Sou thrilled, Owen-ly is up!

Great day, its been 2 years since I started this blog, and its a nice coincidence that Michael Owen was officially unveiled as a Newcastle player today. Fantastic, just fantastic.

Picture from NUFC.com.



More pictures from BBC Tyne









Was just reading what I wrote in 2003 and 2004 today. And my style of writing, and the objective of the blog has changed a lot, at least that's how I feel. And funny enough, I was talking about Newcastle as well. The only different thing is that today, there's something positive among myriads of negatives that's surrounding the club. Back in 2003, we started off bad, getting kicked out of Champions League and in 2004, we just sacked Sir Bobby Robson. This year, Newcastle still started off horribly, but there's something to look forward to now.

Owen is now a Geordie

Michael Owen signs for Newcastle United in a new record fee for
Newcastle.

Awesome. Whether or not the ex-England partnership of Shearer and
Owen is going to work immediately is another question, but for now,
it looks promising, to kick start a horrible start to the season.

Katrina

Message from Daniel:
'Katrina sure got me wet.'
(In reference to the Hurricane Katrina that is sweeping across
Mississippi and Louisiana as of this moment)

Cronicas

And so it seems like the Arts Theater outing will be a regular thing,
now that couple of friends who are interested in catching these
obscure movies return. Since it was the end of what seemed like a
long first week back in school (maybe it seemed like that to me as I
didn't have that much of a break between housing training and school)
it was only fitting that we go do something enjoyable. We skipped on
the BT gig last week, as I was kind of tired and the others seemed to
want to stay in their new rooms. But not this time, I was itching for
some movie watching.

I still do want to catch 'The Aristocrats' but since that was being
shown in a theater that's some distance away and none of us had a
car, we decided to go to the good old Midtown Arts Theatre. With this
group of people, it seems like it might start to be a regular thing,
which makes me happy. There was a Latin American film being screened,
named 'Cronicas' (or in English, 'The Chronicle') that seemed to be
pretty interesting, so I called up some friends who also expressed an
interest in catching the show.

The movie was about a renowned reporter from Miami who works for a
news channel. He seems to have a knack for solving cases while doing
a report and is sent to Ecuador where there is a child rapist/
murderer aptly named the 'Monster of Babahoyo' lurking about. He
comes in at a time where there is an accident that results in a man
who 'knows' about this monster getting in contact with the reporter.

The tagline for the movie read 'What you see on TV has to be the
truth.' That served the theme of the movie pretty well, as I started
out watching the movie thinking that the man was the Monster, but by
the end, I wasn't exactly sure. Karun and Phani seemed convinced that
the man was the monster, whereas James, Gautam and I couldn't be too
sure (for some it maybe obvious, but there are lot of facts that
still leaves me unable to answer the question). Regardless, it
conveyed the message that if a news is reported inaccurately, it
could potentially send a murderer back into society, and I think the
director did a pretty good job at that. I enjoyed the thrill aspect
of the movie a lot, I haven't seen something like this in a while.
Also, I got to see the beautiful Leonor Watling from 'Talk To Her' in
the movie, so I'm definitely not complaining.

Before school started I also managed to catch 'Igby Goes Down,'
'Primer' and '12 Angry Men.' The last one was absolutely fantastic.

I decided I shouldn't take 21 hours after all. The Material Science
class that I'm taking this semester is going to be pretty technical,
and the International Affairs class that discusses Political
Philosophy and Ideologies seem very interesting, but with a lot of
reading involved. Besides, I'm better off staying this way, I can
concentrate on the 3 important classes in Calc 3, Java and
Probability, and do enough research into Green GDP, and I've got my
17 hours for this semester, while managing time doing Housing work.
If I take 6 hours of online classes while doing work in the Spring
and 16 hours over the summer, I'll still be a senior by next Fall, so
everything should fall into plan.

I guess I'm turning in for the night now.

Has anyone watched Thievery Corporation's new video 'The Time We Lost
Our Way'? The music and the music video is such a calm serenade, it
makes me feel great. You should be able to find it in iTunes' music
video section, or go to their website.

Newcastle 0 Manchester United 2

Final Score from St. James' Park:
English Premier League
Newcastle United 0

Manchester United 2
Wayne Rooney (66)
Ruud van Nistelrooy (90)

4 games played, no goals scored in the last 555 minutes.

But what's new? Newcastle always starts off the season ever so badly.

Going to Auburn!

After a few days of uncertainty, I managed to get the ticket to the
Auburn vs GT football season opener game.

What happened was that there was a lottery for the tickets, since its
an away game and there are limited number of tickets. Some 2000
people signed up, apparently. But what these people didn't know was
that they needed to pay $50 (it's expensive, but GT's one of the
cheaper few with $38) for the tickets. So a lot of people didn't buy
the tickets. Leaving the other people who didn't win the lottery to
buy them. Some people I know planned to go for this since the summer,
so I planned to go with them. I didn't realize their means of going
meant applying for the lottery (I know, its stupid) so I freaked out
when I found out that I needed to apply in order to get the tickets.

So I woke up early this morning to go to the ticket booth, hoping
that they will sell whatever remaining tickets they have unsold, and
found out that I needed the failed lottery to buy, even though they
had many unsold. I frantically went about for anyone who applied for
the lottery but didn't want to go (chances are slim) but fortunately,
Gautam's roommate had it. Only that when I went to him asking if I
could have it, it was torn up and in the trash. It wasn't in bad
condition, so I picked up the pieces, went downstairs to the Housing
office and patched it up, hoping the Athletic Association ticket
booth will take it. The guy didn't even look and asked for the 50
bucks, which I gave, and got my tickets!

The trip is going to be fun. Many GT fans think we have a good shot
at an upset, but I honestly don't know too much about football to
predict those sort of things. But it'll be a great road trip
nevertheless.

I signed up for SWARM last night. SWARM is basically the fan's
section, where we sign up to be on a special section where all the
enthusiastic supporters are. I'm not a big football fan, but I
figured I might as well get in on the fun since it's only fun when
you're in college and I only have 3 more years of it.

Auburn, Alabama. It'll be fun. September 3rd, can't wait.

Bolton 2 Newcastle 0

Final Score from Reebok Stadium:

English Premier League

Bolton Wanderers 2

El-Hadji Diouf (37)

Stelios Giannakopoulos (50)

Newcastle United 0

Why am I not surprised the season seems to be starting off so badly? Because this is the case every season. And I don't mind, it puts more pressure on Souness and honestly, I don't really like him being the manager. It's great that Michael Owen is more or less set on joining Newcastle, but I'm doubtful whether it's going to make a big difference in the long run, since Shearer's going to retire. If those two plays with eachother for a long time, maybe, just maybe it may be a fabulous thing.

I was really pissed off with Souness' decision against West Ham. Sure, I understand that Emre and Dyer were out with injuries. But under no circumstances should you play 5 defenders on a home game, let alone against a promoted side (no disrespect to West Ham, they're my second favouite English team). Even if a giant like Arsenal or Manchester United should you play 5 defenders.

I'm pretty confident he will be sacked soon. This is the reason why.

1998.

Manager: Kenny Dalglish

Preseason: Won at Bray Wanderers

First Home Game: Draw against Charlton (then a newly promoted side)

Referee Dermot Gallagher sends off one of theirs (Richard Rufus).

The game after that was against Chelsea, by which Dalglish was fired.

2005.

Manager: Graeme Souness

Preseason: Won at Bray Wanderers

First Home Game: Draw against West Ham (again, a promoted team)

West Ham gets Paul Konchesky sent off, who else but by the same referee Dermot Gallagher (that has now been ruled a fair tackle, and as a result, the red card now does not stand, like Jenas' against Arsenal)

So... Who plays against us next week?

Manchester United.

Coincidence? Let's see.

Start of Fall Semester '05

It's weird, but school starts tomorrow and I'm excited! It must be
the break that I had from school while working that re-energized my
desire to study in school. I'm planning on taking a full load, and I
have yet to get the EAS course that I applied the overload for, but
I'm going to start attending the class anyway, as I won't know about
the status of the overload request until the end of this week. By
then, they would have taught some stuff and I wouldn't want to miss
the intro part. So it's gonna be hectic, I'm basically going to
attend for 24 credit hours worth of classes as I have yet to drop
Psychology until I get my EAS. Maybe I should just drop Psyc since
I'm taking that as an online class in the spring while I work.

In any case, I can't wait to get things started.

Newcastle 0 West Ham 0

Final Score from St. James' Park:

English Premier League

Newcastle United 0

West Ham United 0

Georgia Tech: Nerd Nirvana

An article from US News about Georgia Tech

U.S. News America's Best Colleges 2006

And now our ranking is tied along with NYU at 37th.

Considering how Tech's College of Management soared in the Graduate
Rankings, I expected our Undergrad rankings to jump. But then I
always forget, we don't have that much variety in majors, so it's
impossible to climb to the top.

I don't really care, Engineering is still top class at Tech (though
it dropped to 6th) and the ranking for my major is still No. 1 in the
country. That's all that matters to me.

Taking a break

Today's more or less a break day from the training (which finished on
Sunday) and the moving in duty that's going to be taking place
throughout this week and the weekend.

The last few days of the staff training consisted mainly of round
robins sessions, which were alright. I just couldn't wait to get the
training over and done with. I can't wait for the semester to start
and get back to studying. (as funny as that may sound)

But I'm not complaining, it wasn't as arduous, so I had some time to
watch a number of films. Well, I've done a little too much of movie
watching to be honest. Let's see what I caught... I finally got to
see Luc Besson's 'Nikita,' and a Sundance winner that Sandesh
recommended, 'Personal Velocity: Three Portraits' which was really
good. And then another Luc Besson, a film I wanted to catch at the
theatre but never got to, 'Danny The Dog' (or more commonly known as
'Unleashed.' Luc's films are often given another titles when marketed
in the US). I've kind of realized that Luc's films have a very subtle
theme of basic human emotions being rediscovered by the main
character. I watched 'Closer' yet again, and I don't care how many of
you think that movie's awful, I personally think it's a pretty
accurate portrayal of relationships in the modern era. Plus the
acting! Then it was another Sundance winner, 'The Believer.' After
that was Wong Kar Wai's highly acclaimed '2046' which was very
interesting. I kind of got confused and lost somewhere along the way,
but I managed to pick it up again later on. It's my first Wong Kar
Kai film (except for the short he did for BMW) and I was really
impressed, I wonder why I haven't caught many of his other films.
Will be giving his famed 'In a Mood for Love' later on in the week.
Clive Owen's 'I'll Sleep When I'm Dead' was a dark tale of revenge
and brotherhood, a typical Brit styled movie. Last night, I caught
Russell Crowe's 'Romper Stomper,' another tale of neo-Nazi's trying
to make their mark and eventually faltering.

I'll try to catch 'Igby Goes Down' and 'American Splendor' as well as
'Primer' in the coming days, three films I've been waiting to catch
but never managed to get the file. Plus now that I've found a site
that allows the downloading of documentaries by BitTorrent, so I
might start to get into that as well. I need to watch 'Enron.' 'The
Corporation' and other major ones that has surfaced recently.

Arsenal 2 Newcastle 0

Final Score from Highbury:

English Premier League

Arsenal 2

Thierry Henry (81, pen)

Robin van Persie (87)

Newcastle United 0

Wanted: B&W poster of Natalie Portman from the movie 'Closer'

If anyone know if and how I can obtain a poster of that photo that
Anna takes of Alice in the movie 'Closer,' please do let me know. I
think the B&W photo is absolutely beautiful, and it's so fine, it
looks like an art piece I'd love to put up in my room.

At the housing staff training

It's 3 days into the housing staff training, and I'm going through it
with mixed emotions. I felt a little out of place as the training
started off as if I joined the training 3 days late. I'm a new staff
and every activity we have is as if we're assumed to be familiar with
the things that they talk about. On the other hand, its not intensive
at all, and when I think about the student council training I went
through in high school, this is a breeze. But I don't exactly feel
like I'm going through a 'training' per se. But it's good to be
talking and getting to know the staff that I'll be working with for
at least the next year. Some are really nice people, and hopefully,
that's how the relationship will remain from now on.

It sucks to be here, I could be working at RubberNetwork instead. The
training's pace is pretty slow, but I can't really complain, since
it's part of the requirement, and it was me who signed up and
accepted the job. I sometimes feel like we could take out certain
elements and compress the training into just a few days, like how I
learned to focus on the 'value-adding process' of the system in 'The
Toyota Way,' but everything has its own reasons. Having 270 students
going through training is a massive thing, but I feel that, once I go
through one of these trainings, I really shouldn't have to go through
another one again.

I didn't expect that I'll be missing weekends for training until
school starts. That was shocking, as this means I will not have a
break to recover from the summer before fall semester. I'm afraid I
might burn out midway through in the semester, and that's not good as
I'm going to be taking a lot of classes. The worst thing about
missing the weekend was that I was really excited about going to this
football (soccer) pub that Sandesh found nearby in Atlanta, and I was
all set to catch the opening week of the English Premiership with a
match of Arsenal versus Newcastle, but it now seems I can't go. I've
told Scott about it, but it's a small price to pay, as we'll
definitely be hanging in the pub as many weekends as we can from now
on. It's just perfect, finally, a place we can hang around watching
soccer, and Scott getting drunk.

The job of being a community advisor is not going to be as
straightforward as I thought. But then, I'm willing to put my effort
into it. I know I had a great Freshman year, all thanks to Scott, and
I think everyone who comes in should have a good time, not a horrid
time. And it's me who wanted to be a housing staff, and I accepted
the offer, I can't bitch about what I have to do. Well, at least it's
not intensive that drains you out.

My new room looks great. I've attached the posters of Leon,
Motorcycle Diaries, City of God and Snatch on my wall, and I'm
waiting for the Audrey Hepburn one. And maybe I'll get another movie
poster to complete the setup. I've bunked the two beds, so that even
if I have guests, they can sleep over, and the desks put together
like the letter L, so when you step into my room, it looks like an
office. It's neat, a lot of space to work with, and it feels pretty
big. I can blast the music whenever I want and just close to door if
it annoys people.

I finally caught 'Me and You and Everyone We Know' over the weekend,
and I really liked the film. There was something very natural about
the film and I always like it, especially when it portrays lives that
people go through as accurately as possible. I think the 'poop back
and forth' (really, don't ask) is probably the funniest line ever
coming out of any independent films I've seen. That really brightened
up the movie.

Over the course of the last few days, I've also managed to watch
'Mysterious Skin' and 'The United States of Leland.' Both were
provocative films, but I loved it. 'Skin' was somewhat similar to
'Bad Education' and 'Leland' asked many interesting questions in the
end that still keeps spinning in my mind. We tried watching 'La Femme
Nikita' but it was a Russian (if not, definitely Eastern European)
dub and the subtitles were not matching, so we decided to give it up
and try to download another version.

I guess I'm ending it here for now, got some paperwork I should take
care of before it all starts piling up.

Freedom!

Aye, 'Braveheart' ranks up there with 'Gladiator' for me. I liked the movie very much despite its length, but unlike the other films I've been watching, it didn't feel long at all. Looking forward to watching 'The Corporation' tonight.

 

I've gone ahead and downloaded several other movies from BitTorrent, or whatever films that I've not seen that are ranked in IMDb's Top 25. That's on top of downloading gigabytes after gigabytes of songs, and I actually have to delete quite a bit of stuff from my iPod to fit everything in. I'm going to keep only the songs that I like instead of the whole album from now onwards, then, I think I can have a variety of songs left that I can access whenever I feel like it. I'll keep the entire album for select artists, which shouldn't be a whole lot.

 

One thing I failed to say in my last entry was that through Scorsese's films, I think I've developed a greater appreciation for Rober DeNiro, as much as I admire Samuel L. Jackson, Denzel Washington and Nicholas Cage. DeNiro can truly convince his character to the audience.

 

Anyway...

 

The office's rather quiet. Most of the Supply Chain team is on a business trip, leaving me with wrapping up whatever that I have left to do and making sure everything can be taken care of for 2 weeks before my friend comes in as my replacement. So needless to say, I've had a lot of time to do a lot of reading and researching. I'm planning on taking one or two online classes the next time I'm on a work semester, so that I can complete the classes that are required, but ones I'm not entirely willing to take. If I am to take these classes like psychology, social science electives and database systems as a transfer credit from other universities, they would not count towards my GPA, so that's another incentive (I never liked those subjects and was worried they would hurt my GPA, rather than help). I thought of taking a distance learning class, but that presented limited options for classes and that would also bring about time constraints, coz I would actually have to go to class at a specified time. The only university that I could do that was with Georgia State University. I don't mind, they offer a lot of classes that I can transfer, but the thought of having to go to a 3 hour class after long day at work puts me off. Plus, there's the chances that my commute might be delayed unexpectedly and that might present problems on test days (and these things somehow always seems to happen on those important days). I've done some research and it seems like University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Indiana University at Bloomington, University of Washington and North Carolina State University at Raleigh seem to be the best options (and at a relatively cheap per credit hour rate). If I manage to pull this off, I think I'm on course to graduate just in time for Spring 2008, and won't need to take that extra summer that I initially thought I would have to take to fulfill graduation requirements. Plus, taking classes online would be flexible in terms of time commitment and whatnot. My estimation would say that if things go as I plan, I wouldn't have to take a 21 hour semester this coming Fall, and will only need to average 15 on the regular semester until I graduate. That seems very good. If I decide just to get a nanomaterials certificate and not a minor, that figure drops to 13, just barely full-time. So I guess I'll just need to make sure I can do this with the Registrar's Office once school starts, confirm the transferable classes, and I'm good to go.

 

I finished reading Jeffrey Liker's 'The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from The World's Greatest Manufacturer" last week and it was a very insightful book. Not only in terms of Industrial Engineering and Management, but also in terms of Manufacturing, Efficiency and general pointers as to how to make processes flow smoothly. Though the book concentrated mainly on manufacturing issues, I believe the principles can be applied in almost any way. Simple principles that can enhance business flow and improve the functions within a company, and beyond. As I discovered how Toyota rose from the brink of extinction to almost outnumbering Ford and GM, it also taught me how history, tradition and ethics can play a huge part. It was vital that I read a book, as I am interested in going to either manufacturing or supply chain/logistics industry, and it gave me a broader perspective than what I have picked up through my time with RubberNetwork.

 

Now, I'm reading a book on 401(k) (investment option that's provided by RubberNetwork - even for me, as an intern!) I knew that investing a sizeable amount from an early age would be greatly beneficial in the long run, but when I was first presented with the plan, I knew jack, so I didn't participate. Hopefully, after reading up and understanding how it works, I can put this to my advantage, even before I work as a full time employee. Some people I interviewed for major research told me that they wish they knew more about it, so that they could take full advantage, so it stuck with me to make sure I learnt it myself. Over the Fall semester, I'm planning on learning more about it, so by the time I come back to work in January, I'll be set to go. During the work terms, I'll enhance my knowledge of supply chain by reading about Six Sigma, RFID and Lean Thinking.

 

I bought way too many books, coz I just got so caught up in how much there is to know in the industry. But I honestly think it's better for me to know about all these things so that I'm prepared for work when I graduate, instead of having to juggle work and also to be learning completely new things when I start working. It's all for me to gain, and nothing will stop me. The plan for now is to graduate, get into a massive corporation, earn about 5-6 years of work experience, get an MBA, and take things from there, hopefully getting into the Global Supply Chain/Logistics industry. With globalization fully kicking in, and increased manufacturing throughout the world, this will present a lot of opportunities. And that may allow me to travel to a lot of places.

 

Time for me to leave for today. Tomorrow's my last day for this working semester. It'll be weird for me to be stepping back to school. But that's another 2 weeks to go.

Newcastle 1 Deportivo 2

Final Score from St. James' Park:

UEFA Intertoto Cup Semi Final 2nd Leg

Newcastle United 1

James Milner (39)

 

Deportivo La Coruna 2 (Spain)

Jorge Andrade (45)

Pedro Munitis (48)

 

Aggregate score 2-4. (in favour of Deportivo)

 

Newcastle knocked out of competition.

 

 

Well, another Europe-less season for Newcastle, like Celtic.

 

EPL season to begin for Newcastle on 14th of August against Arsenal at Highbury.

No more Scorsese

With 3 more films recommended (which, even if not recommended, I would probably have watched it anyway) which were directed by Scorsese, I can conclude it once and for all: No more Scorsese films for me. His style just does not appeal to me and the funny thing is I can't really begin to explain why. It's kind of like how many of my friends detest Tarantino's films (and Tarantino, as a person) but can't provide any convincing reason why. (I never accepted 'I was confused, it's not clear to me, etc' as an acceptable reason, which infuriates them).

 

I caught 'Mean Streets,' 'Taxi Driver' and 'Raging Bull.' over the last 3 days, and if I'm being considerate, then I'll say I kind of liked 'Taxi Driver,' it kind of reminded me of 'Leaving Las Vegas' with the subtle music time to time. Even then, Scorsese films makes me feel like 2 hours is really 4 hours, and I just see no flow (I don't know if that's intended). I seriously do not know how 'The Aviator' is like, but I'm pretty convinced that is the last Scorsese film I'll catch, and that's mainly because it did well in the Oscars and I want to see why, not because it is Scorsese's.

 

Maybe its the lack of flow and the slow pace that puts me off. I regard him well, but I just can't point a concrete reason. I see the pattern in his films as an analogy of a talented artist spending years trying to paint a masterpiece, only to destroy it by slashing with a knife in a matter of minutes. I guess that more or less explains the general trend in his films that I've seen. (And somewhat similar with most of John Grisham's novels)

 

I admit, that I'm not a completely artistically inclined film reviewer (though I wish I could be anywhere close to being so, instead of trying to sound or talk like one) and maybe I'm approaching it from a wrong direction to appreciate his style. Watching those 3 movies was some kind of a drag for me, and I usually never approach a movie that I'm going to watch and keep looking at the time to see how many minutes has passed. That's how it was. Often, I do not care whether the movie's 90 minutes or 150 minutes long, if its good, I've enjoyed it, even if it wasn't good, it never made me feel like time was slowing down on me. For some strange reason, I had this unwillingness to watch the movie, because it would feel like ages before I completed watching it (but I still wanted to see it, how bizarre).

 

If anything made the weekend better, then it was that I also caught 'Amadeus' and 'Apocalypse Now.' On the contrary, I thought these two films were brilliant. 'Amadeus' brought the central character and grew him, and then showcased his downfall (the hero never lives, an approach I fancy) which was done very well. While watching 'Apocalypse Now' I was conducting a loose critic of America's foreign affairs in the past, and thought it was weird, yet coincidental that that very idea was the central message of the movie of how someone powerful can make others do something however he or she liked it and the oppressed do not have a say in this decision. I read up on the text that the movie was based on, 'Heart of Darkness' which was written in protest of the British Imperialism, and the loose hint of the same theme in the movie rang some bells. It was more of a movie that made me think about things in general, which I liked.

 

In any case, all movies were considered class acts, and it was good that I got to catch them. I have 'Braveheart' and 'The Corporation' left in my laptop. I've seen bits and pieces of 'Braveheart' before but never the entire thing from start to finish, and I've read only good things about 'The Corporation' so I'm kind of looking forward to it.

 

I was pretty pissed off that they stopped screening 'Mysterious Skin.' I hope that one of the theaters will screen it some time soon, and maybe I'll get to catch 'Me, You and Everyone We Know' this weekend. I really want 'The Aristocrats' to be screened in Atlanta, though AMC cancelled the screeenings here as well as Chicago. But I'm hopeful about the wide release that starts on August 12.