Humor: The Absent Minded Professor And The Adamant Elevator!

That was a very hectic day at work and he got really late. Finally he cleared the last file on the desk, picked up his briefcase and hurried towards the elevator or the lift as you may prefer to call it.

His office was on the fourth floor and naturally he was headed for the ground floor. He pressed the down button outside and the elevator came up promptly with the indicator showing down. His mind still going through the bits and pieces of the day yet he could not help but feel happy at the elevator’s perfect timing.

He pressed the number four button in the panel and then the door-close button. The number four button flickered red briefly and blanked out, but the doors closed immediately. The lift did not budge and the doors opened up a moment later. Dumfounded, he repeated the act with the same result.

A man came in and asked if it was going up, the professor replied authoritatively that it was in fact going down. The man looked desperate to go up just one floor and finding all floor buttons untouched he pressed fifth floor button. Annoying the professor a great deal the lift this time went up obediently. The man left quietly as his floor came.

The absent minded professor pressed the number four button, then the close-door button, and this time the elevator started going down. But it stopped again at the fourth floor. He thought somebody must have been waiting there. Finding nobody he promptly pressed the fourth floor button, then the close-door button. The button flickered red briefly and went blank, the doors closed. But the elevator did not budge and the doors opened up again.

Exasperated and his patience running thin now, he pressed the fourth floor button again with the same chain reactions. He finally decided he would do it one last time and if the same thing happened he would call it day. He was also getting worried a little, because he thought the lift might not be working properly and he might get trapped midway.

He pressed the fourth floor button again and then the close-door button. The fourth floor button flickered red briefly and went blank, but the doors closed promptly. The lift still did not budge. He cursed the unpredictable elevator loudly and ran down the four flights of stairs to the ground floor safely.

                               (BTW, this is a firsthand report of a true experience. LOL, you are permitted anyway!)

Politics: Dial M for Music of the M3 Kind!

Article first published as The M3 Riddle Of Indian Politics on Technorati.

This one is the farthest removed from the musical Mp3s! Yet, there is a striking similarity between the two if you want to behold at all. Concentrating on the ‘music’ commonality the whole nation and the people of India have been facing the music thanks to M3.

While many of the states of India, the economists, the industrialists, the farmers, the sensible leaders within insane groups, the opposition parties that can sense a good thing and the ‘uncommon’ people within the ‘common people’ syndrome have all hailed the new steps of the Government of India as very necessary for a stagnating economy and to avoid a crisis in the long term, the M3 and its like-minded followers had been splitting the hapless ears of the unwilling listeners with its draconian music.

M3 is consisted of naturally three basic political ingredients...



                                                                                              Read the Full Article... 
 

Cricket World Cup T20: Harbhajan Shines As India Crush England!

Harbhajan Singh The Player of the Match

It was India’s biggest win in terms of margin of runs in any T20 history. It was England’s lowest total ever in T20 history. It could be the T20 international of the century in terms of the most dramatic turnaround with spinners dominating absolutely. It gave Harbhajan Singh a most memorable comeback to Team India. The off spinner had an incredible figure of 4 wickets for just 12 runs with 17 dot balls in 4 overs. With his partner spinner, another comeback guy, Piyush Chawla the duo captured 6 England wickets for 25 runs. Thanks to them England crashed from 39/2 to 60/9, looking at achieving the ignominy of being the team scoring less than the lowest ever total of 67 by Kenya in T20 history.  The last England pair saved that humiliation at least by taking the score to 80.

India crushed England by 90 runs in their last group encounter in Colombo on 23^rd September, 2012.  Indian skipper Dhoni seemed to have done everything right on this day. He ‘rested’ his supposed best players—Zaheer, Sehwag and Ashwin, and inducted two spinners in Harbhajan and Chawla with 6 batsmen to 5 specialized bowlers formula. He asked Irfan Pathan to open with Gautam Gambhir and promoted Rohit Sharma ahead of Yuvraj and Raina. Irfan could not deliver with the bat, but all other decisions vindicated Dhoni.

England won the toss and skipper Stuart Broad, perhaps taking the cue from the Indian Test cricket disaster in his country in 2011, put India in to unsettle them with short and bouncing stuff. Broad also opted for three fast bowlers and just one spinner. Maybe he failed to read the slower than anticipated pitch better than Dhoni.

Gambhir romped back into form with a well made 45 and Virat Kohli put in another classic act of 40 runs playing exquisite shots all around the park. The duo gave the team a momentum to build a total in excess of 180. But things slowed down midway with English spinner Graeme Swann bowling a tight spell. Rohit Sharma and Dhoni finally plundered 51 runs from the last four overs to take India to a sound 170/4.

Have India scored a good enough total? The debate was just picking up all around when Irfan Pathan struck in the last ball of his very first over bowling out English opener Hales for a duck. He struck again in the fourth ball of his second over getting the other opener Wright leg before. With two expensive overs by Balaji and Dinda in between the spinner duo of Harbhajan and Chawla came in when the Powerplay was still on, and England wickets started tumbling in heaps as if under a spell. The most fantastic spin bowling in a T20 International was witnessed thus as the balls started to turn appreciably. It was all over with more than five overs to spare. The Scorecard:

The encounter was technically inconsequential as both teams had already qualified for the Super Eight stage. This gave Dhoni a scope to experiment and get his best team ready to fire on the next stage. With Irfan Pathan not quite doing well as an opener Virender Sehwag, a match winner on his day, is most likely to come back, but Dhoni is set to have a most difficult time choosing from Harbhajan, Chawla and Ashwin even if he sticks to two spinners. And then the pacers, all of whom except Pathan were largely ineffectual. The choice of one or two pacers to partner Pathan would need a lot of thinking. As India have topped the group they stay in Colombo for the Super Eight games and the conditions experienced in this game are likely to favor the team.

Earlier, in a cracker of a match Pakistan defeated a fighting New Zealand by 13 runs in Pallekele thanks to a splendid all-round performance by Mohammad Hafeez and a superlative knock of 56 runs by Nasir Jamshed. The cricket lovers had their money’s worth as New Zealand fought to their last breath. Both of these teams have qualified for the Super Eight too.

 Not much action till the Super Eight starts from September 27. The big one for Indian cricket lovers is coming on 28^th September in Colombo at 7.30pm when India meet Australia. The Schedule: