And the Winner is ....

 

The Cricket World Cup is set to begin tomorrow in the Indian Sub-continent (yay!!). The thrill,tension and the smell of victory - all possible this world cup. There are no clear favorites this time. With the defending champions,Australia, already being proven beatable the tournament has just become more entertaining to say the least. So who has the best chance to win this world cup rather who are deserving to be the last four in the tournament?

1. India - Tipped as the "Favorites" to win the world cup this time around.  After the last World Cup (Indian) disaster I can't seem to put them up as a definite finalists. They have the best batting line-up of all the teams. In fact they must make some batsmen rest in order to fit in some bowlers. I'll leave the team selection to the Indian cricket team :D. But what anyone seem to see is that History is against India. A cruel fact of a Cricket World Cup is that a host nation has never lifted the coveted trophy before.(Sri Lanka in 1996 is considered to be played in India). I think,of the last 4 world cups, India has the best chance to win the WC this time with a powerful batting line-up and tremendous fan support at Home.  Also the entire team is motivated to win the World Cup for Sachin Tendulkar (they still think he will retire after this world cup).As they say records are meant to be broken. May India be Victorius.
2. South Africa - The "Chokers" are yet again one of the favorites to win the WC. They have a well balanced team. With batsmen like G Smith and Amla to start the proceedings,Duminy/Kallis to spice things up and Steyn to finish the remaining job ,it must indeed be a easy tournament for them. But huge trophies have always eluded them. Though they have performed very well in India against the Indians too nothing can be promised from them. But they can deliver if it is their day.
3. Sri Lanka - They are a team who perform like a team. Everyone of the playing eleven might not be a match winner but as a team they have played some good cricket against other teams. You cannot write-off these guys. They will also use the Home advantage. What they lack is consistent performance. Who knows they might clinch a thriller and repeat the 1996 feat.
4. Australia - yes they are beatable but they sure have some fighting spirit. Whenever they are pushed down they have the tendency to perform and prove their critics wrong. After the Ashes thrashing, everyone is bantering about Ponting and his men. If Ponting is looking for redemption then right now is the right time. With none of the stalwarts,from the last decade, who made them look invincibles ,ponting has a steep hill to climb if he has to win this one.

Whatever said you can never predict a world cup until the finish. Like before we can see Kenya (or someone else) in the semis but if everything goes according to the paper then the above 4 teams should have it easy against the rest. It is already reported that match and groups are designed to favor some specific teams. So I guess there might not be any surprises in the end. Every senior player will be definitely looking forward to finish their careers on a high. Everyone wants to Win the World Cup. 

All my hopes ride on the Indian team. They have impressed everyone in the warm-up matches. Hope to see more of Helicopter shots,doosras, and the stunning Straight Drives(Sachin) . INDIA for the Win !!

You cannot play Football alone

What do you do when you have no one to play football with and you are just 7 years old ? Call your parents ? really ? Or you can plan for future. Check the video for what i mean :)

You definitely need company to play Football. This kid learns it the hard way. But he(or atleast the ad creator) is smart enough to solve the problem. Remember Every Problem has a solution- you just gotta find it. 

Mob Mentality

The term “mob mentality” is used to refer to unique behavioral characteristics which emerge when people are in large groups. 

The first time I came across this in text is in 10th standard when i read the play excerpt of Julius Cesar by Shakespeare. Caesar is killed by Brutus and et al, they are now conspiring to convince the Romans that Caesar was indeed the bad guy and had to be killed. At this point Antony enters.Seeing the body of Ceasar is shocked and now wants a chance to speak at the funeral of Caesar. Brutus accepts the humble request(BIG mistake Big guy) though Cassius puts in his concerns. After all Antony was going to speak after Brutus finishing his speech. Brutus was confident in swaying the people in his favor;he does it - with ease.

The scene starts with Brutus convincing the citizens about why Caesar must not live. Citizens agree completely with Brutus and they even praise him. But then comes Antony starts off with the epic lines -Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; Then spins the web of words which not only make the citizens against Brutus but they also start to praise Caesar for his greatness.
In a span of 30 min the minds of the citizens waver about the ideologies of Brutus and Antony. My ma'am then said Antony played with the "Mob Mentality" of the Romans thus etching Caesar as a great figure in their minds and defeating Brutus and co.
You can read the play here.

Nowadays too I see such "Mob Mentality" still. The main platforms where I notice an impact is Twitter and the electronic media. Twitter has this nice feature called 'Trending Topics' which shows the most tweeted words by the users. Most of the time it will be very useful ones - #goldenglobes ,#oscars, Sachin Tendulkar, etc... But sometimes Twitter is taken over by some small topic which is very irrelevant and most users don't care about it. Then why does it trend? Because there are too many people asking why it is trending ? I know it sounds stupid and people who are involved as dumb but it happens quite often these days. Though Trending Topics itself fuels the users to act like a 'Mob'. Just because it is on the trending topic more users tweet about it.  I had this day when Maple Syrup was trending and I was clueless why would so many users think about something like that simultaneously. Just because some 16 year old ( viz Bieber) wants to have Maple syrup for breakfast it doesn't mean everyone should re-tweet it to show their support (come on everyone isn't eating maple syrup for breakfast!! ).
Such blind following also happens in India too often. There are some people who support organizations/ideologies because some-other person is also following it. (I am not talking about my friend Rohit ). Today Chandrababu naidu says "No Telangana" you shout a "Jai" for him day after he says "Jai for Telangana" again you shout a "Jai" for him. Isn't it time for us to stand for what we believe rather than rally behind so-called politicians.
The media (usually the television) also does this. I observe that for some cases the media gives a lot of (unwanted)attention. I really can't say whether it is intentional or not. We give too much importance to the TV channel reports too. When they have an expose about something then everyone point the finger at the accused and make him almost a criminal. No facts verified,no experts consulted, none. I can say about the Talwars in "Arushi" case. Even without the CBI filing the report "sources" told every news channel that the father was closest to become the criminal until they closed the case. Actually the Arushi's father was even the first to be arrested. At that time every on-looker was pretty convinced he was the killer but later he was released on lack of evidence.

This kind of judgement on our part is very wrong. We  must wait on the facts, weigh the balance and then make a stand. It isn't very nice of you to make the fastest allegation on your opponent but making the right statement counts.

Capitalism II - The game

About a year and a half ago I was in search of strategy- both RTS and turn based games. This was mainly due to my liking of games like Rise of Nations and Civilization IV. But I had enough military action through these games. I was now searching for a more peaceful (I mean no bullets and blood) but more enthralling game. I didn't really care about the graphics that the game presented because I had already played games like Age of Empires ,Wolfenstein ,Doom -Though these games lacked the visual edge, they had the content to make us play these games time and again. Some Google searches and I am introduced this new game - Capitalism II. The first comments on this looked like "The second part way better than the first one". I never plan to play the first part but it was comforting that this was a second installment of the game so I did expect  it to be fun. Moreover this game belonged to a different genre- business. Never really played a business game other than Monopoly. So I grabbed this game.
When I installed the game I told myself this does not have rich visuals. This also brought smiles to my face because my system could run this game without any problems. The introduction video also showed some promise , it was going to be totally about business. The game puts you as the Head of a company. You take all the decisions. You have to build the shops to sell, factories to manufacture and research centers to discover new products. You also get to deal with financial activities of the company like stock options and loans with banks. There is both single-player as well as multi-player. Single-player mode has the campaign mode in which you are given some specific scenarios to complete. You can also start a game with your own scenario. You are engaged in the company activities completely. The best part is the variations you can implement and experience. You can build from a car to a camera, rare sheep and sell leather or sell a silicon chip or the entire computer system itself.

I liked the games idea. I started playing ,but as usual,very early I was totally involved in winning the game (be better than your competitor in the market). Initially it was so difficult for me to really stay up to the computer AI but I learnt the trade pretty quickly. I usually manufacture and sell the items which have more profit margin and try to make more money out of the apartments. I also like to control the manufacture to the root hence will have factories to build from the scratch rather than depend upon the Seaport and other suppliers.

If you want to play a game which is of strategy genre with a difference then this game is worth a try.

We are 11!

I am in no way referring to my age , I was just quoting the tagline of this year's EA Sports FIFA installment- FIFA 11.This is not a review of this wonderful game but my experience with it. I have been playing EA Sports FIFA from 2004 edition , but only on PC. This year i decided to buy it for Playstation. At the time I bought this game I knew only little what you could with this game. There was career mode where you can play as manager or a player or both and you could play online with other gamers. These two reasons were enough to make me spend INR 2500 on this game. But nowadays i don't really play both the modes mentioned much. Well what I discovered was that there is a cool additions to the different modes - Play as a single player in a 11v11 match online. I created my Pro (my player - Jayadeep aka JD aka Chica :D ) and i was off to play as a midfielder. Thanks to BSNL internet connection I dont have such a nice online experience.

So back in November I started the game and I wanted to finish of my first season with Manchester United. But there was some update to the game ; updated it (took 20min :/ - bad internet bandwidth). I thought it was a usual squad update but found a new option called - Ultimate Team(FUT). Of course I clicked it it askedfor few details about "My Club". I had no clue I would be playing FUT more than the career mode.
Well FUT mode is more like building a club by acquiring better players for your club. You get coins after you finish each match. There is a Store from where you can buy packs containing players and others extras. There is also a trading system to sell /buy players and extras. I have been playing this mode from November but in bits because I had academic work and exams to deal with and I have managed to build a club with decent players. In the beginning I was a little new to this so made some bad decisions but mow I am pretty sure of what I am doing . So Check out my FUT team here (before the link expires).

I am actually trying to build a FUT with the following players- Forwards-Wayne Rooney,David Villa,  Midfielders-Messi, Xavi,Iniesta,  ,Defenders-Evra,Puyol,Pique, Sergio Ramos. Goal Keeper-Casillas

The team is thought not based on my favorite players but based on need for high team chemistry. My style of play requires lot of team chemistry. As you see this more like a Spanish/Barcelona Team :D . I do have a EPL based team but I cant seem to find the players with high ratings.

I like playing down the wings, defensive and counter attack is my best weapon. With the new Phyisical play by defenders I really feel hard to score from the centre. I play best with 4-4-2 formation but dont shy away from a better default formation. My favourite team is Manchester United with Berbatov and Rooney to score from the deadly crosses from Nani and Valencia. I also like the Barcelona FC because their formation(4-3-3) is so set for crossing but with only one guy waiting in the box.

By the way , If you wonder why the tagline is "We Are 11" - it is not because it is FIFA 2011 :D  - Now you can play as the Goal Keeper watching the computer playing as you teammates :).

Toys!!

Well who doesnt like toys ? My latest liked toy is the push back toy car from Mcdonalds :D .Yup! i got it along with the Happy Meal. The exterior of the car is very bad ;looks like a overly used toy car. The colour is not attractive and the car never gives a feel of Batman but it did come as "Batman Toy" :o .
As you can see from the description above i was not so excited to fix the parts of the car. But come on it was a toy and moreover i was bored studying for my exams. So I put the car together pulled it back , released, the car moved......*wow what happened * ..... .After the car came to a halt i just couldn't stop myself from 'playing' with the toy for some more time!
Wanna see this toy car in action ? watch the video below !

Goodnight puny human!

If you are into English TV sitcoms like myself then you would have surely come across the geeky "The Big Bang Theory". For the starters, it is a sitcoms based on the lives of 4 friends-Leonard ,Sheldon ,Howard ,Raj  and their hot and sexy neighbor Penny. It is a all out comedy series with lot of science facts. The basic plot is all are nerds except Penny, who hasn't attened even college and works as a waitress in The CheeseCake Factory. Leonard, an experimental physicist, wants a girlfriend like a normal human being but can't find one because of his 'geekness'. Sheldon, holds a PhD, is the ultra nerd who thinks he is the most intelligent human being alive (once he wonders whether is an alien among the lesser-intel humans :P ).Sheldon has some rules and when he makes a rule it means all of mankind must follow it whether it be regarding a couch or a time machine. Next, Howard,an aerospace engineer is a big flirt who tries to woo every girl whom he sees and everytime Howard is desparate to find a girl. Lastly Raj, he is Indian :) and a particle astrophysicist  who becomes dumb in front of girls in absence of alcohol !!

Comedy ensues when Sheldon starts to use the technical bumbo-jumbo in the everyday life. With Penny clueless about science, video games, comics and computers and rest always interested in these "Fun" things ,the scenes bring smiles to your face.

• Things I like in the series(not in order)Sheldons Epic phrase -"Thats my place!!".
• Howard's pick up lines.
• Leonard trying to woo Penny by trying to rough her Ex.
• Sheldon's Dream about Sheldonopolis (while doing yoga with Raj).
• The history episode where it all began .
• How dumb Penny looks when having a conversation with Sheldon and Leonard.
• Conversation between Howard and his mother.
• Bazinga pranks :D
• Soft Kitty Hard kitty
  and many more. 

My favourite character is Sheldon mainly for his "reasonable" actions and decisions. The way he speaks is so different from any character seen on TV. By the way Jim Parsons playing as Sheldon won the Emmy 2010 in the 'Lead Actor' Category. You can watch the video here. 

I love this sitcom a lot. This is the one sitcom which makes me laugh more than FRIENDS. The first thing i do when a episode goes on air is to watch the episode online at CBS or get it through my friends :D.
Watch this series if you want to laugh your guts out :).
Oh,do u want to know more about the title of the blog post? Then watch the video here.