I still can't believe it

The champions league final this time was disappointing for more than the one obvious reason which is Liverpool’s defeat. I wanted to watch it on television since the online streams are often unreliable. For example I had to miss the England vs. Portugal penalties and I had to check scores online which was more frustrating than the England defeat. I was praying to god during the penalty shoot-out in the semi final with Chelsea that I shouldn't lose the stream more than how I prayed for a Liverpool win. However watching it on TV here in America comes with a different price. You must watch TV here to know how much it sucks. The Ads lack creativity to the core. And if you love soccer/hate American sports then this is not the place to watch a special event such as the Champions league final. Watching the trash talk show ahead of the game was a bigger disappointment. I heard comments like "the best player in soccer keeps changing every 15 minutes" and then this was followed by "kaka is perhaps the best player in the game, may be even better than ronaldo (Milan)". I don’t know how many knew that ronaldo was actually cup-tied, otherwise he would have played. Further Kaka and Ronaldo are different kinds of players. I definitely missed the likes of Andy Gray and Martin Tyler during the game and John Dykes and company ahead of the game. Another issue was the crowd volume; it was close to nil. I know how the atmosphere would have been in Athens but all you can hear on American TV is the continuous rambling of inept commentators. But these Americans are clever; they had someone who could fake the British accent well thinking that they can make up for the lack of content. Having said all this, they had a pitch-side commentator who I should admit was good at understanding the flow of the game and the tactical moves of the two managers. So in effect they the non-pitch-side commentators sounded crappier.

The game was very similar to the Liverpool - Manchester United game at Anfield this year which ended in a 1-0 defeat to Liverpool. Liverpool controlled the game throughout the 90 minutes only for a late winner by John O'Shea. Everyone talked about how adept Manu are at winning in the final moments but Liverpool’s heroics of playing the league leaders Manchester united as if they were playing southend united were long forgotten. It was a similar situation in Athens; Liverpool controlled the game from the start. Milan had no answer to Rafa's tactical prowess. Kaka and Seedorf were nowhere to be seen. Milan was so naive to believe that kaka and seedorf would have a man each on them giving the others space to create chances. The truth: Ancelotti feared Liverpool. He needed Luck and he had it. Liverpool countered Milan's 4-5-1 with a similar 4-5-1 with Kuyt as the one-top and gerrard helping him out right behind him. Zenden, Alonso, Mascherano and pennant were in midfield. Finnan, Carra, Agger and Riise in defense. The team was almost perfect (given the roster of course). The weakling - no prizes for guessing - Boudewijn Zenden. In my view this guy doesn’t deserve a red shirt and it's good that he's been told to leave. Alright then - Milan were playing oddo,maldini,nesta and ambrosini at the back. Pirlo, Seedorf, kaka, gattuso and jankulovski in midfield with Filippo Inzaghi up-front. Mascherano and Alonso limited the moves of Kaka and Seedorf brilliantly and Milan were kept quiet. So it was all Liverpool. It was all about creating chances and taking them. The first part happened. But it was one of those days when the finishing wasn't top notch and the goals weren’t coming. Liverpool came close several times the best opportunity being Gerrard's weak shot for a Dida save few yards in front of the goal. Xabi Alonso beat the keeper and the goal by a whisker with a 25 yard drive earlier on in the game. AC Milan needed a lucky break from the continuous pressure by Liverpool and it happened seconds before half time. Due to a un-carra like miscommunication between him and Alonso, kaka was able to get to the edge of the box and Alonso fouled him. The free kick was easily Pirlo material. But the shot wasn’t great and Reina looked to have had it under control only that it became a deflection off Pippo and the ball went into the goal. The goal is considered to be controversial since it is alleged that it was off the arm. But no official saw it and hence this crucial goal was allowed to stand.

Now it was a different ball game. Actually not.. It was a cagey affair from the beginning. A battle of the minds. It was all about who got the first goal and then it was just throwing back to defend and counter-attacking. Milan are far too experienced to make a mistake in that. Nesta was brilliant. But then the much awaited move of Kewell for Zenden happened after 59 minutes in the game. Kewell looked fresh and looked to change things around with his tricks on the left flank. Though it wasn't exactly "Harry's magic", at least he took on the defenders with more courage than Zenden. An offensive move had to happen but it happened quite late in the game. Crouch, probably the most successful striker for Liverpool this season came in at 78 minutes for Mascherano. Kaka's genius then became obvious. He played a magic pass to Pippo who finished his brace in style. But what this also showed was how Mascherano had kept a good watch on Kaka until then. But Crouch made an immediate impact. He forced a good save with a 30 yard drive. The goal for Liverpool came 5 minutes before time with a Kuyt header. A dramatic comeback was once again on the cards. But this time, time wasn’t on Liverpool’s side. Milan clinched to their one goal lead over 8 minutes. Pippo faked a blow from a Kewell cross and everyone knew he was wasting time. Kewell couldn't help laughing, I was laughing with disgust. I got reminded of the World Cup final incident. And the referee somehow felt he should blow the whistle 20 seconds earlier despite the histrionics from Pippo and some subs from Ancelotti (an obvious time wasting strategy).

But there was good and bad to take from the game for Liverpool. Overall the teams were matched equally. There was no "daylight" between the teams as claimed by many. Liverpool played well with great movements. Jermaine pennant was awesome vs. Jankulovski (the weakling in Milan). Zenden was crap. And we are still not able to fathom why Rafa didn’t bring crouch earlier on and why he played Arbeloa when he could have played bellamy. Carra was phenomenal as usual. It was no humiliating defeat. A game that could have gone either way. Finally Rafa praised Milan (don’t know what for!) and admitted they were a great side(no arguments!). The carry-home message is Liverpool are definitely a force to reckon with in the future and are developing into a serious threat under Rafa.

--Guru

How I saved the world

Warning: Nonsense post ahead
Finally I have managed to make a list of what i really want to be. It is just a little too long to fit in here but I will just give a gist of it. When i look into the list, I wonder why I would want to be the returning war hero turned actor/director turned businessman turned politician with a penchant for adventure sports, space travel, expensive cars and also possessing a secret Dexter's laboratory in my backyard. Ok, most of you would think that I am mad, but how many of you would opt for such a life given a choice?
A different perspective into this bizarre wish list tells me that I only want to be any of these only for the resultant fame (sigh!). Now that i have established what i really want, it is time to look into the possible outcome that may result in my pursuit to glory. There are two ways to reach fame - do something exceptionally smart or exceedingly stupid. Whatever I do of these two, the outcome would be something that is good to mankind or otherwise. So every time I try to attain fame there is 50-50 chance of success and failure(success denotes resulting goodness and failure otherwise). Observations and experience has shown me that doing good for mankind takes a lot of time to get noticed, so predictably the urge to do something bad overpowers the intention to do something good. I would hence change the probability accordingly, out of every 4 attempts that i take, only 1 would make it useful to people. Now, this is indeed bad news to all you folks out there. Dont panic, I havent added a significant factor yet. I also happen to be one of the laziest persons in this planet, so the chances that i would actually get up and do something with the intention of becoming famous are very low. (However, please do not discount the chances of me doing something good or bad without putting any effort and attaining fame in the process. I haven't ruled out the possibility of someone finding out the fact that the heat generated due to the constant rubbing of my buttocks with the chair contributes more to global warming than the Airbus A380. I am waiting for reporters to throng my living room :)
Thus I conclude by saying that my sheer laziness has saved the world from total annihilation. Isnt it reason enough to be famous? Where are the news reporters?

God must be a PC assembler

If there is one thing that scares the shit out of me(literally), it is the prospect of talking to a woman. My legs start doing the Mr.Bean jig, my tongue starts sticking to the ceiling of my mouth and my jaws get stuck into a strained tooth revealing smile that plainly conveys the message that i am not interested in talking or that I have a bad tooth ache. Anyway, I was forced into a conversation with a colleague that could have been easily avoided had i not been so gullible in assuming that I could just pull it off. Well, it went the way that it usually happens. For someone whose entire conversation in the office(other than anything work related) is limited to hellos, good mornings and byes, bringing up an interesting conversation with a woman over a cup of evening coffee is an onerous, stressful task.
Well, if there is anything in this world that comes close to god, i think it is google. My idea of god would be someone who answers all my questions. Google certainly does that, sometimes on the first try, sometimes it tests my patience by hiding the answer in the 121st page and also occasionally correcting me to ask the right questions. Anyway, I looked up 'How to talk to women' in google and Ta-da.. there were instant answers, although i dint look up any of the links to spare myself the embarassment of my colleagues finding me reading such an article. On hindsight, it would have been a good option to have looked into them.
All this makes me think of god being a wily PC assembler, he apparently fixed me up with a 3Ghz quad core processor, 300 GB HDD and a 3GB RAM, but when it came to installing the OS, i guess he chose windows 3.11 or windows 98(although i am happy, it is not Vista, i would be asking permission even to pee...), that crashes even when i attempt a simple communication. Not to forget the obselete NIC card of the 80's that he installed, which is incapable of the establishing a connection for lack of compatibility with latest protocols. My poor soul has indeed had a raw deal with god :(

Why am i not blogging frequently?

Lately, I have been wondering why i am not writing as much as i would like to, for there are so many things i can think about, and opinions I have wanted to write about. The two reasons that I could think of are
a) Who cares about what you think?
Ok. I admit it, I am no Malcolm Gladwell or Scott Adams, that people jam the network to read what i think and attain salvation in the process, and
b) In my experience, people look into a blog for two reasons, to get some useful insight or information on a specific topic or to derive some sort of pleasure from reading the blog. My blog would definitely not fall into the first category, but I try to make it as good as possible so that it qualifies into the second. So when I set out to write something, I simultaneouly evaluate the PFRB index(pleasure from reading blog), that an average reader would derive by reading the blog.
On the face of it, humans seem highly capable of multitasking, most often than not we do two or more things at a time and pride ourselves at doing it..(that makes it three or more). It looks like we have been designed to do so, but nothing in the rest of nature seems to suggest this. Have you ever seen any animal eat its dinner while watching TV or read magazines while shitting? Since we are not designed for multitasking, our attempts to do so, will only result in depleted performance in all the tasks we take up at a time.
Ok, enough digression, the point is that when I write the blog, while simultaneously computing PFRB, the end product seems to diminish in value (for reasons stated above), computing PFRB while writing itself reduces PFRB. Realisation of this only makes matters worse. In an attempt to lift the PFRB, i often try to alter the content with high sounding technical words or flambouyant phrases, for people often appreciate creative albeit twaddle.
The resultant is equivalent to the end product of a plutonium fission reactor powered supercomputer simulation of all the parts starting from the esophageal sphincter to the gastrointestinal tract and extending upto the arse hole, SHIT!!, although, occasionally an audible fart, that brings a laugh. (what is it with fart that makes us laugh??)

Now you know why I dont blog frequently.

Hercules - The Happy and Gay Warrior

My knowledge in Greek mythology is close to zero, to be honest it is 0- (for those wondering what 0- is, do a wikipedia search on limits, and if you grasp it please explain it to me). I was curious to look into it when I used to play AOM, but lost the interest soon after i finished the levels.
Today, by chance i took a peek into Greek mythology. I was looking for Kerberos in wikipedia, when the disambiguation page showed up with 4-5 options. One of them was about a certain 'Kerberos' or 'Cerberus', a three headed mythical dog that guarded the gates to Hades. I checked this page instead of the security protocol that i was originally interested in. Apparently, this dog's job was to see to it that spirits only enter Hades and don't leave. A few times though, it was defeated, once by a certain Orpheus, who used his musical skills to lull Cerberus to sleep. And instantly I was reminded of Fluffy, the three headed dog in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone that guards the stone and is put to sleep by music. It is a good thing that mythology is not copyright protected or Rowling would have been sued her ass off. (Maybe we should take the cue and copyright our ancient scriptures too, you never know when people will use the same concepts).
Interestingly, on another occasion, the beast was wrestled into submission by Heracles aka Hercules. And continuing the process of clicking random links, i checked out Hercules.
Now, if there is one thing i knew about Hercules, it was his masculinity, in common terms, he was 'the sex machine'. I also found supportive information in this regard, he made out with all the 50 daughters of a certain 'King Thespius' in a single night. But that was just one part of the story and i had a few surprises.

Apparently, Hercules was happy and gay, happy with women and gay with men. I was surprised to know that one of the most celebrated heroes of all time was in fact bisexual. To the Gay Rights activists, i think it must be welcome news to find a celebrity in their community.

P.S: I have nothing against/for gays and bisexuals. I just found the news that Hercules was bisexual interesting.

I see you - A three hour tickle...

For someone who hasnt been on a date, leave alone the blind one.. the 'Blind Date' show at sathyam showed me what to expect from it. I have heard people say that its a risky business going to this show, u could end up watching movies like saw 3... but if it was to be your day, u could be watching the premiere show of say.. a movie like casino royale. Me and my friends werent expecting any such blockbuster, but were hoping to see a movie worth the price of the ticket. I am undecided whether the yet-to-be-released movie 'I see you' is worth the 90 bucks... but hey, i am here to comment on it.

Have you ever tried any weed? I havent, but i have heard about the ecstasy it gives. A friend once told me that it was the most blissful moment he had.. 'Machan... i was laughing like anything (for absolutely no reason), i laughed so much that that my stomach ached and i started crying... the image of me crying was so funny, that i started laughing again...', the movie was something like this.. it was so devoid of logic (or was it a deliberate attempt to make the movie funny?) that me and my buddies were laughing at every scene. Now, this doesnt rule out the possibility that the movie was good or that the movie was a usual bollywood style movie, for i do not watch hindi movies so much.. but a scene where a brit cop speaks hindi on BBC is bound to tickle not just your funny bone but every bone, muscle and nerve on your body.

Anyway, the movie is about a TV host, who can apparently see the spirit of a girl in coma. He starts hanging out with her, loses his grip on life and ends up falling in love with her. The villian is the doc at the hospital who tries to kill the girl, for she knew too much about his organ trade. The hindi speaking cop investigating the accident that led the girl to coma tricks the doc and gets him arrested.(Hmm.. now who is the hero? the cop or the TV host) And there is this hero's sidekick who has done the role that would have made 'circuit' proud.

It would be unfair on my part if i were to finish this here without mentioning about the audience that watched the movie.. especially the five guys sitting next to me and my pals. They made some of the best wisecracks with perfect timing, that left me wondering at the end of the movie.. How did i sit for two hours watching this?

Been there.. done that..!!

The best thing about life is that it can surprise you just when you are not expecting one. It is full of mysteries which surfaces with perfect timing and leaves one pondering for as long as appropriate.

Life for me has been monotonous for the past month or so until a couple of days back... when i was struck by two deja vu's in two days. Now.. two in two days is something that has never happened before.. for me these things happen once in anywhere between 6 to 12 months.

I was particularly interested with the second deja vu. I was diff-ing two versions of a file in gvim(an editor which i have known only for the last month or so), when it hit me.. hey.. i have been here and done this before. It was in a dream i had had 3 to 4 months back, when i was still in infy. That was the time when i was desperately hoping for a career change into s/w development and dreams such as this were quite common. But the most uncommon thing here is that in the dream i was diffing using an editor of which i had absolutely zero knowledge, sitting at exactly the same desk in an office which i never knew.

Anyways, the point here is that these things often raise many questions.. for starters.. can we look into the future? is the future already decided and we just pass through it? or is it just me alone who passes through it and everything around just variables that model my predetermined existence? or is this just a trick of the mind which associates these real life patterns with a mental projection of our deepest wishes? or is this a mere coincidence?

I have been thinking about these ever since the second deja vu and all i could come up with is this blog. :-(