Month: November 2008

Vaaranam Aayiram – review

vaaranam_aayiram_coverImage courtesy : wikipedia

Movie name: vaaranam aayiram

Cast/other movie information : [wikipedia link]

PLUSSES:

  • Brilliant direction – Kudos for the attention to detail – showing the pilot theatre for the 80s period, and older version of the spencer plaza/central etc – MGR movie posters on the wall etc. Also some, fantastic rock-and-roll numbers and dancing by Surya
  • Good cinematography
  • Awesome acting by most actors – very natural
  • Some very nice every day scenes, taken very naturally. Like son surya “Saying .. no . .I have never touched a cigarette”, and very hesitantly asking .. “how come you always smoke ? “

MINUSES:

  • Dark starting of the movie and dark ending of the movie. Starts with father surya in his death bed, and dieing. And then the whole movie is, son Surya ruminating his entire life, and the ending scene is father surya being cremated etc – so people who like happy endings, and a jolly feel – may not like it. (So obviously, my home ministry did not like it !! )
  • Some unnatural fight sequences in the middle (durng the kidnapping)
  • Babloo (prithviraj) – worst acting in my opinion – why why why ! They have so many better villians in the industry
  • Could have cut down a bit on the drug scenes .. dragged for a bit
  • Could have cut down on the search-for-the-kidnappers scene .. dragged for quite a bit
  • Tooooo many songs. (one song was good .. the one with the father surya romancing his girl)

Ofcourse disclaimer is that — the above review is stricly my personal opinion.

Media spoiling the surprise ?

Sometimes I feel, the media sensationalism, is probably detrimental to the critical operations. An example is the splashing news on NDTV right now, telling everyone in the world, that 100 commandoes are being air-dropped onto the Nariman House for the final push of the operation. Ahem, Nariman House is a residential building, having TVs, which the terrorists are also watching??

Not really sure if all this is a good thing. I agree that, to a degree, it is helpful, especially if you have friends/family involved in this, and are present in the situation — it does help to calm the situation ; but giving out too much of the strategy cannot be too good either.

Update: I am glad someone else also feels the way I do —

According to NSG Director General: “One injured terrorist is still inside Taj hotel. The stage seems to be set for a final operation there and the media has been asked to refrain from doing any live broadcasts from outside the hotel.”

Update2: My sister says that, CNN-IBN was stating that, all telephone and cable television connections were cut off in the affected areas ; so that the terrorists cannot see ‘their own action movie’. I can see that very helpful for Nariman Bhavan. Not sure how effective it would be for Oberoi and Taj – since they would have their own satellite dish antennae.

Bombay attacks shocks the world!

tajfire1(image from the web)

The Bombay attacks evoke two very strong emotions in me – empathy for the people of Bombay (who are facing this for the second time in recent years) and extreme irritation at the current government (for being so inept).

My heart goes out to those in Bombay, who have been affected by this tragedy and shock.

I still cannot figure out how the current government is still suriving, after being so inept. In my opinion, this shows the effective fall of democracy – this government does not seem to be doing anything for the people. Terrorism has been flowing freely in this country ever since the current Congress government has come to power. People used to talk vehemently about Hindutva bias etc when the BJP government was there — but tell me, did anything like this happen? I usually dont indulge in politics talk — but I still cannot believe how inept this government has been. I do not recall any big infrastructure projects that got done, or any strategic political alliance with neighbours, or any financial policies that came out of this government.

This government will be remembered for the innumerable bomb blasts and lives lost only.

It is sad, very sad.

Segway Polo

segwaypolo

Check out this brilliant new age hi-tech sport. I think the living maharaja descendents of some of the royal kingdoms (Scindias, Wodeyars, etc …) may be interested in this. I wonder if you also need artifical turf for this.

If you want to see this in action, check out the youtube video here.

Update: On further thought, maybe the toyota winglet might be more suitable for this. Gives more handroom for playing the right shot! 🙂

Courtesy: GAS

Go Chandrayaan !

Now that the Chandrayaan satellite is also safely parked on the moon. India is one of 4 nations, who have their flag on the moon. Yes, I say that, with my chest swelling with pride. I got a chain mail recently with some pictures of the launch. And I thought I should share them here for you. I have lived in Florida for about 5 years earlier, and I have seen quite a few launches from Cape Canaveral (NASA), and also been there for the customary desi-tour etc. But it is when you see the below pictures, that you see, “Oh yeah, we have those too in India.”

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Brilliant camel photograph – National Geographic !

You just cannot stop admiring Nat Geo for everything that is photographic.

camel

Stare at the photograph long enough — you will then realize that the white streaks are the camels and the black images are their shadows. Yes, the photograph has been taken from directly above the camels. Spectacular.  Kudos Nat Geo.

How much ink is low-ink in a printer cartridge

LIfehacker points to a great PCWorld article, where the PCWorld guys hit the labs with cartridges from prominent ink jet printers (Canon, HP, Kodak, Epson). In a nutshell,

They found out that

  • Almost all of these guys except HP stopped printing after some low ink warnings. HP continued printing (kinda like duracell) until the ink totally ran dry.
  • All the cartridges start giving out low ink warnings (and some even shutdown), when there is a large quantity of ink still left — upto a whopping 45% of the original ink left! What a waste !!
  • They also found out that for most of these printers (except Kodak), printers reported low ink on aftermarket cartridges earlier than original cartridges.

All this is good info — but something at the back of my mind tells me, “Hmm, did HP pay PCWorld more than the other guys did ? “. Well, obviously all of them paid PCWorld for the comment that “original cartridges are better than third party catridges”. Well, well …..

Check out the article here.