so you are one of those old enough to have started out with an yahoo account. remember your surprise when you found that you could upload photos to your yahoo account and get a snazzy url where you could point your relatives and enemies to suffer roll after roll after roll of vacation snaps. signing up and waiting in line till the sole scanner in the computer lab becomes available was an experience. as was taking up residence in the lab for the rest of the night so you could scan rolls beginning with "My first birthday" to "when vetti boys toured chicago - yesterday". yup those days are gone
yahoo closed its photo shop and invited several folks who still had photos there (me) to migrate to one of many choices (flickr - yahoo's new photoshop in case you just woke up after a decade long sleep, shutterbug etc). i was only happy to oblige. i hadnt visited those in ages and looked quite unrecognizable in some of them (ok that one was the sears tower not me). i proceeded to choose flickr as i already have an account there that i occasionally post somewhat ok looking pics to. the photos got uploaded and what do i see. a tiny little icon that says "pro" in sweet blue. that is apparently yahoo's way of saying "sorry we caused unnecessary nostalgic feelings by making you go through your old photos and then made you move them". this is something that i have been resisting for a while now. i dont take as many photos as this $24.95 yearly investment warrants but if you give it for free i am more than happy to take it. it only lasts 3 months though. so lets see if that ups my photo count. quite sneaky of yahoo though. in all probability i'll end up signing for the yearly account. if u want to test those flickr goodness before you take the plunge, look in your inbox for that mail from yahoo and migrate your scans to flickr. your snaps will be happy. for 3 months.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
passive voice
i hate sore throats. suddenly my room-mate and maybe my neighbors too are happy that i am no longer singing (yup no quotes around that - typed or finger) when i cook. several people are delirious with joy that i have not called them in a while and overall the world is feeling perky despite all the other miseries. i had to find some way of ridding myself of this condition and others of their happiness and landed upon a pack of halls. its working..slowly..i'll have a voice soon.
that obviously drove thoughts back to vicks and the sway it held over me when i was young. chocolate was always there and one had a myriad assorted sugar treats that you could invest in and let dentists reap the benefits years later. but i had a thing for the vicks pill. first off it came in a neat till packet unlike the twisty wrapper. it was triangular in shape - far more geometrically attractive than the usual, boring cylinder and it had one awesome ad going for it. i still remember vicks ki goli lo kich kich dhoor karo and the animated kich kich monster that would rotate and shrink to a point as a glossy,brown molasses like vicks screen descended down the magnified throat . everytime that commercial came on i wished that i had kich kich and given a choice would've picked vicks to be distributed in class on my b'day over any of parry's offerings.
now i am troubled by that stupid kich kich monster on a yearly basis. each time that happens i pop in a zillion mentholyptus pills and as one of them slowly dissolves i realize that i may have something to write about in the next summer blockbuster post. coming soon to rss readers near you: prickly heat powders and the image of cacti and thorny bushes on people's backs.
that obviously drove thoughts back to vicks and the sway it held over me when i was young. chocolate was always there and one had a myriad assorted sugar treats that you could invest in and let dentists reap the benefits years later. but i had a thing for the vicks pill. first off it came in a neat till packet unlike the twisty wrapper. it was triangular in shape - far more geometrically attractive than the usual, boring cylinder and it had one awesome ad going for it. i still remember vicks ki goli lo kich kich dhoor karo and the animated kich kich monster that would rotate and shrink to a point as a glossy,brown molasses like vicks screen descended down the magnified throat . everytime that commercial came on i wished that i had kich kich and given a choice would've picked vicks to be distributed in class on my b'day over any of parry's offerings.
now i am troubled by that stupid kich kich monster on a yearly basis. each time that happens i pop in a zillion mentholyptus pills and as one of them slowly dissolves i realize that i may have something to write about in the next summer blockbuster post. coming soon to rss readers near you: prickly heat powders and the image of cacti and thorny bushes on people's backs.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
sivaji the boss
so after the long wait outside the theater we were let in but not before several imaginary guards frisked us. they removed things that may hinder us from having fun - logic, reason, the ability to comprehend gravity or any physics for that matter. those things have no place in mythology. you dont question anything when gods reincarnate even if it is only on a theater screen.
every frame is a technicolor fantasy where each pixel has been carefully choreographed to display a precise combination of red, green and yellow. the background music/rap mix adds a dose of adrenalin to some stunning fights. all i'll say about the music is that it has been composed by this guy called a.r.rahman. the camera angles and lighting nearly perfect in every scene, song and fight, causes the already outlandish costumes to shine with a new resplendence. did i mention the colossal sets yet? they were colossal. and while all this brilliance jousts for space on the screen, the style maven, who made millions grow their hair longer just to brush it back like he does, takes center-stage and rules the movie. he dons wigs, imitates other stars, woos his woman and fights with the energy of a sprightly young star in a 3 hour sequence where he is rarely off the screen.
there is a plot somewhere and it is as old as the sherwood forest. it is about one man creating his own government from the black money he reaps in dubious ways. who cares about that when style looking like a million bucks is bouncing chiclets off villain's foreheads and tossing coins laterally. the dialogs witty and clever in the first half are delivered with the timing that only vivek can manage. in the second half they burst out like bullets when the superstar utters them in his inimitable style. the scene i liked the most is the one in the tea stall with thalaivar eating vazhakka bajji with the villain. just awesome. the songs were spectacular though for some reason athiradee reminded me of smooth criminal more than desperado. some scenes could've been removed from the first half if only to shorten the movie but it looks like shankar decided to give the fan his money's worth knowing fully well that the black ticket costs are going to soar during the first few days.
while all the supernova references and "god returns" cliches bounce around the blogs, it may be tempting to leave out Shriya. she didnt have much of a role but boy was she hot. and that girl can certainly act and dance. hopefully we'll see more of her on the screen after this. shankar is the man behind the whole show though. he proves yet again that he is a master showman. if at all any god chooses to reincarnate, i am sure they will choose this man to orchestrate their entrance and manish malhotra to design their costumes.
we finally returned from the land of the dancing maharaja at 1.55 am and regained enough logic and sense of gravity to start our cars and drive back home. the 3 hour experience was quite unlike any movie i've seen in the recent past. and yeah i realize some lines could've been removed from all this if only to shorten this paean of a post but then i wanted to give you your free subscription's worth.
every frame is a technicolor fantasy where each pixel has been carefully choreographed to display a precise combination of red, green and yellow. the background music/rap mix adds a dose of adrenalin to some stunning fights. all i'll say about the music is that it has been composed by this guy called a.r.rahman. the camera angles and lighting nearly perfect in every scene, song and fight, causes the already outlandish costumes to shine with a new resplendence. did i mention the colossal sets yet? they were colossal. and while all this brilliance jousts for space on the screen, the style maven, who made millions grow their hair longer just to brush it back like he does, takes center-stage and rules the movie. he dons wigs, imitates other stars, woos his woman and fights with the energy of a sprightly young star in a 3 hour sequence where he is rarely off the screen.
there is a plot somewhere and it is as old as the sherwood forest. it is about one man creating his own government from the black money he reaps in dubious ways. who cares about that when style looking like a million bucks is bouncing chiclets off villain's foreheads and tossing coins laterally. the dialogs witty and clever in the first half are delivered with the timing that only vivek can manage. in the second half they burst out like bullets when the superstar utters them in his inimitable style. the scene i liked the most is the one in the tea stall with thalaivar eating vazhakka bajji with the villain. just awesome. the songs were spectacular though for some reason athiradee reminded me of smooth criminal more than desperado. some scenes could've been removed from the first half if only to shorten the movie but it looks like shankar decided to give the fan his money's worth knowing fully well that the black ticket costs are going to soar during the first few days.
while all the supernova references and "god returns" cliches bounce around the blogs, it may be tempting to leave out Shriya. she didnt have much of a role but boy was she hot. and that girl can certainly act and dance. hopefully we'll see more of her on the screen after this. shankar is the man behind the whole show though. he proves yet again that he is a master showman. if at all any god chooses to reincarnate, i am sure they will choose this man to orchestrate their entrance and manish malhotra to design their costumes.
we finally returned from the land of the dancing maharaja at 1.55 am and regained enough logic and sense of gravity to start our cars and drive back home. the 3 hour experience was quite unlike any movie i've seen in the recent past. and yeah i realize some lines could've been removed from all this if only to shorten this paean of a post but then i wanted to give you your free subscription's worth.
Friday, June 15, 2007
from the newsdesk, wherever that may be
the word 'sivaji' has become the word that was transmitted most via text message in a given period of time. earlier the record had been held by 'happy' followed closely by 'new' and 'year'. several people in chennai reported that they had typed the word so much that their fingers were refusing to type anything else. over across the oceans and mountains, recipients of the text messages interviewed in the U.S liberally cursed the senders (mostly good friends) in their mother tongue(mostly tamil, followed by telugu) for not thinking about the high text message rates.in a cruel twist of fate several recipients were forced to seek employment in theaters showing sivaji in order to pay for those charges. incidentally the second most transmitted word record is now held by 'super'
in other news, the CEOs of Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, even U.S.Cellular submitted a petition to the Super Star asking him to act in at least one movie a month. they also suggested his movie names be longer than the single text message limit.
in other news, the CEOs of Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, even U.S.Cellular submitted a petition to the Super Star asking him to act in at least one movie a month. they also suggested his movie names be longer than the single text message limit.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
how loud is too loud
every man has a breaking point..mine came when the electronic sounds that form the start of athiradee started to pour out of the speakers. i stood up to dance and didnt really sit down again.actually i dont remember much of what i was doing after that. the decibel levels rose to near ear-splitting levels and caused droves of demure desi damsels to change into dancing queens. the men werent far behind. many ran up and down the aisles forming trains and others who had been sitting were dancing in place (like i suddenly found myself doing) with arms and legs flailing trying to keep up with the beat. and try doing that while also screaming your lungs out. my voice is gone, my ears are ringing and legs ache. all side effects of experiencing rahman's music live. an awesome experience. now i am properly primed for sivaji next week.
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