Rocky IV on Sony PIX channel

Happened to watch Rocky IV last night on Sony PIX. Very good movie, even though its 22 years now since its release. Good realistic potrayal of fights when compared to the superhuman stuff our Tamil movies are showing nowadays. Agreed it does not have a great storyline and some of the stuff shown are unbelievable (the stronger Russian boxer is shown losing to Rocky at the end), but it is still worth viewing once at least.

Apparently this movie was not a favorite with critics when it released in 1985, but it still made enough money all over the world to become the most successfull one of the Rocky series.

Vote for Taj Mahal

The new7wonders website is running a contest to select the new 7 archaeological wonders of the world. In fact, the contest has been running for quite some time now and the list has been filtered down to 21 entries now. The lone Indian entry in the final 21 is Taj Mahal. Other names include Eiffel Tower, Statue of Liberty, Acropolis, etc.

The website Indiainfo.com is running a 'India Unites for Taj' campaign exhorting all Indians to vote for Taj Mahal. If you like to see Taj Mahal in the top 7, then you should probably cast your vote here. I just did. The results will be announced in Lisbon, Portugal on July 7, 2007.

Meanwhile, IMCL has roped in music maestro AR Rahman to create more awareness among Indians about this campaign, and to get them to vote for Taj. ARR has composed a special song for Taj Mahal. You can listen to a preview here. The interesting thing about this song is ARR has co-written the lyrics, which is a first for him.

I read somewhere that Taj Mahal is currently lagging way behind in terms of number of votes. So it will be great if ARR's name being associated with the campaign helps increase the number of votes and takes Taj into the top 7. Lets wait and see.

A website for cat lovers

If you are a feline lover like me, you'll love this site; looks great.

Robert Scoble says this site has great traffic.

Amazing animation

Came across this excellent marketing material from Mercedes Benz.

Great animation and creativity. This is a must watch.

http://www.a-to-s.co.uk/home.php

Now even I got interested in a Mercedes after watching this!

Ronnie O'Sullivan - Snooker - Greatest 147

The best frame of snooker ever played. A maximum in 5 minutes!!!

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!

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!

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?

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'

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.

Ronaldo - The last Galactico

After 4 largely unhappy years, Ronaldo is all set to move out of Real Madrid to join AC Milan. He was the last Galactico standing after Luis Figo moved to Inter Milan in 2005, Zinedine Zidane retired from football in 2006, and David Beckham announced that he will be leaving for Los Angeles Galaxy after this season.

Once upon a time, Real Madrid had a great team with plenty of world-class players - Ronaldo, Zidane, Figo, Beckham, Raul, Roberto Carlos, etc. They were expected to win every competition they played, but couldn't win much much to the chagrin of their fans. One after the other the Galacticos have quit Real Madrid and now its Ronaldo's turn.

Ronaldo, wish you best of luck with Ac Milan!

Don't take difficulty in swallowing lightly

Last week, my close friend's father was diagnosed to have cancer of the esophagus. This made me want to know more about this particular disease. So I did a google search on esophageal cancer and found 3-4 websites that had some basic information about esophageal cancer.

Almost all the websites I read seem to agree with one thing.

"It is very hard to detect esophageal cancer early"

The most common symptom of esophageal cancer is difficulty in eating/swallowing. Because most people mistake it for some digestion problem or acid reflux, they generally don't consult a doctor. They take some over-the-counter medicines hoping that it will go away. Some people think their eating style is what is causing the problem, so they try to change their eating style. They eat slowly and the problem might seem to disappear. This way the cancer lies undetected. The swallowing problem will reappear from time to time, only to go away when you change your eating habits. Finally the tumor grows so large that the patient might find it difficult even to drink water. It is only at this stage that most people think of consulting a doctor/gastroenterologist. By this time, the situation might be life threatening as the cancer might have spread to other body parts such as lungs or liver.

Early detection will result in faster cure - As with any cancer, early detection and treatment will result in faster cure and prevent any serious damage. Esophageal cancer usually occurs in men/women above 55-60 years of age. So if any elderly person known to you complains of difficulty/painful swallowing of food, ask them to consult a doctor immediately.

This site seems to have some basic info on esophageal cancer.

Abdul Kalam on 'waves'

Waves are my inspiration. Not because they rise and fall, but because each time they fall, they rise again.

Vivek pls take note..

Shilpa Shetty in Big Brother - the story so far

Last month Shilpa Shetty made news headlines in India when it was announced that she will participate in Big Brother, the reality show on Channel 4 in UK. I dint think it was a big deal back then.

Over the last couple of days, a lot has been heard on Shilpa Shetty-Big Brother-Racism. I don't care much about it either. Then why I am blogging this?

Because BBC news has a wonderful article on it. So if you were wondering what the big fuss was all about, read this and you'll know why.

The super-hero test

Interesting site this.. the superhero test!

I took the test and this is what I got

Your results:
You are Superman

Superman 70% Spider-Man 50% Supergirl 50% Batman 45% Robin 42% Green Lantern 40% Iron Man 40% Wonder Woman 30% Catwoman 30% The Flash 30% Hulk 30%

You are mild-mannered, good, strong and you love to help others.

Click here to take the "Which Superhero are you?" quiz...

Dancing cricketer!!

This is funny. Sreeshanth dances in front of Andre Nel after hitting him for a six. The others watch in amusement.

More is Less - Interesting thought from Joel Spolsky

Does having more options necessarily make you feel better? Does giving your users multiple ways to do the same thing make them feel any happier or smarter?

Joel Spolsky takes a look at the newly launched Windows Vista and concludes that having to choose between a multitude of options actually makes the user confused and unhappy.

Interesting read. Few excerpts below.

Choices = Headaches

This item ran on the Joel on Software homepage on Tuesday, November 21, 2006

I'm sure there's a whole team of UI designers, programmers, and testers who worked very hard on the OFF button in Windows Vista, but seriously, is this the best you could come up with?

Every time you want to leave your computer, you have to choose between nine, count them, nine options: two icons and seven menu items. The two icons, I think, are shortcuts to menu items. I'm guessing the lock icon does the same thing as the lock menu item, but I'm not sure which menu item the on/off icon corresponds to.

On many laptops, there are also four FN+Key combinations to power off, hibernate, sleep, etc. That brings us up to 13 choices, and, oh, yeah, there's an on-off button, 14, and you can close the lid, 15. A total of fifteen different ways to shut down a laptop that you're expected to choose from.

The more choices you give people, the harder it is for them to choose, and the unhappier they'll feel. See, for example, Barry Schwartz's book, The Paradox of Choice. Let me quote from the Publishers Weekly review: “Schwartz, drawing extensively on his own work in the social sciences, shows that a bewildering array of choices floods our exhausted brains, ultimately restricting instead of freeing us. We normally assume in America that more options ('easy fit' or 'relaxed fit'?) will make us happier, but Schwartz shows the opposite is true, arguing that having all these choices actually goes so far as to erode our psychological well-being.”

The fact that you have to choose between nine different ways of turning off your computer every time just on the start menu, not to mention the choice of hitting the physical on/off button or closing the laptop lid, produces just a little bit of unhappiness every time.

Can anything be done? It must be possible. iPods don't even have an on/off switch. Here are some ideas.

Read full article here

Guru - The Music

I've been listening to the music of Guru for the past few days. Its a Mani Ratnam-AR Rahman-Gulzar combo for the first time after DilSe; thats a gap of almost 8 years.
I feel its too early for me to post a review of the songs. However, I can certainly give a track listing.

• Barso Re - Shreya Ghoshal & Uday Mazumdar
• Tere Bina - A. R. Rahman & Chinmayee
• Yammo Yammo - Bappi Lahiri & Chitra Sivaraman
• Maiyya Maiyya - Maryem Tollar, Chinmayee & Keerthi
• Ey Hairathe - Hariharan & Alka Yagnik
• Baazi Laga - Udit Narayan, Madhushree, Shweta & Bhargavi Pillai
• Jaage Hain - K. S. Chithra, A. R. Rahman & Madras Chorale Group

As always Rahman's songs grow on you. The more you listen, the more you like it. You might not be all that impressed upon first listen.

will try to post a detailed review of the music later on.. For the moment though, keep listening!

Cool new monitoring service

i bumped into this cool new web 2.0 service. Its called site24x7 and i use it nowadays to check if my blog is available.

It actually tells me if and when my site went down, the duration of downtime, the time it took to load my blog, etc.. but the best part is its absolutely free!!