A moo point, basically …

This video brings back fond memories. Very fond memories.

- Shakira dancing like there’s no tomorrow, shaking her hips as if independent from her body. Kind of like the Irish-Jig-guy but without scaring the ba-jeezus out of anyone.

- Wyclef Jean (that incestuous b*****d) hugging her like she’s his younger sister.

- FIFA World Cup 2006 – the drama, the red cards, the defending, the attacking, the upsets, Germany, Italy. My favourite world cup of all time.

- Zidane having his moment of madness and giving head to someone live on TV with a million folks watching. Clearly, the French like to do everything in their own special way.

- Me having my first (and till date, only) attempt at consistent blogging.

- Watching matches on a big screen with good commentary in the company of amazingly passionate hostel mates – I’ll especially never forget a random bong fellow who was bawling after Argentina got kicked out by Germany in the quarter-finals and the non-stop vernacular cursing which preceded the said bawling.

All this without consuming a single drop of alcohol, which made it even more fantastic.

A typical argument given by an country for being chosen to host a Football (Soccer) World Cup would be ‘We love Footie!’ or ‘It’s been a long time’ or ‘Tourism has been really down these days.’

Here’s Obama’s argument for USA hosting the 2018/ 2022 WC:

As a child, I played soccer on a dirt road in Jakarta, and the game brought the children of my neighbourhood together. As a father, I saw that same spirit of unity alive on the fields and sidelines of my own daughters’ soccer games in Chicago. Soccer is truly the world’s sport, and the World Cup promotes camaraderie and friendly competition across the globe. That is why this bid is about much more than a game. It is about the United States of America inviting the world to gather all across our great country in celebration of our common hopes and dreams

An American who’s a fan of football (I refuse to call it soccer anymore) is a rarity anyway – and one who supports West Ham United, rarer than that. Given their troubles in wake of the Icelandic economic crisis, I totally sympathize with the Hammers, having had to suffer some heartburn over that particular topic myself. (The Icelandic meltdown, as obvious a pun as there can be, was what inspired this post).

As long as he doesn’t insist that all nations must only field those players who play for American clubs, I say Give Him The Cup!!

Original link via, verified here.

I’m yet to decide whether I am glad or dejected because I haven’t been tagged in any of the viral things doing the rounds on Facebook these days – Wall photos, 25 things you didn’t know about me, songs which come to my mind first when I read this and other Notes. What I am fairly certain about, though, is how highly irritating these things have turned out to be. I find myself torn between 2 extreme emotions: despair at having my notifications page being bombarded with random alerts, and an intense urge to find out who is the sluttiest person in each of my acquaintances’ friend circles.

What is most irritating, especially about all the random lists people generate, is that most of the things people include are solely meant to be cute/funny and hence end up being quite unreal. I would be very interested in knowing if, for example, someone colour-coded his underpants to work, or things which turned people on (and off). But telling me that you like taking long walks or that you do/don’t cry that often is just a criminal waste of cyberspace. As a mark of protest, here’s my list of things (in no particular order) which I find quite irritating -

1. People who talk about themselves all the time, only to pause and let you talk about them. This can be especially irritating when you want to talk about yourself.

2. People who don’t follow loo etiquette. As if it isn’t scary enough that foot tapping while getting epiphanies can have risqué implications, it can be quite pathetic when people make small talk out of plain relief (no pun intended) or just to dispel uncomfortable silences. This includes saying stuff like ‘I’m so awesome’ on making surprising discoveries. (People also have a tendency to say the most ridiculous/scandalous things in office restrooms – it’s almost like they forget that they still are in office and can very easily be overheard).

3. (Picking up from the previous point) – People who find it absolutely essential to dispel uncomfortable silences. Uncomfortable silences have a very specific purpose in life – to make people uncomfortable and shut them up at the same time. Breaking them, then, is just plain unnecessary.

4. People who ask redundant questions – ‘Ooh did that hurt?‘ after stepping on your foot. ‘I’m sorry am I blocking your view?‘ after coming late to a cinema hall and ambling along to their seats with their eyes glued to the screen. ‘What do you think?‘ after having already decided to buy something and asking for a second opinion just to give you the illusion of relevance.

5. People screwing up their grammar. I know, this might sound a bit finicky, but when someone says ‘I forgotted …‘, what is said thereafter gets, well, forgotted. Or ‘No I didn’t gone.‘ Or ‘I does not do this.’ Or ‘He catched it so well.‘ Mildly irritating.

6. People who screw up my name. I’ve had a wide range of people from Credit card call centre representatives to Rating Agency helpdesk individuals giving me advice on how to pronounce and/or spell my name. How tough is it to accept that someone can be named Sujay and not Sanjay, Sujoy, Suja or (this I swear I am NOT making up) Suagy? How in god’s name do you even pronounce the last one?

7. Pseudo-secularists, because they are full of BS. And armchair critics, because their purpose of existence is as mysterious, if not more, than slugs and bedbugs.

8. Arabic football commentators. I went through the entire 1998 Football World Cup telecast on the (then) newly-launched Ten Sports channel genuinely believing that the ‘experts’ on TV had all been infected by the same strain of strep which made them cough/clear their throats while talking. And they had a very irritating habit of yelling Goaaal GOaaal GOAaaal GOAAAAL! in an infinite loop when … obvious. Same goes for Latin American commentators who shout ‘GOLAASO’ ‘GOOLAAASO’ with a similar passion and sense of urgency.

9. Indian cricket commentators. And Pakistani ones too. ‘Nuff said.

10. The new FB interface. It is not just irritating – it is quite crappy.

11. Over-exuberance.

12. Tomato skin. I’ve talked about this before in great detail.

13. Babies who cry in cinema halls. And parents who act like their kids will shut up if they are ignored. Kids cry because they need attention. Makes you revisit the principles of Idiocracy every single time.

14. Having to explain jokes, especially those which aren’t meant to be classics and have a very, very short shelf life (i.e. bad ones). I go through this particular agony almost every day.

15. People who oppose something (a team, an idea, anything) you support just to have a stand (or to piss you off). I refuse to argue with someone who argues for the sake of arguing.

16. Honking at red lights. There might very well be some deep-rooted pyschological/Freudian explanations for this phenomenon, but there is no doubt that this can get mighty irritating.

17. Atheists who are atheists because it is cool to be one. For that matter, anyone who is something just because it makes her cooler. Although for atheists, I think most of the times they are (as a thumb rule) a little bit irritating anyway. Same goes for PETAmaniacs.

18. French footballers and Australian cricketers. I have no rational justification for this, though.

19. People who post ‘Sorry for not blogging in a long time …’ or ‘Blogging has been slow because …’. Seriously, the world has existed and will continue to exist without your contributions to cyber-literature.

20. People who add unnecessary points to lists just to have a ‘nice’ number of entries.

(This list is not exhaustive and is likely to swell with the passage of time. The round number of entries right now is purely coincidental, and doesn’t contradict point # 20. )

Mikael Ballack – ze German who seems to be destined to finish second every time- and Matt ‘Bourne‘ Damon look so similar, it’s freaky!

If only Ballack had Jason Bourne’s awesome abilities, the Germans would had celebrated winning the Euro Cup. And my prediction would not had fallen flat on its face … sigh

On the topic of Matt Damon: There’s this movie he co-wrote with his best friend Ben Affleck (and co-won an Oscar too) called ‘Good Will Hunting‘. The movie is brilliant, absolutely brilliant. Every character is played to perfection and the mathematics/science is sufficiently ambiguous to keep everyone interested. The only thing I could possibly object to was that Robin William’s hairy arms seemed at times a wee bit too conspicuous.

The part in the bar where Will Hunting (Damon) makes fun of some guys to impress Skylar (Minnie Driver) and defend Chuckie (Affleck) is awesome. But the one scene (link) in the movie (possible spoiler alert) which I especially like is where Chuckie tells Will to stop his self-pity crap and embarks upon what is possibly one of the best friendly-yet-enlightening and concise-but-expletive-filled monologues ever heard.

Aside: I’ve always wondered why the term is called spitting image …

After an exhausting qualifying schedule, the Euro 2008 football tournament now enters the quarterfinals stage. Lalit Modi (The controller-auditor-general-senator something for the recently concluded IPL Twenty20 tournament) must be baffled by the decision to play Round 3 matches of the same group at the same time.

The men have been separated from the boys (and from the French – ok, that was a bit unnecessary). Given the tension and speculation, the teams expected to qualify for the Quarter Finals did qualify after after all. My predictions for the tournament now are -

Why …

… not Netherlands? ’cause they’re a big bunch of chokers. ’cause, in Andrei Arshavin, they’ll be up against a superlative player. ’cause their huge goals tally is mainly because of their enthu for counterattacks alone. And because Guus Hiddink is a class apart.

… not Spain? ’cause the lack of wingers will hit them badly. Italy will play through the centre, and Zambrotta-Grosso will come forward and provide ample crosses. ’cause Luca Toni is long overdue a goal. And because Buffon is special.

… not Germany? Schweinsteiger is a big oaf for getting himself sent off. Gomez is just one big giant oaf. Ballack is good, but not a magician. Klose just seems bored and lost. And Podolski has had his fill of goals.

… not Portugal? Finishing will let them down eventually. And they are, like Netherlands, big chokers.

… not Italy? They’re good, but not that good. Pirlo looks jaded, the defense is at times quite frail, and they also seem to be having a fairly luckless tournament.

… Croatia??? They have a good coach, excellent midfielders, hardworking forwards and fast full backs. Most of all, they are under no pressure – advantages of being underdogs. Plus they face Turkey in the QF, which might very well turn into a confidence-boosting match.

This is of course contrary to who I am actually cheering for – A dream final (for me) would be Germany vs Italy.

Very nice entertainment so far!

Ed1: Croatia seem to have taken up the ‘Choker Bali’ tag. Germany look a different team altogether with Schweinsteiger in and Gomez out. Time to change predictions!:(

Ed2: Italy without Pirlo are pathetic. Worryingly for Spain, they couldn’t score in 120 minutes. Arshavin is the man of the tournament already – and he’s played just 2 matches. Turkey has 4(5?) frontline players injured/ suspended – Germans always seem to get the easier draws in major tournaments!

Many people find football boring. Watching eleven (twenty-two, in fact) people tussling for the same ball for over 90 minutes seems like a waste of time and energy. Especially when you have no idea about the players, the teams, the tournament or the ball who seems to be getting too much of the attention.

For all these kind of people, I present a new reason – watch it to to become a more aware global citizen. Watching football can greatly help you increase your general knowledge about countries, the people, their styles and most importantly – their names.

Take someone by the name Zurab Khizanishvili. Once you get past the lols and wtfs, you might wonder why people have their names so ridiculous. Now football will might not answer that, but you will nevertheless come to know that such names are often associated with people hailing from the tiny country of Georgia. You will no longer be stumped if, for example, a person were to walk up to you tomorrow and say – “My name is Levan. Levan Kobiashvili. Guess where I am from?”

Or take the name Kahveci Nihat. The name is nice because the syllables can be rearranged quite freely to get names which seem equally (un)likely – Nihaveci Kavat, Nahveci Kihat, Kahneci Vihat, Kaniveci Hihat etc. In fact, just writing this confused me enough to go and confirm on wiki. This happens with other Turkish names too (Tuncay Sanli)

Further examples of names and helpful pointers -

-ov : invariably Bulgarian (Stoichkov, Petrov, Berbatov)

-ov (-off) or -ev + look extremely menacing: invariably Russian (Kerzhakov, Ivanov, Andreev, Akinfeev, Bilyaletdinov)

-ic + look like they’ve just returned from a fight in which they got bashed up more: Serbian (Vidic, Zigic, Ilic)

-is(-os) + long names with too many alphabets repeated and yet sound somewhat similar: invariably Greek (Nikopolidis, Papadopoulos, Papastathopoulos, Christodoulopoulos)

Words with a lot of j’s and i’s thrown in to earn more scrabble points: Dutch (Sneijder, Nistelrooij, Ooijer, Mathijsen). They still earn much less than …

Names with rarely used consonants like w and z all arranged to resemble the charts you’re made to read during an eye check-up: invariably Polish (Wawrzyniak, Kuszczak, Przyrowski, Błaszczykowski, Janczyk).

Names which sound like something you would eat: invariably L’Italie (Chielline, Pastroani, Barzagli, Natali)

Players who do not look/sound like they belong to the country they’re playing from – invariably French (Anelka, Makalele, Zidane, Samir Nasri)

(Long football post. You have been warned)

The Euro 2008 football tournament kicks off today (has kicked off already in fact as I type), and it promises to be an awesome one for two reasons -

1. England is not playing. Hence, the english media will be forced to realize that there are more important things (and better teams) to look at, and better news to report than what clothes WAGs wear.

2. There is no clear favourite – Spain and Netherlands are favoured to go far, and history says that they are the South Africans of European and World Cup Football i.e. chokers with an inability to perform when the situation demands. Germany and Italy join them more because of their record than on current form.

I cheer, as always, for Italy and Germany – my 2 favourite European national teams. Although Alessandro Nesta and Paolo Maldini are gone while Fabio Cannavaro is injured (my favourite player of WC 2006), Italy still have a good defence and wonderful finishers in Alessandro Del Piero, Di Natale and all to win crunch games. Germany are awesome because they have wonderful individual performers – Ballack, Klose, Lahm, Podolski and Tongue twisting Schweinsteiger – and they have awesome team spirit.

My feelings for France are similar to those for Arsenal – love their football, love even more to see them lose. With Frank Ribery and Thierry Henry injured and Trezeguet not picked because of random reasons, things are going to be tough. And given that their co-groupies are Italy, Holland and Romania (who have an awesome striker in Adrian Mutu), their task becomes tougher. Yay . They do have one of my players to watch for the tournament – Samir Nasri. Damn you Arsene Wenger – One can’t help but admire his eye for talent.

Spain have all the star players but play the wrong formation, because of which Fernando Torres will end up being ineffective. Plus they have minimal team coordination- kind of like the English national team actually. They have good players though – Casillas, David Villa, David Silva, Iniesta and their most underrated player – Xavi Hernandez. If only they can stop being good only on paper …

Portugal have an awesome defense and a spectacular midfield – Cristiano Ronaldo, Ricardo Quaresma, Deco and all. Problem is, they have a specacularly average collection of Forwards in Nuno Gomes and Postiga.  That might just prove to be their undoing, unless Ronaldo decides to do his country a huge favour and replicates his brilliant club form of 2007-08. Their coach Scolari is very good, but he just might end up restricting the free flowing football of his wingers, which would be a real crying shame.

Holland are not as good as everyone is hollering them to be – unnatural formations, not too good defenders, midfielders playing out-of-position, injured players (Babel, Robben, Melchiot) or players returning from injury (van Persie) – not good tidings for a ‘favourite’. They do have match winners like vNistelrooij and Sneider though …

My dark horses for the the tournament have to be Croatia and Russia. They have a lot in common -

- Instrumental in knocking out England in the qualifying phase.

- Good coaches. Russia’s Guus Hiddink is in fact a miracle worker, having shown his versatility with Holland, South Korea, Australia and now Russia. He is my first choice to replace Sir Alex Ferguson two/ three years later when he says he’ll retire. Or maybe not – SAF is irreplaceable

- Young, interesting midfielders. Good goalkeepers. Somewhat easy qualifying groups. And a lot of confidence in themselves, which always helps.

Not that I don’t think Sweden, the Czechs or Greece are bad or anything, but I wouldn’t really put my money on them to enter the last four.

Players to watch: Samir Nasri, Karim Benzema (Fra), Mario Gomez, Hitzlsperger (Ger), Sneijder (Ned), Torres, Silva, Villa (Esp), Quaresma, Ronaldo, Bosingwa (Por), Modric (Cro), Akinfeev (Rus), Quagriella (Ita), Larsson, Wilhelmson (Swe), Behrami, Vonlanthen (Sui)

Hopefully there’ll be an Italy-Germany final – Cheers to that

Note: Extremely self-indulgent, obsessive and Manchester United-centric post, so feel free to ignore.

I never really blog about Manchester United and football and the English Premier League in general because a) There’s so much to write, and I know from experience (and from feedback) how long-drawn, verbose posts can be extremely boring; and b) Most people find football boring, which is astonishing but sadly true. Also, they find my passion for Man Utd a bit too obsessive and even disturbing at times.

But on the eve of the Champions League Final in Russia, I just can’t resist blogging about my mostest favouritest thing in the whole wide world … drumroll … Manchester United!! Chelsea and Man Utd will battle it out for the biggest honour in European Club football, and man am I psyched about the whole thing! Woo hoo! The match might very well end up boring, but that’ll be because Chelsea are the most unattractive team among all the top clubs, and because ‘The Drog’ has a bad habit of breaking opposite defenders’ noses and stuff. But still – fingers crossed!

If we were to begin from the beginning, for me, it all started with the dramatic victory of 1999 in Barcelona in the Champions League (highlights here). If someone were to make a film about it, it would be panned by critics for being ‘too filmy’ and totally unrealistic. But to witness Teddy Sheringham’s brilliant equalizer in the last minute followed by Ole Gunnar Solksjaer’s winning goal in extra time which helped ManU grab a fantastic win against Bayern Munchen – after that, I had no choice but to become a Red Devils fan. Then came a fairly relaxed college life which allowed me to feed this obsession quite indulgently, and now there’s just no looking back. Unlike some people (they know I’m referring to them), changing loyalties has just seemed so ridiculous. Not when Man U endured 3 seasons without a trophy; when they had the most random (and shit-expensive) players/ mistakes playing on the pitch – Veron, Forlan, Djemba-Djemba and Kleberson to name a few; when RVN and Saha (not a bong) were busy squabbling for not getting to play enough; and not even when it seemed like Sir Alex Ferguson (SAF, the coach, the terror, the GOD) would have to resign or be fired.

But the last 2 years have been among the best 2 years ever. Except for the fact that Stamford Bridge (Chelsea’s home ground) remained unconquered (damn!), ManU have truly sparkled as a team of brilliant individuals. I hark back to August 2007, when Man U had started the season disastrously (they were placed eighth at one point of time i think). Roo had gotten injured and Ron was throwing tantrums and getting red-carded. In the middle of all this, you had SAF going on record that this was the strongest squad he had ever managed. Such a proclamation required a fairly large set of cajones, and was aptly ridiculed by quite a few people. Today, 10 months later and with the statement seeming to make a lot of sense after all, maybe it is time people realize that unlike the Rafas and Special One’s and Not-so-special one’s, Fergie doesn’t blab in that nearly undecipherable Scot accent of his unless he has a point.

The team today has everything that I love about football – It’s fast (except for VDS and Carrick) and everyone runs in pants-on-fire mode. They’re beautiful to watch- fluent passing, crazy one-touch exchanges, brilliant counter-attacks, it’s like poetry in motion. They’re attack-minded (maximum goals scored in the league this year) and yet, in Rio-Vidi-Wes-Evra, have the best defensive record (least goals conceded). You have dynamically changing formations, and players switching from one side to the other quite frequently. And then you have a perfect blend of experience and youth. The two btw are not mutually exclusive qualities, as it is foolish to call someone like Rooney with 6 years of Premiership football experience a ‘youth player’ .

Then there is style, and lots of it – A certain lad by the name of Cristiano Ronaldo comes to mind, as does the pretender for his crown i.e. Nani. Then there are Roo and Scholesy and Giggs and Rio and Park too. There is brute strength – Vidic, Roo, OH, Anderson and Tevez are like rabid but surprisingly nimble dogs on field. And there is that unwillingness to give up, which is what makes it all so special. Ask Scholes, who is probably the most complete midfielder except for the tiny detail that he simply cannot tackle cleanly. (You rock nevertheless, Scholes!).

The weekend of 6th October 2007 which I spent in Manchester (although I couldn’t get inside OT ) has been the most memorable weekend of my life so far. Watching 76,000 fans streaming out of the stadium all dressed in some Man U clothing and cheering wildly because Man U had just defeated Wigan Athletic 4-0 was pure heaven. My boss in London ( (who also happens to be an MU fan) promised me that the next time I come to UK, he’ll take me along to watch a match. You bet your @r$e that I will hold him to his word!

Only time will tell whether SAF was right or wrong – whether the current lot are indeed better than the team of the mid-90s comprising of Beckham, Giggs, Neville(s), Scholes, Keane, Stam, Butt, Cantona, Schemeichel, Hughes et al. But till that debate is resolved, allow me to raise a toast to the best football team on the planet

Ed: This Just in – Man U won the Champions League final on penalties (that too in sudden death) on a wet pitch in Moscow. The score will be remembered, but the match will soon be forgotten – not a classic by any stretch of imagination. But still – WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS! Yay!!!

February has never been my favourite month of the year… until now

October will always be speshul for many reasons (spelling inspired by Lolcats- brilliantly hilarious site, although I have a lingering suspicion that it is not as clean a site as it seems to be) . December and January are nice too, because I like the new-yearly thingies people do. February always felt like the English football team – famous in spite of- rather because of- a clear lack of numbers.

Anyhoo, February started off with me meeting up with a friend from school days, who’s doing mighty fine – best of luck to him for his ‘kaarporet’ life. Then was the Manchester United – Tottenham Hotspurs game, which was a nail-biter (lots of nail-biting actually happened). Man U equalized in the very last minute of injury time, although one could argue that the goal Spurs scored should had been disallowed for handball …

Then came the Derby. A once a year event (i think), it seems strange now that how come I never went to one so far, having stayed all my life in Mumbai. This was near the top of the strange-how-come-never-done-so-far list, coming in after “OMG I haven’t watched a cricket match at the Wankhede stadium for like ever”. There was drama right from getting hold of people to come along (rubbed a few people the wrong way in the process) to getting the crap scared out of you when you innocently talk on the phone and some random fellow pats you on the back and tells you – ‘You’d better put that inside kid, you’ll get fined a cool seven grand if someone sees you using it here.’ The races were brilliant, absolutely brilliant. The weather was awesome. No favourite won, which meant that all odds and analyses went for a toss. Watching people wandering around with huge wads of 1000-rupee notes was amazing, although it made me feel somewhat inadequate. And I finally got to use ‘lambi race ka ghoda’ in a literal sense.

Then we moved on to Andheri, where I finally bought a watch which costs more than the legal minimum daily wage. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it was on discount, which I discovered (rather, my mom did) after going home. This does imply that my ability to estimate watch prices is not that great, but let’s pass that for now.

Then came Monday, which was bonus day, which was not too bad.

Then came Tuesday, when my boss in Mumbai nonchalantly informed us (me and my desk-mate Prady) that we’ll be going to New York by the end of this month. This signifies a big step up in work, and is probably the right tonic to make me work harder. The day ended with me watching two diametrically opposite movies at Ravi-Mota’s place:

First was ‘The Angrez‘- a movie which has apparently achieved cult status in the Indian grad circuit. Especially worth a look are the old Hyderabadi lingo parts (sample).

Second was Fight Club, which was funny because (i)the last time I watched this was in 1st/2nd year in college, and (ii) I happen to be reading the book right now, and I think it is written quite well.

Then came Wednesday, when I treated my family to a nice little dinner, which is always nice.

Today is Thursday. It’s 9 degrees Celsius outside, which finally gives me a valid reason to wear my Manchester United sweater to work without being ill in the first place. In a few hours, there’s going to be a team-bulding excercise a.k.a. party a.k.a. free booze and food at the company’s expense for GFFX (Global Finance Foreign Exchange, my team@work). This has been planned again by Prady and me. The phaartay will happen at the unimaginatively/arrogantly titled The Club, which holds a special place in Maharashtrian history because it has the honour of being Madhuri Dixit’s wedding hall choice (either that, or she was engaged there. One of the two for sure). Had the place not been so ridiculously expensive, there would had been advance bookings running into decades by now.

Tomorrow and the day-after also have the makings of pretty hep-&-happening days. For someone like me who is used to leading a fairly quiet (dull?) life, this is a big deal

Disclaimer: If I sound like a bad parody of Audi, it’s entirely coincidental. Seriously.