Lyrics meant nought to me
That was before I met Injkyji. And now I tend to notice them. Which is not such a good thing because the ratio of bad lyrics to good lyrics is about the same as the ratio of planets in this universe to the planets that can sustain human life.
I am not sure what the present state of pop lyrics is. If I were to judge by the limited exposure to contemporary pop through iTunes, I’d say it is as bad as the 90s. Back then boy bands were the biggest culprit. I am thus reminded of this wonderful example of timeless lyric writing by Backstreet Boys:
I don’t care who you are, where you’re from, what you did as long as you love me.
Sounds like someone was living inside a dog’s head for one full year.
Cricket and I
Before joining Cricinfo, my interest in the game was a casual one. Sure, I’d sit glued to the TV (back at my parents’ home where I had a TV) whenever India would play an ODI, but Tests were something that only greying (or balding or both) uncles watched. It must be that I am fast transitioning to the aforementioned stage of life because I cannot wait for the South Africa v India Test series to commence!
The hot-off-our-CMS match preview by Sidharth Monga nails it:
Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir play for the same club, same state, same IPL side. Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel play for the same franchise in South Africa. Sehwag and Gambhir are close friends, Morkel calls himself and Steyn best friends in the team. Sehwag and Gambhir run on intuition, their batting styles compliment each other. Morkel goes for raw pace and bounce, Steyn goes for swing, presenting a varied attack. Sehwag and Gambhir are the best openers in the world, Morkel and Steyn the hottest new-ball pairing going around.
Can we fix the toss for the first Test to ensure we start the series with its biggest selling point? Gambhir and Sehwag v Morkel and Steyn. Morkel knows how to build it too. “It’s going to be a very good challenge,” he says. “Gambhir and Sehwag have played very well for India. Myself and Dale are pretty new with the new ball, and it will be a big test, especially in Indian conditions. Luckily, the challenge is going to be for them too at the end of this year in South Africa. It’s not going to end here.” Imagine the first morning of the series, three slips and a gully, a fresh pitch, and Zaheer Khan bowling to Ashwell Prince. What a dampener it will be.
Update 2023-05-14: Changed the http:// cricinfo.com link to https:// espncricinfo.com one.
Incontrovertible evidence that…
…the 80s were the goofiest years of human civilization.
ShivaGharshana
The tracks on this disc oscillate between the memorable (Ninnu Kori Varnam) and the utterly forgettable (Botany Class). All in all, you cannot help but exclaim - we’ve come a long way!
A tale of two second-hand books
Second-hand books can be strange. Often it is the affectionately handwritten dedications on the title page that give me a start. Occasionally, all sorts of things tumble out of them - old movie tickets, grocery bills, postcards, handwritten notes - the works.
Note
A book that was a Christmas present for someone in London in the 1930s somehow makes it to a second-hand bookstore in Bangalore and almost finds itself on my bookshelf. Surely it must have an interesting story to tell - apart from the one printed in it.
Here is another remarkable coincidence that happend this week. I picked up an old copy of Oliver Twist along with a copy of The 1982 Annual World’s Best SF. The 1964 edition of a 19th century Dickens novel shouldn’t ordinarily be related in any way to a compilation of science fiction short stories from 1982. But to my surprise the latter begins with Dickens’ famous lines from A Tale of Two Cities. Let me reproduce the first paragraph here:
“It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” That was Dickens’ comment on the crisis of the 18th Century. It could apply now to the outlook for many periods of the 20th. There were the times just before the great wars - and just after. There were the times before the economic crisis that have racked this century… the times of ideological debate, of fog and confusion… times confronting the advent of surprising new scientific achievements.
Books
Avatar Take II
Let’s face it, Avatar isn’t winning any awards for best screenplay, dialogue or acting (wouldn’t that be going to the animators anyway?) and yet watching it for the second time wasn’t as big a bore as I had thought it would be.
A good deal of Pandora’s charm stays intact even on second viewing, but there are some tedious scenes - especially as the movie draws to a protracted end - during which you can take time out for certain random experiments/observations:
Closing one eye makes the 3D “go away”. Expected, because most theaters, including the one we went to, use stereoscopic projection - which, to put it crassly, relies on each eye seeing its own thing. After all, we’ve all got Wikipedia to do the heavy lifting.
The font used for the English sub-titles of Na’vi dialogues was Papyrus, which looked a little jarring. I’ll try to see the glass half-full here - it could’ve been Comic Sans.
Annular Solar Eclipse in Bangalore today
Today was supposed to be the last day of the Ranji trophy final in Mysore, but obviously that won’t be needed now. Apparently matches in India have been rescheduled in the past to avoid eclipses.
Anyway, in a few hours from now, I plan to work from our office’s terrace and even if clouds ruin the show (which I am sure they will) I’ll enjoy the evening sky at noon.
8:26 AM IST It’s a very cloudy morning with barely a hint of breeze. Doesn’t look like this will clear any time soon.
10:15 AM IST The sun came out, but only just. It’s back to being cloudy. Worse, it might just rain. We’ll see. Off to work.
10:40 AM IST At work. A gentle breeze has picked up. The clouds are drifting leaving an occasional patch of blue through which the sun can be seen. We’ll hopefully catch fleeting glimpses of the eclipse.
10:54 AM IST On the terrace but don’t see the sun. The breeze is still around so there’s hope.
11:00 AM IST This is how the sky looks:
11:37 AM IST It’s still light and shade. The eclipse isn’t here yet. We’ll be seeing it live via the iSight camera on my MacBook.
12:01 PM IST The pinhole camera shows that the eclipse has begun! Still too bright for the camera but we are about to try.
12:13 PM IST The sun is obscured by the clouds. Hard to tell what’s up. Cannot even say if the loss in light is due to the clouds or the solar eclipse.
1:22 PM IST It’s very surreal here. The birds are beginning to get befuddled. The shadows under the canopies of the trees are crescent shaped. Nature’s very own pinhole camera!
1:50 PM IST None of the digital cameras (including iSight) work. We just get a flare of light - cannot underestimate even the eclipsed sun!
2:14 PM IST It’s fast getting over. That was fun!
2023-05-07: Updated links to point to https://wwww.espncricinfo.com rather than http://www.cricinfo.com/