Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from May, 2009

Chronicle Of Clichés

A couple of days ago, I ran across this funny little piece & just had to share it– What we learn from the movies . An excerpt: -- It is always possible to park directly in front of any building you are visiting. -- A detective can only solve a case once he has been suspended from duty. -- If you start dancing in the street, everyone you bump into will know all the steps. And so on. It also got me thinking how many equivalent clichés would I be able to find in India Cinema, which to some people is like the mother lode of all clichés & stereotypes? So far here is a small list I’ve been ale to come up with. Of course it goes without saying that this is by no means a comprehensive guide, just something I could make up off the top of my head; I’m sure that others would be able to come up with better. This list is also not exclusive to just one language, having watched movies in not less than 4 Indian languages, I can assure you that almost all transcend boundaries of langua

Elvis Has Left The Building

…I’m not kidding. Only in my case it is the painters who’d literally taken over my house for the last month or so. Finally the deed is done. The walls are a riot of colours,  almost like a rainbow threw up in here; but I love it. My room makes me feel like I’m on the Starship Enterprise, looking out. Actually the whole painting thing wasn’t so bad to start with. They pushed the furniture out of a room, painted while my mom watched TV and I, well, I played games and read Star Trek. But then came time to paint the inside of the cupboards. It was a massive undertaking the likes of which I’d never (and never will again, god forbid!) seen. It is quite amazing how much ‘stuff’ and I use the term loosely, can fit inside such a small space. Imagine if you will, rooms filled with plastic covers and bags and suitcases. There was stuff everywhere. On the bed, on the floor with just barely enough space for one person to walk. All the time I kept wondering, where did all this stuff come

2009 - The year I…

…voted, for the first time. And actually cared about the results. Well the UPA seems to be winning & that’s that I suppose. All the wishing in the world cannot change things as they are (how I wish!). If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. – Anon Now I can only wait & watch how this plays out for my Dad, which of course is actually the reason I cared. Coming back to the media circus that is the elections, the two most common scenarios propounded by the ‘ experts’ was either an NDA victory or at worst a highly fragmented LS. Turns out they were all wrong and the UPA is laughing all the way to power. While these elections saw many campaigns to ensure higher voting turnouts than previously see, it seems they failed to make an impact where it is needed. Many districts in the southern states especially TN, voter turnouts were a high as 67% while up here in UP, it was as low as 52%. Again as expected the urban middle class refused to participate in force thus losing

Is that an App I see?

Window/Mac only: Social networking site Wakoopa tracks the applications you're using through a small utility and uploads that information to its web site, where you can track what programs you use, review your favourites, and find new software through recommendations based on what others use. When I read this piece in Lifehacker , I knew I had to try it out. I love trying out new software and applications, this app seemed to be a perfect fit. I signed up at the website a couple of days ago and the graphs it throws up are very interesting. I found out that I spend a lot of time using Firefox, duh! no surprise there. Still, I found the website quite good and it suggests new software for me to try out, which is probably why I’m going to keep it around. Lifehacker threw up another suggestion for me today and it was something I had always been on the lookout for. If you're looking for a simple way to catalogue your piles of movies, music, books, games, and software GuruL

Painting, quests and …Zombies?

How do I distil all the craziness of the past week into words? So many thoughts tumbling around, rushing to get out, of which barely one or two make it to the page. I’ve been meaning to get around to writing something, anything , at all these past few days and damn if something or the other doesn’t keep popping up to interrupt me while I’m only thinking of writing, let alone actually get down to it.  If it’s not the painting, then the IPL. Or maybe the elections. Or the looking for a job. Or the oh..just forget it. Suffice it to say the interruptions were many and varied. The house is shaping up quite well, in spite of the freaky color scheme my sister and I came up with (some might say a marked lack of one). I’ve managed to get my purple walls in the end and the whole exercise should conclude over the next week.  After a long time, I’ve also found a game worth getting excited about, make that two games. Both are casual games (avid gamers can roll their eyes and move on) an