College Football Rankings - Week 2

WE'RE RANKED 17TH IN THE NATION!!!

Wow, I'm so shocked. I knew Georgia Tech would be ranked, but I
didn't think we'll replace Auburn! AP Poll has ranked us 17th (up
from 29th in the pre-season) whereas USA Today puts us up at 21st, up
from 29th. We're right outside of the Power 16 of ESPN at 17th.

Auburn, on the other hand, slips out of the AP Polls at 28th
(previously 16th), USA Today at 25th (also previously 16th) and
nowhere to be found in the Power 16 (previously 17th).

Come on UNC & UConn!!! I can hardly wait for this weekend's game.

GT 23 Auburn 14

Final Score at Jordan-Hare Stadium in Auburn, AL
NCAA Football Divison I
Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets 23 (1-0, ACC 0-0)
No. 16 Auburn Tigers 14 (0-1, SEC 0-0)



YEAAAAAHHHH WE FREAKING OWNED AUBURN 23-14!!!!!

The trip was fun, and this could arguably be my best college
experience to date. All the shit we endured til the game suddenly
spat back at the Auburn fans by half time, and when the game ended
and we were walking back to our car, the small contingent of Georgia
Tech fans silenced half of Alabama. For my readers who aren't
familiar with college football, Auburn was one of the 2 teams in the
top college division that went undefeated last season (the other was
USC) and were unlucky not to be in the national championship game
because of the nature of the way the rankings work in the computer.
There's still bitter debate about weather they should be played USC
or not. Regardless, they were potential national champions of last
year and we beat them.

Our offence wasn't that bad, but our defence was solid, interceptions
were the key. We could say we were fortunate that Auburn's
Quarterback was inexperienced, but we definitely outplayed them in
the game.

Take that Auburn!!! Undefeated no more, and let's make it clear,
having a Ball (Reggie, our Quarterback) is better than having a Cox
(their Quaterback)

With this, we should be able to beat Univ. of North Carolina (UNC) in
our next home game and the following week, Univ. of Connecticut
(UConn). Then we'll see how we play against the mighty Virginia Tech
in their own turf. By then, we should be ranked well in the top 20 of
the nation.

It's too exciting, I'm eagerly awaiting for the next game. For now,
I've lost my voice, in need of serious sleep (we came back at 5 in
the morning right after the game ended at 1am) and I'm thankful that
monday is a day off with labor day.

Pictures!

Jacob making face during the drive.


Trent.. with his favorite (but not so surprising) friend


mmmm.... burgers...


Shelby... in one of his serious poses


Shelby - "ARRRRGGHHH!!!" (Battlecry)


The Jackson-Hare Stadium... the attendance was in excess of 87,000 that day!

New Orleans

I always wanted to just take a visit to New Orleans in Louisiana. I
got to read about the place from the comic of my favourite superhero,
Gambit. All I knew was that it's a place in the South, with a lot of
French tradition still left behind, THE center of pre-Mardi Gras
parties, and most importantly, great seafood. In fact, I was telling
couple of friends that it'll be fantastic if we could go down there
for a road trip. A co-worker at RubberNetwork told me that it's a
really fun city and that I should go sometime.

I didn't quite realize that Hurricane Katrina was that devastating
until a couple of days ago. I knew that the city was below sea level
and had levees to hold the water out, but now, looking at the
pictures, it's completely submerged in water. And what I don't
understand is the reason why some people at shooting at helicopters
and evacuation buses. Obviously people need to get out, so what's in
it for them to prevent these people from seeking help, let alone
survive? It's literally a renegade city.

Some students from Tulane University are holding shelter at Georgia
Tech campus. The Music Listening Room was basically a temporary bed
shelter for some, whereas many organizations on campus offered
housing. It's horrid that this happened before school started for
them. I mean, the damage is so bad, school is essentially suspended
for the entire year. The city basically needs to be completely rebuild.

All Atlanta got was a really bad rain, but that was it. It didn't
flood like it did last year in one of the other Hurricanes.

This brings my questions up once again -- where exactly in the United
States is it safe to live? The South is experiencing Hurricanes,
Midwest is Tornadoes, Northeast is Snow and West coast is earthquakes.

In any case, it doesn't seem like I'll be going to New Orleans
anytime soon. And even if I do, it won't be the same New Orleans as I
pictured from reading Gambit comics.

I'll be heading to Auburn in Alabama for the College Football season
opener tomorrow. Some places in Alabama were affected, but probably
not where I'm heading. Maybe I might see something on the way there.

I'm really hoping for a victory for Georgia Tech. That will be
freaking awesome.

GO JACKETS!!!

I don't get it, but I can do it

I hate it when I go to a class, get lost in the lectures, and feel
like I'm the dumbest person there (even though I know I'm not) but be
able to do all the homework and understand the text completely.

Most people would just tell me 'Well, that's great, why care about
what you understand? That's not important, what's important is
getting the grade, and since you can do the work, then you shouldn't
worry, should you?'

Well, I do. I can't stand going to class and not follow. It defeats
the purpose of going to class, coz I'm going to class to learn. As
cliche as that might sound, yes, I am actually going to class for
that very purpose. Especially with the fact that this class,
'Calculus III,' is a prerequisite for my subsequent major classes.
It's like Calculus II last spring all over again (a class which I got
an A in), when I could answer most of the questions right, but have
absolutely no idea what the significance of the answer is. It takes
the energy away from me wanting to study for the subject.

Last semester, it was Calculus II and the second half of Principles
and Application of Engineering Materials. This semester, the trend is
pretty much the same, with 'Calculus III' and 'Electrical, Optical
and Magnetic Properties of Materials.' Hopefully it won't follow with
'Object Oriented Programming.'

On a less important note, I've more or less realized that because
Industrial Engineers are not required to take 'Differential
Equations.' my choice of Material Science & Engineering classes will
be very limited. So limited that I might not be able to sit for
enough credits to gain a minor. It seems like the best way out will
be to just take the 4 classes to get a certificate in
'Nanomaterials.' It seems like its the best option, since a minor is
just a minor, whereas with this certificate I'm actually specializing
in Nanomaterials. The second MSE class that I'm taking is one of the
approved electives in order to achieve this certificate, so I can
essentially leave the last two special topics class on Nanomaterials
for my senior year. While holding out for that, I can probably go
ahead and complete the requirements for this other certificate that
I'm trying to earn, which is 'Engineering Entrepreneurship.' I guess
with these two certificates and a bachelor's in Industrial
Engineering, it will be pretty awesome.

Solano came back to Newcastle. It's been an exhilarating couple of
days, I don't think I've been this excited in the 8 years of
supporting a club I've come to love. 30 million pounds has been spent
on 3 players (Owen, Luque and Solano) and it took the total spending
to about 50 million pounds in total if I include Emre, Parker and
Boumsong. The front line looks pretty complete. Ex-England
partnership of Shearer and Owen, midfield bonanza of Luque and Solano
supplying from the wings, Emre and Parker providing the center. I
guess Dyer will act as the free role guy once Shearer retires after
this season. The back's still a worry, Babayaro isn't that tough,
Boumsong showed his frailty over the weekend, Taylor's still growing,
and Carr seems to be the only solid guy there. Given, needless to
say, only needs a better defensive cover. Lineup looks pretty decent
and interesting. We just need a cup, even the Worthless Cup will do,
just anything to make Shearer's last year memorable. I'm not
expecting a top 5 finish, but anything close would be nice. It's
definitely not a short term solution, but hopefully, in the years to
come, this would be a solid squad. Of course, most fans would know
that new signings are usually cursed with injuries (as with the case
of Emre now) and either they need to reform the physio department or
players need to cool a little more.

Either way, it looks exciting, and what I want more than anything now
is a goalfest next weekend. Once we start scoring, the rest should
follow.

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.