My Miss Universe 2005 predictions

It Sucks.

Note To Self : Dood, Don't even think of buying lottery.

Virginia Beach Trip Memorial Day Weekend

What happens in Virginia Beach, stays in Virginia beach.

hehe. Borrowed it from Las Vegas.

Maybe I should come up with something original, for Virginia Beach.
Something like...

"What happened in Virginia Beach is none of your business"

Holy Moly

(Photo courtesy : TimesofIndia.com)

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1122438.cms

Disclaimer : Iam not responsible if you are totally pissed off when you open the above link and have no pop-up blocker in your browser.

Miss Universe 2005

Ok...

This is what I think...

Chances of Amrita winning Miss Universe 2005 : 50%
Chances of Evangelia winning Miss Universe 2005 : 50%
Chances of Amrita & Evangelia finishing top 3 in Miss Universe 2005 : 100%



Miss Greece Evangelia Aravani


Miss India Amrita Thapar

BMW ranked 3rd best car

J.D. Power and Associates ranked BMW 3rd , behind Lexus and Jaguar, in its IQS.

http://www.jdpower.com/pdf/2005069.pdf

Kidnap to marry

Want to marry a girl?
But don’t have one!

Like a girl and want to marry her?

Well…kidnap her and marry her.

Whaaaaaaaaaat ???

Bride kidnapping is common here. In fact it’s part of their ancient tradition.

Where the heck is this place?

Here.

lest we forget !

Veerappan (Oct, 2004)... Kanchi Seer Sankaracharya (Nov, 2004)...

Yeah...What the heck !

We haven't even solved Coimbatore Bomb Blast (Feb, 1998).

Whew!
One more weekend just passed.
Is time really running fast universally or is it just me !!!

I managed to watch ‘Star Wars Episode III –Revenge of the Sith’ on first day of release.
Waw. What a crowd in the theater. !

I went an hour early and was like behind 300 people in the queue. Some people were sitting in the queue and having supper.
As usual I did something unique to me. Stupid.
Yeah. I booked the tickets in Fandango a week early, and when I went to the theater I saw this long queue and went and stood in the line. Then after 30 minutes I realized all these guys had the tickets in the hand, and I am yet to pick my ticket from the ticket machine inside the theater. Then I realized these other guys had either purchased the tickets directly or picked the tickets from the ticket machine inside the theater. Then I went inside the theater and picked the tickets, and had to go all the way back in the queue.
Damn the first come first serve policy.
I wish it was like in India, where you have seat numbering system, and your ticket has the seat number in it. The earlier you buy the ticket the better seats you can get.

Anyway.
Since doing stupid things is not new to me, no big deal. :)

About the movie …well…George Lucas is a genius.

Rest of my weekend was very busy, cleaning my apartment. Few of my friends are coming down for long weekend and we are planning to go to Virginia Beach. I booked a hotel there for 2 nights. I hope the weather stays good so that we can have lots of outdoorsy fun. Let’s pray to God and hope no Tsunami comes.

Interesting changes in cricket rules

http://cricket.indiatimes.com/quickies/1115543.cms

The proposed changes particularly pertain to fielding restrictions and the use of substitutes.

Also read this.

http://vimaln.blogspot.com/2005/02/icc-proposes-changes-in-odi-format.html

Yet another day

I made chapati's tonight for dinner. Looks like I pretty much mastered the art of making good chapati. YAY! It came out soft and very good. Of course I did customize and added a secret ingredient to it, the idea which I borrowed from one Indian restaurant here.

I saw a new comedy serial in Sun TV called 'Alli Raajiyam'. This was the first episode. It was pretty hilarious, I thought. Now I know how to waste another 30 minutes every Monday :)

During the commercial break I saw this commercial in Sun TV for Saravana Selvarathnam Textiles. I was wondering who the beautiful model was, dancing with few other bunch of girls. She looked very pretty and cute.
If someone can tell me who it is...well..all I can say is...

"May the Force be with you"

First imageries of India's CARTOSAT-1

http://isro.org/pressrelease/May13_2005.htm

India's space research organization, ISRO, released the first imageries of the indigeniously built and launched satellite CARTOSAT-1. The digital terrain model is super awesome.

This weekend was a bit relaxing. I finished watching 'Star Wars Episode II - Attack of the Clones'. Now Iam all set to watch the final episode, 'Star Wars Episode III -Revenge of the Sith'.I will have to book my tickets in advance as it will be tough to get one on first day. Iam all excited about it.

I also have started to read a book 'The Genesis Race: Our Extraterrestrial DNA and the True Origins of the Species'.
The book is an introspection on the fact that for millennia the development of humanity showed a consistent pattern. But, then suddenly, around 5000 b.c., great civilizations sprang up around the globe. Men turned from animal hunters to agriculturalists, for food. The book says that Creation myths of these civilizations tell of gods who came to Earth, teaching the arts of civilized life.

I guess I have finished 3 chapters. So far it has been interesting. I wouldn't say it is an excellent book. But nevertheless, I always manage to learn something even out of nothing. So I guess, I will pick some interesting things from here too, even if the book turns out to be a disappointment.

I just finished watching the suspense thriller 'Athu Mattum Ragasiyam' in Sun TV. I usually don't watch Sun TV serials as they are mostly soap operas, always some woman sitting and crying in the corner of a room. But this is a suspense thriller and it has been very interesting so far. The story is about some mysterious events unfolding in a village called 'Pannak Kaadu'. I remember the days when I used to watch another suspense thriller, 'Vidaathu Karuppu', also village based. That was a good one. I hope this one will keep me thrilled.

Pentagon to list bases targeted for closing

The United States government spent around US$300 billion in 2 years on Iraq.
Now in order to save a mere $50 billion in a period of over 20 years, they are planning to close down military bases inside the country.

hmmm.
I do not understand the logic at all. I thought Department of Defense ought to be spending more on defense than offense.

Also, how many jobs are going to be lost!
huh. I wish there were other ways to save money

CNN

May the Force be with you!

I watched 'Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace' last night. The more I see 'Star Wars', the more I realize how much the concept of the movie has derived from ancient Indian scriptures.

'May the Force be with you!'

In my opinion The Force, is nothing but what ancient Hindu scriptures call as 'Prana' , or energy.

(Star Wars Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back) The Jedi, Obi Wan Kenobi teaches Luke about The Force:

Ben: "The force is what gives a Jedi his power. It’s an energy field created by all living things it surrounds us and binds the galaxy together."

The Dark Side of The Force - This may be interpreted as 'Maya', or 'The Illusion' as described in ancient Indian scriptures. This ‘Maya’ is the barrier between the Truth and the people. The barrier stopping the people from realizing their true nature.

There are so many other scenes & dialogues where you can draw a parallel between them and ancient Hindu scriptures.

I hope that you all may be aware that the concept of the movie 'The Matrix' was derived from ancient Indian scriptures, particularly Upanishads.

'asato ma sad gamaya,
tamaso ma jyotir gamaya,
mrityor ma amritam gamaya'

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (1.3.28)

Translates to ...

'From the unreal, lead me to the real
From darkness, lead me to the light
From death, lead me to immortality'

Matrix is nothing but, what ancient Hindu scriptures describe as 'Maya' or 'Illusion'.

So in my opinion, Hollywood has taken the noble work of helping people realize the Truth, by having subtle messages in movies.

Globalization: Good or Bad – A cultural perspective

All the time when you come across a debate on globalization, you might have noticed that it’s almost always on the financial perspective - How small businesses go belly-up, how ‘wal-mart’ization kills many small industries etc.

I had this interesting thought, today morning.

How globalization impacts the culture and tradition.

Recently a friend of mine requested me to take a visiting gentleman, who was on a business trip to Richmond, on a sight-seeing tour of Richmond. He was from New Delhi.

During one of our conversations I was asking him about New Delhi and the life style there. He mentioned that there was not much difference between New Delhi and Richmond. He said New Delhi had almost everything that Richmond has. McDonalds, Pizza Huts, Burger Kings, Starbucks, dance floors etc. He added that he did not feel any difference being in Richmond, as compared to New Delhi.

Welcome to globalization!

No difference between New Delhi and a US city!

Is that a good sign or not?

Coming from India, I can say that the road side or beach side ‘Idli-Dosa centers’, or the ‘Pani puri-Bhel puri carts’ are unique to India. I guess, I can include the ‘Dhabas’ and ‘Bakeries’ and ‘Tea kadai (shops)’ too.

With McDonalds, and Starbucks and Walmarts entering India, what will it be like, just say, in 10 years?

Imagine, the fast food chains, McDonalds and Burger Kings offering ‘Pani puri’ and ‘Bhel puri’ in their menu.
Imagine, the pizza chains, Pizza Huts and Dominos offering ‘Idlis’ and ‘Dosas’ in their menu.
Imagine, walmart selling anything from ‘paper plates’ to ‘plasma TVs’.
Imagine, Starbucks replacing ‘Bakeries’ and ‘Tea kadai’.
Imagine, JC Pennys and Hechts replacing our apparel stores.

Of course, we all know the financial impact of this on the families running the business.

But what about the cultural aspects?

We will not be having our traditional ‘Dhabas’ and ‘Idli-Dosa centers’ and the likes!

If Indian cities offer the same as in US, what makes us unique?

How many tourists will want to visit India?

Will our next generation will even remember, that once upon a time, we had ‘Dhabas’ and ‘Pani puri - Bhel puri carts’?

Are we losing our identity in the name of Westernization and Globalization?

Critical flaws found in Firefox

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4532127.stm

"The Mozilla Foundation has said it is "working aggressively" to fix two flaws in its open source Firefox browser.

Mozilla has responded by changing its update service and says people should temporarily turn off JavaScript code. "

What the heck?


hmmm...Iam wondering what the anti-IE and pro-Firefox guys would say now !

A good friend of mine, Jennifer Rajesh, started her own blog.
http://rajeshvar.blogspot.com/

Unlike my blog, which is full of useless & nonsense information, I believe this blog will be quite useful.

She & her husband Rajesh, who is also a friend of mine and a formula 1 freak like me, is the one whom I visited in Milan, Italy. When I asked what she wanted from US, she was so funny , she said 'Idly rice'.

So like in Tamil movies, where when families from village visit their family in cities, used to take rice and vegetables, I took rice from US. That was so funny.

YAY
I finished Dan Brown's 'Digital Fortress'. This completes Phase I of my novel reading project :)
Yes, conquering all 4 Dan Brown's novels, until the next one comes out, I can relax a little bit.

Also, May 19 is the DATE.
Star Wars , final episode, 'Star Wars Episode III - Revenge of the Sith' is in theaters May 19.
Just as a warm up for that, I saw Star Wars Episodes, IV, V & VI over the weekend.
These are digitally mastered DVDs. They were awesome. George Lucas is a Genius.

I need to see the other 2 episodes, Star Wars Episodes I & II before the final one comes out.

I also saw 2 other movies over the weekend.
'Kingdom of Heaven' as usually was First Day show. Man, seeing movies on the first day is a unique experience. The movie was a very good one. It was fair in the sense that it did not show the Christians as the good guys and Muslims as bad guys. Instead, the screenplay was fair and balanced.

The other movie that I saw was 'King Arthur' . This was another good movie, not as good as 'Kingdom of Heaven', but was good. I liked it. Also, it had one of my favorite actress Keira Knightley.

She was very funny when she told in an interview that in order to be fit for this action movie, she had such a strict diet regime and she worked out so much, that her breast just disappeared. hahaha. If you see this picture, you will know what Iam talking about. Don worry folks, this is not a nude picture :)

India's Satellite Launch successful

YAY.

India successfully launched it's two new satellites today.
India now has the world's first high-resolution along-track stereo imaging satellite, in CARTOSAT-1.
This is an awesome achievement to be proud of.
Jai Hind.

India's latest satellite launch - CARTOSAT & HAMSAT

Last night Sun TV news was reporting on India's latest satellite launch , scheduled for May 5, 2005.



In its ninth flight, ISRO's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, PSLV-C6, will launch India's remote sensing satellite, the 1,560 kg CARTOSAT-1, along with a 42.5 kg piggyback satellite, HAMSAT, in a 618 km polar Sun Synchronous Orbit (SSO).

I remember the days when I used to watch the launches live in Doordarshan. Yes, Doordarshan, the state owned television, had the launch covered live. I was all amazed looking at the launch and the telemetry. I even remember not going to school and college on such days and watching the launches.

I now wish I had Doordarshan in US. Or at least, if ISRO can stream the launch live in Internet, that would be cool.

Anyway, I hope the launch goes successful.

Jai Hind.

Aishwarya Rai and Vivek Oberoi marriage response

Remember, my earlier post regarding Aishwarya Rai and Vivek Oberoi's marriage?

Now here comes their rebuttal.

http://us.rediff.com/movies/2005/may/02vivek.htm

Celebrities, react the same way when news about their private life come to public.This reminds me of a Hollywood movie,'Paparazzi', I saw few months back.

I guess it's kinda tough to maintain a private life, when someone is very famous. Whatever they do, people will talk about it.

I think the best way to handle such situations is just to be cool and say ...

"Really? That's interesting. I didn't know about that. Looks like you seem to know more about me than myself. Anyway, thanks for letting me know."

and then just move on.

The weekend has been relaxing so far.
I finished Dan Brown's 'Angels and Demons'. It was a real thriller. I liked it as much as I liked his 'The Da Vinci Code'.
Iam now reading 'Digital Fortress'
This is the 4th novel of Dan Brown's that Iam reading. This novel has also started in a similar fashion as other Dan Brown's novels, in that a guy is killed in the first chapter. All Dan Brown's novel starts with a person being killed :)

I also saw 2 movies over the weekend. The first one was 'XXX 2'. I didn't like the movie. It was like a video game. I did not have much expectations when I went to the movie as I knew this is just a Hollywood masala movie. But it was little bit below my expectations even then. Then the second movie I saw was 'The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy'. I felt it was a boring movie. But I slept at 3am the night before and I was so damn tired, I dozed of half a dozen times during the movie. So honestly I can't speak much about the movie. The only thing that kept me awake was the heroine of the movie Zooey Deschanel. She is cute. The depressed Robot in the movie was funny.

I made Sri Lankan fish curry on Sunday, recipe of my Chithi. It was damn good. I can confidently say I have now mastered the art of making Sri Lankan Fish curry. YAY !

Aishwarya Rai to marry Vivek Oberoi ?

Last night in Sun TV News they said that Vivek Oberoi,in an interview to a private television, announced that he is going to get married to Aishwarya Rai.
He added that they both are in love since 2003.

Today, I thought that would be the headlines in websites, but to my surprise, NO.

Is that news true?

hmmm...Aishwarya Rai is becoming like a Dan Brown novel. It's a suspense thriller :)