The Spy Saga finally comes to a close with a decision finally out (Read my earlier blog post regarding the issue) :
“McLaren have been excluded from the 2007 constructors’ championship and fined US$100 million following Thursday’s FIA World Motor Sport Council hearing in Paris. Drivers Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton have not been penalized and are free to continue their fight for the drivers’ title.”

Now I’m sure a lot of people will have different opinion on this issue, some will strongly agree (primarily Ferrari fans) and some will strongly disagree (primarily McLaren fans). And I won’t be surprised to see someone accusing FIA of favoring Ferrari, like Stewart did a few days back. But the thing is pretty simple, FIA has had some evidence in this case and thats what prompted such a decision. Formula One is not an easy sport, a lot of money is involved here, and a fortune is spent on the car’s development, and if someone takes that information from you in an unfair fashion, you have all the right to contest it in court and claim justice. Now how much did McLaren benefit from the documents they got? I have no idea, but FIA certainly has, no wonder they have made this decision, so if McLaren were found guilty of something, only then FIA has taken such a step.

The most important thing against McLaren was that there was evidence that the information was passed onto McLaren, but in the last hearing it was not proved on “lack of evidence” grounds, but it was clearly mentioned that if in future any further evidence is found, the issue will be again brought up into the court, and now it has. Since there were some evidence that some communication was done by Coughlan with McLaren drivers, so this might have been a big cause of this decision, and maybe even something which we don’t know yet.

Anyways, the issue will be more clearly be in news over the next days, but those you are still willing to contest this decision, I have a question for you. If you were Ferrari and carrying out car development work costing millions of dollars, and you come to know that your biggest competitor has the information, what would you do? I think your answer will be pretty much be the same as what FIA has.

Exclusion from the championship was quite an obvious thing, but I believe that the financial penalty is a bit too harsh. Its too big a money, and although its not what McLaren will have to pay, they’ll still get the television money and will pay somewhere around £25m. The issue will be more transparent when the full report comes out on Friday, and I’m sure there is something in it, which we don’t know yet. Ron Dennis is not happy ofcourse, and its really going to dent the McLaren image. But then its F1, the world moves on as fast as the F1 cars. The drivers’ championship is still in McLaren’s hands, and it was always the case to be, FIA wouldn’t have imposed any penalty to the drivers’, and this had to be the result. So now its all on the final four races, who will win the title…Alonso or Hamilton, in either case, McLaren retains the #1 badge next season, and is the winner.

“Beckham… into Sheringham… and Solskjær has won it!”
these words from Clive Tyldesley during the 1999 UEFA Champions League Final are forever going to remind us of the great night at Camp Nou in Barcelona on 26 May 1999. Manchester United won the European Cup and sealed a Treble season. All thanks to one man…Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. The legend now retires from football, but he will be always remembered and missed at Old Trafford.

continue reading "Ole Gunnar Solskjaer - A Legend"

Just a few days back I made a blog post about the new look orkut was coming up with, and when I logged in today I found that new design on my orkut account. I asked my friend to check his, he was still on the older design. So that means like orkut said this is still being done in phases. So I expect it will take some days for everyone to get the new look.

Although the page structure is still pretty much the same, I think they just changed the CSS and images and tweaked the layout a bit to make this new look. The good thing they’ve done is that they’ve put a scrapbook link too in the top navigation, its pretty handy when you want to goto your scrapbook from any page.

It will take sometime getting used to it. But yeah it does look good.

I’m was on a trailer viewing spree today and landed up on “The Last Legion”. I was shocked to see Aishwarya Rai’s name there. I didn’t know Aishwarya has done such a hollywood film lately! And to my surprise she also features in the upcoming sequel to the 2006 box office hit The Pink Panther, The Pink Panther 2! Surprise Surprise, can’t understand how could such two important events miss my eye. Anyways better late than never. The Last Legion hasn’t got great reviews, but Aish did look good in the trailer. But I’m more interested in the latter project. Pink Panther is a famous name and Aish will definitely have a great time working in the movie. Big names like Steve Martin, Jean Reno (The Da Vinci Code, Godzilla, Mission: Impossible), Alfred Molina (Spider-Man 2, The Da Vinci Code) are also there in the movie. So she will definitely get some more attention in Hollywood. And even Celina Jaitley was offered this role and she reportedly turned it down. Hrithik Roshan was also offered a role for the movie in one of the roles. But even he didn’t take it up. Anyways back to Aish. I would really want to see how does she do in this comic role with Steve Martin.

Sources:Wikipedia

Quite an unusual name for a movie, I thought. But it does look quite impressive. As the name suggests, its based on prehistoric times. Its about a man who tries to save his tribe from extinction. He has to face huge mammoths, saber-toothed cats and some other tribes too.

Its directed by Roland Emmerich, the guy who made films like Universal Soldier, Independence Day, Godzilla and The Day After Tomorrow. So expect another good movie from Roland. The trailer shows some good scenes, special effects will be good, its a Roland Emmerich movie after all, overall the trailer does look pretty good and promising. So this movie also makes it to my plan to watch list.

The film is slated for a March 7, 2008 release.

Official site and trailer

AvP is coming back! And its promising. The sequel to 2004’s Alien vs. Predator is releasing on 25th December 2007, Christmas Day. Its not directed by Paul Anderson this time though. Brothers Strause are directing this one. I saw the trailer today and it really looks good to me. Now what I can figure out from the plot is this, the space ship lands on Earth, come aliens come out, predators are ofcourse there where the aliens are, and then some earthlings too who will shout, run, spill blood, cry for mercy and eventually win and remove the aliens and predators. So the aliens come, and some humans find themselves in the same area where the aliens landed, they get hunted and facehuggers hug them, and then the chestbursters come out. Its said that Predalien, a Alien/Predator hybrid, will also feature in the movie, as in the end of the prequel, Alien vs. Predator, an alien chestburster came out of the dead predator. So that would be interesting to watch. So I’m waiting for its release and will definitely like to watch it.

Watch the trailer on the Official Website. It requires age verification as its rated R for restricted.

It was a great Sunday! Lots of sports action, it started off with the Turkish Formula 1 Grand Prix and ended with the Manchester United v Tottenham Premier League match. Ferrari was looking good at Istanbul for a win, and they did win the race. A much needed win, Massa really drove a great race to win his second Turkish Grand Prix. Kimi Raikkonen too drove superbly and was able to match Felipe all the time. Hamilton finally ran out of some luck and suffered a tyre puncture which dropped him off the podium and he eventually finished 5th. It was a great result for the Ferrari team and they have now closed the gap to just 11 points from McLaren in the constructors championship.

Manchester United finally won their first match of the season at Old Trafford, playing home to Tottenham Hotspur. United were 19th before this match, and were desperately looking for a win after a disappointing start to the new season. There was still no sign of Saha or Anderson, but Hargreaves did start the match. It was goal less at the halftime, but Nani then struck a beauty to give United the vital lead in the match. Spurs were sharp and were constantly attacking, but United held onto the lead. Spurs came close to scoring in the first minute itself, when Robbie Keane hit a dropping shot only to hit the crossbar. Spurs had to penalties turned down, one which was quite close when Wes Brown cleared the ball with is chest, which appeared to have touched his hands. Anyways United went on to register their first win of the season, and with Saha and Anderson fit, United have something to cheer upon.

All in all a great day for Reds.

I had been expecting this since sometime now…and orkut finally had this small message today signaling about upcoming new look.

Here is the official blog post about it on the orkut Blog

And here is the screen shot of the site

I have mixed feelings with this look, there is just too much white, the communities and friend list look a bit odd on that white thing…although the design is still pretty good and neat. Anyways good that they are improving this after recently winning the 2007 Pepsi and MTV Youth Icon. Great going guys!

Its my birthday today, 19th August. I turned 22 today. Just had a great dinner, pizzas, chocolate ice creams, lots of other goodies, so had a great day. Just one soar point…Manchester United lost the Manchester Derby

Anyways…Happy Birthday to me

It was like a never ending waiting period for me, but finally now I have an internet connection at home! It might not be a big deal for some, but for me its a big thing for me! For the record its Airtel Broadband, 256 kbps unlimited. Got it yesterday, giving consistent speeds, pretty good service (touchwood!)

Everything is set, installed the messengers and the other softwares I need to use. So enjoying my time with PC more now