Every day is a Sonday 5…

∙ After watching Novak Djokovic win in the 2011 Wimbledon men’s singles and Mahesh Bhupathi and partner lose in the mixed doubles, my 9-year-old son put forward a demand for a “Mixed Singles”.
“What’s that? It’s not even possible,” I dismissed him.
He replied, “Simple. One half of the draw will be male and the other half will be female. I want to see boys versus girls at the international level!”

∙ Once India needed 1 run off 60 balls to win.
“So India will win 100%?” he asked.
“100%!” I replied.
To which he said, “So can you say that the match is “fixed” at this stage?”

∙ Once when I was feeling really angry, he told me to watch the kid’s cartoon Shinchan.
“Why?”
“Watching Shinchan will give you such a headache that you will forget your anger!”

∙ While rolling down the glass of the car door he says, “I’m downloading the windows.” It’s uploading when they are being rolled up. The Internet generation I guess!

∙ My wife has caught on to him.
Once she was scrubbing his face real hard while cleaning it and he yelled, “God! Help me! Where are you?”
To that she replied, “Don’t worry he’s around somewhere and this time he’s on my side!”

© Sunil Rajguru

5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays & 5 Sundays in a month as common as your birthday!

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July 2011 has 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays.

So let me jump on the table and dance on one leg with joy!

Why?

Because I am told by many people that for some obscure reason, this wonderful event happens only once in 823 years!

To burst the bubble right away, March 2013 also has 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays!

Don’t believe me? Just click the time/calendar on the right hand bottom of your computer screen and check out March 2013.

Also, 5 Fri-Sat-Sundays would have hit you roughly that many times as many birthdays you have celebrated on this planet.

Don’t believe me again?

The Maths…

Every year has 7 months that have 3 days which come 5 times in that particular month.

(If a month has 31 days, then every day is repeated 4 times by the 28th of the month.

So 29th, 30th and 31st are extra or “5th” days.

Seven months have 31 days: January, March, May, July, August, October & December)

The chance that those 3 days are Friday, Saturday and Sunday is exactly 1/7th of that, which works out to be once a year!

(If you pick 3 days randomly from 7 days a week, then there are many permutations and combinations.

However, since the days only come in sequence, there are only 7 possible combinations: Sun-Mon-Tue, Mon-Tue-Wed, Tue-Wed-Thu, Wed-Thu-Fri, Thu-Fri-Sat, Fri-Sat-Sun & Sat-Sun-Mon)

Now this event may be skipped in some year and may happen twice in another since 364 days form 52 weeks and the extra 1-2 days shift the day-date matchings randomly.

Also, in 823 years, 3 days coming 5 times in a month will happen a whopping 5761 times!

A simple thumb rule to check on the calendar…

Any 31-day month on which Friday falls on the 29th will have 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays.

Now the person who started this might argue that what he meant to say was that July being such a month will happen once in 823 years!

To answer that, in July 2016, the phenomenon will be repeated.

And you thought that you could say TGIF followed by a same-month weekend five times in a month only once every 823 years!

Call it a “5TGIF-Weekend Month” (5TWM or Fitwem) and it comes regularly 0, 1 or 2 times a year depending on the year.

But anyway, Internet virals ki Jai Ho!!!

Any Falsehood repeated 10 million times by a million people over thousands of networking and email service sites just has to be True!

This (Correct or Incorrect) Calculation by Sunil Rajguru

January to June 2011 Cricket Columns

The game changes yet again…
A look at the ICC’s latest round of changes
29 June, 2011, Sify.com

Old and battered, but still the Wall
Dravid hits his first overseas century in 5 years
24 June, 2011, Sify.com

Windies tour brimming with long-term benefits
The future leadership of India looks good
17 June, 2011, Sify.com

Fatigue, injuries and Team India
6 of 11 champions opting out is unprecedented
30May, 2011, Sify.com

Everyone’s happy, everyone’s complaining
…and other IPL snippets…
30 May, 2011, Sify.com

Twitter breaks IPL careers, blogging makes them
…and other IPL snippets…
27 May, 2011, Sify.com

Cometh the hour, cometh the man
…and other IPL snippets…
14 May, 2011, Sify.com

Gabriella Pasqualotto, India’s most famous cheerleader
…and other IPL snippets…
12 May, 2011, Sify.com

Warnie as India coach one day?
…and other IPL snippets…
7 May, 2011, Sify.com

Lankan Premier League: Bring on the competition!
…and other IPL snippets…
6 May, 2011, Sify.com

The Dada of all comebacks
…and other IPL snippets…
3 May, 2011, Sify.com

Test cricketers, not Tests, are dying
…and other IPL snippets…
25 April, 2011, Sify.com

The controversies are back!
…and other IPL snippets…
22 April, 2011, Sify.com

Revenge of the dumped…
…and other IPL snippets…
18 April, 2011, Sify.com

Wanted: A triple century in ODIs
…and other IPL snippets…
14 April, 2011, Sify.com

A kick works more than a hug
…and other IPL snippets…
11 April, 2011, Sify.com

Indian cricket’s Videshi Trimurti
The Wright-Chappell-Kirsten saga
10 April, 2011, Sify.com

The dark side of the World Cup
India’s victory has hidden a lot of issues
7 April, 2011, Sify.com

Sreesanth’s luckier than Sachin!
…and other world cup snippets
5 April, 2011, Sify.com

The Rise of the Third Reich
India can be the Third Great Team
5 April, 2011, Sify.com

It’s time for the Indian hammer to strike
Now or never for Indian cricket
1 April, 2011, Sify.com

Mental disintegration, Indo-Pak style
It’s all about pressure here
1 April, 2011, Sify.com

The record streak breakers
High time giant-killers India became giants
25 March, 2011, Sify.com

World cricket’s crisis at the bottom
West Indies and the others have lost their fight
24 March, 2011, Sify.com

Let the quarter-final lottery begin!
Why have the leagues in the first place?
21 March, 2011, Sify.com

England’s Book of Thrillers: One win, four fates
…and other World Cup snippets…
18 March, 2011, Sify.com

Powerless in Powerplay, clueless in UDRS
…and other World Cup snippets…
14 March, 2011, Sify.com

The two certainties of cricket
…and other World Cup snippets…
10 March, 2011, Sify.com

Logically, they just shouldn’t have won
The day of the underdog
8 March, 2011, Sify.com
.
When the umpire can play god
…and other world cup snippets…
7 March, 2011, Sify.com
.

The minnows strike back
…and other world cup snippets…
4 March, 2011, Sify.com

The strange case of Shanthakumaran Sreesanth
The world’s most schizophrenic cricketer
2 March, 2011, Sify.com

One good collapse deserves another
The India-England WC tie…
28 February, 2011, Sify.com

Why Shahrukh picked ten Doeschate
The greatest “upcoming” all-rounder…
24 February, 2011, Sify.com

Warm-up for a warm-up stage?
…and other World Cup snippets…
19 February, 2011, Sify.com

The day of the underdog
It all began in 1983…
18 February, 2011, Sify.com

Unique World Cup battle: India versus India
…and other snippets…
09 February, 2011, Sify.com

What if it’s Australia again?
…and other World Cup snippets…
01 February, 2011, Sify.com

Yusuf Pathan – the new Emperor of Blitz
…and other World Cup snippets…
28 January, 2011, Sify.com

Confused ICC changes format yet again
It’s a different World Cup every time
27 January, 2011, Sify.com

Where India always beats Pakistan
India leads 4-0. What about 2011?
27 January, 2011, Sify.com

South Africa? Are you choking?
A brief history of the Proteas at the World Cup
26 January, 2011, Sify.com

Could it be a totally different 2011 World Cup?
…and other World Cup snippets…
25 January, 2011, Sify.com

Many positives for team India despite a loss
Yusuf Pathan is the jewel in the crown
24 January, 2011, Sify.com

A good bet for the World Cup
A SWOT analysis of Team India
18 January, 2011, Sify.com

India lack the knockout punch
Always so near and yet so far…
7 January, 2011, Sify.com

Why Black Money is like a Black Hole…

Black Money is a region of the economy from which nothing, not even pennies, can escape.

The theory of general corruption predicts that a sufficiently compact corrupt black money zone will deform the entire economy around it to form a Black Money Hole.

Around that Black Money Hole there is an undetectable surface called an event horizon that marks the point of no return.

It is called “black” because it absorbs all the money that hits the horizon, reflecting nothing, just like a perfect black body in thermodynamics.

After such dark entities have been formed, they can continue to grow by absorbing money from the surroundings, thus forming supermassive black holes of money, quite a common occurrence in India.

Another property of Black Money Holes is that they are invisible to IT authorities, courts and the like.

Despite its invisible interior, its presence can be inferred through its interaction with other regions of the economy.

When any piece of information falls into a Black Money Hole, it is lost to outside observers.

India claims copyright over the term: Black Money Hole.

Doctor Raja won the Nobel Prize for Black Economics for his discovery of a supermassive Black Money Hole 1,760,000,000,000 RUs (Rupee Units) in diameter.

Thanks to that breakthrough, many more such supermassive objects are likely to be discovered in the future.

This version by Sunil Rajguru

June 2011 Status Updates

∙ R.I.P. LokPal. You never really had a chance.
Long live LokPol scams!
Diggy jeeta. Anna hara.
Jao sab ghar jaa ke so jao.

∙ Diggy Raja’s foot partially eclipsed his mouth some months back.
The eclipse is expected to last till atleast till Rahul Beta becomes PM.
After that, the eclipse will be total!

(June 30)

∙ News: MMS says that he is not a lame duck PM.
Comment: True! At least a lame duck has one good leg!

(June 29)

∙ Good News: Baba Ramdev out of danger.
Bad News: Lokpal Bill still in ICU.

(June 11)

∙ Once eager to give Baba Ramdev a banquet, the Congress right now is not even interested in giving him Fast Food…

(June 10)

∙ Fasting Anna. Fleeing Baba. Weeping Acharya. Dancing Sushma. Shoehurling “journo”. Fuming Sibal. Loosetalking Diggy. Unfortunate Singh. Unavoidable tamasha. Silent Sonia. Invisible Rahul. Returning Sadhavi…
Ye Bill LokPal Bill nahin, LokNatak hai!
P.S. Can’t wait for tomorrow’s developments!

(June 7)

∙ There was this Facebook birthday wish refrain,
Which came like a runaway train,
Not once but again,
and again and again,
and again and again and again!

(June 6)

∙ Like Good Cop Bad Cop, Cong plays a version of Good Politician Bad Politician on all issues, with Digvijay Singh always being the Bad Politician…

(June 4)

© Sunil Rajguru