Songs about Places

Making a music playlist is a tedious affair, especially if you'd rather spend your time on Cricinfo, but once you've made it, you've saved your ears a lot of nonsensical music that you've collected over time. I was scrolling through the media player library and I came across Lynyrd Skynyrd's Sweet Home Alabama and Eagles' Hotel California, which reminded me of California Dreamin'. So I decided why not make a playlist of songs about cities, towns and states. Here's what I collected:
PS: The playlist contains 12 songs I like, you can always google the full list!

Controversially Yours!

Shoaib Akhtar is in the spotlight again, this time because of his controversial autobiography, aptly titled Controversially Yours. It just came out this week, so might take some time before I get my hands on a copy.

In his publicity campaign, Shoaib said that Tendulker was probably scared of him, quoting an instance when Tendulker elbowed one of Shoaib's deliveries but walked off as if the ball had hit the gloves. Shoaib also said that Tendulker and Dravid aren't match winners. With nearly 50,000 international runs between them, it doesn't matter what Shoaib says, both are exceptional batsmen. However, it is true that some great batsmen had a hard time against Shoaib Akhtar. Here are some stats and videos of these modern greats in Shoaib Akhtar's firing line:

Champions Humbled

"There still are one or two donkeys in the field.":Nasser Hussain

We've all seen India's humiliation in England this year, the 4-0 whitewash in the Test series (when they were the number 1 Test team in the world at the beginning of the tour), loss in the only T20 and now the 3-0 loss in the 5 match ODI series (one match tied and one abandoned). This was India's second series since becoming World Champions, the first was against a weak West Indian side.

The last time India won the 50-over World Cup in 1983, in their very next series, they were humbled by the West Indies at home. The WI won 8 out of 11 matches on that tour, all five ODIs and three Tests out of six (the rest were drawn).

Here's a summary of that tour:

Azhar Ali: The new Asim Kamal?

I remember Geoff Boycott talking about Asim Kamal way back in 2006 in a post match analysis, after the Pakistani batsmen threw away their wickets with reckless shots: "I haven't seen the lad, but I've just seen the record you just showed, and I see that he's scored so many fifties but no hundreds, and in Test matches you need guys who can score big hundreds...So I wouldn't pick him in my playing XI" However, Rameez Raja and Sanjay Manjreker laughed off his comments and said consistency such as Asim Kamal had showed was hard to find among young batsmen in the sub-continent.

Yet Another Retirement!

I'm a big fan of Afridi's leg spin but not of his captaincy. When ever he made a blunder, it was at the biggest stage: T20 semi final against Australia, when he miscalculated the overs and ended up giving Ajmal the 20th over instead of the two fast bowlers he had at his disposal, and World Cup 2011 semi final when he did not take the Powerplay even though he was on strike with Misbah, and the required rate was 8 and a half for the last 10-odd overs.

Afridi Retires Yet Again

Existence, Relatedness, Growth - ERG Theory

The ERG Theory of Clayton P. Alderfer is a model that appeared in 1969 in a Psychological Review article entitled "An Empirical Test of a New Theory of Human Need". In a reaction to Maslow's famous Hierarchy of Needs, Alderfer distinguishes three categories of human needs that influence worker’s behavior; existence, relatedness and growth.

Adam's Equity Theory- Job Motivation

Equity Theory reminds us that people see themselves and crucially the way they are treated in terms of their surrounding environment, team, system, etc - not in isolation - and so they must be managed and treated accordingly.

First Week of Training

Topsy Turvy it was, my first week as a trainee!! Every morning this week I cursed myself for joining this Financial Advisory company. All day I would think I wasn't good enough for the tasks they gave me. The training won't count as articleship (3 and a half yr training period required for CA students) and I won't be getting paid, so all the more reason to stay home and wait for the ICAP result, but every night I would go through my day and think I was learning something new each day so I had to hang in there, at least, for a couple of weeks And here I am, richer by one week of experience (and what an experience it has been!).

Glorious Morning-Waterflame

I first heard this in the flash game Age of War, and I've been playing the game again and again just because of this music. Simply Superb!

Movies This Week

Been watching movies this week.

I hadn't watched AVATAR till now, and now that I have, I'm disappointed. The story was predictable, and I've read so many sci-fi stories with the same plot. And I don't care about graphics unless the story is good.

Watched The King's Speech and it was really good. The script, the acting, all very well done.

Finally found the movie Timeline through google (had been looking for it for ages). The plot was excellent, the acting not so. But since it involved time travel, I liked it.

Economies of Scale

Here you will find:

What Are Economies and Dis-economies of Scale?
Where Are Economies of Scale?
Distinction Between Internal and External EOS
What Are the Causes of Diseconomies of Scale?

Pakistan vs Australia, World Cup 2011

Pakistan should win this match, the Aussie middle order apart from Clarke isn't scoring much, though Hussey's inclusion would strengthen their batting , especially considering his record against Pakistan in all forms of the game (He has scored 64, 35*, 29, 49, 67 and 40* in his 6 innings against Pakistan in ODIs). Pakistan has got very good spinners, Gul and Riaz (if shoaib doesn't play) are normally good at bowling at the death, so the match result depends on how we play in the first 15 overs of each innings.