It’s that time of the year again when we pause for a moment and look back at that year bygone. The search engines have done their bit by releasing their list of hottest search terms of 2006. This time around these lists created a fair bit of controversy as several renowned bloggers alleged that these lists are nothing but carefully edited marketing tools. The controversy got so much attention that Google was forced to post an explanation on the Google Blog. I am still not convinced though (more on this later in the article)
Anyway, that aside Google Year-End Zeitgeist was as usual interesting to go through.
The Top Gainers list continues to be dominated by Web2.0 websites. While in 2005 only three out of the top 10 gainers (Myspace, Wikipedia and Orkut) were Web 2.0 sites, in 2006 their number is five (Bebo, myspace, metacafe, wikipedia and wiki). This shows that Web 2.0 is something which continues to fascinate people as well as mainstream media. “define:Web 2.0″ is second in the list of most popular defination searches while Ajax which is another term associated with Web 2.0 is at number 5. A lot of people also wanted to learn how to create a wiki or a blog or how to podcast.
The “what is” list on the other hand is dominated by various drugs. Two of them ‘Vicodin’ and “hydrocodone” have been made famous by the medical drama “House”, whose protagonist Dr.Gregory House is addicted to vicodin (brand name for Hydrocodone).
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For those Americans reading about EA�cricket, a quick flip through cyberspace will yield much info about how this game is played and how cricket equipment differs from baseball equipment. And for those who prefer the winter variety of sport, read about snowboarding, right down to the best snowboarding pants to wear.

Ea Sports Cricket 07 is the latest avatar of the long running cricket game series. In the past Ea Sports has received a lot of flak for the poor quality of gameplay in their cricket games. Cricket 2005 was a complete disaster as far as gameplay was concerned. So, what most people were asking for is better gameplay. Like always EA made a bagfull of promises before release. So, did they deliver? Before answering that question I shall highlight the major changes/additions in this edition.

Whats New?

i) The first major new feature is Century Stick. Unfortunately I don’t have an analogue gamepad. So I wasn’t able to test it myself. According to Ea Sports those of you having an analogue controller will be able to play different shots by just pushing the stick in the desired direction. The power of strokes will depend on the amount of pressure you apply on the stick.

ii) Ea Sports have lost the licensing rights from ICC. Hence there is no Worldcup (however there is world championship) or Champions Trophy. They have retained the rights for England, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Players from other countries have goofed up names, and they have no face resemblance.

iii) Another major new addition is the Ashes series. You can take part in the Ashes 06-07 Downunder or relive the 05 Ashes in England. You can also relive several situations from the previous Ashes series. These mini challenges put you in a given scenario with a given set of objectives eg. scoring a half century with Pietersen or getting a hundred run opening partnership. You are introduced to each scenario using real clippings. Once you complete the challenge you unlock the same video in the Theatre. (It would have made more sense if the videos unlocked were different.)

iv) Twenty20 Cricket has also been introduced. You can play Twenty20 Championship with either Australian or English domestic teams. Although in Twenty20 format 2 runs were awarded for a no ball, free hit was not awarded.

Here is a full list of various Tournaments you can play

International : World Championship ( i.e Worldcup) in West Indies,
World Series in Australia, Knockout Cup in region of your choice, Test series, ODI series
Australian Domestic Cricket : Pura Cup, State Season, One Day Domestic Series, KFC Twenty20 Big Bash
English Domestic Cricket : County Season, Liverpool Victoria County Championship, Natwest Pro40, C&G Trophy, Twenty20 Cup.

v) One of the longstanding complaints of gamers has been that the pace of the game is too slow. Ea has finally listened. Now you can change the game speed (slow, medium and fast). This time around there are 5 difficulty levels instead of 3. You can also choose the number of overs of field restriction for 50 over games. There is no Powerplay though.

vi) Semi automatic fielding system similar to BLIC.

vii) And finally, there is no Jim Maxwell this time around! He has been replaced by Mark Nicholas.

Those were the major new features/changes. Now, let me do a bit of nitpicking

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life fitness treadmills

Previous Thursday (Indian time) the last episode of Lost fall season
was aired. The next episode would air on 7th Feb next year. So
that’s one looooooooong wait for us Losties. However, this is probably the best time to discuss various Lost theories and to look back at the past episodes. I am no good with theories so I would do the later.

My Most Memorable
Moments of the Season So Far:

Veoh cropped my video so edges are missing. You can download the video
from here