Saw the movie Sarkar in the theater over the weekend. I liked it a lot. I know it is very Bombay-focussed and maybe that’s why I like it even more, but in general the whole movie was quite good.

Yes, it is sort of Godfather (not really, I would think), and sort of Bal Thackeray-ish but no matter what, Amitabh has turned in a good performance and more importantly, Abhishek turns in a rather good performance.

Abhishek has really come of age. I have been a supporter of his for some time now, but I think after Yuva he really announced his arrival. He has matured now and besides the serious, action-oriented films like Yuva, Dhoom, Dus and Sarkar, he can also do some comedy like Bunty Aur Babli.

Good stuff.

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Update: I forgot to mention that in this movie, the background soundtrack is fantastic. More than the acting or the situations, it is the music that keeps you interested. It is the music that creates the effects and enhances the acting.

Just as I had feared, Kimi started on pole, and was leading big time after the first round of pit stops and then the McLaren reliability (actually, lack thereof) kicked in and he just stopped. Apparently it was a transmission failure. He was in no way troubled by the competition, cruising along to his well-deserved win, when all of a sudden it ended.

Now the difference between #1 and #2 is 36 points. I think Alonso can start making plans for his offseason celebrations of a world championship.

Side notes for the race: Good blocking my Michael Schumacher against Fisichella. FISICHELLA?? Are you kidding me? Times have certainly changed. And sadly, Schuey was passed. He held off till the last lap and then had to give up position.

And of course, the story of the race was perhaps Montoya climbing from last place to second. Good job.

Of discontinuing this blog.

But in a matter of seconds, I decided against it.

Just thought I’d put it down.

Kimi’s had a good run of late and if not for his engine failures for the past 2 races, he would have probably ended up being #1 in both of them.

This time he did not have an engine failure and has qualified on pole.

But the scary thought is that what if there is a failure during the race???

Wow. What’s next? An Arjun Ramphal ‘Ken’?

Maybe homeindia.com should start stocking these Barbies now, what with their strong Bollywood focus.

Some recent media clippings for homeindia and their Bollywood story:

1. NDTV
2. Mid-Day
3. Indian Express

I could not help notice the connection between Salman’s tape issues, his supposed links to the mafia and the release of his new film Maine Pyaar something-something.

It is so typical for big time actors and actresses (and writers and music artists) to create some controversy before the release of their next work of art. And almost always, the publicity before the release helps increase the sales of whatever they are promoting.

And looks like it is working for Salman. At least somewhat. His movie has succeeded, but some theater has pulled the film.

More importantly, the allegations have been pursued by the police. Aishwarya Rai has been questioned by the police and she claims innocence.

I know the case is going to be ‘quitened’ out and Salman would have a hit under his belt. Things will switch back to ‘normal’ in a matter of weeks when David Dhawan and gang would have collected enough to not care about it anymore.

For some reason, the taping of the ESPY’s was not complete, or so it seemed. So we watched whatever was taped and it was interesting - the whole theme was about entertainment meeting sports. Not sure if that is the theme all the time, but it was the first time I was watching it, so it felt interesting.

Driver of the year went to Michael Schumacher. Congratulations, Schuey! I am of course assuming that it was based on the last year’s season, not 2005 :-)

Met up with a ton of college friends at a friend’s house on Saturday. We were supposed to meet for brunch, but we met only at 11.15am, so it turned into a lunch.

But most importantly, I met a lot of friends I had not seen for 10 years! Most of them have changed, some of them are still the same. Of course, some of the people there are closer friends, and we meet more often than once in ten years!

There is a proper college reunion being planned for the end of August. Let’s see what the turnout is, at the time. This itself was quite a large turnout, so I don’t know what to expect then.

But after meeting up with some old school friends, here and in New Jersey, it was time to meet college buddies. It is the season, I guess.

Saw Wedding Crashers over the weekend. It is quite funny.

And Vince Vaughn is again, and as usual, too good. His dialog delivery is fantastic and his funny moments really made me laugh. Owen Wilson on the other hand, is quite the same as any of his other movies. Nothing to shout about.

I give the movie two thumbs up. By the way, I finished an entire pack of those chocolate-covered raisins in the first half hour of the movie! Could not believe that they were really done and that too, that early! :-)

Caught up with the Rock Star: INXS episodes of this week on the DVR. The show is similar in some ways, to American Idol. But the biggest difference, and that is why I like it, is that the singers sing rock songs.

It is still not at the stage where I can remember the guys' names, but the guy who sang a modified version of California Dreamin' was good. The song was always in one of my best songs to listen to, but his rendition was pretty good too.

Even though the singing quality is not that great in general, I think the show works for me because of the songs. It just seems like a living room feeling of being at Fat Tuesdays, a bar where my roommate and I used to go for live music almost every Friday night in Northern Virginia.

Have set the show to be recorded indefinitely :-)

I was never really a ‘lefty’. In fact I would probably fit more into the Republican philosophy of lower taxes and increased capitalism as opposed to socialism as proposed by the Democrats. I was probably more apolitical at that time than anything else.

But over the past year or so, with the increase in blogging and social messaging, I have come more in contact with the issues and the debates. Earlier, I was conveniently staying away from the mass media coverage of elections and political issues.

But as I started blogging and visiting some of the conservative blogs, I realized that if there are so many people so twisted in their brains that they would start writing about the extreme thought process, there has to be a balance and so I started getting pulled more and more towards the left. Not because I was totally into their philosophy, but just because I did not like what opinion the right wing extremists were putting forward and how passionately they were defending anything ‘Bush/Cheney’ and that included the wars, the irresponsible tax cuts, the drastic failure of restoring peace, the lack of international respect, everything. All these issues were twisted grossly (and they continue to be, with the pro-Rove writings all over the blogosphere) and that made me sick.

That made me start thinking extreme left. I am sure I was not the only one who underwent this change. And the more people like me wrote, the more people on the right wrote. The voices got louder and louder and we are at a stage today that not a single issue at a national level is saved of a political tone. Everything becomes an us versus them and given the arrogance and of course the majority of the Republican party, the state of affairs is quite bad.

This is causing a lot of unproductive haggling and not helping the tax payers at all. Things that need to be taken care of are being left on the back burner and it is now an ego fight.

How and when will this end?

Once again, Kimi proved that he is a fantastic driver by finishing 3rd and losing only 2 points to Alonso. But these little 2 point deltas are expensive when you are trailing by 20+.

And Mercedes has apologized to Kimi for their failure to provide a decent engine for two races in a row. Hopefully the break now will help them test enough to provide a robust engine for the next set of races.

What a move by Montoya at the start - and he admitted that he did it because he had practically nothing to lose whereas Alonso had a championship to win.

Brings me to a point well-known, but still worth mentioning - individuals or teams that are hugely successful tend to incur most wrath, even if they are doing what is ‘supposed to be right’, and even if someone else is forgiven for doing the same things that they were pointed fingers at for.

Some examples:

1. Los Angeles Lakers
2. Ferrari
3. Michael Schumacher
4. Sachin Tendulkar (esp of late, from his critics, or as I call them, jealous spectators)
5. New York Yankees

Each sport will have such examples.

Since I happen to like most of that list above (I detest the Yankees), I just can’t imagine why is it that these folks/teams are a favorite target. For example, that move by Montoya was said to be ‘brave’ and ‘bold’ but if the same thing was done by Michael Schumacher, it would have been ‘arrogant’ and ‘senseless’. Especially if he was not in the race for the championship.

Today marked the 5th year of marriage for the wife and me. Five years. They have really gone by quick. Time does fly when you are having fun. And fun we’ve had a lot.

Cheers again, mrs.

Maybe I had a lot of expectations of it, but the movie was a little disappointing in that things seemed to be going nowhere at most times in the movie. The movie just suddenly ended, and it could be due to massive editing for the American audiences, but whatever be the case, it seemed just abrupt.

The acting was way below par. Sunjay Dutt, of all, seemed to be one who acted well. Saif was a disappointment. People kept saying that this is the role which will break him out of his comedy typecast. Well, he better just stick to comedy.

Vidya Balan has promise. She looks very similar to the Manisha Koirala of 1942 - A Love Story. Similar is features, and similar in dialog delivery and acting. Though she has not much to act. I saw that she has already been cast in another Vinod Chopra production, so her life is sort of set in that respect.

But overall, it was not a bad movie for the 5th wedding anniversary date.

Cheers to the mrs. and me for sticking it out for 5 years. Here’s to many many more!

Both these pics are from http://www.brain-damage.co.uk. Excellent, collection-worthy pics.

Kimi had to change engines and so he starts at 12th, second race in a row where he had a good position (3rd in the French GP and 2nd here at Sileverstone) and ends up being pushed out.

Michael Schumacher, who said earlier that the race for the championship is not over yet, ends up 10th (9th after Kimi’s slip down), virtually finishing the season for him.

Alonso meanwhile is getting close to clinching it early enough in the year. Which will then make the rest of the season quite boring.

After much procrastination, I took the survey. Please take some time and take the survey.

First of all, I feel sad for the London public which was subjected to the bombings for no real fault of theirs. The politicians have brought it down to this. And not surprisingly, the politicians are all unaffected.

But my point is that even after so much done in the ‘War Against Terror’, the world remains the same, if not worse off, than what it was before. What has the war done for normal citizens? Do you think we are safer now than we were in 2001? I feel we are now carrying a bullseye on our backs and with the on-demand bombings (Spain around election time, London during G-8 summit, etc.) the terrorists are proving that they cannot be eliminated.

Yes, we rid Iraq of a tyrant, but so what?

And my second point is why the hell is so much coverage being devoted to the London bombings and not much was covered for other bombings like the Spain bombing, the Bali bombing, etc.? Just because they are ‘our partner’? Wasn’t Spain ‘our partner’ too?

Hmph. Sigh.

People who know me will understand that me going without coffee for a month is a big deal. I don’t miss it and one side effect has been that I have adopted tea. I never liked tea, except iced tea which is not really tea, but now I even have the Starbucks Chai Latte full of spices and such.

Mind you, I am not off caeffine, just off coffee.

I feel if you want to give up something, you have to give up something you really like. There is no point in me giving up eggplant because I hardly ever have it in the first place.

So first to go was ice cream, over 3 years ago. THREE years! Wow. NO ONE saw that coming. Still going strong.

And now, the next best thing I liked. Coffee. But I think the coffee may come back sooner than ice cream, just a feeling.

Yay. Get it from the google toolbar website.

I was able to see Gilmour and Waters play together on stage. Never mind that I was not there as such, but even to see them on TV, it was worth it.

I have been to a Roger Waters show, but did not get a chance to see Pink Floyd really. I will take the Live 8 performance any day.

And if they decided to actually tour (not likely at all), I would be there!

Thanks to MTV (and abc, which had a highlight package) and a DVR on my comcast receiver, I was able to watch Live 8 for a good 10 hours! What a show! Virtually everyone who matters showed up.

The sheer magnitude of the shows was enough to prove that the message got across. There were some cool collaborations like the opening act of U2 and Paul McCartney with Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Rob Thomas and Stevie Wonder, The Black Eyed Peas and The Marleys, Coldplay and Verve’s Richard Ashcroft, etc. The first one definitely gave me goosebumps.

But of course, the highlight of the show was the reunited Pink Floyd singing a cool little set at the end. Gilmour and Waters did not seem to be on the same band. But for Comfortably Numb, it did seem like they were playing together. Amazing experience.

Also, I will be buying the Live Aid DVD (4 DVD’s) released finally, and I did sign up my name at the Live 8 website. You should too.

Some quick posts in general - I know I said earlier that I will blog about the trip when I have some time. But I am waiting for some of my larger reports to complete, so I thought I’d write some.

Ever since 2pm, I have been so sleepy. I guess coming in ‘on time’ at about 9.30am was not that big a deal. I could have probably chosen the next flight out and come in later, but at least I would have been fresh.

Because there is a meeting scheduled at 6pm which I have to attend. Unfortunately.

Otherwise my plan was to get out of here at about 5.30pm, rest up, and come back fresh from tomorrow.

Not gonna happen.

What explains the sudden spurt of energy drinks? There was a time when there was only a drink called 180 and of course Red Bull. Now, if you scan the fridge, you’ll see at least 10 different brands with multiple SKU’s per brand - like sugar free versions, diet versions, flavors, etc.

Why is there a sudden spurt? I know I consume a bit of that, but am I in the typical target market? I guess people are working more and more nowadays and need that bout of caeffine besides what they get from their coffee.

But it still does not explain Coca Cola, SoBe, No Fear, Mountain Dew (Pepsi?), etc. getting into the field big time.

Once I am back to normal hours (woke up at 3.30am this morning to catch the first flight out of Seattle), I will blog about our trip. It was wonderful!