Fun Stuff

And that’s what I learnt from Cricket

If you are a regular Tweeter and one hailing from India and you are crazy enough to follow Indians on Twitter who are mad-frickin-nuts about the game of Cricket, you have like me most probably not been able to escape the mad frenzy of Cricket that’s been gripping the country for the last month or so. (Yes that would’ve be a perfect time to invade us because we couldn’t care less. We have already won the World Cup and that’s all we needed this year from Santa.) This post pretty much sums up all that I have learned from/about the game of cricket – a sport that I love to hate. Here goes and it is in no particular order-

1. Never confess in public that you hate cricket unless you want to get beaten up or looked down at like you be a miserable cockroach of sorts. At least not in India. *Whoops!*

2. As far as India goes, Cricket is a religion. No not one of the many religious religions that divide this county but one that unites everybody. Now that is one thing one has to grudgingly like about the sport.

3. Yuvraj and Dhoni are two different people and there is no such person as Yuvraj Singh Dhoni. *Who knew?!*

4. Your friends can and will refuse to defend you in a stadium full of people when you root for Delhi while Sachin is playing for Mumbai.

4A) Delhiites will root for Mumbai against Delhi just because Sachin plays for Mumbai. *Go Figure*

5. Who is Sachin you ask? Exactly! *teehehe ok ok, kidding*. Remember point 2? Apparently, if Cricket is a religion, Sachin is God (Sachin IMHO cannot be God, since God is a woman, but continuing … ). He is the guy the whole country worships blindly. I cannot write anything further without feeling insecure about my own safety, so I will move on from this point.

6. Nothing, Nothing and absolutely Nothing unites this country like the game of Cricket. The World Cup victory had even cynics like me cheering and I bet they heard us cheering all the way till Alaska.

7. World Cup is the best time to go shopping. No seriously, all the shops are empty, there is no mad line in front of the trial rooms at Zara because everyone is simply home, glued to their TV sets. (Pro tip: you can even try your hand at bargaining by telling the shopkeeper that India will win the world cup if he gives you a discount.)

8. Guys will slyly discuss Cricket in management meetings by attempting to derive effective management tactics from the sport. Apparently the same thing applies to Football. Basically whichever sport in more popular at that point in time.

9. Cricket World Cup semi finals = no traffic on the roads. Cricket World Cup finals = A day off from work. I could truly fall for this game. Have World Cups more often I say. Let’s just not make it a long drawn affair and jump straight to the semis and finals.

10. Little itty bitty, teeny weeny kids know the names of every cricketer and every possible cricket stat. There is real potential in this game to be exploited in the field of education. Have more cities and countries participating for kids to learn geography (who cares where it’s on the map as long as we know how many matches it won), have complex trigonometric calculations to deduce the score, name cricketers after historical figures etc, are some ideas off the top of my head.

11. You can buy Cricketers just like you buy vegetables but Cricketers are still more expensive than Onions or Petrol. Infact, you may never be able to afford one in your lifetime, not that you might want one.

12. The same people who play in the same team during the world cup, will play against each other in different teams during the IPL (It’s a league of some sorts that has something to do with movie stars. Don’t ask me, I don’t know. I just know that cool songs get produced as a result of this activity).

13. Unlike Football, no one pulls off their shirt to celebrate victory at the end of a game. Not even Poonam Pandey.

And that pretty much sums up what I’ve learned from Cricket. I still don’t quite like it, but I’m learning to put up with it. (Pro tip: log off Twitter and change the channel.)

And before I go, I’d like to leave you with the song ‘Loser’ by Ayreon. Not that it has anything to do with this post other than that I was listening to it while writing this, but I really like this song and it saves me the trouble of writing another post to tell you this.

After publishing this post, I have come to know from the great people on Twitter that a cricketer named Ganguly did infact take off his shirt after a match. And still no one bought him for IPL? Ok I may know a thing or two abt Cricket now but I will never understand it.

Love being a #BigLoser

Admittedly I am writing this post while feasting on a gorgeous slice of double cheese burst spicy chicken pizza (but hey, what’s  girl to do when she’s trapped in office on a Friday evening waiting for her colleagues to get that piece of CSS code to work just right *curses IE*). Coming back to the point…

It all started somewhere mid-Feb when I was pinged on chat by a friend – “Would you like to be a #BigLoser?”. Clearly any normal person would be taken aback by such a question and their first reaction would be to see red. But clearly the word ‘Normal’ makes me feel like an oxymoron (Look ma, I made a funny!) and the presence of a ‘#’ in front of any string of words always manages to hold my attention. (Refer to an earlier confession about being a Twitteraholic”

So obviously, my next question was “Err.. what do you mean?”

Friend: Well, @b50 has started this initiative on Twitter where people can sponsor other people who commit to lose a target amount of weight in a year (that would be by Feb 2012. So clearly the entire plan stands only if the world survives). The sponsors will commit a certain amount of money per kg lost to charity.

Now those who follow me on Twitter would know why this would catch my fancy as they have been relentlessly subjected to my constant rants on how I never lose any weight (this would be a good time to ignore the first few lines of this post). So this was clearly an opportunity I grabbed with both hands, after making my friend up the stakes for me to 100 Rs per KG. (In hindsight, that was a smart move. There is hope that the charity might get some moolah at least.)

Joining #BigLoser was perhaps one of the smartest moves I made in a long time. Had been struggling a long time to get into a consistent gyming routine and now the very many followers of this initiative, sharing their efforts and tips keeps me committed enough to make the effort of waking up early each morning. While the easiest thing to do each morning after the alarm rang at least 7 times was to switch it off and go back to sleep, now there is a motivation to go to the gym at least one more time this week than the last, so I can come back and eagerly report it to others on Twitter.

I had also wanted to join Gold Gym for a very long time, but had always put off making the investment as I was never sure I would go there regularly. Well now I am and thoroughly enjoying the experience.

It has also made me connect with and get tips from numerous others who I had perhaps not been interacting with earlier. These people might not know it, but they are a great source of inspiration on a daily basis.

So I write this post to offer my thanks to @nithinkd, for introducing me to the initiative and sponsoring me and most of all to @b50 for coming up with this fantastic idea. @SashG and the many others who offer tips and encouragement on a daily basis.

So with 2 slices of double cheese burst pizza and 2 slices of garlic bread down and with one glassful of renewed zeal to burn off them damn calories at the gym tomorrow morning, I can very proudly claim that I love being a #BigLoser.

(As for you God, you have just ensured very unfair and unequal distribution of fat and wealth in this world. I am willing to trade off this fat and accept that blank check please :|)

A simple mind

Call this post a cumulative list of grouches/wondering/rants. But there are a few things in life that I will just not understand and thus I list them here. They are in no particular order of preference and I am pretty sure I will keep growing this list. So here goes …

1. I will never get the kind of people who have LCD screens to watch movies in the cars. Now it’s a well known fact that I am an avid tweeter and I use my phone to text (at times) while driving and despite being a skilled practitioner, I know this is not a simple task. Infact, sometimes I find just changing the radio channels distracting. So I will not understand the kind of people who will want to see a movie in their car while driving because it can be terribly distracting! You are putting my life at risk and not even doing justice to that movie!

2. People who stop their car at the red light AFTER having crossed the stop line. It is there for a purpose people! Not just street art. Thankfully for us, we stay in a place like Delhi, where there aren’t very many people who use the zebra crossing because they have already jay-walked across the middle of the road while the light was green for cars. After all, there is a reason the Delhi cricket team is called Delhi Daredevils. It seems to be an apt title for all citizens of Delhi

3. Jaywalkers. #NuffSaid

4. Girls who in this biting cold wear close-to-nothing kind of sheer stockings to show off their ultra thin legs. It cannot be all about fashion in this  weather girl! Cover up for God’s Sake!

5. Taxes! … moving on …

6. No let’s come back to Taxes. Why do I have to pay them and why is it so much? And why is so much of my money being wasted in painting zebra crossings that no one is using anyway?!! *sulks*

7. Girls with ultra thin legs. I mean seriously! Where are you getting them from? … no wait… let’s change this to ultra thin girls. Do they not eat?!

8. Men who crib about lady drivers. Listen here dude! All the bus drivers, autorickshaw drivers, cycle rickshaw and cycle riders and most bike riders are men. And I am sure there is statistics somewhere to prove that in any given city, they are far more responsible for accidents than the women drivers. So STFU already will ya?!

9. Why is all the stuff that you love to eat always super fattening and the non-fattening stuff boring? With all the advances in science and technology, why hasn’t anyone figured out a way of making french-fries and chocolate that can be eaten guilt-free? Non-fattening beer? No? Listen, the earth is going to end anyway, we’re all going to die. So why not focus your funds and energies on things that can actually make a difference?!

10. Men who incessantly keep staring at you! You guys make me look down sometimes to check whether I’m wearing all my clothes. I am really not some piece of art on a wall you know. Give us some space!

11. Men who look past you. What are you gay?! 😉 *ok this is a fake point. Just had to put it in for the funnies*

12. PMS! No actually, guys who PMS. And seriously, ALL guys PMS. I will never get that. I’m sure there is science behind it but I am pretty sure most men don’t actually follow that. They just up and about decide – I am going to be grouchy today! And God bless the women around them then because not even chocolate will appease the beast 😛

13. MNS. Nope, I sure don’t understand it. Not yet. *It’s a private joke. Don’t ask.*

Well that’s about all I have right now. But like I said… I’m pretty sure I will keep adding stuff here. There’s a lot in life to amaze you. I’m sure you guys will keep giving me substance to abuse on my blog :P. And I am not inviting any arguments here after point number 8.

Tweet-te Raho!!!

Considering the amount of time I spend on twitter each day and in an attempt to certify myself a true twitter-aholic (read Twit), I am going to publish the following list –

You know you are a Twitter-aholic when:

1. With every major or minor thought in your head, you are already trying to compose a 140 character dialogue to tweet it. (Have seen people who write tweets like –> *heard sound* *woke-up* *realised nothing* *going back to sleep*) 😀

2. You are hanging out with friends and family and they are begging you to get off your phone and stop tweeting. (Happened to me today :D)

3. Yes, you are tweeting from your phone.. because you just need to tweet all the time!

4. You tweet while driving (done that) (I think they will come up with a law against this soon) (*gulp!*)

5. You can proudly claim to know people who are bigger twits than you! (twits = twitteraholic —> Look at the top right widget. Yeah I’m a twit :D)

6. You have participated in one of the rollicking trending of hashtags marathon. Great fun! Especially when we trended #iconicindianads

7. You start hashtagging each conversation with friends – even on IMs and SMS. (also, if you know what a hashtag is :-P)

8. You write everything in a hashtag and create bizarre and insane hashtags. I’m a newbie at this, but some great examples would be Dr. Gonzo, TyagiG and Nothing Man (great people all of them! Follow them at your own risk 🙂 ) #YouCanAlsoDoItLikeThis.

9. You feel very happy when someone RTs your tweet (RT is ReTweet you nOOB!)

10. You have a lot of fun on twitter and start believing that you are making great friends there (this could also be a sign of how you don’t actually have a life, but that point of view is just of people who don’t get it 😉 )

11. Follower count matters! You feel bad each time this count drops and hope it was a bot leaving and not someone you bored with your tweets. Yeah it matters.

Also, you have to admit, signs of a true twit is to be writing this post :D. So we will call it number 12. (For those of you who know me in real life.. don’t you dare laugh at this number!!! :-P)

Know of some more signs? Please do add to this list.