How Silly Can this get?

Questions that freak me out
1) How are you doing today(Even if you have come across the same person n times, today)?
2) How are we doing here(This is not the first time he/she asked you this, today)?
3) This is awesome (Use the same words over and over again, to describe everything, anything)
4) It is pretty good(Give a review/opinion. There are no degrees of expression. Even the best is described as pretty good and so is the worst)

Can you guys think of anything more that I could add?

IQBAL review

Last Wednesday I had to drop off my roomie at the airport, and on the way back home, I happened to stop by FunAsia Theatres, Richardson, TX to watch Nagesh Kukunoor's IQBAL. I have been a great fan of Nagesh's movies right from the Hyderabad Blues 1 days. The best part of his movies are, he has maintained a common set of actors for most of his movies, which makes us feel in the right place, and more importantly these people are a reflection of the next door
neighbor . Any movie is a hit as long as people can associate themselves with it, and IQBAL is a reflection of most of us in this society.

The movie narrates the story of Iqbal, a deaf and dumb boy who wants to make it big in the game of cricket. That's all I would like to say about the story, as I do not want to add any spoilers. Afterall we like surprises, and disclosing the plot takes away the surprise element.
All the actors have come out with excellent performances in their roles, and especially so Shreyas Tapade, who plays IQBAL. For someone who is not naturally dumb and deaf, it would be difficult to portray the emotions of such a character, and Shreyas excells at it. Naseeruddin Shah is great, as always.

This is a very good movie and worth the money, something I would recommend to everyone.

Pissing can be Pissing

If you have worked in big companies, you might have the privilege of separate restrooms for men and women as against a unisex restroom, which is pretty common in smaller companies. Unisex restrooms can often result in male and female ego clashes, as each sex has its own preferences when it comes to how the lid of the commode should be. Men like me are a little careless about putting the toilet seat down, while women generally like the seat down. Recently we had a similar situation in our company and Anna, my colleague was pissed about it. Well, we have to respect other people's likes and dislikes, but often a compromise should be made based on what is good for either one of us. To me putting the toilet seat down is not bad at all, it keeps the toilet base clean. Some people have simpler solutions, and they just piss without lifting the seat, so that they don't forget to put the seat down. Anyways, all is well that ends well, and I put up a note in the restroom saying

Men, please aim properly at your target
Women, please be seated for the entire show.

I found this somewhere and it has worked out pretty good so far, as it has kept everyone happy eversince.

Breakfast Buffet at Annapurna Express

Last weekend I went to Orange County, CA to meet my friends Prasad, Pali, and Bipin. On Saturday morning we went to the breakfast buffet at Annapurna Express in Cerritos, Artesia, Desi galli call it whatever. The buffet is one of the best I've been to and if you are a vegetarian( vegan + milk products, people have different definitions to it ) like me, you'll love this place. Idli, Dosa, Vada, Upma, Pongal, Utappam you name it, they have it. I have been to a lot of lunch and dinner buffets, but I've never been to a breakfast buffet and it has impressed me a lot more than the lunch buffets I've been to. But if you know me really well, I have the habit of making appetizers and snack items into a main course meal.( Ofcourse there are people who do not like this, Suresh Vemula for example, suggested that chips should be eaten as chips and not as a meal). This is a must go place in Cerritos, if you are a veggie lover.

Annapurna Express

Where is Indian cricket going

Cricket has changed my life in many ways. I like the game, but it no longer enthuses me, could be that my interests have changed, or could be that I no longer watching the game regularly. But with the debate between Greg Chappell, the indian team coach and Saurav Ganguly, the indian team captain heating up, over the past few days, the game has started catching my eye again. There has been a lot of debate whether Sourav Ganguly deserves to be the captain of the indian team anymore. To me, Ganguly should have been sacked a long time back. People who back him up with a good winning record, good home and away performances should take a close look at the facts and answer the question. The questions to consider:

1.) How many tournaments have we won under ganguly's captaincy playing away from
home; and if we have, against whom?
2.) Have we shown consistent
performances competing against good teams under his leadership?
3) Where
does he stand, among Indian captains and captains of other teams in terms of the
last two questions?

The answer is simple, Ganguly has not done the job we expected him to do. You may argue that, the Indian team was so close to winning a series on many occassions, but often or not in most of the games, winners and losers are decided by a very small margin. For sprinters, it is a split of a second; for soccer players, it is a few inches of the goal post; for tennis players, a single point; and for cricketers, it could be a single catch, a single run or a single ball. That's all it is to any game, between losing and winning. And at the end of the day what really matters,"Winning is fundamental". I think that Ganguly has done his share to improve Indian cricket and it is now time to move on and make place for others.

Prince Of Persia : The Two Thrones

Prince Of Persia is a very popular video game that most of us might have played during our childhood days. The earliest game in the franchise came from Jordan Mechner in 1989 as a 2-D PC game. You play as the Prince to save the princess from the wicked Vazier, and you have an hour's time to do so. There were other modern 3-D versions of the game, but none of them has done as well as UbiSoft's Prince Of Persia triology. The first game, Prince of persia:sands of time and the second game, Prince of persia:warrior within have done really well and the third game in the triology Prince of persia:the two thrones is to come out around the Christmas time this year.
Prince Of Persia

The third game puts an end to this triology. The team at UbiSoft has hired a professional script writing company to make the storyline of the game, very interesting. The graphics and environment in the game have been replicated as models of real life buildings in middle eastern cities like Babylon and Egypt. All in all it is turning out to be a really good game and something to look forward to, this Christmas. Hopefully it will keep me busy during my christmas vacation. I will keep an eye on this game and keep you guys updated with the latest news.

Shadow of the colossus to be out on October 18, 2005

Shadow of the colossus, the boss fight game, is to be out on Oct 18th, 2005. I had an eye on this game right from the E3 Games Demo that happened sometime in the 2nd quarter of this year. As time is progressing into the 4th quarter of the year, it has developed into an excellent environment oriented game. The game comes from the same creators of the industry acclaimed, ICO(Check out an earlier post for a review on ICO). The game is about the journey of a young man into an ancient land that bears giant behemoths called as Colossi, which hold within them, the power to awake a dead human. The young man is out to save his beloved wife/girlfriend(I do not have enough background info about this). The environment and lighting used in the game bears a close resemblance to it's predecessor, ICO. The game involves killing 16 giant colossi to accomplish the task of waking up the girl, and at your disposal are very things, namely Argo the horse, a bow and a sword that can show you the way to reach a colossi and also it's weaknesses. Killing a colossi is pretty simple, unearth the colossi, find it's weakness, and pierce the tattoo with your sword. It might seem easy, but to pierce the tattoes you have to climb the giant, which takes about 15-20 minutes as per the game's developers. All in all it seems to be a wonderful prospect to play the game, and I wish that the wait will be worth it. Will the game have a dramatic climax, is something to wait and watch. Keep your eyes on this product from Sony.

Another Jewel in the crown of SONY