Blah

Was supposed to kill time to be able to keep a cancelled engagement, but all the effort was not wasted. Thought of sitting on Marine Drive, but spotted Juhu beach and walked down the Queen's necklace, disturbing a few stupid pigeons on the way...


Remember clicking photos of the tetrapods long ago, and also remember that a crane was being used to supplement the existing anti erosion measures, and surprisingly, it was still at it!


Relaxed on the beach, read a book, slept for a while, ordered two cups of pretty damn amazing tea, gave a funeral to all the waste that I buried in the sand in the most irresponsible fashion, and perhaps the most significant of all, dug a deep hole in the sand.


People were giving me weird looks, including foreigners (firangs are fast walkers, by the way) but I kept digging, flashing them half defiant, half amused, and somehow, half abashed smiles. Guess I was smiling one and a half a smile...

When you leave a beach behind, trust me, you also leave behind a lot of baggage...

On the reality of the situation of recent history and the hidden agendas of certain selfish demigods who are in posession of covert control

After careful research, apart from the sorry reality that Anil Ambani and Aishwarya Rai were involved in a very physical relationship that started and ended with a one night stand, it has been uncovered that the world is ruled by people and entities other than those thought to be in covert universal control.





Since God conditioned everyone so that everyone are exactly what they believe themselves to be, Aishwarya Rai rose to the position of the supreme witchqueen of the galaxy, which started all the trouble, the wars, the lack of reason, the spread of AIDS, and a blinded history ultimately culimnating in the birth of the antichrist, George W Bush.



Now Bsuh and Rai conspired the supremest, uberevilest, viloscandegustingest conspiracy that was ever to blind mankind.


What They Don't Want You to Know!!


In order to totally and completely comprehend the principles of marketing (where people who use flavored condoms and have sexual relations with their relatives tell companies compeletely simple ways to "mind control" human beings into spending all their money on things like bayblades), you need to realize that everything is controlled by a Reliance Industries made up of jews and muslims with help from the wannabe Mumbai underworld gangsters
.
The conspiracy first started during The quit India movement in Dombivili. They have been responsible for many events throughout history, including 1992 Mumbai Blasts.

Today, members of the conspiracy are everywhere. They can be identified by their nail clippings, which usually have a devotional song written for Baba Yaga in korean, but it is in a secret minisicule script of ardhmagadhi, so you needn't bother.


They want to Rape Mumbai Police and imprison roosters (under the pretext of bird flu containment) in Yeoor using Mumbai Truckwallahs.


The only way to save mankind from all of this is to Kill Whacko Jacko.





Since the media is controlled by Lalu Prasad Yadav we should get our information from Ayappa Devotees.





Says Oprah Winfrey, A staunch Alien, and supporter of the "save humans for food campaign"
"Why can't anyone see that America is being spied on by Lalu Prasad Yadav? It's all so that Bhagwan Sri Sri Hari Mahatma Satya Sai "I do not sodomise little boys and pretend to do cheap roadside magic tricks" Baba,





hereafter, referred to in slight disrespect as "Satya Sai Baba" becaue of all the sodomising of little children and the pretence of being gifted by god after acquiring the ability to perform cheap street magic which David Blaine (who is, BTW, gifted by God) can outdo with arms tied behind his back and both feet off the ground... anyway, so it is all so that this dude can kill all mosquitos, street dogs and any stray penguins. After that, Lalu Prasad Yadav





will to build supercomputers which will take over the world when the disorder caused by Satya sai Baba reaches a peak. The only thing we can do is let Oscar Wilde put together a militia to stop them. "


Will you be a pawn to Aishwarya Rai, Lalu Prasad Yadav and George W Bush? Will you let America spread new diseases that they invent in their labs? Will you not let the wise words of Oprah guide your heart? Will you sit back and let yourself be eaten by aliens?


Hay! wait a minute...

On the antiquity of microbes

To read the most insightful article about Bombay ever written, please do not, for heaven's sake, click here.
PS, I have not written this article, but this betters wikipedia.

This is a picture of a truck taken at three in the morning in the middle of nowhere.



hmmm... no point, as always.

On the preference of urinals

It is important to appreciate that there are many models of the placement of urinals in different places, to acquaint ourselves with a few:

In SIES college, Sion and Wonder Mall, Thane.


At Nirmal Lifestyles, Mulund.


At R-Mall, Mulund and most railway stations.


At the British Council Library, Nariman Point.


Vasant Vihar High School, Thane


There are many idiosyncrasies of the urinals in each location, which will displace the simple factors that come into play while choosing of a suitable urinal (which will come later). For example, Wonder Mall has really minuscule urinals with no partitions, which means it is easy to see the endowments of your neighbors. The one at Nirmal Lifestyles has inconveniently positioned clogged ones, with an accumulation of urine, and fogged glass partitions, which make you uncomfortable and nervous even though you cannot see anything clearly. This is one place where you simply cannot afford to be uncomfortable and nervous. The ones at railway stations have marble partitions, but no cups, just drains, which means that you have to be mindful of urine spray from the neighboring cubicle landing on your feet. The ones at SIES are probably the most idiosyncratic. The cups are there, but the pipes leading them to the drain is absent, which means the urine travels down the bottom of the cup and falls right back onto your shoes. More often than not, these urinals are filled, making you use the toilet and force you to contribute to the general mess.

However, these idiosyncrasies apart, there are a few factors that are taken into consideration while making a choice.

1) The already occupied urinals
2) The probability of subsequent occupation
3) Being “grouped” with one person (two guys together in an otherwise empty urinal, makes a difference if there are many like at R-mall)
4) The chances of being “grouped” on subsequent occupation
5) Conversation or any kind of peeking
6) Spray from beneath the partitions
7) Chances of bumping into another

After simplifying the factors and the models, the problem can more or less be reduced to the number of urinals in each row, and then be tackled accordingly.



Three urinals, offer limited choice, and therefore are not too problematic.
The problem of choice arises only when all the three stalls are empty, and when either end is occupied. As a rule, when there are three urinals, one always occupies an unoccupied end.



When it comes to four urinals, all other permutations and combinations amount to the same, and reduce your choice to what amounts to a single urinal, except in the case of all four stalls being empty, and one end being occupied.

Yet again, an unoccupied end should be preferred here. However, a problem arises when alternate stalls are occupied:



Getting the unoccupied end here would not be advised here as that would end you being grouped with a single person. Remember, two is company, three is a crowd.

Now is when this becomes interesting.
The unoccupied end is a very nice rule, and applies to most ways in which a row of five urinals can be occupied.



However, there are a few oddballs.



Two urinals side by side, and the other end taken. One would assume to leave an empty space in the middle. WRONG! Remember, you do not want to be grouped with anyone.

As long as possible, prefer to be a loner.



Its ok to be without a crowd or company. You are a freaking man, do not forget that.

Here is the most interesting problem.



You HAVE to be grouped with someone. But who? Using the urinal in the middle means that on subsequent occupation, you have twice the chance of being in a crowd compared to that of using the empty corner.

Now, based on this, figure out where to pee where you have more choice. Complications can arise when there are two unequal rows facing each other, like the Vasant Vihar High School urinal.

Now, a study to show which urinals are most used in practice. How do you find out which is the most used urinal? Look at the erosion or wear of the Naphthalene balls placed in the urinals, the one with the least wear is the least used urinal. Turns out that people prefer to use urinals that are placed in the middle of a row of urinals, for some weird reason. The last and the second last urinals in any row are the least used ones.

The theory totally contradicts reality, like any good theory should.

The Memoirs of a Geisha

Amazing movie. The movie is about the journey of a young girl, who goes on to become one of the best Geisha Japan has ever known. A Geisha, is one of those Japanese girls who plays around with fans and entertains everyone. Basically an entertainer, who also hosts parties and such.
In the movie, most of the Japanese don't have immaculate English, the Japanese accent appears, which makes it hard to understand in the begenning, but you get familiarised with it. This makes the movie authentic, and the accent is a clever way to show the Japanese culture without actually using the language. What makes this cooler is because of the many regional dialects in Japan, the accents too, are as varied, which completes the effect.
The movie makes you think that your eyes are leeching the colours off the screen. The set was custome made, and an entire District in Japan recunstructed from the cobblestone streets upwards to a river and period styled buildings. John Williams chose to conduct the score for this film instead of Harry Potter 4. Actually, that wasn't worth mentioning - all of William's work appear to be more or less the same, but I don't claim to be an expert.
The experts (or those who claim to be experts) are, however pleased With Rob Marshall's follow up to Chicago, and the film has recieved nominations for the Art Direction, Cinematorgaphy, Costume Design, Original Score, Sound and Sound editing Oscars.
The movie captures the mystery of the extent of a Geisha's entertainment, because while it makes clear that the Geisha are not prostitutes, there is some confusion over the Mizuage ritual, a ritual which makrs the passage of an apperentice Geisha to a real one, by the sale of the virginity of the apperentice to the highest bidder. This is the single largest amount of money that a Geisha earns in her lifetime. This may look like prostitution, but its not. The films tresses the point that Geisha culture is mostly a secret, little understood by even the Japanese.
Which became funny because of half the cast being Chinese, and the people who made the movie thinking that this would not be noticed by non oriental people.
The movie, also ends up looking like an AMERICAN period film. This happens mostly because of the lack of scientific wisdom in the Japanese sayings. Like "water finds it's own way." Ancient sayings have the knack of being scientifically true as well, without the truth in the parallels too.

drabamkosminglactinomousintentiality

If you even TRIED to pronounce that you need a life. Or at least, some really hard words to pronounce. I guess its the life part more, but try something like "says". Or, try really hard words to pronounce like "climb" or "lamb" or "comb" or to throw in a tough one, "plumber". For prats like you, that ought to be damned difficult. (BTW, just for kicks, all the Bs are silent). Or try something like "refrigerator" or "sentience" or "concentration" or even, for that fucking matter, "pronounciation." People almost always get these wrong, so don't think going "ray-freej-eh-rator" is the right way to "pro-nOUn-ss" it. Damn you, go ahead and get "honorificabilitudinitatibus" or "floccinaucinihilipilification" or even the simple "deantidestablishmentarianism" right and that would give George W Bush Jr a run for his oil.
Don't think about all of that... think about geting your life... I desperately need one. Donno why I even bother to blog. Dammit, this early in the morning, I just wanted to note that I was going to sleep now... ended up farting the above, and there was this long thing about why stooopid people blog... but screw that.
You think so? "says" is "sezz".
And don't even think about getting "think" right.

Meaningless arguments

Three utterly meaningless arguments
Warning: The arguments are REALLY stupid.

Seatbelts causing accidents
Me: Wearing a seatbelt shows the driver that you are not confident of his driving, which will make him nervous and make him drive the car in this state, which is likely to cause more accidents.
Chyrag: A passenger wearing a seatbelt will assure the driver that the passenger is safe, and give him that much more confidence to drive better.

Effect of straw girth on coconut water sales
Me: increased straw girth increases sales as the coconut water finishes faster, leaving people wanting for more
Bhan: decreased straw girth gives the impression that there is more water in each coconut, which will increase the sales
(Note: Later, actual study on this, with figures to prove either point)

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Me: That's a stupid book
Chintan: No, its not

Remember the warning?

hyperlinks

This is a piece of art. Porbably the cleverest piece I have ever written.
The point is that, everything is linked to something or the other. Obviously, you wouldn't have the patience to go through all the links, but if you do, it will more or less, totally be not worth the effort.
It all started with something that was smelling funny. The hyperlinks failed to work. Not that when they do work, they send me to some place useful, but when they didn't, I wasn't going anywhere, and stuck with one hell of a crappy page.
I was wondering why this was happening, but being a technofreak, no one will know better than me that computers have a mind of their own, are hell bent on taking over the world,
and more often than not,
do things without any rationale behind them.


Computers, I can safely then say, are pretty much like humans.
Especially, bhenchods
like these.
That was too good a point to be wasted in this post,
and anyway, if you are indeed clicking every single one of these hyperlinks,
then you will not be following what I am trying to say,
and therefore, I might as well not say anything that makes sense,
not that I have been doing that

so far.
Will not hide any secrets from you.
My blog is blatant and meandering,
like every other blog out there. I blog for no reason, about nothing, and with no intention.
Blogs,
being the ultimate union of the irrational acts of both man and technology,
are bound to have the fallacies of both,
and this terrible union is fated to end up in disaster.
I thought this would be funny,
and hope that it will,
but am almost sure that...
fuck it.
To hell with this,
am stopping right now.
Maybe there is a second installment on the way.

First Impressions

Somehow am of the opinion that "First Impressions" is a better title for Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice", and it would have been if publishers were not so keen on rejecting works like these. Like, imagine the regret of all the publishers who turned down Haryy Potter.

Just finished reading the book (PnP not HP), read the first chapter here, the next few chapters from this site, and downloaded a copy from one of the coolest site ever, which I have used extensively, but the possibility that Jane Austen's works would be available here did not occor to me till google pointed it out. Use this site also for weird spiritual and occult texts.

Anyway, about the book, it is an outright comedy. This is a wittily written account of a love story with the backdrop of class and reputation. The story shows that love exists independant of the elements in your social sphere, or the social sphere itself. This is a story where Elizabeth and Jane, the two eldest Bennet daughters, find true love in a world where marriages take place to increase class, retain it or for no other sake than a simple one of security. Amazingly written, without complications, but the book is a story about everyone from Fitzwilliam Darcy to Mr. Collins... everyone has a history and a future. Really clever book, should have read it before the movie.

The movie disappoints in only one respect, Mr. Collins is shown as a stupid loser, whereas, in fact, he was a gentleman whith an attitude problem. The movie otherwise does justice to the book.

Dot dot dot part II

Almost named, jokingly, Look back in anger. Study leave has hit me... second sem... first year, over... just looking back, with hardly any anger.

My new base guitar

This is a Givson Jaguar. This guitar has such a history... a story worth telling, but sometime later.

The promised Audioblog

This is a recorded fight between four people. Basically, a share rickshaw ride ended in disaster when a man refused to pay the twelve bucks because the driver did not go to the place where he wanted. As a rule, the drivers leave the passengers at the bus stop where they would have been dropped by the bus, if they were taking it. The passeners in these rickshaws are usually people who get bored of waiting in the bus line.

Unfortunately, Koknipada, the bus that takes people to Glaxo, has a low frequency, and consequently, no rickshaws find it profitable to ferry Koknipada passengers, which results in these passengers havin to use Vasant Vihar rickshaws.

The fight takes place when this man who wanted to go to a Koknipada stop is refused by the rickshaw guy, who says that he will take them only to the Vasant Vihar shop. The man then refuses to pay the full fare in anger.

You will hear a comparison of rickshaw fares to hotel menus, abuses relating to the sexual history with the maternal parent, an advice by the passenger on not to convert the rickshaw into a shared one, and a justification by the driver as to why he is indulging in illegal activities for the sake of money.

I join in pretty late, and another guy only tries to coax the driver to go on, but the chief fight is between the rickshaw driver and this old bald man.

Download the blog here.

Happy Valentine's day

The delay in this post should be attributed to the unfortunate acquiral of my card reader by the man at Ratnadeep, with whom the filthy thing was lying for god knows how many days since the submissions of the management project.

dot dot dot

Extreme CRM

Donno where to start. Too many things to blog about, amongst them a few audio blogs which cannot be done till I recover my stolen card reader from this serial concert bunker. Two stories about amazing Customer Relationship management, which needs to be told right away before I forget.

So the system was that you had to shell out moolah to subscribe for a television channel, where every second cost you. This was before the world of cable TV, where every second costs you nonetheless, but you can afford channel surfing, and you don't require a license either. Jawaharlal Nehru, speaks, and continues to speak for an excess of two minutes. BBC let's him go on, does not cut the broadcast short...

...and then goes ahead and compensates for EVERY SINGLE one of its subscribers for the extra two minutes.

Such an admirable display of responsibility towards its customers. BBC worked back then, and the reputation continues because it was a simple choice to make - a choice that could be trusted in to deliver quality. A brand is nothing more than a promise of quality that simplifies the selection process, and the marketing project is done with, so I will not get Kotlerish.

Save for another great story of CRM.

My grandfather, was this lawyer dude who went ahead and found it fit to afford the priciest parker around, and this was some forty years ago. So he is clever enough to make sufficient money as to afford the costliest pen around, and then goes ahead and lets it drop from his pocket while bending over to pick something up. The crystal coated ink tip point bends because of the drop. Being a lawyer, and an eminent one at that, he goes ahead and couriers the pen to the Parket HQ, with a letter noting a "manufacturing defect" in the pen.
Around a month later, he gets a reply. Someday I will scan the original reply, but here is the essence. The letter writes:

After sending the pen for testing at a lab, it has been found that the pen has no manufacturing defect, and has been dropped from a height of three feet. Nonetheless, as a gesture of goodwill, here is a replacement.

The (fixed) original pen, along with a brand new one were in the courier.

Parker made their (ink-tip) point crystal clear, and I have made mine.

Pol science practicals.

SIES college of Arts, Science and Commerce, invites all its students to the felicitation function of some physicist dude (who might someday become the president). Sankaracharya, of all people, is present. Every single one of the students is asked to write a report on it, which will be forwarded to the department head. A seemingly innocent gesture on the part of the college to give the students some exposure to quality spiritualism. Some cynical people might think of an ulterior motive of filling up the empty auditorium.
Politics revealed naked and in all its ferocity is a terribly thing to take. Everything was a propaganda to counter all the allegations against the Sankaracharya, with words like “people have wronged this man of god” and “he has been to terrible places which I cannot even name because of his devotion.” Vajpayee and Advani were named as being instrumental in procuring Sankaracharya’s release from the “terrible place” and the entire mess.
The entire scheme backfired royally. Most of the students were busy with their mobile phones, listening to the radio, or playing on them, and not taking in a word of all the pseudo-religious and half-masked political discourses on stage, and those who did hear, understood what was going on in its entirety, and were sitting through it with a slightly disgusted air. Not a single student in the auditorium was brainwashed – and this more than anything else makes me confident of the fact that we are headed towards a better country.

First Impressions

I am one of those people who is prejudiced against Bride and Prejudice just because pretty trustworthy friends have told me that the movie sucks. I have seen little of the movie, and somehow, I guess I must watch it before making any judgement, and I even sometimes wonder if one is necessary at all.

Also, like Narnia, I guess I better read Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice soon.

Anyway, the movie was a good expirience, well made, and made you hope that Austen would be around in feminist times. The movie was actually hilarious with various digs at class, society, and the rare one at gender, mostly through the rampant tongue of the Protagonist, elizabeth bennet (Kiera Knighttley). The story showed that women married for different reasons, Charlotte Lucas marries William Collins for security, Mary Bennet, I guess marries not out of love, but out of status and wealth to mr. Bingly (who, in turn, really loves Mary, but Darcy dissuades him from doing so either on the grounds of class or on the grounds that Mary is marrying him for his wealth - it is unclear), Lydia and Wickham marry because of excitement of gettting married on the part of Lydia, and Greed on the part of Wickham, and finally Liz and Mr. Darcy marry out of love, irrespective of the class or wealth of the other.
one might assume that 'Pride and Prejudice' speaks against its existence in society, which is a mistake, because it is a simple case of Pride, in the case of Darcy, and Prejudice in the case of Liz, which keeps them from loving each other. When they both set these aside, they hit it off.

The casting was confusing with the little girl (Jena Malone) from stepmom and life as a house showing up and getting married, being a perfect little bitch, Rosamund Pike being oddly familiar for some movie which I just cannot recollect (I do now, the bad bond chick - Miranda Frost from Die another day), but when I first saw her, I thought she would me a more famous actress with a more recognizable name, Matthew Macfadyen looked like Hugh Jackman, and Rupert Friend looked like Orlando Bloom. Not a big mistake to make if you image google them.



Macfadyen and Jackman



Bloom and Friend

Fight Club

Watched fight club. No parallels whatsoever with the Brad Pitt flick. Well produced movie, with amazing cinematography... and dubbing. The complexity of the process must be understood when care is taken to dub in the slight crackling sound heard when charas gets burnt, and doing this only when the camera is close to Ashmit Patel's face. I guess the government's directive to ban smoking on screen has backfired when they started showing drugs. Technically brilliant film. There is no product placement, but instances where the ongoings on screen can be interpreted as such. Both coke and pepsi make an appearence in the same flick, along with lifestyles and Romanov. No one cares about the technicalities though:

So there are these four slightly disillusioned dudes, Vicky (Zayed Khan), who I guess is a lazy lay about with no job unlike his friends, Karan (Dino Morea) a reluctant instructor at a gym, hellbent on helping out with the workouts of only the hot chicks, which is a bit weird because they cannot get there without working out, Somil (Ritiesh Deshmukh) and Diku (Aashish Choudhary), both bartenders who are more interesting in drinking the booze rather than doling it out.
Not surprisingly, they wake up in college with somewhat of a hangover, no jobs, and with nothing but the idea of letting the accumulated male aggression out in an organized way. Basically a chance for all those males who want a piece of each other to actually do it in a suitable, and ever changing location. Fight club opens, which is a disappointment, because at the end of the day, you see only a grand total of six fights at the fight club.

Fight no. 1: One fat guy and a nerd (nerd wants a fight because the fat guy teased him). Nerd punches the fat guy, getting as much reaction as a last and dead fat guy. Fat guy punches the nerd, getting as much reaction as a bad guy’s sidekick in a Mithuen Chakrobarty film. Then, the nerd tickles the fat guy into submission.

Fight no. 2: Tall guy Vs Short guy fight. Short guy punches the tall gun in the crotch, and the crowd cheers.

Fight no. 3: Pretty confusing mess of two guys “fighting”, but it sure as hell looked liked the acrobatics on a variety show gone dreadfully wrong.

Fight no. 4: Mohit (Yash Tonk), stupid bastard, who has an important role to play later almost bashes a person to death, and does this so effectively that the other dude is in no state to submit at all. Brutal fellow is the soul of all b-grade hindi movie villains, but has only the capability of the comic relief in a seventies a-grade bollywood flick.

Fight no. 5: The “surprise” in the movie, unfortunately leaked in the trailer (note: THIS is where trailers go wrong), a fight between two girls. Pretty effective use of two female bodies, enough to work up any feminist to use the phrase “objectification of women” a couple of times.

Fight no. 5 1/2: Finally the real deal, between two guys in a swimming pool, interrupted by the grand entry of Sameer (Sohail Khan), with sound fx which I am sure are a tribute to Dhoom. Sameer has an old score to settle with Vicky, who used to tease him as a kid, which meant that Sameer had no friends.

Fight no. 5 and the other 1/2: Sameer Vs Vicky, an almost equal fight (Sameer has an edge), interrupted by the timely entry of the police.

The film gets pretty incoherent at this point of time, with two half-formed, women-objectifying, somewhat stupid love stories of Vicky with Amu (Dia Mirza) and Karan with Shonali (The better known of the two ek aur ek gyarah chicks Amrita Arora). The said love stories are not important, unless you are interesting in well exposed Indian chicks, in which case, just google of the same, or click the phrase, to save you the trouble (disclaimer: don’t expect anything from well exposed Indian chicks, google’s search relevancy is amazingly low).

Coming back to the main storyline of the fightclub, a storyline which was rudely interrupted by well exposed Indian chicks, and a storyline that is soon going to go haywire,

Somil, has an uncle who owns a club, which the Delhi gangsters want because it is an ideal location to smuggle in drugs across the states. Somil’s uncle want’s to run the club with ‘Sharafat’ and the fight club ends up in possession of the bar, along with Sameer as a bouncer, and then begins a series of fights between the fight club and the local gangsters.

Remember Mohit? The spoilt guy has an elder brother who used to be the head honcho of the Delhi underworld, and has now mended his ways. Anna (Suneil Shetty) tries to mend his brother’s ways too, but Mohit is in awe, and I would go as far as to say, love with Dinesh (Ashmit Patel), a prominent gangster and younger brother of Sandy (Rahuy Dey). A series of complicated events unfold, all for the sole purpose of making the demi-star studded starcast to fight with each other. Komal (Neha Dhupia) enters as a demure doctor “special friend” to Sameer, possible a bit disappointing, because despite being a token character, no skin show. Which is probably a good thing, because it’s Neha Dhupia. The storyline is haywire by now because of the four love interests (the three girls plus Mohit-Dinesh, remember?), and Dinesh having a clever plan of recovering the club (crossroads, not fight) from the fight club dudes, which involves killing Mohit so that Anna thinks the fight club guys killed Mohit, and Anna closes down Crossroads, kicks the butts of the fight club team, and Sandy gets control over crossroads. Haywire by now because the names of the cast and the characters getting mixed up, the clashing intentions of the script writers, and the general confusion of the director about what to do with the fight club, which abruptly ceases to exist, with an unacceptable explanation, despite being the fundamental allure (if at all it has any) of the movie.

Worth a watch for (a) therapy for aggression (b) people into objectification of women (read well exposed Indian chicks) (c) having too much money and nothing better to do (d) some weird kind of guy-violence porn.

This movie somehow feels like porn. Although the well exposed Indian chicks content is as low as google’s search relevancy, any type of extreme violence, is, I guess, some weird kind of porn.

Weird ads

Imagine, a child speaking on screen "taste mein best, mummy or everest." (Does not have the same effect, but loosely translated to "the best in taste - mummy and everest")

Put your mind in the gutter and go through that again.

Keep your mind in the gutter, and go through these "cadbury's bytes" ads.





There was another version, which I could not find, where there is a school going girl and a boy in a boat, and the same gesture takes place. That, I remember, was after the DPS MMS scandal put everyone's minds in the gutter.

The point is, as rediculous as it may seem, is it valid to ask if the agencies are doing this purposely?
One more or less reliable viewpoint from a prof is yes, when lifeboy's big purplish (and she claims, phallic) soap came on screen with a big muscular guy in the shower going "sach much, bada hai" (Really, it's big).

Now soap may be sold only in rectangular boxes, because being a cheap commodity, the excess cost of complex packaging wouldn't really justify the allure of a changed shape... so the packaging is a low cost rectangle, witch, of course, a soap that fills it up to the full so that the customer does not feel he has been ripped off of some soap which could have filled the empty space.

Don't really know which side I am arguing on anymore, but the the world gets pretty damn interesting once you put your mind in the gutter.

Narnia!

Watched the movie. Like four kids enter this magical world where all sorts of freaky creatures talk and miraculous things happen. They fight the bad talking freaky creatures with swords and stuff, and the good talking freaky creatures, ruled by this pretty hot son-of-a-god type lion (who gets nailed by the witch queen - like Jesus, not like Ben Affleck). The said witch queen is killed, and all her bad talking freaky minions are killed too... and then the kids come back not knowing how the time has passed... when in fact, time hasn't passed at all.
Pretty much like the real world after a few shots of vodka - you feel you are talking to bad freaky creatures, and you have no clue how the time has passed.

Saw the movie alone. I mean there were other people in the theater - mostly filled with kids I didn't know, and couples getting a bit more than slightly scared after getting a first hand look of what was heading their way. Overexcited freaks were serious competition to the creatures on screen. They were dancing, howling, laughing, booing, and more often than not, crying, and basically behaving like the stalls crowd of a theatre with downpriced tickets to stay in the game despite competition from the multiplexes. The good thing is that at least you get to see the movie without heads peeking out of the seats and taking you out of the movie.

That said, the movie was not exactly worth getting engrossed in... talking freaks can be entertaining only upto a certain point - and talking freaks was the only thing the movie really had to offer.

Frankly, the movie was pretty boring. Will have to read the books, but I guess Narnia does not really stand out for many reasons:
1) There is no real point in the prophecy of the kids going into Narnia - the freaky talking lion kills the witch with one well placed bite, and the kids do not play a role in actually changing anything
2) You are left wondering about the permise of the universe and its laws
3) Takes terribly long to start off, all the build up is for the sake of a not too impressive fight sequence
4) You could imagine more action - much more than what was taking place on screen, the cheetahs, the rhinos, the centaurs, the minotaur like creatures and particularly the mermaids were all terribly underused.
5) Since they were putting in talking creatures not a normal part of other fantasy works, they could have done a bit more - I was imagining elephants, giants, serpants, crustaceans - so much variety in the animal kingdom that they didn't use

Was actually pretty boring, will have to read the books, but the movie was awash with occult, religious, and mythological parallels. Aslan's self-sacrifice was interesting, and the "he will always come and go" send off even more so. Amazing animation, but post LOTR and Star Wars, people would obviously expect something far more spectacular to work.

one big disapointment, but will have to read the books, because the movies almost always come off much worse than the books.