Image … is nothing

It is what you are inside that matters!

Shopping online hurts your wallet

… especially if you visit Overstock often!

Looking for wall thermometer ...

... coming away with everything but that!

Tennis Buddies

For the last few months, I have been playing Tennis (doubles) once a week with three buddies. We are most definitely amateurs , but I sometimes like to compare ourselves with professionals (cricketers)!

Dude #1: He is definitely good (compared to our average level), but he definitely has his off-days. On any given day, he can boom in unreturnable serves (wide off the forehand corner or into the body) or serve double faults galore. His ground strokes can be precise, or they can pierce the bottom of the net or fly out of the court onto the road behind! If you play singles against him, all you need to do is keep the ball in play – he will do the rest. Is like Sehwag.

Dude #2: He is good but relatively predictable. His serves lack the punch of ‘Sehwag’ (above) but are precise. Rarely does he double fault, and rarely are his serves unreturnable either. His groundstrokes are precise and he can rally for quite some time without losing it! You have got to wrong foot him or outrally him to win a point. Is like Dravid.

Dude #3: He is better than me, but definitely unpredictable. He has a wicked backhand slice and no specific faults either on the forehand or the backhand side. ‘Dravid’ probably is a better groundstroke player, but this dude definitely has more of the unpredictability factor as to where his shots will land. His serves lack the ‘Sehwag’ punch, but – again because of their unpredictability – can result in more winners than the ‘Dravid’ serve. Is like Chandrashekhar.

Dude #4: And that leaves me. I am right about average, but steady. My serve is pathetic, but it is my only ploy to get the ball in play – that said, I would never serve underhand (I don’t count Michael Chang or Trevor Chappell among my idols). I can rally with the best of them on forehand groundstrokes, but my backhand I don’t want to talk about (I blame it on Racquetball). I love to run around the court, my weight notwithstanding, though I am clearly no Chang or Nadal. Once in a while, I try to vary my shots and – in general – I am working on improving the accuracy of my shots. I try not to beat myself – you gotta do the hard work (or serve an ace) to get a point out of me. I like to think of myself as Kumble .

If I were to play singles, Dravid is the best bet – we could keep rallying, like, forever! I hope I don’t get in trouble with ‘Sehwag’, ‘Dravid’ and Chandrashekhar’ now . As one of them once said (in jest, I should add), maybe I should get into Tennis coaching!

Photo quiz answer

I meant to put these photos up a couple of weeks ago, when “Me” responded with the correct answer. Better late than never …

P.S.: I don’t know what I am doing wrong, but I don’t understand why WP fails to align these photos!

From the grapevine of humour

[As related by the respective parents of the precious, precocious kids]
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As kids watched a video on TV, parents (in kitchen) were having a normal marital (i.e., exothermic) discussion. In a minute, the kid’s voice was heard (over the dual dins, i.e., parents + TV), telling older sibling: “It’s OK, they will be friends in a couple of minutes!”
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Daughter (to some friends): “Akka (older sister) is a good dancer, I am a good singer, and Appa is a good listener!”
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Keep the fun going in the New Year, kids and parents.

One Two Three Four Five – A Katya Tale

Katya is spending some quality time with her grandparents. Grandma is teaching her nursery rhymes that are either oh-so-20th century, or failed to cross the Atlantic, or have not yet reached Katya for some other reason.

[As narrated by Katya's Grandma]

Grandma: “One Two Three Four Five Once I caught a fish alive!”

Katya: “Did you really catch a fish, Grandma?!”

Grandma (playing along): “Yes I did.”

Katya: “Was grandpa helping you?”

Grandma (applies boolean logic): “No.”

Katya: “Where was he when you caught the fish?”

Grandma (to use a chess term … pinned, but escapes the check): “He had gone to the temple.”

[a little later, as observed by Grandma]

Katya (in a singsong voice with action): “One Two Three Four Five Six Seven … Once I caught a Swan!”

“Age is Just a Number”

The local library hosted five-time Olympian Dara Torres, and obviously, I had to go listen. Too bad Baab is not here right now; he would have loved to be there. Anyway, I got to record most of her motivational* talk (I hope there is no copyright on that; at least, the audience was not told not to record). Here is the first segment (all five segments are on YT):

Apologies for the relatively poor video; the emphasis, of course, is on the audio.

The audience loved her speech and, when I left, there was a really long line of kids queued up for autographs, book signing and photos.

* = Not that I am searching for motivation – my mother started her teaching career after she was 40, in the India of the 20th Century