Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Diversity - Part Deux ( Or just - Sports , Sports , Sports !! )
[ Edit / Disclaimer / Warning / Whatever ] : This was supposed to be about lot more than just sports , but one hour and all these paragraphs later , I decided that this topic has earned its own post . Not because its so well written or anything , but because it deserved it.. And also because otherwise this post would be HUGE .
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As Promised in Part 1 , we start with more links :D
Gau and Suprema both write about on a matter very dear to my heart : Sports . I'm not going to elaborate on those topics again ( Go read my Comments on their respective blogs :p ) , but I completely understand where they are coming from .
Following sports passionately is an activity like few other . At its best , it has more drama than any reality show , more grace and beauty than many a movie , more passion than pretty much anything on TV , and can rivet you to your seat more efficiently than any bunch of "dont go anywhere , we 'll be right back " lines . At its worst it can be continually frustrating ( but then its your fault for picking a sucky team/player :P ) and sometimes mind-numbingly boring .
It can make you stay up until 3 or 4 am . It can keep u awake until 12 Pm the morning, after u slept only 2 hours the night before and played tennis for 2 solid hours before that . It can alter your normal sleep schedule. It can make you compromise other aspects of your lives . It can even make you think enough to blog about it for an hour ( Result - This post ) !
It can bring out a vast gamut of emotions in You : From Cheer to Despair , From Exhiliration to devestation , From the " I-was-just-glad-I-watched-this " to the "Oh-No-Dont-believe-i-missed-that " . Because thats the thing about sports . Its unscheduled , Its unscripted , Its uninhibited and no one ever knows whats gonna happen next ( Unless ur talking about match - fixing or the WWE , but lets not go there )
We may follow it because we want to see the human body stretched to amazing limits of perfection . We may follow it just to root for the underdog to pull of a miracle .Watching Federer play that sublime one -handed backhand , watchin Kobe completely take over clutch games , watching Messi weave his magic around the opposition , Watching Tendulkar display why he is the master of his craft , Watching Nadal and Verdasco run around like madmen 5 hours into a gruelling match ( etc,etc) might be all the reason we need to watch it , no justification required . And, of course , we may follow it simply because we love the game .
Of course being the dude that actually plays it at the highest level will be like , the best thing in the world . But we cant all be Federers .
Writing/Commenting about it articulately for millions of readers would probably be the next best thing . Unfortunately we cant all be Bill Simmons'
I guess thats why we are stuck playing matches no one watches and writing articles like these which no one reads . But , In the end , thats all we can do : We play for the fun of it ( never mind if its at a level 1/100th of theirs ) . We write because we want to , not becase we have to ( Prime example being me : Not writtten for Ages ) . When that can bring us satisfaction , job accomplished.
Theres nothing quite like the experience of watching a big game live at the venue itself (the atmosphere , the crowd , the undivided attention we give to the game ) . Among my many goals is to watch a live game at these arenas : Staples Center [ achieved] , Wimbledon , Old Trafford , Any Cricket Stadium in Inda [ achieved ]
That being said , the Internet has changed the way sports is being followed worldwide . There is more in-depth coverage of every event now than ever before , what with video footage (You-Tube) and game breakdowns,expert analysis being the norm (ESPN,Cricinfo etc etc ) . Also , Now, every two - bit expert (like me ) has an opinion on everything from " Kobe vs Lebron " to " Should we play cricket in Pakistan" . It has made sharing stuff more common . It has made viewing live events more common , more global ( might be piracy ,but still - Justin rocks . )
For eg : I discuss Bball regularly with Achu and Adi . We share amazing links such as this and this . It makes following the sport much more cerebral .The next time I'm watchin a rockets game , I can figure out why Battier does what he does or How their D rox (and also how their O sux ) . These help us understand better , analyse better and eventually .. Appreciate better .
For people who need greater control and interactivity than say , just using the remote/mouse , Here too more options have sprung up . There are Fantasy Leagues . There are Forums . There are VideoGames .
I dont usually partake of any of these offerings , but i was playing Nba Live 2001 the other day ( I know , I know its a really old game but its still an awesome game . This was one of the first big [ in those days , anything > 100 MB was big ] files i downloaded off the Internet . It took me many many hours of my dial up modem to get the full game [ Without any Commentary even ] and I dint regret it one bit . I used to play it extensively once upon a time - in school i believe - and have used it numerous times to escape and get way from things when I just need a break . I had to search like a gazillion forums before I could get a patch to make it work in Vista before finally getting it - Yay ! ) and I was struck by how relevant the game still is ( All u need is the latest Roster updates :D ) .
Started a full season ( For the Lakers , obv ) and made it all the way to the playoffs in the matter of a month or so . So im playing playoffs , first round , and i got Minnesota . They sux , so im expecting ez win ... Hour and a half later , I feel like ive been through a battle and survived .. just barely .. Needed maximum number of games to beat em, All of em but one goin down to the final minute , Needed concentration which would have got me a good solid 90% aggregate in college and needed nerves which i dint know existed till then ( all this in a video Game , Imagine the guys that do this for real ! ) . In the end , I won by simply mimicking real life , by putting the game in the hands of Video-Game-Kobe and making it do all the things Real-Life-Kobe does , Injured Pinkie and all .
Yea , Sports rules .
PS : Apologies for all the brackets and the tangential narration style . Been reading David Foster Wallace . That must be it
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As Promised in Part 1 , we start with more links :D
Gau and Suprema both write about on a matter very dear to my heart : Sports . I'm not going to elaborate on those topics again ( Go read my Comments on their respective blogs :p ) , but I completely understand where they are coming from .
Following sports passionately is an activity like few other . At its best , it has more drama than any reality show , more grace and beauty than many a movie , more passion than pretty much anything on TV , and can rivet you to your seat more efficiently than any bunch of "dont go anywhere , we 'll be right back " lines . At its worst it can be continually frustrating ( but then its your fault for picking a sucky team/player :P ) and sometimes mind-numbingly boring .
It can make you stay up until 3 or 4 am . It can keep u awake until 12 Pm the morning, after u slept only 2 hours the night before and played tennis for 2 solid hours before that . It can alter your normal sleep schedule. It can make you compromise other aspects of your lives . It can even make you think enough to blog about it for an hour ( Result - This post ) !
It can bring out a vast gamut of emotions in You : From Cheer to Despair , From Exhiliration to devestation , From the " I-was-just-glad-I-watched-this " to the "Oh-No-Dont-believe-i-missed-that " . Because thats the thing about sports . Its unscheduled , Its unscripted , Its uninhibited and no one ever knows whats gonna happen next ( Unless ur talking about match - fixing or the WWE , but lets not go there )
We may follow it because we want to see the human body stretched to amazing limits of perfection . We may follow it just to root for the underdog to pull of a miracle .Watching Federer play that sublime one -handed backhand , watchin Kobe completely take over clutch games , watching Messi weave his magic around the opposition , Watching Tendulkar display why he is the master of his craft , Watching Nadal and Verdasco run around like madmen 5 hours into a gruelling match ( etc,etc) might be all the reason we need to watch it , no justification required . And, of course , we may follow it simply because we love the game .
Of course being the dude that actually plays it at the highest level will be like , the best thing in the world . But we cant all be Federers .
Writing/Commenting about it articulately for millions of readers would probably be the next best thing . Unfortunately we cant all be Bill Simmons'
I guess thats why we are stuck playing matches no one watches and writing articles like these which no one reads . But , In the end , thats all we can do : We play for the fun of it ( never mind if its at a level 1/100th of theirs ) . We write because we want to , not becase we have to ( Prime example being me : Not writtten for Ages ) . When that can bring us satisfaction , job accomplished.
Theres nothing quite like the experience of watching a big game live at the venue itself (the atmosphere , the crowd , the undivided attention we give to the game ) . Among my many goals is to watch a live game at these arenas : Staples Center [ achieved] , Wimbledon , Old Trafford , Any Cricket Stadium in Inda [ achieved ]
That being said , the Internet has changed the way sports is being followed worldwide . There is more in-depth coverage of every event now than ever before , what with video footage (You-Tube) and game breakdowns,expert analysis being the norm (ESPN,Cricinfo etc etc ) . Also , Now, every two - bit expert (like me ) has an opinion on everything from " Kobe vs Lebron " to " Should we play cricket in Pakistan" . It has made sharing stuff more common . It has made viewing live events more common , more global ( might be piracy ,but still - Justin rocks . )
For eg : I discuss Bball regularly with Achu and Adi . We share amazing links such as this and this . It makes following the sport much more cerebral .The next time I'm watchin a rockets game , I can figure out why Battier does what he does or How their D rox (and also how their O sux ) . These help us understand better , analyse better and eventually .. Appreciate better .
For people who need greater control and interactivity than say , just using the remote/mouse , Here too more options have sprung up . There are Fantasy Leagues . There are Forums . There are VideoGames .
I dont usually partake of any of these offerings , but i was playing Nba Live 2001 the other day ( I know , I know its a really old game but its still an awesome game . This was one of the first big [ in those days , anything > 100 MB was big ] files i downloaded off the Internet . It took me many many hours of my dial up modem to get the full game [ Without any Commentary even ] and I dint regret it one bit . I used to play it extensively once upon a time - in school i believe - and have used it numerous times to escape and get way from things when I just need a break . I had to search like a gazillion forums before I could get a patch to make it work in Vista before finally getting it - Yay ! ) and I was struck by how relevant the game still is ( All u need is the latest Roster updates :D ) .
Started a full season ( For the Lakers , obv ) and made it all the way to the playoffs in the matter of a month or so . So im playing playoffs , first round , and i got Minnesota . They sux , so im expecting ez win ... Hour and a half later , I feel like ive been through a battle and survived .. just barely .. Needed maximum number of games to beat em, All of em but one goin down to the final minute , Needed concentration which would have got me a good solid 90% aggregate in college and needed nerves which i dint know existed till then ( all this in a video Game , Imagine the guys that do this for real ! ) . In the end , I won by simply mimicking real life , by putting the game in the hands of Video-Game-Kobe and making it do all the things Real-Life-Kobe does , Injured Pinkie and all .
Yea , Sports rules .
PS : Apologies for all the brackets and the tangential narration style . Been reading David Foster Wallace . That must be it
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Di-Versity
When even the only fellow whos blogs more sporadically than me - Chandler -has 3 posts in 2009 and i have a grand total of 0 , it was time for some serious action ! After rejecting my first and typically lazy thought ( Which was - Even Adi has not blogged in February , Why should i ? ) I decided to buckle down and actually write this
All that remained was to find a topic logical and interesting enough to write on , a commonly recurring problem which I partly blame for this recent lull in activity ( Technical Name - bloggers Block )
So i thought back on all that had happened in my life in 2009 . The only Central Theme was - There was none . So i decided to blog about them all and hence the title of this post
It can also mean im just being lazy to organize my thoughts cohesively but hey its my blog , and no one reads this anyway :( .
Onto the chaos .
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2009 Started with a bang . First week of Jan always means - The Chennai Open !!! Got season tickets this time and even though it started out with a whimper with Nadal not returning here and then the top seed Davydenko Retiring , a certain
Somdev Devvarman rescued the tournament from fading into insignificance for the local crowd .
It was an amazing cinderella story for everyone to follow and it played out all the way to the final day of the tournament . No classics quite like the Nadal - Moya match from last year , but good stuff nevertheless
This was the last year of the Contract for this event and heres hoping the ATP renew it , Chennai deserves it .
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This was immediately followed by the Chennai Sangamam , the Street festival held every year in Chennai around Pongal time . Even though I personally went there every day mainly only for the food ( :D ), this year was bigger than ever before with them even having a night long celebration in VenkatNarayana road , even cordoning off the whole road to traffic and lighting up the street with lights a la those found in Orchard road in Singapore .
Yea , quite unreal . Read this
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is around this part of the post that you might have noticed i do ( or rather dont ) do a lot of the actual description through external links . If your too lazy to click them , dont complain about the quality of this post :-P .
If you do click them and still say my post sucks , well , then u donno how to appreciate diversity .
U just think its the opposite of University .
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here , Chandler disrupts my thought process by pinging me on Gtalk and as a result , Im just going to shamelessly paste the convo here in lieu of an actual Paragraph
(11:41:10 PM) Chandler: black star?
(11:41:42 PM) Chandler: have u forgotten stars are all bright and glittery??
(11:41:47 PM) arjunjeyaprakash@: Eh ?
(11:41:56 PM) Chandler: ur status msg was black star
(11:42:17 PM) arjunjeyaprakash: yes it was
(11:42:24 PM) arjunjeyaprakash: song name ..
(11:42:35 PM) arjunjeyaprakash: and besides what do u have against black stars da
(11:42:37 PM) arjunjeyaprakash : racist fellow
(11:42:42 PM) arjunjeyaprakash :)
(11:42:43 PM) Chandler: ROFL
-- Next song comes on --
(11:42:36 PM) Chandler: dei, clark kent is superman da.. not lazlo bane :D
(11:43:10 PM) arjunjeyaprakash this is the song they copied for Scrubs !
(11:43:19 PM) Chandler: copied illa da nonsense
(11:43:34 PM) Chandler: the song was made for scrubs.. have u seen the video? it was shot on scrubs set
(11:43:42 PM) arjunjeyaprakash@: potato p0tato
(11:43:55 PM) Chandler: u'll make a horrible lawyer da
(11:44:03 PM) Chandler: sure ah oru case kuda win pannamata
(11:44:09 PM) arjunjeyaprakash@gmail.com/Home: Of course i will
(11:44:17 PM) arjunjeyaprakash@gmail.com/Home: ill plead temporary insanity :)
(11:44:24 PM) Chandler: rofl
Enough of this insanity .
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Since this is shockingly going to be longer than I expected , Im going to split this into two . ( Yes its a flagrant effort to increase my post count , so what :P )
In Part 2 , I plan to :
Anyway , stay tuned
All that remained was to find a topic logical and interesting enough to write on , a commonly recurring problem which I partly blame for this recent lull in activity ( Technical Name - bloggers Block )
So i thought back on all that had happened in my life in 2009 . The only Central Theme was - There was none . So i decided to blog about them all and hence the title of this post
It can also mean im just being lazy to organize my thoughts cohesively but hey its my blog , and no one reads this anyway :( .
Onto the chaos .
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2009 Started with a bang . First week of Jan always means - The Chennai Open !!! Got season tickets this time and even though it started out with a whimper with Nadal not returning here and then the top seed Davydenko Retiring , a certain
Somdev Devvarman rescued the tournament from fading into insignificance for the local crowd .It was an amazing cinderella story for everyone to follow and it played out all the way to the final day of the tournament . No classics quite like the Nadal - Moya match from last year , but good stuff nevertheless
This was the last year of the Contract for this event and heres hoping the ATP renew it , Chennai deserves it .
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This was immediately followed by the Chennai Sangamam , the Street festival held every year in Chennai around Pongal time . Even though I personally went there every day mainly only for the food ( :D ), this year was bigger than ever before with them even having a night long celebration in VenkatNarayana road , even cordoning off the whole road to traffic and lighting up the street with lights a la those found in Orchard road in Singapore .
Yea , quite unreal . Read this
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is around this part of the post that you might have noticed i do ( or rather dont ) do a lot of the actual description through external links . If your too lazy to click them , dont complain about the quality of this post :-P .
If you do click them and still say my post sucks , well , then u donno how to appreciate diversity .
U just think its the opposite of University .
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here , Chandler disrupts my thought process by pinging me on Gtalk and as a result , Im just going to shamelessly paste the convo here in lieu of an actual Paragraph
(11:41:10 PM) Chandler: black star?
(11:41:42 PM) Chandler: have u forgotten stars are all bright and glittery??
(11:41:47 PM) arjunjeyaprakash@: Eh ?
(11:41:56 PM) Chandler: ur status msg was black star
(11:42:17 PM) arjunjeyaprakash: yes it was
(11:42:24 PM) arjunjeyaprakash: song name ..
(11:42:35 PM) arjunjeyaprakash: and besides what do u have against black stars da
(11:42:37 PM) arjunjeyaprakash : racist fellow
(11:42:42 PM) arjunjeyaprakash :)
(11:42:43 PM) Chandler: ROFL
-- Next song comes on --
(11:42:36 PM) Chandler: dei, clark kent is superman da.. not lazlo bane :D
(11:43:10 PM) arjunjeyaprakash this is the song they copied for Scrubs !
(11:43:19 PM) Chandler: copied illa da nonsense
(11:43:34 PM) Chandler: the song was made for scrubs.. have u seen the video? it was shot on scrubs set
(11:43:42 PM) arjunjeyaprakash@: potato p0tato
(11:43:55 PM) Chandler: u'll make a horrible lawyer da
(11:44:03 PM) Chandler: sure ah oru case kuda win pannamata
(11:44:09 PM) arjunjeyaprakash@gmail.com/Home: Of course i will
(11:44:17 PM) arjunjeyaprakash@gmail.com/Home: ill plead temporary insanity :)
(11:44:24 PM) Chandler: rofl
Enough of this insanity .
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Since this is shockingly going to be longer than I expected , Im going to split this into two . ( Yes its a flagrant effort to increase my post count , so what :P )
In Part 2 , I plan to :
- Bring some order and somehow relate all this together
- Continue to provide more external links for reading :P
- Make some earth shattering revelations
Anyway , stay tuned
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)