God Pardons Robberies - The Hand of God

After nearly two decades, Diego Maradona admitted that he scored the winning goal against England in the Quarter Final of the 1986 World Cup with his hand. On his talk-show, The Night of the Ten, the former striker admitted that he had planned the goal with the knowledge that with his height, he would never get past [English keeper Peter Shilton] with a header.

"When I saw the linesman was halfway down the pitch, I called on my team-mates to embrace me and make a big show of acclaiming the goal, to make sure it was confirmed. They were hanging back a bit timidly. They embraced me, but as if to say, 'we're robbing them'. But I told them, 'who robs a robber (referring to the Falklands war), is pardoned for a hundred years. I never regretted scoring that goal with my hand and what's more, I scored another one like it playing for Napoli against Udinese."

Oh well...it still was the 'hand of god'.

Guaranteed jobs in rural households

A bill guaranteeing at least 100 days' employment per year to every rural household was on Tuesday approved by the Lok Sabha. Although it is perched precariously on the peak of a slippery slope, further inviting the possibility of reservation-based allocation, and slippage away from the original need-based criteria... in principle, and if carfully orchestrated, it is a good concept. Somewhat like the social welfare concept in other countries.

Hey Ref...

gattuso, originally uploaded by heshoots_andscores.

"Are you blind?"
From AC Milan vs Chelsea at the Giants stadium in NJ. Went there with Bond.

Goooooaaaaaal !

Gol !, originally uploaded by Nadar.

I loved this picture. It was apparently taken by surprise... but it captures the element of frantic action while a goal is scored.
See the left corner of the goalpost. The ball can be seen going in.

out on a limb

My random predictions for the year:
Tottenham Hotspurs will do well this year... perhaps even finish in the top four.
West Brom will avoid the drop again.
Inter will do well.
Hertha Berlin will do well again (only a couple of people know why I'm interested in them).
Lyon will top the table again.

Dumb is as Dumb says

A man from Tucson Arizona was visiting Windy Point, a cliff overlook on Mt Lemmon. Because so many tourists flock to the site, a steel safety fence had been installed to prevent hapless folk from slipping off the cliff. The weather was terrible, and nobody was there except the man. Believing himself to be alone, he decided to urinate through the bars of the fence over the cliff face below.

As he urinated, lightning from a powerful desert thunderstorm struck the fence, which made a perfect lightning rod due to its size and location. The charge traveled through the fence to the ground, but also up the mans urine stream causing his penis to explode...

THE FACTS: Windy Point does in fact exist. There is indeed a large metal wrought-iron fence in place at the edge of the cliff. Thunderstorms are common in late summer, and lightning strikes are very common throughout the area at that time. That fence would be a prime target.

from: http://www.darwinawards.com/personal/index_personal1998.html submitted by Joseph Astier

Ask H - Issue 1 (A Sampler)

[Thanks to Ashanka for the following transcript. It is lifted from the conversation I had with her. This is meant to be a sampler to explain the format of the 'Ask H' section I intend to write. Not as comprehensive as (hopefully) I can be. FYI]

Q: I need someone to explain tour de france to me, how come Lance Armstrong wins it despite winning just a stage?
A: Well because it's about time. If you were to keep coming in 10th but only 10 seconds behind the leader each time, but there's a different winner each time, overall you'd gain time. This is owing to the fact that he's strong everywhere. The other thing is - people in a bunch get the same time. So if a bunch of people finish together - first to 20th, they all get the same time. The winner gets more points though. This helps in the points classification (for which they have the green jersey)... but it's all kinda academic. The time is the real McCoy. So, the yellow jersey is for the guy with the fastest time. The green jersey is points leader, the polka dotted jersey is the climbing stages leader and the white jersey is the rookie leader.

Q: So how does a team help or what role does a team play?
A: Well, a team can do many things. One is set the pace. The other is tire out breakaways...if someone threatens to breakaway and build a big lead, they send someone from the team to chase him down and keep the points away from that guy....but mostly to tire him out (in the battle) so they can reel him in collectively. All the while, they are shielding the leader (Lance Armstrong for Postal and then Discovery) from crashes... so nobody deliberately or otherwise, crashes into him and takes him out. They also keep him from the vagaries of nature, so if there's strong headwind, he'll draft behind a teammate who will take all that wind head on.

Change!

I constantly crave change! I am always discontent with status quo. Hence, a change in format of my blog is necessary. In reality, an addition. I may continue to do it the current way - but in addition, I now solicit questions, issues or discussion points from people out there.

ASK H !

In keeping with the "agony aunt" model... I will gladly (in keeping with time and schedule constraints of course), answer, clarify, dig up or present findings of research in response to any qustions you may have regarding sports, a country's sporting habits, the sociology or economics of sports or simply a clarification of the rules.

I intend for this to be a good breeding ground for discussion. I also intend for this to be some way to clarify some of the doubts you may have about a certain sport, or sport in general. And if this facilitates a kindling of passion for sports among you, all the better.

In short... ask and you shall (in all likelihood) recieve.

Comments following a post will enable you to query further. So, the comments section will act as a discussion boards as well as a question submission forum for now - until I come up with a better model.

Comments on this format, its feasibility and your thoughts on it - are all welcome.

Cheers.

offline!

Saturday morning - 9am EST. The first time in months I've seen my ENTIRE Yahoo messenger list offline!!

Argentina

Lionel Messi, after his impressive performance in winning the junior world cup, is going to be capped for Argentina - his first one. It's a pity he had to sit it out all the time in Barcelona so far.

Zabaleta, the 20-year old, is also in the squad for Argentina.

Reason to smile. :-)

inter and international...

Zidane is coming out of international retirement. So is Makelele. Hey.. .who knows? Thuram might do it too. While I am glad to see Makelele and Zidane back for the french, it will be an OLD team!

Figo leaves for Inter... following Solari and Walter Samuel ! Hey, we might just have a "Real of old" reunion at Inter! Maybe I will start rooting for Inter this year!

Owen's probably next on the exit list from Real. The good news? The players I like are leaving the company of the jackass Beckham. The bad news? He might leave too, and desecrate another club. The good news? He might go back to ManU. The really bad news: Owen might go to ManU!!!

Oh well... let's see what this shake-up brings. As of now, it's still Barcelona for me.

Office Space

If I were to briefly describe what I feel like in terms of my professional life, I'd say I feel like the character Peter Gibbons in Office Space.
If you've watched it, you probably know exactly what I mean!