Sunday, February 27, 2011

Magnanimity

I wonder if the overwhelming response to the India/England tie at Bangalore would still have been of "a great advertisement for 50-over cricket" and "neither side deserved to lose" if Graeme Swann had hit Munaf Patel's last ball slightly more to the right of Yusuf Pathan at cover. 


England needed 30 runs to win off 12 balls with tail-enders at the wicket - if you're "happy with a tie" Mr Dhoni, nothing will ever feel like a defeat. 


Oh, and when Zaheer Khan got run out going for a non-existent second run of the 299th ball of the Indian innings, he ran the first run short. Just saying.  

How good?

Would this Pakistan World Cup cricket squad would've been if they had Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Aamir? Hafeez, Butt, Younus, Misbah, Akmal No. 1, Akmal No. 2, Afridi, Razzaq, Asif, Aamir, Gul/Akhtar against a genuine contender would've been fun to watch.


Speaking of genuine contenders, how about Afridi for highest wicket-taker at this World Cup? He's got nine in two matches, Canada, Zimbabwe, New Zealand and Australia to come in the group phases, none of those lineups will be terribly confident against him, he's going to play every game because he's captain, he's going to bowl ten overs every game, I have a suspicion he isn't yet bowling his best and surely, after today's result, a quarter final game at the very least beckons. 

Thursday, February 24, 2011

(Free) Falling Standards in English League Football

1. After 32 games of a 46-game league season, Stockport County have conceded seventy-three goals, which is sixteen more than the next worst defence in League Two. They are still not bottom.

2. In League One, MK Dons have a goal difference of -2 and are 6th. Notts County have conceded as many as they have scored, but are 18th in a 24-team league. This is because they have played six games fewer than MK Dons, as of this writing. If they win all six games they have in hand over MK Dons, they will be 3rd in the current table. They will not win all six games, because they are not 'games in hand' in any realistic sense. The term, I believe, is 'fixture pile-up'.

3. Leeds United are the highest scorers in the Championship but have the worst defence outside the bottom three of the 24-team league. They are, somehow, sixth in the table with thirteen games left and would hold that position even if every other team had played as many games.

4. In the Premier League, Wolverhampton Wanderers, bottom, have won more games than 13th-placed Fulham, with both teams to play twelve more games. The teams are separated by only six points and the bottom team is just fourteen points off sixth place. The gap between first and fifth, with an equal number of games played, is...also fourteen points. (Addendum: Following West Ham's 3-1 win at home to Liverpool on February 27, the gap between 6th and 20th, with an equal number of games played, is now just twelve points. That's near-as-dammit the gap between Manchester City in 3rd and Liverpool in 6th -- indeed, 7th and 20th are separated by exactly the same margin as 4th and 7th.)  

Friday, February 18, 2011

"Isn't it obvious? There are no parking meters out here!"

The best of Frank Costanza.


#3


Seinfeld 9:10, "The Strike"


Frank: Kramer, I got your message. I haven't celebrated Festivus in years! What is your interest?
Kramer: Well, just tell me everything, huh?
Frank: Many Christmases ago, I went to buy a doll for my son. I reached for the last one they had - but so did another man. As I rained blows upon him, I realized there had to be another way!
Kramer: What happened to the doll?
Frank: It was destroyed. But out of that, a new holiday was born. "A Festivus for the rest of us!"
Kramer: That must've been some kind of doll.
Frank: She was.


#2


Seinfeld 7:12, "The Caddy"


Estelle (crying): I can't believe it, he was so young. How could this have happened?
Steinbrenner: Well, he'd been logging some pretty heavy hours, first one in in the morning, last one to leave at night. That kid was a human dynamo.
Estelle: Are you sure you're talking about George?
Steinbrenner: You are Mr. and Mrs. Costanza?
Frank (yelling): What the hell did you trade Jay Buhner for? He had 30 home runs, over 100 RBIs last year, he's got a rocket for an arm, you don't know what the hell you're doing!

#1

Seinfeld 7:11, "The Rye"

Frank: Let me understand, you got the hen, the chicken and the rooster. The rooster goes with the chicken. So, who's having sex with the hen?
George: Why don't we talk about this another time?
Frank: But you see my point here? You only hear of a hen, a rooster and a chicken. Something's missing!
Mrs. Ross: Something's missing all right.
Mr. Ross: They're all chickens. The rooster has sex with all of them.
Frank: That's perverse.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Well done, TNA!

For not putting your best wrestler on the card for Against All Odds, the second straight PPV (and third in the last seven, for those keeping count) he has missed out on. Safe to assume, then, that his face turn was pointless.

For putting the only other possible contender to that title of "your best wrestler" in a storyline that even his excellent wrestling ability (and willingness to cleanly put over the man who married his ex-wife) can only go so far as to put lipstick on a pig. It's still going to be a pig.

For unnecessarily dragging the under-age sons of one of your most loyal professionals into a storyline which will not benefit (and has not benefited) anyone concerned. Terrence Hughes is sixteen years old, for God's sake. He doesn't need to be powerbombed through a table.

For taking the belt off your best talker and putting it back on a man who could, at any time, go into prison for upto seven years.

But most of all, for ensuring that unless your forty-six year old owner can go running back to her mommy and convince her to sink a few million more into this quicksand, you probably will (and will definitely deserve to) tank by the end of the year. 

Tuesday, February 08, 2011

Full Circle

"She couldn't even remember what he'd looked like the first time he'd said her name out loud. She couldn't remember their first phone call. Neither could he. 


Yet, as she looked at him, emerge from the crowd that had gathered around the food stalls in a not-so-crowded concert, she knew she'd say it out loud. To him. To anyone he wanted her to say it to. It was the knowledge that he would never ask her to do such a thing , made her want to say it even more.


Yes, a story like this can only find culmination in your imagination. This could be its pinnacle, or even be near its end.You can never tell with these 'Strawberry Fields' tales.
 

They are just as mis-shapen and unhinged as the song is. What were the Beatles thinking."


In December 2006, I had the honour of having this written for me. In response, I wrote this. To which, someone had said, "haha...you kids are so easy to understand :)" and "mumble grumble" respectively. 


Even at a distance of four plus years, I can remember almost everything that happened during that wonderful November week - I learned to love back, I finally learned to love being a college student and I set the groundwork for a deeply personal, highly irregular and --at least to those we know-- an utterly inexplicable friendship. 


If any of the three of us was to say the 'it' she spoke of in December 2006 to either of the other two, I'm pretty sure much hilarity would ensue. Indeed, our lives since that November week have diverged almost to vanishing point. Yet, thanks to that one week, we know each other much, much better than many people we're surrounded by now. 


Thanks, you two. I wouldn't have been the same without you. :)   

I'm not sure if there's a point to this story but I'm going to tell it again.

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India
I've been wilfully caught up in the self-defeating quest to get to know myself for years. I've never expected anything beneficial to result from such a quest. I tend to evoke extremely polarised reactions from people I get to know in passing. Consequently, only those people who know me inside-out would honestly claim that I'm a person who's just "alright." It's not a coincidence that the description I've laid out above has no fewer than, title included, eleven references to me (make that twelve). I'm affectionately referred to as "Ego." I think that last statement might have given away a tad too much. Welcome Aboard.

IHTRTRS ke pichle episode mein aapne dekha...

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