Musings From New York

You guys might have heard of this minor nuisance in Bangalore, called the Kannada film industry.

In a spirited bid to promote Kannada films, they've decided the best way to do so is to stop people from watching other language films ... including the two "national" languages - Hindi & English. The guy coming up with these decisions has to be the most mentally deficient gutterslob in the world! Here are some of the reasons a moratorium on films will never work in a place like Bangalore:

1. First and foremost, it's a simple case of supply & demand. In Bangalore (where the activism is taking place), let's face it: a lot of people (I don't have any exact statistics, but I can bet a major, or significant, percent of the population) are non-Kannada speaking ... or, are interested in watching both English & Kanadda films. I don't know what it's like in the sticks.

2. Denial of popular methods of entertainment always ... ALWAYS drives it underground, encourages piracy (or bootlegging), which is to the ultimate detriment to society in general. Look at US prohibition against alcohol in the 1930's - it gave rise to a whole load of trouble in the form of criminal gangs manufacturing and/or smuggling hooch ... and ultimately gave us some very fine films, but that's another topic altogether. A moratorium on movies will basically lead to people pirating films in other cities outside Karnataka, and bringing them into the state for sale.

3. The cash-rich urban youth of Bangalore can always hop onto a flight or a train, go across the border to Hosur (!) and watch the movie. Heck if I were a public official in Hosur, I'd be contacting theater owners and proposing the construction of a multiplex just inside the state border! More cash to TN!

4. Ultimately, you're going to scare away business to other states. Let's face it: Bangalore contributes a lot to the state's bottomline ... directly (income tax of corporations & their employees) and indirectly (support services, lifestyles, etc. to all those people). Bangalore has been the posterchild of India Shining. How do you think foreign & multinational Indian companies are going to react to governmental support of such policies?

So ultimately, people are going to be watching non-Kannada movies at home, or in other states. They may choose to watch the movie again after 7 weeks, but I would doubt it. And what about Kannada movies? Would people watch them, when they weren't watching them before? ... that was a rhetorical question, for those of you who missed it.

So my question is ... who's currently using the Kannada film industry's single brain cell at the moment? Surely there's some way to make him see the absolute foolishness of these hairbrained schemes?!

Boy, people can damage any environment they live in, can't they?

I couldn't stop laughing when I saw this ...

Jeez, what a weekend! I can't believe it's over already. Had an absolute blast at The Bollywood Bar (near Green Street Station) - there were about 9 of us. 3+ hours dancing (or in my case, attempting to dance) to desi remixes spliced with hip & trip hop. As you can see from the photos, it was an AMAZING time.

There were these 2 girls from Bombay in the group last night, Girita & Alithia - first time I've met air hostesses ... er, stewardesses ... no, the PC term at the moment I believe is cabin crew :-) ... with Air India ... yeah, Air India, I know ... I won't hold it against them ;-). So now I've got to figure out when they're flying the NYC-Bombay sector . They've promised me decent grub in even though I'd be flying Economy. Hmm ... talking with pretty cabin crew ... or watch movies ... decisions, decisions!

A couple of minor quibbles over Bar Bollywood aka Bollywood Bar ... it was a bit small - Karim almost got into a fight with some dude jostling him ... and they really water down their drinks - took 5 Jack & Cokes and a whole lot of shakin' to get to the happy zone ... but get there I did :-)

On the agenda:

- An American resturant (read: BBQ, NFL, and NBA)
- A desi nightclub called Bollywood bar
- Possibly meet up with Noufail & family, if I can get a hold of them!

On 11/20, I wrote: This is my cousin Nandini and her daughter, Pratri ... something. Parprika? No. Pratrika I think. Close enough anyway!

Nandini informs me that my delightful niece's name is Prakruti. She was quite amused about it. I think she's fairly cool as a mom - my head would've been chewed off by any other new mother :-)

Unfortunately, Hello can't connect to Blogger from my office network, and I'm forced to upload pictures to my blog on weekends only. I'm trying to figure out some way around.

This is my cousin Nandini and her daughter, Pratri ... something. Parprika? No. Pratrika I think. Close enough anyway!

I've been watching a bit of British TV these last few days. Not much, mind you - British free-to-air is even more boring than US Daytime Shows. A rundown of the primetime programming last night:

BBC 1: Wildlife on 1 - A look at the life & times of some sort of lizard
BBC 2: Some sort of ballroom dance competition
ITV: Some god-awful soap
Channel 4: Hollyoaks (another god-awful soap)
Channel 5: The Family Man (Nick Cage senti movie)

See what I mean? I usually watch TV just before I'm about to go to bed - 30 minutes and The Sandman doesn't just sprinkle his wares on my eyelids - he hits me with a sackful of the stuff!

Anyway, about advertising in the UK ....

I've sort of gotten the opinion that even advertising in the UK bears the "I'm ever so sorry to bother you, but do you mind considering purchasing my product? Um ... thank you. So sorry to have bothered you" mentality. That's the prevailing attitude for UK products ... like household products. The usual voice-over is cheerful & bright to the point where you suspect the person behind it is overdosing Prozac. The other category of UK ads shows the person using the product and marvels at how amazing that person now looks ... kind of like what tobacco ads usually do.

You do have some ads produced by multi-nationals. The prevailing attitude behind those ads? "This product is cool. You are not. If you use this product, you can hope to be a little cooler than you are. But don't get your hopes up." The voice-over here is usually cool, dry and withering in tone. You kind of get the impression that the person behind the voice doesn't really live in this country.

I ran across this story of envy via IMDb.

My laptop is back to normal! Yaaay!

I don't know why it happened - but I do know what fixed it: I downloaded and installed the latest drivers for the video card ... and one of the optional components (which I was fortunate enough to notice tucked away) was a screen rotation utility.

Back to normal now! (Phew!)

I can't rollback the laptop to an earlier configuration, and it looks like I'm going to have to return it to Averatec.

No support from the IT guys here in the office - already had 2 fights this morning about that!

So basically, my connection to the outside world is dead. 3 days here and I already feel depressed.

I've done it again ... I've busted up my laptop computer. Well, technically speaking, my current one "works". It's just that the screen is inverted!

Yep, you read right - the screen's upside down. No, I don't mean it's broken off or dangling by a few cables. I mean the image on screen is upside-down! The mouse works "correctly" ... but is inverted for the new screen - leading to laborious re-calculations of perspective every 2 minutes. So now, the taskbar is up, the start button is on the extreme upper-right.

But for some odd reason, the boot up Windows logo displays correctly, and the DVD player (my notebook has a DVD player independent of Windows) display correctly!

When I called Averatec to tell them about this, the service rep couldn't stop laughing for 5 minutes. Go on, rub it in!

My options are to :

• Rollback to yesterday and hope that works
• Restore Windows XP Home (thereby losing Visio, Office, all other programs and data)
• Return the notebook to Averatec (still has to be restored to Windows XP Home). That'd take at least 2-3 weeks to come back to me.

This sucks!

I have several great photos - of the place, as well as of my cousin & family (I'd visited them over the weekend for Diwali grub .... my stomach still hurts, but it's a happy hurt). But I have no way of getting these photos off of my CF Card. Until the weekend, at least.

!"£$%%^^&*

Hmm ... the British keyboard replaces @ with " and has both the £ and $ signs. :-)

This place is definitely better than the Port Solent apartment I stayed at last year! I spent a couple of hours in the "clubhouse" at the back of the grounds last night ... playing pool. Apparently, there is a Sky TV (satellite) hookup, but noone knows how to get to it. The clubhouse also has a gym, a jacuzzi, and a sauna - do people get any work done around here? ;-)

On the downside, I don't seem to be able to connect to BitTorrent seeds - so there go my hopes of watching episodes of Simpsons & South Park.

I've taken a few photos, but can't figure out a way to transfer the photos - my desktop came with a memory card reader, and I've lost the USB cable that came with the camera. Gotta ask around to see if anyone has a spare cable.

Yeah, this place is actually called "World's End". Doesn't look like the apocalyptic dystopia that I'd imagined. Shows you what too many bad Hollywood movies will do to you.

The office is in a converted house ... waaaaaay out in the English countryside. A 6-bedroom house, that looks like the setting of an Agatha Christie book ... a Jane Marple perhaps. Can't imagine Poirot in a setting such as this.

I'll post photos soon.

So I checked out The Incredibles on Saturday. I'll say this about it: for a Pixar production, it was quite violent.

(spoiler warning!)

I mean, they didn't show it on screen, but the "villain" gets sucked into a jet plane's turbine by his cape! Compare that to the previous Pixar villains: Sid (TS) got scared into looking after his toys, Al (TS2) went bankrupt ... I forget what happened in A Bug's Life - didn't the grasshopper get buried under the model bird? ... Waternoose (M,Inc.) got arrested ... and Darla (FN) had a fish flap about on her head. 1 out of 5 was "violent" ... but not as much as The Incredibles. You have bullets being fired, the hero undergoing shock torture (close ups of brightly lit/flashing/ contorted-with-agony face).

Now I realize I can wave my hand, say "this is not meant for core Pixar tots, but a more grown up audience", and make the whole thing go away. But that doesn't sit too well with me. I strongly believe that Pixar is Disney's heir. Disney kinda lost its way, IMO, and Pixar was there to show them how to recapture the lost magic. Sure older cartoons were violent (ever see a Tom & Jerry? - there's a commentary on this in an early episodes of The Simpsons, were Maggie almost kills Homer trying to imitate what she sees on TV; the whole "The Itchy & Scratchy Show" was a parody of Tom & Jerry!) ... er, where was I? Oh yes! ... sure, old cartoons were violent, but Pixar showed the world how to make non-violent and funny movies ... and have a small moral lesson too!

OK, back to The Incredibles!

The animation was amazing - Pixar has certainly raised the bar, yet again (IMO, the last time they did this was in Monsters, Inc.). The story, as I mentioned earlier, was more "adult" than the norm, but it was certainly funny. Plenty of James Bond references ... which I thought as odd. I was expecting more superhero references, but I guess copyright restrictions might have prevented them from being made. The score/music didn't particularly leap out - not that an OST is a feature of Pixar productions.

Oh, the short at the beginning of the movie was a big disappointment. For The Birds was the best I've seen, followed by that globe snowman short that accompanied Finding Nemo (I forget what it was called). Here's an interesting thing - the short .. about a rhyming song dancing sheep was designed for the little kiddies, but the main movie was for grown up kids. Go figure with the inconsistency!

I'm travelling to the UK on Thursday (11th November) ... and I'll probably be back around New Year's. I guess that means I miss Thanksgiving, Christmas & New Years. :-( ... but I think I'd rather miss all of them, and be back once and for all, than to keep shuttling back & forth.

I'll be checking in on my cellphone's voicemails every couple of days, but e-mail is the best way to get a hold of me.

Read all about it!

Divya tells me she graced the webpages of rediff.com last year.

At last! At last! (Dum Dum Dum/ Dum Da-dum / Dum Da-dum).

That was supposed to be The Imperial March (or as other (sniff) non-fans call it, the Darth Vader theme).

LucasArts unveiled the trailer for Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith online today, and apparently accompanying The Incredibles in theaters everywhere today. As if I needed another reason to watch The Incredibles :-)

Here's an account of the trailer. I can't wait! Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!!

EverQuest II Players

Xandros was a refugee from the Shattering of Norrath. He quickly mastered the arcane to be come a powerful adventuring mage. He made his mark on the Isle of Refugee by becoming a Master Goblin Slayer, and a constant companion to fellow adventurers.

He moved to Queynos, and upon his naturalization, enrolled in Qeuynos U., specializing in wizardry. When the EQ2 beta program closed, he was trying to make his way in the world.

Xandros, we will always remember your sunny disposition, unmarred by 22 deaths, often multiple. May your spirit forever guide our future MMORPG ventures.

You know .. thinking of the marathon reminded me of the song "Marathon", from Rush's "Power Windows". It's a description of life's struggles, using the race as a metaphor. Here are the lyrics:

It's not how fast you can go The force goes into the flow If you pick up the beat You can forget about the heat More than just survival More than just a flash More than just a dotted line More than just a dash It's a test of ultimate will The heartbreak climb uphill Got to pick up the pace If you want to stay in the race More than just blind ambition More than just simple greed More than just a finish line Must feed this burning need In the long run ... From first to last The peak is never passed Something always fires the light That gets in your eyes One moment's high And glory rolls on by Like a streak of lightening That flashes and fades In the summer sky Your meters may overload You can rest at the side of the road You can miss a stride But nobody gets a free ride More than high performance More than just a spark More than just the bottom line Or a lucky shot in the dark In the long run ... You can do a lot in a lifetime If you don't burn out too fast You can make the most of the distance First you need endurance First you've got to last ...

Before the marathon Cheerleading Squad Divya Running Soumya running After the race Cooling off

The photos of Divya & Soumya running were taken by other Asha folks at the marathon - I only have video clips. :(

And many thanks to my brother Kartik, for putting together the HTML code.

I was in Washington DC last weekend - cheering Divya on at the marathon (6hrs 4 mins!), and was down with a bad cold all week. But I've risen from the ashes yet again. :-) I'll be posting a few pictures from the weekend soon, and Divya's promised a few paragraphs describing her experience too.