gravity sucks (i obey inverse square laws)

after trying for about an hour to get a screenshot that

a. didn't reveal completely what i was doing but did enough to pique your interest
b. seemed to somehow show that i was frightened,excited or had an adrenalin rush
c. made me look good

i gave up

c is out of the question..skydiving is not makeup or plastic surgery. b didn't really happen..ok maybe i was excited just before and for a brief 2 seconds after i was pushed out of the plane.a is not possible either - human nature dictates that i brag about this so i don't really care about hiding things and piquing interests.

so you get the pic below..the all revealing, rather frightening image of me falling down with another guy strapped to my back. a minute later he saved me from going splat by opening the chute strapped to his back. the float down was a complete let down after the first couple of seconds of free fall. kind of like the scooter rides from childhood when you were made to stand in front.

so by all means go for a jump. it's kind of expensive. like many other things its hype exceeds reality and for god's sake remember to keep your mouth closed or you'll get an image like this. the video - i plan to sell it to parents as a scare aid to be used instead of the bogeyman or boochandi as the case may be.



p.s you dont know it but you just had a narrow escape.i was going to start this by explaining how i once fell from a mango tree sans parachute.but the screenshot extraction process frustrated the nostalgia out of me.

saroja saamaan nikalo

i run..now and then. a mile or so. my usual schedule is a long run over the weekend followed by 2 or more weeks of intense whining that my ankle / calf muscle / stomach / (insert muscle name here) has been sprained / inflamed / ooh..aah..ouched. but i've come to enjoy it so much that i go out and try it again as soon as i feel better. the person mainly responsible for this is my runner roomie and now he has started blogging on his runs and more here:

http://stridewrite.wordpress.com

written in a conversational style, it is quite informative (unlike this one) and is updated whenever he runs..which is like every day or so. (you can say that about my blog as well. the update frequency that is). so mosey over and give it a shot.

oh and the title - in my opinion, the best running song. it is always the last in my playlist so i gain an additional boost for the last 4 minutes 15 seconds of my 5 minute runs.

the fruits of labor (day)

3 day weekends rock..4 day work weeks are better

naan avan illai , the new version, is a horrible way to waste time. the lead is played by jeeva who is a con artist who tricks women, marries them and escapes with their jewels. my take - his insipid dialog delivery wouldn't have fooled any crow into dropping its vadai, let alone tricking 5 women. the story unravels through court scenes in which, lest you forget, they make him repeat the film's name about 276 times. finally the judge decides to let him go and some random woman kills him. the director tries hard to con everyone into thinking it was a good movie by (literally) filling the screen with distracting visuals of namitha. i heard quite a few fell for it and managed to make this a hit. if you are going to watch it, go directly to the last 3rd of the movie and save yourself some time.

urchagam [raaga.com] sees ranjith barot back after a long time. none of the numbers reach the heights of minnal oru kodi from VIP but they are all pretty good. i liked veyil and naram pookal. the other soundtrack that's been getting some play time is kannamoochi yenada [musicindiaonline.com] by yuvan. typical yuvan sans the rap piece and a complete koothu piece. of 5 songs, sanjaram is a nice number. isnt there something similar to proofreading for lyrics? in sanjaram madhushree makes pani (snow) sound like paani(thats hindi for water in case you scored 68 in your 10th board hindi exam) and thangi(stay) sound like thaangi(support/bear). my guess is that it was caused due to the transliteration into english. does anyone know how that process works - getting north indian singers to sing in tamil that is? do they get the lyrics in english or hindi or do they just make them up as they go?

finally i read next by michael crichton. its rather similar to state of fear. this time he takes up genomics. through a thin storyline, various technical papers and articles he tries to teach us about the science and ethics of genetic science. as a story its not that gripping but he does discuss some rather pertinent points about gene therapy, cloning and the likes. while it reads like one long opinion piece, its still quite absorbing. the fact that it is very relevant at this point in time is obvious. just this morning bbc had this article.

i think i said finally by mistake..there is still ooh la la la that i've started watching thanks to current. if u havent heard of it, it is a pretty decent band search tv program that is being telecast on sun tv. they are streaming it for free and legally at oohlalala.in (click on the Videos section). some of the original compositions were awesome and so were some of the remixes. take a look if you have the time.

that's it..i'm done..u can go back to work or whatever else u were upto. thanks for listening