Abhinav Bindra

Abhinav has done it. He has not only done shooting, Chandigarh, Punjab and India proud but also craved a name for himself in the history books by becoming the first ever individual to win an Olympic gold for India.

Surprise and ecstasy marked the instant reaction of the city on the unique achievement of the local lad, Abhinav Bindra. His “bulls eye” in the 10-metre air rifle shooting finals at the Beijing Olympic fulfilled the dreams the nation of a billion but for Chandigarhians it was a special moment that they’ll never forget.

It was like a festival at St. Stephen’s School as students, teachers and the principal of the school went gaga over there former student Abhinav Bindra’s triumph who has done the nation proud by clinching the first ever individual gold medal at the Beijing Olympics.

44 damn years….where were you Spaniards in all these years?

I have never seen Spain playing so well. Fernando Torres has been one of the exception as i have seen him play great football representing Liverpool team in EPL. And he was the man who scored the one and only goal in the final of Euro Cup 2008. Of course there are other greats like Fabregas (Arsenal), Casillas (Real Madrid) and of course well known Carles Puyol (FC Barcelona).

Honestly, i was backing up Germany in this game. But i am not disappointed because Spaniards played out of their skin, held their nerves, and it was a great football match. They are worthy and truly deserved this title. Well they already defeated Italy (World cup champions) and Russia. And they played great football last night! There were two occasions when i thought a freekick should have been awarded for handball but hey who gives a damn… maybe the result would have been the same.

Spain’s defence was their greatest asset. Even Michael Ballack wasn’t able to get through them. In anycase, he is not in good form since many months. Arggghhh, you spoiled your talent Michael ever since you joined Chelsea… Ha Ha Ha… Long live Manchester Utd.

Anyways, moving back to Euro2008, Spaniards played the best of all and they won the title. For more detailed news, go check some big site else share your views via the comment box!

Some pics for you:

Well, this has been a week with some important news and updates. I won’t go in each and every detail, but just few tits and bits.

• Google continues to play childish. It again strikes directories and paid links sites. Many inner pages of directories went down to PR0 or a gray bar. Some unlucky directories even got PR0 on their homepage. Yeah, i know how disgusting this is. But anyways, we just found one more reason to say “Goodbye Google Pagerank“.
• Larry Page, The co-founder of Google Inc has decided to tie a knot with his girlfriend next month. Larry and Lucy Southworth, his girlfriend, will get married on 8th of December’07. The location is still undisclosed. Larry is one of the world’s wealthiest man. As a matter of fact, he is the Silicon Valley’s richest bachelor with a fortune worth about $20 billion. Well, the couple will definitely be showered with all webmaster’s blessing… even from web directory owners..
• India won the Indian Oil Cup in cricket. It was a 5 match series against cricket rivals Pakistan. They clinched the series 3-2 and very convincingly. All of a sudden, Indian cricket looks promising with likes of Mahindra Singh Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh, Robin Uthappa, Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar and Gautam Gambhir. Well, i wish them more success in the future.
• Matt Hulett, WidgetBucks‘ CEO announced that traffic from outside US and Canada (which they term as “International Traffic”) is unlikely to buy from a U.S merchant website because of various obvious reasons. This resulted in dropped RPC (Rate Per Click). From now on, merchants will not pay for the clicks from International Traffic and neither will the publishers get credits for any clicks coming from the same traffic. So best way out is to implement a geo-based ad placement service to determine when to display a WidgetBucks ad widget and when to display other advertising options. This new announcement however does not effect the Ocyober and first half of November earnings, by the way.
• Wordpress 2.3 (The latest version) was a nightmare for many wordpress powered blog owners. Specially for the ones who upgraded their blog from previous wordpress versions. The new version has many new and exciting features. The built in tag option is an excellent feature. But problems came when the blog were upgraded from 2.2.x version to 2.3 version. Everything in admin panel stopped working. All one could see were bugs and lot of errors. Many wordpress plugins proved to be incompatible with this new version. Some even faced problems with the themes they were using. Well, a solution would be out soon, like probably a Wordpress 2.3.1 or something. But if you’re upgrading your blog’s wordpress version, you better be taking backups before doing so.
• From the Formula One corner, well Fernando Alonso quit McLaren couple of weeks back. The news i last heard was that his former partner, Renault, are trying hard to convince Alonso to join them, once again. Other than Renault, there are good amount of talks going on between Alonso and Red Bull as well. Fernando Alonso hasn’t decided anything yet. It’s just a matter of time. I think he will go with Renault, with whom he won the 2005 and 2006 Drivers’ titles.

On my end…well i am thinking about dropping my idea on “Google Friendly Web Directory“. My “FREE” directory lost all it’s PR and finally came down to PR0. Remember, it’s a free directory and not a paid link selling directory. The Google’s PageRank algorithms and the kiddish behavior on paid links sucks big time. So there is no point making a blah blah friendly directory.

That’s all this week. I hope the forthcoming weeks have something good in store for me…. and us!

Two Time Formula 1 Champion Fernando Alonso is leaving McLaren. Now why doesn’t that surprise me? After a whole lot of controversial year for McLaren and Alonso, this was bound to happen. Alonso cuts short the three year contract with McLaren after the very first year. Alonso finished third this season in overall standings behind Ferrari’s driver and current world champion Kimi Raikkonen and his teammate Lewis Hamilton.

Since i have just started blogging, i would like to mention that i am a big follower of Formula 1 racing. I had always favored McLaren as the constructors and loved the likes of Finnish driver Mika Hakinnen, Kimi Raikkonen, David Coulthard, Juan Pablo Montoya, and yeh to some extent Michael Schumacher as well. I guess, This year McLaren lost it’s place in my favorites book. But i am happy for Kimi Raikkonen. He is a real fighter. Anyways, i will end this post by wishing Alonso my best wishes in finding some good team and ofcourse the years ahead. It should be an exciting next season. Already waiting….

Now this news definitely scares the hell out me. Martina Hingis, five time grand slam champion, the tennis star, and one of my all time favorite. Probably one of the cutest female sportstars. She just announced her retirement. I mean what the hell? She is just 27. That’s not the age to retire…

Okay, the news has been that she was tested positive for a cocaine test, and that too at Wimbledon. OMG!!!! Well, Martina calls this a “horrendous” accusation. And why wouldn’t she. It’s impossible to believe that she would ever go for drugs. Why would she need it? So…. I ain’t believing on the story. She says she is 100 percent innocent. She never took drugs in any kind. Obviously frustrated and angry she was.

Martina was tested positive on June 29. The day was when she lost in straight sets to Ms. Granville of United States. Isn’t it that when you’re doped, you have better chances of winning? I always thought that. Anyways, who cares what the result is. We still respect Martina, we believe in her, and we would love to see her playing again!

Sad news to start your day with!