Sunday, May 30, 2004

Yuva!

Saw Yuva the other day...interesting coincidence, what with having written a
blog of how the young should inherit this country some days ago.
The short reaction, worth a dekko.
The long one:
Seen movies of this variety before, in South films. Nonetheless there was a
lot which is saying quite a lot for these days. According me it had quite
realistic story(in a filmi andaaz of course). And it had great
action...really great fight scenes especially towards the end("Vikram"
Dharam is the fight director, I think). Disclaimer: the violence does get a
wee bit too realistic at times. My wife hated it, so if you are squeamish
thing again.
However I like this movie for a completely different reason. We have ACTORS
in this movie. I kid you not!. Ajay Devgan has proved himself in this genre
from some time, especially with his Company and GanagaJal acts. So you would
expect a great performance from him and he delivers. Ditto for Abhishek. He
delivers, and how!!! If you want only two reasons for watching this movie,
they are Ajay and Abhishek. And Rani, with another down to earth performance
is the third!!!
And the greatest star of the movie is Mani Rathnam, the way he has used
Vivek Oberoi, Kareena Kapoor and Esha Deol beyond their potential. At least
Vivek has some potential so not a big challenge there. However the same
cannot be said about the other two, and not their mistake really. Both
Kareena and Esha depend on a good director to guide them if they want to
make an impact beyond pretty face and pretty smile. In this movie Kareena
manages not to overact and Esha actually manages to act.
Again being a Mani Ratnam movie, all the other aspects were well done, like
music, locales and cinematography. Though I must point that the blair witchy
camera mode was a wee bit overused, especially in songs.

Any ways all in all a thumbs-up to the movie. Immensely watchable as I
caught the 11:00pm show and did not sleep through the show :)Pompously I
give it 3.5 stars ;).

Wednesday, May 26, 2004

Da Vinci revisited.

For any one who might be influenced by my review of The Da Vinci Code please read Sujith's review of the same before you make a choice.

Sunday, May 23, 2004

site: HAIKU for PEOPLE

HAIKU for PEOPLE is a nice site to check out what Haiku and related terms mean. I specially try to incorporate the seasonal element in the few haiku's/hokku's I try to write.

Many people feel that one should not have to follow any rules as this is art. I say only two things,
one, to bend rules effectively you need to have had worked rigourously under those rules for some time, and two, if you do not follow this rule why call it a Hokku/Haiku. After all names are classification based on some rules.

Wednesday, May 19, 2004

With respect to mailing in the blogs!

I tried mailing the last blog from my place of work. It worked quite alright but I realised that there are some issues.

1. I use the Word attachment to draft the email in my office. This resulted in a lot of template code which came into picture and messed up my page, with the whole right side column moving to the bottom. Lesson: Use text emails to post to Blogger.

2. I have enabled Blogger comments. However as you can see the blogs which have been posted by email do not have these comments. Got to check out if it is something that I have not set or a problem with blogger.

One pointer for people who do not like to read the Help:

When you are sending a mail and are pretty sure that your company is going to add a trailer to the mail, just add "#end" after your post.

njoy Blogging.

Tuesday, May 18, 2004

Thunderstorm!

Summer storms,
Glistening droplets shoot up my windshield;
Pre-Monsoon Showers.

Sunday, May 16, 2004

New Blogger comments trial.

Trying out Blogger comments.

"I saw a movie" rap:)

Am in a mood for words,
and some rythym & some bass;
Bfore y'all doze
let me pick the pace.

Saw 8 mile this week,
yup, I know I ain't quick
but better late than never
to watch a good flick.

Liked the lyrical battles,
the in-your face wars;
some real kewl rappin
Not some lame MTV farce.

This rappers are dope
great jugglers of words,
a great sense of beat
flows through their blood.

If that's true hip hop
I am sold to tha plan,
show me some more,
of this man and this clan.

Now the movie was great
Meusic even more
It had that skill
to touch one's core.

So if you ain't seen this movie
get off your butts and go
to the nearest rental
to rent the next show

And if you want to act smarts
and disregard what I say,
like Lotta says,""F$@K YOU!
but have a nice day!!!"

Blogs Mailed To Order!!!

Hey BlogSpot Users,

If you haven't paid special attention to the new setup of Blogger,
especially its settings, you really are missing something.
This blog and the one before this one was emailed by me to Blogger and got
published automatically. Is that kewl or what!!! At long last the common
man's blogsite is moving to features given by more premium sites. Oh Yeah!!!

Thursday, May 13, 2004

The Young Should Inherit This Country!!!

Yup!!! Counting day is upon us and the past few weeks have been a roller
coaster ride for India with respect to the pre-poll meetings, voting, exit
polls and getting to know their "leaders again". I have had half an eye on
this election race and one thing that has attracted me is the presence of a
lot of young(relatively speaking) hopefuls in these elections. These guys
are really cool dudes. Take the case of Omar Abdullah and Rahul Gandhi.

Karan Thapar was asking various leaders(of smaller parties) today on who
they will support in the centre, the NDA or the Congress lead by Sonia
Gandhi. While most leaders were hedging their bets Omar said directly that
they would not be supporting wither NDA or Sonia. When asked for the reason
he cam out openly to say that they cannot support Congress in the centre
when Congress supports their rival party in the State. This was expected,
though not in such direct terms, but the real bombshell was with his reason
for not joining the NDA. Karan Thapar asked him whether he does not want to
help NDA now as revenge for them not helping his party two years ago. I was
waiting for the usual hee-hawing of most politicians and was stunned by his
answer "Yes Karan, that is precisely the reason". Kewl, a politician who
speaks his mind.

Now coming to Rahul Gandhi ... he has really starred in these elections.
Truly no one has campaigned with more impact than him. The other he was
quoted as saying that he does not care about these elections but would
rather look towards how his party can regain lost glory in UP in the coming
years. I said to myself "Hmmm, an astute politician". So imagine my surprise
when I heard him say the following today " We are politically against TDP
and Chandrababu Naidu. However that does not mean that one should forget
that Chandrababu Naidu has been in power in AP for 10 years and in these
years he has worked towards what he considered to be betterment for his
state. To take a person who has worked so hard for his state and ridicule
himn calling him elitist or computer babu as is being done by the media is
utter malice." Whoah!this guy has got guts.

Young dudes in politics, I Am Lovin It.:)

Tuesday, May 11, 2004

The Da Vinci Code...read it!!!

My wife was a little concerned that she had not seen me reading for some time now. This was quite a valid concern and I realized that I had indeed not read any new stuff after my return from UK. As I was mulling on how to restart my reading I remembered Darth Pedro's blog and his review of The Da Vinci Code. As he had given a good review I decided to try it out.

So as often happens with me I went to buy this book and ended up buying one more ...Zen and The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance. I could not find my old copy of the Zen and reading it is an annual pilgrimage for me. However more about the Zen on a different day.

The Da Vinci Code
is a great book. It is quite well written and tightly paced. It does fall into using the usual backbone structure of most fictional thrillers (sudden thrust of mystery on unsuspecting man, beautiful girl to help out, arcane cults, police mishandling situation etc.). However the secret of this book (and its saving grace) is how it plays on historical fact and conspiracy theories. The first book that came to my mind as I read this one was The Name of the Rose (an interesting parallelism as the rose plays an important part in this book too.) as it has the same feel to the story. Another reason it struck a chord with me is that I was quite caught up in the history of the Knights Templar on my visit to UK. Religious and vindictive knights also reared it head in comics especially the Batman series. This background did make me appreciate this book better. However even without any historical knowledge this book should still be fun as it is quite self sufficient with respect to information.

The best thing about this book is it's pacing. The mystery unravels so fast that it is very difficult to put the book down. I started reading it at 21:30 hours and did not put the book down till 4:00 hours, by which time I had completed it. No way could I sleep till I had reached the end of the road.

All in all money well spent, thanks to Darth Pedro for good advice.

Brij Is Back!!!

Hello folks, after a long break I am back. A special thanks to all you guys who were worried about me. All I can say is that there were some logistical problems last week and the weekend was spent lazing around and reading. Anyways thanks to those of you who have regularly visited my page. Please keep coming as I AM BACK!!!