Awesome
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Thanks to Jordan’s mythical six titles, winning a championship has become a prerequisite for greatness in the mind of many sports fans and members of the media. For whatever reason, it somehow legitimizes an entire career even though its governed by many factors out of a player’s control. Now after failing to reach the NBA Finals, I’ve begun to hear rumblings that LeBron’s accomplishments mean nothing until he wins a title.
via trueslant.com
LeBron’s good regardless of the titles he wins. He isn’t great yet, he’s only 24! People shouldn’t start comparing LeBron’s career to MJ’s. Jordan played for almost 20 years, so LeBron still has a good way’s to go.
LeBron James is LeBron James. That’s it.
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Mahatma Gandhi said
You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.
Even though I understand what he said, I wish sometimes I could control, calm-down and restrain my mind. These days I tend to overthink things so much. I make the simplest of tasks and the simplest of decisions too complicated. This really gets annoying after a while.
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An old one but its still awesome. “Welcome to India – rap” sung by two South Indian students in USA. A parody of Ludacris’s “Welcome to Atlanta”
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Wal-Mart has opened its first store in India in partnership with Bharti. The first cash & carry store is situated in Amritsar.
Bharti Wal-Mart Pvt Ltd, the 50:50 joint venture between Bharti Enterprises and the US-based Wal-Mart Stores Inc, had last year announced that its wholesale stores would be opened under the brand name of ‘BestPrice Modern Wholesale’, and each store would be 50,000-1,00,000 square feet in size.
I wonder how long this will last in India. The Wal-mart behemoth can cause some serious problems to the smaller retailers. I don’t think the Wal-mart model can work in India, the country is just too different from America.
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Now that the IPL is over, I’d like to chip in about a few things I liked about it this year
- Spinners got their due. Slower wickets helped the spinners and they bowled well. Part-timers did really well; the likes of Rohit Sharma, Yuvraj Singh and Duminy being very handy. I really like wickets which assist spin.
- As usual, new talent came out and little known players were given chances to prove themselves. Yusuf Abdulla, Ravindra Jadeja, Pradeep Sangwan, Dirk Nannes, Shadab Jakati and a couple more here and there.
- Old is gold. See Hayden, Matthew; Gilchrist, Adam; Kumble, Anil.
- Fake IPL Player: He was good fun initially, his blog posts were worth a read. It also helps that I hate John Buchanan and his policies and what they’ve done to the team.
- Fun: Despite it’s failings, it provided good fun (if you forget the commentary). Everyone likes a barrage of 4′s and 6′s no matter what team they’re from. It kept me from getting bored to death.
- Practice: It gave players good T20 practice before the World Cup and reveals new strategies. This can prove a double-edged sword for India though.
- I have no fricking idea about #7, i just put it here because my last post had 7 points. Maybe the kids schools got free money during the strategic timeout? Advertising industry made money?
What did you like … ? Overall this tournament wasn’t as good as last year.
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FIP suggests that IPL is more of a circus than a cricket tournament with egotistical administrators and franchise owners. The cheerleaders, the film actresses, and the money control the proceedings, and as the saying goes, it’s the tamasha we see while others throw and make paisa.
Maybe it does. But do you see the sixes hit, the catches taken, and the stumps rattled? I see that, and I enjoy the cricket that is. Cheerleaders dance on the hit to the boundary, not the other way round. I’m fan of the game, and the asides are just part of the ecosystem. Periphery, not the axis. Every six might be a DLF Maximum and every wicket a Citi Moment of Success, but that’s the world we live in.
Even the English Premier League, one of the examples of huge fanatical following and a premier sporting event, is ‘Barclays English Premier League’.
via Abhishek Baxi at ocricket.com
One of the reasons I don’t like the IPL this year. The theatrics have only increased. If you saw the final and it’s closing ceremony you will understand.
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A screenshot of the Mantis Bug Tracker – It’s not a bad piece of software but they have missed a lot on the aesthetic side of things. The UI is not the best, it still looks like something from the 1990′s. What I feel is really bad though is the file organization. There are over 150 files in the root directory and a simple ls command fills up your entire screen. Looking for a particular file to edit is like looking for a needle in a bigger pile of needles!
How hard is it to add sub-folders and just reference them in your config files? There should be someone to intervene for such Open Source projects.
See and download the full gallery on posterous
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Here are a few things I hate about the IPL in no particular order:
- DLF Maximum: For uninformed, this term is used when a batsman hits a SIX. IPL commentators have stopped using the traditional term six or sixer and substituted this horrendous term prefixed by IPL’s title sonspor DLF. When a batsman hits a six, commentators say “He has hit a DLF maximum” or “This bowler has been hit for a DLF-er”. The sheer ridiculousness of this is astounding. What’s next picking a second sponsor and substituting their name for a 4/boundary?
- Citi Moment of Success: A term used by the commentators when something “spectacular” happens. Like a big wicket or a drop catch. Highly overused and there are usually multiple such moments in the game. I laugh at the irony in using the name of Citibank with “success” in this recession.
- Strategic Timeouts: After the first 10 overs of every innings they take a mandatory break of 10 minutes. The over after this break (the 11th) claims one of the most victims, teams often falter here and the momentum is lost. During this break the IPL shows advertisements, Miss Bollywood selections and farcical interviews with school children. Everything is so cheesy and its screwing up the game even more. Even cricketers hate the interruption and Sachin Tendulkar has spoken out against it.
- The shoddy quality of commentary: The quality of the commentary in the games have gone downhill quickly. Commentators don’t bother to learn the proper names, they mis-pronounce common names (like Yuvraj Singh) and many a time pick out wrong batsman at the crease. Their comments are plain stupid and horribly obvious. Here’s several examples from Cricinfo who have been keeping track.
“Herschelle Gibbs is an opener, he has to score runs.”
Saba Karim has a eureka moment and lets everyone know“Two overs remaining. That’s 12 balls, folks.”
Alistair Campbell joins the dots for the segment of the audience who thought they were watching the Superbowl - Cricketing Theater: Next in line are the theatrics employed by the IPL & it’s commentators. One I saw last night at the semi-final: Danny Morrison & Laxman Sivaramakrishnan jump down onto a inflatable slide and go “wooooo wheee”. Commentators complimenting each other like ladies “oh those shoes are nice”, “that’s a nice jacket” “oh have you lost weight?” – what the hell is that banter it’s not a morning talk show! Other things from IPL include the Miss Bollywood contest and the display of handing over 100,00 rand (approx 12,000 dollars) to various schools in large vanity checques. Ridiculous marketing opportunities squeezed into every available moment.
- The de-evolution of cricket: Batsman playing shots that are right out of the book of Lagaan – The Movie. Some ridiculous scoop shots, switch hits and terrible hoicks. A lot of these don’t pay off and make a mockery of the batsman. Test cricket was once the pinnacle of cricketing achievement and now it’s being threatened by IPL and T20. Chris Gayle openly spoke that he wouldn’t be sad if Test cricket went extinct and replaced by T20. See, Test cricket under F: Future of cricket.
- Ok I lied, there were only 6 real ones but 7 had a better ring to it. So i’ll add a cheesy one… how many times will you play “Jai Ho” over the speakers during the game? that song is old and the remix terrible. Also, note to whoever that handles the music there… Nusrat/Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and Qawalli does not make for entertaining music that befits a fast paced T20 game.
Twenty20 is a fine game like a shot of adrenaline to cricket and IPL helps unearth new talent and is fun to watch with its fast paced format and mixed team setups. However the management of IPL has taken a game of T20 & cricket to a new low.
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