Wanderers! Here we come...

New Zealand worked hard to make the game exciting but again the English had worked doubly hard to lose the game. The conspiracy mongers will be busy saying that the English lost to the Kiwis only to prevent Sri Lanka from entering the semis... But no such doubt for the Super Sep 30th... A special mention and appreciation to Vettori for recalling Collingwood - after the overgate saga today.

Dhoni has said that Team India will cheer Pakistan until the toss for its game against the Windies. True spirit of the game - t-in-c ;-)) While everybody is busy calculating the run-rate differences etc., one thing to remember: The current edition of the Wanderers square is very much akin to the other extreme of an Indian dust bowl. Under those conditions, I will not be surprised, if the first innings score struggles hard to cross 200! If only India had played its earlier matches in Wanderers than Centurion - at least the bowlers would have gained the false sense of security and we would be lampooning the batting failures :-))

And I got panned for two things yesterday.

1. Drag error on Excel for yesterday's details. Corrected - but do note that I did not bother to enter your other guesses as they are not relevant in the abandoned game. You can recheck yesterday's post again.

2. That the sans-Google quiz has become very easy!! Now, now! Yes, a number of them got Mexico right. To be precise: Ganesh TCS, Rohit, Amar, Suryanshu, Yadavalli, Guru and Anand Re are the seven. But still this number is less than the nine on Sudoku. Ok, I will throw the gauntlet with today's question. Let us see how many of you pick it up...

• What links (a) a type of computer memory, (b) two-thirds of a teaspoon full of Scotch Whisky and (c) the picture/symbol/character below: (Clue: the picture is NOT denoting Three!)
  

Enjoy life and keep them flowing...

Day 7: Om Varunaaya Namaha!!

Oh, that is the Varuna Mantra being chanted by the Indians - especially the bowlers, who should be hoping for a miraculous turnaround in the last game against the Maroons.

One thing is for sure: the Maroons are not morons. They might be short on experience; but the Indians compensate that by being short on confidence - and of course that length ;-))

Anyways, because of the un-natural end to the game due to natural causes, the pool got skewed. Usually, the bank walks away with all the money under such circumstances (only to plough that as bonus in later rounds) - but then the tie-breaker guesses (sixers, first wicket etc.) came in only to avoid such circumstances. So, Guru lost out for being the fearless one to have wrongly guessed the first wicket mode of dismissal. So everybody is 16.67 cents richer! I did not consider the sixers as the full match did not happen.

That brings us to the sans-Google quiz:

Yesterday's answer:

Well, whoever bothered to answer, got an answer and all of them are, ahem... correct! Sivasubs tells us that it took him all of 15 seconds to do it. So, am not publishing any answer(s). I was even chided for giving such a simple question. After the IPOD, I thought that you guys deserved an easy one. Hindsight being 20/20, I should have asked for all possible answers, so there could have been some more competition. Next time...

Amar, Anand Re, Dhivya, Guru, Laks, Madhavan, Sivasubs, Suryanshu, Yadavalli - all attempted the question and got it right. Bon.

Now for today's question:

• Back to a picture. Which country's map?

Enjoy and rush the answers and the guesses for the next game.

Oh, by the way, a number of you came back saying that the 2008 wordlist was nice/useful/interesting - not the Russian way! Happy to be of service...

PS: Om Varunaaya Namaha! = Salutations and prayers to Varuna, the God of Waters!

Day 6: Toss; Bat; 300+; Win!

Last week, in one of the numerous social occasions where one had the opportunity to add calories physically and emotionally, some of the friends asked me who would win the CCT 09.

After seeing them go down 6-0 against the Aussies, I said England. I could not have had told a funnier joke. One even had the cheek to say, "SriG, do you know that we are talking about cricket and not soccer!" The temerity of the man!

Anyways, England in the semis - oh! the English press, thou shall have a field day!! South Africa have redefined the term chokers.

And then the kiwis - but that was less surprising; they gave the Sri Lankans a run for their money in their recent series. So, all is fair in that drubbing. Wither Murali?

The English upset and the NZL reiteration are reflected in the pool results as well. Pity that only a few managed to grab the opportunity over the weekend!

Now for the sans-Google trivia:

The answer to the last question is: Insecure, Pressured, Over-Taxed and Debt-Ridden

Tacky? Not according to Oxford. Here are some more words of 2008!! My favourite? Jingle Mail.

Unfortunately, due to a combination of weekend lethargy and honesty, none of the contestants even bothered to answer the question. Good show of solidarity, folks.

Now for today's question:

For ye, Sudoku guys...

• Arrange the numbers in the boxes so that NO two consecutive numbers are next to each other - horizontally, vertically or diagonally. Same box shape, ah!

Enjoy and keep sending those guesses and answers in.

Windies Scare & Paksitan Flair

Dhoni said that he was three bowlers short.

I guess that he would have said the same thing during the pre-match team briefing, which would have gone something like:

MSD: "Ok, boys! We do not have Zaheer, Yuvraj and Sehwag. Apart from the batting, that is a total of three good bowlers short. Let us go out and prove that we are not short of any of those people. If we do this, we will not fall short of our people's expectations!! And remember the boundaries are also short, so our batsmen can clear the field..."

With so much reference to the word: short, our bowlers must have thought: "Bowlers... short; expectations... short; boundaries... short; my length... short!!"

That settled the game.

Australia is tired and they are making the English look positively positive through their whining. West Indies are growing nicely. If Team B can have its plethora of positive moments against the Aussies, then what could the Team A have done??

India can beat Australia; Pakistan can beat Australia. And West Indies can beat India. End of dreams.

Pool drew decent response inspite of the weekend. Amar and Madhavan cleaned up.

sans-Google quiz:

Nobody answered the IPOD question.

I am keeping it open for one more day.

Keep them coming.

Lankans 6-6-6ed!

Imagine what would have happened if:

Sri Lanka had won the toss or the temperature was 6 degrees
warmer or the lateral movement 6 inches lesser or the bounce 6 inches shorter or 6 of their batsmen played some sensible shots instead of getting out...

Instead what we have got is an English victory - well deserved though; but can't take the English press. They will now write about how:

* they will take revenge on Australia in the semis and on South Africa in the Finals. They will also write how great a captain is Strauss (Indeed he is, played to the true spirit of the game by recalling Matthews - and I think Matthews was pulling a fast one by claiming obstruction by Onions)

* how great a job that the selectors did by selecting Eoin Morgan inspite of him being Irish

* how great a bowler Anderson has become...

Aaaawwwww....

Murali bowled like a club bowler and Bhargav has been maintaining that Mendis is another Collingwood (Just look out for the carrom ball and you are safe!)

Now for the sans-Google trivia quiz:

Answer to yesterday's question:
The five letter word is Yahoo. (Swift = Jonathan Swift who wrote Gulliver's Travels with its many characters - one of them being Yahoos; of course Jerry Yang liked it to name his company thus!)

Less tougher than the MSG - Yet only Yadavalli & Suryanshu got it right. Good show, guys!

Now for today's question:

An easy one:

• Steve Jobs wanted IPOD to stand for "Internet Pod"; but all those greedy bankers have made IPOD stand for....?

Answers & guesses via the usual route. Have fun.

SA wins New Zealand, (:| (:| (:|

Thanks for those who sent in the 100th blog wishes. You can always leave your views and feedback in the comments. Of course, the guesses and answers to the emails.

One additional reminder: Please stick to the margins published earlier. Do not invent your own margins. Then I will have to approximate on what you have given me.

It was a simple game between the hosts and the kiwis.


Almost akin to the Pakis thrashing the hapless Windies last night. Yesterday, I was actually torn between two emotions: Happy, because the Pakistanis were showing no signs of controlling the self-destruction mentality & Sad, because that the Windies had at least two bowlers who can spell danger for the Indians - Tonge and Best :-()


The Kiwis pretended well - to fly. But then they are flightless and in the end Parnell bought his wickets well, I thought.


Otherwise, the Proteas are still rusty. But one could hear the sweet music of the engine for a bit longer than what it was in the first game.


Coming to the pool, today is the first occasion that four people have got the maximum points (9) by guess all the five categories correct. Looks like it is becoming easy, eh ;-) Congratulations, guys.

Now for the sans-Google trivia quiz:

Answer to yesterday's question:

The substance that has that devilish molecular formula is...

• Not Proteins, Not Ammonia, Not Water, Not Caustic Soda... but MSG - Mono-sodium Glutamate, the famous additive.

Seems to be a tough one - only Yadavalli got it right. Great show, mate! It is tough to get a google search organized based on a picture. So a true effort!

Now for today's question (courtesy Bhargav):

Crossword Clue (5 letters):

• A Swift Character That Yang Likes

Answers & guesses via the usual route. Have fun.

PS: (: l is the emoticon for yaaawwwnnn!

WInded in the wrong direction!!

Every ICC event turns out a dud. This time it is the West Indies 'B' team. How can you explain the ICC spending millions on all kinds of countries including Zimbabwe and turn a blind eye towards two-times World Champions and former Champions Trophy winner!! Oh, that is their internal problem and we do not want to influence that... fat chance that cricket will survive in the Windies &*^(*&)($%#

Well! Paksitan tried its level best to make life interesting; but even they could not manage to lose it...

Yet another sibling combination to the cricketing world. Kamran Akmal and Umar Akmal. They look so much alike that at 1 in the morning when 'chotu' Akmal walked in to bat after born-again-Yousuf was unfairly given out, I was pretty much sure that the elder brother Kamran walked in to play his second innings. One's mind was riddled by questions like, "Has Sachin's proposal been accepted? I know that Sachin is God in cricketing matters; but even God has His limitations in moving the behemoth aka ICC. etc etc.." But then better sense prevailed after they showed Umar's stats card.

One thing is for sure: Whether Lahore has good dentists or not, the one that the Akmals visit must be an awfully incompetent one :-))

Did you know that before today, Tonge has taken a grand total of ZERO wickets in ODIs? And today, he opened them up with an honest list of four. And for the wicketkeeper Walton, a good harvest in his debut match.

The pool participation has increased. Good. Good.
A number of you got it right.

On that basis Anand Re starts the account - funny he finished on a winning note on WC07 pool... luck runs even after 2.5 years :-)

Now for the sans-Google trivia quiz:

Answer to yesterday's question:

• The logo belongs to United Nations Organization (and not UNICEF as some of the friends wanted us to believe!) .

Seems to be an easy one - Amar, Polap, Anand Re, Chets, Ishan, Pradeip, Yadavalli (he was feeling bad that he had an undue advantage due to his multiple visits to Geneva :-()) Congratulations to all.

Now for today's question:

• To which well-known substance does this molecular formula belong to?

Answers & guesses via the usual route. Have fun.

PS: Oh, by the way, this is my 100th English blog entry. My humble contribution to the World's boredom :-) Thanks for all the patronage.

'DIL'led and 'DISC'ed!!

Cricket is a confidence game - in fact Life is.

How else can you explain Thilan Samaraveera, the emerging test player, playing a 'Dilscoop' off Parnell ?(the young man had a rude awakening anyways)

South Africa have to do much more than indulging in verbal boasts to keep their 'chokers' tag intact, leave alone shedding it. (Yeah, you can only keep the tag if you go to semis at least!)

If Dilshan cleaned them up in the sun, then it was the bowlers' discipline - a total of 2 wides & the first one came after two thirds of the SA innings was over!!! - that sealed the game in my opinion - leave Mendis' triple strikes, by then the SAfs were playing like zombies.

Comfortable & emphatic win.

Good start to the pool.

The points distribution is as follows:

Winning team guess: 2 points

Winning margin guess: 5 points

First Wicket: 1 point

Sixers: 1 point

Total: 9 points max.

- You get winning margin points only if you get the winning team right.

- First wicket and Sixers are independent.

- So, in a rare case, if you guess the winning team right and nobody has got the winning margin right and if somebody who got the winning team wrong, but got the first wicket and sixers right, then both you and that somebody will be declared winners as both of you have scored 2 points. Clear as mud?

On that basis Anand Re starts the account - funny he finished on a winning note on WC07 pool... luck runs even after 2.5 years :-)

Now for the sans-Google trivia quiz:

Answer to yesterday's question:

• The cartoon character is SMURF and its link to banking can be found here.

Congratulations to Amar, for cracking this. He was our sole right-answer guy today.

Now for today's question:

• The picture below is one jig-saw that belongs to the logo of an entity/company. Which one are we talking about?

CCT09 - Sans Google Trivia - Question #1

Okaaay... Here we go...

What does this blue, smilax eating cartoon character got to do with banking?

Answers to the normal email address...

Plans open for the first game: South Africa vs Sri Lanka

Champions Trophy 2009 - Pool is Back!!!

Ok, here we go on the simple rules:

1. There are five things that you need to respond for each game:

Winning team, Winning Run Margin, Winning Wicket Margin, Mode of First Dismissal, Number of Sixers in the match

2. Please send in all your entries by 8pm SGT to lnspatta@gmail.com
3. Please ensure that you give both the winning ranges: run-margin & wicket-margin
4. Please do not invent your own margins; stick to the published ranges shown below
5. If you are using Excel to track your guesses, when you cut-and-paste, please use Rich Text for pasting; the PCX format is painful from gmail.


Run Margin Ranges:

Between 1 to 50 runs (both inclusive)
Between 51 to 100 runs (both inclusive)
Between 101 to 150 runs (both inclusive)
Above 151 runs (151 and Infinity inclusive)

Wicket Margin Ranges:

By 1 to 3 wickets (both inclusive)
By 4 to 5 wickets (both inclusive)
By 6 to 8 wickets (both inclusive)
By 9 to 10 wickets (both inclusive)

Mode of first dismissal of the MATCH:

Bowled
Timed Out
Caught
Handled the ball
Hitting the ball twice
Hit Wicket
Leg Before Wicket
Obstructing the field
Run Out
Stumped
None of the above

Number of Sixers (no lah! Not DLF Maximums!!) in the MATCH:

0-3 (both inclusive)
4-6 (both inclusive)
7-9 (both inclusive)
10++

Kandasamy - Cock and Bull!!

Have you read the prequel to this? And the Tamil Review?

Now that you well and truly want the K review, here we go.

Man! I have never had an experience, as 'interesting' as watching Kandasamy.

('Interesting' is an euphemism that the Russians usually use to describe anything that is screwy)

Otherwise, How can you explain watching a movie that has

* Batman (all those logical contraptions)
* Phantom (the spear tattoo on the victim's faces)
* Bourne-series (nifty - no, not NIFTY! this is an English word - use of computers to transact billions)
* Shakira music video (Allegra! rocks...)
* Numerous Kung Fu movies which extol the virtues of blind-fold fighting
* Robinhood (Prince of thieves, not Men in tights ;-)
* Sivaji (the numbers are much bigger here! Depending on who you ask, it goes from 30000 cr to 125 Lakh cr ....)
* RamaNa (there it was the college; here it is the high-school; next movie will tap kindergarten - remember Aegan's review?)


Story: CBI Officer Vikram robs the rich to help 300,000 families masquerading as a Cock (hmmm). He plays cat and mouse love game with Shreya when not acting as the bull in the china shop hammering away the untold riches of the baddies. As the Russkies say, 'Interesting'.

Vikram: A cool dude performance. Has slogged butt and looks dashing. Even sings well...And I want that mask!
Shreya: The Allegra girl has probably done her best role to-date. The hairdo, voice (dubbed of course! Suchitra?), skimy outfits everything oozes with attitude with a capital A!
Music: DSP's tunes will rule the FM world until Enthiran. All songs are Item numbers. Period. (If it is not Shreya, it is Mumaith!) - Can he stop referring himself as DSP? It is opening the painful scars of the Digital Signal Processing examination in 8th Semester :-
Editing: Quite cool. Lots of jump cuts; fast and slow at the same time. Inspite of that, the movie is long :-(
Cinematography: Hard-hitting; Different and desperate colours combinations in Chennai, Mexico, songs... good show Ekambaram!!!

Now for some awards:

Highest Small Scale Industry Impact Award (HSSIIA): All the Robinhood money is being delivered in the black plastic bags. So, this award goes to the producer - for getting all those plastic bags and ensuring that at least one small scale industry thrived! But the police missed a trick there, I feel. If Vikram & Co. deliver the money in those bags to the 300,000 families - that is a bulk order of bags, mate! To paraphrase the immortal line from that movie "All the President's Men" - "Follow the Bags!"

Cultrual High Imagination Medallion (CHIM): To Director Susi Ganeshan for making the 'Symbol of Tamilnadu' Mukesh Tiwari to do a pole dance. Wow! Heard that this movie is going to be dubbed into English, Italian, Spanish etc.. They will love that portion in San Francisco... Don't bend to pick up a dropped quarter in 'Frisco, they say!

Hollywood Or Kollywood Award (HOKA): Jointly shared by the Editor, Cinematographer and Production Designer The graphics and gadgets are very believable and enjoyable. Key stroke tracker; signature lifter - Super! You even have the mandatory iphone email floating around!! Very seamless and unobtrusive. Hollywoodish... (Have to find out which company did the software... May be they have an opening...)

Pizza Rules Cross (PRC): Have to find out who wrote that 'Dupe' song. The guy puts all those 'yucky rural food' down and says that Pizzas are the tops!! Aye, Aye, Sir! (Found out: Viveka; he even jams one part of the song.)

Piercing Pin Puraskar(PPP): To Mumaith. That is a very interesting place to have a piercing...oooooh! LoL!!

Alt-I Reward (AIR): To Vadivel. Heard that his entire piece is an insert in the movie, as an after-thought. The guy brings down the theatre – with all of its 70 people, on many occasions. Pandi knocked his head on the seat in front while laughing out loud, ouch! I could not understand many a thing that the guy blabbers. But may be my Judgement is Wrong ;-))

Overall: A good Hollywood-ish Movie + 7 songs + 20 minutes of Vadivel Inserts... Well, I will enjoy the 2nd time as well...

Kandasamy in Geneva - A Prequel

Kandasamy English review (from a city-bred pseud's perspective)
Kandasamy Tamil review (from Pandi's perspective) – Coming up tomorrow…

So, VeSa calls me on Friday and says, 'We shall go to the open air market in France on Sunday.'

Immediately, I go like, 'But isn't that the santhai of our glorious land?'


He then goes like, 'Yeah! But you only wanted to go somewhere! And I can suggest only this place. It is good. You might even be able to buy some cheap shoes, now that your pair has given way...'


Talk about aggression and you can't leave out VeSa from that discussion :-)

Then on Saturday, after I have promptly lost the hard-earned-money-bought-sun-glasses, VeSa calls once again. 'The open air market is closed this Sunday. So we can't go there'.


No, he doesn't have to apologise for that. Then five minutes later, he calls again.


'By the way, Kandasamy is being screened tomorrow at a cinema near your hotel. It is at 10.30. I will pick you up at 9.30.'


No, I don't have a choice to say no there. Thou shall be informed and thou shall conformeth (?). Refreshing attitude. But then if you implement Tnn, then you will have acquired that approach, I think.

Anyway, on Sunday, wake up at 8.45. Light breakfast - water and fruits. (yeah, right!) Get ready by 9.30. Hot sun. 10 minutes walk to the cinema. Pay 20 swissies. Pandi was there and so were a couple of other friends - one of them an ardent Sai devotee & the other a marathi-from-madurai--who-can-talk-Tamil. Motley crowd.

After some suspenseful moments amongst the total of ten people at the cinema entrance, one person suddenly opens the car boot and brings out these two huge 3-feet diameter fill rolls and voila! I see a film roll after ages - Nostalgia, Vellore. Vellore to Geneva - really long journey!!

But whatever happened to the movie on the hard-disk or DVD or blue-ray, which many of the guys averred is the defacto standard at Sathyam in Chennai?

We troop into the smelly cinema - you get used to that, anyway. And slowly the crowd builds up.

At around 10.00 the music starts - yes, you guessed it. 'Daddy Mummy.." from Villu and the playlist is quite contemporary.

Around 70 people trickle in. The movie starts at 10.45.

You expect the standard high standard on the audio and video fronts in most of the cinemas. This theatre does not disappoint much. An interval happens after what seems like an entire movie length and then there is only one Coke-vending machine. One is hungry and one surfs the neighbourhood for some snack joint. Sorry! Nothing doing. This is Europe and nothing works on Sunday. Funny and thank the Lord, that you are able to watch a movie!

Rush back to the cinema. Miss the first few minutes. Oh, shit! Loss of 20 centimes!

After another movie length duration, troop out of the movie into the hotter, brighter and blinding sun!! (Remember the lost sunglasses! Aaargh!)

Pandi is all agog. VeSa and Marathi are cribbing about a few things. Sai devotee is smiling non-comittally (What can he do? Mother Tongue is Telugu; Brought up in Rourkela and Mumbai. He was hoping for sub-titles - but then you do not need sub-titles for many movies - definitely not for Kandasamy!!)

Trudge along to India Plaza and have lunch - trying to dissect the movie as if we are intellectuals. Futile.

Call home and inform the news. Promptly get cut. Capital J.

Have to watch the movie again in Singapore.

Hmmm.. What to do, we are like that only! Mind It!!!

PS: The pictures just happened. Lord Murugan is supposed to be around wherever there are hills and mountains... So He is on top of the Geneva mountains as well :-)