A to Z of Movies
Posted: December 21, 2008 Filed under: General ramblings | Tags: Blogging, Bollywood, hollywood, Meme, Movies, Reviews, twitter 9 Comments »Lallopallo tagged me for a movie meme a couple of days back. I started off by writing a blog post, only to realize that I am wasting my time. No, not wasting my time doing the meme, but wasting my time re-listing all movies that I’ve mentioned in the Cinema page of my blog. But thanks to this meme, I’ve made a couple of adjustments: I have removed the categories (Action, Drama, Foreign, Documentaries etc.). Categories restrict the art of movie making. At least that’s what I feel. A movie is so much more than just drama or action. Instead, I’ve re-arranged the movies that I like based on their first names (A, B, C, D…etc).
Lallo, I know you wanted me to add why I liked each movie. I’m sorry I haven’t done that because it’s difficult for me to sum it up in a couple of sentences. I have linked each movie to the IMDB page, which gives ample information (the movie outline, main characters, quotes etc.). In any case, IMDB does a better job that I will ever do. Some of these movies have been previously reviewed on my blog and I’ve inserted the links next to the names of the movies.
Like I mentioned to Arjun on Twitter:
I’m not tagging anyone particularly. Anyone who wants to take up this meme is free to do so.
Pseudo Painting and Happy Birthday Ish!
Posted: December 20, 2008 Filed under: General ramblings | Tags: Apple, Blogging, iPhone, Meme, Microsoft, MS Paint, painting, tags, Teddy Bear, Wordpress 14 Comments »Because it’s Ish‘s birthday, I’ve decided to grant him his Birthday wish: That I should tag up this meme in his honor 
Okay, just joking. But please go and leave a comment on his blog and wish the cute guy 
So, here’s the tag: The person who tags you gives you five different words and you have to make five pictures based on those words using MS-Paint only. After doing the tag, you have to tag 5 other people and give them 5 words for their pictures.
The five words that Ish chose for me were-
- An iPhone
- The Apple Logo
- The Windows Logo
- A teddy bear
- Cricket
Ermm…so I broke the rules a bit. First off, I used MS Paint for only drawing my iPhone. How ironical is that? Drawing an Apple product using a Windows application! And the next three (Apple logo, Windows Logo 
and Teddy bear) have been hand drawn and scanned. Cricket- Well, I give up! WTF do I draw for that? Yeah a bat and a ball…
1. iPhone- Proud owner of an iPhone 3G and the picture below actually shows the first page of my iPhone!
iphone
2. The Apple Logo-
Apple Logo
3. Windows Logo- Ish did this just to piss me off, of course. I’ve been nice enough to hand draw this just because it is his birthday. Anyone who’s been my blog friend long enough knows about my hatred for Microsoft and its products.
Windows Logo
4. A Teddy Bear- Okay, I kinda did a horrible job on this one. I spent more than 30 mins trying to make this look like a teddy bear: the hand look’s weird and the body and the head are completely out of proportion. Yeah, it looks kinda demented. 
Teddy Bear
5. Cricket- Don’t know what to draw. I skipped this one. Sorry! 
Here’s a birthday cake instead:
Happy Birthday
And now, I get to pass on the burden to five more people-
Arvind, Kiran, Suda, Lallopallo and Kalafudra. Please feel to draw anything you want! I’m too lazy to list them
Don’t use Globat.com
Posted: December 5, 2008 Filed under: General ramblings | Tags: Blogging, CustomCSS, domain, globat, Wordpress 11 Comments »I had registered for Timeandagainblog.com through globat.com this January, 2008. I never received any renewal notice from them. I did receive an email two days back, informing me that my credit card has been charged $14.95 for the renewal of my domain. My domain was supposed to expire on January 4th, 2009. Well…there is a slight problem. I didn’t plan to renew this domain because I don’t need it anymore. I have been fighting with them since 3 days. I told them that I shouldn’t be paying for the renewal because I never received any notice. 3 days, lots of wasted hours…and my money’s still with them. I’m going to file a dispute claim through my credit card company, Chase.
My Custom CSS upgrade expires on 12-28-2008 and I don’t plan to renew it. Why? Lots of reasons.
1. I’m not using WordPress.com much- I’m bored of the blogging community here. WP.com is not as flexible as Tumblr. I feel forced into writing long posts. I don’t feel like I have the freedom of expressing myself here anymore. It’s just not the same. With the amount of time I have these days, I am not sure if I want to go through so much of hassle. Posting/commenting on Tumblr/Twitter is far easier.
2. Because of #1, I’m not sure $15/year is justified. It’s not much at all. But only playing around with CSS is not enough. I want to muck around with the HTML too. I’m a curious soul.
3. I still think domain mapping should be free of charge. Yeah yeah yeah…might be a WordPress business model. But WTF- I don’t think I should be paying for it. They make a lot of money anyways!
3. Recession time- I should dress down my blog too.
4. Globat.com cheated me. And I have to pay for 3 other domains that I own.
Sharing the Finest
Posted: November 29, 2008 Filed under: General ramblings | Tags: Blogging, India, lashkar-e-toiba, pakistan, Politics, ramblings, terrorism, Thoughts 10 Comments »What happens when a Pakistani blogger says “Mumbai Attacks…Pakistan? I don’t think so!”
About 600+ people descend on his blog to beat him up virtually. Read here.
Here’s the choicest comment:
Who said Pakistan is not involved in Mumbai attacks? Pakistan role is there in every terrorists attack happend in this world. All Pakistanis are terrorists. If i had a given the chance, I Would prefer to bomd the entire pak. No more pakistan in the world. It’s gone. Even Obama wants to hit the pak, because it is epic center for all terrorist activities. What kind of idiots u r? behaving like sadists. No goal nothing. Killing the innocents is the great thing. There is something fundamental wrong in the Islam. U need to correct it.
Media’s Role in Mumbai’s Terrorist Attacks
Posted: November 27, 2008 Filed under: General ramblings | Tags: Blogging, cnn, flickr, Google, India, mumbai, Politics, Technology, terrorism, twitter, Wordpress 16 Comments »I’m getting a little sick in the stomach, seeing Mumbai terror attacks coverage on CNN. Most of the times, their news is “stale”, in comparison to the news posted on Twitter.(Just search for #Mumbai). Citizen journalism is turning out to be more comprehensive, well-timed and exhaustive compared to traditional media. Lots of articles on the net that are talking about the power of twitter and bloggers. Lots of bloggers like Arun Shanbag, Vinu etc. have come into limelight because of their responsible journalism- they care for you and me. News channels cover these events only for their own good, to increase their TRP ratings etc.
I have only been a moderate user of Twitter- a couple of tweets here and there. Nothing more. This incident, however, has changed the way I feel about Twitter. It has the potential of becoming a stronger force to reckon with. A force fueled by ordinary people like you and me.
I came across a nicely put Google spreadsheet that has the list of people who are either injured/dead. My eyes welled up with tears. Two of my friend’s friends at Leopold Cafe and another friend of my friend’s younger brother, who was interning as a chef at Taj Mahal Hotel, were shot dead. I was speechless.
Of course, there are haters who talk about the side effects of Twitter and how lots of Tweets were only rumors. I have only one response to these haters- don’t news channels run their business based on rumors too? What’s new?
People have issued statements saying that “people need to tweet responsibly and stop airing all important news on Twitter; this can be used as a weapon etc”. I understand how this can be dangerous, but complainers need to find a way to deal with it! Restricting the use of social networking sites is tantamount to taking away our freedom of speech.
How many citizens sitting in the comforts of their homes and tweeting away to glory have actually done something (donated blood, tried to find information for people who are yet to hear from their loved ones etc.) is questionable. And I’m sure there are others who think this is a great party and a trendy topic to talk about. Leaving such people aside, I do hope that some good comes out of it.
Related Reading: In Mumbai, Bloggers and Twitter Offer Help to Relatives
Where is Ruhi?
Posted: August 13, 2008 Filed under: General ramblings | Tags: Blogging, Bollywood, decalogue, Entertainment, Family, hollywood, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Movies, new york city, Technology, th dark knight, vacation 19 Comments »I went “offline” in the sense that I completely stopped blogging. It’s not that I got bored of it or anything…just had a lot of other stuff lined up and didn’t know how to prioritize. 
Thank you all for reading and commenting. It feels nice to be missed. I’m sorry for not keeping in touch though. I can really disappear if I want/need to.
The WordPress page’s layout has changed- quite a bit. Just noticed it a minute or two ago, when I was trying to log in. I wasn’t even sure if I’ll be able to guess my password at one go. Yes, it’s been that long. I started on this new job about three months back and it’s been an uphill battle to try and wake up by 7 am and be in office by 8 am. I’m proud of the fact that I’m almost always on time. And what is my job related to? IT of course.
My folks came over from India for a couple of weeks. I finally took my long, impending trip to New York City. I so wanted to watch Woody Allen perform at Hotel Carlyle. Lallo, you can be happy now. Good enough reason to visit NYC again. I could write pages and pages about my trip. Unfortunately, I really don’t have the words. Some of the places that I visited- Times Square, Brooklyn Bridge, Manhattan Bridge, Queens, Soho, Liberty Island and The Status of Liberty, Ellis Island, Empire State Building, Wall St, 5th Avenue (did lots of “window shopping”), ate Brooklyn style pizza in some Italian restaurants, walked by foot and traveled by the famous subways all the time, ate honey roasted almonds, learned how to read the complicated subway map, Trinity Church, Ground Zero (site of WTC) of course. It’s only when you are in Manhattan that you realize how easy it is to fall in love with this city and New Yorkers. Woody Allen, this trip was for you.
Also heard that J.K Rowling is releasing “The Tales of Beedle the Bard” for everyone. I’d already predicted this, in fact. Who’s buying the $100 leather bound version?
I did some movie watching too! My top favorites are The Dark Knight (9.5/10), Turtles Can Fly (9/10), Terminator 2 (9/10), and Omkara (8.5/10). And finally, I bought the entire collection of Decalogue by Krzysztof Kieslowski off Amazon.
Now for some NYC pics-
Slave of Brands
Posted: June 17, 2008 Filed under: General ramblings | Tags: Blogging, brands, general thoughts, Google, Marketing, Meme, Microsoft, ramblings, tagging, yahoo 24 Comments »Shefaly had tagged me for this meme a LONG time back! Because of my self imposed hiatus, this response took longer than the expected wait time. Better late than never…
These are the brands that I use on a regular basis. I couldn’t categorize them on an hourly basis, because I keep using some products throughout the day:
1. Colgate – Toothpaste
2. L’Oreal – Shampoo
3. Johnson & Johnson – Body lotion
4. Maybelline – Eyeliner
5. MAC – Mascara
6. Ecotints – Organic lip tint
7. Davidoff – Perfume
8. Nike – Deodorant
9. Compaq – Laptop
10. Google – Needs no explanation
11. Toad – Running SQL Queries
12. Oracle – Database management tool
13. Microsoft – The necessary evil
14. Yahoo – Email, yeah…
15. Tupperware – Storage
16. Rubbermaid – Storage, again
17. T-Mobile – Cell phone service
18. Firefox – I’m powered by Firefox
19. WordPress – I’m using it now
20. Yoplait – Fat free, strawberry flavored Yoghurt
21. Epson – My 3 -in-1 Printer/Scanner/Photocopier
22. Bath & Body Works – Liquid Hand Soap
23. White- Westinghouse – Microwave
24. Sag Harbour – Leather Purse
25. Sony Ericsson – Cell phone
26. Kenneth Cole – Wrist watch
27. Ziploc – Storage!
28. Pringles – Some potato chips
29. Pentel – Cheap ballpoint pen
30. Office Depot – Other office supplies
31. Dell – Workplace computer
32. Nissan – My wheels
I could probably increase this list and include many other things. But these are the brands that cropped up in my mind first. I guess my interest is quite varied. I really don’t know whom to tag. Looks like everyone has already done this. If you haven’t, then feel free to steal it from here.
Blog Closed
Posted: May 5, 2008 Filed under: General ramblings | Tags: Blogging, Life, Thoughts, Wordpress, Work 20 Comments »I’m off blogging for a month or so. Too much work and other stuff going on! I’m not being able to read anyone’s posts or write comments. Please don’t mind! I’ll probably be back next month. I’ll try to read your blogs, but will probably not be regular.
Miss you wonderful people!
