close shave

oo .. my bet with monica was almost lost yesterday. i had wagered australia will not lose a single match on their way to the finals and then progress to win the finals by routing england.

yesterday, australia won the toss and amassed a modest total on the board, 261 runs. 260 is very difficult for any team to chase against australia, i can promise you that. 260 against india, south africa, england - yes, you would hunt it and perhaps win comfortably. but, the weather system intervened which meant the target had to be revised. two wierdos named duckworth and lewis, a few years ago, devised a clever formula that "mutates" a target in rain affected scenarios. so, the target alteration meant england had to notch 200 odd runs in 25 overs. australia had the upper hand at this juncture.

jolly good, the match starts - australia take a quick wicket which underpins my claim that australia would win. again, 10 mins later the rain intervenes which meant duckworth and lewis are put to work again. although the match never resumed, a newly revised target at this juncture would have favoured england very much as they would have less to score while hurling their bat on anything coming their way.

all in all, i think england had a lucky escape as the game was declared a tie. australia will have to wait until this weekend. in spite of this, monica wouldn't really worry much losing the wager as I have been very magnanimous by buying her a silver iPod mini. however, i have to be tight-fisted when it comes to her laundry duty for the next few weeks.

taking communicaton to another level

it just seems, these days, i have become far too lethargic for anything that demands even the most minimal of physical effort.

monica: what was his last word nuggie, referring to the man on the tv advertisement.
me: huh..hmm, not sure, i was not listening.

that was not an isolated incident. i just do not listen to things that do not impact me. i see colours and hear arbitrary musings. that is all i "harvest" from the telly *if* the subject matter they cover is of no relevance to me. i know it is an infomercial for lexus, lime-scale removing agent etc. etc., but i do not track any of the information flow that go in between the characters playing out the advertisement.

why do i reveal this to you ? it seems, my apathy does not stop there.

farting, for me is an effortless undertaking. off late, my competency in farting has reached a new high and i have put that skill to some good use. needless to say, this is to the detriment of others living in the house but truly, this does not displease me much. i am *not* joking, it takes more effort for me to "speak 2 or 3 words" in the wee hours of a morning than it would for me to fart.

so, rather than saying "good morning monica", i just fart !! bear in mind, good morning here is implied. if it just so happens that monica wishes me "good morning" before i get the chance to blast one out, i still fart - only this time it has a different meaning !! good morning to you too monica..

oh God, i am such a lazy git - and it is becoming worse. i have to wise up, be a lot more active at work. i have to become proactive, i must become smarter and less of a hairy farter.

pregancy FAQ

since a few of my mates are pregnant, i thought i will cheer them up a bit.

category 1: some funny pregnancy FAQ

Q. my sister tells me that since my husband has a big nose and big nosed people have dominant genes, will my baby have a big nose as well ?
A. i reckon your sister has a fat lip.

Q. my blood type is O-positive and my husband's is A-negative. is it possible that my baby is type AB-positive?
A. you've been screwing the mail man, haven't you ?

Q. since i became pregnant, my breasts and my feet have become larger. is there something wrong ?
A. yes, you haven't mentioned anything about your arse.

Q. since i got pregnant, i notice often strangers smile at me. why?
A. because you're fatter then they are.

Q. when is the best time to get an epidural?
A. right after you find out you're pregnant.

Q. what are nightmares?
A. frightening episodes in which a new mother dreams she's pregnant again

category 2: questions that are so funny, they don't have answers:

1. i know when you are pregnant they tell you not to go on carnival and amusement park rides...does anyone know if the waterpark slides are ok ?

2. if i am constipated and i have to force myself at the toilet, is there a chance my baby will drop out ?

3. if i fart, will my baby evaporate ?

4. how can i tell if my vomiting is because of the morning sickness or the flu ?

5. do you think i might be pregnant ? this lump on my tummy keeps growing !

klarifikacion

a quickie .. some of mi friends enquired why i mentioned "england and wales" together but seemingly ignored scotland in my previous blog titled "ex-gulf air pilot". i thought everyone deserved an explanation as i had not been too clear.

the cricket board here in england is called ECB. it *actually* stands for "England & Wales Cricket Board". so, the players playing for the english national team [please note, i said english national team and not england & wales national team] could be from england [predominantly the case] and/or from wales. the ECB handles affairs for both wales and england. so, the english national team has nothing to do with wales except that some of its players could be from wales. confusing ?

england, australia, india, south africa, pakistan, sri lanka, west indies [group of carribean countries], zimbabwe, new zealand are the only full ICC members.

scotland, however, has its own national team which i must say is under prepared [well, for the moment at least]. scotland does not have membership to the ICC [International Cricket Council] as membership is by invitation only. they have associate membership, however, along a few other countries such as the usa, canada, namibia, singapore, malaysia, israel, maldives, nepal, china etc. you know what that means ? sooner rather than later, china will win the cricket world cup !

scotland have their own everything: parliament, first minister, etc. etc. not to mention their accent ;-) moose, looose in the hooose ..

The feeling of being acknowledged

I sent an email to BBC regarding their show "Test the nation" about a month back. Basically I complained about one of the question along these lines "Mother Teresa was taking care of the sick and needy in India, but what was her nationality?" The answer they gave was "Albanian". Which is incorrect because since 1950 she had adopted Indian nationality, she held an Indian diplomatic passport.

The website said they will contact me in 10 days, which they failed to do, and I had already given up on them about two weeks ago. I thought it's not a pressing matter probably they just didn't care.

However I just received an email from BBC this morning. Here's the cut and paste:

Dear Monica,

Thank you for your recent e-mail regarding Test the Nation: The 20th Century Test.

I contacted the production team in response to your concerns regarding Mother Tereza's passport. It seems you are correct. The programme makers concede this was an error on thier part and they should have made it clear in the question that they were referring to her nationality at birth. They send their apologies and thank you for bringing the matter to their attention.

Thank you for contacting BBC Information.

I said to myself, WOW!!! So they do look into these matters! It made me feel good not only to find out I was right, but to know that my voice was being heard.

Sorry for doubting you, BBC, I'm so proud of you.. and thank you!

On that note, me and Nagi is having a bet. This clueless guy who thinks he knows a lot about cricket said that Australia will win the rest of the Natwest one day international matches with England and Bangladesh. Note for those who don't follow cricket, Australia is indeed the best in currently in the world of cricket, yet they had lost both their first matches against England and Bangladesh. Yes, AND BANGLADESH, I repeat.

The bet was, if he's right, I'll do his laundry for a month, hang and dry it and the lot. If I'm right (i.e. Australia will lose at least ONE game), he will do the back garden, a long-awaited task which has been delayed. There's a part of our back garden which is too far from the house that the lawnmower cannot touch it. That part needs some attention.

I'm putting the bet here because I know I'm going to win, just like I know I was right about Mother Teresa's nationality.

He should have realised, Australia did not even win against Somerset last week :p Oh, yes, and Bangladesh! :p Oh I'm so going to win this bet!!! *doing the conga*

I should have done another bet: England is going to win this one day series. :D
But I think that's a bit pushy and with Australia as one of the opponent, anything could happen. However I do think England is capable of winning the series.

Go England!! *aja aja fighting!!!*

oh goodie !

it is over people. the war against terror is all over. finished, dusted, polished and shelved. CIA knows the whereabouts of bin laden. woohoo. are we pleased, yes we are. declare this day a national holiday. sorry - proclaim the day an international holiday.

i wonder from where the yankees come up with such gobbledygook. a few years ago, when the usa and the uk [yes, regrettably my country is involved in this muddle] were making the case for "regime toppling" in iraq, they said they have no doubt iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, AKA nuclear weapons. how did they know it ? well, apparently, the americans have attained such levels of refinement with their satellite technology, they could pin point which side of a nickel was up from their orbit many miles up above. while i have no problems accommodating this as nothing but factual, i am bemused why they go to phenomenal lengths venerating themselves. they even said they could "identify" the colour of saddam's underwear from their satellites !! you can search for this article on the internet, someone should carry it.

if they can see saddam's underwear, surely they know where that idiot is. so, i theorise, if they have such technology [combined with their so called "precision" bombing] why not take that arsehole of a tyrant out with a single missile ? sure enough, you will have some innocents perish because of this - but hey !! the usa are the champions of the free world, we shouldn't worry much.

nevertheless, i am happy saddam is gone one way or another. krusty the clown said it right, he is not saddam hussein. he is so-damn-insane. i am afraid he is having a jolly good time these days [under what ever control is imposed on him] than he was the previous 10 years. so i tot up, with all the preposterous claims the americans make [and my country blindly endorsing them] are we to sit back and relax with this latest insane proclamation ? the CIA can't even locate a hooker in a whore house !!!

monica's priest an ex-gulf air pilot ?

i am sure those who have flown gulf air will corroborate my claim here. gulf air pilots are among the worst in the world, in the sense they always depart late and astonishingly, they are among the best in the world, in the sense they always arrive at your destination early. nope, no mistake in this assertion. i have never flown in a gulf air flight where the air speed monitor [on the in-flight entertainment system] clocked anything less than 1000 kph.

i have this outlandish inkling that monica's parish priest at the blackfriar's chappel was an ex-gulf air pilot. he is very quick with his sermon. hang on, let me try that again. he is BLOODY quick with his discourse. his orations never last more than 35 minutes. i am not a catholic, but i am sure catholics all around the world will agree with me here. a sunday service, has any one been in one that lasted less than one hour ? yesterday, however, was an exception. the priest started late [6 minutes late to be precise] and finished 5 minutes earlier than his usual time.

i have no idea what the heck happened. it felt like, "in the name of the father ....WWWWWWWWWWRrrrrrrooom.. go in peace to love and serve the Lord".

what the !"£$%^ ? pardon him [and the others at the chappel] for the day was nothing less than incredible. as a matter of fact, i do not know of a superlative term to describe how magnificent sunday really was here at cambridge. 31 degrees, blue skies, roses in full bloom, a cool zephyr from the north - what else can you ask for ? well, it turned out, if you were english you didn't have to. God has been far too benevolent to the english & the welsh. guess what, england is trouncing australia in cricket these days. nope, no mistakes in the previous sentence. people in the congregation were probing late arrivals "do you know the latest score ?".

so, as you can see, we can re-enact our priest's day yesterday.

06:00 am - wake up to the alarm.
06:30 am - out of the shower.
07:00 am - breakfast [note to self: running out of channel
island milk, stock up tomorrow morning]
07:30 am - start prayers & meditation
10:30 am - it is cricket time. requests one of his brothers
to turn the tv on.
11:00 am - jolly good, 3 wickets in a single over. england
is well on top.
12:00 pm - a priestly frustration. australia is building up
a nice partnership.
01:30 pm - some respite for england. should keep austalia
to a low score.
02:00 pm - a nice sunday roast with mashed potatos and gravy
[note to self: buy jersey potatos]
02:45 pm - bad start for england. openers lost their wickets.
03:00 pm - nail biting time. COME on england !! not going well.
04:00 pm - hanging in fine balance. could go either way.
05:00 pm - not going well [OOPS, time to prepare for the
evening service]
05:45 pm - flintoff OUT. hopes are gone. ARGH, service
strats in 15 minutes. "brother james, can you
cover for me today ?. sorry father ted, i can't.
i have some lawn mowing to worry about".
06:00 pm - SHIT !! well, service starts.
---- Wrrrrrrrrrooooooooommmmmpppphh ----
06:32 pm - OVER, finito - runs to the TV
06:40 pm - sees kevin pietersen score the winning runs.
ENGLAND won !!
06:45 pm - WOW, what a day. PRAISE the lord.
07:00 pm - STRANGE feeling. should I be supporting england ?
I AM IRISH !!

england has won the last three encounters with australia. this is amazing, yes.

My music collection for a wedding?

Yesterday Inge called, I thought he just wanted to make sure that we've booked the tickets for the wedding, which we have not. Oopsie. But no, he wanted something else. He's not going to hire a band or dj, so he wanted my music collection to be played at his wedding. Whoa? ** biting nails nervously ** MY music collection for a wedding? Oh I hope he knows what he's doing, I honestly don't want to ruin anyone's wedding, especially his!

I asked him if he trusted my selection. He said "Yeah, we've been to your house while we played games etc, and you always seem to amuse us with your music choice and you've got a huge selection of those."

That's a compliment, I think.

But then he added, "But if it turns out to be a disaster of an evening, then I'll blame it on you."

*Dang* Oh no!

Well I'll do my best anyway. I'll email him the playlist beforehand so he should know what sort of songs he'll be getting.

Wish me luck!

Now where are those hard-rock CDs? *just joking, Inge!*

You hate cats?

It was quite slow moving towards the A14 Spittals roundabout (no surprise there), and I was one of the cars in the queue to get off the A14 forming a single lane. There are usually some idiots who cut off right at the beginning of the queue at very high speed. That happened today. I was expecting this silver fast approaching BMW to cut right in front of me so I made a space for him (how nice was I, huh?). However I regret what I did after reading his bumper sticker.

It says "If you're looking for a cat, try looking under my tyres!"

At this point I was suddenly more annoyed at his bumper sticker than the fact that he cut the queue. He must have thought the bumper sticker was funny otherwise he wouldn't have put it there. Yet I don't see the funny part of this joke. Maybe it's my bad sense of humour but I really wanted him to explain to my face what's so funny about it. Does he enjoy running over cats? Does he think it's funny when he hit the cat? Does he hate cats? What did the cats do to deserve these aggressive behaviour towards them? Does he even think that the majority of people will share this kind of idiotic and ignorant behaviour?

I am not even a cat-lover, and am offended by it.

And then I tried to search on the net to see if many people have these sort of bumper stickers. Yes, in the evening I have nothing else to do while waiting for my korean series to finish downloading.

There are loads of other sad bumper stickers involving cats! There's this category "Anti-cats bumper sticker". Whoaa??

Most of them are just as annoying as the one at the bumper of that silver BMW.

1. A cat almost always blinks when hit in the head with a hammer.
2. Ask me about microwaving cats for fun and profit.
3. Cat Or Speed Bump... Is There A Difference?
4. So many cats, So few recipes
and the list goes on.

I can understand anti-war, anti-bush, even anti-religion. But anti-cats? Why oh why?

I think he seriously need to put this bumper sticker:
"My other car's bumper sticker is funny."

oopsy

ok !! the moral of the story is not to avoid the odd tiff with your wife/husband but to rather follow these simple tips.

[1] some cash would be nice for the bus
[2] don't plan on walking 9 kms or for approx 2 hours
[3] wear COMFORTABLE shoes !!

i made all those mistakes on saturday - BUT wow, what a sleep tiredness grants you !!

the geo database is ready. it will be uploaded on monday or tuesday. apologies in advance for any loss of service.

Black Saturday (not for me)

Saturday afternoon, just before we were going to head off to the city me and Nagi had a fight. Not a huge fight, it was over some trivial issues, not really important. Anyway, then we went to town. First I drove to park and ride site and parked the car there. We took the Park and Ride bus to town. We were still not talking to each other. I wasn't really that mad but I guess Nagi was :p

The reason we had to go to town was because we want to send some baby stuff home. The post office shop was closed due to refurbishment (- the whole of cambridge seems to be in refurbishment mood lately!), so I had to get the box from Rayman, the stationery shop in town. We were still not talking, just walking. I, the one with the stronger and healthier bones and back, walked faster in front.

Got the box, packed everything inside the box, then we headed back to the Post Office to send the stuff. Still not talking. Then I was writing the address on the box, and when I turned around, he wasn't there. Didn't want to look for him, I kept going in the queue to the counter. Took a while, it cost 16 pounds to post via air mail. It was 1.7 kg.

Back to the main topic. About Nagi being mad. Yes. He was nowhere to be found. I called him on his mobile. It was ringing. But he didn't answer. It went straight to voicemail. So he must have pressed the NO button. He's avoiding me, ok. I tried calling him once more, still the same attitude. I was hungry so I sent him an sms saying to stop this childish behaviour and if he doesn't reply my sms I'm going to have my lunch at Don Pasquale, an Italian restaurant in the market square. I was so in the mood for spaghetti vongole :D

To my surprise, he replied. Guess what his reply was. "I'm on my way home walking. Do whatever you want."

Ha ha. I laughed inside. I got the house key, not sure if he carried his, and I got the bus tickets, and the car key. He's commiting suicide :P
Then I went straight to have my spaghetti vongole... *drool*

Felt a lot better, I went to Borders to see if they have manga collection. I thought I want to read Mars since I can't find Mars online anywhere :( I was lucky, not only I found the manga section at Borders, they have the Mars manga complete from book 1 to book 15!! Felt on top of the world, I sat down and read the first book completely.

After I finish the first book, I was contemplating to read the second one. It was very good and interesting! Fast paced yet so detail :D You can guess where I will be to spend my weekends from now on.. heh heh..
Anyway.. I thought he might not have the house key and he might be reaching home by now, so I headed home, by bus and then by car.

When I got home, he was already at home, so he had the house key afterall. Lucky him :D

At about 7 pm when he was watching his Star Trek (yes.. that sci-fi soap he loves so much), I asked why he left without saying anything. He said he doesn't want to talk about it. So I went upstairs to read. I was fine all this time (after eating spaghetti vongole I was already 100% fine) and not even a drop of anger in my blood.

At about 10 pm he came up and said he did that because he was very angry. Then he immediately complained his legs are sore. Hah hah. Apparently it took 2 hours walking nonstop from city centre to Milton. Hah hah. With hungry stomach too. Hah hah. He wasn't wearing his walking shoes. Hah hah. He didn't have any cash either. Hah hah. I called that stupidity. TWO HOURS OF WALKING!! Can you believe it? Either he was overly eager to exercise or he was overly stupid. I think the case was the latter.

Luckily it did not rain yesterday. Hah hah. I couldn't imagine if it was raining. Soaking wet, tired, sore legs and angry too! :D I'd like to see that :D

I think he learnt his lesson. It's never a good idea to run away from your wife when she has the car keys and the bus ticket.

Note to self:
1. Always carry my house key and car key.
2. Don't ever let Nagi carry my bus ticket.
3. When have nothing else to do, go to Borders. It's like heaven in there.
4. Don't attempt walking from city to home. It takes two hours. TWO HOURS. Yes.

geo database update

this weekend i will be {painstakingly} updating the geo database.

if you, for whatever reason, find invalid reporting of IP addresses / IP location don't fret. i also notice the flash news has gone bonkers. if any of you find other misbehaving pages within this site, please do the following:

[1] blame monica
[2] send me an email to have them fixed

i finally have an appointment with a neurosurgeon this coming saturday. i will ask him to do what it takes to find the root of this back problem. i am sick of my lower back, it is worth about 21 pence now.