Photo

How long has it been since Titanic ? It was in 1997 / 98 i guess.

11 years is a bloody long time :) - i guess somethings have gotten better - Like Kate and Leo. They look gorgeous together, dont they ?

(p.s This is from a New flick thats coming out Here. Image credit - the same place as the link)

Crickey!

Someone googled ' "barkha butt" bitch' and landed up on my site.

Good lord!

I am going to be sued by NDTV and put into primetime slots by CNN-IBN :)

**Hmm. My site is not really amongst the top results when one actually googles like that. But i appear safe on the legal front - there are people who appear to have said much more. :-)

I hate this template. HATE it. But too lazy to tweak it - lets see.

Hmpf. Now I like it. So im keeping it.

T Nagar is beginning to resemble the everglades ( - minus the alligators, i guess) like they say here and because i dont own a boat - - iam pretty much marooned at home -

All thanks to Nisha - (as theyve godawfully named this storm thing) - so i am chumma ambling online - answering the phone - trying to bring myself into mood to do some work - but with our office called off today - we're on the weekend already.

My trade fair in Bombay scheduled to start today has been called off - so there nothing really in terms of daily chores to do - but a good chance to get through pending, long, boring gigs that need concentration (and sadly, also,the Mood - as ive come to realize)

For the past hour or so ive been:

- munching on semi frozen aloo methi

- Listening to this song far too many times to not to mention it. Such a nice song - such a RIDICULOUS video :)

- Trying to write code to publish my bit of telescopic fiction : An illustration is, of course, here (ps. click on all the orange bits of text) [ Courtesy: This guy ]. But i cant get it to work. :(

- Trying to get in an entry to this contest. LOL

- Trying to complete a bit of my review of 'The white tiger' - i wont. I erased the draft and put it in here instead: Here -

"" I guess Adiga did not write with the booker in mind - so we wont blame him - but this book also adds to my long held belief that prize winning books are, more often than not, disappointments.

That said - the book - after the 'booker monkey' is taken off its back - is quite interesting to read, albeit being based on a cliche'd theme - and it being long winded and aimless towards the end.

The narration has been handled brilliantly - and i loved Balram's language - 'half baked indian', 'pinky madam', 'the stork/buffalo', 'dipping beaks' and the likes.

But its a kind of surreal look at the Indian scenario - i read a lot of reviews written by Firang types - and they say it captures the 'indianness' 'real india is revealed' etc. - all crap.

Adiga would have gotten a bit of a pat on his back from me for the sheer wit, entertainment value of the book.

But then he said this : " Where this Shining India everyone’s talking about? It was time someone broke the myth,” and this “The world needed to see the other side of India"

- Now, thats bad and wrong dude - coming from some NRI type guy who hasnt been in India during his formative years (as this says).

Closing comments: The White tiger is a very entertaining read.Nothing more. And as for the booker, i wont be fucken suprised if blokes like him wins one next for ridiculously light stuff like "The 3 mistakes of my life". Period.

""

Maybe il fucken write "Autobiography of a half baked indian" (à la, Balram halwai) and try for a Man Booker :)

- Now, i read this - and i cant help but feel that i ought to slap Barkha dutt's face a few times. She, even Rajdeep sardesai, and one other Shiv (or somename like that) guy from another news channel - are the worst journalists i know. Even normally, i HATE the type of 'hi iam a bitch and il do anything do my story. Il jut into the middle of every comment u make during my interview' kind of attitude in a journalist. Its ok if ur doing a show like Hardtalk or Karan Tapar's Devil's advocate - but for primetime news, christ!

Its awfully boring -but nothing a quick trudge down to the bookstore wont remedy -

More Palin bashing

Two OUTRAGEOUSLY funny articles:

a) The Sarkozy prank call transcript: Here

b) The 11 dumbest things Sarah Palins ever said : Here (See numbers 9, 10 and 11 - especially)

Wow !

This photo is hereby officially declared as my serendipitous discovery of the month :)

WOW

More

Shit happens

In the last 10 hours - 3 of my 10 largest clients cancelled the rest of the year's supplies - citing recession and their own cancelled orders as reasons - and i now officially sit on - i dunno - quite a few container loads of expensive stuff for which i have to find new takers.

Europe officially entered a recession, the US consumer confidence is at its ALL TIME LOW (since 1967, when it was started), Latin american currencies - The Reai, The Peso - have depreciated 25% - 35% in the last 2 months - Public health organizations - about 80% of the market in Latin america - have cancelled orders, stopped buying

My chinese supplier who normally makes 2000 tons a month - sold only 300 ton last month - so hes throwing material right, left and center to get rid of his stocks - but still finds no takers.

Crude oil went from 160 to what, 56 !? :) - Xylene went from 65 to 45 - Methanol from 28 to 14 - Pthalic anhyride from 70 to 35 - i can cite one thousand such cases -

One should visualize the scenario like being in one helluva party and suddenly one guy comes in (imagine a chinese guy, for good measure) with a sack of shit and throws it up into the ceiling fan - the shit hits the fan - and every1 gets a bit of it on their faces - and every1 runs like hell to take cover - but the room is bolted from outside.

Indians blame chinese, chinese blame americans, americans blame i dunno who - but its a once in a lifetime, extremely viscious incident- the pace of onset of it - and how it spread like a contagion to every corner of the globe - so quickly - is quite incredible. Lots of lessons to be learnt !

I complete 24 years of existence with tonight - Happy Birthday to me - one helluva partys is on in this shitstorm :)

Vaaranam Aayiram - Review

I saw my first theatre movie yesterday night - in 8/9 months - and my first tamil movie in, i dunno, a year and a half (Sivaji was the last one) - and my first movie in Madurai - since, i dunno, 'The World is Not Enough' - which came out back when i was in School or something :)

I wasnt particularly jobless - but with all the hype surrounding the movie - and the theatre being a mere 5 min walking distance from home - brother & I - and then a cousin - decided to take the plunge -

Gautam Menon's : Vaaranam Aayiram - [ ahem, it technically belongs to Dayanidhi Azhagiri as was evident all over in Madurai - i heard 9 theatres are running 5 shows - with no other movie shown - talk about muscling :) ]

First thing - it deserves a review - it reminds me of some of my own 1 year or 2 year projects - where a lot of thought, planning & all of one's talents are deployed with a lot of care, painstaking effort - but somehow the end results come out as a fleeting glance of what the real possibilities could have been - what future possibilties exist - brilliant in some segments, so-so in a lot of others - an overall Grade of 3.5+/5

- maybe money constraints, maybe something else went wrong during filming, i dunno -

I actually saw a segment of - what turned out to be the 'Anjale Anjale' song - being shot in Elliots beach - back in 2006 - when me and C were taking a stroll at some ungodly hour over there - the segment which had guys on bikes waving their arms or something - came on screen for like, 2 seconds - and i am certain that it was shot for atleast 4 hours - i can certain understand now - how hard it must be to make a living from the movies.

Okay - the review -

The biggest setback for the movie is that the dialogue writing / screenplay is like total pseud/fake sounding - when the story is about some educated middle class tamil family starting somewhere in 1980 or 1985 - one does not expect mom & dad to say 'i love you' every other line, the son says 'daddy, i miss you. i love you', 'i made love' etc. and almost 40% of the dialogue in English - it takes off some of the impact the visuals create.

Ah, the visuals - 5/5 - the filming is technically superb, the small moments of brilliance in some of the Romantic scenes - background score - some bits of action - There are segments where Surya does guitar + vocal recitals of old hindi tamil songs, real nicely crafted

- the casting is superb - Sameera the babe [She has a future, this one ;)], surya's family, priya's character - all do their job 110% - they cant really be blamed if their script calls on them to say things like "Mom! I love her mom!" "Hi darling! i will come and sweep you off your feet" "Son! Do what your heart tells you", ugh! - Surya does a superlative job with all the characters he portrays - the Abs and all - he cant be blamed if his character as the old man had really sloppy make up on.

- The music - it easily is the Tamil album of the year (and it has been a good year!) - and it naturally makes it that much more hard to make videos that live up to the hype - Mundinam Paarthen - shot in a sort of Retro style - is the pick of the lot - all other songs show up abruptly and makes it that wee bit irritating

Closing comments -

Worth a watch - definitely different from most normal Kollywood fare - Gautam Menon ought to learn a thing or two from folks like ManiRatnam, Farhan Akhtar, Ashutosh Gowariker - Style, class and sophistication dont just come from slick filming, army fatigues, romancy segments and pseud-daddy, i love you- type dialogues - I dont remember even ONE out of place English dialogue in films like Aayuda Ezhuthu, Dil Chahta Hai, Lakshya or Swades - all 4.5 / 5 movies (They all had english dialogues all through - but none out of place)

- when this realization sinks in - Gautam will probably hire a more down to earth dialogue writer - stop lip syncing music videos ( play them like background scores i guess or skip them from the movie) - and concentrate on the rest of the stuff he does so well.

With parents out of town, brother delivering babies all day (he take pictures of all these teeny piglet type babies he takes care of/or helps deliver and proudly uploads them every other day) and with this huge house with 5 or 6 doors to lock up every night / servants to let in at 6 am - i dont particularly look forward to this weekend - but weekend it is. *sigh*

I feel terrible, its 00:45 am - and i might have botched up a 400,000 dollar contract - OR - my move might have sorted out a nagging channel problem and give me a leg up AND the 400,000 gig - its still hanging

I have a really bad feeling about this - on top of this - im terribly tired, sleepy and feel fucked up and my mom called me a -get this- 'psycho' during dinner today. Maybe i am one!

It also reminds me about strictly following the rule of not emailing anything sensitive after midnight or when im too sleepy to be sober

I feel awful ! Somebody cheer me up!

The Curious case of Benjamin button

' The Curious case of Benjamin button ' - starring Brad Pitt - based on an old short story by F Scott Fitzgerald - the story of a guy who is born old and ages backwards - the trailer looks yum!

- I have in the past blogged about a book i have - Confessions of Max Tivoli - a novel by some debutante author - although i remember thinking that concept was great but the book too garrulous and winding.

Trailer (This is the nicer, longer version with dialogues)
A full piece about the movie : here

"Life can only be understood backward..but must be lived forward"

Not so many movies that one looks forward to these days - but heres one, it releases this christmas - and i swear il watch this one in a theater - and NOT on Emirates or Lufthansa.

Something interesting.

Assume that I got hold of, subsequently validated and going to shortly manufacture something for which a patent was filed by the first producer already [ Incidentally, i know them as customers and i actually know the main author of the application personally i speak to him once a month]

It is like a formulation technique, special ingredient kind of thing really. Like making a standard end product X - which is like specially formulated to give desired effects using so and so technique, so and so special ingredients etc. - all details beautifully written down in the patent application.

Crudely put - im just making a copy of what the guys already done - and do what we Indians do best (as my pakistani friends always say) - screw the inventor's price on cheaper costs, backward integration etc.

Those issues are secondary really - I am going to go with manufacturing it anyways - but i really am wondering about a few things:

a) Who the heck is going to know - just based on the end product - about what protocol went into making it ? Who can stop me from making it ? I certainly cant think of any customers who are regular buyers who'll care two hoots for who invented the process.

b) Isnt the guy actually better off not patenting the stuff (thereby keeping all the details quiet and secret in his own factory etc.) - especially if the end product is not something thats patented - its just like a formula to make, say, paint - you cant patent the paint - but when you file for it - you are patenting the technique of adding X additive etc. stuff, in my opinion should be kept quiet.

Isnt his act of actually filing for a patent - thereby attempting to protect his intellectual property - actually becoming like a counter productive act ?

I , as amongst, say, a handful of people worldwide who can benefit from this free bit of knowledge - seriously dont understand how this whole patenting thing really works - especially in this context - all companies in question are Indian - the patent was filed in the centralized EU/US format with the Patents office in Geneva.

Maybe its different in the US - i really dont know. But its a basic thing here - that im asking about really - isnt it ?

*Yawn* maybe i am not educated enough :)

Motivation

Heres something iam nicking shamelessly from Hari mama's status message on Google talk :

"Motivation can take the form of a goal or girl, dream or team, destiny or history, but in most cases, for most men and women it takes the form of a simple 11th hour crisis.... "

How bloody true :) - This is probably like how 99% of my motivation comes

( i wonder where he got this one from...)

Have have been assigned new job responsibilities - Im sort of in the middle of the boot camp - first time in nearly 10 years - i have been sleeping before 11 (out of exhaustion) and waking up earlier than 6 for more than 7-8 days in a row.

Two completely unrelated thoughts:

a) The kinds of things happening with the world today with currency crises, price fluctuations, stock market troubles etc. - is not just stuff that usually comes in the papers about Russian soldiers selling their uniforms outside the Red square or AIDS in somalia - its big, maybe once in a lifetime kind of thing for many people and is having far reaching consequences for what one does for a living in a rural place in tamilnadu. Time for caution and a lot of introspection.

b) One must really learn spanish - theres a large part of Latin America - very receptive, much more conducive to business than ever before - its probably going to be a thing to watch out for as a business theme in the next decade.

*Yawn*

Doonesbury calls the US Presidential elections

Theres the Doonesbury strip for publication after the election - Doonesbury (Garry Trudeau, that is) has called the US presidential elections already. Some newspapers are reluctant to take a chance and schedule the strip, in case its prediction is wrong. Here’s how Trudeau supposedly responded:

Newspapers should run the strip because “Nate Silver at Fivethirtyeight.com is now giving McCain a 3.7% chance of winning -- pretty comfortable odds. ... Here's the way I look at it: If Obama wins, I'm in the flow and commenting on a phenomenon. If he loses, it'll be a massive upset, and the goofy misprediction of a comic strip will be pretty much lost in the uproar. I figure I can survive a little egg on my face. There’s a greater risk that their presses will break down on election day. So I’ve been encouraging editors to choose hope over fear. And reminding them that if I’m wrong, it’ll be my face that’ll be covered with egg, not theirs.”

More:

>> Heres " India's all important Obama Endorsement "

>> A photo of the incumbent first family. Its kind of powerful, this image - an all black First family of the US of A. Its probably as big a historical milestone as the bringing down of the berlin wall or September 11.

Gd luck obama!

[See im calling it too :) ]