Mission Boston: the beginning

I started running about 7 years ago. I ran the inaugural Bombay Half Marathon in 2004. I had never run beyond 8 km before that. I ran the Bombay Marathon in 2005 (when I had run a maximum of 26 km in training) and have run it every year since then. Ever since I began running seriously which is to say, since I realized that marathons are serious business after my 1st one, I have wanted to exceed personal milestones, each time I run.

Starting sometime later this year, I shall attempt to qualify for the Boston Marathon. The qualifying time for my age group is 3 hr 10 min. To borrow part of a quote from The Gladiator, I shall do everything I can to meet that "... in this life or the next"

This new set of posts will attempt to document my journey to get there.

I intend to take time off work and train hard. Will need a lot of help getting there. All advice is welcome, especially of the running sort.

There is also a plan to retrace part of the Tour De France on a bicycle sometime in the next few years along with a buddy, but that will wait till Boston is done with.

Wish me luck (I might even need your money!)

Lovely South American Ads

From Peru
From Argentina

The Peru one made me cry and be happy at the same time on a Sunday night. Awesome stuff

Dark Knight

The Batman saga continues. This movie is the slickest in recent memory with the attendant gizmos (watch for the super stunt with the bike going up against the wall and turning around, a la Jackie Chan), villains, strong characters and an unusually hubristic Batman.

Aaron Eckhart was so good I thought he was playing a double role as the Joker! See the movie to see what he does.

The movie has a an excellent scene towards the end which has neither Batman, nor the Joker and is still amongst the best in the movie. It is full of scenes and amazing lines, most of which are delivered by the Joker (My favourite being "Do I look like someone who plans?!" when he is accused by someone of planning a lot of doom)

And no, the batsuit has no nipples this time round. But you will still love it even if you are not a Bat-Fan. As my pal put it, there were bombs on screen, but even as I watched, the bomb squad was busy defusing another one of those deadly bombs just outside my theatre!

Too much excitement for 1 day.

Bangalore Blasts

Violence has reared its ugly head in my dear city as there have been 9 bomb blasts of a low intensity, with 2 deaths at the time of my posting this blog.

I am hoping the city recovers and the offenders get caught. It is tragic to see that people are crowding around areas to see TV crews eventhough (thankfully) the damage caused by the blasts have been limited. The poor city police need all the help they can get. So it would help if people didn't panic and carried on with minimal fuss, rather than create more traffic jams.

For those who have called, messaged or mailed, thank you for asking. Am safe and so are my dear and near ones.

the beatles and CT scans?!

apparently the success of the beatles helped fund research into CT
scans by EMI which owned a research establishment!

one of the occasional joys of my consulting job is finding stuff like this to read while you are desperately hunting for data

Sunday Shopping, Weekend Madness, Compulsive buying,...

Call it what you want. But I had to go out and treat myself to some new books, courtesy credit card points,...

The Dangerous Book for Boys by Gonn & Hal Iggulden
Riding through the Storm by Geoff Thomas
Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami

The 1st one above is a red hard covered book whose back cover says "Recapture Sunday afternoons and long summer days. The perfect book for every boy from eight to eighty." It includes detailed instructions on how to make a paper plane, Latin phrases every boy should know, Finding Direction with a watch, Girls and of course, Books every boy should read, amongst an assortment of delights.

The 2nd one was bought for getting inspired as well as to aid me whenever I embark upon my French cycling holiday being planned for some years now. It narrates the heroic story of the footballer, Geoff Thomas fighting against cancer and doing the Tour in 2005.

The 3rd was bought on the recommendation of a pal and has a scandalous cover pic amongst other curious things about it!

Of course, today also marked the return of a dear pal from the US, with 2 pairs of our newest New Balance shoes. Hurrah, Boston here I come.

More soon, ...

Shining Eye - Classical Music

Benjamin Zander expounds on classical music. Heartwarming stuff
Hat tip to Sameer

Piano Man

I am currently merrily singing along with Billy Joel, one of his most popular songs. It is as timeless as his We didn't start the fire or She's always a woman to me...

Nice Running Site

Here are just 2 links from the site. Super fun

10 signs you may be a runner ( I agree with 6 :) )

Take a Dump in your pants if you need to!

Hat tip to Dibyo

Booty from Premier

Thanks to the coupons from Premier from the KQA anniversary quizzes, here's what I got home today

Great Speeches of Modern India (edited by Rudrangshu Mukherjee)
The World according to Groucho Marx by David Brown
Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham

Yippie Yo!

Advertising Peeves

Occasionally, I get quite pissed with consumers' intelligence being insulted (atleast in my opinion).
My current peeve is with the HDFC Standard Life ad.

In the Hindi version, the daughter who gives her dad a cheque is named "Toolika Sharma" and in the supposedly Kannada version, which is dubbed in quite a pathetic manner, the name is "Arati Krishnan." Couldn't the advertisers have reshot the ad? Can't they atleast redo the ad with better lip syncing?

I don't see myself buying the product.

Here is my one-line for the day " if i don't have fire in the belly, will gas do?!"

Indian Coffee House - Days Numbered

Yet another cherished landmark in Bangalore is on its way to a slow death. As one of the waiters conveyed (with an expression tinged with sadness but with a smile on his face,) the lease on the location that ICH currently sits on, has expired. As a result, ICH is going to cease to exist!

Damn! There must be some way to prevent all this. Maybe some uber rich Bangalorean who reads this will buy out the location and let ICH stay :( Or maybe, they will find some new location like Dwaraka did after moving out of Bull Temple Road.

I wanted to post about the coupons I gained on the weekend at the KQA anniversary quizzes, but this kind of pooped the party :(