Tuesday 25 November 2008

Post Its

Here are some of the things I want to Blog about:

How to ruin a perfectly deserved Holiday!
My Pathetic attempt at "belling" the CAT
My Lost Love..
My final Semester at College
My new Found Love
The biggest crush of my life, returning, only to be better and muchos cuter
My New found interest in Death Metal
Scrubs
Chandrayaan
My attempt at listening to every single song in my System (brought it down to almost a thousand from 2k)

anyways.. here's where my newly acquired and much deserved laziness kicks in and I say:

"what has 2 thumbs and doesn't give a crap? Hi, Karthik here, Nice to meet you!!" :D

Thursday 6 November 2008

Michael Crichton

Just when I thought I have to stop spending much time online, the News of Michael Crichton's Death made me post this.

Crichton is one of my favourite authors. I'm not a huge book person. I've read very few books, definitely just in double digits. Crichton's contribution to that number is pretty huge. I've read mostly all his Fictions except Andromeda Strain (Which I started and couldn't sit through).

The first book that I ever read in my life, in 8th std, was "Jurassic Park". Sci-fi pulled me and Crichton became my fav author. I carried on with "Lost World" and then moved on to other books of his. Any bookworm would tell you that it's a bad idea to read a certain authors' books consecutively, but I did exactly that. I read many of his books, "Prey", "Timeline", "Airframe", "Sphere", "Great Train Robbery" and such.

The science in it kept me glued to his books. A few concepts or things that I read in his books have stuck to my mind for long. Like the Chaos Theory explained by Ian Malcolm in "Jurassic Park", the concept of Parallel Universe in "Timeline", the Herd Behaviour in "Prey", the detailed description of Aircrafts and precisely, the Black boxes (Which are actually Orange!) from "Airframe"!

I am going to miss him. A definite loss to the Book World.

Wednesday 5 November 2008

*This Person Has Stepped Away From His Computer*

Off. Till the end of CAT and Sem Exams. Till 19th of November ie..

Monday 3 November 2008

The 2008 Brazilian GP

Well, it’s finally starting, the Brazilian GP is finally here. I want Massa to win obviously. Let’s see what happens! Steve Slater and Karun Chandok are commentating.
6 Mins to Lights Out...

Well, just when people thought this Brazilian GP couldn’t get any more dramatic, the Rain Gods start to dance. Rain, with just 4 mins left for the Warm-Up Lap. This is gonna be awesome I tell you.

The question that’s killing every Race Team Head: Slicks or Intermediates?
Delayed Start thanks to Rain. Delayed by 10 minutes.

Some facts about a Formula 1 car. ½ a ton, 700-800 Hp, 0-200 Mph in, wait for it, 2 seconds! Even better, 200-0 in 3 seconds! We kinda take it for granted, how much of an awesome piece of Technological Brilliance a Formula 1 car really is.
Oh, and I just remembered that this is David Coulthard’s final Race. DC’s retiring after this race. We are gonna miss that Square Jawed Scot!

2 mins:
Warm Up lap starts. With water on the track, it’s going to be tough getting the tires up to temperature.

START!!!

Amazing start, Massa clean as usual. Nakajima and Piquet jnr tangle into each other and the Yellow Flags and the Safety Car are out. DC crashes out too. Pity. That’s not the way he would’ve wanted to end his final GP ever. As the safety car comes out, the top 4 stay just the same. Vettel creeps up behind Kovailenen and is on 5th at present.

Rains stop to pour and the Track is pretty much dry.

First fastest lap from Massa, still 6 seconds off the Qualifying pace, but given the rain, that is Still pretty quick! And I don’t think even Steve Slater noticed, but Sutil is up on to 13th after starting from 19th!!

Massa in the Pits! 6.5 seconds, clean stop and he joins in behind Hamilton. Not a biggie, Hamilton’s gotta hit the pits too. Now, pitting are Kimi and Lewis! Massa takes back the lead. Trulli does an awesome job of denying Lewis the opportunity to overtake him in the pits. And what do we have here, Fisichella is in P 5!!!!! We have Cars spinning all over the place, Massa leads and Hamilton is on P 6. Fisichella is racing bloody awesome, as fast as the Ferraris and the McLarens and he is denying Hamilton the Championship as of now!!! Vijay Mallya must be having a Heart Attack!
16 laps over.

Massa does another fastest lap as the race moves into what should’ve been the normal pit window, but given the Rain, the pit schedule has gone for a total toss. And race control says, rain expected in 20 mins. And Hamilton overtakes Fisichella. Clean Sling Shot thanks to the massively long home straight. Vettel sets the Fastest Lap Now from P 2 and his engineer says “No More rain expected!” Contradictory, but let’s see what happens. Fisichella down to 8th as everybody overtakes him, nothing surprising there. Vettel does an awesome job of tailing Massa. He’s pushing him, that is good for both of them as Massa will be able to pull away from Hamilton.

24 laps done. 47 left.

27 laps done as Vettel goes into the Pits. Strange, cuz he was there on lap 9, a 4 stop strategy?? Vettel rejoins at P6 as Hamilton moves to P 4 and Fisichella down to P 8. Glock sets a Fastest lap, he’s surprisingly light on fuel, dry tank! :P Massa sets the fastest lap again, that’s more like it. The commentators go silent as Massa’s Ferrari takes on the Home straight. Silence, except for the gorgeous V8 revving at the 7th gear, 320 kmph and 19000 rpm! Bliss!!

Next round of Pits, lap 36. Glock first in. A pitiful pit for him, 14 secs. He was seriously about to challenge Hamilton for P 4 but the mistakes in the pit cost him that place. The Ferrari pit crew get ready for Massa. No mistakes there, 9.8 secs, he rejoins at P 4 and Alonso leads, only for a short period of time though, he’s still gotta pit. Hamilton and Alonso into the pits. Please let it flop for Lewis! :P Damn, 9 secs, fine pit and he rejoins at P 6. After the front runners pit, he’ll be back to P 4 I guess. Sad stuff.

29 laps left. Raikonnen pits. 8.3 secs for Raikonnen. Clean for him and he rejoins the race in P 4. P 5 is Hamilton, awesome stuff. Pressure is back on Hamilton. As they stand, Hamilton will win it by a point, but that isn’t gonna happen as Massa is going to be the Championship. :D Don’t ask me how! :P
23 laps left as Vettel is back on 2nd and Alonso is on 3rd. Some problems for Fisichella as he slows down miserably and goes back to P 15. Gearbox problems say the Commentators. 2nd place Vettel pits as he leads the pack of the front runners pits. Rest to follow. Massa’s driving a perfectly Flawless Race. Seriously awesome stuff from the young Brazilian.

Massa, Alonso, Raikonnen, Hamilton and Vettel.

And 15 laps left, Rain Expected!!! Will this change the whole race?? I hope so! And Vettel is menacing behind Hamilton.

“Could rain in 10 mins, could rain in 10 mins” say Kubica’s Engineer.

12 laps left, if rain falls as expected, that gives us 5 or 6 laps of spinning and crashing (Hamilton will be one of them! :P)

“Few Spots falling down” says Alonso over the Radio to his Engineer. Awesome Stuff.

I love this! :D

Heidfeld pits and switches into Intermeds! That’s some Gamble! Aaaaaand, we have Rain.

Kimi and Alonso in the pits. Huge huge Gamble. Hamilton pits too. Vettel pits. WOW! Massa stays out, biggest Gamble ever! Massa pits. Damn! Clean as a Whistle. Massa LEADS. Ferrari is back on the Pit Strategy!!! Hamilton is in 5th. 4 laps left. Vettel is the Pivot now. On him rests the Championship! Brilliant stuff. YESSSSSS YES YESYE EYEYEYEYEYSYEHOIVHF.KG BAWEGAERG ASELK GH

Hamilton is down to 6th. THIS IS AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME. Kubica does the Damage for Hamilton. Kubica just overtook both Hamilton and Vettel and in that confusion, Vettel overtakes Hamilton. This is Kubica unlapping himself remember, he is getting his revenge. Hamilton’s gotta overtake Vettel if he wants to win the title.
1 lap left, vettel still leads Hamilton, this is awesome. GO MASSA!!!! 2 corners left for Massa. He can do it. Vettel runs into some traffic, but gets past them cleanly. Massa wins the race and is seconds away from clinching the title. This is unbelievably awesome. This is Legendary.

THAT’S IT. MASSA WINS, Alonso 2nd, Raikonnen 3rd, Glock 4th, Vettel 5th and Hamilton 6th. The Championship is Massa’s. This is just brilliant. Massa WINS THE CHAMPIONSHIP!!!

But wait. No. Glock slows down. Karun Chandok is the Only one who notices that. Glock slows down and I think he’s run out of fuel!!! He had last pitted on lap 36, he’s run out of FUEL! Would you believe that??? That puts Hamilton in P5 and he wins the title!! I do NOT believe this. Karun Chandok seems to be the only person in the whole world to notice this!

Massa celebrates for just 15 seconds, he thought he won the title. I thought he won the title. My bro thought he had won the title. We had just woken up the whole neighbourhood by Hooting to Glory The Whole of Brazil thought Massa had won the title. But Timo Glock, the person who had absolutely nothing to do with the championship just cost Massa the title.

My mind isn’t equipped to take this in. Massa WON and yet , he Lost. I just don’t know what to say. I mean, this is unbelievable. If anything, Massa had just raced one of the Perfectly flawless races in the History, he did everything right. He had rightly said before the race started that he would be pushing for the race win and he’ll leave the rest to fate. But I am sure that when he said “rest”, he definitely didn’t expect this to happen!

Unbelievable.

That’s the Only word that comes out of my head now.

Lewis Hamilton is the New Formula 1 World Champion.

Did he deserve it? That’s a totally different question. Did Massa deserve it? That’s a completely different question altogether. If you ask me, it was anybody’s taking. Both of them made lots of mistakes all throughout the season. Running into each other, getting penalties. If either Massa or Hamilton reflects back to the season as a whole, they’d obviously remember the last 20 secs of the Brazilian GP, but apart from that, they’d singularly be thinking of all the Mistakes and the Penalties that they could’ve so easily avoided. But that’s Racing, that’s Formula 1.

At the Press Conference, Massa says : “This is Racing. I know how to Win, I know how to Lose”

That says it all folks. One of the Best seasons Formula 1 has ever produced. I am totally famished and out of words and My Brain has just stopped working. As Steve Slater so aptly put it “Those were the best 15 seconds of Formula 1 in the past 20 years”.