... of the weekend

Synopsis of the weekend: 3 day weekend - friday: general ghoting- 4 hours sleep skipping lunch- met old PG mates- McDonalds treat - second time Chandramukhi (still it was good)- lota phone calls

saturday: time waste in the morning- home alone with roomies at work - Anbe Vaa- sort of wing reunion- 8 of us met and had dinner together - Thanks to the person who came down from Germany

sunday- shopping for no reason, just like that - San Marino GP 2005

Movie of the weekend: I would give this to Anbe Vaa.Enjoyed every bit of it. MGR was too good with his comedy, never thought of him as a good comedian. Liked that part of him a lot. MGR- Naagesh combo rocked. Look how many songs TMS and P.Susheela have immortalised through this movie alone!:

a) Pudhiya Vaanam, Pudhiya Bhoomi, Engum Panimazhai Pozhigiradhu
b) Love Birds Love Birds, Thakka Dhimi Thaa Endra Thaalathil Vaa
c) Naan Paarthadhile Aval Oruthiyai Thaan Nalla Azhagi Enben
d) Raajaavin Paarvai Raaniyin Pakkam

Felt good singing with them all these great great songs as I was watching it.

Hero of the weekend: Ha ha. The king is back. Even though he didnt take the top step of the podium, coming from 13th on grid to 2nd was an achievement indeed. And lost by just 0.215 of a second. Call me a monomaniac, I dont bother. It was great fun watching the 'Michael Magic' working once again. And to see him get past Jenson at Variante Alta is something I would remember for a long time now.

Sad Face of the weekend: I normally dont do this, I usually feel happy about it, but yesterday, felt sad to see Kimi retire. He did everything right, fastest in both qualifying, on pole, was leading the spaniard comfortably in the race and suddenly, retires! Poor Kimi!

Lucky and Star of the weekend: Who else, except for our championship leader, Fernando Alonso and lucky, for the reason stated above! But, I appreciate the way alonso blocked and shut the door on schumi whenever he tried to get past, during those last 10 laps of the race.These are the indications of the heir to the throne which Michael has to vacate one day anyway! And mathematics would say, under the hypothetical situation that Schumi wins all the races from now, and Alonso finishes second to him all the time, it would still take 13 races for schumi to catch alonso and 14 races hence to get past alonso.(And the number of races left now for the year is 15). Thats the enormous lead alonso has built up now. But, in this totally unpredictable game, anything can happen. This heart still wants schumi to win the 8th title, but its going to be really difficult for him to do that this time. Lemme wait and watch.

A good Evening Snacks Combo

Top Ramen MUG Smoodles(Spicy Vegetable) + Pineapple Cream Biscuits

The Chandramukhi episode

Its not fair that I keep complaining about it all the time!Afterall, it is 'Namma Bangalooru' city. So I should be telling about things that makes me feel good at this place. One such thing is: I can see all the latest Tamizh movies eventhough am staying away from TN. I can never fancy my chances of getting tickets to a Super Star movie within four days of its release.But,We, that is me and PnPn(that is how his colleagues at his previous workplace used to call him sometimes), wanted to go to Chandramukhi desperately. For Pnpn, he said that he had been a great Super Star fan himself, so its as expected. And for me, who is not so crazy about Super Star, I just wanted a change from the drab weekend it was turning out. And boy o boy, we did get tickets for the Fourth Day Fourth Show!

We had no idea about the movie, what was it all about. In TN, before release of every super star movie, there is always euphoria surrounding it, and so much of expectations. But, I have not heard any song from the movie, never did I watch a single trailor of the movie and I was not even aware of the heroine's name. "Machi. You should watch a movie like this da. With no idea about the story. Then only its fun", pnpn would tell me. Yeah, and it would be more fun to watch it in an 'enthu' theatre with enthu people all around you instead of watching it in a Multiplex, where you know how the crowd would behave. "There is no use watching thalaivar movie in a Multiplex", I would say to which pnpn would agree. So we would start calling all the 'enthu' theatres one by one yesterday morning. And both of us would get the same reply. "Only night show available. Every other show house full". We always avoid night shows on Sunday. That is because, it becomes real late when we come back home and it would have a direct impact on the work Monday morning. So when all other oppurtunities dried out, pnpn would call Innovative Multiplex (what to do? we have to see the movie today!). And telebooking was available and to our surprise we got tickets easily."Six o'clock, show", pnpn would confirm,"Yeah for four people. My name and contact number, please note it down". "Ask him if its the Tamil version, you never know. it might be a dubbed version", I would warn him. "Yeah its the Tamil version. And your tele booking number is 67, please quote this number. And come by 5.30, thats half an hour before the show", would be the reply. At this time, we were both more than happy to get the tickets. Pnpn was jumping with joy. "Machi. It should be like this da. I should be given so many options like 4.30, 6, 7.30, 9 o'clock shows and I should be picking the one which I wish". I just listened. We both had no idea of what was really in store for us when we were at the Multiplex at 5.20 PM . More on that later. Now back to Super star and Chandramukhi.

What do you typically expect from a Super Star movie these days?. I listed all the things that came into my mind and Chandramukhi proved me wrong in most of the things, for:

- The movie title was not that of what character Rajni plays

- There was no 'punch' dialogue in the movie, which has become an integral part of Rajni movie

- Rajni was not at all showing any style for which hes so famous for, except for may be tossing the gum in the intro scene

- It was not all the way Rajni show from the first scene till the last scene. In fact Rajni didnt appear at all for a good length of the movie

- There were no spiritual discourses

4:55 PM. we started and reached the Multiplex by 5.20 PM. The first surprise came at the Advance Booking counter. When we got our tickets, it was mentioned, "Screen 3: 7.30 PM". Now the hero of he day, pnpn would start fighting with the theatre management, "We did tele booking at 10.00 AM and we were told that we had tickets for 6.00 PM show and what does this all mean?". For all the queries we posed, we would get the same answer. "Sir. Tickets are all sold out for 6 PM show". After our repeated shouts we would be told that the guy at the tele-booking counter had sold more than what he was supposed to sell for the tele-booking quota. "But thats not our fault. You should have known it before confirming it for us". We realised that this was going no where and got the tickets and started planning the next 2 hours. In the mean time, SunD and Sujam had come to join us,(Woodworm could not come though he wanted to see the movie). I proposed Pool. We have started liking playing pool a lot, so all agreed, but the table wont be free till 6.30! So without nothing to do, we roamed around Marathahalli and when we came back to pool table, next kela was in the offering: Pool table was not free. Instead we had the snooker table alone free. Ok, me, pnpn and SunD agreed that we would play Snooker this time, though we dont have experience playing snooker. 9 ball pool was much easier and snooker with so many reds and balls of all sorts of colours, baap re baap! We started at 6.30 and I have to admit, we were pathetic! Doubts started lingering as to whether we would finish one table atleast or not!? I am OK sorts when I have to play it soft and gentle, I can do delicate cuts properly, but when it comes to hitting hard from the other side of the table, I am pathetic boss! I am ! I guess thats the aspect which I have to concentrate on, from now on. But, it was all about pnpn day, isnt it? He won here as well ! I wont forget the pace with which he hit the cue ball and the pink ball disappeared into the pocket in no time! We just had time to finish one board and it was 7.25 PM

We enter the theatre and the next kela awaits us: Screen 3, they dont show Chandramukhi at 7.30. Only at Screen 2 and 4, we have a 7.30 show. Ha ha..Does that mean we have to wait for 1.30 hours more? No way! We barged into the counter and the fight started again. I mean, how can these people get so stupid, yaar? The people who come to watch can get confused with Screen names, but how can the theatre management get confused? We demanded seats for us NOW. We cant wait for 1.30 hours more! What nonsense? And yeah, our shouting did have an effect. We got our tickets changed to Screen 4, C row, 12 - 15. I wonder, if its all house full, how can this guy suddenly find place for 4 people in a new screen? May be he would have reserved it for some VIPs, who knows? Anyway, by this time it was 7.40 PM and we started moving fast towards our Screen 4. Thankfully, the movie hadnt started. We all got seated.And from now its all about the movie...

Trisha would welcome us all to the movie on behalf of Tata Indicom. ("Oh my God! Is she in the picture as well? How stupid of me in not knowing that?"). But I bet, Tata Indicom might in all possibilities, conduct a competition of sort in TN to count the number of times their boards appear in the movie. Countless, I would say. Every now and then one would appear. Rajni's intro scene,where his fans would in all possibility show aarthi, shower flowers and what not, was not that dramatic to the likes of Baatshaa, no pumpkins shattered, it was just fine for me. The story of the movie, I was told was that of a Mallu movie and I sort of remembered the Mallu movie name. I guessed that this was the movie that won Shobhana her National Award. And my guess turned right. Though I havent seen the original Mallu version, I would like to see it though. I am stopping it here wrt story of the movie goes for the benefit of those who havent seen the movie yet, but reading this post.

As far as Rajni goes, I felt that his voice has changed a lot man. May be his age is reflecting on him? Remember the old MGR movies, the ones he did after he was shot in his throat. You remember that voice of MGR? The same I could see in Rajni's voice here.Poor chap! And as far as comedy is concerned, Vadivelu - Rajni combo has worked remarkably well. Have seen Rajni doing it with Goundamani and Senthil so many times... Good to see his comedy work with Vadivelu as well. They have rocked! Good job done and there are lot of lewd jokes in the offering as well.Dont miss on those.

Heroine: I found out her name only when the titles flashed. Good homely face. All of us liked her. But should she be called the heroine 'cos she gets to romance Rajni is a debatable question. Jothika has performed remarkably well. Kudos to you Jo, you steal the show. Two characters who were majorly wasted I felt was : a) Vijayakumar and b) If my guess is right, 'Chemmeen' Sheela. As far as Music goes, "Repeatu.." song is solely for Rajni fans I guess. There would be requests in TN for this song to be repeated so many times again and again, I am sure. "Kokku para para, Kozhi para para" was one other song. Not that impressive.. The pick of the songs for me would be "Athindhom". That song made me hum for some time and of course one more good song was "Raa Raa". And if you know Telugu, it would be a good advantage while watching this movie, but its not a must though as those Telugu dialogues get told in Tamizh as well. One place where i thought it has not changed much from a typical Rajni movie, were in the song lyrics. Man, with all those preachy stuff: "Believe in your self. If you work hard, nothing can stop you" stuff. And all those, "I am here, because of you all people" stuff. But nothing with a political tone though, as far as I noticed the lyrics.And as far as action goes, there are not much of fights in the movie, only 2 and that too the one at the later part of the movie could have been avoided.

It was little strange to expect a thriller movie from Rajni and I was totally taken by surprise. And I imagine how it would have been in the Mallu original version, it would have been even more better! But I guess Rajni had learnt from his mistakes of Baba and how it flopped and concentrated more on a good story and forgot all other unnecessary stuff. It was good to see Rajni back as a villain as well in the movie. Rajni was the hero, he was the comedian and he played a villain's part as well and he has excelled in all the three categories and especially the villain part. Reminded me of the old villain roles he played and Man, hes good when it comes to those roles. And one thing we would laugh at again and again was at Prabhu. Watch out for the dialogue in the later stages of the movie, "Enna Kashtam daa idhu", or "Enna karumam daa idhu". Mind you it is a very serious scene and he says it sadly banging his hands against his head. But the way he said it, made me and pnpn laugh and laugh

In short, Chandramukhi is a very good family entertainer.. People would definitely like it and its surely gonna run for more than 100 days successfully. Good to see Rajni back and back with a bang. Both me and pnpn didnt bother spending 120 rupees on the movie, we felt like it was worth it. If you get a chance, do go and see it. Cant you hear Chandramukhi beckoning you to the theatre? Hear her: "Raa Raa. Sarasukku Raa Raa".

At the end, I thought Trisha would re-appear and ask us how the movie was, ask to come back again and also ask us if we had taken a Tata Indicom connection yet!? But sadly, those didnt happen. Yet, went out of the Multiplex with a sense of happiness after watching a good entertaining movie, even after what we had to do to get the tickets. And who says people dont shout and whistle inside a Multiplex? When it comes to a Rajni movie, things can become really different.

Things at Work: Part 3 - The Credit Card Menace

Everybody has experienced/is experiencing this at work and hence mine wont be a different story, but yeah,the way it happened is different. Am talking about the Credit Card Menace and the literally unstoppable telephone calls we get day after day. "One year free credit card, sir". "Sir, ours is a life time free credit card sir". "These are the blah blah benefits of getting our credit card, sir. Please take it up sir".

These days, I have stopped picking up my desk telephone unless am not sure as to whos calling me up, because 95/100 chances are that it is from a credit card company.Thanks to the Caller ID facility, their number gets flashed and helps me a lot.Its even worse when they call you on your mobile and disturb you. God, how do they get our numbers? One day, wife of my colleague who sits next to me came over and that time, the desk phone of mine started ringing and I didnt pick it up. It kept on ringing for a minute and still, I didnt pick it up. She must have thought I was a crazy person and she gave me this look, "Are you nuts?". Then i told her that it must have been from some credit card company and I didnt wanna answer the same. Then her husband, my colleague would tell us, "Yeah man, once this guy from this credit card company called up and I refused to take up his card. Then he started pleading : Sir, please take this card. If you do not take it, I am going to miss my target for this month, so you have to take it sir"

Ooh! That was close to a threat! Anyway, there are different ways in which people handle this issue: Some would pick up the phone, say NO straight away, some may hear all the information about all the plans and benefits from the credit card guy and finally say a big NO,and some may start blasting at the person for disturbing them at work hours. But what I did that day was different from the above.

My desk phone number ends with 39.So on that day, i got a call when was working. I saw the number getting flashed and grew suspicious that it is from a credit card company. So I didnt pick it up. After few secs, the call went to the number ending with 40. My colleague picked it up and after ten secs, I heard him saying "No, sorry. I have one already and I am not interested". So I could be more sure that the same guy who called me seconds back, called my colleague next. Once he hung up, in few seconds, the phone on the next desk, ending with number 41, started ringing. The desk was empty as that person was away. I told my colleague @ 40, "Lemme go and look. I suspect it to be the same credit card guy" and Bingo! I was right. I came back and told my colleague @ 40, "Yup. I am right. I guess this guy got one of our office numbers somehow and is calling each extension by adding one to the extension.". And just as I finished saying this, the phone with extension ending 41 started ringing. And both of us didnt care to look at the number this time. We know from whom the call was and started lauging at it. And still when I think about it, I laugh, laugh a lot!

To the (possible) future sidees...

April 09 2005:
I want to remember this day for these two people

And I am trying to say it all in my own weird way, bear with me:

You C-Motta. Congrats for officially being conferred the title of K(M)otta. But I know you would always B-Motta for all of us.

And for the Old One, I would tell it in the way he wont probably like it hearing:

Congrats for beating everyone in the one shot qualifying and grabbing the pole position. You have all the chances in the whole wide world for ending up as the race winner. All the very best.

I am not trying to yap around here, the point is, these two have crafted this out wonderfully and I am just acknowledging and am appreciating the same and wishing the very best for the two (possible) future sidees.

Heard from the Old One that its gonna be our college crowd out there this time. So hope you two enjoy the stay as well apart from doing what you are good doing at!

April 09 2005:
I would remember this day for these two people

Language Problem

Ten days back, when I was standing in the queue to pay my Electricity Bill for the previous month, there was this girl standing before me in the queue. Should be in her mid-twenties.Should be living mostly alone for when i sneaked and looked into her E-Bill from the back, I saw that the number of units havent gone into Slab 3(should be scarcely using the electric facilities,I wonder how ours always slips into Slab 3,but my house owner has a big part to play with that,which is a different story altogether!).

Anyway, she was from North and knew nothing in Kannada. As we went close and close to the counter, I also saw that in her bill there was this Arrears Column where it was written 296. So she goes to the counter and tells the man at the counter in Hindi that 296 is there in this arrears column and she had apparently paid the bill last month as well and that was a mistake in the bill

Now, I dont know whether the man at the counter knew Hindi or not, but atleast I expected him to reply her back in English.If he doesnt know anything other than Kannada then its fine. But atleast he should have tried something so that this girl understands what he says!As expected, he started in Kannada and this girl didnt understand anything out of it ofcourse, and she started arguing in Hindi with that person. Now there was a old man standing between me and her in the queue and he translated it for her in Hindi from Kannnada

"Aap ke paas previous month kaa receipt hai?".

Poor girl, she had misplaced it and replied that she doesnt have one. Then this old man would tell her in Hindi that there is no way the guys at the counter could verify that she has paid her previous bill. And the old man also said that she needs to go to the main office at J.P.Nagar to verify this.The poor girl just nodded and went. Not sure if she paid her arrears or not!

Thats exactly one of the problems with Bangalore... The majority of people here are from North, Andhra, Kerala and mainly from Tamil Nadu...Ask any auto driver and he would tell you the exact statistics of people from each state. Of course we manage with Hindi with auto rickshaws, hotels and many other places, but what do we do in Govt organisations like the one above? Of course, in many situations people would be helpful, but there are some cases like this as well. One more thing: If you want to travel in BMTC buses, you should be knowing Kannada, my friends. Its OK if its the regular route which you travel daily, you would know the route number, but if its a new route, better do all prelim enquiries regarding the route numbers for, everything would be written in Kannada in the bus boards and there would be Kannada numerals. Thank God, they atlease have Roman Numerals above that. But if everything else is Kannada around that, its of no use, isnt it? Yeah, you can ask the people who are travelling already in the bus, before boarding one, but chances are high that he/she might not know it as well. My point is: Why are the bus boards in Bangalore, the IT capital of India, Silicon Valley of India and what not, does have anything written in them in English?

An interesting news I read in the newspaper last year: People were complaining that the bus boards are hard to decipher.So what BMTC decided was they would send two people from BMTC to different states across the country. All expenses including the stay, travel and food would be that of BMTC and the work for these two people is to find out whether in these states,for the government run buses, are the bus routes written in both the state regional language as well as in English.The paper also said that a simple thing that could be done by making a single phone call is being made an expensive tour! And if someone had been to other states, the boards would have changed, but yeah, they are the same still.

Language: Man invented thing to communicate. Whats the use in having so many languages in this country when I dont get what you are saying and you dont understand a word of mine! People sometimes deliberately play with others, I tell you.

Like, the other day, I was going back home from work. I already told you the number of buses in Bangalore are less and people are surviving because of Sumos and Matador Vans. So i was in one such Sumo and it stopped near this bus stop. And there was this lady standing there. And the driver of the Sumo yelled, "Banashankari! Banashankari!". And to this the lady says in English,"How far is Majestic or Shivaji Nagar from this place? ". The driver starts getting irritated now. Why is she asking this when she knows that the Sumo isnt going there? He, I guess is not that good with his English, but still he tries whatever he could in English (and its a not so pretty woman as well, but still its a woman standing outside), "Madam, but this goes to Banashankari".
Now the lady continues in her English: "You know! Its very late and dark. I am getting really scared standing out here."The driver whatever he understood, am not clear, replies " Madam. Drop you in JP Nagar 1st Phase..You can go to Majestic or Shivaji Nagar from there. Lots of buses from there."... And NOW, the lady replies in Kannada,"Illindhu JP Nagara Yeshtu Kodu Beku?". For those who didnt get it, she was asking how much she should pay for dropping her off at JP Nagar. The driver says 5 rupees,but his Madam wont board the Sumo, so he shuts the door and starts moving ahead. After going some distance, he said to his companion "If this woman knew Kannada, why was she doing all these non-sense? She could have talked with me in Kannada and why was she wasting my time!?"I was sitting at the back happily enjoying at whatever he was shouting at her.

One more thing with language is that when you know that the other person doesnt understand what you speak, you can use that to shout at him/her with all possible foul words. Like what happened at the hospital other day. There were these Bengali girls and this nurse. The Bengali girls suddenly come to this nurse and started shouting at her in English. "We had this appointment at 9 AM. Now its like 11 AM and we havent seen the doctor yet. And the surgery that was supposed to happen, didnt happen yet".The nurse would initially tell them in English to calm down. "The doctors are not free, Madam. Also, there are a lot of procedures to be followed. Your case file had to come, then you have to pay cash at these counters, etc.. etc.."The girls would some back little stroger."There is no one working here with any responsibility in this hospital. We had to go to some other place as well. Whats going on here!?"... Now this would agitate the poor nurse. I mean, i understand the girls' concern.But its a damn hospital. You never know how long a doctor is gonna take for the patients who went before you. And yeah,you cant do away yet with the procedures which the nurse explained! So if you are going to the hospital, you have to expect these things. Sometimes you might be lucky, sometimes not! Anyway, back to my point, once the nurse got agitated,she started using Kannada now shouting at them, which those girls didnt get ofcourse. And she would tell the story to every other nurse in the department while those two were with the doctor.

One more way I can think now of where Language can be used to an individual's favour is by these criminals and politicians and big shots when a case is filed finally against them.How many times have we seen this! The case would be filed in some other state where they would be charged with the crime and there would a 1000, 2000 page chargesheet and what these people would say to delay the case is: "Its not in my mother tongue. I dont understand a word of it. You guys are trying to fool me. Translate it to my mother tongue". And three to four months would just pass away in doing the same!!

Why didnt we have a single language in this country, Jike? For that matter, why dont we have a single language for the world?"Do we have to really pride ourselves in saying India has more than 800 odd languages being spoken?, Unity In Diversity,blah. blah.blah". I ask you "So what?" .Whats the use in having so many languages? At last it all boils down to Hindi or English. English: One thing which we have to thank Britishers, they ruled whole of the world one day and made us all talk with the outside world in a common language and it has what made me today to talk to you.Imagine the situation where a Bengali would know only Bengali, a Gujarathi would know only Gujarathi and a Tamilian would know only Tamil!How would these three talk if they have to?. Yeah, yeah big leaders would have translators when they have political meetings,but who would be the translator for you and me?

One more thing, have you observed? I have atleast observed it with construction workers and other small vendors, office boys and shop keepers here. Their Kannada would be damn good eventhough they are not from this state. You can hardly make it out that they are from North or other Southern states. How come something which a highly educated person who works in a big MNC could not accomplish is accomplished by a woman who has never seen to school in her entire life and has been doing nothing but carry bricks to a building construction?

Necessity? You and me can somehow manage most of the time with our British given English and hamaara rashtrabhaasha Hindi, but they cant! It all boils down to this thing:If you are going out of your city/state or whatever, its you, who has to get accustomed to the world you are entering into.(Its your problem, you entered an alien world,I didnt ask you to come here, so you learn the way the communication has to be done here! Thats Ok.But the same can be applicable to you as well. You might have to come to my city one day, my dear!). It would take some time for me to get accustomed, right? I am just angry at the fact that when I am trying to do it, others in that alien world should appreciate my effort and till the time I learn their way, they can provide some sort of help, if they can. When thats not there, thats when I feel pissed off!

Anyway,Did I tell you Jike that the guy at the E-Bill counter refused to pay me back my change although I saw that he did have the change with him and when I pointed the same to him, he was still muttering something in his language which I could not understand and hence I could not reply and had to leave without my three ruppes back !

Lost In Translation

Got this as a forwarded mail from my team mate and all of us in the team are laughing our heads out after reading these. Thought would share with you people as well. May be this would be a good prelude to my next post. Here is how the mail goes:

Haven't you always wondered how "Americanisms" would sound like if they were translated literally into hindi?

Have a nice day!
* Achcha din lo!

What's up?
*Uppar kya hai?

You're kidding!
*Tum bachcha bana rahe ho!

Don't kid me!
* Mera bachcha mut banaao!

Yo, baby! What's up?
* Beti Yo, uppar kya hai?

Cool man!
* Thandaa aadmi!

Don't mess with me, dude.
* Mere saath gandagee mat karo, ek hustee.

Check this out, man!
* Iskee chaanbeen karo, aadmi!

She's so fine!
* Woh itnee bedaag hai!

Listen buddy, that chick's mine, okay!?
* Suno dost, woh choozaa mera hai, theek?

Hey good looking; what's cooking?
* Arree haseenaa; kyaa pakaa rahee ho?

Are you nuts?
* Kya aap akhrot hain?

Son of a gun.
* Bachcha bandook ka.

And the best one is.....

How do you do?
* Kaise karte ho?

After an interlude...

Dadz back and what kept me away from you:

a) Work: Ha ha ha...
b) The message I have been receiving for so long which didnt allow me to write:

Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.Please contact the server administrator, support@blogger.com and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.
More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

Have been thinking: What keeps a father away from his son, in real life scenario? Few things I can think of:
a) Son is studying at some other city/state/country
b) Son is working at some other city/state/country other than that of his father
c) Son is taking a vacation or is on a trip to some other city/state/country other than that of his father or vice versa
d) Worse Case: Father and Son are fighting over something, no longer speak with each other and so they stay away from each other!
e) Worst Case: Father is dead or the Son is dead.

But my case doesnt fit to any of these: I could not talk with my e-son because of some server problem which I have been facing since last Friday.. Interesting... I guess I should add that to the real life scenario as well. I mean anyway, we are living in an age where VOIP phone is your boss, dictates what your deadline is and decides how your day is gonna be... Anyway, many of us arent staying with our family and we spend may be 10- 15% of 365 days(thats too big an estimate) of the year with them? Telephones, e-mails, IMs are what 'trying' to bridge the gap... So why dont I add it to the list:

f) Server problem with the e-mail or IM service provider.(or) Problem with telephone line

Who knows? Somewhere in some part of the world as I am typing this post, two dads might be talking like this:
Dad 1: "Know what? XYZ mail service was down today. Was expecting a mail from my daughter. Could not check it today. "

Dad 2: "Is it?. I tried logging into the GHI messenger and damn it, some problem. I gave correct user name and password. But could not login. So I missed my weekly Voice Conference with my two sons".

Funny world, we are in... Anyway, have lots to tell my son.. Hope I get the time this week and hope there are no more server problems

Million Dollar Baby

Hmm. If you see my room mate's Oscar checklist here, you would see that they both have done a very good job in compiling the list, for 'Million Dollar Baby' would satisfy almost everything in the list. Good job, roomies!

For me, it was OK sorta movie. Not too good, not too bad either. I mean, have seen movies of this type before, so nothing unusal. Now, would I have voted for MDB, had I been in the Academy list of voters?

1. The movie as such - Not sure. May be MDB would have been the best among the lot this time around. None of the 5 movies had been a mega hit like that of Titanic, or LOTR, so may be thats y, MDB got the majority of votes!? I'm guessing here.
2. Clint Eastwood - Huh, OK. Not a bad choice for the Best Director. He has acted very well as well and he was great with his comedy
3. Hillary Swank - Shes known for these types of roles, isnt it? Boys Don't Cry and MDB now. Yeah, she was good. Not close to Charlize Theron in The Monster last time around though. But may be she worked on her physique a lot to fit the role and good performance as well in few scenes.
4. Morgan Freeman - Yes, definitely yes. He was too good. No doubt about that.