...And its a rap!

A legend of American Television, Jay Leno has finally called it a night! After 17 years at the helm of "The Tonight Show", Jay handed over the reins of "The Tonight Show" to an equally talented Conan O' Brien.

Jay's show was on Star Plus or maybe Star World when cable television in India started getting a move on and I have been a viewer ever since. His show was my only source of "American Culture" then and it has helped me to no ends when I interact with Americans or folks in US on a daily basis as part of my work. Yes, the idiot box actually helped me with my work! I have since used Google to help me keep abreast with the happenings in US, but I never miss a chance to catch up with Jays show as I channel surf.

Jay was quick-witted, smart and bold! He will have to attribute a lot of his fame to his excellent script writers who always gave him the best of jokes on a daily basis. When the writers guild went on strike in late 2007, early 2008, the quality of Jays jokes went noticeably down and he made no attempt to hide the fact that his regular writers were not around to give him the "good stuff".

Adios to a great comedian and an excellent host...

They exist...

... yup they really do!! I am talking about colleagues who do next to no work and yet somehow not only manage to evade being caught but manage to get lauded by peers for doing a good job! Its difficult to corner them on anything as they have some standard areas to hide, where no one has gone before and never will!

ok.. now for the fun part!

A mandate...

... like no other in recent past.

Lok Sabha 09 was the first time I voted in "any" form of elections and this was probably the reason why I followed the results as intently as I did. Karnataka again voted to not be in sync with the centre! The mandate that resulted was quite surprising, since I just didn't expect the UPA or for that matter the Congress to do as well as it did. But what suprised me more and quite happy that I was, the fringe players who thought they were more than fringe players have been shown their place. Mayawati almost made it look like she just deserved to be sitting in the PM seat, now with some 20 something seats, she can just forgot about it for a while. The communists who were quite arrogantly bossy after their good showing in the last elections have got their worst number of seats ever, if I recall right. And the list goes on... Lalu, Paswan, Gowda(s) or even Mulayam, have all been shown their place.

What this means is that Congress has a free hand for most part in the running of the Government and the decisions to be made. Good or bad... time will tell.

Now, thats Royal!

Never thought I would see this, at least not in this edition of IPL! The Royal Challengers Bangalore are in the semis of IPL 2009! Yes, yes, you read it right... the co-whipped boys of last year have pulled off the real coup. They have beaten the top 3 teams in the last 3 games and in the process ended up in the top 3!

Hats off to Kumble... that guy is just such a fighter!!

Finally...

Watching IPL has been fun... though I have been only catching glimpses, the sheer mega feeling of the event and the intensity that big money gets from everybody (owners, players, rivals, commentators, coaches etc etc) is worth watching!

Our very own Royal Challengers, the team that we have to support, started off this year too just as badly as last year. Kevin Petersen couldn't do much and it was up to the old warhorses, Kumble and Dravid, who have been the best performers in the team. Just when I was losing interest (again!), they beat Kolkata Knight Riders (this years super strugglers, no thanks to Buchanan) in an unabsorbing yet tight encounter. Todays match between RC and Kings XI Punjab was a forgone conclusion in my mind. With no KP or Dravid, and the team playing 3 wicket keepers (Boucher, Sreevats and Uthappa), I didnt expect much. The batting was patchy, but thanks to some wierd and lusty hitting my Van De Merve, RC got to a decent total. They surprisingly followed this up with an exceptionally good performance on the field and a decent bowling show.

The first worthy win in this IPL season for RC and hopefully a turning point in the the teams fortunes!

Loooong Hiatus!

Not a single post in the month of April... I actually achieved it! :-) Though I wasn't gunning for it, I was overwhelmed by work at home, work at office and then some more additional responsibilities at home. :-)

Anywayz... time to get back onto the saddle.