What a beautiful weekend

It's Sunday night and as I often - here is the weekend update. I played about 7 hours of Vball in total this weekend. Nearly for 4 hours yesterday and another 3.5 today. All beach. All afternoon at Ashbridges Bay. It was absolutely great. Yesterday I played with complete strangers (we had about 15 people in total) so there was some subbing going on. Today, I played with buddies - some Marathi posse, UW posse and High School posse. There were 12 of us so we had perfect 6 on 6 and it worked out so awesome. Other than the ghetto volleyball net that we were using. I can't wait until next weekend. I hope the weather is even nicer cause I wanna get out again.

I was spiking really well today - much better than I've ever spiked before - it felt so good. Sparks, Tchao and I were a solid team in the last game of 3 on 3. We had some nice bump, set, spike - 3 hit volleyball and it felt great.

Can't wait to get out again soon! Beach Volleyball is my new favourite summer sport.

I am whiped out though and I've got a 4 hour drive to visit a customer tomorrow. I guess that means...time for bed.

It's Saturday and there is NO rain

I can't believe it. I woke up this morning and it's like Christmas in May. Every weekend for the past month has been gross but today it is beautiful. I am going to play volleyball down by the beach and then I might go for a run. Then, tonight it's all about Game 3 of the Flames - Lightning series.

Last night, I watched two movies. I saw Once Upon a Time in Mexico. I thought it was quite an entertaining movie. It had this serious element of the story but it was done in kind of a parady format which made it amusing. Johnny Depp was hilarious - his character of course was unique like all his other roles - he got to put his own style into it. The scenes of Mexico were quite nice as well...

I also saw Spiderman yesterday for the first time. Also, an entertaining movie and now I wanna see Spiderman 2 in a month. The story was good and I've heard from comic books fans that they were quite accurate to the original story. Tobey Maguire did a good job in the role of Peter Parker. I liked the film.

Well, enough of sitting at my computer on such a nice day...Time to get outside!
Have a good one.

Notice of Omission

I was reminded that I failed to recap one of the events of last weekend. I am sorry to all involved and hope that you accept my apology. What I missed talking about was the much anticipated KKK weekend extravaganza. Now, you may be thinking...what is that brown boy doing talking about that acronym. Well, it actually stands for Krazy Ketan's Karnival. It was a Marathi reunion of sorts with Kdot, G, Ashwat and Myself chilling out for an evening. Except this time, it was in a venue other than one of our parents homes. We were at Kdot and Raq's new place. Our first venture over there as a group since the painting weekend back about a month ago. We had a great time bbqing, playing Xbox (me at tennis, them at halo), playing poker (g continued the theory that first timers in texas hold 'em almost always win) and watching some movies - especially Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Great weekend with the boys as always. We were lazy and pathetic at times which made it even better. Didn't sleep till about 6:00 am on Monday morning so that really killed most of this week as a result. However, it was totally worth it.

Now, it's bed time cause I gotta be in London tomorrow morning by 9:00 am. It's 12:00 midnight now so that means I am only going to get 6 hours of sleep. That really sucks!

What Happened?

I was back on the blogging tip for a while and then fell off the bandwagon once again. The last little while has been a little hectic so I guess that explains. This weekend was May 2-4 Weekend and definitely great. It was the perfect chill out weekend. I didn't get enough sleep but I will be going to bed early tonight so hopfully I'll catch up a little.

My cough is back so that is no good. And, I've been sneezing like nobody's business cause of my allergies.

We are painting the main floor, upstairs hallways and 2 bathrooms in our house starting this week so the last while has been a lot of packing up stuff and moving furniture around (mostly to the basement). The painting starts tomorrow and will probably go on until the weekend. I think we'll be doing a lot of spring cleaning next weekend when we are unpacking everything and putting it all back. I also wanna try out my interior design skills - let's see what I can come up with.

I've got a number of dinner reviews for y'all but no time to right them now. The restaurants include Oro, Springrolls and Deerhurst resort.

GO FLAMES GO!!!

so long folks...

ER is killing me

Okay...so that was quite a season finale. In case some of you are big fans of the show, I won't ruin it right now but man - that was quite an ending. I can't believe I have to wait all summer and into next Fall until I find out what happened. I was thinking about it tonight...this show has really changed in terms of quality over the years. No longer is it a medical show. There is more going on outside the hospital - custody hearings, affairs, love triangles, drive-bys, gang issues, family stuff - it just never ends (only when someone's gotta perform some medicine every now and then). I hope that Neela (Parminder Nagra's) character is back again next year.

Indian Election Results

There will be a new government in India. Today, the current Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee resigned as the early results of the vote came in. It was clear that his party had lost and the Congress party would be taking over (but not by a majority). Sonia Gandhi (the widow of the late Rajiv Gandhi, daughter in law of the late Indira Gandhi and granddaughter in law of the late Nehru). All of those mentioned previously were former Prime Ministers at one point (in the past 60 years). Nehru was the first. Both Rajiv and Indira were assassinated. Based on what I'm reading and what I've heard from my parents, people are skeptical of how Sonia Gandhi will do. Her entire campaign seems to have been focused on the "untouchables". Basically, that is the lowest caste in India - all the homeless, illiterate, famished, etc. By sheer numbers alone - a strategy like that should work (and it did). Many of those people who voted can't read or write so I have my suspicions on how they can actually make a fair (unassisted) decision. We'll have to see how things play out over the next little while...

One more thing

Happy Birthday yesterday Flo! I'm looking forward to chilling old skool styles this weekend in Udub.

Beach Wolleyball

Had my first game tonight as I mentioned this morning. I am playing in the Toronto East Sport and Social Club and decided to join the league as an individual this time around. Figured it would give me a good chance to work on my game as well as meet some new peeps. I got there early so I was waiting around for the rest of my teammates. Slowly they started trickling in. Some promising players, others not so much (I fit in between those two categories). So, how was my team you ask? Not so good, I answer. We lost all 5 games today so we will be seeded quite low (since today was a round robin). That might turn out to be in our favour though because we'll be against some easier teams. Once we get our act together, we might hopefully click cause we definitely had flashes of brilliance.

When it comes to beach volleyball, I've noticed that I LOVE to dig and dive everywhere. I was covered in sand by the end of it...in my eye, in my mouth, up my nose, down my shorts - sand everywhere. And as a result...it got all over my car too.

Hopefully our next games go a lot smoother.

E-mail Issues

As has happened to others...my uwaterloo e-mail address is all done. I was having problems connecting to the server and downloading mail so I recently just bumped it from out Outlook Mail Servers. Two things have happened as a result. My junk mail has significantly dropped (a good thing) but my regular mail has also gone down. I'm not sure why though because everyone uses my "canada.com" address to the best of my knowledge. I don't know anyone that was using my uwaterloo address. I suppose I just like getting e-mail and now that I'm not getting as much...it seems less.

Now I still have that little issues of a website that I have to take care of... Rather, stuff I need to change like adding the ability to view/store pictures, make comments, etc.

I've got my first beach volleyball game tonight at Ashbridge's.
Hopefully it doesn't rain! But, I think it will...

Colour Blind and Apartment Blind (if that is possible)

I just spent the last hour looking at different Benjamin Moore Colour Swatches. We are painting many rooms of our house this month and have to select the colours. Man...it is difficult to decide b/w colours like Arctic Sunshine, Auburn Mist, $hit $tain, Burnt Toast and Blue Thunder. You look at one, envision it in light and then realize that you've gotta look at it in natural light as well as darkness as well. There are so many permutations and you have to make sure they go well with your furniture, carpet, etc.

Un a somewhat related note, my dad and I looked at several apartments tonight. We saw a couple interesting places but for the most part - nothing really jumped out. Anything around that Queen's Quay/Harbourfront area is cool to look at but functionally, the units are so small and they are asking for too much. Some of the newer buildings are especially tiny while they try to compensate by having nice fixtures and newer appliances, etc. I really feel like I am back at square one when it comes to this apartment/condo search. I am still trying to decide b/w buying or renting. Can't really make up my mind. And in the end...it all comes down to location, location, location.

Monday...the day after Sunday

Happy Belated Mom's day mom. I know we didn't really do too much for ya yesterday with all the chaos going on. I guess it must have been okay though to at least have your two sons home. I certainly enjoyed having the whole family together for the first time in a while. For those of you that don't know, my brother was visiting from London, England all of last week. He just went home yesterday. It was cool to have him around and fun to hang out. One of his best friends, Anand, was getting married so all week there was a tonne of stuff going on for the wedding. The Kelvaan, Haldi ceremony, Catholic Wedding, Hindu ceremony and finally the reception. It was quite a busy week but also a very fun one.

Tonight, I went to Ankita's place after work cause I wanted to go for a walk and play with her. We went to the park with her mom and grand mother. There were a bunch of kids all running around the park so that was a lot of fun to sit back and observe. Kids are so innocent. They are also very mischievous and tricky. I absolutely love Ankita and don't want her to leave but her family is moving to New Jersey in a couple of months and she'll be gone pretty much forever. I will only see her a few times a year (if that) so that really stinks. Tonight she kept saying "I love you" and "I want to give you a kiss". It was great. Long time now...since a girl said that to me :o)

Last week in talking to my brother, I was trying to get ideas of my next vacation. I am thinking Peru (Inca trail, Macu Pinchu) or maybe Costa Rica or perhaps Brazil. Still so many ideas. Gotta keep thinking of it and decide shortly I guest. It'll probably be in July or August (depending on my vacation schedule).

Captain Mats

All those tools who say that Mats Sundin is not a true captain deserve to cheer for the Phoenix Coyotes or New York Rangers. They are not hockey fans and don't know what they are talking about. Sundin showed his true leadership skills in this year's playoffs. Yeah, he took a dumb penalty at the start of the third last night but he also helped out on the first goal and scored the tying goal himself. I just read this interesting article about Sundin in Toronto Life. Take a look...it's a bit of insight into his past (in Sweden and with Quebec prior to his trade to Toronto).

Mats is the captain of this team. He needs a supporting cast and this summer...there will be plenty of changes to the roster. I hope that Niewendyk and Roberts are both back although I wouldn't mortgage the team to resign them. I hope they are reasonable in their salary demands/expectations because only that will allow the Leafs to get some other very needed pieces of the puzzle.

The PAIN and joy of being a Toronto Maple Leaf fan

First off...my apologies for not writing anything for the past 8 days. It's been a hectic week and a bit and I've done a tonne of stuff. But how can I write about anything else right now?

The Toronto Maple Leafs season is over. They lost tonight 3-2 in OT and the Philadelphia Flyers won the second round series 4 games to 2. The Leafs made a valiant effort to get back in this game tonight. They were down 2 - 0 after one period. They outplayed Philly in the second and were still behind. Then, in the third they slowly started clawing back. With about 10 minutes left - Pilar scored the first one. Then with about 5 minutes left, Sundin tied it. The place was going nuts. With about 1:30 left on the clock, there was a centreing pass and Domi redirected it to the open side of the net. Esche stuck his pad out and stopped it. Overtime was just around the corner. Chances back and forth in OT and finally J.R. scored on a 2 on 1 with a beautiful shot to the top corner that beat Belfour.

Crazy ending to this game...
Crazy ending to this season...

Some observations:
- Nikolai Antropov has to be let go. Even if we get nothing for him...he is a waste of space and must go. He floats around the ice. Pat Quinn is continually loyal to him (and I'm not sure why) but he continues to put him out there for his regular shift. He did nothing of value and even screwed up a 2 on 1 at the end of the game with Niewendyk that could have avoided OT.
- Tie Domi played the best hockey I've ever seen him play. The last 3 weeks of Domi have been amazing. He's been buzzing around everywhere and hustling like crazy. I totally agree with Grapes...WHY THE HELL WASN'T HE PLAYING MORE???
- bringing back Fitzgerald and Reichal into the lineup was a great move. Antropov should have sat though - not Francis. Now Francis will have to live with the legace of playing his final NHL game as a 7 - 2 loser in that shallacking they took on Sunday afternoon.
- Sundin had a fantastic game leading his team tonight (and in Game 4).
- For Philly...so did Primeau in Game 5 and Roenick tonight in Game 6
- That hit by Tucker on Kapanen in OT was spectacular at first but upon further review - I think it was a viscous elbow right to his head - why is there no longer any respect in this game anymore???
- Belfour didn't stand on his head this time around but he sure did in the Ottawa series and had he been human...the Leafs wouldn't even be in this position. I don't think that Esche outplayed him at all though.
- I really like Hitchcock as a coach. Quinn - I'm not so sure of anymore. I think he's had ample opportunity to be a success in the past 6 years but now it might be time to try something new...
- Finally...Bandwagon Leaf fans really piss me off. I wonder how many tools are gonna take those flags off their cars tomorrow morning before they leave home.

My cheering now goes to the Lightning cause I want Tampa Bay to kick Philly's ASS and I am cheering for the Flames to beat San Jose so they can proceed to the Cup Final and hopefully win it all.


A visit from across the Pond

My bro is in town right now. He and his gf arrived on Saturday and they'll be here until Sunday. It's cool hanging with him and Pari. We are all having a good time and doing a lot of family stuff...most importantly with Anand's wedding coming this weekend - we have been seeing a lot of old friends and having a jolly good time (as some would say).


MMD 2004

I planned an event on Sunday which turned out to be a lot of fun. It was the first annual MMD (Marathi Man's Day). I told about 25 different peeps and in the end we had about 15 people attend (would have been more but there were some emergencies). Anyway...despite the $hitty rain and cr@ppy debacle of a Hockey game...the day itself was awesome and everyone had a great time. What motivated me to plan this thing (planning starting a month ago) was that our old Marathi crew don't see each other as much as we should. There is a whole group of us (currently ranging in age from 18 - 35). It was great to get together and go bowling, play fooz, air hockey, ping pong and carrom. We had a great time. And then topped it off by watching parts of Holleywood shuffle. Everyone who came repeatedly told me that they had a good time so I've very happy about that.


Moving?

We looked at some apartments yesterday and I think I found one that I am VERY interested in. The other place (Kdot's old place) isn't going to work anymore. For starters - the new landlord is a COMPLETE BEE-YATCH. She is very disorganized. Tries to make me feel bad cause she made assumptions and didn't base them on anything. Lies about losing my number or not having my application. She won't negotiate. She is trying to stiff me with Parking as well. And, when we saw the place empty yesterday - it just wasn't the same. It looked A LOT smaller. I am back on the renting vs. buying thing and trying to figure out what's going on...


Time for the bed now...
Great season Toronto!!! Just not enough!