First rains 2009

First rains 2009, originally uploaded by Lazybug.

And what a shower it was! Totally rocked the city folks. I along with a colleague waited under the flyover at Tank Bund for a while, that’s when I pulled out the cam, quickly took a few pics and put it back in. So, this is the first official picture of the rains this year.

More IPL watching

Moment of the tournament…

happened during the DC v Mumbai game when field reporter LSRK was asked how it ‘down there’. He replied “The atmosphere here is very exciting and everybody is excited” and so on. Camera panned on to his face and in the background the seats were all but empty. What exactly made LSRK all ‘excited’ is anyone’s guess.

Q. What’s worse than listening to bad commentators?
A. Bad commentators rooting mercilessly for their favourite teams. In today’s match between DC and KXIP this arduous task was taken over by the one and only Ranjit Fernando. What a pain in the brain.

Lalit Modi = Himass

Yes. This is completely true. The other day I was lucky enough to catch afew glimpses of Aap Ka Suar…err Suroor and the first thing to note was the way in which Himass was portrayed in the movie as the ideal Indian uber-male. Everybody in the film only sings praises for him. Switch to any IPL game and mentally replace HR with LM. The guy gives away money to schools in South Africa, is being credited with reviving the South African economy and has the 20/20 magazine cover calling him the new czar of cricket. What else would one want from life?

Request to DC
Please understand that the problem with your team is the bowling. Find a decent international level fast bowler to avoid embarrassment against silly pinch hitters. One suggestion would be Chaminda Vaas. His experience in swinging conditions could be useful. As a plus, like my friend almostinfamous said to me in a chat, this would also confuse Ranjit Fernando as to whom to root for resulting in slightly lesser pain in the brain for us.

A thought on the ZooZoo ads
Sure they are funny and all. I am starting to notice the grotesque side of the ads I mean, showing heads getting cracked, suicides, hungry crocs gobbling up subjects does not look funny after a while. Am I the only one here?

So much for now. Enjaai the weekend!

Watching IPL ‘09

I’ve been glued to the TV since the IPL started. It’s been a mixed experience so far, mostly because I tend to catch the irritating aspects before the entertaining ones. So here, I dump a few of my thoughts about watching the IPL on TV:

It’s a torture watching the bored face of Arun Lal. Last Sunday he turned out in the same jacket that he was wearing in photograph shown in ‘this’ post. And to top it off he was rooting for KKR so badly, at one point he said something that amounted to “I don’t have a soft corner for KKR, my whole body is soft for them.” WTF?

His competitor in boring commentary, LSRK is not far behind. In the match between Kings XI Punjab and Royal Challengers, Virat Kohli grassed a catch he should have taken (mostly because he was trying to be a smart a$$ by going for it one-handed). LSRK totally misses it and says “he sure stopped a boundary”. The remainder of his chatter revolves around adjectives like “extremely” and “really”.

Now to the Knight(y) Riders. What a mess, eh? First they had five captains, then they went to one captain and that captain might change midway. Total masala to screw the team. And it’s working already. I hope SRK sells the team and does what he is best known for, dancing at marriages and parties. At the least this could result in KKR getting a better sounding name.

The commentators being forced to say “DLF Maximum” instead of “SIX!” is the most ghatiya marketing gimmick. It remind me of the Radio commentary where commentators used to say “aur ye laga ek aur Dabur Lal dantamanjan / Amrutanjan chauka”. The only commentator consistently avoiding this is Harsha Bhogle (he is not calling it a SIX either, instead using phrases like “Huge Hit” and so on.) Better any day.

Long before the tournament began, I was of the opinion that the Deccan Chargers had not plugged the biggest whole in their team, the Bowling. But when I realised that the tournament would be played on faster pitches and in swinging conditions, my thoughts changed. RP Singh was India’s most successful bowler in the 2007 T20 World Cup, and playing in SA again has brought the best out of him. He is DC’s trump card. Of course, the whole team is playing well right now, my only worries revolve around the lower middle order. We lack a good all-rounder.

As much as I enjoyed the match between Rajasthan Royals and KKR, I disliked the concept of Super Over. It only looks like another way to earn money by bombarding us with even more ads.

When talking about ads, how can we forget the ‘Strategic Time Out’? It should have been ideally called “Strategic mid innings interruption” that helps no one except the broadcasters and the BCCI. It surely would not have been there had the tournament been played in India.

The crowds at the stadiums are being made to look larger than they are. This ploy is not new of course, the ICL uses it all the time. Apart from the few areas that are filled, we are made to see the team owners and Lalit Modi after every ball is bowled. As if we need to be reminded of their greatness. If I had it my way, I’d ad block Lalit Modi’s face from the TV screen. And may be replace it with a chimp’s face.

And finally, the organisers have got an egg on their faces thanks to the rains. It has rained on almost all match days. And they selected South Africa because England would be too rainy. What a shame.

How bored people dress

Sitting in a dull room and blabbering about the same things over and over is tough job. Therefore, Charu Sharma and Arun Lal who have been presenting the  the most boring ‘analysis’ of the Indian tour of New Zealand need a special mention. Both are former national level sportsmen and hence do not shy away from challenges. Presenting this analysis in a secluded studio somewhere in India, therefore, while an unfortunate occurrence for miserable TV-watching fans like me, is a ‘baae haath ka khel’ (play of the left hand) for them.

As if the analysis was not enough, however, today the two came up another ace up their sleeves — atrocious dressing. I had only just woken up when the Indian and Kiwis went into Tea on the fourth day of the third test. Whatever sleep was left in my eyes vanished when the bored duo appeared. Thankfully, the volume was kept at zero.

Lavender and Navy Blue

Brown on purpel!

Well, what the heck, at least the dressing made a boring programme a little more interesting.

Vote balloons

let’s vote, originally uploaded by Lazybug.

Spent the morning clicking at the Let’s vote 5k walk. I managed to walk about 4.5k of the distance. There was a whole lot of lecturing before the walk began about what great things the sponsors had done for the voters. One of the sponsor company’s CEO had the idea of informing voters about their voting booths through SMS. Guess what text you need to SMS to the given  number? Vote? No. CEO!

Also a majority of  responsible citizens  had parked in No Parking zones.

Overall though, the walk did us more good than bad. So, thank you letsvote.in.