Sunday, February 18, 2007

Flying the road

vcube points to TheVentureOne, a unique concept car.

Looks very impressive. It is said to combine the functionalities of a car and a bike. Sounds like a great concept to me.

Wonder if I'll ever get a chance to see these cars for real!

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

After-lunch sleep reduces risk of heart disease

All through my life it was ingrained in my mind that an afternoon nap is bad for health. Now a recent study in Greece challenges that.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-02/13/content_5734537.htm

Good news for me anyway. Cos sometimes, I do take a mid-day nap and now I am more than encouraged to do it!

Indian squad for WC 2007

The Indian squad for the 2007 cricket world cup in the West Indies has been selected. Almost every player I mentioned in my earlier blog post has been selected.

The only exception is Kaif. He is not in the team. Munaf Patel takes his place.

Is this team good enough to win the world cup? Only time will tell!

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Who will make the 15 on the 12th?

Feb 12, 2007 will be the day when the wise men of Indian cricket (read selectors) meet up, sit around a table, discuss, and then announce the name of 15 men who will represent India in the coming cricket world cup in West Indies. While most of the players automatically pick themselves, there might be few surprises as well.

Now if I were a selector, I will pick these players

  1. Tendulkar - a legend who can walk into any team.
  2. Dravid - the wall's presence is a definite must if you are to win matches abroad.
  3. Ganguly - the prince of calcutta is back to form now
  4. Zaheer - because is in good bowling form of late.
  5. Kumble - because lot of batsmen fail to read him and get out.
  6. Dhoni - for his explosive batting and good wicket keeping
  7. Harbhajan - for his knack of picking up wickets at crucial times.
  8. Sreesanth - for his ability to pick up wickets even though he might go for a few runs early on.
  9. Yuvraj - solid batsman in the middle order.
  10. Sehwag - can be a devastating batsman when on song. useful slow bowler at the death.
  11. Agarkar - an experienced bowling allrounder, good bowler at the death.
  12. Dinesh karthik - good batsman who can double up as wicket keeper if needed. good team man.
  13. Pathan - if he rediscovers his bowling form during the world cup, he can be very effective.
  14. Kaif - just his fielding is enough to demoralize the opponents.
  15. Uthappa - hard-hitting batsman. may be effective on WI wickets.
Who do you think will make it to the list of 15 on Feb 12? If you were a selector, whom will you choose?

Sunday, February 04, 2007

The shining and the genius of Stanley Kubrick

I had heard a lot about Stanley Kubrick's movies before. I had read about his movies in magazines and other articles on the internet. He is regarded as one of 'THE' best directors of the 20th century. Unfortunately, I had not actually seen any of his movies! Partly because most of his movies were made before I was even born, and partly because I had not seen much Hollywood fare from the 1970s and 1980s. I really started following Hollywood movies only from the 1990s.

So this post by Roger Von Oech was just the trigger I needed to start watching Stanley Kubrick movies. I went to a local DVD rental store and took home 'The Shining' last weekend. The movie starring Jack Nicholson is a real epic horror movie. It is one of the best horror movies I've ever seen. The movie has some great performances from Jack Nicholson and the kid who plays his son, haunting background musical scores, great cinematography, and overall great production values. Its really amazing to know that this movie was made in 1980.

The impact of the movie was so much that I couldn't think anything else for the next 2-3 days. Wow! I really liked the way tension was built up throughout the movie. There was this sense of 'anything can happen now' sort of feeling throughout the movie.

Favorite scenes from this movie:

1. The typing scene where Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson's character) warns his wife about interrupting him.
2. The scene where Wendy finds out that all along Jack has been typing "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy"
3. The famous 'Heeere's Johny" scene.
4. Whenever the girl twins are shown.
5. When Delbert Grady says 'corrected' - the cold manner in which he says corrected is enough to send down shivers down your spine.
6. The Helicopter shots at the start were wonderful. The accompanying music was great too.
7. When Danny sits on the lap of his father and the cold manner in which Jack says that he loves him and will do anything for him. The conversation is so slow and cold here that it actually has the desired effect.
8. The maze scene where Wendy and Danny playing.

Favorite quotes:

1. When the two girls say" Come and play with us Danny, foreever and ever ...."
2. Two scenes later Jack says to Danny ' I love you and will not hurt you. I will do anything to protect you forever and ever...'

The Shining has introduced me to the genius of Stanley Kubrick and I have decided to try and watch all of his movies. So the next movie on my watchlist is 'Eyes Wide Shut'

Friday, February 02, 2007

List of definitions - funny!

I was searching for the definition of a word in google/wikipedia. I didn't find it, but i got this - a list of funny definitions from Stacy Mineart's blog. Couldn't resist a smile.