Hopefully I will proved wrong again...

and we will do unexpectedly well like last season. But just 24 hours to go for the close of the transfer window and there is still no news. Reyes and Cole still here with no talk of replacements. And no sign of the much needed defensive midfielder or the central defender.

As things stand, we are going to be as inexperienced as last season (the departures of Pires, Bergkamp and Campbell more or less balancing the maturing of Fabregas etc.)and have an unhappy dressing room on top (courtesy Cole and Reyes). Add our worst start in years and I am all jittery.Whats on your mind Arsene?

Insanity

I've got a bad disease
But from my brain is where I bleed.
Insanity it seems
Has got me by my soul to squeeze.

Well all the love from thee
With all the dying trees I scream.
The angels in my dreams (yeah)
Have turned to demons of greed that's mean.
.
.
.
.
Where I go I just don't know
I might end up somewhere in Mexico.
When I find my piece of mind
I'm gonna keep you for the end of time.

Soul to Squeeze by RHCP

Its not F in funny anymore!

No, it is not. It was funny for a while betting on the number of corners we would get or the number of passes we make in front of goal. But drawing with Aston Villa and losing to Manc, yeah Manchester fucking city who hadn't won a game since february, is depressing. I know its too soon after the game for me to react rationally, I know I have had one beer too many for 2:30 in the afternoon but surely some of the blame for this has to fall on Arsene Wenger? I am grateful for all things he has done for the club but you would have to be blind not to notice that we need to work on our corners and more importantly shoot when we are in front of goal! He is paid all those millions to notice precisely those things isn't it?

Finally

real football is back. GO GUNNERS!

Update:and...the first points of the season dropped! Henry and a few others were rusty. But some of last seasons issues were still evident - a zillion corners wasted and over elaboration in front of goal. Hopefully things will get better as the players get more match practice.

The best movie title ever

Think. And come back to me with your choice for the best title. I bet you can't beat my choice. It's F in brilliant. I tried but I couldn't describe it better than Josh Friedman, a hollywood screenwriter. So i quote him,

Holy shit, I'm thinking. It's a title. It's a concept. It's a poster and a logline and whatever else you need it to be. It's perfect. Perfect. It's the Everlasting Gobstopper of movie titles.

Snakes on a plane. Has to be Mutha F ing Snakes on a Mutha F in Plane! You can't beat that! That's the title of New Line Cinema's latest movie. It was originally one of New Line Cinema's smaller releases this summer. Now it is quite the rage in the US ahead of its release tomorrow. Unprecedent interest on the internet has led to this movie being billed as one of the most anticipated movies in recent times. The movie was intially rated PG-13. But scared that the movie would not match the huge expectations, the producers shot a few more days of blood curdling scenes to move the movie into an R rating.

Much of the internet interest was a result of this quite funny blog post by Josh Friedman who was initially approached to write the screenplay. Guess why he didn't do the movie eventually? Because the producers were at that time contemplating a name change. I agree, I wouldn't have either. The morons did actually the change the name to Pacific Air 120 or some such. Thankfully better sense prevailed and it was back to the glorius Snakes on a Plane.

See some awesome trailers of the movie here. Here you can get Samuel L Jackson to call you or your friend and say his cult line "Enough is enough! I have had it with these mutha F ing snakes on this mutha F in plane!". Read more interesting trivia about the movie here.The movie was apparently inspired from a World War II report about the Indonesian brown tree snake jumping onto cargo planes. One snake jumping onto a cargo plane is fine but how did the writer manage to get a busload of killer snakes onto a passenger aircraft when you can't even carry toothpaste? Well..I am off to find out tomorrow!

Women on pop

Now we know curd rice is what took her to the top. We just have to find out what is her secret.

For years Coke and Pepsi pursued the Male consumer successfully to drive their flagship brands and were, like most other fortune 500 companies, always led by men. Now with signals of an impending consumer shift towards seemingly more healthy beverages it is interesting to note that the Cola kings have turned towards women to lead them. In a business where it is really difficult not to be obsessed with highly profitable Colas, both women have a track record of daring to look beyond the obvious. While Minnick earned her spurs driving innovation in the Japan and Asia, Nooyi is credited with pushing many of the aquisitions which have given Pepsi such a broad portfolio. Read more about them here and here

Thanks to Kaps at Sambar Mafia for the interesting story and nice photograph.

Killer Liquids

No, I am not referring to the liquid explosives that were apparently part of an al-qaeda plot to blow up planes. Here is an extract from this story in the Indian express about the Kerala government banning killer Colas in the state.

Kerala ban only covers MNC’s colas
KOCHI: The state health department today asked its personnel to prevent sale of Coke and Pepsi in the state, after the government issued formal orders banning both their production and distribution. The ban order covers only colas of the two MNCs, and none of their their other carbonated drinks. The ban also does not extend to the many other cola brands in the state.

Well, the wonders of communism never cease. Maybe now that the colas are banned I guess keralites will stop running to the gulf to escape being killed by fertilizers. Of course, it's ok for Desi colas to poison consumers with fertilizers in their sodas. Only the Americans aren't allowed to because they are evil. Anyway, read Bibek Debroy do a much better job of talking about the brilliance of the Kerala government here.

The poisonous cola story on the CSE website, with its heroic tone and the barbs at the NDA govenment, reads more like an article in the Ganashaki. Don't get me wrong. The CSE could be right and if they are I am all for banning Coke and Pepsi. But till now no other organization (governmental or otherwise) has validated CSE's results. But who cares? It's manna from heaven for the communists and they can now go after the evil MNC's armed with a new stick to beat them with.

Seasons Greetings

The football season that is! After almost 3 months of boredom it's a relief to have proper football back. Ok, truth be told, the World cup made close season a little more bearable. But beyond that I am not sure. For me the World cup seems dull compared to the intensity of club football. For Arsenal, the season pretty much began yesterday with the Champions league qualifier win against Dinamo Zagreb, which brings me to the topic of Cesc Fabregas.

Amidst all the gloom of transfer window inactivity from Arsenal and the news of the imminent departures of Cole (or not!) and Reyes, Cescy Cesc is definitely a ray of sunshine. Is there a more mature young player than Cesc in world football today? Read his views on Reyes and Cole after the game yesterday.

If Cesc takes off where he started yesterday and contributes ten goals or more for the season we could have a very exciting season on our hands. I think Cesc chipping in with goals is going to be vital since for the first time in several seasons our flanks, from where we normally get a lot of our goals, will be full of fresh faces. With Pires gone and Reyes & Cole on the verge, it will pretty much be a new left wing. Hopefully Rosicky will continue the excellent service hitherto provided by them. On the right, it will probably be Helb and Eboue who are relatively new though last seasons champions league experience will be priceless for them. Lauren is due back only in a few months and I guess Ljungberg will never again be as fit and devastating as he was in 2002.

With Cesc chipping in, Henry staying and Van Persie better off because of his world cup experience hopefully the goals will start flowing. If Adebayor has improved his touch he could get a handful too. Most importantly the experience of last years champions league will have toughened our young guns. Throw in a sparkling new 60,000 seat stadium and it makes for an exciting season to look forward to. We probably need players in a few positions definitely but I will not go into details of where we need people and where we don't. You can read about all that and more from more informed gooners here and here. And I guess more than any gooner, Arsene Wenger is the best judge of whether we need more players. I remember last year I was sceptical of our kids (like lots of gooners were) and Arsene took us to the final of the Champions league. After all, Arsene Knows.

I am back...(hic)

after a nightmarish week. Perhaps the worst in quite some time. Was buried under tons of work and so much of it seemed not doable early in the week.

Well all is well that ends well. By the time I left work today afternoon things were actually looking up and I am all ready for the weekend.

Now which one of you is ready to drive my drunk ass back home tonight?