monday from 9-10pm my friends know better than to call me, as I breathlessly follow Jack as he crashes headlong from one impossible situation into another.

Being in a dangerous situation has become so common place for this dude that he no longer even bothers to tell us that this season represents the longest day of his life!!