Currently listening

1. Under the table and dreaming - Dave Matthews' Band

2. Crash - Dave Matthews' Band

3. Some Devil - Dave Matthews

4. A rush of blood to the head - Coldplay

5. Viva la vida - Coldplay

It makes me wonder whether I am wired wrong in the head when I am ready to chuck all that I have ever wanted to do just to try to see if something new will work. And then, I realized that there isn't even a sliver of comprise from the other side of the table.

Makes me the biggest fool around, I guess.

Insomniac

I don't really need the lovesick thoughts of a girlfriend, the unknown worries of a hazy future or the stress that works give me to keep me sleepless.

I still f***ing can't sleep.

In the sand.

Sometimes the girl is here

With her indigo eyes

And her brand new gear

She won't stay for long

She has to walk straight home

Patience, time comes, she says

Kiss me but don't you tell

This over as soon as this fire burns through

She's on the ocean

He's in the sand

She's stuck in motion

He is sliding gently off her hand

Springtime and turnoil

She pours white wine

And gets herself lost

She falls over

And disappears into the meadows

Wayward and highstrung

She is lovesick and ever so strong

Then it's over like none of this ever was real

She's on the ocean

He's in the sand

She's stuck in motion

He slides so gently off her hand

Perception

Have you ever seen your fondest dreams turn into your worst nightmares?

Quite honestly...

... I do not look like a clapper, or neither am I one. And you really do not have the potential to be an electromagnet - not yet. So, the bottom line is - quit trying to make the bell ring.

But...

I am drunk, I am pissed, I can write code....

... but I don't still f***ing have the idea that will make me billionaire, the subject of several books and a movie.

EPIC_FAIL.

Currently listening...

The Great Cold Distance - Katatonia
We Lost The Skyline - Porcupine Tree
Deadwing - Porcupine Tree
Fear of Blank Planet - Porcupine Tree
In Absentia - Porcupine Tree
The Sky Moves Sideways - Porcupine Tree
Lightbulb Sun - Porcupine Tree
Orchid - Opeth
My Arms, Your Hearse - Opeth

For the record

The Subbubowl score currently stands at 8 - 4, up from 8 - 3 last time around.

In other news, if you must buy an Android phone seriously consider the Samsung Galaxy S. Loaded piece of hardware. Really nifty and geeky enough for the nerd.

Renewal of a passport is 50% of a breeze now thanks to TCS doing all the data-entry and the ITES. Works like a bloody charm. Of the three hours that I spent at the passport office today, TCS cleared me and my application in approximately 20 mins flat. I waited for close to two hours to have a fairly elderly somewhat disgruntled aunty who also doubled up as one of those Passport officers to look at my application for about 30 seconds and grunt three times, before cancelling my old passport.

That's all, folks!

What the fray?

This used to play quite a bit on RadioIndigo quite a bit a year-ish(?) ago. And for some frickin' insane reason it's still stuck in my head....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWBzAzqyD9o

Here, go stick it in your head now!

Three

It just fucking did not make any sense to wait for darkness to fall. Three bullets. Three pints of blood. Three miles behind enemy lines. Three hundred meters from that last remaining gun-house. Three thousand dead to take that sector.

It just fucking did not matter anymore. Three minutes of surprisingly quick crawling through the undergrowth. Three meters from the doorway to the gun house.

Three motherfuckers inside. One for each.

He pulled the pins from the last three grenades on his belt. He counted three and ran in. And took them to kingdom come. Fitting end to three decades of existence.

Images

The ubiquitous yellow taxi in Kolkata

The business district in Singapore, as seen from the Singapore Flyer.

Spotted deer at Rajiv Gandhi National Park, Nagarhole.

Memories

Given my penchant for all things silicon (wink, wink) and technology, this is _NOT_ a post about RAM, ROM or the likes. In fact, to clarify the winks, it is also not about politically-incorrect or physiological enhancements that keeps both practitioners and quacks of cosmetic surgery minting the moolah.

Back in college, I used to be the proud owner of a shady portable CD player that someone had given me. It was one of those dollar-shop things that America-return people used to pick up for their lesser Indian relatives and friends. In times when iPods were expensive (and mostly unheard of in the hands of engineering students in government colleges) and other MP3 players were scorned upon by elders who believed that listening to music while studying was uncalled for and if it had to be listened to then sitting in front of the computer was the way to go - the CD player was a prized possession. But, do realize that a CD player alone does not solve problems, and these were those problems that could be solved only if you had audio CDs and audio CDs were expensive back then and still are a little pricey. The alternative was to burn your own CDs - blank discs were close to 30 bucks a pop - with a CD writer. And, I did not own a CD writer. Luckily, for me an uncle had an external CD writer which he did not use and wasn't much attached to. This found its way into my possession and I started burning music - with my financial resources (read pocket money), I was able to make a grand total of 5 discs. One of which got corrupted for some arcane reason.

Disc One had an assorted collection of Joe Satriani and was the one that played only the first six tracks out of the thirteen that I managed to cram. The notable ones that I remember are Summer song, Always with me always with you, Lights of heaven and Until we say goodbye.

Disc Two had assorted Metallica tracks. This one was particularly dear to me since I started listening to metal with Metallica (specifically Master of Puppets and Sad But True). In addition to these two, there was Creeping Death, Nothing Else Matters, Ride the Lightning, Fuel, Unforgiven ( I and II), Enter Sandman, Sanitarium and others that I cannot now remember.

Disc Three had the entire Scenes From a Memory by Dream Theater. This was off a disc of MP3s that I had purchased in National Market (this by the way has been the only music that I have purchased from National Market - ever!). I'd just started listening to DT and somehow this album was the one that I liked the most. Very recently, I took this off my iPod when I realized I spent an inordinate amount of time listening to this album from start to end. I am quite sure that the sectors that had Overture - 1928 were the most ghisaoed.

Disc Four had a bunch of mixed tracks - Sounds of Silence ( Simon & Garfunkel), Jamica (Harry Belafonte), All you need is love (The Beatles), Comfortably Numb (Pink Floyd), Coming back to life (Pink Floyd) and some others that escape my memory. This was one that played a lot on that player - one notable listener was Tho, who claims that he fell in love with Simon and Garfunkel after listening to this CD. He now even has a Simon and Garfunkel T-shirt and I, guess, most of their work.

Disc Five I have no recollection of burning but it had random Iron Maiden tracks - Fear of the Dark, Wasted Years and Number of the Beast. This was an unmarked disc - the others had the track listing written down in a painfully neat list on the face with permanent marker. Dickinson & Co. somehow never got that respect and effort back then and it remained a blank CD that I used to recognize by the Imation logo and a scratch at a particular location.

There were other tracks that I and Bhayak used to incessantly listen to on the computer. These are numerous and I cannot remember them except when I listen to them. The discs used to be the music that I used to fall asleep to when I was traveling between Surathkal and Bangalore. There are tracks that I associate with people and events that transpired over the four years in college - Sweet Child of Mine and Yellow with a girl I used to like; Comfortably Numb, Wish you were here and Coming back to life with sitting alone and retrospecting; Spitleaf with sessions on the Edge in Final Block; When the levee breaks and Kashmir with Bhayak waking me up at odd hours of the day; Christmas in July with playing NFS - Hot Pursuit; It must have been love with belting Tho for listening to yucky-love-songs; The blood and tears with the first inter-collegiate fashion show that I watched in MIT, Manipal - to name a few.

Even now, when I go to Surathkal to recruit people or for some other arcane reason I carry all these songs on my iPod with me. I got to Garuda; down a few cold ones and find my way to the beach in the night, walk along till Shanbogue, sit on my rock, check the sky for a moving satellite, walk to the statue and then through the campus to the STEP beach gate while listening to these songs. There are new gates and new locks and new walls and fences to climb over but all I need to do is close my eyes and see what used to be.

WTF

The last time it was bra colors. Now, it is apparently where they like it. Where the f*** did you leave your brains?

Go get a research degree and make a medical breakthrough, go join an NGO and do campaigns, go talk to people and tell them.

"Either way I don't give a damn about what you are entitled to!" - Jack Nicholson - "A Few Good Men"

"Either way I don't give a damn where you like to do it or leave it, but just remember to flush!!!" - Moi - Here.

Wish

In case you have some spare cash (read loads of money) lying around, here is some stuff that I like...

1) Canon EF 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 L IS USM lens.
2) Canon EF 100mm f2.8 USM Macro lens.
3) A Warlock Kerry King 7 _OR_ A Ibanez JSBDG
4) IPad
6) Kindle


I'd be glad to come over and pick it up from your place if you want.

Crossie

Against Newton's fruit in what does not belong to me expresses terrible anger. (2,5)

Sneaky feeling...

...that the other team isn't very pleased with the performance of the American Universities this season at the Subbu-Superbowl. They are going to be trying very hard to catch up, get into the lead and keep it that way. This advertisement was brought to you by the Mohan-Meakin Distilleries.

In other news, most of Indian folk-rock sounds pretty much the same. You've heard one, then you have more or less heard 'em all. Just that the stage-gimmicks might be a little different. Swarathma relies too heavily on their violinist, the drummer is talented but the rest of the crew is just plain good. Nothing spectacular, but all the same a tight-act.

Belgian beer is not a drink. It's an experience. Even a single mouthful. Swirl it around a little, taste it, swirl it again, slowly swallow it and then relish the rich after-taste before you repeat the process. Yes, your wallet will be much lighter than if you stuck to that yeast-piss that long-salt-pepper-haired bugger with that lout for a son (who has eye-candy arm-trophy women he calls girlfriends).

Bonus crossword clue: Brittle cardiac tissue in colder climes may suffer from this condition. (10)

He he he...

New template. Justified text. Nerdvana.

Currently in my head...

1. Madness - Flavors of Entaglement - Alanis Morissette.
2. No Sunlight - Narrow Stairs - Deathcab for Cutie.
3. 3 rounds and a sound - 3 rounds and a sound - Blind Pilot
4. Needled 24/7 - Hate crew deathroll - Children of Bodom
5. Fade to black - Ride the lightning - Metallica.

Mumbai Memoirs

WARNING - Long-ish post. If you are looking for the punchline right now - nope, I think the mission bombed. Go figure!

And now on to the verbosity...

The rush to the Bangalore airport was a photo finish – thanks to the traffic and my lapse in judgment of the traffic. Reaching the airport eight minutes before check-in closes, being the last to check-in and gulping down a large rum-and-cola in the little remaining time post-security checks made for a flight that I will remember for a long time. A fairly uneventful flight with the welcome bantering that Indigo pilots are ever wont to – Capt. Krishnan ranted about the absolute stupidity of the Mumbai ATC despite having reached ahead of time and yet having to circle around for thirty minutes.

The thing that strikes first when one sees Mumbai from the air is the sheer size of the city and the blaze of lights that it is. Bangalore is little patches of light with one fairly large patch, but Mumbai is a massive mass of twinkling brightness. The Ganesh Chaturthi season just added a little more character – long strings of blinking colored lights. Even at half-past-eleven the city was still awake. There were buses and cars plying on the road – I even saw a couple of traffic jams.

A little after midnight and past the usual touts at the airport I got into an autorickshaw with a vague idea of my destination and instructions from my aunt on the phone. I have this thing - if the driver thinks you are new to the city then you are setting yourself up for a rip-off and I usually pretend that I am just coming back home. But, surprisingly this wasn’t the case – I wasn’t overcharged and the meter, despite having seen better days about ten years ago wasn’t tampered. And, that was generally the deal with every auto or taxi in Mumbai. These guys have managed to figure out one very important thing – if you refuse a passenger or overcharge them then there are twenty others who are going to be willing to take them to their destination at the standard fare. If an auto or a taxi in Mumbai refuses to come to someplace then that means that he really doesn’t want to go there – no saar-kaali-bar-beku-vonnand-half or meter-mele-extra-kodi-saar. He will not come. Period.

Mumbai is a city that has changed, is changing and will change. It’s changed quite a bit from when I was there four years ago, a lot from when I was there six years ago, and I really can’t connect to the Mumbai that I lived in as a kid for five years from 1992-97. There are just these little slivers that seem to have remained intact from what I have in my memory – my school, the old house, the neighbours and the shop where I used to buy my pencils and notebooks, but there is an enormous amount of new things that have sprouted up.

What is, though clearly, still imprinted in my mind is that sense of urgency that everyone in Mumbai has – everyone is in the process of getting somewhere. Constantly. Only for a moment will you see a man relax with a cup of tea and a cigarette at the street corner before he rushes to work, the housewife smoothen her hair before she continues peeling vegetables in the crowded local train or a college kid taking a second to salivate at a svelte model on a hoarding before running to hang off an overcrowded bus.

The city is crowded and bursting at the seams with more and more people pouring in each day. Everything is scrunched up – right from buildings to people traveling in a local train during peak hour down to the vada inside the pav. It’s a mad fight for space in a city that is spilling over with people. There are people everywhere – swarming and seething and moving around in waves. People and vehicles move around in a strange ballet ducking, skirting and jumping over each other. The bus will just stop for an instant and without the driver blowing the horn the pedestrian move out of the way. Getting off the train just requires you to put yourself reasonably in the line of sight of the door at your station and the crowd will do the rest. Of course, you’d want to carry a can of deodorant with you at all times.

At night, the city doesn’t sleep and a significant portion of it parties – and on Fridays and Saturdays I was told it parties hard. I had the fortune of meeting up with friends from college on Friday night. First at Toto’s in Bandra which I located with Google maps on my phone (have Google maps, will travel) where my friend pointed out the lead guitarist (or was it the drummer?) from Indus Creed. Toto’s is a trippy pub bordering on being psychedelic - it has an old car with bright neon tubes around it hanging off the roof. The bottom of the car doubles up as the roof of the bar off which cocktail glasses hang. The music is ranges from reasonably good to stuff that I don’t care much about. A smallish place which on that Friday night was pretty crowded – there was hardly any place to move around.

After that, we headed off to the Hard Rock Café. Now, I’ve never been to the Hard Rock Café in Bangalore (well, for that matter any Hard Rock Café) – primarily because I don’t see the point in going alone, plans that happen with friends to catch a live performance never work out and people who promise treats at HRC never make good on the promise (yes, I am looking at you, you fat little kid/pig). Despite that, I am quite confident that the crowd in Bangalore can probably never match up to the crowd that was there in Mumbai that night. There were the usual investment banker types, rich-dad-sons, amit_123s(ugh! and double ugh!) and women. Oh…the women – in every size, shape, color and state of skimpiness. Boy, do they know how to dress and they know how to flaunt what their mama (or the cosmetic surgeon) gave them. Drop-dead gorgeous would be an understatement. All this glitz and glamour – my friend swore was nothing extraordinary; it was just another Friday night.

A look-see in Shiro next door was another one of those culture-shocks that I thought I’d probably never see – only just hear about it. Shorter clothes and tipsier women – light years away from the Shiro in Bangalore. The dance floor was full of the incorrigible amit_123s(ugh! and double ugh!) and their brunette/blonde bomb-shells. I was probably the only stereotypical Bangalore-techie in that place that night with a bulky backpack to boot. So, I quietly parked my burning bacon (for the Kannadiga – urkondiro thikka) on the edge of the artificial pool – a little wall about four feet or so high and about eight inches thick. Five minutes later there were three very beautiful women in very short clothes up on that little wall dancing. The desperate software engineer voyeur in me was dying to swivel neck to the left with tongue out and jollu dripping to watch those curves flow ever so smoothly in time with the music – ah…! – but then their hatte-khatte Punjab-de-puttar companions – the smallest about thrice my size and my sense of propriety made me continue gazing at the hundreds of red bulbs hanging off the ceiling on twenty feet long wires. That and what was to come the morning of Sabbath. In the wee hours of Saturday, we walked out of the place and I headed back with the friend to his place. Party scene in Mumbai – check. Actually partying – epic fail. My social ineptness – for the win!

As I write this, I can’t think of a word better than chaos to describe Mumbai in a word. But, it is a controlled organized chaos – if you look long enough carefully, it is a complicated dance that is being danced to an even more complicated tune. Everyone plays his or her part, whatever it might be, and moves on mindful of their own personal agenda – from the auto drivers who scream for ten-seconds at each other on the road for cutting lanes without warning, the poor laborers who sleep in the open leaning shanties made of four sticks and a ragged leaky tarpaulin or the random couples who hook up in pubs and discs to spend that one night together. The Mumbaikar knows that time is money and in the end it is money that speaks - even the BigMan above in his places of worship gets just about the right time from his devotee before he rushes off to get on with his task of finding food, money, love and life in this crazy city.

Random

Ignorance is bliss, but ignoring me gets me pissed. Capito?

Words of Wisdom

It is better to have a written lousy code and crashed, than to have not written code at all.



PS: The code and the crashing is just there to confuse you. Much like how the red and tick-tock are there to confuse you when asked about an orange. Go figure.

The older you get...

...the lesser you have to say. I just seem to be content with thinking things that I would have liked to say, and to think that I might say those things. I have taken to look back at things with a tinge of sadness, some regret and an unhealthy dose of cynicism. Every past action or memory, I tear apart in my head with that unmistakable feeling of why-the-f***-did-I-do-it.

Retrospection is like like watching the spilled milk flowing over your keyboard and cursing yourself for not being vegan and for not sticking to an abacus.

FML.

Note to self...

Remember to smile back when someone smiles at you. Even if it is a stranger.


Ignore the creep old-ish man giving you evil looks.


Especially, if it was the cute girl that smiled at you first.


Idiot.

On my FB feed.

Someone put up a status message that read something to the effect of that person liking home - home pages, coming back home....and home runs.

Thanks.

I feel so enlightened.

Bah!

Rose

The sunlight streamed in through the blue curtains while the fan whirred away on the ceiling. It looked like it was going to be pretty good Sunday. She fidgeted around sleepily yet again to find a comfortable spot. He lay warm beside, his arm beneath her head. The small sharp beep woke her up and she looked at her cellphone. Suddenly she was wide awake - it was 10:00 AM. She'd never stayed over so late with a man she'd just met. Last night the dinner and the drinks were good. The dance was better - she hadn't had so much fun dancing in a long time. And he could talk about anything under the sun with a humor that made her smile every time. Her perfect red lips crinkled into a little smile. She was turning a little soft.

She slowly wriggled out from under the bedcovers, careful not wake him up. Her clothes lay on the floor in a mess. She quickly dressed herself up and got her hair back into shape. She turned to look at him - satisfied and lost in sleep. She opened her purse and drew out a single red rose - a little for the worse, but it still smelt like a rose. Then, she lay it on his chest and softly kissed him on his lips. His heart beat a little faster - but, just for a moment.

She checked his wallet on the bedside and left him 10 bucks. The rest went into her purse - a fat thick wad of notes. Enough to last the month out in style. He gave a little snore. The pills were working just fine.

"This is going to be a perfect Sunday, after all..."

The door closed with silent click behind her, as she let herself out.

Blood

The sound was insignificant - a nondescript plop. Much like the sound that a warm bottle of soda makes when it is opened. And, well, honestly what followed was also not much different - a little hiss, vapor rising and then the soda overflowing on the hand - vaguely cold and occasionally sticky. The after-effects differed - if it was some cheap ripoff local concoction, then the pot was throne over the next couple of days, and if it was some decent stuff then it filled the belly with enough gas to manage a strong imitation of the wind section of an orchestra. Smelly, but with practice it could sound good.

He caressed the metal. Oddly enough, it did not feel cold like they said in the books. It felt warm - not the warmth of freshly baked bread, but more like the warmth of a fever. Fever wasn't meant to be comfortable - it was sickness and one, obviously felt, nauseated, but the warmth of the metal was strangely comforting. Maybe it wasn't the warmth, maybe it was the what lay ahead. The polished metal shone with a dully under the single naked tungsten light, reflecting the featureless and peeling green paint on the walls. He looked up at the window as the sun set in a blaze casting the dying orange glow into the room.

"Good..."

He pulled the trigger and splattered the walls with his brains. The single red rose on the floor started turning a strange shade of crimson with his blood.

Eyes wide shut

The colored lights, when I close my eyes, never stop dancing. There are blobs - shapeless now, and in a fraction of a second become something from a past memory. They change color - comforting and warm and then harsh and painful - fed by thoughts that run through. I hurtle at breakneck speed on an endless track, tethered to a dangerously rattling roller coaster car - alone with the belt cutting across my body. There are faces on the sides of the tunnel - grinning, mocking, angry, sad and longing. Not all of them are what they are. The worst are the ones that are longing - fragments of a memory or desire long gone.

I open my eyes to collect my thoughts and I realize that it was never - ever. I am just another one of those leather bound books with golden engravings on the rib and yellowed pages that talk of things that were never interesting. Those books that stay up high on the bookshelf - a constant reiteration of the image of intellectuality that an illiterate millionaire wishes to project. Removed for no reason other that the occasional dusting by the maid. A nameless book by a faceless author about things that do not matter.

Goodbye, cruel world!

Shyte!!!

Check this out!

I've been reading my old posts here chronologically backwards from the first one. And the comments as well. Besides having a shady reference to being single (yes, it still is prevalent in all my posts), I used to write a damn sight more that I do now.

But that is not the point...the point is this - this.

Now very carefully read the comment. And then do what it says - exactly. And then look at the first link.

Whoohoo...cheap thrills!


And 'spb', whoever you are - you have a lot of time on your hands and you are 'DA GOOGLER"!

Currently...

Reading
*Multiple City - Writings on Bangalore - Edited by Anita De. (Danke Goobe!)
*In Xandau - William Dalrymple
*Chai Chai - Bishwanath Ghosh
*Remains of the Day - Kauzo Ishiguro
*The 'C' Language - Dennis Ritchie and Brian Kernighan
*Introduction to Algorithms - Thomas H Cormen, Charles E Leiserson, Ronald Rivest, Clifford Stein

Listening
*Narrow Stairs - Deathcab for Cutie
*Zitilites - Kashmir
*No Balance Palace - Kashmir

////Update///
* 3 Rounds and a Sound - Blind Pilot
*I'm Wide Awake It's Morning - Bright Eyes
*Every Man for Himself - Hoobastank
*Antics - Interpol
*Turn on the bright lights - Interpol

About trees and dogs.

A very long time ago - about five years, I told I friend, that I thought I was barking up the wrong tree. It later turned out that I _actually_ was barking up the wrong tree. But that, was a long time ago - it's been ages since I've spoken to that friend(?), the tree that I thought was the right one back then isn't (or wasn't) the right one either and there have been several trees since then. And all those trees in between were all wrong. The only thing that still holds is the canine allusion.

At eleven in the night, when you are perfectly sober and sane, you can't really blame it on the alcohol. Blame it on myself. Bah!

Kati Patang

Based on the Reliance advert. that is doing the rounds these days, I am inclined to think that Kites is exactly as the advert. makes it out to be - an storyline hacked together over a vacation starting with lying on a deck chair and seeing kites flying in the sky. Random bits and pieces patched together with an overdose of glitz, glamor and violence to mask the total insipidity that underscores the entire premise, plot and climax.

Original, it is not. I had this strange sense of flashback through out the movie - the scenes and sequence were mercilessly ripped out of various cult/classic/landmark movies. It always seemed as if I had seen this before, but with different faces and different voices. I can't seem to put my finger on all of the cliches but here are the few that come to mind immediately.

The opening part where a severely hurt Hrithik Roshan is rushed to the village doctor who pulls out the bullets in his makeshift OR is a sequence that has be beaten senseless by countless directors - drinking alcohol out of a shot glass, then using the remaining alcohol to sterilize the instruments and finally, dropping the offending blood coated bullet into the glass again. The first thing it reminds me of is the Bourne Identity - of course that happens out at sea, but the idea is the same (I wouldn't be surprised if that, too, was flicked from elsewhere).

When Hrithik sees Barbara Mori, underwater is another one. The earliest instance of such underwater imagery I can remember is from the Silk Route video - Dooba dooba (which I may add is one of my fave songs ever). The latest, barring Kites, I can remember is Blue. Now if you draw inspiration from a movie like that, it speaks volumes about desperation notwithstanding Lara Dutta.

The flashback in the apartment when he comes to find here smacks of Anurag Kashyap's DevD - bright red lighting and wide open eyes. And this was a sentiment that was equally shared by anddeep and anti-social butterfly. This is just one, and I am sure if I have the testicular fortitude to sit through the damn thing another time, I can find countless others.

The standoff and the shooting that follows in the rain when Hrithik comes back to look for Barbara is bang out of Sin City - there is little else that can be the way Frank Miller thinks and Robert Rodriguez executes. Dark nights, heavy rain and minimal lighting that throws people's profiles into stark contrast against the black. Strategically placed and colored neon signs to streak the character the right color. Another movie that heavily used this in recent times was Kaminey - the part where they find the drugs and then head to the trailer where Fahid[sic!] Kapoor lives.

This last one might seem a little bit of a stage two connect, but the climax simply reminds me of Gladiator. I don't know if I am being rude to Russel Crowe or extremely kind to Hrithik Roshan - just before he jumps off the cliff the look on his face reminds me of the faraway longing look on Maximus' face before he dies in the middle of the Colosseum.

All in all, it's a lousy movie filled with a lot of pointless things, fake accents and exploding cars. The cheap rip-offs leave you thinking about all the other awesome movies that they were ripped off from, rather than Kites itself. Anurag Basu - sincere advice - Vegas, Kangana almost doing a wardrobe malfunction and lots of Spanish cannot make a weak plot interesting. And just because Hrithik can dance does not mean his primary profession is that of a dance-teacher (though I know for a fact that women are impressed by guys who can dance and dance class is an excellent way to find a girlfriend) - he could have just as well been a photographer or a guitar teacher or a hairdresser.

Kites is best avoided unless you want to moon over Barbara Mori who seems to be one saving grace in the movie. She is beautiful and breathtakingly so - plain, simple and sweet. Just like the girl you always hoped you would meet on the bus or in the Metro. I am in love with yet another woman I'll never meet. Hrithik's physique makes you feel like a slob. Next to Steve Reeves, this man's poster will be among the posters in my gym (if I ever get around to having one). I have yet again promised to myself to run in the morning - it's been two days since seeing the movie and I am yet to make good on that one. The cinematography is good and mostly strong - except when there are closeups of faces and half the face is outside the frame. I am inclined to give the cinematographer the benefit of doubt and blame it on the editing and the screen that I watched it on. I just hope it can float around long enough to break even, though God and everyone else knows that it sucks!

Currently listening

Alanis Morisette - Flavors of Entaglement
Amy MacDonald - This is the life
Camera Obscura - My Maudlin Career

Listen. Well worth the effort.

The question is...

...should I or shouldn't I? What about the consequences...?






Sigh...well...

$init 0

Currently...

It's been a fairly lousy month on the whole, barring work (which is going on decently enough except for attending pointless meetings). No admits yet - 6 rejects and waiting on 2. Sucks! It isn't even politically correct these days to ask someone for coffee. Or I just don't know how to. Either way - L!

Have a nice weekend, mortals.

Current reading
1. The Kenneth Anderson Omnibus - Volume 1 - Kenneth Anderson
2. Phantoms in the Brain - V.S. Ramachandran & Sandra Blakslee
3. What do you care what other people think ? - Further adventures of a curious character - Richard.P.Fenyman
4. The Collected short stories - Roald Dahl

Untitled

Despite what anyone says, I know it is going to unfold just the way I predict. I am sure - I have seen it before. Too many times for my own good.

Statistically speaking ...

... I have had more success with asking women out when compared to applying for a Master's degree.

Damn!!!

Maybe...

... I should just screw all the noble aspirations and desire to learn and make a difference - to probably make things a little better. I should just become one of the many billions whose only aim is to make tons and tons of money for themselves. Become materialistic, suck up, ditch the morals, fake it.

Eagles fly high, but weasels don't get sucked into propellers.

SOD IT!

Of protocols and standards...

Have you ever spared a thought for why, despite your using shitty Internet Explorer or the popular Mozilla Firefox or the uber-elite Safari or the wannabe-cool Chrome, this post that you are reading looks pretty much the same? Of course, if you are the techie like me, you would have put the title of this post and the last question together and figured out the answer. If you have the answer please feel free to skip the next paragraph and read on. The others, hang on a little...

Ok, so the deal is this - standards and standardized protocols. What it simply means is that it is a pre-determined and agreed steps of communicating and interpreting. If some bit of software, or hardware for that matter, says that it supports a protocol or a standard it means that if you were to use another similar program or hardware from a different vendor that claimed to support the same protocol or standard, the results you would see would be similar. The advantage is, quite simply, that your life is a little bit simpler. I want my readers to see this blog with a gray background and I know that despite what you are using to see this, you are going to be seeing a gray background. Why? Because this page has been generated by HTML and CSS (in addition to others) which are standardized. To put it in perspective - if you went to a restaurant and asked for a glass of water, you would be served a clear potable liquid that consisted of H20 (mostly). Everyone understands what water is!!! That is the beauty - all you need to understand is something that is publicly available and if you do understand that then it means that you will be able to communicate clearly and lucidly to anyone who understands that. Simple!

At this point you might be asking yourself what is this guy trying to get at, in this beer induced state? All I am trying to say is that webpages and cellphones and other assorted technology is not the only thing that ought to be standardized. Personal interactions could be standardized as well. My biggest gripe is that there is no clear cut way to express that you like a certain member of the opposite sex without running the risk of embarrassing yourself in some manner or the other. Ask a number too soon and you are labeled horny, desperate or a host of other disparaging titles. Keep waiting and some total dumb-idiot will come and sweep her away. And the worst part is, he will be the kind who can string three words into a sentence, or will be some arcane philosopher idiot who walks with his head so far up his rear-side that he cannot see where he is walking.

In short, there has to be some accepted method where it is perfectly normal for a guy(girl) to ask a girl(guy) he(she) has met not so long ago for a number or express interest. In case, she(he) is already taken, there is some respectable way to say that as well. Both parties walk away with their pride and self-respect intact. No loose or horny labels. Personally, I think there will be a lot less trouble or violence that way.

And, yeah, screw all the excitement and mystery that you might probably not get. If I want mystery or excitement, I'll go read Doyle or watch a Tarantino flick.