Musings From New York

The Eagle has Landed!

Mom arrived last night, a little delayed. There was a bit of a luggage malfunction, and she wasn't sure whether her luggage was on the same flight as she was. It all worked out in the end, and she's happiliy unpacking as I type.

Now this ...

ROCKS.

Good concept, nicely executed.

A Filmi Weekend

I watched a couple of films this weekend - Lage Raho Munna Bhai and The Protector.

One was pretty decent, and one was pretty bad.

Munna Bhai was very funny, no doubt about it. The setup is fairly close to what the first Munna Bhai film was, except this time, Sanjay Dutt starts off pretending to be a college history professor (seriously though, there are colleges that teach history in a country obsessed with Engineering & Medicine?). The thing that really ... REALLY bugged me was that about one hour into the movie, he switches to this Gandhian-crusader. The whole college setup was completely wasted. Good premise. Poof. Just like that. Pissed me off no end. But all said and done, lots of laughs and merriment all around. I also went with a bunch of Mumbai-ites (I figure I should force myself to stop calling it Bombay ... it's been what, a decade?), who were tripping out to seeing their neighborhoods and favorite hangouts on the big screen.

I wonder what it is about me and Mumabi-ites. So many of my close friends are from the state of Maharashtra. The rest live in Bangalore but are really Tam. Where are the Digas hiding?!

I watched The Protector tonight. It was ... pretty bad. Well ... some of the action sequences were amazing. Some pretty good martial arts there. But the rest of the movie is a string of badly written and incoherent scenes just acting as random filler for the movie. Which is a violation of the prime rule of a good martial arts movie (as quoted from the BloreBoy Book to Successful Martial Arts Movies). I mean, think of good martial arts movies .. take Jackie Chan movies, or Bruce Lee movies. Even the worst of the lot has decent filler scenes that put together a STORY. Is it that difficult for the Thai to do the same? This movie was supposed to be an international vehicle for Tony Jaa (martial artiste extrodinaire), and so the Oz backers probably said, "Eh let him beat some people up, make some story about elephants cos we want to have a holiday in the Thai countryside, where we can put some shrimp on tha baaaaaahbie". Depressing.

Disclaimer: Not all Aussies are thick-headed moronic stereotypes. 99.9% of the population just go about having g'days and listening to Kylie Monogue.

YES!!!!

Got the invite to download Windows Vista RC-1, as I had signed up as part of the beta test team. It's considered pretty stable currently. I am totally installing it!

A new me?

After receiving several complaints from my father about the picture with shaven head, I've decided to update the pic ... with the character Akshay on the Thorium Brotherhood server (what can I say, I was too bored to come up with a name).

Akshay is a night-elven hunter, currently level 56 (need to hit 60 before that expansion comes out!). The picture on the right is with one of my pets, a panther called Bagheera. My other pet is a bear named Baaloo.

La Meme Chose

I got tagged yet again - by Mike. So here we go (here we go, here we go ... here we go-oh! Here! We! Go!) ... oh, also note: I'm counting audiobooks in this list, when required.

1. Book that changed your life: Hmm ... two books here. The Ascent of Man , which admitedly was derived from the documentary on the Beeb. For the first time, I was able to see the scientific, social, cultural & economic evolution of man. And I got exposed to several heavily influential philosophies which shaped my thinking at an early age. That book is tied for first place with Machiavelli on Modern Leadership, which changed the way I approached my career & professional life. It's as much of a must-read as The Ascent of Man. Coming in close behind these two books would be Sophie's World: A Novel about the History of Philosophy.

2. Book you've read more than once: OK, there isn't enough space to list all the books I've ever owned (and I've owned a lot!). The one I've read the most is probably ... hmm ... The Lord of the Rings (I have a copy that has all 6 "sub-books" in one. I count that as ONE book!). I think at one point I owned about 4 copies of this book. I can even remember writing letters to Malz in Dwarfish Runes. Sigh ... good times.

3. Book you'd take to a desert island: Hmm ... Probably The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy (I mean the edition combining all books). It would be funny and ironic to my plight at the same time.

4. Book that made you laugh: Hmmm ... this is a very tough one, given that I read mostly humor, anyway! And hence I pick anything by Terry Pratchett ... with the exceptions of Night Watch & Monstrous Regiment.

5. Book that made you cry: I have NEVER cried while reading a book. Depressed, perhaps, or sad. But I've never cried. I guess I need visual impact for that :-) ... So instead I'll list the saddest moment I've read in a book ... well, actually it's the end of Dragons of Spring Dawning. All my favorite characters died horribly heroic, self-sacrificing & noble deaths, as befitting a D&D character.

6. Book you wish you had written: Hmm ... this is an odd question. I mean, is it from an artistic point of view, or just something I wish I had been able to do? I mean, I'd pick any of the Harry Potter books. KA-CHING, baby!

7. Book you wish had never been written: Harry Potter & The Order of the Phoenix. I might have been a rebellious teen, but WTF!?

8. Book you're currently reading: Around the World in 80 Days. Actually, I'm listening to the audiobook version of the Beeb documentary.

9. Book you've been meaning to read: Do any of my certification textbooks count?

10. Tagging: By the power vested in me, I tag thee, Vee, Malz, Dents, Nike, Rags, Shweyta, Roy, and Bioswami (who probably doesn't read this blog, but probably will after getting a sharp poke from his better half). Also, Kartik, Divvy & Priya - I know you guys don't have a blog, but feel free to send me the answers and I'll gladly post them.

Tagged!

After getting tagged multiple times, I've decided to give in. Sheesh.

I. Who tagged me?

    Who indeed?? In order to answer this question, we must probe the psyches of individuals. They must obviously be bored youth of this modern technological age, with nothing better to do. At the last count, there was Dents, Vee, and Malz. At the last count, mind.

II. Eight things about myself.

1. I'm a geek. I have owned - not all at the same time - 6 iPods (including the defective ones), 3 laptops, 3 PCs, a PS2, an XBox, and various other knick-knacks.
2. I've spent about a third of my life in India, the rest of it in 5 countries on 3 continents.
3. I used to be able to write 15 page letters about nothing. Take that, Jerry!
4. I am scared shitless by horror movies. To the extent that I have walked out of the theater when horror movie trailers are shown.
5. My highest bowling score was 260. My average is about 50.
6. I obsessively tag my MP3 collection in order to create obsure and eccentric playlists.
7. I love any Discworld book by Terry Pratchett, and Foxtrot comic strips.
8. Deep down, I'm still the six-year old kid running around with a towel around my neck thinking I'm Superman.

III. Tag 6 people.

    Given that I don't know very many people who a) have blogs and b) haven't already been tagged, the only people I can tag are Mike, Rags, Roy, Shweyta, and Nike.

I almost forgot ...

Up the irons!

No Habla Espanol!

I was looking at my viewer stats today, and this entry was in there ... I don't know Spanish so I can't comment on the accuracy of it, but it's pretty cool, wot?

Crank 5/10

I was interested in this movie for a couple of reasons: firstly, I think Jason Stratham's cool; secondly, it was very video-gamish in concept. The premise: hitman is poisoned and the only way of slowing the toxin is to keep his heart rate, and hence adrenaline, high. Hence is goes on a rampage of car-jacking, violence, and robberies ... all the while popping pills, energy drinks and other uppers. What part of that does not sound like the next plot of Grand Theft Auto?? Or Max Payne (now that was a game!)?? In fact, the intro and post-credits outro are all designed around a 2-D arcade game.

It is an important moment in every man (or woman's life) when he (or she) is faced with a movie so bad, that there is a real danger that a) his (or her) brain liquifies, and/or b) the movie is considered "good" or "a cult classic". Such is the case with Crank. Unfortunately, the movie wasn't bad enough to rate a high score from me.