The Bluffers' guide

Calling all footballing neophytes... seasonal supporters, and women (or men) who just have to tolerate the beautiful game every now and then to stay in their mens' (I might be generalizing here... no disrespect meant for various other inter or intra gender affairs) hearts, here's a great article. This will allow you to bluff your way through any asocial gathering of neanderthal football (soccer) buffs.

The CL knockout stage draw

Chelsea v Barcelona
Real Madrid v Arsenal
Werder Bremen v Juventus
Bayern München v AC Milan
PSV Eindhoven v Olympique Lyonnais
Ajax v FC Inter
Benfica v Liverpool
Rangers v Villarreal

Chelsea - Barcelona. Bayern - Milan. Real -Arsenal.
Ooooooh boy!

The Draw

Heidi Klum with the new World Cup ball
picture taken from fifaworldcup.com

With the qualifiers done and the draw completed in Leipzig, we can look forward to a cracker of a world cup in Germany next summer. Germany and Costa Rica kick off to start the cup finals in exactly 6 months.

The Group of Death this time around is likely to be Group C with Argentina, Netherlands, Ivory Coast (who topped the African table) and Serbia & Montenegro. Italy have it tough too... with Ghana (lots of pace), Czech Republic (always a challenge) and the US (who missed out on a seeding only because Germany, ranked below them, are the hosts). I would love to see the US go far - I love this team they have... and it would do wonders for the game here. Also, in the absence of India in the finals, it is the closest I have to a home team.

Brazil, France, Germany, Mexico and Portugal should have it easy. England, Paraguay and Sweden in the same group can make it a scrappy affair. I would like to think Spain have it easy - with Tunisia and Ukraine providing some competition (what'd they think? It's the finals!), but not enough to knock them out. However, having seen their dismal performances in earlier campaigns, nothing would surprise me.

There it is. 6 months to go. Barring extenuating circumstances, I plan to be there to watch a game or two in person. Let the games begin!

Indian Writing n English

Here is a good article about recent english writing in India. I agree with his overall argument (maybe not so much with some of the details), and was recently telling someone why I don't like reading these books.

WikiNews

For a great sandbox - where you can try out investigative or report journalism... and not have to pay or stick to a schedule - is WikiNews. It is a community effort to present the news. Anything at all... no censorship. Of course, since they do expect it to be the news and not opinion, they ask for a neutral viewpoint. This is what differentiates it from blogs.

The downside to some(a positive thing for others) is the anonymity. No article is credited to you. So, you get no publicity or increased traffic to your blog because of this. Also, articles are deleted periodically so there are no archives (as far as I know). However, it is a great place to try out various writing styles, hone your skills and develop this writing ability.

For all budding newspaper journalists, it's fantastic. And people actually read it. So, it is helping the community. Also, it's a good way to get the word out on anything that you think is important but isn't getting any coverage.

Wikipedia's collective conscience

An interesting issue to be considered with "collective brain" efforts like Wikipedia is the veracity of the information.The assumption that errors and lies will be caught by later editors of these articles may be true. It does not account for (1) articles where the subject matter is not common knowledge, and (2) where the effort is to deliberately defame someone or something. Also, will public perception of something always override the "truth"? In that case, is it a reliable, encyclopedic source? Will it reach a steady state where it becomes a consistently reliable source of information?

In the meantime, go to Wikipedia for what I think is the best compilation of general information out there.

Comebacks and New Beginnings

This is a particularly exciting time in tennis. And it's not just the emergence of depth in women's tennis. I'm excited about two comebacks. John McEnroe is planning on playing doubles again and Martina Hingis has announced a full comeback in 2006. I'm also glad to see Croatia and Slovakia play the final of the Davis Cup. This edition will see five different winners in five years - and this is great for tennis.

I hope all of them live up to the promise.

Goodbye, Mr. Miyagi.

Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita) died recently. Fond memories of Karate Kid(s) come back. Goodbye Miyagi-san.