April 08, 2004
 

General

Jesus Christ must have had it extremely easy in life. He definitely never wrote any exams, because as you'd definitely have known by now, Jesus never fails. He never worked in any company. Why else would he opt to resurrect himself on a Sunday rather than on a Monday and let go the opportunity to provide us all with a really nice & long weekend. Imagine having Friday and Monday off. Life'd be so good. If we go by gospels and other such works, Pontius Pilate refused to condemn Jesus, but was forced to execute him by a hysterical Jewish crowd. The crucification happened on Friday. So that's why we have a long weekend. If only Monday were a holiday as well ...

As an aside, did you know that the word excruciating originated from crucification because crucification was supposed to be so painful?

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Cricket

Things seem to be going downhill for team India. A team, which for the last couple of years, has seemed to look like India's best and most united ever team, is bound to feel the strain when there're rumours of dropping one half of a well settled opening pair to accomodate a replacement who has played very well in the two tests so far. Akash Chopra has done little wrong so far in his career, starting from the series v New Zealand at home, on the Australian tour, till the first test at Multan. He failed in both innings at Lahore. Yuvraj Singh has also done little wrong in this series with a brilliant counter-attacking century at Lahore. With Ganguly declaring himself fit (should he have done that?) for Rawalpindi, it's now down to who will be axed from the side to accomodate the skipper. Will it be Chopra, Yuvraj or Laxman, if the rumours are true? If Chopra is axed, who will open the batting? The Indian team can do without all such innuendo before a critical test match. In my opinion, Yuvraj should sit out. He was a replacement for Ganguly. Ganguly's return implies he takes his batting slot and so Yuvraj must be 12th man. I agree he is a very good batsman who seems in great form. But you must pick your best 2 best openers, 4 best middle-order batsmen, best keeper and 4 best bowlers. Yuvraj's time will come, for now, he must be on the bench. Akash Chopra's mistake so far has been in not converting his 40s into centuries. If he had, then there'd be no talk of him being left out. Leaving out Laxman, who is one of the most likely batsmen to win you a test, would also be nonsensical. Remember, he was playing horribly in the early part of the one-dayers but when he turned it on in the last game, there was no stopping his show.

Well it doesn't entirely concern cricket, but Mathew Engel edits the Wisden Cricketers' Almanack. This is a lecture he gave at the Centre for Journalism Studies.

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Technology

Several questions related to privacy have been raised regarding's Google's Gmail announcement a few days ago. Several privacy advocacy groups and individuals have sent an open letter to Larry Page and Sergei Brin, the co-founders of Google.

Labels: google

Rambled @ 9:10 PM

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