Monday, June 26, 2006

Monday, June 26, 2006 3
I just started reading Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and some other guy. The book is mindblowing. Quite different from what one reads(ok thats such a huge cliche). One passage on page 14 made me perform some calculations and the result was interesting.

"...In a typical election period that includes campaigns for the presidency, the senate, the house of representatives, about $1 billion is spent per year-which sounds like a lot of money, unless you care to measure it with something seemingly less important than democratic elections.
It is the same amount, for instance, that Americans spend every year on chewing gum."

Now I got to know that an average pack of chewing gum with about 25 strips(taking that as average intake of chewing gum per 4 days) is 1 dollar.
So one billion packs of chewing gum for 365.25 days corresponds to 1095140.3(1.1 million dollars) dollars being spent on chewing gum EVERYDAY. The population of USA is 295,734,134.
Ofcourse this is MY estimation, the actual figures might be totally different. Since MY assumptions of 25 strips for 4 days maybe totally wrong. But still its an interesting outcome.


On another topic:
I'm having fun with google earth. Its so god damn addictive.





This is my apartments(the two large buildings with a li'l space in between them). And the white thing is a rock next to my balcony





This is my junior college(K-12, +2, intermediate whatever you call it). Narayana JC. I know I know, you dont know which building to look at.






This is my school. Bharatiya Vidhya Bhavan's Public School, Jubilee Hills

Saturday, June 24, 2006

Saturday, June 24, 2006 6
 

this is my latest crush. i finally get a cell after 4 years of begging!!!! Posted by Picasa

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Thursday, June 22, 2006 2
I'm in love with guitar solos.
I've been endlessly downloading all the top guitar solos from Limewire.
There is this list of 100 greatest guitar solos. I wasnt aware of any such list in the beginning. Then one day my pal downloaded some songs onto my comp from his I-POD(which he was showing off). It was among them that I head of this song Three Days by Jane's Addiction, the guitarist being Dave Navarro. He is the same weird looking person who was shown sitting with INXS during Rockstar:INXS.
It was quite a long song,as guitar solos are supposed to be(which I found out later). It was close to 10 mins. The first time I heard it, I wasnt thrilled or anything, probably didnt even notice it, since it was on a playlist which had about 100 songs. So my first encounter with it wasnt all that great. But after a while I started feeling its presence, and though at that time I didnt know who Jane's Addiction or who Dave Navarro was, I started liking the song. The song is featured at number 100 on the 100 greatest solos list. Though now I think it should've been higher.
It has this mesmerising feel to it, that makes you want to go through those entire 10 minutus without changing the song. Generallly in guitar solos, the trend is that the song goes on for most of the time,and towards the end, the guitarist takes over and ends the song with the guitar solo. In this one, its different, after a short span, you have long guitar solos every now and then. I just love that.
So after listening to that I started going through the list. Topping it is the Led Zeppelin song "Stairway to Heaven". Now I've been told by many of my pals that this is one of the best songs ever, and its probably one of the MOST requested songs on radio. I agree its quite good, but somehow I dont hail it as MY FAVORITE. I dont like it THAT much. Its pretty good too.
At number 4 in the list is Pink Floyds Comfortably Numb. Now this song I'm crazy about. Its simply spellbinding. I've never heard guitars played that way. Its simple awesome. I still feel Pink Floyd is overrated, and didnt really like much of their music earlier(probably hadnt heard much of then), but after listening to this, I started giving them more of my attention. Some other songs which I've heard from that list amongst others and I've liked are
6.November Rain(slash)-GnR{slash is my fav. guitarist)
7.One(kirk hammett)-Metallica
13.Texas Flood-stevie ray vaughn
22. sultans of swing(knopler)-dire straits
26.Smells like teen spirit(cobain)-Nirvana{its still one of the BEST songs ever according to me)
37.Sweet child of mine(slash)-GnR(it has one of the best starting guitars ever)
44.Alive(mike mccready)-Pearl Jam
48.Sympathy for the Devil(keith richards)-The Rolling Stones
61.No more tears(zack wylide)-Ozzy
80.You shook me all night(angus young)-AC/DC

Sunday, June 18, 2006

Fanaa

Sunday, June 18, 2006 7
Fanaa is another film coming from the yashraj factory. The movie is directed by Kunal Kohli. It has Aamir Khan and Kajol playing the lead.
Its evident that since the day Lagaan was announced as a mega success, the expectations from Mr Khan had increased a hundred-fold. Did he live up to it? He came up with "Mangala-Mangala-Mangala-Ho" Then came RDB, the hugely succesful rebel movie, but many felt he was a miscast in the movie, though I personally enjoyed his role. So the stage was set, withing a short while, we saw the banners of Fanaa being put across cities. Its soundtracks started playing on all channels. People went ga-ga over how beautiful Kajol looked in the movie, and about Aamir's new hair-style(ahem ahem).
I was curious about the movie. Finally I found out for myself when I was invited by a pal of mine to watch the movie with him.
Fanaa-Imdb describes it as a movie in the thriller genre. Only the enlightened ones can truly find that amusing. It is.
The movie is about the rickety and screwd up love life of Zuni (Kajol) a blind confused chick and a hard core terrorist mastermind Rehan aka Bullshit(Aamir Khan).
Let me tell you one thing, when ever you hear some one say a movie is different, most of the times it means that the movie is crap. Since we're discussing mainstream cinema, different movies generally mean the same old crap repackaged with a whole lot of dhin-chak dhin-chak that bollywood is known for. Now the same be said about say a Shyam Benegal or a Nagesh Kukonoor movie.
Anyways, the first half of the movie is about the blind kajol, how she falls in love with a guide(Aamir in disguise) for no apparent reason. It is filled with a billion Shayaris(poetry). Aamir shows Kajol the entire Delhi. Here you come across some really really annoying characters who in the process of sounding funny, just sort of piss you off.
Aamir as the guide is supposed to be the pimp and casanova of old delhi apparently, and he believes in Lust and not love(wow thats something new, yawn). Kajol believes that aamir is a sweet heart. Well she's blind, so she doesnt have to worry about his looks, so the heart will do just fine.
So a hard-core romance sparks between them, and so we have some songs here and there, but thankfull it doesnt show the cast running around switzerland when they were in chandni chowk a second ago.
Kajol has like the most lenient parents in the whole world. She tells them about Aamir and they blindly accept him, they don't even bother to ask them who the guy is or how he earns his living. I guess that gives us an insight into Zuni's past lovelife and its success.
Right..so Aamir humps her like a thanks-giving turkey and she doesnt mind it either, and after that she says to him that, he doesnt need to see her again if he doesnt want to, but she gives him her telephone number anyways (She has to return to her home which is somewhere else, far away).
Now this would've been great. Its like no strings attached sex. He gets to nail her and doesnt need to care about her feelings, but apna pimp has a heart. He gets into the train, and carries her back, only to leave her after a month, while she is having her eye operation. It was as though he was playing a crual joke on her. I guess pimps have a different way of thinking.
Aamir fakes his own death, so that Kajol gets all heart-broken and doesnt really enjoy the fact that she can see again. Guess what he really wanted was to totally destroy her self esteem and give her that "I am a loser" feeling.
This is the part where we find out about Aamir Khan being a blood thirsty Jehadi. They make him look like Neo.

Post intermission session showed us what a back-stabbing SOB Aamir was to the INA. There was a cameo by Shiney Ahuja in the movie, unfortunately he dies. And one can literally hear the girls go "Awwwwww" when that happens.
At this juncture, Tabu(Ms Tyagi) is introduced, she's like some messed up lady who had a really really bad facial, because she looked much older than what she really is. She looked like the female counterpart of Droopy the dog. She is shown as the only "enlightened" one in the indian intelligence and the rest of them are protrayed as, "bozos".
She is the only one who discovers the not-so-obvious fact that Aamir is a criminal mastermind.
So now she sends troops to bust his ass, but as is the case, you cant have him being killed. The movie would actually make sense then, but that cant happen. How could it. We have to make it unrealistic. Now how do we do that? We make Aamir kill 10 INA guys and then blow up a helicopter and escape the entire seige with only a bullet.
The movie crew tireis to fool us by showing Poland and calling it Kashmir. It looks a lot like the scenes from Black. Now out of thousands of houses a wounded Aamir could end up in, he lands at the door step of Zuni. She , who had never seen hi obviously doesnt recognise him, and so doesnt her father and Rehan Jr(who believes he was born due to the mating of Rahul Dravid and her mommie).
A point to note here is that, a blind girl has to identify people by their voice and probably touch. Now if she can't recognise the voice of her lover, I guess the passion they shared was nothing more than a Booty call. And please dont feed me crap like , The snow did it to him, or People change with times. That shit dont work, even in bollywood, and that's saying a lot!
So now Aamir, who is angry at first, mellows down and starts becoming part of family for these people, till one day while playing some antakshari(singing over and over again for no apparent reason) and some naughty activities, lets Kajol know that he indeed is who he is.
Kajol is shocked and delighted. They get married, and later sing a really really fucked up song. I dont know its name, and seriously I dont really care. All i know is that the song was made up of 5 tongue twisters and had nothing more to it. Total bummer.
So now Tabu is professionally and perhaps sexually aroused with her new lead, and decides to use the media by having them reporting that some terrorist has some device(which infact looks like a a deoderant) which is a bomb trigger and he's dressed up as a jawan.
So now Kajol's father is suspicious but doesnt make a move, he takes Aamir in acar and then plans to kill him instead, but Aamir is a terrorist who is experienced, and hence kills his father in law. Father in law falls from a cliff and falls down and a thin sheet of ice is formed over his body. Co-incidentally Kajol walks from the same spot and gasps. She doesnt lose courage. She runs away from Aamir, but Amir catches up and tell her that the bomb threat of his people is a HOAX just to get a free-Kashmir. Kajolisnt affected by bull shit now. She been through enough already. So forces her husband to cut the crap and get real, which he does'nt. He takes the deo and marches out. Kajol gets a sudden message from god that she has to do the right thing or suffer in hell for a thousand years. She takes a gun, says I love you to Aamir and conveniently shoots him. Aamir finally shows some mercy to the once-blind innocent girl he had loved, by not pushing her brains out by shooting back.
So the the pan back fires and feminist people shut their trap because they got what they wanted.
This is the sad story of Fanaa.

The only person who acted well was Rehan Junior. The sound track has few good numbers, though I agree most of it is crap. This is one movie even the general public hates. So why should you be an exception?

Friday, June 16, 2006

Gangster

Friday, June 16, 2006 3
Gangster


Right so this is a rage now-da-days. This movie is being talked about every where. Let me make it obvious as to how this review is going to be.
I didnt like the movie. So if you want to continue, please do so at your own will.

Gangster-A love Story, is a Mahesh Butt directed movie, which thrives on the "A love story" part. It is supposed to be humane and touching and is supposed to be a different view of the gangster's love life,from the gangster's lovers perspective.
The gangster is Shiney Ahuja. He's a cute looking chap, who doesnt really look like the most ferocious person you've ever met. But now I think you people will be saying that new age killers ARENT supposed to look like killers. Agreed. But he behaves like a guy who just got out of coma. He's gotta be like the DULLEST gangster ever. He doesn't talk much. Just stares, cries, testifies and bascially does shit that pisses you off.
The lead heroine is some other bitch who has pissed EVERYBODY with her poor dialogue delivery and "I'm-a-confused-person-who-is-on-drugs" attitude. Her problem is that she can't stop drinking an bitching about her dead her life is coz she loved a gangster. So she bascially goes on and on about how HER dreams weren't fulfilled, how SHE wasnt given the freedom she wanted, HER HER HER, and I guess that sorta says it all.
Now we have the Emraan Hashmi aka Bollywood pimp. This dude's sole aim in bollywood is to make young girls who know they can't act shit, lose their on-screen virginity. I'm sorry that Emraan has become a stereotypical womaniser no matter what role he playes.

Acha so the story is this, girl loves gangster. Gangster has to do gang work(which is never shown in the movie), girl become an alcoholic because her son is killed in an encounter. Now the interesting thing about this gangster is that he's charming and immensely romantic. He's not your average "I wanna nail you" sleaze ball. This guy has feelings, and respects this girl and doesnt have sex with her (perhaps for the entire movie), the child incase you were wondering, was adopted. Man this guy just doesnt fit to be a gangster.
Meanwhile, this girl starts finding great friendsship with Emraan Hashmi who is a singer in some bar whose name I dont really remember. So now this girl is an alcoholic and turs up at emraan's house in the wee hours of the morning almost nude, asking for whisky. You think this is freaky?
She finds him really nice and is attracted by him, and well the obvious happens, Hashmi goes to bed with her.
Now we can't have one guy screwing around with another man's wife, that too a world class gangster, and the gangster just being ignorant. So this gangster dude finds out and beats the crap out of our romeo, and the girl takes hashmi's side(yawn). Now our gangster dude, cries and beggs her to take her back. So now we know this gangster has no self esteem and that he has major comittment issues. He's sort of a metro-sexual gangster in an obscure way.
So, now gangster has a shift of heart, and decides to quit doing his black business, and the in the movie this is portrayed as something which is as easy as breaking a kit-kat into 2 pieces.
So now our gangster who used to earn millions by killing others now does physical hard labor and gets few currency notes. What a waste of talent.
Now they decide to leave Korea and go back to India, for which gangster promises the girl that he has to get fake passports or else police will get them busted. While doing so, he meets the don, who is infact his grandpa, but much more eveil(Gulshan Grover), he goes on and on about how the girl has distracted this prodigy, and now the gangster must be killed and the girl abused by his men sexually. Well gangster is smart, he kills grover instead *surprise surprise*
Meanwhile, the girl somehow meets hashmi and confesses that she is pregnant. Hasmi acts like the perfect gentleman and tells her to turn gangster in marry him instead(how convenient), because he can take better care of the baby.Now the dumb bitch is utterly confused because hasmi is messing with her brain. She stops thinking.
Acha now comes and interesting scene. She is waiting at seoul station, and waits and waits and finally gangster comes, all bruised and battered like a war hero. He is nearly 100 metres in front of her. He slips and starts falling off the steps, she starts running towards. He fall on a surface. She stops too. Now he again starts slipping down further more stairs, and she continues her jogging till he stops moving. So bascially what we have here is a mathematical function known as "When he fall, she run"
So after a long time, they connect and guess what? A million police vehicles arrive and gangster is super pissed and super surprised, he doesnt say one word, screams a lot though. Oh the betrayal. But apparently the girl did this to SET HIM FREE. *snorts*, Yeah right.
So now she goes to Hashmi, who infact turns out to be a police officer who used her. He indirectly confesses that she sucks in the bed and that he was doing his nation a favor and comitting a personal sacrifice by having sex with this girl(what a strange thing to say for a pimp).
She is shocked. She is angry She takes a gun and kills emraan hasmi, not before he takes a gun and shoots her shoulder. Hashmi dies. Meanwhile girl gets a letter from gangster who is in jail saying that "He understod what she did and doesnt blame her. He knos she was tricked". I tell you people, this guy is too sweet to be a gangster. TOO sweet. He's got to have an alter ego, because this man is too much of a pussy to kill kids and women mercilessly.
RIGHT! Now the girl and the gangster have an instant connection and she understands him. She goes to the top of the hospital in which she is admitted, screams a little bit and jumps from the 20th floor at the same instant this gangster guy is hung. Talk about timing.
The last seen is copied from Gladiator, withonly the roles reversed. Here the girl enters the field(supposedly heaven) with the gangster and kid laughing out loud and well the movie ends.
I didnt like the movie.
However it has a great soundtrack Honestly. The songs are amazingly sung with great back groud scores like all Mahesh Butt movies. Its an addictive album. Ya ali, tuhi shab hai are one of the best hindi songs I've heard this year. Here's the remixed version of Tuhi Shab hai.

Saturday, June 10, 2006

Saturday, June 10, 2006 4
After my last exam, I was left with 2 months of holidays, and considering that I already had 2 months of hols before that, I started getting irritated, and decided to make better use of my time rather than spend hours endlessly on Orkut.
I had always wanted to join a driving school. The course is for 150 Kilometres, where they teach you the basics, and other automobile related stuff like repairing and mechanical works etc.
You know relativity is an interesting concept. It makes you feel good about yourself. I thought I was a bad driver. I [i]thought[/i]. But in reality I am not. I'm pretty good considering I'm done with only 60 km's of driving. Except the reverse gear, I seem to be doing well in everything else. But the other guys, oh my god THEY DO SUCK! Ok now you know that modesty is'nt one of my virtues. But seriously, in my driving class, there's this dude who lives right next to South semi-Mega star Nagarjuna. And apparently he's been taking the classes for the last one month, and he still is pretty bad. Can't start the damn thing properly without n jerks.
So far I've driven only the Maruti 800, hopefull will practice in my Santro now.
The driving school is about 8 Kms from my house. I have to wake up at 6.20, reach the place by 7. By 7.05 the class starts and by 7.55 it ends. Generally I drive 8-9 Kms everyday. And this includes heavy traffic(look a little traffic on a small street is like heavy traffic isnt it?), totally empty roads and other gullies. So its fun. The teachers arent much older than I am, most of them in early twenties. Pakka hyderabdies. Fun guys to be with. They whistle at girls, when the girls block the car , saying "Madam, please hat jaayiye, yahan par pose wose nahi karne ka, kya?"
The ride back home is quite fun too. I take a bus till a point that is 1 km from my house, then its upto me, I can either walk on the railway tracks when I'm in the mood, or take an auto.
Some times the bus doesnt come for a long while (you see I hate waiting. I am not the guy who prefers patience. If I had to wait 3 years to go to heaven, or prefer Hell this instant, I'd go for satan), I take a share auto. People in India are familiar with share auto's. These are regular auto's, just that many passengers can be accomodated who are going to a common destination. Its much more cheaper(simple division). The auto wallah earns more this way, and the passengers Feel they are getting a great bargain. So both parties are happy.
Now for the people who are familiar with SHARE auto's and and have been in them, I have a question to ask, Whats the maximum number of people you've seen in them? I've seen 5 sittng in the back, and 4 in the front including the driver, so that makes it 9. Today's auto ride had 8, which is also a large number. I was in the front seat. Now there was one dude sitting next to me(he's sort of a pal of the auto wallah or so it seems), and the other dude is the autowallah himself. I am big. I need my space. I feel unforcomfy when I'm denied that pleasure. I was sitting in an awkward position. So i had to hold on to something. I saw some sort of rod and i grasped it. Now there were two things one could do. Either grasp it with ease, in which case my hand would be tightly sqeezed between the rod and the other dude's buttocks, or twist my hand the cling on the other side, which let me tell you is extemely painful. I chose pain.

I plan to post more regularly from now on....

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

TRIP TO VELLORE part ll

Tuesday, June 06, 2006 3
 

So we waited there for a while.
And a new tension took birth. There was sweat trickling down my face, and I was really and utterly confused, because I didnt know which branch I wanted. There was everything except CSE and ECE. There are those who since the age of 6 know that they wanna grow up and end up in VLSI designing, where as I'm almost 18 and still have no idea what branch I'd want. So I called my "partner-in-crime" Aayan and Hyderabad, and asked for his advice, and he told me to go with EEE. It was like KBC man. Anyways, it was my turn finally, and I was to go to the stage and submit my documents. The dude over there, probably some faculty member started giggling as though I was the most ridiculou thing he saw, and asked me (in a stupid manner that reminded of Crabbe and Goyle), "Are you a boy or a girl?", "Sir I have a beard, so why don't you guess that?"
"No No from behind ugh you ha ha ugh look like ugh girl only no?"
If there was ever a facial expression for FucK yOU, I wish I knew it.
So anyways, I had to wait for another 20 minutes, before some 10 of us were taken into an AC room, with 10 computers and guys behind them. This was supposed to be the ACTUAL counselling. The word counselling is sort of misleading. One expects the people to counsel you on the various branches and scopes and past records and stuff, but counselling here has an entire different meaning. Counselling is, going to the comp guy, telling him you're DOB and the branch you want.I was realy really confused man. The main worry was between Mechanical and Electrical, I closed my eyes and tried to recollect the first formula that came to my mind in physics, it was the basic V=IR. So I took EEE. Now please please please dont EVER select a branch this way. I did it because I didnt know what I wanted. You people are smart, you should know better. And then talk to the "so-called" finance dude, who was looking like a jovial drunkard(but nice guy).
After that we had to decide on the hostel room. Got to know that the only rooms availible were the 4 bedded and the 6 bedded rooms. Look Narayana had given me enough homosexuality around me, now I am not implying that homosexuality is bad, or that all men are gay, or that 6 men in a room HAVE to become gay, but then 6 dudes in a room for 4 years is killing. However, I supposed one can change the room after months from the beginning of courses. Atleast thats what was being told to us.
Bas, thats about it, left the campus, came to the hotel, slept for an hour, saw School of Rock. Our train got delayed by 2 hours, so we decided to travel back to vellore city, since we hardly had any luggage with us. I wanted to visit a net cafe. My told me there was one near CMC, so we went through the CMC campus, its ok, like a regular hospital, maybe its better from the inside. While I was walking under a tree, some fluid-gel fell on my head. And it was stinking. OH CRAP! Man I was super pissed, I dint know what to do, I got most of it off my head. Then i went to the nearest store, got a napking, cleaned my head like a zillion times, didnt want to wash my head, coz otherwise the goo would spread over my face. And that would suck big time. Anyways, went to the cafe, ate something there, and came back to the station. Got to know from some other dudes that EEE is the toughest branch(the others who knew ppl at Vit), but by then twas too late so whatever.

Anyways that was the past. I'm happy to announce that I'm not going to go to VIT.
Thats done, the 10000 is gone but thats ok too. So I guess thats that. Posted by Picasa
 
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