Musings From New York

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Yes, I know I've promised to write up about Robots for at least 2 weeks now .. but hey, better late than never.

Now - before I defend the low score let me just say that I laughed .. a lot! The look of the movie is great - kitschy retro-look from back in the 50's & 60's. The colors are bright & vivid, the gigantic robot city in particular has been beautifully realized. In my opinion, this s the best "conceptual" movie since "Monsters, Inc.". There are a lot of jokes & references to, for example, Star Wars & Lord of the Rings (some are not so obvious, BTW). All in all, it's just beautiful, beautiful eye candy! And Robin Williams excels as Fender. Just watch his rendition of "Singin' In The Oil"! It's a classic I tell ya! If I'm not mistaken, it's Robin Williams return to animation since "Alladin" (oh boy, was that an amazing performance!).

Now the reasons why the movie fell short. The script was clearly sacrificed at the altar of eye-candy! On two counts: first, the plot is a little too stock ("Be yourself. Find your strengths. Stay true to your friends." etc. etc.). This might be OK for the wee ones in the hall, but to the adults, it's a little lame. Secondly, there are some inconsistencies with the "romances" in the plot. The "heroine" isn't present for most of the movie ... the audience thinks that the "hero" will wind up with someone else ... but is suddenly back together with the "heroine" ... consistency, people! A thirdly, and perhaps most unforgivingly, Robin Williams does not have enough screen time. Admitedly, when you're working with such a long list of A-Class stars, you have to find screen time to satisfy everyone. But to not deliberately not give Robin Williams enough screen time in an animated movie ... c'mon people! Get with the program here!

So ... it's definitely a movie to watch on the big screen. But you'll come away wanting more! Extra scenes in the DVD, perhaps?

Wing's website does exist! I thought initially that it was a hoax website - I wasn't able to access it when it was displayed on last weeks' episode of South Park.

Now, with all due respect to Matt Stone & Trey Parker - why did they pick this woman to ... butcher ABBA's Dancing Queen? To listen to a clip, click on "Download MP3s", and check out any of the songs. I can honestly say that the high-pitched singing is #2 on my list of agonizing sounds, right below "fingers on a blackboard".

At the end of it, you can't help feel pity ... and perhaps admiration, for the Wing to have put herself in the public eye.

Talking about Star Trek, and Bush-bashing.

From the article ...

Star Trek fans have turned to the White House for a last-minute plea to keep the show alive. President Bush, while speaking in Waco, Texas with the leaders of Canada and Mexico, talked briefly about the impending doom of the Star Trek series.

“I think most Americans don’t want to see the show just end like this,” said President Bush in a response to a reporter’s question. “I think it’s premature. We still haven’t seen how that Annakin kid transforms into that evildoer. I’m disappointed.”

... Can be found here.

Lot of people have been bugging me about why I haven't posted anything for a while. Well ... there hasn't been much to write about! I've watched a few movies, so those reviews are coming up shortly ...

Umm, I heard a few of the covers Ozzy's put on his new album "Prince of Darkness" - which, incidentally, I heard of for the first time on The Daily Show. Specifically, I've heard, and can recommend "Purple Haze", "Stayin' Alive", and "Sympathy For The Devil".

What else, what else? Oh yeah, my character in World of Warcraft, a paladin named Bheema (yes, yes, full points for originality there. What can I say, the paladin is a natural mace-weilder, and Bheema was the only name I could think of at the time!) ... anyway, my character hit level 40 last week, which is a significant event in the game. It means I get to ride a horse, and wear plate armor (it's a big deal, trust me!). I've figured out how to take screenshots ingame, so I will post some pictures of .. myself (!) soon.

Q in this case being Qualcomm ... I guess the desis there think it cool to associate Qualcomm with Bond's gadget outfitter.

Divya sent me a few photos of her dances, and Metal's quiz-compering. Here they are:

I was in DC over the weekend, meeting Andy, who'd come down for a World Bank Conference.

Most of the trip was uneventful. We spent Friday talking about BITS, and general catching up. We spent Saturday walking around the mall, visiting the National Air & Space Museum & the National Museum of the American Indian (as an aside, when did it suddenly become PC to call them "American Indians"? I thought the description was "Native Americans").


I met Mike on Saturday evening for some drinks. I found out that he wasn't a student (for some reason I thought he was), but a technical writer with a history of RJ-ing (so that explains the blog!).


I watched Robots on Saturday night (review to follow), as Andy had an official dinner to attend.

There was some excitement later Saturday night, as the fire alarm in our hotel went off at about 1:30 in the morning. We had the presence of mind to pull on some shoes, and sweaters/jackets before we evacuated the building. That was a good thing - it was probably close to freezing outside, and there were people out there in pyjamas. As a matter of fact, there was a Chinese TV crew there too - they must've been staying in the hotel too. There was a fire on the 4th floor, which apparently destroyed 3 or 4 rooms - we were on the 6th floor, so we could definitely feel the heat & smoke when we took the stairs down!

We finally got back into the room at about 3:30am ... which meant we woke up at about noon, lounged around (I saw the Watergate Hotel) before I took the 5:20pm train back to New York.

I posted an entry last week about the Daily Show comment on an NBC news story that "unmasked" an important Iraqi judge. Well I was catching up on my DVR-stored programs, and they talked about this on Monday (or was it Tuesday?).

Their regular guest was grounded in DC due to the snow storm ... so they managed Brian Williams ... who went to great lengths to explain why NBC had got it wrong (bad intel from US Government "sources"). He also got a newspaper clipping from The New York Times that talked about the judge, and that included a photo of the said judge. Also, NBC corrected itself in time for their broadcasts to the other regions, so the error was localized to the East Coast broadcast only ... and they made the apology the next day.

Is it odd that NBC News has to defend itself against a cable network fake news show? Man, that must've been a boost to the egos of everyone at The Daily Show!

Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games ... such as World of Warcraft.

Bill Amend of Foxtrot ran a series on it ... which lead to an interview at a WoW fansite (you can also see the comics strips on the website)

Nikhil sent me a link to a study on MMORPG players ... in a spirited attempt to woo me back to Halo 2 on the XBox.

Speaking of XBox ... I may go back to it for a bit later this month & next month, to play Jade Empire & Doom 3. But it's so hard to leave WoW alone - my paladin hit level 30 last night ... only 10 more levels to get myself a warhorse ...

I need a girlfriend.

I've talked about the desi Spiderman before (as an aside, isn't it odd that the Indian Spiderman comics are not available in India?). I heard about this last week on The Daily Show, but here's an online article about it.

Now I'll say this about the stuff I saw on TV. The heroines are very classical "Western" heroines. Busty, skimpily clad. No objections there, but isn't this an Arabic comic? I wonder how it'll be received.

Also, check out the name of the enemies of the Arabic heroes: the United Liberation Force, and the Zios Army. The ULF ... is that a smirk in the direction of The Coalition of the Ready & Willing (or whatever it's called)? And ...

... Zios??

It's one letter away (and here's a clue: that letter in "N") from reigniting some old enemities, isn't it?

Update: The BBC Article had a link to the comic book publisher. You can see what I'm talking about there. Also, the English site seems to have been directly translated from Arabic. They should really review their work over there. :-)

I wrote a week ago wondering where I could find the short film nominees in the theaters - especially the animated ones. I found the answer at last, provided by the great man himself - Mr. Roger Ebert.

OK ... there was some good news and some shocking news on The Daily Show on Wednesday. I only just saw it (thank God for the DVR!). First the good news: The Rock is "The Man" (!) in the movie version of Doom, to be released in August. And yes, the B.F.G. is there.

OK now, the shocking news. Allow me to set up the scene. On Tuesday, NBC (Brian Williams?) announced that the Iraqi judge leading the trial of Saddam Hussain had been assassinated, and that the death had been confirmed by NBC News. As it turns out, he hadn't (Jon's reaction: "Welcome to network news!!"). Anyway, NBC showed clips of the judge at the trial. Now previously, the judge's face had been pixellated, to protect his identity from obvious dangers. But now, since NBC News thought he was dead ......

That's right. Anybody watching NBC News on Tuesday would've seen the face of the judge.

I hope the Iraqis have a good protection program.

I flew into Dallas last night. I thought to myself, "Hey, Texas has to be better than snowy New York!" Was I ever disappointed. It's 50F here ... stormy, too!

I'm staying at the Westin Park Central ... and by my reckoning, it's been about 10 years since I stayed in a hotel better than Days Inn. Frankly, as long as I have a clean room, comfy bed, and a TV to doze to, I'm not really bothered about how many stars a hotel has :-) ... Nonetheless, I was tripping to the extreme to be staying in a hotel like this!

I also went to Benihana's for the first time last night. Unfortunately, we didn't get any entertainment out of our table's cook. He looked like he was auditioning for the part of Oscar on Sesame Street. The food was alright - I had the Marina dish, and suffered a fish-overdose. I should've taken the Shrimp/Chicken combo.

I'm meeting up with Sachin tonight. Marriage doesn't seem to have changed him much - he told me to come to Dallas in the summer to see the real sights. ;-)