It’s opening day for baseball, and opening day at Yankee Stadium. Opening day is always special, but this one (and the one next year) are going to be extra special. The game today against the Blue Jays is the last opening day at our beloved Yankee Stadium, before it is torn down for the new one opening next year.

Change is part of the very fabric of life in New York. Nothing stays the same here, and being overly attached to anything is fraught with danger. But it’s still tough to say good-bye to Yankee Stadium, even more than it was to say farewell to Torre. Anyone who has walked into Yankee Stadium can just feel the history. And being a Yankee fan, the experience is all the more religious. I loved this behind-the-scenes look at the hidden treasures of the Stadium by Tyler Kepner of the New York Times.

I may not have seen Mantle, DiMaggio, Gehrig, Maris or the Babe play in the House that Ruth built. I may not have witnessed Murderer’s Row at work. But I have see Yankee greatness. I watched O’Neill, Tino, Rivera and Jeter lead the dynasty that dominated in the 90s, and won the first championship of this century. I watched Jeter’s Play, the Yankees playoff run and World Series in 2001 transcend sport to help heal a city, in what was probably the best World Series I have ever seen (even though they lost). I watched Aaron Boone’s 11th inning home run sail into the right field stands, the last time the Yankee mystique collided with the Red Sox curse.

Saying good bye is hard. And one day this summer, I will go on a tour of the old Stadium to bid it farewell and thank you. Thanks for all the memories, the championships, and the pride. And I hope that the new Yankee Stadium will be just as great and majestic, and filled with Yankee pride, so my kid can feel the same way I feel when I walk in.

10 years ago, nobody would have seen this coming. Today India’s Tata Motors Ltd announced their intention to buy Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford Motor Co for about $2.3 billion.

This follows their arrival on the world scene with their ultra-cheap $2,500 Nano or “People’s Car,”. Adding the luxury brands to their arsenal of trucks, buses and cars gives them a unique (and somewhat weird) portfolio. It will be interesting to see how this deal turns out for Tata Motors, but one thing is sure: India cannot be ignored in any aspect of the world economy any more.

Our steps towards parenthood continued with the latest milestone – putting together the crib.

The “crate” (as my aunt called it when she gifted it to us) got delivered by FedEx a few days ago, and it took me one evening to put it together. My fair and circumferentially challenged wife was no help in the process, leaving me to do all the heavy lifting and deft construction work on my own. But she did have fun snapping pictures of me (a little too much fun, if you ask me).

It actually wasn’t too difficult. The instructions were good, but not great. While they did a great job of labeling the parts (especially the screws, which is something that isn’t usual), they didn’t really label the wooden supports, which led me to connect it the wrong way round once.

Thankfully, I managed to get past those mistakes. I did have to do my fair share of balancing acts to get it put together. At one point I had a small pyramid made from the Styrofoam packaging to balance the mattress support on while I tried to get it into the right slots. I wouldn’t recommend the project to anyone that is not fairly dexterous. And I only stubbed my toes once

Now to figure out a place for it in our room.

Reading up on articles about the passing of Arthur C. Clarke, the ground breaking futurist and sci-fi writer, I ran across this project Wired Magazine ran a few years ago where they asked some well known writers to come up with short stories that were restricted to 6 words each.

I remember reading it in the Wired issue at the time, and marveling at how much could be packed into a few choice words. This online version has many more than were in print. It is definitely worth a read if you have time.

Clarke refused to shorten his 10 word story to fit the rules, but it is a classic nonetheless:

“God said, ‘Cancel Program GENESIS.’ The universe ceased to exist.”

Leave me some comments telling me which ones you like the best.

Reading about the escalated and violent suppression of the protests by Tibetans in China is really getting under my skin. The impunity with which the Chinese government is able to censor both the news media and internet content through channels like Youtube is such fascist behavior. Yet the US State Department no longer considers China one of the world’s worst human rights violators.

One would think that the upcoming Olympics would provide the rest of the world enough leverage to at least force China to the table on this. Yet while we sit on our high horse claiming to bring democracy to the world, it is left up the French to suggest ways to pressure China on this. And lets not forget that the Chinese Government has not done enough about the situation in Darfur.

The whole thing makes me so angry!

Keith Olbermann perfectly voiced my feelings about the negativity and ugly politics emerging in the Clinton campaign.

Aaaaaaaaarrrrggggggggh!

I read this today on Yahoo: Last ‘Harry Potter’ Book Becomes 2 Films

Ostensibly, because ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows‘ has so much to cover, the movie folk didn’t feel like they could eliminate any part without affecting the narrative. So they decided to make it into two movies coming out in 2010 and 2011.

While I admire their effort to maintain the integrity of one of the best fantasy books I have ever read, me thinks that the financial boon of getting two blockbuster movies instead of one had more to do with the decision.

All I can say is “Of all the Muggle-headed things to do…”.

Okay, so it isn’t really that momentous actually. But when the week ended yesterday, Tanu and I both heaved a collective sigh of relief at finally getting over the hump of the big purchases we needed to make. They had kinda been weighing on our minds, since we had spent time researching these things, but had not actually gotten any of them into our house. And the closer the date gets, the harder it is for Tanu to go shopping.

But we finally got most of our big ticket items. The photograph on the right shows me surrounded by most of it in one corner of our bedroom where it is all accumulating. Chief among these was the travel system (thanks Mamaji-Mamiji), which includes the stroller and infant car seat that we will need to bring the kid back home from the hospital. We had actually gone to the store a couple of times before to get it, but could never find the exact model we wanted. This weekend, we finally managed to get it. The other item is the crib mattress in the corner, which goes with the crib (or the “crate”, as Maasi calls it, who is gifting it to us) that should be getting delivered soon. Figuring out the mattress was much harder, because no one recommends specific mattresses, and the same one is named differently in different stores, making comparison shopping so much harder.

The diaper bag was also challenging, because we (fine, I) wanted to get one that was not too cutesy, and that I would be okay carrying around. But everything we looked at either had lots of pink, looked like a ladies bag, was a glorified backpack, was covered with colorful animals, or was way overpriced. After lots of searching we finally found this Eddie Bauer bag that looks like it will be the one.

As you can see in the photograph, I have been forced to clear out books from my bookcase to make way for the myriad items that we are accumulating – diapers, wipes, refills, soap and the like. I hear I may even have to give up another dresser drawer (having already given up half of my share to Tanu).

Here is another thing we realized over the weekend. This kid is going to be expensive! Yesterdays shopping trip alone, when we bought the travel system, the mattress and other assorted items, was a significant chunk of money. Since Tanu didn’t like the idea of a baby shower, we didn’t have a gift registry. And because we are particular about the things we wanted to get, our relatives had to essentially tell us the things they wanted us to get on their behalf from our list. So while the sting of buying so much stuff may have been lessened, having to buy it all (and carry it to the car) myself made me appreciate the so-called “cost of a baby” all the more.

Now to get that labor bag ready…

Celebrity endorsements do carry some weight with the masses. I blogged previously about how I thought the Will.I.Am video was a great thing for the Obama campaign, because it captures its energy and message so well.

Well, Jack Nicholson just released a video endorsing Hillary Clinton. And here is what I am thinking: is it really a good thing to be endorsed in a video by The Joker, Col Jessep (from “A Few Good Men”) and Jack Torrance (from “The Shining”)?