It's Valentine's day tomorrow and I don't have a clue about what to get for my better half. I don't know if V-day should be followed once you tie the knot. It's fun as long as you are seeing someone. Dunno whether V-day still holds its charm once you have fallen hook, line and sinker...
I am supposed to surprise her and I am hoping to surprise myself by coming up with a decent gift....
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Mithya
I read some very ordinary reviews and decided to watch 'Mithya'- latest release from the famed Bollywood factory. The decision to watch Mithya was based on my admiration of the director Rajat kapoor's previous movie 'Bheja Fry'. I was not disappointed by Mithya. Mithya stars Ranvir Sheorey, Vinay Pathak, Neha Dhupia, Naseeruddin Shah, Iravati Harshe, etc. (no superstars, only actors). Ranvir stars as a struggling method actor who replaces a real-life don as they look identical. For the first half an hour, you don't know what to expect next and kinda sympathize with Ranvir aks VK. Everything goes fine until he replaces the don aka Raja Bhai. I liked the twist in the tale and was mindblown by Ranvir's performance. Iravati is stunning and fresh as the don's wife and somehow brings life to the role. Neha plays the gangster's moll who develops a liking to the struggling Ranvir. Though the movie does not have a conventional Bollywood ending, you kind of feel sad for the turmoil Ranvir has gone through. I liked Rajat's second outing as a director and I hope this kind of movies will continue to be churned out from Bollywood. Hats off to the director and Sourabh Shukla(dialogues).
I rate an unbiased 4.5/5 for this movie. It could have done with a better background score. Watch it @ your nearest theatre.
I rate an unbiased 4.5/5 for this movie. It could have done with a better background score. Watch it @ your nearest theatre.
Saturday, February 09, 2008
Problems installing MS Office 2004 on Mac OSX
I had a very harrowing time trying to install MS Office 2004 on my Mac. MS Office is not a necessary app but cannot compare to Neo because of formatting differences. I am not a proponent of MS Office apps but I need to use them when someone sends an Excel sheet/PPT file/.doc file. Google has still given us some choices such as Google Docs
I think I am going to advocate usage of LaTeX over any word processing app. LaTeX is not actually WYSIWYG in the literal sense, but in all practicality my LaTeX-ed document is WYSIWYW(What You See Is What You Write). No more headaches over formatting figures and filling up spaces.
On top of all this, I had to install more than 6 updates for Office 2004 to protect against vulnerabilities against hackers.
I think I am going to advocate usage of LaTeX over any word processing app. LaTeX is not actually WYSIWYG in the literal sense, but in all practicality my LaTeX-ed document is WYSIWYW(What You See Is What You Write). No more headaches over formatting figures and filling up spaces.
On top of all this, I had to install more than 6 updates for Office 2004 to protect against vulnerabilities against hackers.
Saturday, February 02, 2008
Red Lobster Friday..yey....
Sauntered over to Red Lobster (RL) on Friday finally. I have been planning to eat from RL for some time, but somehow nothing seemed to work out. So Manas asked me to come along with his CS group for dinner @ RL. Dinner was awesome, I had stuffed flounder...too good.
During random discussions with Manas's friend Pardha, he asked me how it felt moving from a 'democracy' to 'dictatorship'. I am not going to say what my answer was as that will land me in trouble with the concerned authorities. It seems that Pardha wants to wear a T-shirt to a wedding that blatantly says "Game Over". Now that gives rise to so many controversial thoughts; (i) Are girls comparable to the game found in forests and guys comparable to hunters? (ii) Once a guy gets married is there any rule that prevents him from admiring other girls?? I believe that you tend to appreciate the fairer sex only after marriage (iii) Did someone mentions the misses and hits..?? LOL I guess I stretched that too much.
I met one of Manas's frnds who studied @ WSU. It is always fun talking abt your previous schools (both in the Indian and US sense), colleges, etc. For some time we were comparing WSU and VT, both good schools in their own right. WSU is a small campus as compared to the humongous VT campus. Then a small campus also means that you know everyone personally as compared to the 'get-lost-in-the-crowd' feeling in large campuses. IMHO, nothing can be classified as good or bad, everything falls in the grey areas. This philosophy can be applied to everything and everyone in general and believe me this can also make a very nice tag line. Now you know why I have a grey car !!!
With a very nice feeling of deja vu, the dinner came to and but not without the surprise birthday cake for Manas. It was a 6 layer chocolate cake and nobody could eat a single slice completely, so we ended up sharing a slice. I could not help correlating the cake slice to the amount of fat that would show up on my belly and also to the amount of time I would have to spend in the gym burning those tons of calories. Nevertheless, awesome cake to top off an excellent dinner..[:D]
During random discussions with Manas's friend Pardha, he asked me how it felt moving from a 'democracy' to 'dictatorship'. I am not going to say what my answer was as that will land me in trouble with the concerned authorities. It seems that Pardha wants to wear a T-shirt to a wedding that blatantly says "Game Over". Now that gives rise to so many controversial thoughts; (i) Are girls comparable to the game found in forests and guys comparable to hunters? (ii) Once a guy gets married is there any rule that prevents him from admiring other girls?? I believe that you tend to appreciate the fairer sex only after marriage (iii) Did someone mentions the misses and hits..?? LOL I guess I stretched that too much.
I met one of Manas's frnds who studied @ WSU. It is always fun talking abt your previous schools (both in the Indian and US sense), colleges, etc. For some time we were comparing WSU and VT, both good schools in their own right. WSU is a small campus as compared to the humongous VT campus. Then a small campus also means that you know everyone personally as compared to the 'get-lost-in-the-crowd' feeling in large campuses. IMHO, nothing can be classified as good or bad, everything falls in the grey areas. This philosophy can be applied to everything and everyone in general and believe me this can also make a very nice tag line. Now you know why I have a grey car !!!
With a very nice feeling of deja vu, the dinner came to and but not without the surprise birthday cake for Manas. It was a 6 layer chocolate cake and nobody could eat a single slice completely, so we ended up sharing a slice. I could not help correlating the cake slice to the amount of fat that would show up on my belly and also to the amount of time I would have to spend in the gym burning those tons of calories. Nevertheless, awesome cake to top off an excellent dinner..[:D]
Friday, February 01, 2008
Aussies and their bullshit
India lost the Test series to Australia 1-2. Lot of things happened on the field and off the field too. This is the second time the invincible Aussies were stopped from bidding for their 17th consecutive Test win. IMHO, I did not even give a 10% of chance of winning anything to the Indian team in Australia. India is not a team that can prosper on bouncy pitches, but the unexpected happened. Over the years, the Indian team has been able to recruit fast bowlers such as Zaheer Khan, Irfan Pathan, RP Singh, Ishant Sharma, Sreesanth, L Balaji, Munaf Patel, Nehra, etc and that has helped the team a lot. We could have won the 4th match @ Adelaide and drawn the series, but I think we won the battle even if Aussies won the series. The 2nd test at Sydney should be considered the worst match to be played in a long time. First of all, the Indian team were at the receiving end due to umpiring decisions and on top of that Harbhajan was slapped with a racial charge. Imagine the country where the father of the nation is Mahatma Gandhi who fought against racism and oppression in South Africa and our own player is charged with racial slur against an ethnic Australian. What the F@#% and top of that the BCCI is accused of letting off Bhaji with a light penalty.
Two of the best articles about this are:
1. Mukul Kesavan's article in Cricinfo
2. Sriram Ranganathan's article in Rediff
In light of these incidents, I hope the next time the Aussie players are reported by other teams against racial slurs which they indulge in so often. I can still remember the incident when McGrath walked up to Chanderpaul/some West Indian cricketer and gave him an earful because he thought that the player said something about his wife. The Aussies are technically supreme and invincible but they are the wrong people playing a "Gentleman's game".
My message to the likes of Ponting, Clarke :
"We know that you won the ODI World Cup, etc and are a good team technically on the field, etc. But the next time you berate any player on the field, just remember that you are showing us that you are nothing more than petty thugs and after all your ancestors were hard core criminals right??"
Secondly to all the cricketers turned journos who shouted and booed the BCCI when ICC replaced the West Indies umpire: "F#$k OFF"
Cricket Australia: "You need to ask your team to stop sledging on the field. The day is not far when some other team can accuse an Australian player of racial abuse. BTW players like Ponting and Clarke are big time losers and next time change the name of the series from Border-Gavaskar to something else, if you don't have the decency to call Gavaskar on the podium to give away the trophy. This just shows that Cricket Australia is racist too."
Two of the best articles about this are:
1. Mukul Kesavan's article in Cricinfo
2. Sriram Ranganathan's article in Rediff
In light of these incidents, I hope the next time the Aussie players are reported by other teams against racial slurs which they indulge in so often. I can still remember the incident when McGrath walked up to Chanderpaul/some West Indian cricketer and gave him an earful because he thought that the player said something about his wife. The Aussies are technically supreme and invincible but they are the wrong people playing a "Gentleman's game".
My message to the likes of Ponting, Clarke :
"We know that you won the ODI World Cup, etc and are a good team technically on the field, etc. But the next time you berate any player on the field, just remember that you are showing us that you are nothing more than petty thugs and after all your ancestors were hard core criminals right??"
Secondly to all the cricketers turned journos who shouted and booed the BCCI when ICC replaced the West Indies umpire: "F#$k OFF"
Cricket Australia: "You need to ask your team to stop sledging on the field. The day is not far when some other team can accuse an Australian player of racial abuse. BTW players like Ponting and Clarke are big time losers and next time change the name of the series from Border-Gavaskar to something else, if you don't have the decency to call Gavaskar on the podium to give away the trophy. This just shows that Cricket Australia is racist too."
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