Thursday, September 22, 2005

Onam hangover...!

Everyone must be undergoing various stages of Onam hangover these days, I guess. So I will skip the details of the Onam sadhyas I had. But one thing I have to say. Boy was I lucky this year…four sadhyas and more to come. Due to non-availability of auditoriums, schools, the onam celebrations of many cultural organizations are still pending. I have one next Friday…as I commented “njan ippol thanne football pole aayi..!”

I watched “Nerariyan CBI” yesterday. A so..so film. I will give five out of ten, just for the twist at the end, the priest role by Jagathi,for Cochin Haneefa and Bindu Panicker. Annoying things were the white flashes of strobe light the director uses too much,the discussions on supernatural etc which bores you a little (you will understand when you watch the movie ). And the most annoying of all…the extensive use of advertisement...and the characters are made to say dialogues which promote the products….I couldn’t digest that. ( eg. Mamootty saying “athu (theyila) podiyude gunama!”(AVT), “916 gold”(kalyan jewelers), “njan indicom subscriber aanu” etc.) Then the unnecessary dialogues/scenes like “sir how to overcome fear?” and a few dialogues on that. Irrelevant and will bore you. I did hear people talking in the theater, a sure sign that they were all distracted and had lost interest. And how come in a CBI office there are no other employees? Jagathy as usual “kalakki” with his “catholic achan” role.

How to find out whether the rest of the crowd are bored with the movie as you are? …try a few coughs…if you hear others joining you in coughing…be sure there are people in the movie hall, who are also equally bored . Applicable to “kathi prasangam”s also.

Opera 8.5 browser is out. And its FREE. It’s the fastest browser.Faster than firefox in rendering webpages.

The kuwait ministry banned the latest India Today. Now i am intrigued..! I checked India-Today website.Now i know why it is banned in Kuwait.

I am planning to send weblink of this post by Silverine to all my friends... contemporary "Sholay". That was a good one,Silverine.

Take care all of you..

Thursday, September 15, 2005

Happy Onam...!

Wishing you and all your near and dear ones a very happy Onam.May you all have a happy,peaceful and prosperous year ahead.

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Up The Irons...!!!

I am a die-hard fan of Iron Maiden, the British Heavy Metal band. (My other fav are Judas Priest and Manowar!). On Aug 20, Iron Maiden,the headliners of Ozzfest 2005,while performing was terrorized by some stupid,egoistic fans of Ozzy Osbourne,apparently at the behest of Sharon Osbourne. Iron Maiden was pelted with eggs,beer bottle caps,ice,etc. The lead singer Bruce Dickinson was even spit upon by an Ozzy fan. The PA system was switched off thrice while the band was playing.And the power was pulled out too. What a nice way to settle scores,eh? Iron Maiden didn’t walk away,like bands usually tend to do, but fought and gave it back to them.They played the full set of 60 mins.(5 mins more than the allotted slot). No wonder they are still on the top in this era of new metal,rap metal(what the heck is that?) and all other acts which strut around in the name of rock(grrrrr).And to add to that,Sharon came onstage after Iron Maiden left and passed comments on Bruce, after praising other members of the Maiden band and their crew,but was booed off.She also had to face “Maiden…Bruce” chants from the fans.I liked that.

I do like Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne.After all he is the "Prince of Darkness","Godfather of Heavy Metal".But this sad episode should not have happened.Maybe he was not aware of his wife's plans. The whole episode sure did leave a bad taste.Read more about it here and here

Sharon Osbourne has done nastier things earlier too.Anybody remember what she did to Tony Iommi (Black Sabbath’s ex-guitarist)?

The above muttering was for die hard classic heavy metal fans.Well on to other things. One of my friends,is in Canada for her Masters degree.Good luck to you, my dear dear friend.And thanks for everything. May you be blessed abundantly! And oh, knowing you was my blessing!

In one post on her weblog Sonia, wrote about a taxi driver in Dubai,who was playing the car radio and irritating her. While in Jordan I saw a sticker,by the ministry, in the taxi cabs."Passengers' Bill of Rights".The third right was “No playing of radio,cassette recorder in an annoying way ”.One more reason to love Jordan! But then Jordan has both native Christians and Muslims.

I flew back to Kuwait on 5th. Back to the daily grind.I haven’t watched any movies on MBC2 after my return.Too busy to sit in front of telly and watch a whole movie.This kind of answers my question in my earlier post.

Been listening to Pink Floyd for the past few days. And more Iron Maiden too.

Onam...well Happy Onam to all you out there.Have a great day and take care.

Saturday, September 03, 2005

A Walk To Remember...!

Oops! Was showing a friend how to blog and I goofed.The earlier post got reposted again.

Almost a month since my last blog.I am in Amman,Jordan now (again!).Some emergency occured which called for my urgent presence here.And I flew in a few days back but I dont know when I will fly back to Kuwait.All the flights to Kuwait are overbooked.Its that time of the year...End of summer vacation time!! I had to change hotel also.I hate it.And add to that my stomach was upset with something I ate..must be the fruits. I sure did wash them under running water :-(

Hey,how is that I get to see some good movies while I am in Amman? And that too on MBC2. I have this channel in Kuwait.But I never get to see any good ones while I am in Kuwait.Yesterday I saw "A Walk To Remember".One more to the list of movies which touched me.Reminded me of Love Story (Erich Segal fame). Mandy Moore and Shane West are the lead pair.This simple romance movie had depth,was fast paced enough and had me immersed..totally.The film was adapted from Nicholas Sparks book of the same name.And another film which I liked (and own the DVD too) "Message in a Bottle" was also adapted from Nicholas Sparks novel. A walk to remember is prescribed for hopeless romantics like me :-) Oh by the way the film had Darryl Hannah too (anyone remember "Splash"?)To start hunting for the DVD and the book.

The other movies I got to watch was "3000 Miles to Graceland"( have Courtney Cox of "friends" fame with Kevin Costner and Kurt Rusell) "California Suite".And special mention for "The Big Hit". Somebody please send me the next month's MBC2 cinema list,so that I can plan my next Jordan trip.

Friends from Kuwait called.The movie "Bharathchandran IPS" is being shown there in
Kuwait.Its a super hit in Kerala (that's what I was told!).I badly wanted to see this one after wasting my time and money on "Udayon" and "Rappakal".Will have to get the pirated VCD ...oops!

This is a good opportunity to see Jordan since I have ample time in hand,but the friend who could have arranged it all is away in Lebanon honeymooning! So have to do with the rounds of Amman.Maybe next time I will go sightseeing Jerash,Dead Sea and all.

And similar to my early experiences with local people in Jordan,this time too the word "hindi" did the magic.I get into a cab.Give the destination to the driver.Silence for a 5 to 10 mins.Then usually at the second traffic signal the driver asks

"American?"
Me (thinking "you blind or what?"): "No Indian"
Driver: "Hindi?"
Me:"yes"

And that does it.He starts talking in broken English about India,mostly about hindi films, and this time one guy even sang a Hindi film song, which unfortunately I didn't know.But he insisted that it was from a Hindi film starring Amithab Bachan.I relented.(Didn't want to get beaten up,do we?)And from then onwards the ride is good.ummm I am proud to be an Indian.And thanks to Amitabh Bachan too!! But I still have to pay as per the taxi fare meter.

Time to go and check the MBC2 movie listing for today!