Remembering my pre-season ritual from the glory days of Manchester United
Remembering my pre-season ritual from the glory days of Manchester United
I still got goosebumps after going back to it!
Green Day is coming to India!
And I’m going to watch them live! The inner child in me is ecstatic and I can’t wait to scream my lungs out singing Holiday and Jesus of Suburbia. Back in 2023, I went through the same emotions when Backstreet Boys performed live in Mumbai. The Lollapalooza India 2025 artist line-up looks quite interesting. But I’ll be honest, I only know a handful of them. That is why, I’m taking this as an opportunity to enter into new genres by listening to all of them over the next six months. Then I decide whom to watch live. Despite being strongly averse to crowds and loud music festivals, I’ve slowly ventured into going for gigs. Imagine depriving myself from the high of watching my favourite band performing live and singing along with them all these years. This is something very new to me (Lolla India being my second experience). So I think I’ll be attending more of these.
Before I was gushing about Green Day to everyone, I had a wonderfully productive Sunday. You may have come across the state of flow on the internet. It’s a mental state when you feel a deeply satisfying experience of doing something. When I discovered this concept, it didn’t take much effort to understand that organising things completely absorbs me. Sometimes for hours. This spans over a wide set of tasks such as reorganising my wardrobe, cleaning my PC, changing the folder structure of my cloud backups, or simply customising Excel sheets. Why do I bring this up? Because I got fully immersed while creating a sheet dedicated to monitor my investments and lost track of time. Yes, there are some robust apps that do the job, but I wanted more granular control. Thanks to a tutorial by Ravi Handa from Desi Fire Podcast, I had a basic version up and running in no time. However, I’m still working on implementing a few more metrics that I need. Maybe I could share the final template once it’s ready? Let me know in the comments.
In other news, fresh iPhones are out. While the products revealed at these launches may or may not excite you, there’s no denying that Apple never misses when it comes to curating an upbeat playlist. I seriously don’t remember the last time where I didn’t scurry off and fired up Shazam to identify the songs playing in the background. The iPhone 16 event was no less and now I have a couple of new earworms. More on them below.
Have a splendid week ahead!
▶️ Videos
I’m gradually catching up with the current momentum of the English Premier League and Manchester United, but I can’t help but feel nostalgic about the good old days. The time when every aspect of our play was sharp, calculated and menacing. Whether it would be Rooney shooting out of nowhere in the back of the net, Nani kicking long crosses straight onto the striker’s foot, or Giggs setting up the perfect play that would ultimately result in a goal, there are endless iconic memories. However, there was a specific annual pre-season ritual that I always looked forward to: the season promo video edits by aditya_reds. Do you remember? Not a single video would go by where I wouldn’t get goosebumps and feel instantly hyped for the next season, including the special edits. Like the kickass welcoming video edit for Jose Mourinho or when we had signed up Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Or the tear-jerker tribute to Sir Alex Ferguson on his retirement that could make any grown man cry. You just had to be there! I’m just glad that Aditya is still making these edits, and I will look forward to more of his magic.
What do you think is the first beverage created by humans? Make a wild guess before reading ahead. Done? If you guessed tea or coffee, you’re wrong. Wine isn’t correct either. Did you think about beer? You may be right. And by any chance if milk popped in your head, you may have the correct answer. This uncertainty comes from the lack of evidence spread across centuries of a hazy timeline. But most of the clues point to milk and beer. My favourite takeaway from this video was the host reminding us that beverages are pretty new to our diet on an evolutionary scale. Before our beverage industry disruption, the only liquid we consumed was water. Our bodies are still evolving to sustain a liquid diet with a diverse range of hot and cold beverages. It’s fascinating how we are simply speed-running the natural course of life. Something to think about when you pick up the sixth or seventh serving of your favourite beverage.
Less is more. This has been a raging sentiment since the minimalist movement picked up a few years ago. However, this concept isn’t new to Japan and apparently it forms a core part of their culture. The video below does an excellent job of elaborating the perspective of not going beyond your needs. And majority of the Japanese would choose a lower quantity of a beverage despite being the same price as the larger one. My recent lifestyle choices have been a constant effort to find moderation between minimalism while indulging in a few luxuries. Because, moderation is key.
Do you have any exciting recommendations? Some more interesting tidbits you would like to share from the content mentioned here? Or just simple feedback? I would love to hear from you!
🎬 Films
I love action movies. Naturally, I love the John Wick films and anything that tries to emulate the same brand of action. In my recent memory, Nobody had a similar aesthetic, and then there was Monkey Man. The latest addition to this sub-genre of action films is Kill. And boy, was I surprised by the action choreography! It’s a story about an NSG Commando who boards a train that gets hijacked by around 40 bandits. What follows is pure mayhem as he goes on a killing spree, blurring the lines between good and evil. The raw combat and action is rare in Bollywood and I’m here for it. Go and watch it on Disney+ Hotstar! In my final attempt to convince you to watch this film, did you know that Chad Stahelski, the director of all the John Wick films, is officially doing a Hollywood remake of this film? It’s that good!
Follow me on Letterboxd to know more about the films that I watch and love.
🎵 Music
This week’s music recommendations are courtesy of the Apple iPhone 16 event. Loaded with several bangers, my favourites being TAKA and Neverender that played in-between the presentation. Here’s the full playlist on Apple Music curated by a kind soul.
While waiting in the queue for the event to begin, I started humming a catchy track from an older Apple event. But I had forgotten the name and no matter how hard I searched, I wasn’t able to find the song. I suddenly remembered Google’s “Hum to Search” feature, and this was its opportunity to shine. To my surprise, it actually served the result, despite my terrible humming, with a 47% match. This song played in the opening intro of the Apple WWDC 2019 event. I would urge you to try this Google feature. I’m sure you will be delighted when it works.
✒️ Quote of the Week
“The quality of your life depends quite a bit on the quality of attention you project out onto the world.” – How To Know A Person, David Brooks.
🚀 Looking for more?
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Photo by Dan Parker on Unsplash