Photos from Tulip Show 2007

Photos from Melbourne Zoo

Some more photos, this time from Melbourne Zoo.

This is the one that I liked best.

Photos at St Kilda beach

Here are some photos that I took last weekend at St Kilda Beach.  I have been wanting to take some sunset shots and took the long weekend for doing that.

This one is slightly blurred, but I like it inspite of that.

How not to lose $120 ?

Well, the title of the post may be abstract and the amount of money quoted maybe not quite be a round figure to lose, the experience was quite bizarre and in the end, funny as well.

It all started on Sunday evening, a pleasant evening for a walk and thats what we did, I and my wife, went around the block and headed off to the supermarket to buy groceries and came back home to find the apartment entry door locked. Now, I know that it may be a common practice to lock your apartment block entry door wherever you live, but not at my place, simply because none of the residents have the key to the door. So, if it was locked, we call any of the other three apartments in the block and they have to come out and open the door. The intercom opening method is presently not working as well.

So, it was locked and we tried to call the other apartment, two of them, no answer. So I trotted off to the back door to try to get it opened. That door was half locked and I could not see the door properly because of the poor lighting there. In the midst of all confusion, I inserted the key to my own home into the keyhole and tried twisting it. (Now, I am still getting the punishment for that from my wife).

I could not open the door and then tried to take the key out, it came out, half bent. I tried to bend it straight, and it broke !!!.

Then came around to the front door, sheepishly explained everything to my wife and then called the last flat and that person came down to open the door.

Then we tried to open the door with the broken key, no luck obviously. Then, a flash of genius, I remembered seeing a locksmith’s number on the entry door downstairs, luckily had my mobile with me and it was a 24 hr service number. Praise the LORD. Called the locksmith and he will be available in 10 mins at my doorstep. Praise the LORD louder.

Then he explained that it was a weekend and after hours anyway, and the cost of the visit will be $120. That was not a problem, as Commonwealth Bank is around the corner. Got the money, the guy came along, opened the door after using just three (!!!) tools in less than 120 secs.

So, $120 for less than 120 secs. Now, that is some ratio of how I would like my income to be, not my expenses.

Stanwell Park Beach (NSW)

Lonely man at beach with his dog on Australia Day (Jan 26 2007).

A blog that I had missed …

And one from now on that I will never miss reading.

Whenever I read my friend Prabukarthik’s blog, I usually see this name Keerthi on the comment list.  And, maybe I thought a friend of Karthi who reads his blog regularly.

Litte did I know about Keerthivasan and his blog, have a look here.. This man is too good, photography, writings, his thinking, all too good (imho).

Check out the photo on this Anna Nagar tower post and this one on Bringing people together.

The photos absolutely rock !!

Future of Australian men’s Tennis

Lets Go, Lleyton, Lets Go….

That was how the chants go from loyal Aussie fans when Lleyton plays the Australian Open and any other tournament internationally. But, of late, Hewitt has been in the news for all the wrong reasons, his ranking has dropped miserabl, no where near the No 1 ranking that he held for sometime, no chance of winning a Grand Slam, still trying to win his maiden Australian Open.  In the last week, his coach Roger Rasheed quit his position after an altercation with Hewitt after his quaterfinal loss at the Adelaide tournament.

I just happened to read a news item in one of the Indian dailies about the future of Indian tennis after Leander Paes.

The story is the same in Australia, who is after Lleyton ? He is only 25 years old and already facing the twilight of his career in my opinion. He risks being out of the top 20 in the rankings and this is a player who was number 1 for 80 weeks between November 2001 to June 2003.

The other player who was atleast worth mentioning was Mark Phillipousis, but he too has been distracted from tennis by his off court pursuits of girls and his problems with injuries.

Lleyton can still salvage some of his pride by concentrating on his game and not just by being all talk, no action.  He is still capable of rising above being coach-less for the Australian Open, but that angry attitude has to change.  Rasheed follows a list of players who have coached Lleyton including Jason Stoltenberg and Darren Cahill.
So, the question remains, who is the next big one after Lleyton for Australian men’s tennis ?

Cats and Credit cards…

Working in the credit card division for an Australian bank, I have heard many stories when customers have requested cards because Tommy or Jimmy or Tyson (their pets) have started to play with their card and it got eaten up.

But this one incident featuring the Bank of Queensland providing a secondary card for the pet of a customer is unheard of.

Katherine Campbell, the customer applied for an additional credit card in the name of Messiah, her pet cat. And, the bank approved the card and sent it over. She reportedly wanted to test the security of the bank.

The bank has now cancelled the card of the pet.

Washing machine case

Whenever you buy a washing machine, you always a get an instruction booklet about what to do and what not to do, how to use etc etc …

But, does that booklet ever say, don’t run the washing machine with me inside it ?

It did not, in my case…

The fact of the matter was that, when we moved homes, I put the instruction manual for each and every gadget (luckily, I had 99% of the manuals) inside its own box, so that there will not be a problem during reconnection. The same way for the washing machine too.

Only that, as soon as we moved in, we put our clothes into that washing machine for washing the next day, and the booklet got hid by the clothes. So the machine gave the booklet a thorough washing. As a result, all our clothes had pieces of paper attached to it. And, they don’t go away that easy, I had to wash twice to get those pieces of paper removed.

Whoever thought that the instruction manual could cause no problems is wrong..!!

Laughs of 2006 in Australia

According to a report in The Age newspaper, a blogger by name Craig Platt provides a series of four videos that did the rounds on the internet and has been decided the best four laugh videos of 2006. Its a 4:02 file, so please be patient if you are on slow speed internet.

One thing that surprised me was that, the second video is of Rajinikant and a group of his cronies in “Maapillai” or “Ooorkavalan” (I am not sure). I am a big fan of Rajini, no doubt, but this is slightly too much – providing a clip of his movie back from the 80s and saying that it is one of the best laughs of 2006.

I guess Australia needs a good comedy movie, speaking of which, watch the Night at the Museum, if you haven’t. You are sure to have more laughs, guarenteed.