Fixation with XL

Driven by the love for me, my family goes and buys the costliest shirt for me. The problem? They some how have a fixation with XL size. Every time they buy it, they buy a XL. No this is not my size I have told them 100 times but no, "I have brought this with lots of love and am not going to return it" is what they say. And you have not been eating well. See the boys of your age here. They all are married with kids and double your size. Look at their tummies. "Improve" your diet and take these shirts with you. But how would you do it? You always eat out and junk. Get married. Get married and Get married - solution to all of my problems!

My playing 15 - The next gen Indian Cricket Team

# Playing 15
Dravid (C)
Yuvraj (VC)
M.Kaif
Suresh Raina
Ramesh Powar
Zaheer Khan
Munaf Patel
S. Shreesanth
Dinesh Karthik
Manoj Tiwari
R.P Singh
Piyush Chawla
Rohit Sharma
Robin Uttappa
S Badrinath

# Go to circuits
Dhoni
Sehwag
Irfan

# Retire
Saurav Ganguly
Sachin Tendulkar
Anil Kumble
Harbhajan Singh

# Lookouts
Gautam Gambhir
Parthiv Patel
VRV Singh

Bermuda, you had a chance

Not for India's sake (Okay I am lying a bit) but Bermuda did have a good chance today. The perfect setting. A shortened game. 95 in 21 not too good but was defendable against Bangladesh. I guess one good seamer for Bermuda would have done it. I don't think Bermuda could win a 50 over game as yet but 20 overs is a different game. Three quick wickets could have put a lot of pressure on Bangla. I think Chappel who should have enough time now a days, should have given some tips to Bermudans before the game. Bermuda should hire Chappel the great to launch their "Mission 2011", may be he can do a Dav Whatmore too.

[Sequel] What's next?

Who ever I talked to after India's (yet another) humiliating defeat I heard one common sentiment: Punish them! Thank goodness none of them were barbaric enough to harm the physical security of the team. With the kind of emotions running, it was a relief to hear. So, what should be done? Would any or some of these work?

1. Stop all the discretionary benefits to the members of this cricket team.
2. Boycott all the products advertised by the failed members of this cricket team.
3. Clip the financial wings of BCCI.
4. The team selection should be transparent, on a point system and domestic and county performances.
5. Coach and selection committee should be held responsible.
6. Extravagant spending on prize money should be blocked.
7. Governmental awards should be on the set goals not on the past performances. Achievement awards are different though.
8. Control the number of international tournaments the team plays.
9. Heavily tax the earnings from the advertisements. Create a new tax section to keep an eye on these earnings.
10. Three bad consecutive performances and the player should be removed from the national team.

And whats next?

Thanks to Lankans for showing where the Indian cricket team belongs. Thanks to Kiran More and Chappel for creating all the controversies India needed in the midst of the "team preparation" and destroying the winning attitude. Thanks to Harper for some very patchy umpiring helping India's exit from the world cup. Thanks to Dravid's uninspiring captaincy for not letting the team know what they have to do. Thanks to Vengasarkar and all those in the selection committee who did not know who to select. Thanks to Jharkhand for providing free land to Dhoni for his mansion so that his fat @$$ could not score a single run in two critical games. So whats next? Sachin, Saurav and Kumble are set to retire. Dravid will retire before 2011 too. Its pretty much an end to Bhajji's career. It would have been better if John Wright was continued after 2003 and had hired a bowling coach instead. But with all these assumptions and could have should have, some folks have to answer some very hard questions, Chappel included Chappel included and Chappel included. I am sure BCCI still has tons of money to waste on pricey coaches with no coaching credentials and too many selectors who worry more on representations than selections. The question remains.. Whats next?

Thanks Lankans.. but,

Thanks to Lankans, Bangladesh Cricket Team is shown where they belong and how to win against the minnows. The way Lankans have played, there awaits a huge task for the Indians to qualify. Here is the Indian team psyche' before they launch their next mission:

Sehwag: Oh God people are looking at me again!
Uttapa: I think they over estimated me.
Ganguly: I don't care about the win. I am here to justify my re-introduction.
Tendulkar: I am trying but my jaws are too old to chew.
Dravid: Hmm how should I blame others for my weak captaincy.
Dhoni: What happened to my blind shots?
Agarkar: Please I am not the strike bowler.
Munaf: Am I not too young to bear the burden?
Zaheer: Why is not my county records in sync with the WC
Bhajji: Am I playing? Oh no!
Yuvraj: May be in two years I will be the captain.
Kumble: I should retire. I should retire.
Karthik: Hey Kaif! Whats up man? I found a new beach here. Team? Are they playing today?

The changing face of PCB?

What is Chappel's contribution?

India is handed a humiliating defeat by Bangladesh. From the very start nothing went right for India. It raises some serious questions on Chappel, Vengsarkar and Dravid's abilities. What was Greg Chappel's contribution to Indian cricket? Nothing. His experiments never ended and did not culminate in producing the best team to play in the world cup. Look at what Dav Whatmore has produced. A team which has stuck to the basics and has played some phenomenal cricket. On the other hand, Chappel lost his way. Why is Sehwag playing in the team? Where is Kaif and Raina in spite of playing so good in the domestic circle. Why was not Irfan tried against Bangladesh? Remove Sehwag, bring back Kaif, Raina and Powar. Promote Dhoni to number 3. If Irfan is meant to bowl then Sehwag is for batting. It seems they are having some role reversals. The current Indian team sucks. Is it too late to bring Ganguly back as captain? I think its time for Greg to leave. The team which has lost to Bangladesh does not deserve to be in last four. Period.

England missing the third strike bowler

The English-Kiwi game was very exciting at least till the first 15 overs of New Zealander's innings. English batsmen should have played more sensibly as a total of 265 was achievable. Thanks to Shane Bond's spell and unnecessary cameo by Pietersen, 209 was never a defendable total. But what a start by the English bowlers! 1/1, 2/3, 3/19 and then a late 4/72 brought the English back into the game. They should have played a fourth seamer and the result could have been a little more exciting. Though I don't think this English team deserves a spot in the last four. And should I have written anything about the thrashing of Neds by South Africans? Thats some wicked Cricket!

UP a black spot in India shining

UP (Uttar Pradesh) the place where Taj Mahal is, once on a path of glory and development is now the most backward state in India. Even the "infamous" Bihar has attracted more foreign and industrial investment than UP. The irony is, in the state of Gujarat, the architect of India's worst religious riot of recent times has been successful in getting over $100 billion of direct investments. The daily messages of "low crime rate in UP" broadcasted on Television is ridiculous. Since Holi itself - the festival of colors, the state has witnessed daring murders around the city center in the state capital. The condition of roads and traffic in the heart of the city (Charbagh Railway station) is pathetic. Pollution, dirt, lack of clean water and sanitation even in the state capital is simply not acceptable. Corruption is rampaging and aloofness of the political leaders is bringing the state down to its knees. The Nagnath vs Sanpnath scenario (Viper against Cobra) leaves no choice for the state electorate. It feels sad and sorry for this place once the center of freedom struggle.

Why not just stored procedures?

There always comes a phase in the software development when the team rethinks its strategy. The technology selection is critical and so is the development team's expertise. O-R mapping is one such area where "sounds good and feels good" is usually different from how it gets implemented. The reason I am mentioning O-R mapping because it tries to solve one of the most struggled areas - Object Persistence Impedance Mismatch. Why is it so important? It is important because of inherited difference between J2EE and database technologies. Other issues like differences in skill set, ownership differences and modeling and design principles also play important roles. O-R mappers bridge the same gap, but it also requires a new set of training to the staff. And this is the time when you hear... Why not just stored procedures? Most of the time the explanations are very administrative. Stored Procedures are harder to maintain, it won't be J2EE, debugging problems, abstraction and what not. The reasons are valid but so is the truth that a well written Stored Procedure gives a better runtime performance. And after all no design is a bad design if it makes sense (Eric Evans).

Then why choose O-R mappers? Before making a strategy change make sure the change is not because of the unfamiliarity with the technology. The design change can have more impact on the mission critical applications. The O-R mappers (e.g, Toplink) gives you the flexibility to change the database without changing the domain layer. Relational, non-relational or just a pure XML data source does not require any change in the application. It also comes up with all the goodies of Java and Object Oriented concepts along with the inherited security inbuilt into the Java systems. Still a few questions remain.. What if the database is not going to be changed. What if the abstracted system is not required. What if XML datasource is not a possibility, and what if the development team already has some good familiarity with SQL and Stored Procedures? Toplink for one, provides much more than object mapping. Object caching support, various descriptor level caching policies, Query flexibility, Transaction support, locking, visual toolkit and meta-language driven architecture support. In most cases, it boils down to a well written stored procedure against a poorly mapped domain design. Check if proper patterns are used. Revisit the domain design. Choose the proper cache policy. Use batch reads. If nothing else can be done then a custom SQL or a Stored procedure can also be integrated. Exploit the thread safety of Java. If done right, the overall performance impact will be negligible. And be realistic and avoid creating a new persistence model on top of Toplink or Hibernate. Its highly likely that the custom model will not have all the maturities of the commercially available systems. And don't create it because it makes you feel good. Most of these technologies are pretty matured and have community contributions. Compare Hibernate or Toplink and choose one. Choose one and stick with it. Don't create another abstraction with an assumed flexibility to be able to change Toplink with Hibernate in future. Believe me it rarely happens. The common denominator between these O-R mappers usually do not provide the best performance and its not a bad idea to stick with a proprietory solution if it gives the best solution. The life time of an application on average is 60-96 months. After that, its not just one component but the entire application which is revisited. Join the community and make rational decisions.