NFL

Have you ever felt bad that the team that you supported lost a match and then watched the replay of the match to accept that they deserved to lose? The replays atleast showed as though the Vikings were trying hard to lose the match. Five turnovers in a championship match is a bit too much to take. I was hoping that Bret Favre will have a fairy tale end to his career. But he has to end his career (again) without much funfare.

When I started watching the Colts Vs Jets match, the Jets were leading 14-3. A disappointing start as I was supporting the Colts. But Peter Manning and the team turned the heat on and won comfortably. I will be favoring the Colts to win the SuperBowl and I guess that will be the thought of most NFL fans.

London

The Negotiator - Book Review

After reading The Afghan, I needed one good Frederick Forsyth novel to boost my liking for my favorite author. The Negotiator did not disappoint me. Yes, the ending was a bit too fast and a tad bland without the usual great twist to the tale, but the novel is worth reading just for the first 300 pages.

The Negotiator has its share of layers that Forsyth is famous for, but the layers are not as differentiated as I have seen in his other novels. This results in us being able to guess to a good degree on the relationship between the threads. The threads in the novel are:
1) Oil resources depleting in USSR (yes, the book was written during the period of the undivided Soviet republic) and the army chief planning to launch an attack on a Saudi nation
2) Oil resources depleting in USA and an oil tycoon evaluating alternate options to get oil
3) The new US president getting into a demilitarization deal with his soviet counterpart. The arms suppliers in US, the army personnel in the USSR and few others preparing to thwart the demilitarization plan
5) The planning of a coup in Saudi Arabia
6) A student in a university in England
7) Mercenaries from Belgium
8) A negotiator

I found the vintage Forsyth touches in these places:
a) The title of the novel gives the impression that most of the novel would be about the negotiation. But the fact that the negotiation ended half way into the novel was interesting
b) The "introduction" of the president's son in true Forsyth style
c) The dialogues in the flight from USA to UK wh the negotiator meets the CIA folks

It is a good novel with fast paced action. But I am a bit disappointed with some aspects of it.
a) I was expecting all threads to converge at the climax stages, but some of them ended early. The story of the banker in Arabia had the potential to build into something great, but just frittered away.
b) Of the numerous intelligent agents from the US and UK, I expected some one to do something astonishing. But they too turned out to be like the cops in Indian movies who just watch the hero handle the bad guys.
c) What was the part of the KGB except for giving the hero a good shave and some money?
d) What about the protagonist’s friends in Spain. Poor folks were mercilessly wasted in the novel

LCD TV - US to India

Based on my quick research (googling), following are some of the things to be considered in buying an LCD TV from US for use in India

1. US uses NTSC and India uses PAL: Options to solve this
   a. Buying a PAL to NTSC converter
   b. Having a VGA box. Dish TV in India provide a package with a VGA Set top box and it seems to work fine. All that is to be done is to check whether the TV has a PC Input option (VGA input).
   c. Connect the video source to an external TV Tuner box. From the TV Tuner box connect to any of the input sockets on TV other than the cable input (RF). This is the best possible way since the Remote provided by the Tuner box can be used to change channels.
   d. Other methods include using a DVD recorder with built in Tuner (PAL Tuner) and then connecting the cable directly to DVD Recorder, taking the output from DVD recorder to the TV. However, in this method the channels cannot be changed that easily.
2. 220V in India Vs. 110V in US
   a. Need to buy a step-down transformer for the TV
3. Warranty: Need to check if the warranty is international
4. Transportation:
   a. Possibility: It is not possible to carry the TV from US to India. Need to check if the manufacturers will ship it. Amazon and Walmart don’t seem to ship outside USA.
   b. Cost of shipping the TV
5. Customs: I heard that new TVs are charged at 30% of their price. Not sure if this is true.
6. 1080p Vs. 720p: This is resolution (like the mega pixels for digicams). The question is, would we need 1080p for the transmission in India. I believe 1080p is more for blue ray discs. The next question is, how soon will the blue ray technology come to India?
7. Deciding on the screen size:
   a. For 20 to 27-inch displays, you should be able to watch comfortably from 2.5 to 5 feet away.
   b. For 32 to 37-inch TVs, you should sit back 6 to 8 feet from the screen itself.
   c. For 42 to 46-inch TVs, you'll need 10 to 14 feet between you and the screen.
   d. 50-inch LCD displays look best when viewed from 12 to 16 feet away.

Cape Cod - II

(Part1 of this post is at http://ramanuj.blogspot.com/2009/02/cape-cod-i.html)

The next place in our itinerary was supposed to be our prime destination - the
Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary. The wildlife had a different meaning from what we had imagined. I guess we should not have overlooked the statement in the website, "While the resident deer and fox may elude you, sanctuary wildlife also includes turtles, frogs and fiddler crabs". Frogs and Crabs for wildlife? Blistering barnacles! When I enquired at the front desk about wild life they said that we will not get to see most of them during the day, and that we will see birds and if we take the longer trail then we will get to see........ Geese! But the initial disappointment apart, the place is truly scenic. In the clutches of winter the sanctuary glistened with its frozen lakes and sheared trees. The evening sun provided a beautiful streak of light through the branches of the trees and the odd sounds from the birds added to the beautiful ambience. I only wish I could be here during fall.

A trip to Cape Cod without a visit to the beaches? No way. The kind lady at the sanctuary's front desk suggested the First Encounter beach to us. The beach had nice layers in the sand that looked markedly different from what I have observed back at home. Other than the beauty of the sun at dusk, the only other thing of note there was the water that gave us a lil surprise. We were standing close to the waters and noticed that the land where we were standing was fast becoming an island as water started filling the area behind us. But nothing to worry, it would have possibly raised to just about a foot. But then, was something to think back on.

All in all it was good trip and we were happy to hit the road after so many months of staying indoors. Cape Cod is good now; it would most probably be great during summer/fall.

Cape Cod - I

Some trips are remembered because of the marvel of the places visited and some are remembered just for the travel and the friends. The trip to Cape Cod was of the latter type. After staying indoors for all of winter we decided to make a trip to any place to celebrate the last week of being together as one of our friends was bidding adieu. Well, I am tempted to say that it was more to console him than to celebrate as he is going to India to lose his bachelorhood. But then, that's a totally different subject.

We made the plans on the eve of the travel. Desperate googling revealed few places that sounded great and we made a decent plan to cover 3 of the 4 regions in Cape Cod (the upper cape, lower cape, mid cape and outer cape). The route to the different places was sandwiched between trees that would have looked astounding during summer or fall. They did not look too bad even in their winter outlook of baldness either.

The first place that we visited was en route in Rhode Island. There was a flower and garden show that happens only for 4 days every year, may be to mark the beginning of summer. The show was pretty good with nice arrangements of flowers varying from a simple bouquet to the garden in front of the Eiffel tower. There were also many vendor shops for garden set-up and maintenance and other miscellaneous shops. The place was good, but I don't think it was worth the $17 entry fee.

The second place that we visited was the Cape Cod natural history museum. The website suggested it would be a good place to watch the flora and fauna of Cape Cod, but we got a different opinion when we reached there. A discussion with the person at the front desk revealed that the place was not what we expected it to be and she was kind enough to suggest that we can go on the John Wing's trail at the museum if the exhibits do not interest us. The trail lead us through woodlands into a marsh land and then to the beach. The place reminded us of villages back home. Wonder why we do not make those as tourist destinations.

To be continued

Muslim Law

The Pakistan government has made a deal with TNSM (a militant organization in Pakistan) to impose Shariat law in seven districts of the North West Frontier Province. The western nations are raising voices against the deal. But this blog is not about whether the deal was right or wrong. I merely want to understand as to what Shariat is?

Like Hinduism, Islam also has different variants. The major ones are Sunni and Shia. The Sunni Muslims follow an elected leader and the Shia Muslims follow a leader who is supposed to be appointed by God or the Prophet. Both the divisions follow the Quran. From my understanding the Quran contains compressed information and Shariat was formed to provide rules for all activities in life. But if Shariat is the Islamic law, shouldn't it be already active throughout Pakistan? What is this new thing about implementing Shariat in the north eastern province?

My guess is that Shariat is an old school of thought and was replaced by the Modern Islamic law, and that the Shia Muslims are trying to get Shariat back. Guess I need to do some background research on this.

Tit bit: India and the Philippines are the only countries in the world which have separate Muslim civil laws

Update (20-July-2009) based on inputs from a friend:

Islamic rules are based on 2 things - Quran & Hadith
Quran is revealed from Allah and everything in that is mandatory for a person to follow.
Hadith are the sayings of Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon Him) . Among Hadith there are few which are mandatory to follow and some are optional.

So Quran & Hadith together define way of life for Muslims and also Quran & Hadith lay down rules and regulations for an Islamic form of Government. Islamic form of governments donot have a constitution written by Human beings. Rather rules laid down in Quran & Hadith are followed for running the government (This is the basis of Shariat form of government).
Now coming to countries like Pakistan, they have their own constitution (which is not in accordance with quran & Hadith) . Hence it cannot be termed as an Islamic Country for their system isnot Shariat compliant ( i.e, based on Quran & Hadith).
So for a country to be termed as an Islamic country the constitution of the country should be in compliance with Quran & Hadith, that is, it should be shariat form.

Wheat Vs Rice

Whenever the talk about fitness comes, my friends ask me to shift from rice to wheat. I have been curious for some time about the nutritional values of both the cereals. Few clicks in wikipedia gave the required values. The below comparison is on the expected lines except for the fat content, which is quite a surprise.

If we consider the Indian diet, apart from the above absolute values I guess we have to consider the fact that we would eat less grams of Chapathi than rice. That would be a substantial reduction in calories straight away.