fillum talk

watched "My Brother Nikhil" tonight....

man, heavy movie!!! well made.. and touching. I don't know how true it is that the movie's based on a true story, but people's ignorance and apathy at that age towards HIV and AIDS is mind-blowing. Good subject matter.. and its always refreshing to see a mainstream movie have a socially educational or informative message.

Great acting by Victor Banerjee... the movie's written/screenwritten, edited, directed by Anirban (Dhar) known to all I guess as Orin. It was a pleasant surprise to find out that this was the same guy we knew a long ago back in Thimphu, Bhutan. His parents used to live by Motithang High School in the early (to mid) eighties.. seems like eons ago... So it's even more fun watching the movie knowing who's made it! Good going Anirban.. congratulations.

Music - I need new suggestions for music.. am open to anything, and I will not judge you by your taste in music!!!! (maybe just a little bit!! :D )

bleary eyed typing

what keeps you awake at night??
Profound philosophical questions? the state of our planet? your hopes and aspirations? your upcoming vacation??

how about just plain old damned stupid insomnia??
This is not my first post abt insomnia.. and won't be my last either.

5:45 in the am, no one I can complain to... hence this blog!! :)
Looks like a long long long day ahead of me...

Might as well start it off with a joke -------

Officer: "Soldier, do you have change for a dollar?"
Soldier: "Sure, buddy."
Officer: "That's no way to address an officer! Now let's try it a gain."
Soldier: "Do you have change for a dollar?"
Soldier: "No, SIR!"

filler material...

Sorry folks, long time no posts... nothing much to write actually... well i guess there are things to write, just no inclination right now.

Normal mundane stuff:

Memorable Movies watched recently:
- Star Wars Episode III - mucho bueno
- L'Auberge Espagnole - tres bien
- Ab Tak Chappan - jhakaas
- Maqbool - Damn good
- Kingdom of Heaven - decent

Finished reading two books - Nick Hornby's "How to be Good" and Lavanya Sankaran's "The Red Carpet ..." . Both of them were mediocre books.. unfortunately.

Anyway - I've got a long to-do list, so not going to ramble on like before. Just to let u folks know that I'm alive and just barely kickin'.

time travel and all that rot

i just watched "Primer"... the critically acclaimed 2004 Sundance Grand Jury Award winner. And I'm ready to tear out my hair in frustration and can't get my brain to stop asking questions. That's the problem with time-travel movies... too many loops, too many questions, and then there's fancy words like causality and stuff!!

Anyway, what IS amazing about this movie is that it was supposedly made for $7000/-. Wow!! Think about the return on investment!!

Anyways, movie is pretty good... to understand it you gotta watch it like 6 times i think.. which i probably will.. dammit. And its fun to watch two hard-core scientists/engineers/researchers with their brain working over-time discussing physics and what-all... Intense stuff.. okay maybe for some people. :) .. But thats all in the beginning.. and then it gets loopy.. literally.

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Read a great article on the teaching evolution vs creationism in US schools issue (or, IMO, non-issue) http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/17/science/17comm.html

This is an excerpt:

The ultimate extension of this position may be Representative Tom DeLay's comment that the tragedy at Columbine happened "because our school systems teach our children that they are nothing but glorified apes who have evolutionized out of some primordial mud."

Scary huh!! But thats just one part... the rest of the commentary is pretty good and although it may sound like its straddling the fence it actually very nicely points out how the church should and does reconcile evolution into the great scheme of things. Its just some stupid churchgoers in Kansas who cannot!

cons, heists and hacks

I enjoy movies about heists and cons... its nice to see something meticulously planned out and executed.. (like coding!) .. and its the best when the cons/thiefs finally get to keep their loot!! Of course the cons have to be the good guys and the money has to be stolen from unscrupulous rich bastards... like insurance companies (wink), credit card companies (wink wink), casinos.. I hate it when the money all goes to the bottom of the ocean or gets burned or some crap like that.. forget the moral of the story and divine justice and all that rot. Just let them keep the money na?? Am trying to remember good con/heist movies - Ocean's Eleven, Confidence, Heist, Matchstick Men, The Score, Italian Job... oh forget it.. too many to name and I can't remember all of em.

Very close to conning come hacking (using some woerd logic)... well in the true old-school meaning of the term.. nowadays hacking means everything.. theres even life-hacking.. in fact everything thats a shortcut or method to do something is now a hack.. The term's been overused and bastardised i guess.. so sad.

Well, here's a hack that I want to talk about. I dont know how many of you are GMail users. Isn't GMail absolutely great? Except that to delete your mail you have to go thru this whole rigamarole of clicks... Coz GMail doesnt want you to delete your mail, coz you have lots and lots of space and you dont need to delete mails and all that bullcrap.. So either you submit to Google's thinking and never delete any email in your whole life, regardless of whether its spam or phishing or that nasty one you got from your landlady or, heaven forbid, from your ex.. OR, you get smart and clever and creative and add a delete button onto GMail!!!

So:
- using the Greasemonkey extension in Firefox (the good browser),
- and choosing the GMail script from the endless list of user scripts,
you can add a delete button to your GMail page!! Tadaaaaaa

It only works if you use Firefox, but if you do not use firefox, nowz the time to switch from IE. Please switch. Firefox is safe and harmless. Firefox good. And no, I'm not getting paid by them to shamelessly plug their product.

Anyway, I found this on googletutor.com. Its a good thing!

g'night all...

p.s. Am trying to increase the page rank to the Kalimpong site www.kalimpong.info, so just ignore these lines below! :D I dontknow if it'll work, I've just heard that the more links there are to the site, the hgher it is ranked. I want a high page ranking for www.kalimpong.info ! Kalimpong, West Bengal, India, News, Information, Pictures, Tourism, Info and so on!

The Downing Street memo

Alright, we all know that there were no WMDs... and that the war was pre-planned ... and it was all for oil and halliburton... so I don't see the big fuss about the Downing Street Memo. However, isn't it funny that it really hasn't been covered by the US Press?? If anyone has seen anything about this in FoxNews lemme know. :D ...

Of course it's not funny, its expected that it won't be covered. For the sane people who know and who have lost their larynxes talking about the made-up reasons for the war and so on, it doesn't come as a surprise. But what about the people who still fervently believe that Saddam and Osama were bosom buddies and Iraq was as responsible for 9/11 as Al-Quaeda? The same people who still believe that there were/are WMDs in Iraq. If you are one of these people, or if you know anyone from that group of people, direct them towards this site http://www.downingstreetmemo.com . It seems straight out of a John Le Carre book, but seems to be true enough and surprisingly hasn't been shot down by the sources in either of the governments. It looks like the present administration is trying very hard to ignore the memo. Ya ya, pretend it doesn't exist and it will just disappear... sadly, they've used this strategy before and its worked for them.

This is one of my rare political posts, altho I do not consider it politcal.. Do you?

bioscope

Bioscope - The word is constructed from the Greek (bios, life; skopeein, to look at).
And the Oxford English Dictionary's traditional definition is "a view or survey of life".

For those who are already lost by now - "bioscope" was the moniker for "movies" back in the days.. a term used by the elders and picked up by us kids... altho' we had no idea what that meant at the time!!

Anyway, two movies I watched recently were "Maria Full of Grace" and "Ashes of Time", the first one is Columbian and the second one is Chinese. Both were pretty good which reinforces my opinion that foreign movies are so much better than the hollywood crap that is dished out nowadays. But again, to be fair, I guess we only manage to get our hands on the foreign movies that are good enough to have attained international fame and hence are available widely.

So I was at Blockbuster and had just picked out "Maria..." from the shelves when I overheard two dorks loudly discussing that movie and its ending!! I mean, they didnt say what the ending was, they just mentioned that it was odd or different or it sucked or something.. But just that much is enough to bias someone right? I mean, you're not watching a movie blind anymore, you're watching it with the fore-knowledge that the ending is something unexpected.. and that's enough to ruin your own sense of surprise or whatever from the movie. Dammit.. and those two jerks were so loud, the whole place could probably hear them... Video rental stores should have a policy of not letting the customers discuss movies that they've watched and hence spoil the movie for other renters, whether knowingly or inadvertently. People should have some basic common sense .. but i guess that's way too much to expect. I cannot stand loud people.. specially in public places... can't one have a normal conversation without screaming? And don't get me started on those obnoxious cellphone screamers...

Anyway, sorry for the digression... All in all, Maria Full of Grace is a pretty good movie, and the acting by "Maria" is so realistic that it's almost like youre watching someone in a documentary... not a pre-scripted role.

"Ashes of Time" is by Wong Kar Wai... I had heard a lot about this movie but unfortunately the quality of the DVD I rented was just so so so bad... (the version thats available in the US, made by a company called WorldVision is really bad). It's got a black bar across the lower third of the movie for the subtitles!!! Thus hiding most of the screen.. And the subtitles are so bad.. not just the obvious typos but also the timing and all.. And the sound is bad and the picture quality blurry.. I did sit thru it though, but I promise to find a better version and watch it again. I think it'll be worth it. The plot line gets quite confusing but the visuals look stunning.. even in the crappy DVD.. and the soundtrack keeps you so in tune with the movie. Its not a real "martial arts" movie but is almost lethargic with so much melancholia in it and in the true wong kar wai style, has a couple of different threads going on at the same time, overlapping but different..

I think I'm gonna watch "Shallow Grave" tonight... Danny Boyle.. His "Millions" is out, but not playing anywhere nearby! :(

and again ...

Who would have thought that the messy crab-apples would have such beautiful blossoms... It does feel like spring!

Blossoms

And the flowers are very very nice...

A little closer

The trees have tiny tiny blossoms...

The Trees

These are just humble crab-apple trees...

Quiet Weekend

And no, my weekend wasn't quiet just coz i replace the muffler/silencer/exhaust of my car... which I did and its too painful to even talk about coz thats where my tax-return and my retro-pay and my savings and my change-jar's change went into... But yes, my car's quieter now.. altho' its also kinda boring now.. no more deep throated harley rumble.. feels like i'm driving a car again.. not a chopper..:(

I was talking more in the sense of 'quiet' as in drab, dreary, slow, wet (weather), unproductive, boring, quiet etc.etc.etc... like always i guess - but felt worse for some reason. god knows. well, i did finish "High Fidelity" (Nick Hornby) - good book - and did watch Alfie - decent flick. Both are about the angst, desperation, depression, hopelessness, shallowness, insecurity and other tribulations of two english blokes... and damned if I didnt identify with those guys... kinda sad in a way. But again made me feel that shit happens and its normal.

You know, High Fidelity is one of the rare books that I've read after watching the movie.. The movie is great but the book's even better... The book is always better.. I watched HHGTTG too - which for the non-geeks translates to Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy... The movie is well made and they've done justice to the book (as far as they can and all that) but obviously the book, or rather the trilogy of five books(??) is better.

And now... a brand new week.. it gets tiring. Give us some good weather and I'll maybe give you some cheerful posts. If it's possible at all.

Of men and monkeys --

... the monkeys being those stupid irresponsible people who want to make sure that evolution is not taught in schools across the US. I think there's some kind of irony hidden here (am too mad to finesse it out) about these guys not having having evolved and hence cannot believe in evolution... (someone, be clever, tease out the connection please)

Read this news story - Darwin on trial: Evolution hearings open in Kansas - about some Christian groups in the US who want it taught, in schools, that Adam and Eve were the first human beings, made by God, and the world is only 6000 years old. (btw, George W Bush believes that too) They do not want evolutionary theory taught in school! No wonder Friedman says that US education system is being flushed down the toilet! (see my last post).

As for "Inteligent Design"... they're trying to say "scientifically" that God made man! not in so many words, but basically saying that human beings could not have evolved naturally and that some superior being was at work. OK, fine, believe what you want to believe and preach it in your sunday schools or the mega-churches or whatever - but keep it out of the class-room. There is nothing worse than bad science.

"Intelligent Design" my ass!!! I like to think that if there was a superior intelligent force at work, creating human beings, it wouldn't be stupid enough to create these dumb people. Coz that force is intelligent and hence should only create perfection right?? Right now, the biggest argument for evolution is: these guys exist - these guys are stupid - and evolution does not preclude stupidity from existing(unfortunately). QED. On the other hand, if intelligent design worked, we wouldnt be having this argument at all would we? everything would be perfect - as expected from an intelligent designer!!

The sad part is that this argument is still going on 80 years after the Scopes monkey trials!! 80 years and people still haven't learned. It is pathetic. Why don't I hear this argument in other countries? or with other faiths?

Please, please, please, keep your faith to yourself - keep it at home, in your living room, within your families - dont drag it out on the street and end up ridiculing your own religion. I know people of faith who cringe at these arguments coz they know how stupid it sounds, and how it gives a bad name to their religion. Separate faith and science!! There are people of faith who can believe in God and Darwinism at the same time. Why can't the rest be enlightened too??

God Damn It!!

numbers

date - 05-05-05

car inspection sticker expired - 4 months
goddamn amherst police tickets received - 3 - 1 warning, 2 fines
dollar amount - 100
car repair costs - one arm, one leg

books read - 15+
books written - zilch

witty thoughts at present - zero

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read this article by Friedman - wisen up!
Tuning in to Jon Stewart, and Britney Schmidt

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yaaaaaaaaaaaaawn

sleepy... must sleep... only noon right now.. must have caffiene!!

I am so not a morning person! And I cannot understand morning persons! Who, in their right minds, can be chirpy and full of life on getting out of bed at an unholy hour!! Humanity can be cleanly divided into two distinct groups. No, not the haves and the have-nots stupid! The early wakers and the late sleepers. Such a large schism. I wonder what the numbers are, the percentages of larks to owls (I think I read somewhere that these are "technical" terms used by sleep researchers). If owls are the minority, I think we can effectively argue that we are being discriminated against by the world in general.. because of the 9-5 (or even earlier) mentality of most places. Only Domino's Pizza and sometimes Blockbuster timings are geared towards owls!! In a litigious society like that of the US, someone can make some big money by suing someone for discrimination against non-morning people!! Well, I guess that would be a class-action suit and only the lawyers would end up making money! Which reminds me, I was checking my accounts yesterday (beginning of the month and bla bla), and I saw that on my American Express account, I was credited with $0.28 last month as a class-action suit settlement!!!!!!!!!! WHAAAAAAT?? 28 cents!! why even bother! :) And I didnt even know i was in the class of plaintiffs. So all the plaintiffs got lie 28 cents each.. the lawyers made a killing i'm sure.. several hundreds of millions!!! And poor American Express lost out!!! well, okay, I wont call them poor.. bastards!! All credit card companies are pure evil. And so we can say that early risers who work for credit card companies are the devil's lot!!! Impeccable logic Mr. Pradhan!!

Oh well, to get back to the late-wakers thing.. there's this article by a sleep researcher that's floating about on the net. It's about how your sleep pattern is like your eye color or hair color or something.. it is in your genes, hard wired into your system, and cannot be changed. I'm sure its true. I'm not gonna find the link and put it up here though. Go google it!! make use of google, the lazy person's tool. Ain't it awesome?? u wanna see where I live? goto maps.google.com, type in "24 Merrrick Circle, 01002" and click on the satellite view! But google goofed up - it points to a house down the street!! This is where I actually live.

God, this blog is so digressive.

Random:

• didn't anyone like the photograph I took? the daffodil? (last post!) I thought it was pretty nifty! What u say?
• Have I publicized www.kalimpong.info ?? The website for and about Kalimpong - News, Information, Pictures, Stories, and more to come.
• Got 1GB for yahoo mail today!! yippeeee
• 2005 is Einstein Year (For the UK and Ireland), and this year is also the World Year of Physics. Read this survey about science and education.