the doosra: ICC - Incompetent Cricket Council

Somebody once asked me if I believed that everything happens for a reason. I said I don't know. But there's definitely a reason behind what ICC has to say, hide or reveal. And time and again, in face of controversy the governing body of cricket has found itself - hmmm... how do I put it delicately- useless. It's similar to UN in the sense that it seems to have power but neither has any sort of control. At least, UN can send some peace troops to the troubled region.

But there are no peace corps under ICC's umbrella. The administration is governed by the assumptions of future repercussions of an unruly event that has come to the fore rather than taking the course of due process.

Let's take the Darell Hair issue and for a moment let's ignore whether Hair was right or wrong. What's interesting is that ICC chief Malcolm Speed suddenly found his calling, i.e. not to lie and disclosed the offer Hair made to the media. Well, I'm happy that it came out and was not covered up but Speed's revelation was hardly a result of soul searching. Obviously after the test match farce, ICC would have been put under the microscope and voila, we'd have found out that it has no power and Hair, after all wouldn't be umpiring in Pak, Lanka, Bangladesh matches. But to show that it's in control it'll keep Hair as an elite umpire.

So the email was a God-send for Speed. By revealing it, he killed Hair's career and in the process saved ICC of the wrath from the sub continent, where, by the way, the money is!

Now it doesn't matter if Inzamam is fined or not. Pak can always take solace in the fact that Hair is gone. There won't be much of a hoopla. Probably it will be a very light or no sentence at all for Inzi.

artsy-fartsy prose-dose

He paced up and about and ran helter-skelter
Soon he'd be calm and sound, put back together

Then he strolls to, where he used to dilly-dally
Behind the back door and into green valley

Away from the bustle and far from hum-drum
Into the lap of, that's true and conundrum

The mind grew fond but surrondings wish-washy
Creepers took over and wounds went fleshy

Woke up to feel, a trickle from head teeny-weeny
Found perspiration and a bloody sting so leechy

He paced up and about and ran helter-skelter
Soon he'd be calm and sound, put back together

goddamnit! (no pun intended)

Now and then, when I'm listening to the radio in my car, I hear this 'not-a-sermon' thing which has a crux of something like this---- that when you see things going out of control all around the world, you can take solace in the fact that all those and all the other events are governed by a single force blah blah ...

Well, let's see.. Things are going haywire around the globe... but hey, as long as a single entity is controlling it, I should be at peace with myself, no sweat!! And you know what? This entity has a reason for doing all this but we, ignorant human beings cannot understand it...

Well, good to know that I'm a puppet.

Media Analysis

It's the age of analysis. Over-analyzing and dissecting has become a norm, be it sports, politics or Paris Hilton. You see people like Bill O'Riley, Lou Dobbs, Wolfblitzer etc. pounding on the same topic every freaking day. Some people are on air for so long every day that 75% of what they say is filler stuff. This is best described in everyday clippings that the Daily Show with Jon Stewart assembles which displays a repitition of statements by different news networks which are nothing but sheer BS.

It's the same thing in sports. TO is now in Dallas and didn't practice due to an injury for some time until a couple days ago. Media who had reveled in TO's antiques in Philly want to see the same here and they are doing their best to develop the rift. But coach Bill Parcels handled it greatly yesterday, I think, when he went after the media and told them that "...use your head ... it's practice... that's what we do".

And now we have stupid commentators who just can't shut up during the game. I heard one of them saying "That's an angry parent look. I've given that look myself". Shut the f up and watch the game. Who the hell cares that you give looks.

Then there's events like these - a 59 year old lady is tackled by two men and shackled in a plane because she was pacing and anxious and claustrophobic while another woman at an airport was not yet arrested after she was found with some liquid that came positive in 2 separate tests as being an explosive.

The solutions to the most complex problems in life are very simple, when you find it i.e. However, the media wants to do the opposite. They want to take a simple situation and twist it and juice it and make lives miserable for people involved and people watching.

Spare me!!

59 years down the road

Let's see what I can number-crunch about independent India (not necessarily in order) from the top of my head.
Note: Veracity questionable!

2 countries formed.
1 big riot.
1 secular country.
3 colored flag.
562 provinces merged.
1 big dispute (Kashmir).
1 LOC.
0 first blood drawn.
3 bloody wars fought.
3 Gandhi assaninations.
3 times increase in population.
1 Cricket World Cup win.
10 previous years of growth.
1 big outsourcing hub.
27 -75% reservations.
1 denied CTBT.
2 nuclear tests.
15 official languages.
28 official states.
1 (or 2) communist state(s).
7 sister states.
1 Golden temple.
4 metropolitan cities.
4 name changes for metropolitan cities.
13-day government occurence.
5 internal resistances (ULFA, Naxalites, Mao rebels, JKLF, LTTE) -more have sprung up recently.
0 military coups.

su, sudo and sudoku

The words rhyme. Well, rhyming words end in the same phonetic sound. So these can be called anti-rhyming words. (Or would that be the words that don't rhyme??) Or this could be probably viewed as some kind of progression or series of words. What the hell! Let's slog about it..

su - (Substitute User) : This is an unix command which helps user to logon as a different user without logging out. Usually used to login as the root user for admin changes.

sudo - (Super User DO): This unix utility gives users permissions to run some commands as a root user based on the set of constraints enforced by the admin.

sudoku -(Number place): This is the number placing 9x9 matrix that has grabbed the world by horns and has eaten up so many hours of mine and others. It's real, it's addictive, and it's fantastic! Play it here.