Hi There! 

Weekly Update

Here’s a log of what all happened in the current week.

STOCKS : Since I started investing in May 2005, this was the best week for my stocks. A lot of profit and an IPO subscription. My Allahabad Stock has been doing pretty well consistently. However, it shot up this week after it was ranked as the second best PSU bank. The good result also helped the boost. The most special was the leap of Radhe Developers. Just when I had started doubting my decision of buying this one, they declared results. A profitability of more than 70 % ! No wonder the stock rose almost 100% this week. I also subscribed to IDFC IPO. I am hoping that I get allocated.

Good news on the work front too. We had been working to optimize an OLAP query since the past few weeks. This week we got a small breakthrough.

The weekdays are over and the weekend now starts. A movie (most likely) Sarkar and a trip outside Pune is planned. Equally interesting is the cricket match going on : The first test between England and Australia. Though England did well in the first two sessions yesterday, Aus are well on top of the match right now. Kevin Pieterson played magnificently yesterday. Australia beat England easily in the last two one days to win the series and now look really confident to easily defend the Ashes.

I have been reading a book called “Vyakti Ani Valli” by P. L. Deshpande. An excellent book written by a great man! Highly recommended for those who haven’t yet read it. I actually hated the chapter “Ek chaukoni Ghar”, though. But overall, the book is a classic.

Philosophy

In a discussion that we had sometime back, we came across a situation where there was a comparison between two persons/families. Later when I thought about it, I found it extremely unfair to compare individuals. And the reasons are as follows :

- Different people have different expectations/objectives of their own lives. Given that, it is not correct to judge a person X from the point of view of person Y.
- Everyone sets his/her own rules that govern the way he lives. When the rules for two players are different, there cannot be a winner or a looser. The game is not at all a competition.
- Whenever a person X takes an action A, there are many reasons because of which he takes that action. These are his style of living, his preferences or definition of correctness and joy and also the constraints that he has imposed on himself. All these reasons for a person X can rarely be understood by a person Y.

While thinking about this I remembered a cool quote that I had come across sometime back. It says :
"Never get into a rat race. Because, even if you win, you are still a Rat!"

Some similar thought is also expressed in the Interview with God, a nice presentation, I think. Many of the quotes in the presentation are my favourites.

Cheers,
- Tosh

C r i c k e t : Latest

Hi Guys,

With Wimbledon and the Confederations cup over, all eyes are set on
the most awaited Ashes series in the history. Australia proved why
they are a champion side in the Natwest Championship after coming down
from two straight defeats from England and Bangladesh. However, there is no
doubt that they are playing far below their potential. Its the first
time for the past few years that this best and dominant team appears
to be losing its shine, slowly but surely.

While batting has been Australia's better department always, they have
failed miserably with the bat this season. This could be a temporary
lack of form from the big players like Heyden Ponting and Gilchrist,
or it could also be the start of end of the older players in their
team. The relatively newer players like Hussey and Symonds have been
stealing the show of late. Clarke, who was a big hit last season is off colour
nowadays.

Bowling has been a common weakness of this team. McGrath and Warne are
on their way of ageing out and Warne's reluctance to play in the ODI
puts a question mark over their bowling strngth - as could be seen from
the recent one day matches.

Its a funny game this, Cricket. A few days ago Australians had made
lots of comments about the England openers. They had specifically
pointed out Trescothick saying he had never fired against Australia.
Come Thursday and he cracked a smashing century! I saw the yesterday's
match and it was totally and completely dominated by England. It just
goes on to prove that England is now a huge force to reckon with in
International Cricket, the first time it has happened in more than
10-15 years. It has made the remaining two matches of the Natwest
series very interesting since Aus will go all out for a kill.

All said and done, its a perfect setup for the Ashes. I just love it
when someone kicks the Aussies, because they had become a giant and
unbeatable force for way too long. Thanks goodness England are
challenging them this big! Its good for the game.

Some comments about the recent changes in the One day rules by the ICC

1. The reasoning put forward is to bring some change in the age old
rules and also to increase the popularity of the game. I have lots of
objections here. The game is already gaining in popularity. Popularity
of ODIs has really not been an issue. Record crowds attend one day
matches at almost every venue in the world. Regarding the test
matches, their popularity has soared over the past few years I think.
The number of draws has reduced dramatically in the 4-5 years which
has led to a steady rise in the Test matches' following. Then were
these changes made just for the sake of it ?

2. The Powerplay. Now the field restrictions will be on for 20 overs
instead of 15. This I think is totally ridiculous. All they are trying
to do is to make life difficult for the bowlers and easier for the
batsmen with the hope that the audience will love the scoring. But its
simply not fair to the bowlers. All the rule changes in the past few
decades have been in favour of the batsmen. While the 15 over
restrictions makes it a lot of fun, 20 overs is a bit too much I feel.

What say others?

Cheers,
- Tosh

The First Posting...

Hi People.
I have been reading up a few blogs of some friends, relatives, etc. Thought of starting a blog of my own where I can post my thoughts, stories, favourites, experiences, advices and so on.

From the last few years, I have been experiencing a strong desire to write and write something meaningful. In this aspect, I think Blog is an excellent place to start with. Keep watching for a lot of serious stuff here in the future.

I love Cricket and there will be many postings here on Cricket. Other areas of interest are Politics, science, astronomy, Stock Market, Books, Sports in general and so on...

In the meanwhile, let me refer the people whose blogs I have been reading and who introduced me to this amazing virtual world. Here's the list :
http://namoona.blogspot.com/ [Mahesh Soundalgekar]
http://www.blurty.com/users/ashutosh [Ashutosh Joshi]
http://hitagooj.blogspot.com [Vivek Shende]
http://letsreason.rediffblogs.com [Rhishikesh Agashe]
http://outsourcee.blogspot.com [Sudarshan Purohit]
http://kharadpatti.blogspot.com [Mukul Joshi]

Thanks to you all,
- Tosh