Vancouver, Canada

My Asian friend was not very impressed,
"I've got biggel fish to fly.", he said

FIFA World Cup 2014 in Pictures

Brazil team dynamics post semi-final 7-1 loss

Santorini, Greece

Santorini is one amongst a group of islands to the south of mainland Greece. The archipelago used to be one big island until a major volcanic eruption around 1500 BC shattered it to pieces and formed a volcanic caldera (a large crater caused by the violent explosion of a volcano that collapses into a depression). The eruption and the ensuing earthquake and tsunami also destroyed the ancient Minoan settlements, and is one of the theories behind the legend of Atlantis.

Paris, One Day Window Tourism

I think I'm creating a new phrase here so first and foremost, let me define it  -

Window tourism: noun, going to all the regular tourist attractions but not going inside any of them, only seeing them from outside and moving on. Analogous to shopping and window shopping.
Usage: "The queues in Paris are so long, that I only had time for some window tourism."

Now that that's out of the way -

I had a day in Paris.

I really wanted to go through the Louvre and had pretty much decided that I'm going to spend the entire day inside but then I chose otherwise at the last minute. Firstly, the Louvre is huge and one day is not enough to go through the entire thing. Secondly, even though I enjoy a museum, I cannot differentiate between a Michaelangelo and a Raphael so a hectic day inside a museum might not be as rewarding as it might seem like. Moreover, I like to get a feel of a city and inside the Louvre would be the culture snobs and schoolchildren, but the rest of the city would be outside.

Raphael, bottom. Michaelangelo, left.

Long Ball Short - 2

Some of these may also appear on the slightly incorrectly named football blog, BigFourza.

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29 Jan 2014

Full story

Long Ball Short

Some of these may also appear on the slightly incorrectly named football blog, BigFourza.

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25 Jan 2014

Waiting for Mata's helicopter
Full story

The Emperor’s Clothes

Assume AE wasn't talking about flavoured contraceptives.
Image sources - KL, AE

 
Once upon a time, at a historic worldwide convention, all ancient civilisations unanimously agreed that mating dances are lame and prone to misunderstanding. Imagine a situation where, let’s say, a Persian traveller (P) is proposing mating to a South Indian (S). S asks whether P is of the right caste. P misinterprets S’ question as a positive response, even finds it a little sassy, (which is how P likes it) and swoops in. Melee ensues, all because none of parties knew that the South Indian questioning gesture is the same as what most parts of the world use to wish good luck.

Cambodia

The Journey

The trip to Cambodia was initially a part of the Thailand visit until someone realized that while it’s easy to cross into Cambodia from Thailand on road, it’s quite a different story when trying to get back into Thailand with an Indian passport. In a spurt of enthusiasm, and while we were still in Bangkok, a couple of us booked flight tickets from Phnom Penh back to Bangkok, so that we could get a visa on arrival at the airport, and caught the next bus headed towards the border at Aranyaprathet.

A journey that usually takes about five hours took seven with the bus driver having to stop to ask for directions, a local sitting in front of us getting very annoyed at our conversation, an American loudly declaring that he found it odd that people still listen to Guns n’ Roses because he couldn’t recall the lyrics to Knockin’ on Heaven’s Doors (which was originally a Dylan song anyway) and how dubstep’s the real stuff now, and a downpour for the last couple of hours. This culminated in quite a climax which had us squeezing into Cambodia at about 1955 hrs with the immigration office closing at 2000 hrs. The officer at the Thai end clarified that we can reenter Thailand on road, although it remains to be tried, while the officer at the Cambodian end took a 100 Baht bribe because it was almost closing time and he could.

Bangkok, Thailand

We also went to Cambodia during this visit, that post is here

Welcome to this blogpost.

The Journey

Most flights to Bangkok depart too late after dinner and arrive too early for breakfast. The journey isn’t long enough to get any REM sleep nor is it short enough for a power nap. It is also not long enough to watch two movies nor short enough to watch one and not have time left to regret the permanent loss of those two hours. It’s too dark outside to look for interesting sights and inside you’re surrounded by families dressed up for the foreign vacation status they are about to acquire. You don’t even get too many miles out of the whole affair. The good part, as one would expect, is that Thailand seems to not be the sort of place that people want to take babies to.

FIFA 13 Manager Mode For Dummies

The recent retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson and all the transfer market going-ons prompted me to compile what I’ve learnt about a managerial career in FIFA 13. Here is a good idea of what you’re getting into if you’re interested in pursuing a FIFA 13 manager mode career yourself.

(Disclaimer: I'm not a Newcastle fan or supporter.)
(Thanks Hawa, for spotting some bad mental math with the years.)

Once you’re appointed manager all the players start abusing steroids. I suspect this to be the doing of the well intentioned assistant manager; the board has just put a man in charge who hasn’t managed a football club before and not everybody is an AVB or a Mourinho. In fact, the board is probably aware of the going-ons and accordingly renames the stadium as the Pride of Amsterdam or Livestrong Ground. The sponsorship money they get out of it is where all that transfer money comes from every year even if you don’t win anything.