"The first step in blogging is not writing them but reading them." - Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine, 07-10-2006

Sunday, April 22, 2007

The Pursuit of Happyness and 300

Two movies - The Pursuit of Happyness and 300, so different in the era and story yet so same in the underlying message. In both movies the protagonist is alone on the path to achieve something he believes in. Its very difficult to pursue a path on which you have no support but you know its the right one. Many of us will stop mid-way but few go till the end and become legends. Other go to see the movies of their tales, clapping and whistling, people like me. :)

The Pursuit of Happyness, splendid piece of work by Will Smith. The real life story of Chris Gardener narrated in a beautiful movie. Smith, who plays Gardener himself, and his real-life son are simply awesome. Personally enjoyed every moment of the movie and would recommend not to miss it at any cost.

300, on the other hand is more close to fantasy, Spartan King Leonidas and 300 Spartans fight to the last man against Persian King Xerxes and his army of over one million soldiers, yet very inspiring. Nothing new or amazing in the storyline but the fight sequences and the graphic work of this movie are something definitely worth watching.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

हिंदी ट्रांस्लातोर सुविधा

अभी हिंदी मे भी ब्लोग कर सकते हैं। यह वाला पोस्ट से मैंने प्रयोग करके देखा। हिंदी मे लिखना बहित आसान हैं। बस हिंदी हे शब्दो जैसे बोलते हैं वैसे ही इंग्लिश मे टाईप करना हैं और ट्रांस्लातोर उसे हिंदी मे चंगे कर देता हैं।

इस पोस्ट को लिखते समय एक चीज़ लगा। बहुत दिनों बाद हिंदी लिख राहा था और ज़ादातार इंग्लिश के शब्द याद आ रहे थे। पर अभी चार पंक्ति लिखने के बाद हिंदी शब्दकोष वापस याद आ गया। लगता बीच-बीच मे हिंदी मे लिखना परेगा भाविय्षा मे। बहुत मज़ा आया। आज कल कार्यालय मे अधिकतर इंग्लिश का प्रयोग करके हिंदी मे लिखना तो जैसे भूल गया था।

अगर आप भी इस को त्रय करना चाहते हैं ...
https://www2.blogger.com/hindi (or by going to Settings > Basic)

Saturday, April 07, 2007

Objects with no objective

I came across this article in The Hindu - Objects with no objective by Indu Balachandran

It reminded me of my experience I have each time we refresh our room. Last one is pretty fresh in my memory.

Last week only we executed our long pending plans for cleaning the room. Phew! Its always an herculean task as it always done when it gets overdue by weeks.

When I look at my racks, they looks very innocent on the surface with all useful stuff. The moment you scratch the surface the real story comes out. Full of empty cans n bottles, movie tickets, papers to which I cannot relate to, etc etc. This time I actually found a useful thing in all the trash which was kept so carefully, a long lost picture album.

I actually wonder how these this get collected. At home also, I remember, whenever I used to clean my room, after getting a threatening from mom, the story used to be quite similar. Sometimes we think we would be able to find use for a broken or used stuff and keep it carefully but later we forget about it. And when we come back to it, we ourselves wonder why in the first place did I preserve it?

After we finished the cleaning exercise this time we had four bag full of 'objects with no objectives'. Mind you I am talking about big size bags, not the normal shopping ones. I do not expect the situation to improve in future. Its actually fun to have the 'no objective' stuffs, else what will I clean? Also it makes the cleaning process a bit interesting. ;)

Monday, April 02, 2007

Finally we have reason to celebrate!!

After a disappointing World Cup outing of our cricket team, we have a big reason to celebrate! Vishwanathan Anand has become chess World No. 1!

India's Vishwanathan Anand has become the number one chess player in the world after FIDE, the world chess governing body re-calculated their rankings.



Courtesy: CNN-IBN (http://www.ibnlive.com/videos/37525/anand-becomes-chess-world-no-1.html)

Sunday, April 01, 2007

Even the fool has a day!

Today is the April Fool's Day or the All Fool's Day. Celebrated on April 1 every year across the globe, the day is mainly about having fun fooling people with hoaxes and practical jokes.

Since my childhood I was always curious why this day is named as it is named. What so special today? But till date didn't get an exact reason. In school days it was mainly about fooling teachers and classmates. I used be on my guard so that I don't end up being the fool. In college days it remained quite the same. It was fun as you never know what to expect. Sometimes try a few pranks myself, though cant recall anyone I pulled off.

Today was a holiday so was in room alone, so no jokes or pranks. So spend time fooling around the web on the topic. These days internet is the main medium of pranks and jokes on this day. I was looking around to understand the history of this day. Found quite a few details on Wiki.

By the way, did you check-out the new service which Google has launched today - FREE breakthrough broadband with Google TiSP (BETA)? The link is there on Google search homepage.
Links: Press release - Service link.
If you think it's a April Fool's Day prank of Google, think again ... Gmail was also launched on April 1, 2004.

Happing fooling around! Today is your day! ;)

The Tale of Three Movies

Posting in retrospection, as the tale happened about a month back. Forgot the day but it was an interesting one. That day I saw three movies, each quite different.

Movie names? Serendipity, Eklavya: The Royal Guard and The Devil Wears Prada.

Serendipity. Watched it over the internet. With unlimited broadband connection you do not mind the buffering time. I had first watched this movie about an year back and liked it very much. Unfortunately never got a chance to watch it again after that. Then luckily I stumbled on it in the internet. It's nice little romantic story. After watching it this time eagerly searching for the video CD/DVD to add to my collection.

Eklavya: The Royal Guard. This one I watched in theater with my new roomie in evening. First Bollywood flick of 2007. An Amitabh Bachan film. Though the film boasted of many other heavy weights but story was weaved around Eklavya (Amitabh's character). The film was bit slow in it's pace but the plot holds you with it's twist n turns. My verdict - not to be missed.

The Devil Wears Prada. The CD of this movie was lying for a long time and me belonging to the nocturnal species decide to have an after mid-night show after returning from Eklavya. The story is about fashion magazine editor and her newly appointed not-so-fashion-conscious assistant. This movie was about average not so entertaining. Watching it on a CD was fine but going to theater would have been a bit of a disaster.

The Departed

Just back from a night show of The Departed at INOX, Chennai. Many firsts happened today. First time went to INOX, first time went to Chennai City Center mall in which INOX is located and first Hollywood movie in 2007 which I saw in theater.

Chennai City Center mall. Newest kid on the block. It has been quite a while it opened but I never got a chance to visit it before today. All this days I visited only Spencer Plaza on Mount Road. City Center is impressive architecturally from both outside and inside but somehow I felt thats where its attraction ends. It is nowhere close to the size and the number of shops which Spencer Plaza has to offer. I guess it will be just an second option after Spencer, which will continue to be my first choice.

INOX, Chennai. Newest multiplex in Chennai. INOX met my expectations with the quality of interiors, seating and overall experience. But unfortunately INOX will stay my second choice after Sathyam which was my only option before INOX came up. Primarily reason being a higher ticket cost of Rs. 120/- much more than the costliest one in Sathyam. Also, Sathyam is doing a bit better with the variety of movies it offers at time and its simple yet very useful online booking.

Maybe I got into an "old is gold" syndrome. But as a consumer I need to make a intelligent choice, cant let the gloss fool me.

Now coming to the movie. The Departed. Actually I think I do not have much to say about it. The movie was nice and entertaining. Nice storyline and director has handled the whole thing well. The ending was something that quite didn't make sense to me, but then its an Academy Award winning movie. Not a must-watch still worth watching. Am I contradicting myself?