Spelling mistakes don't matter

"Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe."

Fine, but something happened to my teeth.

Euro 2008, Croatia - Turkey, June 20

How should I try to justify the inconsolable break down of Croatia’s football team?

There weren't any goals in the first ninety minutes. Extra thirty minutes were granted, and a goal was scored in the 29th minute. By Croatia. The team was jubilant. Even I was feeling happy, as I was supporting Croatia. It was past 2:30 AM and I wanted to sleep. The 30th minute was played, then the additional 31st, and finally the 32nd minute of the extras, the 122nd of the entire game. The last minute. And suddenly, another goal! This time from Turkey! Its supporters went berserk. Croatia's looked defeated, full of tears.

But was the 2 extra minutes at the end of the extra time really needed? Was just 1 minute not enough? I believe Croatia's coach was debating the same. But it's done. For 118 minutes the score was 0-0. And now, at the end of the 122nd minute it was 1-1.

I sat up. Time for penalty shoot out. Everyone knew now it's going to be Turkey, the goalie was too good. And so it was, Turkey got it 3-1.

I felt sad for Croatia. But again, this is the beauty of football. 3 minutes can change everything, the game, the destiny. Just a masterstroke is needed.

Firefox 3

A grand welcome indeed! Firefox 3 has recorded more than 8 million downloads on the first day of its release.

I now have it on my Ubuntu Linux, as well as in Vista. So...

Hujan

Clouds stretch across the city sky, bringing back childhood memories. At times in the form of a dark grey warning at the horizon of the approaching Kalboishakhi, at times as a continuous, nagging, seemingly everlasting drizzle through days, evenings, nights, caused by a depression in the Bay of Bengal. Schools closed, shops shut down, fields soaked, streets waterlogged, darkness hanging over the sky without any beginning or end.

Clouds in my University days would come with an excuse to drop classes. Ignoring the downpour, I would first take a bus, then a train to Esplanade Metro Station, venture out to Free School Street, and wade through the waters to look for a cheap copy of Simon and Garfunkel's greatest hits. "These clouds stick to the sky / Like a floating question why / And they linger there to die / They don't know where they are going, and, my friend, neither do I."

Ignoring the downpour, trousers folded up to the knees, my only belongings being a side bag and an umbrella, I would visit my girl's place in the early evening, somewhat made a shade darker by the hovering clouds.

Rain, in Calcutta, would always come along with dark clouds, thunder, lightning and a deafening noise on asbestos roof-sheets. A shade of the sky, which I would again see much later, in 2006, from the 26th floor of an apartment in Bangkok. Then again, an year later, in Jakarta, albeit much darker this time. A darkness of the sky, which I hadn't seen earlier. It was evening looming down at mid afternoon, doomsday could have been few hours away.

"Hujan", in Bahasa Indonesia, means "Rain". Mesmerized, I used to look at the approaching clouds through the clear window panes of a solitary room. And wait for Hujan, the stormy torrent that floods fields and drowns dwellings, proving the fragility of human beings and their inventions.

"On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star, like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are, how fragile we are."

Euro 2008, Spain - Sweden, June 14

What a match! The atmosphere was more like a battlefield with neither side ready to lose. Spain had scored an early goal (Torres), which was neutralized a few minutes later by Sweden's Ibrahimovic. The pressure was more on Sweden from the beginning. The second half intensified the battle, but without any goal, courtesy goes to Sweden's wonderful goalie Isaksson for saving the valiant attempts made by Spain. The breakthrough came during the second minute of the extra three minutes - Villa's first goal in the match (and fourth in the tournament) declared Spain as the winner, pushing them into the Quarter Finals.

Euro 2008, Croatia - Germany, June 12

"Lijepa naša Domovino,
Oj junačka zemljo mila,"
or
"Our beautiful homeland,
O so fearless and gracious."

played the national anthem of Croatia at the background, while 11 determined faces, eyes either half closed or focussed down towards the trimmed grass, hummed it. One and a half hours later they stood victorious against Germany, who I had earlier wrongly assumed would win the match. I am glad now that I was wrong. I salute the "fearless and gracious" Croats for their honest and well-deserved win against Germany's ghastly attacks.

Euro 2008, Russia - Spain, June 10

Strong defense, brilliantly calculated passes (truly picturesque), persistent control over the ball, and fervid attacks, resulting in a hat-trick by David Villa, marked Spain's immaculate victory over Russia in the fourth day of the UEFA at Innsbruck, Austria. Russia had a good forward line-up, but couldn't match up to Spain's defenders. It was indeed a wonderful game to watch, blended with incessant rain in the field through the entire 90+ minutes.

With this powerful playing, Spain is definitely very well-positioned to be the Euro'08 champions.

Bar Crowd

Please tie your shoelaces,
I'm expecting some rain tonight.
And when the football field did not belong anymore to the one who had dreamed long to be a forlorn governess,
It was then that I picked up the Holy Bread and Wine.
Pass me the salt, he had said, when the lights were almost bright.
Do not sing, do not sing, for the bar is breaking down,
And he who typewrites well, will be the first to throw away his shoelaces and lay down in the sun.

After climbing up the pulpit, amidst a wild uproar of the jubilant multitude he proclaimed, "I don't understand myself".

-------
This set of apparently unconnected sentences was written sometime around mid 2007. It glorified the "About Me" section of my Orkut profile for a few months. Posting it here for archival purposes.

Bluetooth Update

Probably my Vista has been quite offended by this post. The Bluetooth icon has started appearing in the Windows task bar all of a sudden, and after setting it up, has allowed me to connect to the mobile phone. Crazy!

For Dummies: Installing 'rpm' packages in Ubuntu

To install a package present in RPM (RPM Package Manager, previously known as RedHat Package Manager) format, first it needs to be converted to .deb (Debian software package) format. This can be achieved by a program called Alien, which converts between different file formats, like Red Hat rpm, Debian deb, Stampede slp, etc. Once done, the .deb file can be installed using the dpkg program.

Step 1: Install alien if not already there, using the following command. (This needs a working connection to the internet):
sagnik@sagnik-laptop:~$ sudo apt-get install alien

apt-get looks into the file /etc/apt/sources.list to find the location from where to fetch packages, in this case the 'alien' package.

Step 2: Convert the .rpm file to .deb using 'alien':
sagnik@sagnik-laptop:~$ sudo alien -k [package_name].rpm

This will convert [package_name].rpm file to [package_name].deb, without changing the version number (taken care by the -k option).

Step 3: Install the .deb file, using dpkg (Debian Package Manager):
sagnik@sagnik-laptop:~$ sudo dpkg -i [package_name].deb

That's it, the newly added application is ready to be used now.

Marilyn

My desktop wallpaper for the last two weeks now adorns my mobile as well.

Welcome back Indie!

The long gap of 2-decades has been worth. Indiana Jones is back, with adventure at its best and adorable heroic glamor. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: a product of the Spielberg-Lucas-Ford trio has to be good, there's no way out of it. And it has indeed been so, being in line with its predecessors.

Indiana Jones has grown old, but is still strong enough to deal with the bad men. Locking himself up in a refrigerator to escape a nuclear explosion, and later coming out quite safely out of it after the blast, amidst all that acid rain (the trademark theme by John Williams resonating at the backdrop), is indeed far fetched from reality. But that's the magic, that's fiction! At its very best here in the fourth episode of the series.The heroism portrayed is not forceful, it came out very naturally from Harrison Ford. There's a fine balance between reality and fiction, science-fiction making a subtle presence near the end.

The story is based in the Amazonian South America of the mid-fifties. Exquisite photography. Technology/digital animation has been used wherever exactly required.

Karen Allen once again beautifully plays the role of Marion Ravenwood, Indie's old love, and this time both of them get married as the closing note of the episode. Indie is also a father to a son in his twenties (played by Shia LaBeouf), who is glad enough to accompany his dad in his adventures, but probably would take a while before he can step into dad's shoes. Indiana Jones knows this, and isn't ready to pass on the hat to his successor yet.

Spielberg-Lucas-Ford: we wait for the next one.