Contrary to the misconception that living in N.India belligerently beats your I.Q down to nothingness (i.e contrary to the use of the word "misconception"), I find it to be largely thought provoking on deeply philosophical ideas. For instance, ruminating about your epistemology of "I know I exist, but cannot be sure others' minds exist" hits a huge gnostic roadblock in N.India since you're pretty sure others' minds do not exist... Other mainstay ruminations making for pleasurable scotch-accompanied fireplace conversations include "if life were indeed a computer simulated reality, where can I download a Norton scanner to eliminate the trojan virus known as South Delhi kewl dewd?" and the elaborately worded treatise "Intelligent Design? Haryanvis. Nuff said". But my personal favorite is "Hindi as a language should be allowed to exist. Discuss" with me advocating passionately and plot-twistingly.....that it should. I usually don't need to look beyond arguments of everything's-connected, or each-place-in-food-chain, but in case I had to (i.e in case someone politely pointed out that Tam would take its place at the bottom of the food chain), I'd lead with Hindi having contributed to global vocab the word "Aukat" (although if the definition of global vocab is usage by at least 20% of the earth, then I suppose all of hindi is global vocab). Can't really think of a translation, the tams have gamely tried "dai onnodai moonji ku..." which is "for your face...." (though to really capture the sentiment it should be "for your face and all...") but Aukat is just way more derisive...like just the other day this hot chick wanted to make out and I was all "....please...Aukat...." she readily agreed, in hindsight I think maybe the joke and aukat in question was mine... So here's Aukat Index for La Liga 2011-12.
Aspirants : Like Brad Pitt Achilles eloquently puts it when posed the deceptively thought provoking rhetoric "why..." - "I wanted more" - these are teams who decided 2010-11 wasn't reflective of their capabilities and steadily climbed during the course of this season to their final league position. The fact that Achilles actually meant a second helping of his Moussaka is now lost to history, perhaps history will also swallow the fact that some of these aspirants only climbed after prostituting themselves out to oil sheikhs... and hopefully also the fact that I had to google "Greek cuisine" to arrive at Moussaka after deliberating for 10mins whether pita bread was a) greek enough and b) good enough for Achilles to want a second helping.... discerning connoisseur that he was, the analogy might have become nonsensical.. So in above graph, we're looking for Blue (final position in 2010-11 season) > Red (average position in 2011-12 season) > Green (final position in 2011-12 seson) - starting with Real goddamn Madrid. Leaving aside big teams (hint : EPL team...red jersey... called Arsenal.... from London, if you're still thinking then I'm jealous of your blissful EPL Ignorance) spewing their platitudes of "we always expect to be up there...beating the best", I imagine it takes an arrogance only RM are capable of - to truly believe they could beat Barca over 38 games. They clawed their way to 1st in Round 9 and grew their roots there for the rest of the season while Barca blustered around them and blew themselves out. Malaga aspired and achieved, after above mentioned prostitution. Osasuna are also here with slightly less ambitious aspirations, on the strength of Raul Garcia. Fortunately or unfortunately, enough articles notice him these days so I don't have to sing his erstwhile underratedness any more, and in general I'll get to player specifics in some other post and focus instead on composite aukat for the entire team. Mallorca and Sociedad also qualify with the former with especially ambitious aspirations, but given their really high standard deviation I'm not really counting them - more on std dev later.
Slippery Slopers : Think Joe Pesci going after Macaulay Culkin on well greased stairs... it has nothing to do with the next bit, but you have to admit it's a funny image... the next bit is on Blue < Red < Green : teams who started with a gentle slide calmly dismissed by fans as teething issues with some mild expectation downward revision (UCL to Europa to Top Half) before they realized they'd gotten so used to their Mach 3 descent that they actually though they were standing still. Villarreal. Here's me talking about their teething issues and mildly downward revising my expectations for their season. In defence of current-me, I did go back in time to warn past-me about the delusion, but past-me told me to f*** off and die. What. a. dick. The good thing is, I think their teething issues are now done and they're going to top Segunda and even qualify for UCL two years from now with Borja Valero starring in ....who th f*** are you... yea future my ass, f***off and die. geez what. a. dick. yea so anyway Borja Valero starring etc etc. Sevilla and Bilbao the only lucky slippery slopers in the top half. Sevilla I'm really glad, I hope their slope continues till they're in the 4th division, although now that Kanoute has left I might have to downward revise my hatred for them. Bilbao got so caught up in their excellent first half and Europa streak they forgot to look around as Mallorca, Osasuna and Atletico just whizzed past them in the league. I'll leave out Gijon and Santander, I think their Aukat was relegation anyway although poor Santander actually had a lower avg position than Gijon and almost equal to Zaragoza. The real subprime aukat has been Espanol. 8th last season, an avg position of 9th all through this season, and then suddenly just slipped and slid their pebbly way down to 14th in what must have been a really annoying descent constantly meeting teams on their way up and asking "abeyaar, kitna door hai upar tak?" in the typical irritating n.indian "trekker" fashion. I can just imagine fat f***s like Getafe with their iPods and DSLRs huffing and puffing their way past a helpless Espanol. did I say helpless, I meant useless.
Assorted Awards
Purple Patch Award : Atletico Madrid… as is obvious from the graph, started dismally - under achieved and then just had a rock star second half not realizing their success was a deal with the devil - having sold their soul and happily incubating the cancerous tumor that is EPLism.
Laugh in the face of Aukat Award : Levante... but they also laugh in the face of youth, good looks, talent, money, and fame. So in the grand scheme of things, maybe the joke's on them...
Strict Aukat Adherance Award : Valencia, who desperately try to escape their 3rd place limbo each season by selling off their best players in the hope that they drop to 4th where they're sure the air is a little fresher. Alba and Rami are probably going to be their roll of the dice this transfer season. The deeply disturbing thing if this were true, is that Miguel who's available on free transfer may be retained to boost their chances of dropping position - and Albelda might be released on Bosman!!!
Encephalogram Award : Betis, standard deviation of 4.13 just had noooo idea what their Aukat was this season, having just been promoted. Zig zagged their way to an average position of 11 (having been top of the league twice) but then lost it a bit and ended up at 13. Bilbao had a std.dev of 3.4 on the strength of a miserable first 6-7 games, a brilliant mid season that saw them even reach 5th, and then a steady loss of cabin pressure while they snoozed through the final 3rd of the season. Positions 1-3 and 17-20 have the lowest std. dev. in the league, so I guess it shows where the league is really competitive. Barca and Valencia are 1 and 2 in terms of least std.dev. so that also shows who calmly accepted their career fate and concentrated on arts and crafts instead.
Aukat Revision for 2012-13 : RM no change (2). Barca no change (1). Valencia haha. Malaga change (4). Atletico change (4). Levante stfu and sit (14). Osasuna no change (9). Mallorca marginal change (13). Sevilla slide (9). Bilbao up (5). Getafe meh (11). Sociedad meh (12). Betis up (11). Espanol down (13). Rayo up (16). Zaragoza same (13). Granada down (19).
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