Thursday, May 26, 2005

I am left speechless!!!!!!!

3 goals down in the first half. A comeback by scoring 3 goals in the space of 6 glorious minutes of the second half. A disallowed goal...A double save by the goalie deep deep into extra time. Win it in the penalty shootout. Oh my God!!!! What a game!!!! A better script could never be written. Nobody, absolutely nobody could have thought that Liverpool would stage such a comeback after the first half. I am sure even they did not think such a comeback against a Milan defence that included the likes of Jaap Stam, Nesta, Cafu and Paolo Maldini was possible. In the end, Liverpool FC were crowned Champions of Europe.

I am writing this minutes after the match has finished and I am not one bit sleepy. Its just too much to take in. Maldini scored in the first minute of the game and Crespo added two more to rub salt into Liverpool's wounds. To compound Liverpool's misery, Harry Kewell had to go of with a groin strain midway thro' the first half and Steve Finnan had to be substituted at half time as well. Liverpool were just asleep at the back. Carragher looked very ordinary and so did the two wingers.

After the first half, I thought I'll go sleep since this game was all but over. But, I decided to stick around for the first 15 mins and see if there was any spark left in the game. And man, was I lucky to have made that decision!!! 'Cuz there was some quality football left to be played still. Stevie G started the comeback with a powerful headed goal.

45'----> Scoreline AC Milan 3 - 0 Liverpool

54' ---> GOAL by Steven Gerrard (AC Milan 3 - 1 Liverpool)

56' ---> GOAL by Vladmir Smicer (AC Milan 3 - 2 Liverpool)

60' ---> GOaL by Xabi Alonso (AC Milan 3 - 3 Liverpool)

The comeback was complete!!!! Gerrard was inspirational in the second period and he scored a goal and then won the penalty thro' which Alonso equalised. His penalty was saved by Dida but he scored of the rebound. Call it luck, fate, destiny, whatever, Liverpool just could not do any wrong it seemed. Milan never even realised what had hit them. The Liverpool supporters cheered their team on and the game ended 3-3 after normal time

The match went into extra time and there were some tired legs out there. But who can blame them. AC Milan looked the fresher of the two and had some good chances to win it in extra time. It took Jerzy Dudek's double save to keep Shevchenko's point blank range effort from crossing the goal line and you just knew it then!!! Liverpool were just destined to win this trophy.

Penalties and Milan's Serginho took an awful one which sailed into the crowd and Pirlo's was saved by Dudek. Liverpool found themselves 2 up in the shootout with both Cisse and Smicer converting. Riise missed because of s superb Dida save but it came down to Shevchenko, arguably the world's best striker to miss his penalty and they had done it!!! Liverpool had risen from the dead to win this match.

It was a fantastic night at Istanbul!!!!

Sunday, May 22, 2005

Its a cruel, cruel game

I am yet to recover from the shock defeat that Manchester United suffered at the hand of the Gooners(Arsenal) last evening at the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff. WE dominated the game throughout, including extra time. WE deserved to win this game easily by atleast 3 goals minimum. It was a combination of bad finishing, Jens Lehmann and the linesman's flag that saved Arsenal from defeat. We had so many clear cut chances that Roy Carroll could have gone off to sleep and still would not have conceded.

This game being a Cup final went into extra time and even during that period, Arsenal struggled for possession against a dominant Man Utd midfield of Keane, Scholes, Ronaldo and Giggs (came on as substitute for Fletecher after 90 mins). The wingers Ronaldo and Rooney teased Lauren and Ashley Cole for the entire game and even they will agree that ManU were the better team.

But, we failed to score and the game went to penalties. Here, Scholesy missed one and that was that. Lehmann looked the better of the two goalies (obviously cos he had more work to do in the entire game and hence more warmed up) whereas our man Carroll looked stupid. And to top it off, the guy I hate most at Arsenal, Vieira slotted home the final penalty for them to win the trophy.

We almost won it.!!!!!! Almost!!!!

Saturday, May 14, 2005

A couple of Legends...

The title is inspired by the fact that yesterday was a very unique day. Ok.. Not so unique actually. It happens at fairly equally spaced intervals. It was Friday and it was also the thirteenth of the month and hey... Put this together and you get

Friday the thirteenth.

This got me thinking (yes, I was majorly jobless for most of yesterday) as to why this day is unlucky and why it got its name. I actually uncovered some very interesting facts. I believe that this fear of Friday, the thirteenth is called paraskevidekatriaphobia. There is not really any scientific logic behind all this but the funda is otherwise simple.

This fear arsises from two separate fears namely the fear of the number thirteen and the fear of Friday. And if both these occur together, its considered a very unlucky day. Thirteen is because it was the number of people present at the last supper (jesus and his twelve apostles) and Judas, the apostle to betray Jesus Christ was the the thirteenth member to arrive. The fear of Friday is of more common knowledge because it was the day Jesus Christ was crucified. Additionally, many people believe that Friday was also the day the Great Flood started, Adam and Eve had the forbidden fruit etc etc..

Many people also believe that if they commence somethin on a Friday the thirteenth, that project will be doomed right from the start. People who only believe in scientific proofs think its all gibberish and a bunch of nonsense :-D. There are a lot more theories that supplement these facts but as I mentioned earlier, this is the basic funda.

As I was reading this, there was this link that was about another very common legend

April Fools Day

This got me to read about why April 1st is celebrated as April Fools day all over the world. The funda here is something to do with the ancient calendar system.

I believe that this explanation dates back to 16th Century France, the year 1564 to be precise. The new year according to the Julian Calendar that was being followed accepted the beginning of the year in April. Now, there was this king named King Charles IX who declared that France would use the Gregorian Calendar which meant that new year's day was shifted to January. Wonder why he had to do that..??????

Anyways, what resulted was confusion and not everyone accepted the date change at the same time. Some people still celebrated new years in april as they did not like the date change. Some people who lived in far off remote vilages in France did not even hear about the date change for a long time. These people who celebrated new years on april became the butt of jokes and thus were called fools giving rise to the phrase April Fool!!!!!

Also a quick update, Part 2 of the post below will follow soon.

I think thats enough "gyan" for the time being..

Adios!!!

Saturday, May 07, 2005

How dumb/stupid can people get?? - Part 1

Ok.. The title speaks for itself I think.. I have been coming across various instances recently that prompted me to write this post... Read on.. (Note :- You are FREE to get the hell outta here...)


Still reading.. Ok.. here goes ...

Instance 1

This happened today evening and hence is the freshest in my mind...(Is there a word called freshest.. I wonder!! Leave a comment telling me please!)
There is this shop where I went this evening. Now, as you all know, all shops have doors. This one had the word PULL written very prominently in like 3 places if I remember right..Anyways, this lady (fat woman is what I would call her) and her son (kid abt 5-7 yrs old) were about to leave in front of me. And this female PUSHES the damn door when it clearly says PULL. And obviously, the door refused to move beyond a certain point (as all doors are bound to do if you force them to do something they are not desgined for). Now, please keep in mind that this woman was FAT. So she obviously couldn't squeeze out and she blocked her son from doin so too (you see, that her son was behind her.. poor fella!! And I am behind him.. Poor^2 fellow..)She was this very dignified looking lady , looked educated and al that . So she should have been able to fu****g read the label. Then after about 20 secs of wrestling with the door, she suddenly realised, "hey , I am doing this the wrong way"..Lol..Then She pulled and we all got out.. Phew!! Another 10 secs and i woulda lost it. I swear!!!

Instance 2

I have always hated the way pedestrians cross the road (busy roads especially) as if they are on this moonlight walk without a care for anything in the world.. It is this very quality that makes me want to tear my hair out. Imagine this:-
When you are driving at a considerable speed and suddenly outta nowhere, this @^%$#*( decides that he wants to test brakes of speeding vehicles and its your car that he happens to pick. The exact same situation happened to me. This idiot decides to do this and luckily, I had enough time and space to slow down and swerve to the right (It was about 2 in the afternoon and not much traffic on the road). He sure got an earful of the choicest expletives from me!!!!

More important things are beckoning.. I have an exam for which I know nothing..

To be continued

Later

Friday, May 06, 2005

Phew!!!!!!! Just 3 more to go

Yeah.. Anna University exams are on in full swing!!! And I am so glad that there are only three more exams left.

*Updates on exams*
Exam 1 : 29-04-05

Title : - Digital Communication

This is one of the exams that I will always regret for not doing well. It was such a simple paper. All theory. I had to search for numbers in the paper (of course.. apart from the question no.. !!duh!!!)!!! I am probably not kidding when I am saying that it will be one of my bigger regrets if because of this paper, I lose out later on.. Well.. enough moaning..

Exam 2 : 03-05-05

Title : Electromagnetic Waves and Wave Guides

After writing this exam, I can not so proudly say that i still do not have an inkling as to what a Wave guide is or just how two fields are transverse to each other....That is how much I knew/know about the subject when I went in..And it was a f**king question paper. The problems that were given were either

a) Incorrect (Conceptually)
b) Involved too many calculations
c) Made no sense ( Atleast to me :-P)

Anyway, cutting to the chase, I guess I should clear this paper (Hopefully!!! fingers crossed !!)


Exam 3 : 06-05-05

Title : - Computer Communication Netwroks

Ahhh!! Finally!!! Now this exam went off very well. Even though the paper was VAGUE, I kinda feel good about it.. Now, this gives me some hope and inspiration for this semester.

Very sleepy now..
unitl I blog again..
adios

Monday, May 02, 2005

What a shot!

He turns 36 today..

For all you people wondering what the title is all about.. It refers to the man . no wait.. the legend that is Brian Charles Lara(See pic). Though I haven't blogged in a long time, I am goin to reserve tht for later and today is all about the greatest batsman to have ever played the game of cricket.. yeah.. people much older to me will probably argue Sir Don Bradman's case or maybe even Sir Garfield Sobers, but hey.. I havent seen them play and hence cant comment :-)

On May 2nd , 1969, this fella was born in Cantaro.. Now please dont ask me where this place is..Anyway, he started playing cricket at a very early age and went on to represent WI U-19 test team when he was 15!!! The rest as they say is history.. He is easily the worlds best cricketer and is a match winner in every sense of the word..

I remember those days , when I was about 6 years old (thats as far back as I can remember) , I used to watch every innings of lara that they showed on TV, whether it was day, night etc.. I used to support the West Indies team because of him and will never forget the two superb innings of 375 and 400 tht he played.. But my favorite all time great innings is the one which he played against Australia to win the match batting with the number 11 .. the score was 213 not out.. I could go on and on about this man but I will reserve that for another day

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LARA!!!

Adios..