Twittering

Finally, I have joined the twitter bandwagon. I am not a person who would be keenly followed by too many people. But I think it helps me to communicate with my friends or else use those posts as a scrap book for ideas for this blog or elsewhere.

Lets see what happens,....

ManU misses another opportunity!!

Yesterday, Manchester United missed another golden opportunity to close the gap with Chelsea and Liverpool and also surge ahead of Arsenal.
Liverpool and Arsenal struggled and drew their matches. ManU played later. So they knew that if they win, it would benefit them immensely. Yet they failed to capitalize on the situation and drew their away game with Tottenham.
The result is that Chelsea now has a superb opportunity to widen the gap between the others and become the leaders in EPL.
A few back too, ManU threw away such an opportunity when all the top four drew their matches and failed to score. I do not think that they will get such a chance again this season.
Yes, this season is full of surprises. The top four have hardly been consistent with their performances. But of the four, Chelsea are the one who are the most consistent.
And so though I hate to say it, I think the EPL cup is going to Stamford Bridge this season.

What Colour Are you?

Took a test to figure out what colour I am:

BLUE

You give your love and friendship unconditionally. You enjoy long, thoughtful conversations rich in philosophy and spirituality. You are very loyal and intuitive.

Find out your color at QuizMeme.com!

Bad Day for Massa and Ferrari

The first ever night race in the history of F1 ended with Fernando Alonso being the surprise winner. This was a day to forget for Ferrari with none of their drivers finishing with championship points. Massa had a particularly unlucky day. Starting from pole, he was doing well until his pit stop. The fuel pipe was unexpectedly stuck to his car when he left his pit. This cost him a lot of time as Ferrari engineers had to run to where his car was stranded to remove it. Added to this was a drive-through penalty by the stewards and an added pit stop to change tyres. This effectively ruled out any chance of points.
Raikkonnen was also in the 5th place a few laps from finish when he crashed. Thus ended Ferrari's chances of any points today. Such a bad race at a crucial stage in the championship with only 3 more races to go will be a great disappointment to the team.
Ferrari need to pull themselves up after this to do well in the remaining races.
As for the race, it was amazing with all the lights and the track itself tested the drivers' talents.

Ronaldo does it again !!

Was watching ManU's home match against Bolton Wanderers Yesterday. The game was 0-0 almost a third into the 2nd half. Though ManU had a lot of possession, Bolton were holding them quite well.
At that time, Ronaldo was in the penalty area. An opposition defender took the ball away from him cleanly. This would of course unbalance him, but he decided to take a theatrical dive. The referee also decided that it was a deliberate foul and awarded ManU a penalty.
Ronaldo scored from it and that was all ManU needed and they scored another thorough Rooney to win the game.
Though I am a Man United fan, the penalty decision was definetely wrong. Ronaldo has been winning dodgy penalties from 3 years. Yet referees continue to point to the spot. The sooner they stop it the better. Also the sooner Ronaldo stops his theatrics the better. The day is not far when a referee will deny ManU a genuine penalty.

Liverpool win

So Liverpool have finally won against Man U in some 8 Premier league games. Though the result is not to my liking, I did expect it.
For starters, Man U have bought only one player in the transfer season. That too at the last minute. Secondly the Ronaldo transfer saga would have unsettled the team. All this has resulted in the team not being fully motivated and in some doubt.
As for Liverpool, they really played very well in the second half and kept testing the United defence and Van Der Sar. Vidic was good as usual and Van Der Sar did all he could to keep Utd in the game.
But ultimately, you have to score goals to win and the attack was disorganized. Possession was given away easily, there were a couple of clumsy tackles also.
So United have only 4 points from 3 games. Though this is bad, its better than the 2 points from 3 games last season. Here's hoping that they recreate the form of last season and go on to win the League.

A twist in the tale?

Yesterday's drawn match between Bolton and ManU has given Chelsea a good chance to capture this year's EPL. After the draw, Chelsea are just 3 points behind ManU with 3 matches to go. Add to this the fact that the next match of ManU is away at Chelsea, and we might just have an exciting end to this season. Though speaking of Chelsea and exciting in the same breath might be exaggerating to say the least, it cannot be denied that this season has provided its share of thrills and spills.
A team that had the worst start of the season since many years (2 pts of 3 games) , now is in the position of capturing its second successive title and is also in the line for a double.
Talking of which the match at Nou Camp is very important for ManU as Barca are a strong team and it is vital that ManU try to score at least one away goal and prevent Barca from scoring too many. Also Barca's defence is a bit suspect at the moment. So the differential factor will be how Vidic and company handle Messi.

A new era in Cricket ?

IPL has started in a big way a couple of days back. The first match was a totally one sided affair with Kolkata hammering Bangalore to register an emphatic win. As it was disappointing to see Bangalore lose, I was also somewhat happy that the much touted tournament was off to a damp start. If the tournament is a failure it will be a good lesson to the arrogant bosses of the BCCI. They have left no stone unturned in using their power and influence to crush the rebel ICL. ICL meanwhile has been producing some good if not great cricket to provide entertainment.
And thats the USP of IPL too. Entertainment. Not superstars performing or cheergirls but the players dishing out an exciting fare. I have a feeling IPL will fail on that count.

As of now my ideas are turning a bit true. In two more matches played yesterday, only one provided some semblance of a fight. The other one was also one sided.

Red Devils almost there

Man Utd have taken another step to repeat their EPL victory of last year. They did this in the best possible fashion for a ManU fan by beating Arsenal 2-1. Though they were not at their best and failed to produce the big match form that has been their style this season. But thankfully they did not have to pay a price in terms of points, though their performance will require some thinking if they have to really win this.

Arsenal begin as they did against Pool last week, by firing on all cylinders. They put the United defence, missing Nemanja Vidic under a lot of pressure. This ploy would have worked if they were some more accurate with their finishing. United, it appeared were in a disarray by the constant attacks but somehow held their nerve and began counter attacks of their own. It made for fascinating stuff and by half time the honours were even.

Arsenal stuck quickly in the second half through Adebayour and it looked like United would have to really pull their socks. But like it happened against Pool, after Arsenal took a vital goal, they conceded a penalty. Amidst high drama when he was asked to take the penalty twice, Ronaldo scored. 1-1

This brought the crucial time in the game, the time after a hour. ManU made two changes. Tevez and Anderson brought an attacking nature to the game. Arsenal were stringing passes but were no longer appearing too threatening. United kept attacking and got a free kick just outside the Arsenal box. Hargreaves scored the goal through a wonderful free kick. 2-1!!

Wenger brought on Theo Walcott and suddenly there appeared a new edge to Arsenal. Wonder why he is not starting games though. ManU did well to prevent the gunners from scoring and ended high and dry.

All in all, a wonderful game and no one deserved to lose. Arsenal threw away the lead yet again and ended second best.

So ManU are truly on to winning their second consecutive title after the worst start to their season in many years while Arsenal who started on a dream note are to end their season empty handed.

Update

After waiting for more than a month, I finally got home connectivity... I think this will help in doing my office work from home (if needed ) and also help in reviving my blogging which has gone dormat for a long time.
India lost the match to SA by an innings and 90 runs. One of the most humiliating defeats in recent times. Hope that this will not make BCCI to start focusing on slow pitches again.
EPL has shown that it has some more surprises in store. Middlesbrough did Chelsea and Arsenal a huuuuge favour by holding ManU to a draw. This after Arsenal and Pool played out a 1-1 draw and Chelsea won. With the blues 3 pts behind ManU and 3 pts ahead of the Gunners and with both to play ManU we are in for an exciting finish.
Another good result for Ferrari as they finished 1-2 in Bahrain. They seem to be coming together after a bad start in the Australian GP.

Oracle : Key Tables

This lists some of the tables that are of good use when looking at data at the session level.


1. v$session_longops: Has data regarding operations that are running on the database.

Execution plan on SQLPLUS

To get only the execution plan for a query and check for its performance even before executing the query, use the foll command on sqlplus:

set autotrace traceonly explain

This will show the execution plan for the query.

ORA: 01653: Unable to extend Table

An oracle error when Oracle is unable to extend the table in a tablespace.

Solution:
Extend the tablespace size

alter database datafile 'xyz.dbf' resize 1000M (The new total size)

Getting the datafile: Go to DBA->Segment management and Tablespaces in TOAD.

Sometimes the system may not have enough space for increasing tablespace file size.

Create a new file and attach it to the tablespace

ALTER TABLESPACE
ADD DATAFILE 'abc.dbf' SIZE 100M
AUTOEXTEND ON
NEXT 1024K
MAXSIZE 250M

Starting again

I have been writing this blog more than three years now. There have been spurts of blogs balanced with equal times of inactivity. There have been times where I have felt like blogging but have been unable to do so due to many reasons.

I just feel that I should blog whenever I find time, about anything I feel (that's what my blog says anyways) without waiting for getting something to write. If I do not like it, I can always delete it later.

So starting again from now, I am back :) ..

-Vin

A sedate start

The WC 2007 got off to a sedate start yesterday with not much fireworks. The match between WI and Pak did not set the thrill meters jumping. But it was not a farce too as the match was contested nicely.
Coming to the match, Pak lost but not much should be needed to it. It is possible in the early stages of the tournaments to have a few hiccups and it might not cause any major upsets.

-Winz

World Cup 2007

As I am writing this, the Cricket World Cup 2007 has begun in the West Indies. I intended to write about this, but never found the time. Hopefully I will find some time in the next eight weeks to write something. I would really like India to win this one, though I do not see that we have enough players to play in crunch matches.

-Winz

Inertia

All of us have studied in school that inertia refers to a continued state of rest or motion unless it is subjected to an external force. I find that sometimes I have a state of inertia. That is though things around me are changing or the situation is changing, I take my time to act on it.
Whenever anything changes, all the people connected with it respond to it (or react to it). Though it is not desirable to react at the drop of a hat, it is equally not good to remain inactive though things are changing around you.
If I feel so, then why do I hesitate to act ? Maybe due to the fact that I am an introvert and do not like to interact with people unnecessarily. Or that I am an optimist who hopes that somehow things straighten themselves. Or is it because I am lazy and do not want to do things? Or I do not like responsibility?
Whatever be the reason, whenever I behave like this, it invariably fills me with remorse and I feel I am not doing justice to myself and those who trust me.
So to change, I need to lower the level of changes that will trigger an action on my part.

-Vinayak

My Zodiac personality

After a long time, I visited the site where I took some tests maybe a couple of years back.

Took a zodiac personality test


Discover your Zodiac Personality @ Quiz Me


-Vinayak

Nit Picking

I am a person who likes detail but what I do not like is focusing on the minor detail so much that the main objective is lost. Like you are very hungry (close to starved) and you are debating whether to eat Chinese or Italian ... I mean come on... the main point is that you have to eat something.. I do not care if it is at a darshini. When I am not hungry that is another matter. Or cricket commentators debating about which order a batsman should come in to bat.. when the greater issue is if the player deserves to be in the team or not.
Such discussions invariably lead to failures as the whole is always more important than the parts. But somehow, people seem to take devilish pleasure in ripping apart something and critiquing each and every detail.
Mind you, I am not saying we should not look in the detail. Details are also important, but only when the broad picture is correct. What is the use in arguing about do we take a left or a right when we are in the wrong city!! . The only correct way is the way that leads to the correct city.

-Vinayak

A good Idea

Last week, I was in my hometown of Hubli and came back to Bangalore this week. When travelling in buses, I was pleasantly surprised to see (or re -see as it was earlier also) way of dispensing tickets which is less hassle free and also eliminates the ticket reuse tactics...
Bus conductors in Hubli use an electronic ticket dispensing machine. The guy enters the source and destination codes and a ticket print out appears out of the machine. This has some advantages: 1. The source and destination are marked so the ticket holder cannot "overstay" in the bus. I mean it will be easy for the conductor to check if he doubts.
2. Since the time is also printed on the ticket, there wont be any "ticket reuse".
3. The conductor need not carry stacks of tickets and keep tabs on how many tickets he dispensed.
What has surprised me is that apart from the volvo buses in Bangalore, no other buses are using this (or atleast I have not seen them doing it) . And Bangalore is the IT capital of India!!