Something Original

Happy New Year! Everyone

Memories Past

The inning brought a lot of the pain back for me. Like any other Sachin follower, i was happy yo see him back at best..but it also brought one of the pet rancors of mine to the fore. For a person of such ability and class, he should really be on the winning side more often than not. people like Adam and Gilchrist, Mcgrath , Warne etc are lucky in this regard and they would not easily recognize the pain of being one of the greats and not winning even 50% of the games that you play. Course in some respects, Lara's case is even worse.

Abstractural Ineffeciencies

Sometimes, i feel that the abstract nature of the blog sometimes inhibits my blogginess as the need to maintain standards warrant abstract blogs. And as any abstract blogger will tell you the demand for a certain level of abstractness is sometimes a demand too demanding consequently making the blogginess suffer.

What's the solution you ask? I say, lower the abstractural demands and delve and deliver on the need for blogginess. This kind of behaviour should be a prime example of the need for the modificatgion of standards, ofcourse after proper reprioritization and rationalization. So in future, the blogginess frequency may increase along with the level of abstraction in the ensuing blogposts.

Convergence

Sometimes, MIS reporting requirements couple with the need of the monthly reporting format help you generate great things.

Bloggers Risk

When one of my friends experessed his recent inability to blog in recent times, apart from the normal thought that "Dude, this is not 'recent' inability to blog, it is a recent case of self awareness", satirically* enough, i also thought about how it is never a problem for me.

* Ironically i am trying to start the trend of abuse of the term Satiric just like Ironic

Nick Game

Spiff is a great nick. Course, as it requires a great sense of perspective on the germane issues of the day and the current issues. He can put current issues in perspective in a germane manner. Of course it also matters that the infamy of his fame has been hieratically dissected.

Talking about Germane, Germany has to my mind been one of those countries that guide the vision of the issues pertaining to the ideal form of government. Course this kind of talk though likable takes one away from the issues of the day

All this also suggests to the fact that the palliative use of hieratical adverbs leads to a sort of collusion between the commercialized culture of the proletariat and those at war against the plebian resurgence of the popular rhetoric.

The thing that matters

A google chat with a friend.

me: mornin

Friend: jai

me: howz u?

Friend: fine

u

me: i am fine. THank you

so

any opinions on the state of Indian cricket

how do you rate

Friend: this was bound to happen

me: MSDs performance in the last press conference

Friend: i think its all dhoni's fault

me: hmm

should dhoni have been more amenable to

Friend: india had a set batting lineup

me: reporters ideas

?

Friend: with sehwag n gambhir

me: hmm

so

you think

Friend: raini at no. 3

rohit sharma

uv

dhoni

pathan etc

me: DHoni should have stuck to his guns and talked rudely to reporters

Friend: he mingled with batting line up

me: hmm

Friend: by promoting himself to no.3

me: that is true

Friend: raina lost confidence

and his form too

to me raina was the key player in this WC

me: hmm

Friend: he was even more imp than uv

becoz of his form in ipl

me: oh

Friend: once he flopped

things were inevitable

and opening with rohit sharma was a blunder

me: hmm

i think

DHoni

Friend: he was the best no. 6

me: should have shown more tact

especially

after times came out

with the rift story abt sehwa

Friend: but that hardly impacted the performance

me: so

i think

tht set the tone for DHoni's performamcne in the whole tournament

almost all the later press conferences got affected

Friend: performance against SA was the worst

did u see hw pathan got out

me: I dont think pathan was called for any press conference

except

for

the tour defining

group walk out

Friend: r u talking abt press conference performance or on field performance

me: :)

Its all same

SUn

if you allow

can i post this exchange in my blog

Friend: hmm

sounds good

me: good

good part...hamne koi gaali nahi di..so we can post it uncensored

Enjoy :)

A Poem

Over the woods in a snowy evening..

Well its summer here...but anyway..

once upon a time comes a time....and you have to choose among crosswords...which book would you choose...

the one that goes with your personality or the one that doesn't. Or do you go for non fiction..

hmm..its tough..

End of an era!!

Surely one of these great  feats in modern sports leave alone tennis. Is it going to happen. Nadal has just saved on of the 5 match points..you never know.

Moving on

Go  Mumbai Indians

Instant Analysis

Following comes to mind:

1. I think congress gained cos of NREGA and farmers loan waiver. Its not good economics but its atleast good politics

2. There seems to be a welcome trend of consolidation of National Parties in UP, WB etc

3. At some level, there seems to be a failure of leadership opn Advani's part to motivate his state leaders. 

4. I think a very good model for BJP would be to go for Bihar Model. Rebrand themshelves as a centre right economic party but give strong signals that social amity will be maintained and social security for the extremely backward.

Moo Point

This is what happens when u have shadow communists in ur think tank :)

Practice Management

"Practice management as a tool is one of the smart tools that all the tools in the practice must manage"

circa 2009

A Riddle

Once, i was riding on a truck. Open convertible truck that is. Now the truck had to pass under a very low bridge. But the truck with me was a few inches too high. I thought a lot and decide to use my large sharp nails to slice off the top two inches off the truck. But, then a kid suggested to take the air out of the tyres. That's called good lateral thinking....coming to thinking, there was still a problem..my head was too large..and i thought a lot on a possible solution and dint seem to help at all....

and then i stopped thinking.

Bad Calls

Sometimes, you are in a dilemma. You keep thinking about the call you have to make. Today was like that. After much internal struggle, calculations of my work in office, my energy level in the morning, whether i ll be late again for office etc, i finally decide that let me be awake to see the start of the day 5 of the test match. And what do i see. Gambhir struggling like anything against patel and sachin getting out in the 5th over of the day. i ahve switched off the tele now. Let me wake up in the morning and see the result. Hope we survive the day.  And as i say- Recalse.

Update:-  It turned out well after all

Post of the Month

You gotta do what you gotta do

The Republic Day Debate

I have been partial to the idea of India being a presidential system of democracy since childhood. The notion that generally a presidential system of government will be good for India was more a reflection of the fact that the parliamentary system of government did not yield the proper results. Mark you, those were the days of Gujaral and Devegowda so I was not that far off the mark. However, the more I read about the presidential form of government, the less convinced I am about the merits of the system. For example, for one of the most developed economies, US has one of the most underdeveloped governance mechanism. I think that is because of the transition issues arising primarily out of presidential system of executive appointments for apolitical jobs. West Europe on reasonable parameters of governance seems ahead.  I have personally seen the side effects of this kind of practice in Sri Lanka where the governance system is quite weak again political appointees playing a helping hand in the same. One other factoid that we must keep in mind is this. You realize that, while the presidential system may bring additional stability, does India has a civil society which could keep the executive in check. India doesn’t seem to have the wherewithal to handle petty goons of MNS or Ram Sena, let alone withstand the assault the presidential system. So all in all, I say lets stick to the Parliamentary system as of now.

Obama Part Deux

Sorry to carry on about Obama. For the last few days, more in jest than anything else, i have been asking people around that who is India's Obama. People more often than not, realise that its an arbit question and refuse to answer directly. However, some names do crop up such as Mayawati, Rahul Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi's fellow traveller, Advani, Laloo, Devegowda, Nitish etc. Turns out, all this was nonsense and courtsey HT, i come to know that, we have finally managed to find the answer. Its none other than our own Sanjay Dutt. Course his recent examples of poltical acument has been blogged about by eminent indian bloggers such as Greatbong and Indiauncut

The New US administration and India

Ideally if you want to read about this, you should just wait for Acorn to write about it, which i am sure he will in due time. Still here are my thoughts.

Overall, while i think Obama would e a better choice, i think a competent (Cos incompetent US presidents make life difficult for many more) republican administration under McCain would have been much better. Primarliy because of the Foregin policy and Outsourcing policy of the democrats. While Obama is explicitly anti outsourcing which should have an adverse effect (marginal but anyway adverse) on the Indian services industry. Also, in terms of foreign policy- Democrats tend to restrict themshelves and thus they will soon start making non proliferation noises, will want to deal china independently (thus no props for India to counter China) and the vague feeling that i get is that the foregn policy of Obama vis a vis India will be Pakistan Centric rather than China centric. So all in all, i am not very optimistic about Indo-US relations given the Indian bureacrats to be overly sensitive about insults and not trying to find out work arounds.

The only saving grace is that the better PR of Obama admin will once again empower the americans to do something good in the neighbourhood which is needed.

Use of Analogies

I agree with Matt yglesias here that analogies have limitations in a good debate and if you actually want to enter a debate, analogies are best kept away. Use of anlaogies in intense debates lead to people countering the main point by looking in incosnistencies between the analogy and the actual situation. It will be like going into a 20-20 match with dravid and chanderpaul as openers. You know what i mean, this too was a bad analogy with results like what royal challengers got.

Bloggers block is back

As i wrote in one my earliest posts, its a strange phenomenon all too common on the interwebs. My friend is suffering from it too.  He is looking for ideas. I think, blogging is a difficult medium. One needs to find a right balance of taciturnity and story telling. Now the difficulty is that this balance depends upon your mood which varies inter temporally (over time i mean)..so there is also this need for consistency over time.

Here i think having a blogging style like mine helps as much as in its not very easily classifiable. so consistency is not that much of a problem. I am thinking of being more blogtastic in near future..so keep visiting the space.