Friday, March 31, 2006

Superman: The Man of Steel Returns....

YES!!! After a period of more than 23 years, Superman aka Kal-El is back on the silver screen!



The last time we saw our man in tights was when he took on his own 'bad-half' way back in 1983. Since then hes apparently been on a inter-stellar cruise looking for the lost remains of his home town on Krypton. After finding zilch, he comes back to Earth and takes on Lex Luthor (played by Kevin Spacey) and tries to win over Lois Lane once again. Apparently some chicks are too hard to win over...even for Superman.
Personally i dont think much of seeing Superman take on Lex who is human afterall. Its like Spidey taking on ol' King Pin. You never get to see any real action in such a showdown.

What I really wanted to see is a standoff between Superman and his hardest nemesis ever..Doomsday! Now theres a bad guy who can really throw a punch or two. After all he is the only person/thing in the known universe who can kill Superman with ease.

So now its a looong and eager wait til the movie releases. Think its supposed to be out by the end of June.Wont settle for anything less than watching it in the theatre :p

Trivia:
1. Scarlett Johannson was screened for the role of Lois Lane but lost the part to Kate Bosworth who IMO looks much better.


2. Brandon Routh, who takes over the helm of Superman from Christopher Reeve (R.I.P) is from Des Moines, Iowa....the birth place of the Nu metal band Slipknot! \m/


3.
a) The old Superman aka Chris Reeve fell from his horse and was paralysed from the neck down.
b) Apparently the last role played by Chris before his accident was that of a paralysed person in the movie Above Suspicion! Talk about a bad omen...
c) When Chris fell from his horse he was doing a film on horse back riding safety!!
This is officially the most ironic thing to even happen on Earth or on Krypton.
It even beats out John Denver who sang "Im leaving on a jet plane...." and did just that. He died in a plane crash!

Monday, March 27, 2006

The one with taps and memory loss...

Its been long since my last post but im back. Been so caught up with my project work for the past few days it seems like I'm doin nothing else.

Lots has happened over the past ten days.Saw a couple of movies with friends... read some amazing comic books..had a couple more near fatal accidents but escaped unscathed...studied ALL NIGHT for a test that got postponed indefinitely the next morning...etc. etc.

On the project front..we finally got our design sorted out and getting down to coding...even though we were supposed to be done with our finished product ages ago.

Watched 'Syriana' in the theatre and walked away feeling robbed of my intelligence. Thats an absolutely awful movie that made no sense to me whatsoever. It was basically 6 stories running in parallel that failed to converge very well in the end.
Favourite dialogue in the movie: Matt Damon's son says, "I want Pig bacon!" and I replied in my heart..."So do I!"

Ever wondered...why is it that the taps in most restaurant wash basins never run properly? (example Burger King in Camp) I mean they just trickle even when opened fully! Its so hard and frustrating to wash your hands under the few drops that do come out. Is the restaurant actually making a profit by depriving the customers of tap water??

Well that aside..my memory seems to be failing rapidly these days. Last sunday, my project mates and I met with our guide and came up with a new idea for our product's design. The next day when we sat to implement the same design...my mind was blank! I couldnt, for the life of me, remember what we had discussed the previous day. Even though my mates ran me thru the design again it seemed all new to me!

Now this isnt the first time that this has happened to me. When I had my second major bike accident, (head-on helmet-less collision with another bike) I was knocked out cold. When I came to a few minutes later...I actually went thru the whole Bollywood routine of "Main kaun hoon?" and "Main kahaan hoon?".
The guys who helped get me off the road asked me my name and I couldnt remember it!! I bet they were as freaked out as I was....I mean it spells one thing for certain...Brain Damage!! But I have managed to make a full recovery from the accident...i think :p

Yup...pretty scary stuff!

Apart from that, the weeks been pretty good. Gagan came back from his 4 day long holiday in Kuwait...with cookies for me!! YUM!

More coding and project work to look forward to in the coming week.

PS - Mom, if your reading this... dont worry about the brain damage part. I'm absolutely fine!

Sunday, March 12, 2006

Tagged!

Hmmm.... Looks like Ive been tagged by Rachel. The rules of the game for the first tag are these

1. The tagged victim has to come up with 8 different points of their perfect lover.
2. Need to mention the sex of the person.
3. Tag 8 (or as many as possible) victims to join this game & leave a comment on their comments saying they’ve been tagged.
4. If tagged the 2nd time, there’s no need to post again.


Never actually thought I'd be able to list the attributes of my perfect mate.But here goes....

1. Its gotta be a She.....

2. Shes gotta love the Lord with all her heart, all her strength and all her mind.. ( No compromise on the above two...)

3. The two of us have to be on the same 'wavelength'.

4. Someone who can make me laugh and who laughs at my corniness.

5. A foodie/non-veg lover..... I dont mind if she stays away from meat coz of some medical reasons.... This is one compromise i can make ;)

6. She's gotta be uncomplicated. I hate nakhras!

7. English speaking. Shes gotta converse well and think in English too.

8. It wouldnt hurt if she's cute :)


My turn to do the tagging now...Hehe.... so Ive decided to tag Kaka, Haritha, Salil, Fangs and Arnie.

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Success...in relative terms.

Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.
Not one of all the purple host
Who took the flag to-day
Can tell the definition,
So clear, of victory!

As he, defeated, dying,
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear!

-- by Emily Dickinson

Go my result for the 7th semester today! Managed to score a decent 58%. Its far from an ideal score but I'm not complaining coz I could have ended up with a backlog knowing how unpredictable Pune Univ can be when dishing out marks.

What irks me the most however is the guys/gals who score really good marks but are still greiving coz they haven't topped the University!!
I mean who would be sad if they got 75% in Pune Univ where getting a distinction(66%) is a great achievement?!?
Now I can understand being unhappy after having come so close and then not reaching the pinnacle of engineering....but being on the verge of tears....!?

I heard of one guy who was totally destroyed and became near suicidal coz he was 3 marks lower than the topper in the Univ. Let alone having topped our college...this guy had topped most of the other colleges too.
Such guys should be handed a marksheet that reads 55% at least once in their engineering career. I guess thats the only way the'd ever appreciate the beauty of a 75!

Guess that makes me more of an achiever than these guys at the end of the day. I put in my best and I'm hapy with my performance.... they arent.... guess whos gonna sleep a satisfied man tonight? ;)

Sunday, March 05, 2006

D'oh!

Ever since i can remember I've loved cartoons. Not just the Disney ones...i mean all of em. My elder bro always gave me a hard time about this but I never gave two hoots about him. We used to have regular fights...him wanting to watch the sports channel and me glued to The Cartoon Network.

So I was pretty excited to bump into this page and find out where my favourites rank in.
The Simpsons have made it to the top spot!!...not that there was any doubt about their popularity. Tom n Jerry are at a well deserved second and then its the politically incorrect kids from SouthPark.

Beavis and Butthead came in 32nd?!? Thats pathetic! They are like the icons of American white trash. Thought they would come in at least among the top 10.

Just finished downloading an episode of Simpsons and one of Ren n Stimpy(No. 18).
Gonna watch em now. So til my next post.... D'oh!

PS - Hong Kong Phooey is in the list! Thats prolly the worst cartoon I've ever seen. Its unfunny and outright boring!

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

The 'Days' are here

As part of our annual gathering celebrations, we have a few special 'days' in college to break the monotony of the lecture-practical cycle.

Yesterday was 'Tie and Sari' day. Its when all the boys masquerade as men and, as if by magic, the chicks turn into women.
Someone rightly pointed out that '...this is one day when all the not-so-good looking girls suddenly look attractive and the attractive girls look gorgeous!'



            Abhinav and Me at the Canteen

We all came to college wearing our best attire and as you can guess, studies were the last thing on our minds.
I do tip my hat the girls though. I can only imagine what an undertaking it must be to drape yourself with over 4 metres of cloth and then walk around daintily in the heat.

As it turns out this day isnt very well appreciated by the faculty coz its hard enough to control a mob of restless 21 year olds on a normal day.... it becomes a mammoth task to do so when they are in a party mood!

So we hung around the canteen and clicked photos all day long till my cheeks began hurting from all the smiling. Got to pose with all the beauties; cant wait for those pics to develop ;)

I got myself a phunky black tie with 'The Simpsons' family printed on it. Its probably the last time im ever gonna get to wear such a tie. In the software industry ill be expected to wear 'uncle' ties so my Simpsons and Mickey Mouse ties are gonna get passed onto my cousins. My family thrives on hand-me-downs!

Now the next day I'm looking forward to is the 'Wear Your Own Attire' Day. Finally we get to wear ANYTHING we want to college.....officially ;)