Deutschland! Deutschland!

GERMANY makes it to the semi-finals, HURRAY!! The quater-final game was the best game that I have seen so far. When it got to the penalty shoot-out, I knew we were winners. What about those brazilians, Fois grae too strong for them? As one of the secretaries at work put it 'There is no way you are going to win a game when your head is bigger than the ball'. France is the wildcard this time, Zizu looked dangerous when he got the ball and his goal against Spain was brilliant. I am predicting a Germany-France final. Lots of changes at work, the past 2 weeks has been quite busy and confusing. I was at the airport when I overhead some of my colleagues murmuring to one another "Is it official, have they made any announcements?". I shrugged it off assuming that it was none of my business only to find out a few minutes in a newspaper that Siemens Networks will merge with Nokia networks in a 50:50 joint venture. This seems to happening quite often to me nowadays, Skype got bought out while I was working there too (If you know Prasoon then its easy to understand). Overall though, I think this is great move but the key to success will be how quickly they are able to integrate both companies, clarify organizational structures and decide what the future product map will look like. Kudos to the management of both companies for striking such an innovative deal. Warren Buffet is one those classic human beings worth knowing, I have always admired him for his perserverance and his convictions about his beliefs. Last week was a vindication of my opinion about him. He announced that he would donate 85% of his wealth which translates roughly to about $37 Billion. That in itself is not so important but the fact that he was giving the bulk of it away to Bill and Melinda foundation, absolutely egoless. He could have built a trust probably as popular as Alfred Nobel's but instead choose to give it away to another foundation where he thought good work was being done. We are planning to go on vacation for a few days this month, we were initially thinking of going to Iceland but the tickets have become too expensive. So perhaps we will go to someplace in Northern europe. Any suggestions?

Will Ghana win the worldcup!

He dribbles to the left, swerves to right and smashes clear of the goalie into the net. This has been our life for the last 10 days, the mood in Munich is fantastic!! I have not been able to watch all the games but those that I have watched have been absolutely thrilling. Deutschland was my favourite to win but I am also supporting England and now after last night game my latest favourite is Ghana!! They absolutely blasted the Czechs, ranked number 2, and after the draw between America and Italy their chances of getting into the round of 16 look awesome. The Brazillians don't seem as mighty as they are made out to be, Spainards are playing well, the Argentinians seem to be peaking at the right time and the Swedes have been unlucky. Been drinking too much beer and burping potatoes all week long. Reeba was here for a week along with my folks who will leave next week. Great fun and very nice to have a family reunion again. Munich is absolutely beautiful these last couple of days. We have had absolutely rotten weather for the longest time and like magic- from the first day of the worldcup the weather has been picture perfect. The football madness is all over, the bars are full, the streests are dirty, the vendors suddenly speak english and the beer continues to flow. I have been going for German classes the last 2 weeks, learning a new language is tough. German seems to be a little easier than French but its still pretty exhausting. Priya is alerady pretty good with the language. I am not sure I will be willing to learn another new language after this, too much work!! Will be in Singapore this week attending CommunicAsia 2006, so maybe I will be able to send some live reports!!