The England Tale...

The team I'm rooting for this World Cup.
The players I watch every week and love.
The coach I hate.

It's either euphoria or despair whenever a team you support plays. This WC, even though England have won two matches and drawn one, it's been more despair than euphoria. Why? Ohhh my, I can go on and on and on. I'll try to make it short.

If I could fit it in one line, I would say - "Why the hell didn't the FA kick Swen out after the last World Cup?" You should learn from your mistakes soon, else you're bound to fail again. And that's what I fear will happen again this year. The problem is, just like the FA, it seems Swen doesn't want to learn from his mistakes. And he's repeating them over and over again.

Mistake #1 - Team selection
He chose 4 strikers. Out of which one was still injured, one was recovering, one was a baby totally new to even club-football, and one was a guy called Crotch...oops..sorry...Crouch- The basketball player who (sadly for us) found his calling in football. Now, one of them, Owen, has badly injured his knee and is almost surely out of the WorldCup. So, we've got Rooney, who obviously isn't upto peak form yet, Crouch, who....ahh..nevermind, and Walcott, who is not even being given a chance to show his potential.
End result: 1 n 1/2 strikers, hardly enough ammo to win the Cup.
Why didn't he select Jermain Defoe or Darren Bent? beats me....

Mistake #2 - Team formation
A 4-4-2 works for me. Owen and Rooney upfront would have been ideal..unfortunately we saw that for only 4 minutes..and then Owen got injured.
A 4-1-4-1 is not going to help them win the Cup. It's only calling for trouble. The Swedes took full advantage of that.
But whatever the formation, It isn't going to help if he repeats Mistake #3.

Mistake #3 - Team strategy
Defensive Defensive Defensive. Why??
This England squad has the potential to play beautiful and dominating football. Instead, what do you get? A tentative and wary approach, that encourages opponents to play and score against them. First step: Cut the long-ball approach please. It totally takes out people like Stevie-G and Lamps out of the game. Swen's Long-ball approach is the reason why Crouch is there in Germany. This team..these players can play excellent flowing football. Ground passes, first-touches, intelligent through-balls, these are the few of the wonderful things we want to see. And the first rule, never sit back and defend on a 1-0 lead. Taking out Owen and bringing on the other Owen (Hargreaves) in the first match against Paraguay almost cost them the match. Against the Swedes too, substituting their main attacking player - Rooney, midway during the 2nd half. Why O Why?

If it were upto me, what would I do? I would bring Lennon and Downing into the game as much as possible. Play Walcott and Rooney upfront. Or play Joe Cole on the left upfront. Push Becks to rightback whenever Lennon comes in. Those long balls can be supplied from there too. The problem is that Becks keeps disappearing during matches and only comes into light when a set-piece is taken. Against the Swedes, England hardly had a build-up through the right flank. It was all Joe Cole on the left. Give Rooney as much as roaming freedom as possible. Stevie-G and Lamps in a semi-circle arc behind Rooney. And I would let them play fast and attacking football.

Looking forward, I think England has just enough to eke out a victory against Ecuador.
But looking even more further, it gets scary.
England will play the winners of the Portugal - Holland (or maybe Argentina) in the quarters.
Looking at Holland's present form, I think it'll be an Eng-Por match.
They better improve if they want to reach the semis.
Else sadly, it'll be early curtains for England.
Well, if this dark cloud were to have a silver lining, it would be the fact that it would be mean curtains for Swen as well. But as much as I hate him, I would rather have that happen after the final.

DUNIYA GOAL HAI! pretty BORE bi hai!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!! DUNNIYYYAAAAAAA.........
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLL
HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIII!!!!!
whhohooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!

sniff..sniff...

I can't bear it any longer!!! "DUNIYA GOAL HAI" must be the lousiest, most intelligence-insulting show that ESPN-STAR has ever done!!! How could they stoop to such low standards??? I would expect stupid masala stuff like this for the ICC Cricket World Cup on DD sports or sumthin..where they happily whoo viewers with people like Mandira Bodi..Roshini..eeyyucccck! and then hold like 678,006 competitions...guess this..guess that..guess wats ur father's name! f*&%!!

See, I have always respected espnstar for their excellent content-filled programming. John Dykes, Andrew Leci, Steve Slater, Jason Dasey, Harsha Bhogle - great hosts. I bow down to them. They've got great pundits, take football for example, Gerry Armstrong, Jamie Reeves, Paul Masefield, Steve McMahon etc. These guys are brilliant and they make my football-viewing life complete and bliss.

Until now..
Now : Indianisation has kicked in...
Suddenly, we have Harsha Bhogle (the greatest football pundit that ever lived?) trying to keep the pace with the original footie boys, and he just can't keep off cricket can he? That shot was just like a Waqar Younis inswinger!...duhhh? and then Ravi Shastri speakin about Brazil.."you just can't control samba flair..." (When did he switch lanes?)

Now, I can accept and suffer all that BUT this-> in a pretty bold move to cater exclusively to the Indian public, espnstar has decided to roll down masala boulevard.."DUNIYA GOAL HAI"..the 30-min "fun-filled" filler football show that airs 30min before the 12:30am game. Everything about it is complete nonsense...Wait, I don't mind humour at all..football needs it.. BUT THIS??? I mean.. who are they trying to cater to here? A 17+ audience or an U-8 Tom n Jerry fan club? Gee...most of the jokes that are cracked make me wanna cry...or worshhtest case...put me off to sleep, which adds insult to injury cos I may miss the start/most of the primetime 12:30 match!!!

Ahh..the things that Ranvir (go back to [V] please), Andy Pendes (how could you Sundy boy?) and that fat "wahtitsname" guy do...ahh...please..we can do without the fake make-up..fake beer..the f*&%in whole show!!! The stupid modules they have..like the "B" news..(this part of the show was sponsored by Water. It's a liquid. killl meeee) , the sad match prediction techniques..like makin a mouse decide who wins, or droppin sausages...aaaaaaahh...and the foolish competitions..the prizes..a hand-waving hello to your mom is what you get if you win the caption contest?...Ugghhh.. They should hold a caption contest for that exact pose he does..that way we can have a recursive never-ending bloody competition!! The fake e-mail queries.."I am a player of Mohun Bagan and I'm switching to Liverpool next year. What should I ask as my pay package?"..C'mon get a life~!

I'm sure i'm not the only person with such views. Go to the espnstar feedback forum and you'll see them getting mothered there.

We are Indians. Yes.
But we Indians are not dumb and stupid.
We are not going to simply sit and accept this BS.

Lingo Bingo!

A typical conversation between two friends, 'geek'(G) and 'stud'(S) at a certain Indian Institute,

S: "Heeyy raa, how about goin for today's movie? I heard its max laughs daa."
G: "Pack the movie man. What about tomorrow's exam?"
S: "Heyyy leave it macha..we're gonna get thulped anyway.."
G: "Stop farting. You get rodded if u wanna..I'm gonna put enthu and mug."
S: "Fine, sucha despo. Do what u want! its all for zuk. I know I'm cupping anyway..so..lets just park here..and peace max."

[seein a pretty female pass by...]

S: "God-level dudeee..."
G: "Gossh..stop jolling! ur the worsshtest fella ever..some arbit female walks by..."
S: "chout yaar. You do your bit, I'll cog it out..."
G: "C'mon maan..we have zuk hours left, show some ethu!"
S: "painer...get this funda - we've been in the same situ hajjar times yaar..chill boy!"
G: "arey mama..wat about your GPA? huh..wat about it? Uncle will give?"
S: "Ok finee da..u cash in..I'm gonna get some grub and crash."

***

Recently, I've been "baby-sitting" two students from IIT-Chennai, Kiran and Deepa, who've come to MindTree for their 2-month summer training. Since my PM had gone to the US, and other members weren't present too, I was in sole charge of them for 2 weeks.
(muuhhahahahhaaa...and no! they haven't run away from here..err..yet)
Anywayz, it's been a pleasure interacting with them and getting an inside-view of things how happen out there.Makes me kinda wish I'd "put" more effort during my 12th!

But what has fascinated me the most is the new lingo they've developed out there, over a period of many years. Kiran tells me that his parents can easily understand if he's speaking to a school friend or an IITian when he's on the phone. How? Simple - they can't understand a word when he's speakin to a college buddy!! Normally, you find modified English words and phrases at almost every college campus, usually derived from the local dialect too, but these guys have made almost an entire new dictionary of words! Amazing! So much so that a German female who had come to IIT for some reason, even put in a thesis about it!

Ok..in case you didn't understand the above conversation, here's a mini-dictionary.

arbit - more gen than general.
cash - to be successful in life. (opposite of cup)
chout - chill-out.
cog - to make creative use of your friend's intellect.
crash - sleep.
cup - A failure.
despo - a fellow who studies unbelievably hard to cash in on exams. (negative sense)
enthu - something you would need to read this blog.
fart - pointless chatter.
funda - simple, funda is funda. fundamental.
god - a contender for stud. usually associated with level,eg: god-level.
hajjar- any number greater than 2.
joll - ooze out liquid from sides of mouth on seeing members of opposite sex.
junta - any number of people greater than 2.
level - refers to capabilities of a person, eg: god-level, cup-level.
major - pre intensifier eg: major fart
max - post intensifier eg: peace max
pack - stop it.
park - to joblessly settle in a place.
peace - relief.
put - an allround verb. can replace any verb in the Eng dict.
get rodded - what happens when you write exams in IIT :)
thulp - get beaten badly.
worrsht - beyond worst. way,way beyond.
zuk - zero. (IIT number system: zuk,1,2,hajjar)

Yeaa...now if you read the above conversation, you'll understand it totally.
That's all for now folks..err..junta..peace maxxxx.

DaVinci - décodé and démystifiéd.

Hmmm...saw the most anticipated and controversial flick of the year this week @ PVR.
Well, here's my in-depth but brief analysis -

I'd give the movie a 6 out of 10. [6*/10]
Well, reasons for the 6 stars are as given-
1* -- Ron Howard : It wasn't easy to make a movie out of this book, but I think Ron has done a pretty good job. Obviously, a P.Jackson adaptation would have achieved atleast 3 stars here, but well, what can u say, that's Jackson man. Not all mortals are like him. Ron has made better films - Apollo13, A Beautiful Mind and Cindrella Man. He could have directed the movie better (especially the beginning 20min) but it turns out to be pretty alright by the end.
1* -- Tom Hanks and Paul Bettany : Not the best performance of Tom by a long shot, he seemed pretty bored and uninvolved during the first third of the movie, but he gets better as the movie goes along. Paul Bettany was very good in the violent and tormented character of Silas. I don't think Audrey Tautou (as Sophie) deserves much mention. She did look out of place at times.
2* -- Ian McKellen : Brilliant! Excellent! Changes the movie around totally. I became much happier once he was introduced into the movie. Man! he's a natural! He's played stellar roles such as Gandalf (LOTR) and Magneto (X-Men), and he needn't prove more, but he does a very refreshing and enigmatic job as Sir Leigh Teabing. Loved it!
2* -- Hans Zimmer : We've heard him before - Lion King, The Rock, Black Hawk Down, Gladiator and he's wowed us time and time again. He's top-class again this time and it's the background score that gives the movie a different and magical feel. Especially the scene at the end, when Langdon finds out the actual location of the Grail and kneels down to pray. Brilliant music I say! This German composer deserves his applauds!

Well, that's that. 6/10 it is.
The movie ain't as good as the book (how many times have we heard that line now) but its still pretty good. You are atleast satisfied that you got your money's worth at the end.
Now I'm waitin to see X3 and POTC2!!