Last two weeks have been ok-ish. 

I can't believe i watched 3 madhavan movies in a row a week ago, as if i was a madhavan fan. Fact is i'm not. It just happened. More of a coincidence. I've not watched them before, had too much time to kill and i chose to kill it this way. I would personally rate them in the below order. 

1. Kannathil muthamittal

     Moved me. A drop of tear escaped my eyes in a scene or two.

2. Dum dum dum

     Can't help the feeling Madhavan & Jothika looked totally out of place.

3. Rendu

         You get an impression that the first half of the movie ran untethered from the movie itself.

Talking of Rendu, can' t help observing something about Sundar C's movies. The choice of leading ladies. Man he's got good taste !! You could watch his movies just for that. He'll not disappoint you ;-)

That also brings to my mind another Madhavan movie that i watched a couple of days ago - Yaavarum nalam. Good attempt.  

We had an office team get-together, last week. Again ? This was confined to a smaller team. Yet had about 16 of them.  Reason ? Someone reminded us that it had been a long time since we had a team get-together (the smaller team) and suggested we all have a team outing. Also we had a couple of team members from offshore for a brief period, making the group huge. Went to an entertainment center (Dave & Buster's). Had fun for a couple of hours and then left for an indian restaurant to have a get-together dinner. I darted off like a bullet, ended up missing an exit on the freeway [actually didn't realise that for a long time :-) ], only to drive a few miles too long - in the opposite direction. Took a U-turn, found my way back and drove to the restaurant while hungry team members were waiting for me without ordering. Thanks for waiting and Sorry for making you guys wait..... ;-). 

After the dinner, came back home with my head aching big time, no idea why. May be it was the noise at Dave & Buster's. 

Just happened to pick up "Jaane tu ya jaane na" and found it good to watch. Another feel-good love story, that'll cool you like a gentle breeze. When the movie was released last year, i never got to know that this movie was so good and would have been worth watching then. No one i knew had seen it, though one or two songs in it were nice - Kabhi kabhi & pappu can't dance. After watching it now, i like more songs from it - Jaane tu mera kya hai, nazrein milaana etc.,

Ta

what fan ? khaitan fan...

Its always funny to see, when people publicly express their devotion to a certain TV star or an actor or a sports person or any other popular human (most likely through television). You could see them talk excitedly when they get an opportunity to do so, as if they're being paid to do it. And if they have a like minded friend or a colleague at work who shares the same enthusiasm for a particular human being - you cannot even tolerate a minute of their company. Their obsession would invariably reach fanatic (and lunatic) levels whenever they talk about this common interest.

My dad is an MGR fan and i've grown up listening to him talk and heap accolades on MGR, his good deeds yada yada... I believed all of them until a certain point in my life, may be till i was in 6th or 7th standard. I wasn't really that intelligent you know. My dad still is an ardent MGR fan and continues to support/favour ADMK - the political party that MGR started. You could see his bias towards anything that's remotely related to MGR and ADMK. Like for instance, Jaya TV. And i believe, for the same reason, he hates Sun TV - and anything that has a link to DMK - that currenly is the ruling party in TN. He is not a fan of Ms. Jayalalitha, but definitely admires her character and authority as a ruler. Anyways Jaya TV is now his favourite channel after Doordarshan and is hell bent on catching the Jaya news whenever there is one, at any time of the day. He hates to watch news on other channels and is always critical about them. Why ? because Jaya tv is the only channel that tells truth on their news and others lie. - Give me a break. I can't bear this already.

Have some guys at work (happen to be friends & roomies as well) who are die-hard actor Vijay fans...Oh did i say Vijay ? Sorry fellas, Dr Vijay it is. They like all the bullshit that Vijay continues to dole out flop-after-flop, no wonder Vijay keeps doing it. Can't blame him really - he's keeping his fans satisfied. whatever. back to our guys - they can never talk enough of this actor and almost always see gems and worth in Vijay's films where others can't. wadda talent, i say. They like all of Vijay's songs - however bad they are. To them, All vijay songs are good and there are other songs that have good music occasionally, they think. Wake up guys, wake up.
At times when i play music on my car, i've seen them squirm like they stepped on shit if they happen to listen to a song that's not from a Vijay film. As if this wasn't enough both find it amusing to unleash abuse on Ajith who's supposed to be Vijay's rival in Kollywood. I've seen this absurdity being taken to alarming levels around the time when the movies of these actors are being released. Not that i'm an Ajith fan or something, yet i find their hatred ridiculous and laughable.

The advent of reality TV shows and their spotlight on the participants spurns an entirely new audience irrespective of the genre they are on - singing, dancing, adventure sports and the likes. When people get hooked on to a particular show, its inevitable that they turn fans of one of the participants and start following that person like the hutch-dog. literally. We had a couple of guys at work that were following a certain show on tv and it soon turned into war of words when they were fighting against each other on their favourites. Eveyone is entitled to their opinions and has the right to express it. In a civilized way, rather. They went to the extent of campaigning for their favourite and propagating their opinion amongst other seemingly hapless guys while degrading others' differential opinions on the same matter. C'mon, stop acting like its your kin that's on the show. After all its only a tv show. On the lighter side, these debates about the shows are nothing short of entertainment and we love it anyways as they provide some comic relief.
And to talk about the reality tv shows that take commercialism to new heights - with all the elements to keep the TRP high up on the charts - will need lot more than words.

Its a funny world.

Ta

Gift card ?

To have to gift someone is one of the most daunting tasks ever in my life. Usually, there is an escape route when someone volunteers to collect money and buy the gift. I'd gleefully give them my share of the money for the gift and forget about the whole thing, while this sad person who volunteered will goto umpteen shops, sift over a thousand probable items - for that ideal gift for the occasion.

These days its so common to find people buy gift cards from big stores, fancy shops etc., and present it to people. It looks like the most ideal solution to the 'Gifting' problem these days, when people hardly have (read do not wish to spend) any time & effort for such things. To be honest, wouldn't blame them. And its always being justified that presenting a gift card would allow the so & so person who needs to be gifted, to decide on what they want or need at that specific time rather than ending up with a gift that can only beautify their showcase and not being able to put it to use. Sounds practical alright - for people that are just acquaintances/colleagues. But for people that are more than just colleagues/family friends, gift cards are too impersonal i think.

 

Recently, one of my close friends who also happens to be my colleague at work (and was thy room mate too once upon a time)  was celebrating his second marriage anniversary. I along with my friends/room-mates decided to gift him and they didn't bother too much about what to gift. Gift card was the unanimous decision - except me of course, i thought we should buy him something rather than a gift card - somehow a gift card didn't feel personal. After some brainstorming - we presented him with a printer. Was absolutely certain it'll not be useless. Donno how the other guys felt - but no one opposed. 

Gift cards or Gift items. What do you think ? 

Ta

WTF

Not because i'm patriotic and all, but calling the entire population of a nation 'slumdogs' isn't right in any way and i think its a little too much. Popular american radio jockey, Rush limbaugh went on air last week calling indians 'slumdogs' when he was answering a caller on his show about the call center jobs outsourced to indians. Read it here.
Unjustifiable that it is, this guy would do well than to call indians 'slumdogs'.
Well, Mr. Limbaugh...Do you see my middle finger ? Its for you...

Work hard, Party harder !!

Yesterday we had an office celebration for getting All green in our customer service levels and our manager had organised it at Main Event on company's expense. Main Event is an entertainment center with bowling, billiards, laser tag, video games and other fun stuff. My manager A reached there first, bought tickets and was waiting with the wrist straps and game cards to hand it over to people - since he was the one organizing this whole thing. We reached there, got our wrist bands and started playing billiards, while A was waiting for the rest of them to join. Though it was free (company's expense) people took all the time in the world and were lazily trickling in one by one.

A was reaching the heights of frustration and anger, having to haplessly wait at the entrance to hand over the wrist bands to all our people. His face was morphing into unthinkable shapes and dimensions with a thousand expressions dancing in it, that'll put Jothika to shame. And then the obvious happened, he started calling those that were yet to arrive, on phone and was giving them some piece of his mind. Eventually after nearly an hour everyone had arrived.

 

After some billiards, we started with bowling - 6 continuous lanes for us. Had good fun bowling after a long time. Used to frequent mainevent for bowling once upon a time - thing of the past now. And yes, what's better than to win both the games that we played. I'm not bragging here, but the previous experience of having bowled there helped me win, surely. It was also funny to watch my colleagues in the other lanes bowl or rather learning to bowl. Some were unmindful of the white line, kept stepping on it and didn't even realize that it was a foul inspite of the red light beaming and blaring loud. Then came the cheese pizza, that we helped ourselves with. I LOVE the cheese pizza at mainevent. Oh, and there were people that were showing off like they've been bowling all their life - No no, not me. Of course I didn't know how to bowl until i came to the US, but atleast i wouldn't show off my bowling skills (like i have any) before the others who knew less about it. 

After everyone had played roughly two games of bowling, A suggested that we spin off for laser tag - a kind of laser shooting game in a large dark room. We were split into red and green teams - i was in the red team. We had a helluva fun playing the laser tag running around the room shooting your enemy and their base targets and to top it all, guess what.... red won - By a huge margin (that's the kid in me, kindly excuse !!). We all came out sweating and panting, no less excited. After laser tag, we played a couple of video games for the next two hours or so and then decided to return home. In the middle of it all, some boozed like anything - at company's expense. To sum it up, everyone had fun i guess. Looking forward to more such office parties and celebrations in the future. And god be with you A, for the reimbursement of the entire expense from our company. I can only wish you luck - the best i can do !!

To tweet or not to tweet is the....

Twitter !! Twitter !! Twitter !! everyone's (online) talking about twitter now. Most of the people that proclaim to be social networking have a facebook account, myspace or now a twitter account.
Twitter claims to have over 7 million accounts[incl me as well =) ] and is growing exponentially by day.. at a whopping 1382 % over the past year (says Switched.com). And most of them that have twitter accounts don't even know how to use it [uh..hmm, that doesn't include me].Some of my friends are on twitter too and going heavy on it.

I created a twitter account to understand what the hoopla was all about. you'll not find more than a couple of tweets on my account.. That too i attribute it to my initial enthusiasm. I should admit that i'm one of the millions that either don't effectively use twitter or don't see a use for it in their lives. Not yet. There are also surveys or reports that suggest that most of them that have a twitter account do not know how to use it.

For the uninitiated, Twitter is a social networking service that works on the concept of answering the question "what are you doing ?". you simply update your account with a short message of 140 chars [that's shorter than an sms) answering that question. you could update through your web browser or through a desktop twitter client or through your phone by sending an sms to your twitter account. These updates are called tweets and the process is called tweeting.
Ideal for the people on the move and those that heavily dwell on text messaging. You could follow people to see what they are doing or people can follow you. Depends who you are.

No doubt twitter is hot in the youth circles and catching up fast with every living mortal on this planet. It not just lesser mortals like you and me, but also celebrities, websites, big corporations,
and every other weighted matter on this blue planet wants to follow or wants to be followed - on twitter. Twitter is becoming ubiquitous now (atleast on the internet) - Will twitter become the new world order ? Will it be the end of homo sapien supremacy on Earth ? Time will tell, people...... Time will tell.

Ta

I can't stand some people here. Now. I believe i have my reasons for not being able to tolerate these people, but some of those reasons look unreasonable. Uh..Or so i think. Nevertheless, i'm sick of these people. why can't i just stay happy or atleast be indifferent to these mortals and the stuff they do. Just can't help the feeling.... Just can't help it. God bless all.

These rants are increasing by the day (some live as posts) and i can't seem to find anything else that is soothing or far more pleasant. No focus. Think i need a stronger mind to go through all this - hope i manage to scrape through. More and more questions, lot less answers. Wanna be able to sink myself into something as a reprieve whenever i hit such paranoiac levels. Not all that's in my head is coming out as words now here, writer's block may be. Wish someone was listening though.

Ta

At the end of an almost hectic day !! Hardly a minute to relax ! Glad its coming to end !!

Tomorrow is the last working day of this week, thanks to Good Friday. The long (unplanned) weekend appearing on the horizon, is looming large now. The fear of having nothing to do is the worst of all my fears and its damn boring. Got to plan for something to make this weekend worthwhile. With all the routine people and things that make me go mad, need a release valve for all my stress, so badly. Each day is growing less and less interesting with nothing to look forward to. Not even music is enough to alleviate all this stress and boredom. Feel like going through a dry patch in life !! Some patch this is !!

Songs i'm hooked to right now

I'm hooked to the following songs for the time being. Be it listening to music on my car or in my room, you'd catch me with one of these songs playing. And on loop. Indefinitely.

Except for serialization, this list signifies no order of preference.

1. Adada vaa - Sarvam
2. Neethaane - Sarvam
3. Chinnan sirusuga - Kunguma poovum kojum puravum
4. Choododhu - pokiri (telugu) - i know this isn't a recent song but i happened to watch this movie recently and 've been smitten by this song since.
5. Pada pada vena - Vennila kabadi kuzhu
6. Lesa parakkudhu - Vennila kabadi kuzhu
7. Jaane tu - jaane tu ya jaane na

Ta

One year...

its been since i bought my civic here, though it still has very few miles on it (compared to the average mileage of cars driven in texas).  All my driving mostly consisted of commute to work and back and some to shopping malls, which was negligible however. To put some more miles on my car, i  thought of driving to houston - that would also fulfil my long-drive aspirations. Anyways, i had it planned for next weekend which is a long one owing to a bank holiday on Good friday and it looks like that might not happen. I don't want to spend a long weekend sitting on my ass all day looking at my laptop screen. maybe i should pursue other avenues to kill time rather than this drive-down-houston thing this weekend. Houston - some other time maybe.

Ta 

Life is just crawling on, so boring and eventless. Not much to write about these days and could not muster enough resolve to post something. Another week (that sucked) passes by.

Last sunday we went to Six flags over texas - an amusement park at Arlington - at about an hour's travel from home. That was fun, took a toll on each one of us- felt so tired the whole day on Monday. Yet i was game for another jolly trip to some place this weekend, but nothing really worked out.  A drive down to Houston (with some office colleagues) almost happened, but somehow that was too short of a notice. Wacthed Ayan (tamil film) - surya,tamannah starrer - last night at a local theater, what a crap movie. Songs were good though - well picturised, but out of place (read context). Every time surya and tamannah meet, you know there'll be a song the next minute. Stop it, Mr Director (K V Anand) - just because Harris jayaraj was paid a hefty sum, you don't have to bombard  us with romantic torpedoes. 

Whenever i goto walmart i pray that i don't bump into the 'consultants'. These are people(mostly indians)  that come to walmart just to find some unsuspecting indian student or an indian that's working here on a work permit, who they can rope in to do some (IT) projects with them. I doubt if that's legal and i do my best to stay away from these people. What irks me the most is the way they try to appear friendly like someone who you happened to meet by chance and then goes on to get more details about you and then try to brainwash you into working with them or quit your current job to shift to their consultancy, while they actually come there looking for people like that. They are usually dressed in complete formals, when its so obvious that people that come to walmart do not dress up like they goto office, rather will be mostly in their night dress or lazy casuals. These guys will hardly have anything in their cart, except for one or two small items - to keep people from suspecting them about their motives.  

And once they 'pick' their target, they come close and stand next to you and then ask odd questions like "is this food item good for health ?", "does this camera work well?",  "is that a bluetooth that you have in you ear?" - and if you bother answering these questions they build a conversation and at some point introduce themselves with the only motive of getting more info about you - mobile number being one of them. The days that follow will have calls from these guys pestering you to quit your current and join their consultancy. I hate this breed, really.

Ta