Premiership drama

In my opinion (lot of others will agree with me) that EPL(Premiership) is the best football(soccer) league in the world. I consider it the best in terms of the attractive brand of football, quality of the players and sheer drama.

I started watching this league from 5-6 years back and it has been quite a ride ever since. The quality of the league has improved with the mass exodus of foreign talent (many of the top clubs have just two or three english players in the lineup). There has been plenty of investment from outside with a number of clubs being run by foreigners.

My short guide to become an EPL Fan (if you are not one already)

Watch a few games of some of the teams and pledge loyalty to one club. This is to required to understand the nuances of the game and get into the drama. I am an Arsenal (gunners) fan from the beginning and I follow them all the way. The second step is to atleast watch the games of your club every weekend to get to know the players and understanding the strategies and opponents. Then you are all set.

Infrastructure, players, financing and the fans improve the quality of a league and EPL has good quality. A number of top players in the world play in the premiership. Henry, Nistelrooy, Rooney, Owen, Lampard and Crespo are just a few of them. The top players are payed a hefty salary that goes upto 100,000 pounds a week (a good profession indeed). Normally, they play twice a week (league game and a champions league/cup game or a game for their country). Injuries play a major part in the career of a player and it is part and parcel of a professional career. Sometimes, players are out of the season due to injuries. That is the reason each club has a big roster of 25 to 30 players on an average.

The top two teams in the league have been Manchester United and Arsenal over the years with the other clubs scraping for minor placings. But, the arrival of Roman Abramovich in Chelsea two years back changed the equation. Chelsea zeroed in on the top players and spent about 200 mill pounds to buy them. They assembled a very expensive team within a short time and they stormed to the premiership title last year. They are continuing at the same pace this year as well and are set to win the league. This has jolted ManU and Arsenal out of their comfort zones and they seem to be struggling. In fact, the Gunners this time might not be in the top 4. Liverpool won the champions league and are making a comeback. The team of this season for me is Wigan which is playing in the premiership for the first time and are in the top eight. They have shown a fighting spirit with minimum resources (salary of all the players combined equals the salary of one chelsea player).

Managers play an important role in the success or failure of a club. The responsibility for the success/failure of a club most often begins and ends with them. They are the leaders and they define the strategy, decide on the kind of players to buy/sell, shape the careers of many young players, define the style of play and the character of the club. It is quite a sight to see them animated and shouting from the sidelines while a game is on. Sir Alex, Mourinho, Wenger and Benitez are world class managers who have proved time and again in winning titles.

Premiership is fun.

Here I come San Francisco

It all came up in a discussion with my friend Ramana when he was in NY that he had never been to the west coast and he wanted to go (I didn't know he had some other reason as well). I had never been to the west coast and thought i should not miss this chance. The destination was going to be San Francisco where Deepu was staying.

Day One:

The flight was at 7.15am from NY and i had to leave my home at around 4.30am as i decided to take the subway. It was quite a bad start to the tour since the 'E' train was not running on that route and i had to take a cab. I used the self service check in for the first time and it was very simple and fast. I was so sleepy by the time i got into the plane and i slept off for about 2 hrs. I was hungry and thought i will get something to eat, but i was wrong. I also noticed that the domestic flights in US charge you for food and for the headphones as well. I got a good view of SF while landing and it looked impressive. The flight was delayed for about an hour by the time I reached SF, I was starving.

My friend Deepu and his girlfriend CJ were at the airport and we waited for some more time for Ramana to arrive. The next step immediately was to have lunch and we closed on a Thai place. Frankly, i could have eaten anything by this time. Then, we checked into the hotel (it was a Patel inn) and went to my friends' home. We were enthralled with XBOX for quite sometime till the evening. We were playing like teenagers who had never seen these games before and the main focus areas were on tennis and football and i was getting thrashed by Deepu especially in tennis, although me and Ramana were in the same league. Their home was really well decorated and had all the gizmo stuff you can imagine. Ramana set up dinner with one of his college friends at San Jose and we all decided to go to a Mexican restaurant. It was a pretty good restaurant and the dinner conversation was mainly around the IT industry, India and US immigration. That's it for day one.

Day Two:
We were all set for the insider's tour of SF called the CJ Tour. I suggest everyone take it, but it is available only for the lucky few though. The four of us set off with CJ driving the tour and the car. We started off with a breakfast stop at a bagel place and it was delicious. The tour moved onto the gay part of town (Castro) and it was quite a sight. I think it is one of those places where women can feel very safe and the men can feel insecure. The whole neighbourhood has a different look and even the ads on the street are very different. The tour moved around downtown and the various sights there. Most of the roads have steep gradients and you would be pretty lucky to find a flat road. If the brakes fail while driving within SF, it is going to really scary. CJ led us thro' a street that is technically more crooked than the famous Lombard Street.

As we travelled within the city, I particularly liked the houses. They were mostly single storied with each house different from the other and has an old world charm about them. It is like going back in time, especially when you go from NY where you have tall buildings everywhere. We moved onto the 'twin peaks' which is one of the higher places where you can get a good view of the city. We reached the tourist part of the town (near the pier) and was lucky to get a peek at a bike race (later found that it was tour de california). I am a big follower of Tour de france and it was great to see the cyclists in full gear. We moved onto the Ghirardelli square (later realized that it can be called the chocolate square) which is kind of a historic place cum a shopping area near the pier. There was pretty view from the square. It is named after Domingo Ghirardelli who started Ghirardelli chocolate company. The hot chocolate fudge was huge and simply out of this world. That was lunch.

We moved onto the most famous landmark 'Golden gate bridge'. The bridge looks and is quite old and is imposing. The location is very scenic and has a kind of aura about it. This bridge connects SF city to Marin county and is about 1.7miles long. There have been more than 1300 suicide attempts and only about 25 people have survived. We had a good view of the bridge from various locations and each of the views was a pretty sight and very different as well. Then, we moved along the coastline of the Pacific Ocean on the famous US highway 101 (California state route 1 within Calif) that runs along the west coast of the United States from north to south. It is very picturesque with the Pacific Ocean on one side and is supposedly dangerous at times (extreme weather conditions like fog and landslides). We went to a couple of beaches in the area and one of them being inhabited by a very few people and it was a beach all for yourself. The water here in the Pacific ocean is very cold and there were a lot of surfers though. It was my birthday that day and we had a nice celebration at Deepu's home in the night.

Day Three:
It was a slow start for the day with a heavy breakfast. Ramana and I decided to explore the 'Patel points' (term coined by Deepu for common places where the tourists go). Main targets for today were Alcatraz (tickets were not available but we wanted to give it a shot), fisheman's wharf and the pier. We took the BART (subway in SF) and it is carpeted with cushioned seats. We took the cable car from downtown and went upto fisherman's wharf. It is a one carriage car wherein you can stand on the foot board (reminded me of the train in Cubbon park in bgl and the days I used to go on footboard in BTS). It passed through China town and other neighbourhoods and it was a fun 20 min ride. As soon as Ramana reached the fisherman's wharf, he noticed the Chinese guy who paints portraits and was immediately attracted to it. His portrait was done in about 10 min and it was very good and he was looking younger too. I also got my portrait done, was motionless for about 10min and it was a strange experience. You have to await with suspense and bated breath to see how it has come out (my portrait came out very well and looked as good as me) and it is torturous to see the expression of the passers by on the road. It reminded me of a gag show where they showed a painter painting a person as an ape and all the passers by used to look at the portrait and laugh like mad. By the time my portrait was done, I had a huge fan following (should I say the painter). We got more business for him with people lined up to get their portraits done.

We walked along the pier and took a lot of interest in the various street shows that were happening (card tricks, juggling, dancing, music and so on). We could not get the tickets to Alcatraz (supposed to be really good) and we were wondering of any way to getting onto it (there has been no reported escape from the Alcatraz prison in its history). We roamed around the pier and returned back by the cable car again and reached home. Ramana left the same night to Phili and I left the next day morning to NY.

It was a trip filled with new experiences, scenic beauty, a bit of cold weather and sunshine, excellent food and spending time with wonderful people.

Note: I will add a few photos once i get them.

Winter olympics Turin, Italy

I am quite a sports freak and the current big event that is happening is the winter olympics at Torino(Turin), Italy. I have been following quite a bit of it in the last two weeks and I should say it varies from boring to dangerous to exciting to scandals to personalities and so on.

First of all, it is not such a big event as the summer olympics with only countries in Europe and USA/Canada being the major competitors. There are few participants from Asia, Australia and Africa with China and Korea putting up a good show. For the record, India had a 4 member team that went to Turin. Shiva Keshavan is the lone Indian who has participated in the previous olympic games at Salt Lake City.

There are only seven sports in the winter olympics.They are Biathlon, Bobsleigh, Curling, Ice Hockey, Luge, Skating, Skiing, but they have 84 gold medals on offer. So each event has 10 to 12 subevents on an average and it is common to see a single person participating in multiple events and winning multiple medals. This is not the case for the summer olympics where winning multiple medals is a rarity(except for swimming and a few other events).

Now, getting onto the various events, curling is the most boring sport i have ever seen. It involves sliding a grinding stone into a ring, and two people trying to clean the ice in front to speed it up. You have to see it to believe it. The two favorite events for me are the speed skating and the downhill skiing. Speed skating involves two people going head to head on two lanes and the best time wins. It is the favourite sport of the Dutch and they have a huge fan following (good part of the stadium is covered in orange) and the Dutch olympic comittee sponsors a band to travel with the fans. The blue riband event of the winter olympics is the downhill skiing (similar to 100m in the summer olympics). Here each skier makes a run down the hill and the best time wins. The speeds reached here are upto 80 miles/hr with an average speed of 50 miles/hr and it is quite exciting. Figure skating is the most graceful sport in the games and usually involves a lot of scandals and drama. The pairs skating had the man and the woman fighting over a fall in the earlier event and not speaking to each other till the next race.

The US team has a huge contingent in the olympics and it has been a case of more hype rather than performance for them. There have been numerous cases of over confidence and avoidable mistakes that have led to US athletes losing medals. The best being in the snowboarding event for women, the US athlete was leading comfortably towards the end and she tried to do a bit of showmanship, fell down and lost the gold. US athletes have created more controversy than winning medals. There is a detailed coverage of the event by NBC.

Overall, in my opinion, it has been an average olympics with sparks of brilliance and a few olympic stories to tell.

Some winter olympics trivia can be found at http://www.infoplease.com/spot/winter-olympics-trivia.html

Poker face

I have started to watch poker on TV more nowadays and beginning to understand the game. This is my two cents on it. Poker is very popular here in the US and it is considered as a game (not gambling). It is scientific and you have your tactics/strategy and you play with chips (not money), unless of course, you go to the casinos and play for money.

There are different types of games in Poker and the one I love the most is “ No limit Texas hold’m “. I don’t know much history about the name, but it has started in Texas I suppose. Let me just give a brief overview of the game. A table can have a maximum of 9 players and you have a dealer who deals the cards. Two cards are dealt to each player and there are 5 common cards on the table. The best 5 cards out of the seven win the hand. There are 4 stages of betting.
Two cards are dealt to all the players and you can start betting from here. If you cant match the bet, then you fold.
· Next three cards are dealt on the table and is called the flop. There is another round of betting here.
· One more card is dealt and is called the turn. There is another round of betting.
· Last card is called the ‘river’. There is the last round of betting.

The person who has the best hand after the rounds of betting wins. It might happen that a person bets at the flop and the rest folds. At any point in the game, you can bet all your chips and is called ‘all in’. This is the real thrill of the game. At this moment, it is your tournament on the line. You need a lot of acumen, courage and poker experience to call it correctly. Some of the other words constantly used are ‘check’, ‘raise’, ‘fold’,’flush’, ‘three of a kind’, ‘two pair’ and so on.

People say that you need a ‘poker face’ to play poker. I don’t completely agree with that though. You need to control ur emotions and don’t give anything up when u get a nice hand or a crap hand. But, there are players who keep smiling and act in different ways. There are crazy varieties of poker players than you can imagine. Each person has his unique mannerisms, a guy called ‘Sammy Farha’ has a cigarette in his mouth always although he does not smoke, there is an other guy who always plays with this jacket on, there are tons of guys who have their sun glasses on (most common), most of them playing with the chips in their hand, some guys who keep talking and trying to stir things up. There are some nice nick names as well, ‘Assasin’, ‘Professor’, ‘Joker’,’mathemetician’ and so on. One of the players I like is Howard Lederer (professor). He has a long face, always serious and people are afraid of his stare. When he bets on a hand, people are scared to call or re-raise. This does not mean he wins every tournament, but his style of play is amazing. He has been a US poker champion before. There is a guy called Johnny Chan who has acted in movies.

It is really a very open playing field and anybody can win a tournament, although there are some favorites (similar to a tennis tournament). 2004 US champion was the CEO of a company. 2003 US champion was ‘chris moneymaker’ who was an amateur came through by playing on the internet. The prize money is really good and a normal tournament has a 1$ mill for the top place.

I became really interested and thought of learning the game more. What better way to learn a game than to actually play it. This game is really accessible and you can play for free. I registered with partypokers.net and downloaded their software and started to play over the last couple of weeks. It has been a roller coaster ride so far and I can see that there are thousands (if not more) who play the game as well as I do. I would have spent about 5 to 6 hours in total and it has been good fun. Highlight so far is that I won more than 10000 chips in one hand when I got an ‘ace high flush’. Losses are ok, but when a loss hits you the most is when you have a good set of cards and then you lose. It has happened to me a few times that I have a ‘two pair’, but lost the hand to a ‘three of a kind’ or a ‘straight’. Once I lost with a straight, can you believe that. I also noticed that most of the players who play online are pretty good (or am I so bad J).

Key takeaways are
It is not easy at all
You need tons of patience
Dont play too many hands, play only when you are sure of something
Bluffing does work in some cases, but overall it is not productive.
Understand the betting pattern and you can get a fair idea of what cards the other person has. I am beginning to learn this and it is working now to my advantage.

It has been a really nice 5-6 hours and some more hours of TV time to learn a new game and get a new perspective on life. It keeps your mind on razor’s edge, helps you take up more challenges, helps you to take some tough decisions and you can always fight back (don’t give up hope). Hoping that some of this rubs off on my work or personal life as well.

Note : Did you guys know that there is a world darts championship that happened in England last month.

Stand up comedy

Stand up comedy is quite big in NY. There are a lot of famous stand up comedians and many of them eventually end up as TV stars or in some cases even movie stars. Some of the big TV stars who started off as stand up comedians are Jay Leno, Dave Letterman, Ellen, Bill Maher, Billy Crystal, Chris Rock and the list goes on endlessly. It is a highly specialized field where an individual has to entertain the audience for half hour or sometimes even an hour. Although everyone thinks it may be quite easy, but it is definitely not.

A typical show is staged in an auditorium and you have a stage with a mike on a stand and a bottle of water on a stool (nothing else). Most of the times, the mike has a wire and the stool looks the same in all the shows. I am not sure why they can’t use a wireless mike in this age of modern technology though, maybe it adds to the style. The normal routine begins with the audience giving a huge ovation to the performer and he acknowledges it and starts off. He starts off slowly (warming up), makes the audience comfortable by asking some interactive questions and the meat of the show is in the middle when he really goes bonkers and the audience gets tuned as well. The show ends abruptly and there is no cooling down period (I think it maybe because the TV channels dictate the time). One more interesting thing that happens towards the end is they walk off the stage for 30 seconds (when the audience starts applauding) and then come back again to acknowledge the applause. This happens in all the stand up comedy shows.

What is so special and why is it so difficult. The first thing is they don’t have a teleprompter to read from and everything is in their mind. It is not mimicry and it is not exactly reciting one joke after the other. It is more like the little incidents or mannerisms that happen in any one’s day to day life. The interactions between a husband and wife, between friends, incidents that happen between kids and parents. That’s what makes stand up comedies so special, it is like things you have gone thro’ in your life, but maybe never would have thought of it or spoken about it. A simple case in point is how embarrassed you are when you trip when walking on a road and most people would do either of the two things. You begin to act as if you are running or you will look back and act as if there was a big stone or something over which you tripped over. I guess everyone would have gone through this moment in their life, but when somebody describes it so vividly and you think of yourself in that situation and it gives you a big laugh. The show by itself requires an active participation from the audience to give the performer some encouragement and to keep the show going. The stand up comic also times himself so well that he gives a moment for the audience to laugh/clap in between.

The topics for the stand up comedies vary widely and the style of each performer is very different. Each person would have put in lots of hours practicing and would have struggled to make it big. They start off in small clubs and if they get lucky, they are picked up by agents and get on to some big shows. Once they become popular, they get on to television or movies. Each person tries to develop his own style and they build up their repertoire to make sure that they don’t repeat. They specialize in their own areas and it many times depend on their background as well. Some of the comedians talk about NY and many of their jokes are of a New Yorker. For the types of comedians you have white people, black people, Irish, British, Asians, women (very few women though), Latinos and so on. Most of them talk about racist, sex, politics and sexist jokes. There are very few clean stand up comedies (most are R rating) with most of them having a certain percentage of swear words and adult jokes. Some of them try to shock you, some of them shout, some of them have a dry style, some of them are sarcastic, some of them laugh with the audience and so on.

Stand up comedy is a celebration of life and the ability to laugh at yourself and others.

New York Marathon 05

New York continues to amaze me. I was fortunate to witness the NY Marathon 2005 on 6th Nov and it was a good experience. This is a huge event in the NY calendar and the marathon is run for a distance of 26.2 miles through all the five boroughs starting from Staten Island and culminating at Central Park. The total number of participants is more than 30000 and you can imagine the scale.

The marathon started off at around 9am in the morning (quite a bit of fog early on) and as the day progressed sun came out. I reached Central Park about 1 mile from the finish and took up a vantage point. There was a sparse crowd at 10am and they started growing as time went on. There were people from all nationalities and most of them had some of their friends or relatives participating in the race. They were carrying banners/messages, flags and it was quite a festive atmosphere. The first race that had started was the wheelchair division and the participants started coming in to the finish line. There were huge cheers for the wheelchair runners and the struggle they had to undergo finish the race was pretty high. Wheelchairs were in all different shapes and the technique of each person was not the same.

Then as time went on, the crowds started building up and I got some French folks (about 10) next me who had two of their friends running in the marathon. They provided a lot of entertainment with their cheering and other antics. Meanwhile, the top women runners started coming up and the top two were quite close. Then the others started to come by as well and the main thing I noticed was all the runners were shockingly thin and most of them short as well. NY Mayor Bloomberg came up next with his cavalcade (this was prime time considering that everyone was awaiting the men runners) and he was supposed to flag the men’s finishers. The men’s runners passed by and the top three were all together (very surprising indeed and I later found that it became history since the top two finished one second of each other). Out of the first 15, roughly about 10 were Kenyans, no surprises there I guess. Once the serious runners had passed thro’, semi professionals and amateurs started coming in and the support from the spectators was too good to believe.

There were quite a few ‘touching moments’ in the race like a lot of people were running in memory of others, a paralyzed wheel chair bound old man was being pushed by two of his sons, old men and women above 60 yrs trying to finish the race, number of runners having cramps dragging themselves to the finish, people who did not have one or both arms and many more. It would have taken a lot of people three to four hours to finish the race and it was a great sight to see the joy in finishing the race. All the finishers get a medal and a NYC Marathon banner and I could see lots of them everywhere.

A nice way to spend a few hours on a Sunday morning at Central Park.