Tuesday, December 28, 2004

Bikang CUPtrophy - the More-or-less Halfway Point

As we arrive at the end of the second day of play in Bikang CUPtrophy 2004, we have seen the emergence of some key and some not-so-key idiosyncracies in the teams and the players involved. We have also encountered issues with rules, interpretation, implementation and overall enthufunjoyaggropassion. Of course, as is the norm with all things Bikang, the CUPtrophy event has fallen victim to several instances of craziness brought crashing down by laziness. I must pause at this point to credit that last statement to our own Zeb. Continuing, here are the top 5 lists of key and not-key things from the first two days of Bikang CUPtrophy 2004, both in no particular order.

Top 5 Key Things
  1. Stellar Newcomers - Special mention must be made of the newcomers to Top-T cricket who have distinguished themselves with bat and ball over the first two days, proving that it is not as difficult to play here as the veterans pretend it is. All it takes is to be mother-key players. Sriram (Silphosia RUM), taking over for VicP, has established himself as the hardest out in this tournament so far. Narendra and Bonnie (SOSalamia) have literally turned in great shows with the ball.
  2. Spirit of Competition - Overall standard of competition has been high, and teams have shown excellent sportsmanship in their conduct during the opening stages of the tournament. One hopes that this will continue through the rest of the tourney, when the stakes are raised much higher. A round of applause for the umpires for maintaining firm control over the proceedings.
  3. Ling - While we were playing cricket, he was out at Marina helping with relief efforts for folks affected by the tsunami.
  4. Wretch - Besides being the only woman in Bikang CUPtrophy 2004, she also organised all trophies and Om-rolling activities. One understands that her intoxication limits are under strict supervision during the tournament, but let's all have a drink in her name.
  5. Groundskeeper Willie - Also known as Shengu from The Place Above, for organizing cleaning of TopT in time for and during Bikang CUPtrophy 2004, with able assistance from whoever it was that assisted him (write a comment with those names).

Top 5 Not-key Things
  1. Tsunami - While we can't argue with a tidal wave the size of the Indian Ocean, we can most definitely curse it for all we're worth. So this bitch comes in and takes out the Eastern shoreline of South India, and kills or ruins a few thousand people, and then comes back the next day for more. Not key at all.
  2. Computer Manoj - Not to blame proprietor of The Place Above, the aforementioned key Shengu, but lack of crowd noise, music and other such distractions are a blatant disregard for playing conditions, and I recommend a severe reprimand for the computer by BCCB.
  3. Bikang Manojes the National Antheths - Laziness defeats the craziness, as Zeb said, by most teams ignoring this rather important idea of being a nation. But what is there, let's play some tough and drink off, raa. But what is an oath without an O-th?
  4. Blog Inactivity - First captains chilled off like goats on the request to nominate a blogger, and then blog volunteers manojed twice by leaving scoresheets at the venue, thereby no longer having a reference for match reports. Maybe we'll pick it up as the tourney continues.
  5. Rule Interpretation - While most rules were drafted very carefully, interpretation of these rules seem to be an issue. It has been a source of delay/interruption a couple of times already, but hopefully all problems have been sorted out and fixed in time for the home stretch of Bikang CUPtrophy 2004.
Completely Unofficial Halfway Awards

Best Fielding Team - MMJOSHI
Best Batting Team - Silphosia RUM
Best Bowling Team - SOS
Best Newcomer - Sriram
Best Batsman
- Sriram
Best Bowler - Shengu
Overall Dude - Ling, for recognizing that it's just a game.

Flash News - Karunanidhi is apparently not dead, but is threatening to die off and unleash his minions on a violent glass-smashing spree in a desperate venture to resurrect his not-dead spirit from its deep-resting place in an IV drip bottle somewhere in the ICU at Apollo Hospital. I think it's because the minions don't know which glass container to smash.

Other News - Labdee, one half of the D's, has decided to attend all games and participate as one of two scorers. The question is, will her evil employers, OT (OverTime), share her enthusiasm for Bikang CUPtrophy 2004? Stay tuned, folks, the battle has begun.

Friday, December 24, 2004

christmas party @ house of hiran



contact bikang for further information

\m/

PSJ

Thursday, December 23, 2004

Who is this team A?

Announcing the official name of team comprising Koid, Caddy, Shengar, PS Jain and Self as.....

Majestic Mohammedan Jihad Of Severely Holy Islamics ...

abbreviated to MM Joshi , so the fanaticism continues.

Enemies of the Jihad, beware.




Wednesday, December 22, 2004

bikangCUPtrophy | official logo

official logo
 

Bikgang CUPtrophy

hear ye ....hear all.....
The Grand Bikgang CUPtrophy gets underway at 7 PM , 26th of December 2004.Here is the schedule:

Dec. 26th:

7:00 PM opening ceremony
8:00 PM A v C
9:30 PM B v D

Dec. 27th

8:00 PM A v B
9:30 PM C v D

Dec. 28th


8:00 PM A v D
9: 30 PM B v C


The points system is as follows:

win 4 pts
draw 1 pt
tie 2 pts
loss 0 pts


The two teams with the maximum no of points will go into the finals.
In case of tie in points head to head between the concerned teams will be taken into account
In the case of a tie still the team with the more number of first innings leads throughout the tournament will go through
In case of it being tied still the issue will be decided over the toss of a coin.



The teams have been announced this evening.
The teams are as follows:

Team A

Druck(c)
Caddy
P.S.jain
Self
Shengu




Team B

Inees(c)
Narendra
Bonnie
Sumanth
Sainath



Team C

Kishore(c)
RJDave
Balajing Satish Kumar
Hammer
Vic P



Team D

iiiiii(c)
Ling
The wretch
Grahul
Vijay(uncle of nondetail)


It has been decided that the teams will give themselves imaginary country names and thereby national anthems which shall be composed by each team. Jubbs, self or shengu can be contacted for appropriate recording slots so that these can be ready in time for the opening ceremony at 7 PM , on the 26th. These submissions can be handed over to the director of the opening ceremony, Shengu.

Almost all of the rules of regular 30 over cricket on the terrace will be followed with a few notable exceptions resulting from the availability of umpires.

1. Bowlers can be no balled for overstepping the cease resulting in the loss of a run and an extra ball.

2. Batsmen can appeal for fast but the umpire will hold the final say in upholding the appeal.

3. Dissent of all kinds will be severely clamped down upon. (Chucking of bats, abusive language towards opponents and umpire, continuous padhuthufying of umpire, any question asked to umpire by players who are playing the current match but are not currently in action(eg. BSFs) and anything else the umpire feels is dissent in accordance with the overall spirit of the game)
The captains of respective teams will be responsible for these acts and will face a first warning and a subsequent innings suspension in case of any such event.

4. The umpires decision will be final.

5. It will be the captains responsiblity to get his team together in time for his scheduled match. Any request for changes in schedules have to be placed before the BCCB captains council at least 24 hours in advance.
In case of non availability of a player for unavoidable reasons, the captain can recruit a player not in any of the four teams currently playing.

6. In case of a suspension, the team will continue to play with the suspended player only being able to field,


For further info. team members are requested to contact their respective captains.

Watch this space for more updates. amendments to rules and playing conditions and general overall behavior.
Win or lose We will booze.
Of course, we could do with dazzling comets!

For BCCB
Iiiiii










Saturday, December 18, 2004

My first movie review!

A follow up to such a path breaking and impact creating movie as Lagaan comes with all the associated hype and baggage making it almost impossible not to disappoint. Swades does not surprise in this regard.

Swades is the story of Mohan Bhargava (Shah Rukh Khan), a successful young NRI working at NASA. Amidst the trappings of success he yearns for the mother figure in his life, his nanny Kaveriamma (Kishori Ballal). He also has feelings of guilt for having kept her at an old age home. Overwhelmed by all of this he decided to go to India and bring her back, thereby completing his life.

His journey takes him to a little village in Uttar Pradesh, where he meets her and his childhood friend Gita (Gayatri Joshi). Gita lives with Kaveriamma and runs the local school in this village beset with poverty, infrastructure problems, child labour and the like. What begins as a couple of harmless quests in order to convince Kaveriamma to go back with him slowly turns into a mission of making the village (and in the process,India) a better place. Inspiration for him is never at a shortage in the form of the beautiful, strong willed and independent Gita who has no plans but to stay there and make it a better place anyway. Needless to say the two of them are inevitably drawn towards each other. Mohan is soon torn between his life back in the USA and his new found “make India a better place” purpose in life ,of which Gita is an integral part of. How he handles this conflict forms the rest of the film.

What could have been told in two hours is dragged on to three hours plus and this to me is the single biggest drawback in the film. Large dollops of moral instruction and preachiness are generously dished out to the unsuspecting public. Sure, with a theme like this some amount of the above is to be expected but then it goes way overboard here. Subtlety in driving home the point is definitely not one of the things Swades has going for it. Some of the song sequences seem to pop in from nowhere and none of them ever seem to end. The characters in the film are all good. There are no shades of black or even grey, which takes away from the realism. I would think that a young tyke trying to bring about change and upheaval in a traditionalist and rigid surrounding would meet with a great deal of resistance and difficulty while trying to feed the people his ideas. For Mohan it all seems to come too easily. The people seem to be most happy to listen to whatever he says and resistance if any is minimal.

Now for the good points. The performances are very good across the board ( except for the American actors, who all seem wooden in appearance and manner). Shah Rukh Khan and Gayathri Joshi look great together and carry out their roles with élan. The romance between the two is handled very well and this makes for a lot of very enjoyable sequences. This can also be said of some of the other sequences involving the village folk. ARRahmans music is good without being spectacular. The songs seem a trifle too long though. Needless to say, the movie comes with an important message and it is for this single reason that Ashuthosh Govarikar needs to be complemented and admired. To cut a long story short, I would give Swades three stars out of five. Definitely not a must-watch but then not a total washout either.

Thursday, December 09, 2004

Andhe Scrotuth-yae Fry Pannitaange Saar!

"http://abc.net.au/science/news/tech/InnovationRepublish_1259914.htm"


"Frequent use of laptop computers in a laptop position directly exposes the scrotum to the dissipated high internal operating temperature of the machine," the authors said.
...
"In addition, the use of a laptop requires a special body position ... when the scrotum is trapped between closely approximated thighs."
...
A case of a man who burnt his penis and scrotum after using a laptop was reported in the Lancet journal in 2002.
...
The researchers said after one hour the average increase in temperature in the left and right side of the scrotum in men working with laptops was 2.6°C and 2.8°C respectively.

wotisthisisay: "http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s222944.htm"

Monday, December 06, 2004

a new place | the place above



Shankar Sundaram a former employee of IByeth has is now the proud tenant of the place formerly known as up of india and topT and now known as the place above.

This only means one thing for the rest of us, we all now have one more place in the same place to take a comfortable death upon pulasthicating ourselves this december.

so all ye bikgangers come off raaaaa and come off to chennaimadras.

its a fear being here anyhow | jude 3:16

peace

psaignnn

lookwhosblogging

Trust iii to get lazy bikangs (read self... er that's me not Self) going...

Anyhoo... tank up and speak out... top 5 movies of all time?





http://www.filmsite.org/afi100films.html


Saturday, December 04, 2004

Its december | lets party



its here goats, the dreaded december, the chennai chapter welcomed it with a severe bar-be-que on top-T, which was also arti raos farewell party, it was a glorious meat based party, sam provided us with copious quantities of meat which fed us through the night, valli on the next day and toto till date eats scraps from that day.

whatte loulie death it was, so come off raaaaaaaaaa, its december lets party.