Hilariously Red

Adding to my previous post,

A fair few points from Liverpool's cakewalk over Man United. I am aware some Liverpool fans will see it as a ref rant; however it has a fair amount of criticism for under performing United players and appreciation for the best striker in the world as well as a funny.

- Man United played awful. They had no answer to Liverpool's 13 men.

- Liverpool played excellently well as a team, it was impossible for me to pick a man of the match. In the end I decided to go for that Liverpool player who was impeccable in defense, surging in midfield and clever in attack. We have missed that kind of box to box play provided by Andre Mariner last night since the good old days of Keano.

- Giggs and Scholes, with due respect to them, when played together won't trouble most teams. Giggs, Scholes and Carrick when played together won't trouble any teams.

- What must Anderson do to get a game ahead of Carrick?

- I would personally cab Dimitar Berbatov to whoever wants him. But I think nobody does...

- Can we sue Tottenham for selling us two counterfeit footballers for 50 million notes?

- Jamie Carragher is now officially the only defender in the world who is allowed to haul down players that have the ability, pace or temerity to get past him anytime, anywhere. Seriously, I will never know how he and Lucas saw the game through.

- Fernando Torres is simply unstoppable on his bad days. And he is simply unstoppable on his good days. I doff my hat.

- It is better to play with 10 men rather than having Nani on the pitch.

And ending with a funny...

- Liverpool may just get one of those Europa League spots now.

P.S: This is another person's view from a famous football mail forum and i found it HILARIOUS!!!

Man U vs Pool

A few thoughts from the much awaited showdown that was more of a hen fight...

1 - Liverpool were easily the better team, and thoroughly deserved the result.

2 - The pre-game ideas of Liverpool fans that winning this game would get them right back in the mix, was hugely misguided. Instead of looking at the game as "if we beat the champions it proves we are still in it" they should have looked at it as just one more match worth three points. That, at the end of the day, is all they got.

3 - Three points gained on United, but only one on Chelsea. I didn't read one - not one - Liverpool fan mention the fact Chelsea would still be way in front of them after the weekend (before you even try and say they might not have won, it was Blackburn at the Bridge!), which leads one to think that Liverpool fans are only interested in bettering United. Obsessed?

4 - Andre Marriner was p**s poor. In no way is this some attempt at an excuse for losing, as i said Liverpool thoroughly deserved that win. However, if you look at it objectively (in other words, if you aren't a Liverpool fan) how can you say that Evra being booked after two challenges, yet Mascherano not getting booked until his 15th(ish), and Lucas amazingly not getting booked at all (!!!) is correct?

Add to that the possibility of a penalty for Carragher's first half challenge, the two barges on Giggs in the area within 5 seconds of one another, and Carragher's absolutely unbelievable reprieve for the foul on Owen. I was disappointed with Evra's yellow card for two reasons; one because it is an early booking for a defender and that is never good, but two because i thought that would be the barometer for yellow cards for the rest of the game. As it turns out it was only the barometer for United, not for Liverpool.

5 - Carragher's challenge on Carrick. The obvious answer is "HE GOT THE BALL, LA!", but he barely, and i mean BARELY, touched it. As has been mentioned many times, getting the ball doesn't exonerate you from punishment. Had Carragher not managed to take Carrick out, then the ball would still have been at Carrick's feet, so the fact he DID take him out means penalty.

6 - Torres is the best striker on the planet. Not quite 100% fit, pain killing injections before the game, only one sniff of goal, and the winning goal is his. Awesome.

7 - Torres is also a cheating little s**t. In the same way Ronaldo received massive plaudits for ability, but huge criticism for his "gamemanship", so should Torres. The first foul - and "foul" is being generous to the ref - Vidic committed on him and he was straight at the referee complaining, obviously trying to get Vidic in the s**t. As i said he is a truly great striker, but it is about time he was vilified by fans and media alike, about his diving, cheating, whining ways.

8 - United should accept any bid they might receive for Vidic. If we get £20m then we have done well. He has been found out big time! He turns like an oil tanker, his pace over five or ten yards is awful, and as a result he is getting more red cards than we can handle.

9 - Yossi Benayoun is one of the most under-rated players in the league and his through-ball for Torres was the pass of the season so far.

10 - I say again, Liverpool deserved to win, and i have no problems with the result, well done.

Do You Challenge Queue-Jumpers and Line-Cutters?

It was a heavy doze of morning mails and i was not very gay when i entered the training room for a day long training on 'individual contributions and role behaviors' in an organization. By and large this topic didn't impress me in the first place. I held on and went through really tiring sessions on psychology, management and a host of other abstract subjects. I had to miss breakfast in the morning in order to make to the training in time (which was a mandate stringently observed).

The thing happened when we got our first break for lunch. With my tummy rolling and hunger striking me like never before, i stood in the unusual long queue in the cafeteria. I was somewhere around 37th or so when i joined the queue. That added salt to the hunger wound. And then came a small gang of 6 members who had no sense of etiquette and barged into the line as if it didn't exist. Impulsively, owing to my already built up frustration, I lost my temper and challenged that lot. After heated exchanges, they exhibited some kind of social sense to everyone's relief.

Now the reader is advised to consider the above paragraphs as a prologue to a dangerous discussion on psychology.

Disclaimer: To read on, some specific qualifications are quintessential. High levels of patience/ Interest in psychology/Both

Queue is a classic example of how groups of people automatically create social order out of chaos. But this social order can be fragile when faced with chaotic threats, like that of the queue-jumper. Suddenly we have a social psychology experiment on our hands: how fragile is this spontaneous social order and what will people do to protect it? In the answer to this seemingly mundane question may lie an important truth about our behavior in groups. Earlier, people were strangely reluctant to challenge queue-jumpers, suggesting our spontaneous social order is fairly week.

Under what conditions people would protest at queue-jumpers? It depends on two variations. The first variation is the number of intruders. The second, when there are two or more people between us and the queue-jumper, objections drop.

I mean, are we all afraid to question these brazen heads that jump queues or cut lines? No is the answer. In my opinion, there are a few reasons why we don't intervene.

1.Challenging queue-jumpers could mean losing your own place in the line.
2.Social systems have to tolerate some deviance otherwise they may quickly break down, i.e. a fight may start and everyone is delayed while it is sorted out.
3.The line is co-opting those who threaten it by tacitly accepting them so that they gain an interest in the queue and the queue becomes stronger.

After all, queue-jumping is tolerated as long as it doesn't threaten the line too much. People want to avoid social disorder because their own interests (getting served) are tied up in an orderly queue.

So, next time when you are in a queue observe how many people protest immediately at the queue jumper. If no one does, please do it yourself. Alternatively, a good idea of fun is to watch a crowded place for a queue and keep observing. Wait for intrusions and enjoy the ruckus and fights.

Happy queuing!

Enjoy Maadi

I have been cribbing for quite sometime about life at Hyderabad not being too eventful and i have contrived to a decision that if one has to enjoy life and spend money, one has to work in Bangalore.

Reasons:

1. Most/All of your friends invariably work in Bangalore.
2. You have numerous malls and weekends can't get better with the 'bird-watching opportunity' one always gets at these hangouts.
3. Since almost all of your college chums sit here, there is no scarcity of gossip.
4. You start biking like crazy for otherwise commuting is usually tough on weekdays.
5. Your virtues get better as you need to exercise a lot of patience owing to traffic.
6. You will not find any difficulties in knowing Bangalore's geography as it is almost a straight line on the map.
7. If you are a 'tamilian' you tend to feel at home for the language is spoken almost at every street corner.
8. Most/All high paying jobs are available in the city for almost every Indian company has a branch here.
9. You become immune to most/all air-borne diseases as the normal amount of Carbon Monoxide you inhale is awfully high and it overrides or suppresses other problems.
10. You can travel to any of the other three South Indian states by an overnight's journey.

If you are a Southie, Bangalore is 'the' place to be in.

P.S: Can somebody who has read this post find me a job at Bangalore? (Lol)

Testing Times

September went by without any activity on my blog for various reasons viz.. pressure at workplace, too many long weekends calling for hometown vacations, my recent engagement with an NGO and so on and so forth. But life was eventful elsewhere as it did take dangerous turns and slid down slopes for many around the world.

I just came back from a week-long vacation down south and after a frightfully long time got a chance to read the newspaper(funny i know... but i had been traveling most of the time). Looking back, I see that the last few days have been eventful all round the world. Tsunami in the US, Earth Quake far east, Boat capsizing in South India, Floods in a couple of states. Nature has been quite busy with all its fury. It suddenly reminds me of an old Nostradamus prediction that natural disasters along with genocide(read terrorism) will start something that would later be called the "Third World War". One should not forget the fact that two of Nostradamus' most famous predictions were the first and the second world wars. This strikes a chord no doubt. Starting from the early 2000s, we've been reading all about climate warnings, terrorist attacks, famines, floods, katrinas, tsunamis, quakes and what not.

I mean, where are we heading? An old email forward comes to my mind at this juncture. There was this prediction of the world coming to an end in 2012. To be frank, i am not a person who believes in these cheap email tricks which cause a ruckus for a short period. But for some reason I see a coincidence. What if Nostradamus chose to call the 'end of the world' as the 'third world war'? I am in no doubt whatsoever that on first reading these things sound extraordinarily hilarious for i experienced that feeling when i did the proof reading of this post.

Funny or not funny, I think it's high time we got ready to face the worst. Recession coming to an end is the only thing i can think of, that has widened a lip or two and twinkled an eye or the other in these testing times. But Economics and Finance are after all man-made. Why don't we stop celebrating these petty victories and start seeing the bigger picture. Nature, our Creator, is angry and science is not able to stop her disastrous outbursts.

Disclaimer: This post was not a call for action or some revolutionary movement. I tried to think aloud and i am sure except for thinking, nothing much can be done about famines, floods and quakes. So i strongly detest the idea of mockery or intended pun at the basic intention of this post via comments.

Cogito Ergo Sum (I think, therefore I am)

What I spend money on

A lot is being spoken about inflation and GDP these days and I recently chanced upon an article on how obsolete the WPI (Wholesale Price Index) calculation in our country turns out to be. (For people to whom this acronym makes little sense, The Wholesale Price Index or WPI is the price of a representative basket of wholesale goods. Some countries use the changes in this index to measure inflation in their economies, in particular India). That kick-started a new train of thought about how one spends his/her money these days.

Coming back to the WPI argument that I intended to make, the calculation still considers what Indians used to buy in the 80's. A bucket that includes a whole lot of age old consumer goods like GoldSpot, Cibaca, Palmolive, Vanaspati and hair oils that are not to be seen in the market these days. Now,coming down to what I (a middle class Indian consumer "today") spend my money on. It ranges from a relatively high amount towards the realty sector in the form of house rent to a moderately high amount towards books which are prone to smell the aroma of fresh paper in the shelves after years and years to come.

The month usually starts on a bright note marked by the routine SMS that the banker sends to indicate a salary deposit into the account. I mean, the first week of the month makes you feel happy as the double digit figure, that appears on the account balance field each time one goes to the ATM to draw money, attracts attention. The second week starts on a slightly doomed note with a proportion of the money that made you rich for a week debited automatically towards a couple of EMI payments. As a result, the breakfast menu in the second week shows up "3 idlis and chutney" for Rs.10 in place of the the Kellogg's cornflakes (rich in cereals) that showed up last week. The last week of the month does not have the item called breakfast in the day's itinerary at all whatsoever. What now? Food drew up a few thousands in the first three weeks.

Weekends usually contribute a lot to the big hole in your purse as a rule and i don't stand to defy anyhow. A Sunday morning reading ritual at Coffee day/Barista over a costly cup of coffee is a routine list item till the third Sunday of the month.Tamil is an extraordinarily beautiful language and it has an amazing term to describe this aforementioned behavior on Sunday mornings -"S****u Kozhupu". Weekend instincts ask for the "periodic inebriation" (If i am allowed to coin a phrase for convenience purposes) once again and it takes up a few hundreds out of your pocket. Now, to peep into the accounts file, one gets to see an amount of the order of 1763.85 or something of the like at the end of week 3. Ten breakfasts, luncheons and suppers to be taken care of till you get richer once again by virtue of another deposit.

Landmark visits, Night time cool drinks, McDonald's home delivery, Domino's Pizza, Bike petrol, Adidas/Reebok 40% sale, Big bazaar super dooper dhamaka offers, Kwality Walls Ice creams and super market pastries/chat items are other contributors which effectively contrive to throw you into a state of poverty close to month end.

It is Week No.4 on the calendar and one goes broke!!!

With my cell phone in hand (which needs a top-up asap) and eagerly looking forward to getting that SMS which comes on the last day of each month, I sign off wishing the working class readers of this post a rich month ahead.

The August of Swine, Wine and Football

The idea of writing monthly round ups came from one of my "Hall of Fame" list members. One delves into all kinds of funny projects like writing about the happenings over the past month and the like at times and this habit in my opinion is not totally insane. Mostly useless stuff though. The thing is like the poor cat in the old adage where he sees a group of fellow felines jump into the nearby stream owing to the hotness of the mid-day sun and jumps in as well since there is not any other interesting piece of employment he can think of for himself at that moment. You know what I mean. As in, I am more or less trying to be part of this rat race by gibbering about a few things that happened around me over the past month.

The month of August started with the agonizingly high number of flu cases in the country whose root causes are attributed to kissing pigs and licking sows. This interesting habit of kissing pigs and licking sows was observed to have been cultivated in the far west sometime back. I mean, I am not criticizing the westerners who did these things nor am i blaming them. It is just an observation mostly contrived from scientific deductions. [Citation here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQRrgTD13qI].

Moving on to other highlights of the August of interest now, the month marked a good intake of the parent compound of ethyl esters - in the form of a bachelor party organized by a close pal who apparently threw the bash in view of his wife being out of town for quite a while. That session was a special one for, like in other bachelor parties, the topics tended to be of the interesting nature. Girls, School crushes, Love and Sex to name a few. The amount of chemical being spoken about here went to a new high in the history of consumption thus making this session a "hit of the month".

The footballing season kicked off in this period under investigation and the first half of the month was more of looking forward to the start of the new EPL season. The transfer market took a bullish trend after cash rich galacticos and the sheiks at east lands got the prices soaring with their set of insanely high transfer bids. Nonetheless, it was interesting to find out about the new outlook of the English teams who took to field on the 15th August.

That is that for august and that was mostly all i wanted to fart about in this post. I promise to come back with even more boring stuff as the year progresses into the risky days of September October and further ahead.