Cricket, ICC and BCCI

Gone are the days where commercials were shown between cricket.
Now, cricket is shown between commercials.

I was visiting India when the World Cup was going on.
I was watching Sony.
How many commercials!
Oh Gosh.

As soon as the ball released from the bowler's hand they cut to commercials. And when they come back the first ball of next over is almost over. I got a doubt whether Sony was doing the viewers a 'Great' favor by showing cricket in between their commercials.

But after my India vacation I came back to US and was watching the same World Cup here in Dish.
What a way to watch.
Hardly any commercials.
No interruption of the match or commentary.

I understand I paid $200 for this World Cup and its free in India.
So showing commercials is a necessity in India. But there is a limit to that.

These things clearly show that the game of cricket is now mostly under the control of big sponsors.

BCCI - Board of Cricket Controversy in India
BCCI - Board of Cricket Commercials in India
ICC - International Commercial Council

Sachin Tendulkar's coach at school, Ramakant Achrekar, used to place a one-rupee coin on the stumps as bails and used to challenge the net bowlers that if they got Tendulkar out, they could keep the coin. Needless to say, not many succeeded.

If he does same thing today... he will go bankrupt.

Nothing Changes

Buddha said "Everything Changes".

Apparently during the times of Buddha there was no BCCI.

"At his press conference soon after picking the 30 probables for the World Cup, Vengsarkar was asked why no legspinner had been included. "Can you name one legspinner?" Vengsarkar snapped back to the journalist."


Not much chance of change

What the heck?

If the journalist has to give names, what in the world is Vengaya Sarkar's, sorry Vengsarkar's job is!!!

Like i said already here in worldcup blog, nothing much will change.

Cricket World Cup 2007 & Fantasy Team

Created a new blog for worldcup and also bought a Fantasy Team.

http://worldcupinwindies.blogspot.com

Tony Jaa - Jackie Chan, the next generation

Last night I saw the movie Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior. I saw the movie for Tony Jaa. I heard about his stunts from someone I know and decided to check it out myself.

Waw.
This guy was amazing.

He is like the next Jackie Chan. His stunts were authentic and no strings attached (literally).

For any Jackie Chan fans and Martial arts fans, Tony Jaa movies are a must to see.

I have his second movie The Protector in my Netflix Q. Hopefully I can see it next week.

Women cannot be punished for adultery

http://www.rediff.com/

"The section provides expressly that the wife shall not be punishable even as an abettor based on the reasoning that the wife, who is involved in an illicit relationship with another man, is a victim and not the author of the crime."

What kinda logic is that!

hmmm...so much for equal rights for men and women.

In Saturn's Shadow - Saturn and Earth - By JPL, NASA's Cassini

"With giant Saturn hanging in the blackness and sheltering Cassini from the sun's blinding glare, the spacecraft viewed the rings as never before, revealing previously unknown faint rings and even glimpsing its home world.

This marvelous panoramic view was created by combining a total of 165 images taken by the Cassini wide-angle camera over nearly three hours on Sept. 15, 2006."

Can you spot our earth?

You might want to click the image to see in its original size and see how small our earth is!

And how small and insignificant are we within our own Solar System !!!

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/image-details.cfm?imageID=2314

Courtesy : JPL, CIT, NASA

My blog got Snap ped ;)

Yes...You can see a preview of the website links in my blog, by just placing your mouse over the links.

My blog's 2-D code - Semacode & Shotcode

Apocalypto and Blood Diamond

Last Friday my friends and I went to Mel Gibson's Apocalypto. I thought the movie was very well directed. It was a thriller from the beginning till the end. The story is about a man and his family's survival from human sacrifice in the ancient Mayan civilization. It has nothing to do with the end of Mayan calendar in the year 2012. I thought it must have something to do with that, but no.

The heroine was a very pretty girl. She looked like an Indian girl. But Mel Gibson in Jay Leno's Tonight show, mentioned that she was a local girl. Nevertheless she was very pretty and her kid son was also so cute.

This movie is definitely not for the faint hearted.
There are scenes where people are killed alive and their beating hearts ripped out and offered as sacrifice :)
Yes, that's right. Beating heart.
And also, their heads chopped and rolled from the top of the Mayan Pyramid all in the name of sacrificing to satisfy some Gods.


Fast forwarding to last night...
Went to the movie Blood Diamond with my 'Movie Gang' again . hehe. I thought this movie was an awesome movie.
Leonardo DiCaprio's acting was very good.
Djimon Hounsou looked handsome too.

The story is about how poor Africans are made to kill each other while the west loots their natural resource, Diamond.

Maybe girls will stop being crazy about diamonds after seeing the movie.

Wait...Am I crazy or what!!!
No... I don't think girls will stop being crazy about Diamonds :)


Images : Courtesy Yahoo.com

VVS Laxman - India's new Defense Minister

India tour of South Africa
Tour Match: Rest of South Africa v Indians at Potchefstroom, Dec 7-10, 2006

Day -2

VVS Laxman 31 runs / 103 balls.
He scored 4- 4's.

So technically he scored 15 runs / 99 balls.

Chennai, Tamilnadu Cops get police cars - First in India

Chennai police gets police cars like USA.
First in India.



Courtesy : Sun Network

Pakistan
Afghanistan
China
Nepal
Bhutan
Burma(Myanmar)
Bangladesh
Sri Lanka

What's common with the above countries!

These countries are either unstable or unfriendly with India.
And they all are our neighboring countries :)

World of Warcraft

It's been ages since I played any video game. Last time I tried any video game was when I bought Sony Playstation 2 couple of years ago, but really never played for more than a week.

Now after a long break and after much hype and publicity from Todd and Alex, I decided to try out the latest hot game 'World of Warcraft'.

So last weekend, I downloaded a 10 day trial version of the game.
Gone are the days when games were just few kilobytes and maybe megabytes and came in a floppy disk. This game, which I downloaded was like 2.5 GB. But with a broadband connection, all I had to do was schedule a download overnight and the next day morning it was all downloaded.

This was just a 10 day trial version.
Yes, after 10 days if I want to continue playing I have to buy the game which is like $50 and here is the interesting part...if I have to continue playing I have to subscribe to the game, and it costs about $15 every month.

Yes, World of Warcraft, also called as WoW, is a MMORPG.

So I created some characters and tried out the game.

Iam in.

Stop blaming Indian cricketers

It has started all again.

You know every time Indian cricket team performs very badly, protestors take it to the players home and streets and burn effigies and things of that nature.

This has to stop.

Our cricketers are human beings.

They have a life, they have a job to do. Day and night they work in Ad shootings, and attending functions and events and may be partying and doing some side business, and we should be glad that they agreed to play for our cricket team even though the monetary benefits from the salary is not much. We should be grateful for that.

The reason for us losing the matches is coach Greg Chappell.

Are you asking me Why!

I don't know, I thought that's what we usually do!
Blame on the coach and sack him. I thought its a SOP - Standard Operating Procedure.

Ghajini and Asin

Ha... a different weekend after a long time.
I rented 3 Tamil DVDs. Watching tamil movies after long time. After seeing the movies...I realized I haven't missed much, movies have not changed.

Emtan Magan, Maanavan(yeah, don't ask anything more about this movie, this is for Reema Sen) and at last...Ghajini.

Ghajini was little different, but still I don't know if this was a hit back home, but I thought the movie had lots of flaws.
But I liked Asin's character and her acting. Asin looked very beatiful. Her character was 'living' in the movie. All her scenes, were so full of life and fun. She reminded me of someone.

hmmm...I've done 'A movie a day week', I guess I should now do a 'Book week' and read some books this week.

Turducken - What kinda stuff is this !!!

While the rest of the world is busy working... we are busy stuffing.

Move away Turkey, welcome Turducken.

What are we going to do next year...stuff this into a cow!

Oh poor birds...and animal.

Deja Vu

Ok... This is my problem.

I really do not believe Time Travel as they show in movies is possible.
It is impossible to go to the past and interact with the past and change things.
I can't even imagine something like that happening.

We may be able to see the past, but in a 'Read Only' mode. You can see , but you can't interact, or in other words you can't change the past.

I went to 'Deja Vu' last night.


The movie was a good movie, except for the fact 'Time Travel'. But the whole movie revolves around time. So ... :)
Accepting the fact that time travel is possible for like 2.5 hours, this movie was surprisingly a good movie.
My expectation were low for this movie, pretty much I thought it was a junk, but it was at least above average if not good.

The technologies that they use in this movie...come on, its just movie...I do not think anyone in the world has such a technology as of today.

The actress, don't know who she was, was pretty.
Denzel Washington as usual was cool.
Val Kilmer...comes and goes.

hmmm...I wonder what I would change if I can Time Travel and go to past!!!

# The U.S. entry process is considered the “world’s worst” by travelers

* Travelers rate America’s entry process as the “world’s worst” by greater than a 2:1 margin over the next-worst destination area.

* The U.S. ranks with Africa and the Middle East when it comes to traveler-friendly paperwork and officials.

* 54 percent of international travelers say that immigration officials are rude.

* Travelers to the U.S. are more afraid of U.S. government officials than the threat of terrorism or crime.

* Two-thirds of travelers surveyed fear they will be detained at the border because of a simple mistake or misstatement.

http://www.poweroftravel.org/release-11-20-06.aspx

James Bond's Casino Royale - Daniel Craig fits the role

Last Saturday went to 'Casino Royale' and 'Happy Feet'.

I wanted to see 'Casino Royale' on Friday, First Day.
But was invited for a Birthday party so I had to watch the movie on the second day :(

So went to see the new Bond after a second Birthday party at noon on Saturday.

The new Bond was awesome.
This is a very different Bond movie.
This is the 'Bond Begins'.
Bond is very rough at the beginning of his career.
He is not sophisticated.
He makes mistakes, he apologizes, he doesn't know how to act(like Bond) around women. He gets beaten and kicked around. He bleeds badly. As the movie progresses, you can see this rough Bond getting refined and starts to kick ass. In the end we get, 'Bond, James Bond' :)

As this was the first novel written by Ian Fleming, there are only few gadgets like the Defibrillator in Bond's Aston Martin and a tracking tag implanted in Bond's arm.

Iam a big fan of Pierce Brosnan. When I heard that he won't be doing the Bond sequel I was disappointed. But when I saw Daniel Craig, I thought it was a good choice.
Daniel Craig made a good impression in this movie as the rough, unrefined Bond. I do not think Pierce Brosnan would have fit the rough Bond role as perfect as Daniel Craig. Piece Brosnan looks sophisticated.

I liked the movie.

It's interesting it gave a tough competition for the Australian animation movie 'Happy Feet' despite the fact that the Bond audience is considerably less than the animation movies and in addition to that, many Bond fans boycotting the Bond movie, to show their dislike in Daniel Craig.

In my opinion, they should watch the movie for themselves.

'Happy Feet' is, I believe, the first Australian full length animation movie. I thought it was hilarious. The animation was very realistic.