End of Soccer Season '07-08

The soccer season 07-08 ended with an exhilarating match in the UEFA Champions League final between ManYoo and Chelsea.. and the season ended the same way it started.. a penalty shootout victory for Manchester United. They had done the same against Chelsea in the Community Shield at the beginning of the season.

Yesterday's final was one of those matches where you wanted none of the teams to lose. I was a happy neutral yesterday, having found that my past seasons' loyalty towards Chelsea was more towards its charismatic ex-manager Jose Mourinho than towards the team. As many critics have already pointed out, Drogba's red card was the decisive moment. Terry would never have taken the final penalty had Drogba been available and you never know what could have happened then.

The transfer period is going to be interesting as usual.. lets see how the teams shape up for next season.

Some reflections on the past soccer season:
1) Best Player - Cristiano Ronaldo ( it would have been grave injustice had his missed penalty had a serious effect, though his arrogance shown while taking the penalty was justifiably punished by his miss )
2) Best Team - Man Utd. You cant argue against the double winners..
3) Disappointment of the season - Barcelona.. From the lofty heights of 2006 European champions to this year's shambles. Can't just be bad luck. AC Milan comes a close second for having missed champions league qualification.

Expectations for next season.
I hope someone other than ManU/Chelsea win EPL, just to add more spice to the league. Also expecting a good show from Real Madrid in the Champions League. After dominating Europe till 2002, they have disappointed badly.. lets hope they do better next year.

Djokovic is really good

After the US Open I posted asking how good Djokovic is.. Now with his triumph in the Aus Open he has proved that he is good enough to be regularly competing with Nadal and Federer for the top honours. His win has set up the year nicely.. Lets hope it is a great year for "competitive" tennis.

Happy X'mas and New Year

Wish you all a very happy Christmas as well as a bright and prosperous New Year. I hope that at least in 2008, I get more time to blog regularly ;)

How good is Djokovic?

I gave the 2007 US Open a complete miss. Mostly due to the fact that the winner was a foregone conclusion. There is hardly any surprise in men's grand-slams these days. One positive thing out of this years final grand slam was the performance of Novan Djokovic. He has beaten Federer once in the final of a tournament, so he looks capable of causing an upset. I think he competed well in the final of US Open, and had he held his nerve well, could have easily given Federer a run for his money. I am sincerely hoping that atleast next year we don't have the sort of one-way traffic we have been seeing in the past 3 years. Hope Djokovic & Nadal help.

Sivaji - The Boss

The first movie I watched after marriage! Rajni has got his looks back and his style enhanced. But he is missing the speed of action that was his forte during his younger days. The movie in itself was a rehashed version of Shankar's previous movies.
How I wish Rajni had acted in Shankar's Mudhalvan :-(
Anyways, the movie has great music by ARR, excellent comedy by Vivek, stunning visuals, a gorgeous heroine and a menacing villain. And above all it has the one and only style icon of India, Rajni. More than enough reason to watch it.

Nadal vs Federer

Wow! For the first time in recent memory, Federer had to fight hard in a grandslam final ( and that too Wimbledon ) to win it. Now that he has got real competition, his achievements from hereon will be even more worthy.
Nadal looks like he is set to give a tough run for Federer on all surfaces. Lets see how this rivalry unfolds!

GoodBye Bachelorhood

Got married to my girlfriend on June 17th. Had a memorable week long trip to Malaysia and Singapore. Looking forward to the new phase in my life. :-)

The Halo Effect

When I graduated out of my college and was about to join my new company Trilogy, I was recommended to read the books Built To Last and Good To Great. I personally liked them both, but I don't believe that just by following the principles mentioned in these books you can go ahead and create a successful organization. Both these books are bestsellers, and they have their own share of critics also.
The book The Halo Effect, which was released recently, looks to debunk the theories given in business books like the ones mentioned above. The basic idea behind this book is that most of our thoughts on successful companies are delusions.
I tend to agree with this in principle. A real life analogy would be the commentary offered in cricket. When a batsman tries to attack a bowler from the start and succeeds, he is said to be aggressive, unafraid to play his natural game irrespective of conditions, and so on. But if he fails, he is said to have played without taking the conditions into account, failing to curb his instincts and so on.
The only constant is that you will be praised if you are successful and criticized if you fail. The same qualities that would be highlighted as positive ones in case of success can end up as negative ones in case of failure.

Who will compete with Federer?

Another Grandslam. Another win for Federer. He has reached 10 slam wins no time. The world of tennis fans have begun to fall into 2 categories: one who admire Federer for his incredible talent and other who crave and yearn for some competitor to come up and provide a semblance of fight. Needless to say, I am in the second category. Tennis was one of my favorite sports during the Sampras-Agassi glory days, but ever since Sampras got disinterested in tennnis and Agassi's powers started to wane, tennis has no longer been the same it was. Federer has arrived and conquered everything he saw, but deep within himself he must have a feeling that he has never been tested by anyone consistently. Nadal competes with him in clay ( small relief ) but it is just a matter of time before Federer wins French Open too. And it is hard not to notice the kind of support every tom, dick and harry gets on court when they play against Federer. You can see that the crowd is also craving for an upset.
The pity is Federer can do nothing about it. He can only beat what is in front of him. It is not his fault that his competitors are worthless. These are the bunch of guys who Agassi was consistently beating even in his last year on the ATP tour.
While I appreciate the enormous talents of Federer, his breathtaking strokeplay and his exemplary off field behaviour, I do feel he has a lot to prove to be adjudged the best ever.
And for anyone who thinks Federer's domination of Roddick was the best ever exhibition of a genius, I am sure you have not seen the Sampras-Agassi final at Wimbledon 8 years back. Here is an article that exactly echoes my thoughts on this issue. Sampras at his peak against Agassi at his peak, and what a game of breathtaking beauty!
Federer can still claim to be the best ever if the following blank gets filled.
Bjorn Borg- John McEnroe
Pete Sampras - Andre Agassi
Roger Federer - ??????????

P.S: This article has no intention of insulting Federer. As I said, it is not his fault that the competition is bad. This article is for those who just jump at concluding that Federer is the best ever, without understanding what the best ever means!

Web 4.0 Visions

I happened to stumble upon two different posts on vision for web 4.0. This one is written by my friend Tyagarajan and this one I got while browsing through my daily news feeds. Read on. It is amazing how we humans are never satisfied with what we have :)

Pokkiri - @$#&**?!

Had to watch Pokkiri this Sunday since there were no better alternatives and I was not in a mood to watch the more dramatic Guru on a lazy weekend. As is the case with all Vijay films, this one is straight out of the mass masala factory of tamil/telugu films.

Lets see what the movie offers

1. A supreme hero who is an extremely talented fighter/dancer/singer/shooter/rider...
2. A beautiful but dumb and confused heroine for the sake of dancing with the hero in duets ( every time the hero kills someone in front of the heroine, she cries and then all of a sudden a romantic duet comes )
3. A villain who is an international criminal with a huge crime network and extravagant punch dialogue ( I like 3 things: killing, killing and only killing ), who gets dumber and dumber as the movie reaches its climax, where he urinates in his pants on seeing the revenge-seeking hero thus fulfilling a prophecy proclaimed earlier in the film
4. A corrupt police officer ( and an irritating one at that ) and a bunch of honest ones
5. A rap song just before the climax
6. A sleazy song in the villain's den
7. A gang of lazy friends who do nothing but give company to the hero wherever he goes
8. A comedian who gets beaten by everyone. He too urinates in his pants
9. High octane violence and gravity defying stunts. Our movie makers are at par with Hollywood guys in this regard. The hero's innovative ways of slitting, slithering, cutting and butchering the villains is one that rivals the gore you saw in movies like Texas chainsaw massacre, Saw etc
10. A weather beaten plot of how the hero overcomes the crimes in the society on his own

Frankly, I did not expect anything else before watching the movie. The movie will be a hit and it will set the cash registers ringing and hence will pave way for more such movies.

Is it the demand that provides such intelligence insulting supply, or is it the low quality supply that leaves people with alternatives other than to believe that hero worship is the only entertainment available? Whatever the case may be, I don't see a solution anywhere in the near future. And that is the most worrying aspect.

Google adjudged best company to work for

Google has been selected as the best company to work for in 2007. The full list of top 100 companies can be found here.
And if you want to know why Google is great for the employees, check this out.

Doctor saves himself

Here's another story that illustrates the fact that reality is stranger than fiction.

R.I.P - Joe Barbera

Sad news to hear that Joe Barbera (of Hanna-Barbera fame), a man whose creations bring countless moments of joy and laughter to kids and adults all over the world, is no longer with us.

Often we don't recognize the contribution of the many people like Joe who have made a significant impact in our life. I grew up watching Tom & Jerry - the antics of the little mouse outwitting the cat is stuff of animation legends. Not many people could have made a small concept of cat chasing a mouse into one of the world's most popular entertainment show.

With the co-creator Hanna also not any more with us, it is an end of a significant era. Goodbye Joe. You have left a long lasting legacy, but more than that you have made the priceless contribution of cheering up many young minds.

Bill Gates on Robotics

Bill Gates gives his vision of the future of robotics here. He compares the current robotics industry to the computer industry of the 1970s, discusses the challenges faced. Overall, it is a worthy read.

I have great respect for Microsoft, I do believe it is an exciting place to work for. I agree that some of its business practices have been highly questionable, but every organization in the world is like that, trying to dominate in their own fields by whatever tactical means possible.

It would be great if Microsoft focuses on some niche fields like robotics and try become a leading authority in it. It has to do a lot of catchup with Google in the online services, so there is a great need for it to be a market leader in a new field. Robotics and AI give the perfect opportunity to do so.

Quench your thirst NOW, ban on water coming soon

Waking up lazily today morning, I picked up the Times of India and the front page story was just the right medicine to get my weariness out. Here is the link to the online version.

Some of the lines are outrageously funny, none better than this. 'Colas with or without pesticides are harmful for health and should not be consumed. We want all forms of junk food like pizzas, chips, samosas and burgers banned from canteens'.

So what will the canteens sell? Oatmeals, anyone?
The health ministry is trying to keep up with the moral police. The article says that celebs should not endorse aerated drinks, but campaign against them.

Imagine Aamir Khan getting a phone call from the ministry with the official trying to educate him that no matter whether he personally verified that coke has a high standard of manufacturing, he needs to campaign against it because colas are inherently bad. And before hanging up, he would be said that a list of items that should not be endorsed by celebs is being prepared by the ministry and would be sent to them soon. And if Aamir khan dared to say 'F*** off', then he would get another call from the cultural ministry advising him on the appropriate etiquettes.

I am not a supporter of coke or junk food, but I would like to decide what I consume. What if someone tests the water being provided in the canteens and finds pesticides? Will the authorities ban water from being served?

Awaiting Champions League draw

Can't wait. With no major surprise in this year's group phase, Europe's top clubs are going to square up against each other. I would like to see a replay of Arsenal-Real Madrid. Last year Arsenal came on top but Madrid have improved a lot this year. There is a big chance that Madrid might be facing any of the English clubs since they finished second in their group behind Lyon.
For my other fancied team Chelsea, I hope they don't face Madrid. I don't want my two most favorite teams face each other so early.

Google Monopoly??

Interesting to read.

And for those who want to understand how google search works, this might help

Fun with George Bush

Bush has been the butt of many jokes and this is one really cool satirical site on Bush's theocracy.
Check it out -> H.E.R.B

Cricket & Politicians

How shameful? As soon as India lost their one day match at Durban, the less than honorable politicians of our parliament start berating Sharad Pawar to gain some cheap publicity.

Read Nirmal Sekhar's excellent article in the Hindu about this issue.