Image courtesy

….and we do pronounce things in a different way, like you say “caterpillar” and we say “caterpillar,” and… You say “aluminum” and we say “aluminium.” You say, “centrifugal” and we say “centrifugal.” You say, “leisure” and we say “lizuray.” You say “baysil” and we say “bahsil.” You say “’erbs” and we say “herbs,” because there’s a f’king “H” in it… But you spell through THRU, and I’m with you on that, ‘cause we spell it “THRUFF,” and that’s trying to cheat at Scrabble.

“How can we get that “OU” sound?”

“Well, a “U” will work,”

“What about an “O” as well?”

“We don’t need it, we’re fine.”

“No, I think an “O” in.”

“Well, all right.”

“And a “G” as well.”

“What?!”

“Yes, a “G” would be good. We need a silent “G” in the background, in case of any accidents or something.”

“Well, all right.”

“And an “H” as well.”

“F’king ‘ell! Hang on.”

“An “H” in case some herbs come along.”

“All right…”

“And a Q, and a P, and a Z… Look it’s a word in Scrabble that’s 480 points!”

full transcript

Ezhaam arivu - through wikipedia

feels good) Auto driver turns meter ON!!! There. That should’ve been my first clue!

As you already might have guessed, I hated 7aum Arivu. Disappointing.  Although I am glad I chose this movie over Ra.one. That would have been a suicide. (BTW, Shahrukh Khan came to my bathroom, while I was bathing, asking me to watch his Ra.One. !!! Did that happen with you or is it just me?)

Back to “the seventh sense”, I promised my friends that I would list 10 negative about this movie, against 5 of the good ones. So here you go.

Shruti Haasan: she is an excellent actor in a world where Rahul Gandhi is an excellent statesman. Kapish?

Direction:  Ghajini had memento as reference.  This one had nothing to inspire from. So, no wonder movie derailed after first 20 minutes. This director stretched one hour story like a chewing gum, threw common sense out of window and on top of it – he took my money!

Stunts: I can’t believe why our directors don’t have any idea on what Kung Fu is. They simply had to pick up any Chinese/Thai movie, except “crouching tiger..”. But looks like they checked only that movie, so kung fu now is surfing on bamboo trees.

SCI-FI: Flying objects without any explanation does not make any movie a sci-fi (nor historic), as this proudly claims. Bunch of kids just out of their diapers, tweak a guy’s a DNA to make him a superhuman, and you want me to believe it!?!

We laugh at Kyapten Vijaykanth typing on Windows media player, but we are OK with Sruthi compares two DNA in microscope! We laugh when Balayya diffuses a bomb with On/Off button, but we are Okay with Dong lee placing a Jammer on top of the car for public display (BTW which says “Jammer switched On”).

As usual, unbelievably stupid “science”.

Hypnotism: Really! Are you kidding me? Does anyone know what is it? Somebody please explain this director what it is, I think he believes it to be something similar to “statue” game we played in 4^th grade.

Romance: 90 minutes with 3 songs. I turned believer for a moment and asked “God, what have I ever done to get this kind of treatment!”. There is absolutely no justification for wasting 90 minutes on pointless romance when you claim movie is action/sci-fi or whatever it is.

Flaws: Millions of them, for naming one – Shruthi&co don’t have money to hire a monkey, but she conducts DNA test for an entire village in Kanchipuram! That’s smart economics.

Bio war: Its basically conspired by 6 Chinese officials plotted in broken English, even though they know mandarin very fluently.  Basically they want to attack India through a virus in a month so. It’s the same paranoid theory few Pakistanis think Indians plotting it (or Palestinians thinking Israelites, and so on )

Songs & dance: Below average pointless and they were “inserted”

Historic Accuracy:  Is Bhodhidharma father of Chinese medicine and Kung fu? Movie says I should be ashamed if I don’t know this, Now I am back at my desk and I can’t find reference to this. Can you please help me out?

Comedy: Alright! Are we banking on retarded and dwarfs?

To name some good things:

1. Suriya.
2. Cinematography for first 20 min
3. Hmm.. still can’t think of anything else.

thanks to Ape, Not Monkey

thanks to the PBH

Image via Wikipedia

I have a question for my readers and friends, on fundamentals of Feminism. While I am not sure how to put in a politically correct way, I am worried that I will end up offending a whole lot of them, especially women including my better half. (Update: Oh… No! She is already offended by the idea of this post).

It’s related to latest incident in Egypt, where a CBS correspondent Lara Logan was roughed up (to be specific, sexually molested) by celebrating Egyptian crowd (obviously men!). There is a whole lot of discussion happening in blogosphere. Was that right for an attractive white (read clearly distinguishable in Egyptian crowd) woman to report amidst frustrated (later celebrating) mostly men crowd of a male centred society (with less respect for women, officially!) without anyone to protect her. What happened was obviously wrong, but could that be avoided in the first place? She is Lara Logan not Lara Croft!

Now my question: Is “Asking for it” still considered as a factor, even a remote or tiny one?

I may look naive questioning like this, but please educate me. I guess, this must have been discussed over and over again in all forms of media, but there are still questions.

Here, let me provide an analogy, feel free to dispute it.

There is a high possibility that money left around will be stolen or robbed (depends where you leave it), even in an established social, political and religious (starting from 10 commandments) understanding that stealing is wrong, someone with a need of it will simply take it, like it or not! You would need a protection against it, that’s why we have a massive industry created just to protect your money! To this day we agree stealing is wrong, while we still protect our money from being stolen.

Well… this may not be a right analogy, but an attempt. Anyway, let me know your thoughts.

Update: I would like you to read one such post on the same topic “Is …” where he reasons out:

1. Women are the weaker, frailer sex. The average man is physically stronger than the average woman, and absent physical protection (in the form of other men, be they police, military or family) women are COMPLETELY at the mercy of men.
2. Egypt is a nation resistant to feminism. Egyptian men do not “ respect ” women, unlike the pale, porn-addicted, gelded fembois of America and Europe.
3. A riot, by definition, is an event defined by its lack of law and order – meaning that  the structures that protect women from the predations of men do NOT exist.
4. Logan is a white foreigner, and is thus despised by the violent hordes who believe their government to be in thrall to hers.

Credits Geek&Poke

image via wikipedia

It’s so frustrating to see such artwork does not get the attention, recognition and popularity it deserves. Almost a century now of history of Bollywood and its audience still did not reach puberty.

Back to the movie, it’s brilliant, just what Vishal Bhardwaj promises, every time! I am a Vishal fan, ever since Omkara. This again, based on a book, “Susanna’s Seven Husbands” – a Ruskin Bond novel. Story of a woman constantly in search of eternal love (read: overrated love) and she ends up marrying (and killing) all of them. As it was done for Omkara, story was customised to the Indian context. Susanna, of course, is retained as a westernised Christian woman; otherwise it is not possible to tell a story of seven husbands. Remember that Indian cultural thing – once a widow always a widow (Manu wrote this, not me).

Movie is collectively almost a masterpiece – fine acting, great direction, brilliant storytelling and nice choice of character. Priyanka Chopra did a great job, but I am still not a fan. Annu Kapoor was the best part of the movie, other husbands did well. Songs were good; “Daaarlinggg” was worth the applause.

Only departments that fail in the movie are graphics and make up. Black panther was totally a cartoon, and the burning house looked like a gif image from a mail forward. Bollywood has a long way to go make the graphics look real. While fixing that, for the next movie, Vishal can fire his Make-up artists. Plot reads Susanna ageing from 20 to 65 along the storyline, but she always looked like age 28 to 28.5, with several bad disguises!

via – also larger image

Image via Wikipedia

Onshore support translates to more expensive service, offshore works out cheaper. Both have their own advantages and drawbacks. Companies pick one of these, so that they can sell their service at feasible price.

Now, what did I miss? (scratching me head)… No, I dint. It’s so simple.

Alright, that context is this post - “Accent neutralisation and a crisis of identity in India’s call centres”, and this comment caught my eyes.

He declares :

FACT: Nobody enjoys speaking to Indian call centres, because it’s really difficult to understand what they’re saying.

FACT: Even the Indians who try to disguise their native accent are barely understandable.

FACT: Many people have switched suppliers (be it power, internet, mobile phone, etc) simply because they’re fed up with talking to Indians when they want support.

This part is very interesting..

Personally, I don’t care for Indian accents, and I refuse to speak to Indians on the phone (even if they’re British). This suits me just fine, as I have none of those frustrating calls any more.

If I do need support, and the support is via an Indian call centre, then I go straight to the Terminations department  and tell them I don’t want their services any more. When they ask why this is, I say it’s because I need help but I’m fed up with talking to Indians. They will normally put me straight onto a British person and I can deal with them.

Don’t be shy of telling them you don’t want to speak to Indians. Just because you don’t understand what somebody is saying, it doesn’t mean you’re racist

My brain’s all over the wall.

Source of Infographics dreamsofatypewriter

Now, do you really need an explanation for this? Don’t they (deities) have much better issues to attend (like world hunger!) than appear on bread toasts, fences, wall etc ?

Bette Shober (L) and Joanne Vrablik (R) take a closer look at what people believe to be an image of the Virgin Mary under a freeway underpass in Chicago, April 18, 2005. Police said the image might have been caused by stains from road salt that dripped from the Kennedy expressway onto the wall, but hundreds of believers have been coming to the underpass to view the image and pray at the spot. - image via IBNLive

Before you answer this please consider this:

Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi organised a march in Dandi to “illegally” produce salt, against applied tax by British Raj in India. It was “within” the political boundaries of India, had a “political aspiration” with a motive of achieving a “political goal”! Now, back to BJP:

Take Our Poll

Disclaimer: As any liberal need to announce this, to avoid branding. My support here is issue based and this statement is not sarcastic.

image - xkcd

image via wikipedia

Dhobi Ghat is not a traditional Bollywood commercial-art movie; hence my comments are also not regular ones. Movie is attributed with fine acting and brilliant direction. Bummer – it is pointless and boring. It neither does the justice to the time spent in cinema nor to the pop-corn bought. (Just a thought: Movie like this is the reason why Akshay Kumar in industry, to bring pointless but not boring movies). Dhobi Ghat revolves around a modern art painter Arun (Amir Khan) obsessed with video letters of Yasmin. At the same time NRI investment banker Shai (Monika Dogra) stalks him while successfully manage to get herself obsessed by Munna (Prateik) the Dhobi, whom she meets on her clichéd poverty trip. Arun changes houses! That’s all – I dint miss anything to explain on the plot!

All newcomers (all of them except Amir) have done nice job, justice to their roles, while Amir still struggles with “new age” acting – the natural one. Amir acting still stuck in mid 90s standard of great acting, I feel he was weakest link in acting department. Kiran Rao’s direction is great, even without considering this is her first presentation. Actually this is a relief! Since for a long time now Farah Khan was taking all the sympathy votes for being the only female Bollywood mainstream director. Now Farah can retire and Kiran can take her place with an understanding that her first movie is a mistake and she won’t be making a pointless movie again.

After Dhobi Ghat, I went into depression for a while and was actually looking for an Akshay Kumar kind of movie to undo this effect. We don’t run out of options do we? I chose Vijay’s Kaavalan over “Yamla Pagla Diwana”. As anticipated it was crapy one and boom! I am back to this world again, Thanks to Vadivelu!. Anyways, here are some options; if you would like undo the hangover after watching Dhobi Ghat (I used all three):

Kaavalan: Vijay is a kick boxer, student, body guard, dancer, comedian, singer, honest but innocent, most eligible bachelor as usual! Basically he is almost all the things I dreamed I would become when I was 12.

Black Swan: Amazingly brilliant movie. Watch it yourself, I am running out of words to explain it.

127 Hours: Another brilliant masterpiece by Danny Boyle. It surely will bring you goose bumps (as “The way back” did). Again, I am running out of words to explain the movie. One note on AR Rahman though! One more evidence to show he copies tunes, from his own work! Or, do we call it reuse? Some part of this movie has background tune of Raavan (Behene De to be specific.). Probably he thought the crowd that watched Raavan and watching 127 Hours are mutually exclusive. He is obviously wrong isn’t it?

Here, the video and complete transcript (©George Carlin himself)

You got people like this around you? Country is full of them now! People walking around all day long, every minute of the day — worried about everything! Worried about the air, worried about the water, worried about the soil. Worried about insecticides, pesticides, food additives, carcinogens; worried about radon gas, worried about asbestos. Worried about saving endangered species.

Let me tell you about endangered species, all right? Saving endangered species is just one more arrogant attempt by humans to control Nature! It’s arrogant meddling! It’s what got us into trouble in the first place! Doesn’t anybody understand that? Interfering with Nature! Over 90 percent.. over… way over 90 percent of all the species that have ever lived on this planet, ever lived, on this planet are gone. Whissssshht! They are extinct!

We didn’t kill them all.

They just… disappeared! That’s what Nature does! They disappear these days at the rate of 25 a day, and I mean regardless of our behavior. Irrespective of how we act on this planet, 25 species that were here today, will be gone tomorrow! Let them go… gracefully! Leave Nature alone! Haven’t we done enough?

We’re so self-important. So self-important! Everybody’s going to save something now. “Save the trees; save the bees; save the whales; save those snails.” And the greatest arrogance of all, “Save the planet.” What? Are these fucking people kidding me? Save the planet? We don’t even know how to take care of ourselves yet. We haven’t learned how to care for one another, we’re gonna save the fucking planet?

I’m getting tired of that shit. Tired of that shit. Tired! I’m tired of fucking Earth Day! I’m tired of these self-righteous environmentalists; these white, bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is there aren’t enough bicycle paths. People trying to make the world safe for their Volvos. Besides, environmentalists don’t give a shit about the planet. They don’t care about the planet. Not in the abstract they don’t. Not in the abstract they don’t. You know what they’re interested in? A clean place to live. Their own habitat. They’re worried that some day in the future, they might be personally inconvenienced. Narrow, unenlightened self-interest doesn’t impress me.

Besides, there is nothing wrong with the planet. Nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine. The people are fucked. Difference. Difference! The planet is fine. Compared to the people, the planet is doing great. Been here four and a half billion years. Did you ever think about the arithmetic? The planet has been here four and a half billion years. We’ve been here, what? A hundred thousand? Maybe two hundred thousand? And we’ve only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over two hundred years. Two hundred years versus four and a half billion. And we have the conceit to think that somehow we’re a threat? That somehow we’re gonna put in jeopardy this beautiful little blue-green ball that’s just a-floatin’ around the sun?

The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles; hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors; worlwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages… And we think some plastic bags, and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet… the planet… the planet isn’t going anywhere. we are!

We’re going away. Pack your shit, folks. We’re going away. And we won’t leave much of a trace, either. Thank God for that. Maybe a little styrofoam. Maybe. A little styrofoam. The planet will be here and we’ll be long gone. Just another failed mutation. Just another closed-end biological mistake. An evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet will shake us off like a bad case of fleas. A surface nuisance.

You wanna know how the planet is doing? Ask those people at Pompeii, who are frozen into position from volcanic ash, “How the planet’s doing?” You wanna know if the planet’s all right, ask those people in Mexico City or Armenia or a hundred other places buried under thousands of tons of earthquake rubble, if they feel like a threat to the planet this week. Or how about those people in Kilowaia, Hawaii, who built their homes right next to an active volcano, and then wonder why they have lava in the living room.

The planet will be here for a long, long — long— time after we’re gone, and it will heal itself; it will cleanse itself, because that’s what it does. It’s a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover; the earth will be renewed; and, if it’s true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new pardigm: the Earth plus plastic! The Earth doesn’t share our prejudice towards plastic. Plastic came out of the Earth. The Earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the Earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn’t know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old philosophical question, “Why are we here?” “Plastic! Assholes.”

So! So, the plastic is here, our job is done, we can be phased out now. And I think that it has already started already, don’t you? I think, to be fair, the planet probably sees us as a mild threat. Something to be dealt with. And I am sure the planet will defend itself in the manner of a large organism, like a beehive or an ant colony, and muster a defense. I am sure the planet will think of something. What would you do if you were the planet trying to defend against this pesky, troublesome species? “Let’s see… What might… Hmm.. Viruses! Viruses might be good. They seem vulnerable to viruses. And, uh…viruses are tricky, always mutating and forming new strains whenever a vaccine is developed. Perhaps, this first virus could be one that compromises the immune system of these creatures. Perhaps a human immunodeficiency virus, making them vulnerable to all sorts of other diseases and infections that might come along. And maybe it could be spread sexually, making them a little reluctant to engage in the act of reproduction.”

Well, that’s a poetic note. And it’s a start. And I can dream, can’t I? See I don’t worry about the little things: bees, trees, whales, snails. I think we’re part of a greater wisdom than we will ever understand. A higher order. Call it what you want. Know what I call it? The Big Electron.” The Big Electron…whoooa. Whoooa. Whoooa. It doesn’t punish; it doesn’t reward; it doesn’t judge at all. It just is. And so are we. For a little while.

Thanks for being here with me for a little while tonight!

thanks Atheist Cartoons

Good ones (Try not to miss them)

Dexter (5/5) – Could you bring some more please?
Fringe (5/5 so far) – Hope JJ doesn’t take the path he took for Alias/Lost
24 (4/5) – Can’t tolerate one more season.
X-Files (3/5) – Don’t want to watch them all.

Yet to try out (short-listed)

Breaking Bad
Criminal minds
Flash Forward
Generation Kill
Lie to me
Regenesis
Sleeper Cell
Spooks

Tried and “no thank you”.

House (3/5) – Good one, but not for me.
Lost (2/5) – First season is good, director “lost” it second onwards.
Alias (2/5) – Good start, totally lost it in first season itself.
CSIs (2/5) – too boring.
The Mentalist (2/5)
Bones (2/5)
Burn Notice (2/5)

Totally rejected (thanks to YouTube, Wikipedia):

Ashes to Ashes, Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica, Carnivale, Damages, Day Break, Dead Like Me, Heroes, Human Target, Jericho, Kidnapped, Law and Order, Life on Mars, Mad Men, Murder One, Oz, Prison Break, Rescue Me, Smallville , Sons of anarchy, Supernatural, SVU, The Wire, White Collar.

Right, back to the topic. This is what happened recently: Few astronomers finally found some time to have a look at this stuff called Astrological (the non-science part of stars, constellation stuff) zodiac signs. They found discrepancy and their calls on Astrology are:

a) Zodiac constellations (news paper ones, not scientific) were designed by Babylonians based on placement of constellation couple of thousand years back, and earth axis changed since then making the whole Zodiac system inaccurate. So, could you please correct it? Enough fooling people!

b) Are still stuck in 12? We told you 13 is the number for the boundaries. So now, add it. The name’s Ophiuchus, “The Ophiuchus”. And to embarrass you, for making him wait 3000 years to get into the committee, he will have a strange sign, wrestling a snake between his legs! (Really! what kind of pervert can come up with that!)

image source

c) Could you please (I added this) stop linking these constellation with personal traits? We know you pulled this stuff from your ass.

This was the story, and there was panic from every corner of the world. It’s fun to watch J

General public feeling betrayed. Let me remind you, betrayed people tweet in block letters! Astrologers panicking, planning on how to pull together some “personal traits” for this new Ophiuchus guy. It’s been a couple of thousands years since they did something like that.

Indian astrologers must be in bigger dilemma, not sure if they plan to copy the Zodiac system from west once again, which wasn’t synced since they first copied it from Greek.  Sure its going to be fun to watch astrologers come up with excuses, they need to answer for all the marriages they broke and made based on Zodiac.

Once again, from my fav comic ape not monkey