February 11, 2005

Super Bowl 2005

For most of my friends in India this is something new....its the final of the National Football (American Football not Soccer)league...the people here call it the World Championship....here everything is a World Series or World Championship...

The Irony of that brand name....only the teams from the US take part in the events. NBA champions are called World Champions but USA got knocked off in the preliminary rounds at the Real World Championships where the teams from all over the world compete, they barely managed to get a Bronze at the Olympics after 3 humiliating defeats.....Baseball finals are called the world series but Cuba gets the gold at most of the Olympics....is there something that I dont understand or these people dont ?? How can someone be a World Champion when teams from neighboring countries also dont take part in a tournament.....


Well..coming back to the Super Bowl 2005....every year its a big event for people to get together (in some cases bigger event than Christmas) eat chips and other junk food and drink lots of beer and other cola drinks...basically a lot of calories !!!!!!! I like the event for its commercials...the best commercials of the year are aired during the gametime...some of them are really hilarious but mostly average and some suck...I am still a bigger fan of Indian commercials....Bajaj,Rasna, Lifebouy, Vico-turmeric, dabad lal danthmanjan etc.... they have a catchy tune and nice jingle to go with:)

We had great time before the Super bowl with a potluc lunch (idli, sambhar and Chatni)...during the game we had potluc dinner...Fried rice (Subha), kofta curry ( Sindhu), sambhar (sindhu), egg curry (anil) and desserts .... Gulab Jamun (amru), Chocolate Chip cookie pie and Cappuccino Jello Pie (urs truly)...we ate a lot that day with Chips, garlic bread, pop and beer servings as finger food and drinks... we played a great game called ..."mafia"...that was the first time that I had played that game...it was a brilliant game...I might sound silly if I explain it but when u play it u will realise what a great game that is....u can spend hours without realizing time....

welll....let me also mention abt the game before I get bored writing abt the Super Bowl:):)....It was between Eagles (Philly) and Patriots (NE).....every one that I talked to wanted to Eagles to win but all of us knew that the inevitable thing was a "Patriots victory"....if u would ask me who would I like to see win the answer would be "Eagles"...but if I were to bet on it then i would have put my money on the "Pats"....they are a greAt team but the only reason i dont like them is becoz they beat my fav team "Colts" and also becoz they have won 2/3 times so there should be some change in the final results...

well the game as expected was pretty close but the result was never in doubt as the Pats defense had the eagles on a leash even with their best received TO on the field...Bellichick (pats coach)....showed the world why he is called the "king maker"...he is the brains behind the team and is a brilliant strategist...he would have analysed every possible play before the start of the game itself and would have had his defence ready for all those situations...well the final score 24-21 might not sound as if the game was one-sided but it was very clear who was going to win through the final three quarters...

February 10, 2005

Ebay

Sindhu forwarded me this hilarious song on ebay...the song (i dont know who wrote it) tells you the story of the ebay buyer in the tune of "you are my fire" (I think by Nsync)...I am not really into western music so I cannot recollect who sang that song...its one of the Boy bands...click on the following link and click on the "play button"

http://www.geoffellis.com/ebay.html

February 02, 2005

Sania Mirza.....

Most of you must have heard about the tremendous success that Sania Mirza had at the recently concluded Australian Open. She was indeed a surprise element...atleast for me...I have been following tennis on TV and through news for about 16-17 years...I think the first tennis match I saw was when Boris Becker won his second Wimbledon title in 1986. I have seen a lot of players from India try their luck at the international level...I say luck becoz not many (may be 5-6) have succeded at that level though they had a lot of promise at the Satellite Tennis (a notch below Pros...more like Div II).

I stayed up (though for some other reason too..) till abt 2:40 am to watch Sania play against Serena...Sindhu wanted to watch the game too but she is not a late night person so I recorded most of the match on the DVR...making complete use of the DVR these days!!!!. I didnt give sania even a 1% chance against serena and I thought that the game would be a blow out and that Sania will be severely thrashed....but she proved me wrong...it was my first time watching her and she was brilliant...I mean she wasnt as good as her illustrous oppponent but she held her own after the initial nervous phase.

The commentator was mentioning all the great Indian players that have played and succeded at thet international level....Amritrajs, Ramesh Krishnan and his dad, Paes and Bhupathi etc...they even had one reporter from Hindu join them in the COmmentary box and they asked him a lot of questions abt the state of the sport and women involvement in India...he gave pretty good answers saying that it was a big boost that Sania was doing well as it will prompt other young girls to take up the sport and give them confidence that they can match their international rivals who are far superior in physique, technique and exposure. It is indeed a good thing that has happned to Tennis in India as the success came from a girl !!!! Nobody expected her to even make it past the first round and she exceeded all expectations by making it to the third and finally losing to eventual champion but not without making her sweat....most of the people have just seen the score line...6-1,6-4 that is very very misleading as it wasnt a blow out. Serera won 61 points and Sania 43 so it wasnt that bad....

Sania matched Serena stroke for stroke in the second set after she got crushed in the first...many must have turned their TV sets off expectin the match to finish in 15 more minutes ... and some would have expected her to crumble under pressure but she dug deep into her reserves and came out fighting and gave Serena a kind of glimpse of what could turn out to be a successful tennis career. Her forehand was superb and her serves were pretty good too...the only area where she needs a lot of work to be done is the return of serve as she was barely able to get to Serena's serves...she had a golden oppurtunity to go up a break with 0-40 in the second set but Serena came up with big serves and young Sania was a mere spectator sometimes...

The first time I had heard about a girl called "Sania Mirza" was way back in 2003 when she won the girls doubles at the Wimbledon. I was hoping that her career would take off as Leander's had after winning the junior wimbledon....but I didnt hear a lot abt Sania since...just that she was making steady progress up the ranking inthe womens section...but I guess from now on I will hear more abt this youngster from Hyderabad....