Sporting extravaganza

Soccer in Germany, Tennis in France, cricket in the Carribean and England, and basketball at home. What to see? How to see? How to make sure not a single goal is missed, every single wicket seen, all slam dunks appreciated, and all those powerful Nadal backhands are cheered?

I am kinda handicapped by the fact that I do not have a TV here. A TV here costs less than cable charges, and in my opinion.. that is absolutely ridiculous. Spending about 40 bucks every month to get a few news channels and watch some crazy talk shows is not my idea of a wise investment, and if I want to watch all these aforementioned events, the cost would treble. Unless my co gives me an entertainment allowance, watching TV comes into the extravagance category.

But then, being a sports freak that I am, it is difficult to stay away from all these. Just checking the websites and reading reports is like drinking only one glass of beer. You are getting the drink, but not the kick. So, I resorted to M/s Page and Brin. Cricket live webcast, Cricket online telecast, World cup Soccer live, French open webcast, India West Indies Streaming blah blah were the phrases I lived with for almost 2 weeks. I visited umpteen forums, got bucketloads of links and downloaded so many applications, that my laptop started giving me electric shocks when I touched it at one point of time.

But, as they say, mehnat ka phal hamesha meetha hota hai. I got links to watch not only these sporting events, but also Hindi channels, English movie channels, Tamil movie channels, Friends, Tom and Jerry and some unwanted Chinese/Japanese/Korean/German/Spanish/Italian channels, which I don't watch often, but sometimes its fun to see something you dont understand. :). All this for free (of course, I have to pay my internet charges to M/s Warner)

Now for the clincher. Since there is no TV involved, there is no reason to "switch" between channels. Mr Gates and co ensured that their OS is capable of running multiple applications at the same time. M/s Warner dont care how much of data I use as long as I pay my 30 bucks a month, and therefore, I can simultaneously watch the different games, if the timings overlap. I can watch Didier Drogba's incisive runs into the goal with L.Sivaramakrishnan and Jeffrey Dujon talking about how Kumble is a great leg spinner. Or I can watch Federer hit a scorching forehand in one window and Beckham goofing up on yet another free kick in another. The image shows what I was watching this afternoon. I have now ensured that, unless I am in office, I do not have to miss any major sporting event happening in the world.

PS: BTW, yes, I am blogging after a long time. I have been plain lazy, and as usual, enthu/time never come together, and yes, I shall keep this page alive now.

Go Spurs Go!!!

The first time I heard of this San Antonio, was in early 2004, when a friend of mine came to me with all enthu, told me that the Spurs had won the NBA. Now, I ain't a fan of NBA, or for that matter, any of the crazy Amru games. The only Spurs I knew, at that time, were a football club from Tottenham UK, and I was kinda confused as to why and how would they play the NBA and the EPL at the same time.

After further prodding, I gathered that the Spurs were a team from San Antonio in Texas, and they had recently started ascending great heights in the basketball world. So, I got to know about the term San Antonio Spurs. Now, I was more familiar with that term, so when my manager informed that I have to be at San Antonio, I could not make the connection. I thought I now not only knew one more place in the US, but the place was gonna become blessed enough to play host to me. Only when I got here, and I saw all the paraphernalia regarding the Spurs, did the nickel drop in.

In the office where I am, every alternate desk has a Spurs logo popping out. There have been instances of 3-4 official documents, where I have seen a footer saying "Go Spurs Go!!". So, all this has me in intrigue, and during my stay here, I have decided to go and watch a home game sometime, even if my understanding and knowledge of basketball doesn't go anymore than terms like slam-dunk, 3-pointer and pom-poms!! :)

Life here is okish. For the first time, I am left at the mercy of the elements and I have to take care of meself(and my room mate too, at times). It is an interesting experience, trying to decide what is going to be my next meal, and how bad its going to be. So far, I have made dal, sambar, deep fried potatoes and Rajma in the increasing order of favourable taste-bud reactions.

Food apart, I have had some irritating and good experiences, but it would take a long time to publish all of them here at one go. So let me use the next few blogs to go through all of them.

By the way, anyone care to explain this "tag" thingie to me?