January 1, 2007
I think this date marks the beginning of what will be the best year in Federer's tennis career. When I say this, I am completely aware of what he has achieved in the last 3 years and how difficult it will be to surpass that .. I am also aware of the threat Nadal provides and also of the improved Roddick after getting the services of the great Jimmy Connors as coach.
Federer lost 5 matches in 2006 .. 4 to Nadal and 1 to Murray. The reason why he lost to Murray is quite well known to the entire community and so, that loss is hardly something to worry about. Youngsters like Gasquet, Baghdatis and Murray will provide threat to Federer at some point of time, but I don't think these players can cause any harm to Federer in 2007.
After that win in the Master Series against Nadal, I don't see even Nadal troubling Federer much this year (even on clay). I think Federer has a decent chance of winning the Roland Garros year. According to me, Federer was the best player even in the Roland Garros 2006 (Yes, better than Nadal). What prevented him from winning that title and getting his name written in history books as the 'greatest ever' was probably some kind of a mental barrier that he had when playing against Nadal. If this is to be believed then I guess the mental barrier should be overcome by now(at least to some extent) after the last 3 encounters of Federer with Nadal in which Nadal has been beaten by "The Emperor". I just hope Nadal plays at least some tournaments this year before the clay season and not just come out of the den when the clay season begins, like last year.
The match between Roddick and Federer at the Master Series seems to suggest that Roddick can defeat Federer once in a while but I don't think this would be possible because it will take quite some time for Roddick to begin to believe he can defeat Federer.
Federer has been breaking a lot of records. One record which has stood unbroken is John McEnroe's record of the highest winning percentage (82-3). 2007, I think will be the year he will break this record as well. Federer will start as favorite for each of the 4 grand slams.Here is what I think will be the odds for each of the 4 GSs.
Australian Open (Federer 70%, Others 30%)
French Open (Federer 50%, Nadal 48%, Others 2%)
Wimbledon (Federer 90%, Others 10%)
US Open (Federer 90%, Roddick 5%, Others 5%)
I would have liked to put Safin's name in this list, but he is a little too inconsistent to be able to win a Grand Slam title (which requires winning 7 matches in a row)
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Friday, December 29, 2006
The bank story
I have almost never ever used a bank account for any kind of transactions .. I don't know how to use an ATM card for withdrawing money from a bank. Anyway, so when I moved to Zurich, since I wanted some place to keep my scholarship money .. I was told that having a bank account was, in some sense, obligatory.
So, not realising how difficult this would turn out to be, I entered a bank called Credit Suisse for opening an account. Anyway the start was not too difficult. A person, let me call him Mr X, opened a savings bank account for me. It took just about 15 minutes and it looked quite simple.
No, the story does not end here!!
I began receiving loads of papers from the bank. These Swiss banks take a lot of pain for security .. I haven't seen the security of banks at other places to compare but I still think this is a bit too much. Anyway I was not using the bank account much (not-much is often used as a code word for saying not-at-all :D) except that my scholarship had started going there. One fine day, I was told by someone that the card that I had received was not a credit card. Now don't laugh .. I don't know how a credit card looks like. On this I decided to go to the bank again to ask for a credit card .. God only knows how I would be using the credit card ... but I has seen people use it and it always looks kind of cool .. so I also wanted to try it :)
Anyway, so I returned to the same branch of Credit Suisse with my query about the credit card hoping to find that same Mr X there. However Mr X was nowhere to be seen. Instead, there was a good looking female, lets call her Miss Y, there. But the good part virtually ends here. She began the conversation with the usual greeting in German, "Gruetzi". By now I had learned to pronounce this properly so I also uttered it without realizing where I am heading for. Anyway, she began talking in German and it took her some time to figure out that I do not understand German. Unfortunately, she was not very comfortable in English. More unfortunately, she knew some English!! I realised how dangerous "little knowledge" could be just then.
As we were having a hard time understanding each other, I explained her the reason for my having come there. With some words and some signs thrown in the conversation, we finally managed to arrive at a conclusion. I got a private bank account for which I was required to pay 6 Swiss Francs per month, and what do I get in return, ... the [i]much needed[/i](God only knows for what) credit card. Anyway, as I had signed the papers and was about to leave, I asked again just to confirm whether I will now get a credit card ... and then she says we give credit card only to people who have income beyond a certain value. What this account gave me was a Maestro Card by which I could pay at shops etc. However, by now, I had come too far to be able to say that I do not want this account now. The lady was already quite pissed off because of the effort she had to put to explain everything to me. So I exited hoping to come back again and close this account.
ASIDE: the above story has not ended yet ... this is another incident that took place when i was coming out of the bank that is kind of .. interesting. As I was getting out of the bank, I saw a person withdrawing money from the ATM. I was a little curious about how this machine works and so I tried to see what he was doing. I knew this was something weird that I was doing... anyway the guy turned around and I immediately turned back thinking he might think I am a fool. But I soon realised he might be thinking I am actually spying on his secret code (or whatever you need for that ATM thingy to work) and might have some evil intentions. After that we both walked in opposite directions, occasionally looking back at each other, for different reasons obviously ... it was really really funny :D
Anyway, coming back to the original story, I returned to the bank a few days later hoping to find Mr X or someone else (anyone but Miss Y) and get the private bank account closed. I had got to know from others by now that we can get a student account using which we can get maestro card for free. And also learned from someone else that there is another bank that offers a credit card also for free with a student account. So I was kind of undecided about what I want to do. Anyway I entered the bank .. sheepishly looking to see if Mr X was there. But unfortunately only Miss Y was there. I was about to turn back .. but she saw me. And she called. I had no option but to talk to her only. I told her I want to close the bank account. She obviously remembered me. She asked why do you want to close now? I said I have to pay 6 CHF per month for this bank account while some of my friends have a student account so they don't have to pay anything. I don't know how but she thought now I am asking for a student account. She said we can't open a student account for you now. You can't have so many accounts. I said .. I want to close .. and laid all the cards on the table .. she asked, so do you want to close the private account..and i said no I want to close ALL the accounts (as if I had some 100 accounts there) ... and she was like really really angry. But what could I do ... I wasn't at all aware of what I was doing. She completed all the formalities and asked me to sign the receipt which said that I get 3800.70 CHF .. which meant I had got 70 cents interest... awesome, right!!!! And then she paid me 3800.20 CHF ... but by no means was I going to ask her for the 50 rappen deficit. I would let her keep that as a memory of having met me.
I went out .... trying to show that i had been insulted by something :P .. but I knew for a fact i had made a fool of myself.
So, not realising how difficult this would turn out to be, I entered a bank called Credit Suisse for opening an account. Anyway the start was not too difficult. A person, let me call him Mr X, opened a savings bank account for me. It took just about 15 minutes and it looked quite simple.
No, the story does not end here!!
I began receiving loads of papers from the bank. These Swiss banks take a lot of pain for security .. I haven't seen the security of banks at other places to compare but I still think this is a bit too much. Anyway I was not using the bank account much (not-much is often used as a code word for saying not-at-all :D) except that my scholarship had started going there. One fine day, I was told by someone that the card that I had received was not a credit card. Now don't laugh .. I don't know how a credit card looks like. On this I decided to go to the bank again to ask for a credit card .. God only knows how I would be using the credit card ... but I has seen people use it and it always looks kind of cool .. so I also wanted to try it :)
Anyway, so I returned to the same branch of Credit Suisse with my query about the credit card hoping to find that same Mr X there. However Mr X was nowhere to be seen. Instead, there was a good looking female, lets call her Miss Y, there. But the good part virtually ends here. She began the conversation with the usual greeting in German, "Gruetzi". By now I had learned to pronounce this properly so I also uttered it without realizing where I am heading for. Anyway, she began talking in German and it took her some time to figure out that I do not understand German. Unfortunately, she was not very comfortable in English. More unfortunately, she knew some English!! I realised how dangerous "little knowledge" could be just then.
As we were having a hard time understanding each other, I explained her the reason for my having come there. With some words and some signs thrown in the conversation, we finally managed to arrive at a conclusion. I got a private bank account for which I was required to pay 6 Swiss Francs per month, and what do I get in return, ... the [i]much needed[/i](God only knows for what) credit card. Anyway, as I had signed the papers and was about to leave, I asked again just to confirm whether I will now get a credit card ... and then she says we give credit card only to people who have income beyond a certain value. What this account gave me was a Maestro Card by which I could pay at shops etc. However, by now, I had come too far to be able to say that I do not want this account now. The lady was already quite pissed off because of the effort she had to put to explain everything to me. So I exited hoping to come back again and close this account.
ASIDE: the above story has not ended yet ... this is another incident that took place when i was coming out of the bank that is kind of .. interesting. As I was getting out of the bank, I saw a person withdrawing money from the ATM. I was a little curious about how this machine works and so I tried to see what he was doing. I knew this was something weird that I was doing... anyway the guy turned around and I immediately turned back thinking he might think I am a fool. But I soon realised he might be thinking I am actually spying on his secret code (or whatever you need for that ATM thingy to work) and might have some evil intentions. After that we both walked in opposite directions, occasionally looking back at each other, for different reasons obviously ... it was really really funny :D
Anyway, coming back to the original story, I returned to the bank a few days later hoping to find Mr X or someone else (anyone but Miss Y) and get the private bank account closed. I had got to know from others by now that we can get a student account using which we can get maestro card for free. And also learned from someone else that there is another bank that offers a credit card also for free with a student account. So I was kind of undecided about what I want to do. Anyway I entered the bank .. sheepishly looking to see if Mr X was there. But unfortunately only Miss Y was there. I was about to turn back .. but she saw me. And she called. I had no option but to talk to her only. I told her I want to close the bank account. She obviously remembered me. She asked why do you want to close now? I said I have to pay 6 CHF per month for this bank account while some of my friends have a student account so they don't have to pay anything. I don't know how but she thought now I am asking for a student account. She said we can't open a student account for you now. You can't have so many accounts. I said .. I want to close .. and laid all the cards on the table .. she asked, so do you want to close the private account..and i said no I want to close ALL the accounts (as if I had some 100 accounts there) ... and she was like really really angry. But what could I do ... I wasn't at all aware of what I was doing. She completed all the formalities and asked me to sign the receipt which said that I get 3800.70 CHF .. which meant I had got 70 cents interest... awesome, right!!!! And then she paid me 3800.20 CHF ... but by no means was I going to ask her for the 50 rappen deficit. I would let her keep that as a memory of having met me.
I went out .... trying to show that i had been insulted by something :P .. but I knew for a fact i had made a fool of myself.
Monday, November 27, 2006
Abhimanyu's death
just saw this posting in a community on orkut .. on a discussion abt Abhimanyu's death
"Krishna was teaching Arjuna and Uttara was also seated with him who was pregnant at that time.Both started sleeping and Krishna still found a voice of nod which was from Uttara's womb.
He stopped it there as abhimanyu was not of age to study chakravuh yudh as it is taught after 16 only.(*it is also being said that as krishna killed his uncle (kansa)also and he was afraid of a repitition as he was the uncle of abhimanyu*) this caused incompleted learning which led to abhimanyu's death "
see the line in the paranthesis .. :D
"Krishna was teaching Arjuna and Uttara was also seated with him who was pregnant at that time.Both started sleeping and Krishna still found a voice of nod which was from Uttara's womb.
He stopped it there as abhimanyu was not of age to study chakravuh yudh as it is taught after 16 only.(*it is also being said that as krishna killed his uncle (kansa)also and he was afraid of a repitition as he was the uncle of abhimanyu*) this caused incompleted learning which led to abhimanyu's death "
see the line in the paranthesis .. :D
Monday, November 20, 2006
'My financial career'
A recent incident that happened to me in a bank reminded me of this story :)
This is a story that I had read long time back and I read it again today and I enjoyed it even now. If you want to read it, it is here .. http://students.iiit.ac.in/~nirnimesh/Literature/MyFinancialCareer.htm
What happened to me was something similar.. well I won't write it here in detail I guess... but I have it written down and you can email me if you would like to read the full story :D
This is a story that I had read long time back and I read it again today and I enjoyed it even now. If you want to read it, it is here .. http://students.iiit.ac.in/~nirnimesh/Literature/MyFinancialCareer.htm
What happened to me was something similar.. well I won't write it here in detail I guess... but I have it written down and you can email me if you would like to read the full story :D
Monday, November 13, 2006
'How are you?' and 'It was nice meeting you!'
I am never able to utter to anyone the above mentioned phrases. These phrases have been thrown at me various times but the frequency has increased many times since I have come here(Zurich)!
"How are you?" .. If someone meets you 10 times in a day .. he would ask this question 10 times .. it is so weird to keep on repeating the same words .."I am fine! How about you?" .. However I ask myself .. does he really care how I am .. of course not .. then why do this .. just to be nice .. it is too pathetic!!
And also the phrase ...'It was nice meeting you' ... that is uttered to every person you meet the first time .. this is ridiculous .. it can't be nice for you to meet every Tom, Dick and Harry .. if someone says this to me after meeting me the first time .. I can't just help thinking .. "what was so nice about having met me?" .. Why do people have to say this????
"How are you?" .. If someone meets you 10 times in a day .. he would ask this question 10 times .. it is so weird to keep on repeating the same words .."I am fine! How about you?" .. However I ask myself .. does he really care how I am .. of course not .. then why do this .. just to be nice .. it is too pathetic!!
And also the phrase ...'It was nice meeting you' ... that is uttered to every person you meet the first time .. this is ridiculous .. it can't be nice for you to meet every Tom, Dick and Harry .. if someone says this to me after meeting me the first time .. I can't just help thinking .. "what was so nice about having met me?" .. Why do people have to say this????
Salt in milk
I don't know if it is a good idea to proclaim yourself as a 'fool' .. but here I do it
Yesterday at breakfast time .. after boiling milk .. I put 'sugar' in it (2 spoons :)) ... then I put chocolate into it and I was so happy(swiss chocolates generally make me happy!!) .. and then as I tasted it, I got the shock of my life (slight exaggeration)... it was salty .. I tried it again .. it indeed was salty ... I normally am not used to wasting food .. but I couldn't do anything about this .. I had to throw it .. why do these people have sugar crystals and salt crystals of the same size.. ok maybe I am making a lame excuse .. maybe no one else would make such a mistake
So here I have described how I tasted salty milk for the first time in my life .. so much for 'living-in-zurich-and-cooking-on-my-own'
Yesterday at breakfast time .. after boiling milk .. I put 'sugar' in it (2 spoons :)) ... then I put chocolate into it and I was so happy(swiss chocolates generally make me happy!!) .. and then as I tasted it, I got the shock of my life (slight exaggeration)... it was salty .. I tried it again .. it indeed was salty ... I normally am not used to wasting food .. but I couldn't do anything about this .. I had to throw it .. why do these people have sugar crystals and salt crystals of the same size.. ok maybe I am making a lame excuse .. maybe no one else would make such a mistake
So here I have described how I tasted salty milk for the first time in my life .. so much for 'living-in-zurich-and-cooking-on-my-own'
Ich wohne in Zurich (Switzerland)
"Ich wohne in Zurich" is German for "I live in Zurich" :)
I moved to Zurich (for a few years) a few days ago. Before coming here, I was a little skeptical about how it would be to live in a foreign country .. everything will be so strange, so unusual all around .. I was almost certain that the hard life will begin now!! ... but I must admit that things haven't been too bad till now .. things certainly are unusual and strange .. but some are unusual for the better!!
Cars stop at the crossings to let pedestrians cross .. this to me was really really funny in the beginning
Also I have never held a map open in a public place for more than a minute .. everytime I find someone coming over to help .. this is again something quite unusual!
Hmm .. so I do miss quite a few things from India .. one thing I miss quite a lot is of course Bollywood .. yahaan to Hindi movies bhi German mein dub karke dikhaate hain [:-(].. but then as they say .. 'you win some, you lose some' .. but I think I will be able to spend good time here!
The thing that keeps me really happy here is, of course, 'Swiss Chocolates'
I moved to Zurich (for a few years) a few days ago. Before coming here, I was a little skeptical about how it would be to live in a foreign country .. everything will be so strange, so unusual all around .. I was almost certain that the hard life will begin now!! ... but I must admit that things haven't been too bad till now .. things certainly are unusual and strange .. but some are unusual for the better!!
Cars stop at the crossings to let pedestrians cross .. this to me was really really funny in the beginning
Also I have never held a map open in a public place for more than a minute .. everytime I find someone coming over to help .. this is again something quite unusual!
Hmm .. so I do miss quite a few things from India .. one thing I miss quite a lot is of course Bollywood .. yahaan to Hindi movies bhi German mein dub karke dikhaate hain [:-(].. but then as they say .. 'you win some, you lose some' .. but I think I will be able to spend good time here!
The thing that keeps me really happy here is, of course, 'Swiss Chocolates'
My first post :)
First thing .. I am beginning to write something after 7 years (yes it has been 7 years since I left high school) ... so in case you are looking for some good piece of writings, I am very sorry to tell you that you are at the wrong place. However if you like me and/or are interested in knowing what I write .. you are welcome to stay for more :) So, what is the reason for starting this blog .. so that I can improve my writing skills .. and to make myself muse(sometime later in life) at the kind of things I used to write and think at some point of time.
If you don't know me this blog would hardly make sense.. so I won't introduce myself.
Also all of my posts would be a random outpour of thoughts and not some well structured essay .. so please bear with me :)
If you don't know me this blog would hardly make sense.. so I won't introduce myself.
Also all of my posts would be a random outpour of thoughts and not some well structured essay .. so please bear with me :)
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