Women cannot be punished for adultery

http://www.rediff.com/

"The section provides expressly that the wife shall not be punishable even as an abettor based on the reasoning that the wife, who is involved in an illicit relationship with another man, is a victim and not the author of the crime."

What kinda logic is that!

hmmm...so much for equal rights for men and women.

In Saturn's Shadow - Saturn and Earth - By JPL, NASA's Cassini

"With giant Saturn hanging in the blackness and sheltering Cassini from the sun's blinding glare, the spacecraft viewed the rings as never before, revealing previously unknown faint rings and even glimpsing its home world.

This marvelous panoramic view was created by combining a total of 165 images taken by the Cassini wide-angle camera over nearly three hours on Sept. 15, 2006."

Can you spot our earth?

You might want to click the image to see in its original size and see how small our earth is!

And how small and insignificant are we within our own Solar System !!!

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/image-details.cfm?imageID=2314

Courtesy : JPL, CIT, NASA

My blog got Snap ped ;)

Yes...You can see a preview of the website links in my blog, by just placing your mouse over the links.

My blog's 2-D code - Semacode & Shotcode

Apocalypto and Blood Diamond

Last Friday my friends and I went to Mel Gibson's Apocalypto. I thought the movie was very well directed. It was a thriller from the beginning till the end. The story is about a man and his family's survival from human sacrifice in the ancient Mayan civilization. It has nothing to do with the end of Mayan calendar in the year 2012. I thought it must have something to do with that, but no.

The heroine was a very pretty girl. She looked like an Indian girl. But Mel Gibson in Jay Leno's Tonight show, mentioned that she was a local girl. Nevertheless she was very pretty and her kid son was also so cute.

This movie is definitely not for the faint hearted.
There are scenes where people are killed alive and their beating hearts ripped out and offered as sacrifice :)
Yes, that's right. Beating heart.
And also, their heads chopped and rolled from the top of the Mayan Pyramid all in the name of sacrificing to satisfy some Gods.


Fast forwarding to last night...
Went to the movie Blood Diamond with my 'Movie Gang' again . hehe. I thought this movie was an awesome movie.
Leonardo DiCaprio's acting was very good.
Djimon Hounsou looked handsome too.

The story is about how poor Africans are made to kill each other while the west loots their natural resource, Diamond.

Maybe girls will stop being crazy about diamonds after seeing the movie.

Wait...Am I crazy or what!!!
No... I don't think girls will stop being crazy about Diamonds :)


Images : Courtesy Yahoo.com

VVS Laxman - India's new Defense Minister

India tour of South Africa
Tour Match: Rest of South Africa v Indians at Potchefstroom, Dec 7-10, 2006

Day -2

VVS Laxman 31 runs / 103 balls.
He scored 4- 4's.

So technically he scored 15 runs / 99 balls.

Chennai, Tamilnadu Cops get police cars - First in India

Chennai police gets police cars like USA.
First in India.



Courtesy : Sun Network

Pakistan
Afghanistan
China
Nepal
Bhutan
Burma(Myanmar)
Bangladesh
Sri Lanka

What's common with the above countries!

These countries are either unstable or unfriendly with India.
And they all are our neighboring countries :)

World of Warcraft

It's been ages since I played any video game. Last time I tried any video game was when I bought Sony Playstation 2 couple of years ago, but really never played for more than a week.

Now after a long break and after much hype and publicity from Todd and Alex, I decided to try out the latest hot game 'World of Warcraft'.

So last weekend, I downloaded a 10 day trial version of the game.
Gone are the days when games were just few kilobytes and maybe megabytes and came in a floppy disk. This game, which I downloaded was like 2.5 GB. But with a broadband connection, all I had to do was schedule a download overnight and the next day morning it was all downloaded.

This was just a 10 day trial version.
Yes, after 10 days if I want to continue playing I have to buy the game which is like $50 and here is the interesting part...if I have to continue playing I have to subscribe to the game, and it costs about $15 every month.

Yes, World of Warcraft, also called as WoW, is a MMORPG.

So I created some characters and tried out the game.

Iam in.

Stop blaming Indian cricketers

It has started all again.

You know every time Indian cricket team performs very badly, protestors take it to the players home and streets and burn effigies and things of that nature.

This has to stop.

Our cricketers are human beings.

They have a life, they have a job to do. Day and night they work in Ad shootings, and attending functions and events and may be partying and doing some side business, and we should be glad that they agreed to play for our cricket team even though the monetary benefits from the salary is not much. We should be grateful for that.

The reason for us losing the matches is coach Greg Chappell.

Are you asking me Why!

I don't know, I thought that's what we usually do!
Blame on the coach and sack him. I thought its a SOP - Standard Operating Procedure.

Ghajini and Asin

Ha... a different weekend after a long time.
I rented 3 Tamil DVDs. Watching tamil movies after long time. After seeing the movies...I realized I haven't missed much, movies have not changed.

Emtan Magan, Maanavan(yeah, don't ask anything more about this movie, this is for Reema Sen) and at last...Ghajini.

Ghajini was little different, but still I don't know if this was a hit back home, but I thought the movie had lots of flaws.
But I liked Asin's character and her acting. Asin looked very beatiful. Her character was 'living' in the movie. All her scenes, were so full of life and fun. She reminded me of someone.

hmmm...I've done 'A movie a day week', I guess I should now do a 'Book week' and read some books this week.

Turducken - What kinda stuff is this !!!

While the rest of the world is busy working... we are busy stuffing.

Move away Turkey, welcome Turducken.

What are we going to do next year...stuff this into a cow!

Oh poor birds...and animal.

Deja Vu

Ok... This is my problem.

I really do not believe Time Travel as they show in movies is possible.
It is impossible to go to the past and interact with the past and change things.
I can't even imagine something like that happening.

We may be able to see the past, but in a 'Read Only' mode. You can see , but you can't interact, or in other words you can't change the past.

I went to 'Deja Vu' last night.


The movie was a good movie, except for the fact 'Time Travel'. But the whole movie revolves around time. So ... :)
Accepting the fact that time travel is possible for like 2.5 hours, this movie was surprisingly a good movie.
My expectation were low for this movie, pretty much I thought it was a junk, but it was at least above average if not good.

The technologies that they use in this movie...come on, its just movie...I do not think anyone in the world has such a technology as of today.

The actress, don't know who she was, was pretty.
Denzel Washington as usual was cool.
Val Kilmer...comes and goes.

hmmm...I wonder what I would change if I can Time Travel and go to past!!!

# The U.S. entry process is considered the “world’s worst” by travelers

* Travelers rate America’s entry process as the “world’s worst” by greater than a 2:1 margin over the next-worst destination area.

* The U.S. ranks with Africa and the Middle East when it comes to traveler-friendly paperwork and officials.

* 54 percent of international travelers say that immigration officials are rude.

* Travelers to the U.S. are more afraid of U.S. government officials than the threat of terrorism or crime.

* Two-thirds of travelers surveyed fear they will be detained at the border because of a simple mistake or misstatement.

http://www.poweroftravel.org/release-11-20-06.aspx

James Bond's Casino Royale - Daniel Craig fits the role

Last Saturday went to 'Casino Royale' and 'Happy Feet'.

I wanted to see 'Casino Royale' on Friday, First Day.
But was invited for a Birthday party so I had to watch the movie on the second day :(

So went to see the new Bond after a second Birthday party at noon on Saturday.

The new Bond was awesome.
This is a very different Bond movie.
This is the 'Bond Begins'.
Bond is very rough at the beginning of his career.
He is not sophisticated.
He makes mistakes, he apologizes, he doesn't know how to act(like Bond) around women. He gets beaten and kicked around. He bleeds badly. As the movie progresses, you can see this rough Bond getting refined and starts to kick ass. In the end we get, 'Bond, James Bond' :)

As this was the first novel written by Ian Fleming, there are only few gadgets like the Defibrillator in Bond's Aston Martin and a tracking tag implanted in Bond's arm.

Iam a big fan of Pierce Brosnan. When I heard that he won't be doing the Bond sequel I was disappointed. But when I saw Daniel Craig, I thought it was a good choice.
Daniel Craig made a good impression in this movie as the rough, unrefined Bond. I do not think Pierce Brosnan would have fit the rough Bond role as perfect as Daniel Craig. Piece Brosnan looks sophisticated.

I liked the movie.

It's interesting it gave a tough competition for the Australian animation movie 'Happy Feet' despite the fact that the Bond audience is considerably less than the animation movies and in addition to that, many Bond fans boycotting the Bond movie, to show their dislike in Daniel Craig.

In my opinion, they should watch the movie for themselves.

'Happy Feet' is, I believe, the first Australian full length animation movie. I thought it was hilarious. The animation was very realistic.

Dum Maro Dum - Hare Krishna Hare Ram, Zeenat Aman to Yana Gupta

I've been listening a lot to one of my all time favorites 'Dum Maro Dum' from 'Hare Krishna Hare Ram'.

Bought the song in iTunes too.

If you wish to see the video of the song, its in YouTube.

Dum Maro Dum YouTube video


God, if I had money, I would remake the movie with Yana Gupta in the role of Zeenat Aman.

Only Hotmail

Only HOTMAIL.

Iam a paid customer of Hotmail.

A Movie A Day Week

Monday - Flags of Our Fathers
Tuesday - Flushed Away
Wednesday - Borat
Thursday - The Prestige
Friday - Babel

India, Pakistan activate anti-terror mechanism

ok...that's funny, because

"I am a Lashkar member", Pakistan MP discloses

Are these guys kidding Indian government?

A friend of mine and I planned last weekend to do 'A Movie A Day' where we see one movie every evening for 1 week. So far it has gone good. Let's see how it goes from now on.

I was also in for a surprise when I came to know this.

Sivaji The Boss Trailer - Rajini Shriya Vivek Vairamuthu AR Rahman Shankar AVM

I created this trailer using some still pictures.
Turn on the music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADioDbIPggc

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8196567495169793799&hl=en

India's Bangalore in name change - Bengaluru

"The BBC's Sanjoy Majumder in Delhi says that for many it is an assertion of regional pride and preserving local culture in the face of growing Western influence."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6107082.stm

Preserving local culture ???
You preserve the local culture by closing the bars and night clubs, not by changing name

India's Google Map ?

I came across this India's version of google maps today.
Even though its not as detailed as US and Canada, this looks cool.
At least its a good start.

Who knows, Yahoo or Google might end up buying this company, making the owners millionares.

http://db.mapmyindia.com/

You can see a map, or you can get driving directions too.

Road Trip to Canada - Part I

It was like 8.30 am on a wednesday morning. I went to Vasanthi akka's home to get some Canadian dollars. She had some from her earlier visit to Toronto. I thought I could use it. It was a 11 hour long drive from Richmond, VA to Ottawa, Canada, according to my car computer. It started badly. I was lost in Richmond twice. Yes, it's quite embarassing considering that I have lived so long here, I took wrong exits twice and it cost me nearly 30 minutes. Then as I had lots of water that morning, hoping to stay hydrated during the long drive, I had to stop twice to pee between Richmond and Washington DC. But call it blessing in disguise, because of this delay, I missed the rush hour traffic in Washington DC.

When I reached the US-Canada border the immigration post was like a toll booth. The officer 'Bonjour' ed me. I replied the same and said 'Hi' . That's my complete French vocabulary, other than 'Sortie' for 'Exit'(this is very important, I needed to know how to get the hell out of a place when in danger) and 'One, Two, Three'.

The officer did not ask much questions. He knew why I was there.


Then when I reached my place at Ottawa it was like 7.00 pm wednesday night.


I checked in and was looking for a place to eat. I found a Greek fast food place and ordered some Falafel togo.
Came to my room, had it and went to bed.



The next day was important for me. I needed to be relaxed and comfortable.

My new digital Camera

For a long time, I wanted to own a digital camera.
The one I had bought in 2001 was a very old camera with poor resolution and very low memory.
I gave a Canon digital camera to my sister as a gift.
But I myself never owned one.
The only camera I had was a film SLR.

So for this Canada trip I decided to buy a digital camera.

I was impressed by reading the reviews of a particular camera
Kodak EASYSHARE V570 Dual Lens Digital Camera

I also bought a 1 GB memory card.

I took lots of pictures in Ottawa, Toronto and Niagara falls.
I will have to download them to my computer, which by the way suffered a hard disk crash, and check out the quality of the pictures and video clips(yes, the camera seems to take beaufiful video clips).

But first priority, salvage my notebook computer and see if I can recover my data from the hard disk.

Camera Review:

It's simple, easy menu options, less buttons, not too complicated.
For a "not so smart" guy like me who just prefers to take pictures and does not want to spend time figuring out how to take pictures, this is a good camera.

Road Trip to Canada

Yea, that's the route of my Road Trip to Canada.

Richmond, Virginia, USA
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada
Buffalo, New York, USA
Richmond, Virginia, USA

About 1800 miles, 5 days.

Throwing a stone!

Maybe they just had one nuke and they used it for testing and now they are thinking they made a mistake by using the only one they had for testing.

If this is the way NK is going to fight, then we don't have to worry about them.

Oh I forgot to tell about another movie I saw with my friend in the theater. 'Fearless'.

Jet Li seriously kicks ass.

This weekend was both tiring and relaxing.
I went to the gym and did some intense exercises after a very long time, and Iam very sore and tired. At the same time I rented lots of DVDs and watched a lot of TV at home too while relaxing in the comfort of my couch.

I saw 'The Triangle'. I thought this was a movie about Bermuda Triangle, but it happened to be a 6 hour TV movie about Bermuda Triangle. Nevertheless I enjoyed it, worth all the money I spent as I got 6 hours of entertainment. Also it was good to see 'Catherine Bell's cute face. But my plans of sleeping early Friday night and getting up early on Saturday morning got screwed.
Then I have started to Netflix one of my all time favorite TV Serial, The X-Files.
I got the first 2 DVDs of Season 1, total 8 episodes including the pilot. Man, I love X-files. Its good to see the faces of Agent Mulder and the flawless Agency Scully :)

Then I also saw 'V for Vendetta' starring one of my favorite actress 'Natalie Portman'. It was an ok movie, in my opinion.

Goddammit its 9:50 am. Let me get back to my work.

The most unwanted

Even since I returned from There, I have been going though a phase, I guess.
Suddenly I feel like the most unwanted person or the most insignificant person.
I very well knew each one of us and everything we have seen in this planet is insignificant compared to the Space Time Scales we have known.

For those who don't know what Iam talking about, you should see this Cosmic Calendar.

This shows in the known Time scale, our life span is so insignificant. Also we all know the size of the solar system, and the Milky Way galaxy and billions of such galaxies and may be even billions of universes. So both by Space Time scales we are insignificant.

But recently I have started to feel that even in this small planet earth, in the small city where I live currently, Iam the most unwanted and insignificant.

I do not know if this just happened or this was always the case and Iam just aware of it now after coming back from There.

"I would say that we should never use the word Islamic with whatever is happening. Islamic terrorists. Now, Islam doesn't believe in terrorism. It hurts people's sentiments. You can call terrorism terrorism. It has no religion. There are terrorists in Sri Lanka. Are we calling them Tamil terrorist? Hindu terrorists? They are Hindu."

-Musharraf, September 2006

http://www.foxnews.com/

uh...Mr Musharraf...if the 'terrorists' in Sri Lanka are to be called as 'terrorists', then why should the 'terrorists' in Kashmir be called 'freedom fighters'???

Doesn't make any sense!

oops Flag upside

Ranjini, Music Box & This Guy (Ye Ladka)

Ranjini Ettigi is a Richmond, Virginia born young singer who is making her mark in the music industry.
Her album is soon to debut in MTV Asia.

http://www.qwilite.com (official website)
http://www.qwilite.net
http://www.myspace.com/ranjinimusic

License Plates

I've been thinking about this for a while.
Whenever I drive I see these vehicles passing by, or the ones that I pass, and have this coded message or some text in their license plates.
I find it fun to decode them and see what the license plate says.

Then I thought why not catalog them and put it in a separate blog.
(huh, yeah, yet another blog from me. Iam sorry folks, but you always have the choice to not read all my boring blogs)

http://decrypt-licenseplates.blogspot.com/

Evolution of Hi

How Are You?

became

HAY

became

Hai

became

Hi

Her hair... soft and rich...
Her voice... liquid...
Her eyes... bewitching...
My sleep filled with restless dreams...
My wakefulness with longings.


Be like a running brook... which deaf, yet sings its melodies for others to hear..
Feel the pain of too much tenderness...
Awake at dawn with a winged heart...
And give thanks for yet another day of loving...
Empty yourself and yet be filled...
And know you are in love.

iPOD

Finally I got my iPod.

Nelly Furtado is HOT.

Thanks Q94.

Promiscuous Girl by Nelly Furtado

I've been listening lately the song 'Promiscuous Girl' by Nelly Furtado, and also watching the video. WAW.

After 5 years, now I feel the time has come to buy an iPod. Iam shopping :)

Also, I like the song 'Temparature' by Sean Paul.

Why Tamil is a Classical Language !

http://tamil.berkeley.edu/

"To qualify as a classical tradition, a language must fit several criteria: it should be ancient, it should be an independent tradition that arose mostly on its own not as an offshoot of another tradition, and it must have a large and extremely rich body of ancient literature. Unlike the other modern languages of India, Tamil meets each of these requirements. It is extremely old (as old as Latin and older than Arabic); it arose as an entirely independent tradition, with almost no influence from Sanskrit or other languages; and its ancient literature is indescribably vast and rich."

The BMW that my friend Raghav bought recently.

Doing Business in the East - The West Way

There is something unique about how some businesses are run in the west

Wireless phone service providers give phones free or at highly discounted rates. Sometimes they even give you money back when you buy one of their phones.
The catch is, you will have to sign a contract for 1 or 2 years with the service providers. That's where they make most of their money.

Car dealers, give great discounts when you buy a new car from them. Dealers don't make much money when they sell the car. But when something is wrong with the car, and when you take it to the dealer, they charge you heavily. That's how they make most of their money.

This is how business is usually done in the West.

Tamilnadu Assembly Elections 2006

DMK has promised a free color TV to every household, if they win the elections.

Now, the question of whether they will stick to the promise, now that they have won the election, will have to be seen.
Honestly, I don't think so. I believe that in urban areas, many families may get free color TV, with great media attention. But in rural areas, probably a whole village may get 1 or 2 free color TVs.

Why would DMK want to give a free color TV, say mainly to people in urban areas?

I belive the reason is two fold.

First, to get people's attention and win the election, which by the way seem to have worked.A classic example of textbook execution.

But the second reason, which I think is true, is truly an interesting and amazing plan.

Sumangali Cable Vision (SCV), part of the Sun TV group, DMKs voice in the media world, is a large cable operator in the Chennai area. They are in a huge acquisition spree, acquiring small cable operators in all parts of Tamilnadu.

So the more people have TV, the more subscribers for Sumangali Cable Vision, the more revenue! TADA!

And since SCV is in acquisition spree, very soon, they will have a huge monopoly in cable business.
Of course the cable service might be free for sometime, say 3 months or so, much similar to the ‘deals’ that they give in USA.
But after that, there is a great chance, that they can charge high amounts for the cable service. This also serves as a platform for them to provide broadband internet services through cable, similar to Comcast in USA.

Once almost every household have TV and SCV, DMKs voice, it can be used as a powerful media to push the agendas of DMK. They can literally control what the people can see and listen through TV.

This is really an ingenious plan.

ICC International Cricket Council adopts one more suggestion from me :)

The International Cricket Council is to debate whether to allow teams to appeal against umpiring decisions.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/cricket/4975832.stm


I earlier wrote an email to ICC suggesting few changes to cricket. The email and the response here.

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

The only suggestion remaining now is my 3rd suggestion for Timeout.

Superman Returns - Brandon Routh / Hrithik Roshan

So my favorite movie Superman Returns...

With Brandon Routh, who resembles Christopher Reeve remarkably.

Although I think Hrithik Roshan will make a better Superman. At least that's what I would have done had I owned WB.

"O Podu" ... Section 49 ‘O’ of the Election rules 1961

“O Podu” is a social awareness movement.


“O PODU’ means “cast the vote”. Voting is both the right and duty of the people. Another objective of our movement is to make people aware of their constitutional right to cast their vote under section 49 ‘O’.

It is a unique feature of our Indian constitution that it has provided the legal right to the voter to reject all the candidates. Section 49 ‘O’ of the Election rules 1961, has empowered the voter with this right. This section has conferred the right to the voter to inform the booth officer, after the indelible ink mark has been marked, that the voter does not want to vote for any of the candidates. The section requires the booth officer to record the voter’s choice of 49 ‘O’.

http://www.keetru.com/ohpodu/english.html

THE CONDUCT OF ELECTIONS RULES, 1961

God and Science

I thought this was interesting (even though I don't agree with either of them 100%). Nevertheless , I learned something from it.

I wonder...

Scientists question paranormal behaviors saying that until unless they can be observed, measured and repeated, it cannot be accepted and therefore it is not True.

Scientists speak in support of Darwins Evolution theory.

Shouldn't they wait, until they observe the evolution of one species to another, measure and repeat it ?

What the Bleep Do We Know?

Last night Dixita and I watched the movie/documentary 'What the Bleep Do We Know?'.

I heard a lot about this movie and the hype around it.
Finally got to watch it last night. It was a good movie. But it was over-hyped in my opinion.
It was good in the sense there were lot of things that I was able to understand and learn. But there were many gray areas with inadequate explanation.

I think anyone who is interested in spirituality, quantum physics, or have questions like 'Who are we?', 'Who is God?' et cetera, should watch this movie.

Holy Cow!

Digits that we recognize as "arabic" were brought to Earth by our teachers from Thiaoouba...

This is kinda spooky!

Google Pages

Alright, today I got an authorization from Google, to use their yet another beta product, "Google Pages".

Right now, google pages, don't offer much. It's very primitive. Let's see where it goes from here.

http://vimaln.googlepages.com/

Parallel parking

Do you find it tough to parallel park(like me hehe)?

Well, this is how you do it.

The picture on the left is nuclear reactor dome. A potential place where nuclear weapons are made.

The picture on the right is siva lingam. A symbol of Lord Siva, the God of Destruction.

Anyway, I just learned about 'Diminished Value'.

Our ancestors?

Looks like the theory of meteors carrying seeds of life, as mentioned in one of my earlier blogs, dated April 25, 2005, might win. Read this , dated March 5, 2006 and be amazed.

Did nothing significant this weekend. Just posted some blogs in my Touring Talkies and SHRL

Hey hey, Sivaji Stills have started to come out.

What can happen on the eighth of this month, that can be a precursor to a change or change a lot of things happening around the world?

They did not know what to do. They were losing power and time was running out. They had to do something to establish their supremacy and bring things under their control. They needed something, which was radical, and was already a proven success.

My one liner(Hollywooders) or பண்ச் டயலாக்(கோலிஉட்டர்)

பணம் சேர்த்தா இந்த ஜென்மத்துக்கு தான் பயன்படும்.
புண்ணியம் சேர்த்தா அடுத்த ஜென்மத்துக்கும் பயன்படும்.