Unbiased? Who?

If you hear something you like to hear it's unbiased. If not, biased. And that's all there is to it, folks.

Later

England Wins, But So Do We!

1979, 1987, 1992 and 2004. The four previous times the English team made it into the final of a global cricket tournament and got hammered. So if you had your doubts this time, you should be excused. The chances were they would fuck it up and hand the Aussies another trophy to add to their trophy cabinet which already is brimming with a gazillion trophies. But it wasn't to be - England played brilliant cricket and totally outplayed the Aussies and were the worthy winners. I bet our own lovely Kalu Suddha, Pseudo Random is partying all over the place probably wearing an England jersey and a Sri Lankan hat. Spare a thought for the Aussies too. They played brilliant cricket and just strolled their way into the final with ease only to repeat the last year's T20 WC finalists' fate; Sri Lanka won all the matches up to the final and lost the one that mattered the most. Maybe losing a couple of games on the way isn't bad after all.

However, I'm not a big T20 fan. For me the best analogy to describe T20 is porn. You don't need to be an actor of the quality of Tom Hanks or Denzel Washington to act in porn and similarly you don't need the skill and genius of Brian Lara or Sachin Tendulkar to play T20. You don't really need a plot for a porn movie - it's just wham bam and so is T20. Porn is for only one thing and by next day you've already forgotten what you've watch last night. So is T20 cricket - while you will talk about Lara's legendary match winnings innings against Aussies even hundred years later you've already forgotten who won the last year's T20 WC. Finally, you don't criticize porn, and so you shouldn't T20. It just is, but that's it. It doesn't have the grace of Test cricket.

So, while this unimportant T20 match was being played in West Indies, there was another very important match - two actually - was going on in Japan this weekend. Yes, you guessed it correct, those were the two games which yours truly played in. If you remember we had a fine start to the tournament last week, and it continued to be so when we thrashed a hapless Indian team on Saturday. Too bad I couldn't make much of a contribution with the bat this time but we put on a formidable 204 in 40 overs before routing the Indians for a paltry 87. It was good, but the evening party was better. We headed to one of the team members' apartment that night, cooked some Sri Lankan food and the night was fun. However, next day, it was our turn to get routed by a Pakistani team for 119 runs. They won in the end but we gave a good fight and took 6 wicket. To be honest after being all out for 119 we were always going to lose it but losing like we did was, in my book, alright. Going down without a fight is what I can't take. It's not just about cricket though; being out there doing something you really like, hanging out with a bunch of really awesome guys, having fun being in the middle of Sri Lankans after a stressful week at work with the Japs, that's what's it is all about. It's good workout for you body, but it's even better for you mind.

In a nutshell, cricket is my punching bag.

woes of an iPod owner

i have an iPod. and i meant iPod, not iPhone or iPad, but what's the difference really? iPhone is an iPod that can make calls while an iPad is an iPod magnified ten times so the oldies and people with chubby fingers can use it easily. but i digress. what i was saying was, i have an iPod which is somewhat old - like close to 18 months or so, and it had an earlier, not so fancy operating system running on it. still i liked it - the touch system is, well, sexy and the sound quality is really good. plus you can play shitload of games on it and read a lot of books. so, to and from work yours truly can usually be seen listening to something while reading a book on it. but for all its coolness, sometimes iPod sucks. i mean it's so sophisticated but you can't do multitasking on it. if you were reading a book and you want to change the song you are listening to you have to exit the book and go to music. or else, if the iPod screen is off, to change the song you have to slide unlock it and change the song. time and again i wished they had simple next/previous buttons, but seems it's not an option in a touch screen device. or they seem to think that way.

then, in the later operating systems they have this cool 'shake' feature. if you need to change the song you just give it a gentle shake and it goes to the next item in the play list. wow, i thought. there ends all my problems and the iPod achieves perfection. now all i have to do is buy the newest os and shake shake and shake. read and shake. shake is all i have to do. the iPod i mean. so i spent the few bucks they wanted me to and got the new os.

the next day i was on the train listening to something while reading a book. then after a while britney started singing so i gave it a shake. the iPod i mean. nothing. i gave it another shake, a bit harder this time. still nothing. wtf! third one was a pretty violent shake and still it is bluntly refusing to shuffle. this was a couple of months back, during the winter where you wear winter jackets and your hands are in your pockets at all times. so i guess shaking your hands inside your pockets must not have looked... right. couple of japs near me moving away suggested this so i took the fella out (i mean the iPod) and unlocked it by sliding. and gave it a gentle shake again and voila, it shuffles! i wasn't sure whether i should cry or laugh. if you add a shaking feature so that we don't have to use the screen, but in order for it to work we have to use the screen to unlock the device, it kind of defeats the purpose i guess.

good job steve jobs. maybe you should change your name to steve job.

I'm back, and so is Cricket!

Hello people!

How have you guys (and girls) been? Doing good I suppose. Damn I have been neglecting this blog of late a lot, for which I feel SO guilty. I mean, hell, this was - and is - an important part of my life and I shouldn't be so lazy to chuck in a post or two every week. But then again, you see, in my defense it was spring holidays and we all know that Blogging is to be done on working days. So you could say that I was just abiding the rules.

Anyway, the spring break which is called the 'Golden Week' here in Japan was a welcome break. I have no idea why it is called such but have a sneaky suspicion that Google might know. Wise fella, he is. Wonder if the feminists out there would threaten me with a lawsuit if I didn't correct myself and call Google a she. Beats me why people want think of all the majestic inanimate things as female; be it a country, ship or a even a car. Oh well.

Getting back on topic. The Golden Week was fun and relaxing. First I had some good long hours of sleep which is a must I'm sure you all will agree. We also had a barbecue and ate so much dead animals that I didn't touch anymore for almost a week. It wasn't just the barbecue; we also played some softball cricket which I regretted the next day so much. After so many months of winter which means doing nothing, it was the first day we really went out and played any sport so the whole body was aching the next day. Oh and the Poker that night too was fun. Wonder how long will it take for me to win my first WSOP bracelet.

And then, yesterday, it was time for some real hard ball cricket. The cricket season here in Japan got underway which was something I was so looking forward to. We traveled to Shizuoka some 200km or so away, and I managed to take a cool shot of Mt. Fuji from the car. She (ahem!) was looking majestic as ever, and see the picture if you're not sure. Anyway, we got there in time - to the ground that is, not to Mt. Fuji - and got to bat first. I was to bat at 3, and was in the middle in the second over. Perhaps we were a bit rusty, lack of match practice or whatever it is but we were soon 40 something for 4 and 76/6 a while later. I managed to hang in and score a satisfactory 91 while we manged to put up a challenging 195 in 40 overs. It was in fact a real good score considering our very good bowling attack and we ended up winning comfortably by sixty odd runs. It is always great to start the season with a win and we have two more games next weekend. However, I need to work on my fitness. After like 75 or 80 runs I could hardly stand, let alone bat. Now I know why Arjuna 'walked' half his runs and why somebody else ran for him half the innings he batted. Wise fella he was.