Chicago's claim to the 'Beantown' title

One has often heard Boston being referred to as Beantown (and I've no clue why!), but Chicago recently made a strong pitch for that title now.   For, in the heart of the city, lies Chicago's most ambitious city beautification project ever, costing a whopping $475 million - Millenium Park.  And the star of this new park is clearly the creation of a Brit of Indian origin, Anish Kapoor's "Cloud Gate", or fondly referred to as "The Bean", or "The Pod", or as I would like to call it (being the technophile I am!) - cPod.
 
cPod is a piece of art, humungous in size, made of stainless steel.  And I had to go and see it, on Friday, the 16th, when the Park was officially open.  'Coz, cPod would be open only for a week, as its still not complete yet.  After a week, dear cPod will be covered up, and then the finishing touches would be carried on, which they say will be a few months.
 
Besides the Bean, there are also other architectural attractions in this expensive park, namely the Crown Fountain, which is a strong contender for Buckingham Fountain, in terms of appeal. But BF, still has its charm, a good old fashioned fountain. The Crown Fountain has two square towers 50 feet or so in height, and the water flows down from them.  The highlight of this fountain is that its made of glass wood bricks, andbehind one of the sides of each tower, is a humungous LCD screen, which portrays faces of different Chicagoans.  And every thirteen minutes, out a spout of water comes 'out of their mouth'. The accompanying photograph will give you a better idea.
 
I still havent checked out Frank Gehry's Pavillion, and I have atleast another 23 acres to check out of the park.
 
The more I'll see, the more I'll post :)
 

  
 

One of the towers of Crown Fountain. The water spout from the mouth of that person is not an image, but real water! 

View of cPod from the North end. Notice reflections of downtown Chicago! 

An experiment with 'object' and 'image' - reflection off the belly of cPod 

"Cloud Gate" aka Pod, Bean, & cPod 

Borrow instead of buy? - Try Moogul

A great business idea, and an even greater convenience for the general public - a website that lets you borrow stuff from people across the country, for a small fee. Thats Moogul for you.
 
The website was launched fairly recently, a couple of weeks ago, but its a money spinner for sure.
 
It works in a very simple way. You have something that's lying at home, and you can end up making money off it. Just let people borrow it on Moogul, for a fee. There is a sharing period, at the end of which (another great idea !), the borrower is asked to send the material to another user who has requested the material, or they can send it back to the lender.
 
Among stuff listed on it, are music CDs and books. And I have a staunch feeling, Moogul will end up being the eBay of borrowing and sharing. Not only are individual users going to use this service, but it will be a perfect market place for business to rent their products. (How about if you need a spray paint machine to paint or coat your garage floor with some wazzitname thing, and you need it just for two days, and you dont want to buy it, as it'll remain unused for a good part of the year? - Rent it from one of the businesses that I'm sure will be ready to offer such things)
 
But why the name Moogul? Apparently, I read somewhere, it was based on name of the Moghul dynasty, but its quite clear, the founder, John Maske, wanted another 'Google' phenomenon.
Getting one's product or service used as a word of action (verb, for the literarily inclined), is a measure of the popularity and market reach of the product/service. " I FedEx-ed the package", " I Googled this thing", (and if you were in India, its "Get a Xerox of this document"), are phenomenal by themselves. Now, I'm sure, it wont be long, before "I Moogul-ed"  becomes common.
 
Now about sharing, especially music CDs, copyright infringement comes into one's mind. But the folks at Moogul did their homework, and its perfectly legal to share original CDs with strangers ! (talk about strange laws, or is it a gaping loophole?)
 
Happy Mooguling people. (There, I have unofficially started it !!!)
 
 

"Boys Gone Wild" anyone?

Couple of days ago, I read a report in Entertainment. The makers of Girls Gone Wild are planning to come out with the male version ! So all those raunchy videos of sophomores, juniors and senior girls out on spring break, will now have sophomore, junior and senior guys !!
 
Now, this must be a real welcome break for many women, who are tired of watching the Girls Gone Wild promos on TV, and were itching or thinking about a guy version. (Not to mention, some guys must have surely been thinking about the same !).
 
My only doubt is, if Dogfather Snoop Dogg presented the girl version, who will anchor the male version? Queen Latifah?
 

The Game against Suburban Cricket Club

Yield not to temptation, for yielding is sin....

The match started with captain Muzzie, winning the toss, and electing to field.

Kush and Hasan, as usual, bowled fine opening spells, with Hasan taking Ravi Suvarnakati's wicket. Ravi incidentally had scored 95 runs in a previous match, against Purdue. Azeem Haq was joined at the crease by leftie Naser Yamani.

Naser, played some amazing shots, and looked in dangerous form. But that was before, Kush induced him to play a cover drive in the air, and Vinay took a great catch at Short Cover, as the ball came off bat like a rocket.

Azeem bhai was playing a rock solid innings, and gave only two chances at all. The first one, came my way, at Point, and I dropped a sitter of a catch. The other chance, or rather half chance, was behind the wicket, later on in the innings.

Muzzie, then brought, Adnan on, as first change, and he promptly bowled the next batsman who came in, Asif Ali, with a great yorker.

And on second change, came Shakir mian. Was it his game or what? He had the Suburban middle order flummoxed completely, ending up with 5 wickets. And Adnan helped finish of the tail ending up with a total tally of 3 wickets.

The Suburban total was 88, and Sonics had finished them off in 26.4 overs !

Sonics' innings, started off with the same opening pair as the previous match - Kush and Muni. A much harangued Muni, (since his first ball dismissal in the previous match) was out to prove a point today. And to quote him verbatim, "silenced his critics" with a great knock, murderously pulling anything that was pitched short and on the leg stump.
Kush and Muni provided our team's first 50 run opening partnership. And then, 5 of our batsmen including yours truly, succumbed to temptation, committed sin, and were back in the pavilion. The Suburban team, devoid of a good pace attack, resorted to some wily bowling, where they tempted every batsman with either full length deliveries, or as in Naseer's case, where they set him up for a pull shot, and one of the kids at Suburban - Moiz, at Sweeper Cover, took a fine catch. I, being 'promoted' from 11 to 2 down, perished to a silly shot, playing at an even sillier ball.

A special mention should be made of Rehan, the Team Jester. He had bought, the best bat possible, an MRF Genius. And how much did he score with the new bat? 0 . Rehan, made an outrageous offer, offering to sell this piece of wood to me, for $10, on his way back. My counter offer at a reasonable $5 for this worthless piece of wood, was denied by him. Rehan, you should stop being so greedy !

Among other things, the match provided its great moments. When Suburban's wicket keeper came in, a fit old man, aged around 55 or 60, Arun and I, almost wrote him off. But some of his shots, surprised us, and we realized that we underestimated this guy. He was darn good. When he was playing, i was able to see a characteristic of old age - experience and a short temper. His shots were amazing for a 55+ year old man, and the way he was yelling at Kaleem bhai, while running between the wickets, who couldnt run half as fast as him, was very funny. I even laughed aloud in the field, much to Kaleem's annoyance.

All, in all, a very good match, and a good victory. But there are definitely areas for improvement. In the bowling area, lesser extras, and in the batting department, the conviction to stay put at the wicket, including yours truly.

Yield not to temptation, for yielding is sin.....

Man of the match - without a doubt, Shakir.

*************************

Little Johnny jokes are my favorites, and here's one for you guys.....

Johnny's thinking

One day in class the teacher brought a bag full of fruit.
"Now class, I'm going to reach into the bag and describe a piece of
fruit, and you tell what fruit I'm talking about."
"Okay, first: it's round, plump and red."

Of course, Little Johnny raised his hand high, but the teacher, wisely ignored
him and picked Deborah, who promptly answered, "An apple."

The teacher replied, "No, Deborah, it's a beet, but I like your
thinking."

"Now for the second. It's soft, fuzzy,and colored red and brownish."
Little Johnny is hopping up and down in his seat trying to get the teacher to
call on him. But she skips him again and calls on Billy.

"Is it a peach?" Billy asks. "No, Billy, I'm afraid it's a potato. But
I like your thinking," the teacher replies.

"Here's another: it's long, yellow, and fairly hard."
By now Little Johnny is about to explode as he waves his hand frantically. The
teacher skips him again and calls on Sally.

"A banana," she says.

"No," the teacher replies, "it's a squash, but I like your thinking."

Little Johnny is kind of irritated now, so he speaks up loudly. "Hey, I've got
one for you teacher; let me put my hand in my pocket. Okay, I've got
it: it's round, hard, and it has a head on it."

"Johnny!" she cries. "That's disgusting!"

"Nope," answers Johnny, "it's a quarter, but I like your thinking!"