ok! i tried. hard!! real hard!! but i can't stay on in blogdrive any longer. The blogospehere out there has changed radically and with every change blogdrive still remains at the sub-basement parking level. i can't even migrate this blog to anywhere else... So, in rage, pain and frustration, i am calling it a day! thats it. finito. No more blogging on blogdrive.
I am migrating to Wordpress! something that i've been thinking of for a fairly long period of time. Any of you who still visit this blog may head over to http://dotstuff.wordpress.com for the new blog.
The Best TV shows inevitably have an awesome theme music to begin things with. While one of the more publically famous ones is the Rembrandts version of I'll be there for you, for the eponymous F*R*I*E*N*D*S, I'm not quite as mad about that series as the rest of the planet. So here's my own version of the best TV shows and their intros; something that i've always wished to do, but never quite had the time for :D But since, Time and Energy are no constraints, now that all my energies are solely devoted to pass the time, here's my list:
Now the shows which were considered to be a part of the showdown were
American Dad
Bewitched
Birdman
CSI
Doctor Who
Entourage
Family Guy
Fawlty Towers
Firefly
Futurama
Greys Anatomy
Heroes
House MD
Hyperdrive
Lost
M*A*S*H
Nip/Tuck
Southpark
Tales of the Gold Monkey
The IT Crowd
The Simpsons
Two And A Half Men
Veronica Mars
Now i am a fan of most of the above, excepting the crappy Nip/Tuck, the irritating Hyperdrive, the aptly named Birdbrain..i mean man, and it-sucks-'cause-morons-watch-it CSI & Lost. Though i got nothing against theme music, so they got shortlisted (hehe...dreaded MBA jargon).
Anyway, the idea was to find out the absolute best intro music, the one which fits the theme of the show, which wears the look and feel of its characters and the overall storyline. So, without much further ado, the final 5 nominees are:
Doctor Who
House MD
Tales Of The Gold Monkey
The IT Crowd
Two And A Half Men
And here go the final ranks...
5. HOUSE MD
You'd think a TV show about a misanthropic, frequently leching-at-the-boss's assets, cynical doctor would not last more than a Pilot episode in the politically correct environment of US broadcasting. Ah! You're just so wrong!!
Gregory House, MD, the Moden Day medical Sherlock Holmes, who lives at Apartment 221B kicks ass! With his pithy one-liners, cynical, mistrustful eyes & the 3-day stubble, House comes across as the ante-hero who everyone would like. And with a medical drama to run, what do you expect the soundtrack to be ?
Teardrop by Massive Attack provides an oh-so-perfect intro; the music is soothing, intriguing and almost in perfect harmony with a cute little twister in the end, which shakes you up for the ride ahead.
Turn up the volume a bit...thats better ;-)
4. TWO AND A HALF MEN
Ok! I am a Charlie Sheen fan but i haven't seen Hot Shots yet. This show pisses a lot of people off. It makes fun of women, the primary character is an MCP who alwatys gets his way and it has a bitchy ex-wife, control-freak mother, psychotic & clingy ex-lover, hen-pecked husand (Charlie's brother) stereotypes to the last type. So, what makes this show tick ?
Charlie. Love him or despise him, he essays the role of the commitment-phobic, sleeping-with-multiple-sexy-women-every-weekend Charlie Harper with marvelous ease. He is funny, laidback and fits into the role outrageously well. The situations are mostly about making fun of Alan (Jon Cryer), educating Jake (his nephew), fending off Rose (his psychotic one-time lover whom he slept with once) and miscellaneous beautiful women who parade in and out of the beach house in Malibu. The best scenes are, though, the ones in which Charlie faces of with his devil of a Mother (Barbara Holland); my favourite joke goes like
~Charlie's mom asks him to host a party for her in his beach house & now Charlie has to convince her not to make him do so~
Charlie: Party? in this house ?? who gives a party in this house. It's so big and its near the beach...who gives a party at a house like this :D :D :D
He obviously loses the argument. Anyway, so the theme is Men! and oh boy!! what a theme!! So totally Male :D Drunken, shoddy, manly Men. Listen to this one...
3. TALES OF THE GOLD MONKEY
Is there an adventurer within you ?Did you like totally dig Indiana Jones action or are a fan of Haggard's Africa Tales. 'cause if you do, then there is no possible way you'd not enjoy the Tales Of The Gold Monkey. If ever you were enthralled by Talespin, well then, just fasten your seatbelt, 'cause there is just so so much comfort inside a Grumman G-21 bi-plane.
The series is about the hidden treasure of a Golden Monkey. There are explorers, emperors and armies, spies and espionage..and even a Louis's drinking bar for brawls and secret meetings. Throw in the time period of 1939's..and you've got the cockpit view!
So, what would the sound be like? Ah! Mike Post has the answer for ya. A bit of the Military drumrolls, a dash of that trumpety adventure and a string base accompaniment...and you have the sound that heralds adventure, fun and glory!
2. DOCTOR WHO You mean you've never heard of Doctor Who ? I mean, where've you been living in...Spain ??
The Eponymous Brit Sci-Fi series, Doctor Who, needs no introduction to the true sci-fi fan (I am not talking about you, you impostor). With nearly 180 broadcast episodes, a dedicated TV series (Torchwood) running along the main one just for satisying the urges of the true fan; a sci-fi pedigree which is right up there alongwith the Analog Magazine, Astounding SF and Russell Davies at the helm; you have a whole universe of Doctor Who waiting to be discovered.
And with characters like the Daleks, Cybermen, The face of Bo, Timelords, Tardis & of course The Doctor, how can it get any more exciting ? Great Drama, good humour, awesome stories; this is one TV series you never should grow up without. And if you have, you have truly missed watching meaninful, exciting tellly. Heroes, Lost..all these are mere footnotes when compared the humungous footage that Doctor Who has.
The theme of a Guiness-record holder programme has a huge burden to carry, It must resonate the pure tension, adrenaline and drama of the series. And what a theme it is...Just look at the pure sci-fi'ness of the whole thing - You feel like free-falling in a time hole. There is your hint of danger, and the omniscient universe behind your whole being ..and then there is the tardis and the doctor! As the Doctor says, "brilliant stuff!!"
And by the way, don't worry about the three Oods at the end of the clip. They's mostly harmless..just that they inhabit a rock which moves in an orbit around a black hole. mundane.
1. THE IT CROWD
And so we come to the last one. The Best. The most absolutest kick-ass TV theme ever. Words fail me as i contemplate the sheer ingenuity of the whole setup. the awesomely awesome way in which te whole thing has been put. It's not just the music, its the whole deal. But first, a look at the TV series
The IT Crowd is a Brit mini-TV series comprising of 6 episodes which was produced by Talkback Thames and shown on BBC Channel 4. It deals with the working of the IT department of a large Brit company which in the words of its owner Denholm Reynholm "employes attractive people who do very little work and all engage in adulterous relationships."
The icing on the cake is the uber-uber geeky geeks who inhabit the basement of this company. Their office is a clutter of cult geek memoribilia like Commodre 64's, posters of the flying spaghetti monster, T-shirts reading RTFM (i mean, RTFM..awesome man), Douglas Adams and even a friendly Goth overdosing on Cradle of Filth in a locked room. If you can even begin to understand the socio-cultural geek references liberally sprayed through the series, you could call yourself a geek and no-one could ever sue you for misrepresentation.
Now, the music. they have it done perfectly to the last detail. every little bit, starting from the 80s arcade music to the cute little linus kernel panicking at the end of the 30 second shot; it's geek all the way. This brings it to the top of my list..after all, you can take the man out of geeks, but you can never ever take the geek out of the man!
That'll be all for me this time. Long post. But i enjoyed doing every single bit :)
Aeons ago, in a time far far away, a friend sent me this poem. As is usually lyrical and cynical, the friend's gone but the words remain. Aeons ago, in an age of foolishness and reason, i used to put poems on this blog. As is usually mellow and dramatic, i stopped it when the music died.
I doubt if the poet ever knew what a B-school was, or maybe he is better of with just elemental problems, this one strikes true at the heart of the matter - The Gordon Gecko Situation. So read it, if you are a true-blue B-schooler, who wants to fib his way to the pot of the gold.
The poem's called "The Spell of the Yukon" - Robert Service.
You Come to get rich(damned good reason),
You feel like an exile at first,
You hate it like hell for a season,
And then you are worse than the worst.
It grips you like some kinds of sinning,
It twists you from a foe to a friend,
It seems its been since the beginning,
It seems it will be to the end
And while you might find, what you are looking for, it might turn out that
I wanted the gold and i sought it, I scrabbed and mucked like a slave, was it famine or scurvy - i fought it, I hurled my youth into a grave. I wanted the gold and i got it, Came out with a fortune last fall, But somehow life is not wat i thought
it, And somehow the GOLD isnt all
An almost true account of what people say and mean in a B-schooling environment. To justify our 7 figure salaries, we cannot be seen to be mumbling in a coherent logical fashion for any decent spell of time. Hence we've invented a series of systems which depict life inside and outside, in different perspectives - mine and none ;) Ambrose Bierce would be proud of us. SO presenting the series of hitchhiking guide to b-schools. ahem! dont quote me, ok ? ;)
B-school Competitions, n.: "The prize money is INR 25k. So what if you got 10k in hand. Havent you heard of Transmission & Distribution losses?"
General Body Meeting, n.: "Remember the time you did not get any journos when i got a Tiffin box on campus? Well, I do and i am ANGRY!!"
General Body Meeting, n.: "I've got more firends than you do"
Gratitude, joke: huh!
Journo Contacts, n.: "Sir Please Sir ... Please !!! ah ouch! (Phone banged on the face)"
Official Communication, n.: "I have covered my ass while you haven't"¯
Performance Evaluation, n.: "short for how-dare-you-be-so-disgusting-that-you-evaluate-me-and-give-me-a-fair-chance-i-quit-and-see you-at-the-GBM"
Public Lynching, n.: see GBM
Publicity, n.: The act of busting your ass to print a truly asinine story
Resignation, adj.: "I wont work and be accountable for nothing i have done earlier as well. To boot, i would even put it on my CV"
Review Meeting, n.: "I am temporarily blind, deaf and just plain dumb! And yeah! I am dumb all the time. I cant hear you anyway"
Secy Elections, n.: "Who gave 'em bitches permission to evaluate me. Me!?!"
Shitty Job, n.: see Publicity
Team, n.: "There is no I in the team..and neither can i see U... though, there is a T, but he doesnt work"
The others, n.: "My average salary is bigger than yours!"
~more hitchhiker's Guide to B-schooling to follow. References to any intelligent life forms is purely coincidental~
now that 21st July has been declared as the annointed date..i've had little else to do except read up on all old HP and try to gather all the clues to the seventh one in one place. Given the fact that Rowling usually introduces an innocous little thing in one book and uses it quite strategically in any of the next few ;
bezoars being a good example here; introduced in book 1; used in book 6 the opal necklace, Borgin's Shop in knockturn alley from book 2, used again in book 6 wolfsbane book 1, used from book 3 onwards
I am sure there are plenty of cross-references that any causal fan can dig out; the point being that Jo obviously likes to tie down loose ends.
which brings me to the reason behind the post. Since all the previous 6 have been published, the only references which have not been crossed out till now, will eventually have to be used in book 7...
One of them, i think is the "immensely complex Homorphus Charm", which is used to turn a raging werewolf back into a human form, without using a (lesser) complicated potion.
Another can be the Malfoy Castle's "secret chamber under the drawing-room floor"; surely there are more than a few dark secrets abounding in that.
Both references from Book 2: Chamber of Secrets. Another reference between CoS and OoTP, is in the dueling chapter; where Lockhart shows Harry how to defend himself against an attack .."a complicated manouever, by the end of which he loses his wand" to the complex wand movement that ol' Dumbledore uses in he ministry of magic to defend against an attack by ol' Voldy.
By far, the most profitable line of enquiry, as stated by Jo herself is; " Why did Dumbledore have James' invisibility cloak, given that he could make himself invisible even without that?"
Some more twisties that i've been thinking about lately: 1. Where is Godric's hollow ? Given that its diectly on the line connecting Bristol (Harry sleeps over Bristol in the midnite bike ride with Hagrid) & Surrey (Little Whinging) 2. How's the Fidelius Charm holding up ? Was the charm used for protecting the location of the house or its occupants also? In case, it was the occupants, it should still be working because both the secret keeper and the protectee (harry) are alive. 3. Who will show Harry the location of Godric's hollow ? Or will he know it himself. Certainly, the only people who'd know where Godric's hollow is would be Potters, Sirius (?), Peter Pettigrew & Voldy. So, either Pettigrew will repay his blood debt, or Voldy would set up the house for a final showdown. We already know that Voldy's a sucker for places of significance. And the choice is pretty much between Hogwarts as a battleground or Potter's house. 4. Who is R.A.B? (duh!) Not wasting my breath on this one. Remember the last time how Jo cleverly used the description of Scrimgeur (lion's mane etc), in the publicity for the HBP. And the poor chap was barely scratched in the book. 5. Snape ? Good/bad/what ?
thats all the researching for today. Will keep updating as and when i find more.
Ok, just a disclaimer to start with. I am NOT an ipod fan. And i dont like the feeling of having squiggly little things stuck in my ears for hours. But i respect the fact that it has become so much of a culture icon.
Now THIS is talking !!
But now, Sony has come up with something that i am sure is gonna have atleast a similar effect on digital books. Whether legal or illegal, is not quite the point. Powered by the revolutionary e-ink technology, which explains the humungous battery life and the Laser Printer style display; this beauty can read formats like:
1. Unsecured Text: BBeB Book, Adobe® PDF, TXT, RTF, Microsoft® Word 2. DRM Text: BBeB Book (Marlin) (dont really hve this in my err...collection) 3. Unsecured Audio: MP3 and AAC7 (for all those under-utilized audiobooks) 4. Image: JPEG, GIF, PNG, and BMP (right! Asterix comics..anyone?)
In addition, there is this feature of enabling RSS feeds, podcasts, et al on it..not that i particularly care about that...finally someone has come up with a product that I think i'll have a relationship with
And, uh! ok. The price tag is pretty steep right now.. $350 is not pocket change for me. But, what the heck, a couple of b-competitions shall be enough. (for the Reader and the now-pushed-to-second-spot PS2).
ok..this is one of those deja vu posts. Poignant, fun, insightful, sad & laughter-filled..all in moi humble opinion only. Not that i'd wouldn't love to find opinion-mates, but its a rather long shot. and the description is a tad too bland with all the spice cut out.
Long aeons ago, there lived a girl, in a movie of course; spright, bright and harbouring a secret little bit of distress in her heart; a brilliant disguise in short. Then came a dude...and the arrangement came crashing down like a house on fire, brim & flint stones. the up and about thing is that these folks got glued together for a fair amount of time. And then, it was the time for the bright climax...when the music died.
The subject of countless hindi movies, which i am thankful to the stars, that i havent had to suffer for one circum-calendar time, this is the quintessential hindi tragi-drama. ofcourse things get sorted out in the end..but for the befuddled author who has forgotten the deja vu angle. Sigh! One of these times, i'll talk down the barriers of time, space & August end to bring forth the demons within.
Deja Vu's hit like a thunderclap in the seat of human patience..and leave the poor chap..thats me for slow folks..disoriented and faster than a speeding snail. And it was fun being me again, after what..a full 3 solar-lunar-terrestrial rotations.
well, the deja vu angle is all about a particular tpe of specs, which were a rage sometime when i was still something akin to a guitar-weilding, gut-busting dudester in what we call college. We had a badass group which was known far and wide for our chief, a certain character called the Chabi (hindi for clue!). Chabi is what polite folk call a human swearing machine; the closest someone could get to assess and scrutinze all his/her relationships with people past/present, related/unrelated;..chabi was da man! ~All opinions powered from a Freudian perspective.~ but! something happened that removed the power of his imagination....what ra! fell in love ofcourse.
Then there was an even deadlier dude called Bhatia. Bhatia was class man! he could rip into the innermost barriers of the mind open it for public viewing. nice! He was the ultimate open source role model. Information flow should be free and flowing across various points of contact. However, even our dude got knocked down and perished to the flames of err..cupid's arrow ?
There was the goof-up screwball whom we knew through shared instinct that he was the one, Sabu; the unusual mech engineer who knew more girls than fratenal brothers. Being joined at the hip with us helped...us ofcourse! his life was miserable, starting t=0. tending to.....
And then there was one more. the author. me. moi. main. whatever. i was a difficult chap to catch wrong-footed.though am not claiming that i never did, but that i never did AND got ragged/caught/hunted/executed. for three aeons, moi reign was terrible. It was the power of the tongue with the power of confidence. past/picture perfect, i was what phallic slaves call the last man standing.
Not that the offers were flooding in, but a man's gotta do what he's gotta do! i was the unbreakable, the industructible force of nature who just did not give in. I am reminded of Lost's ads..where a tramp is shown with two defiant fists at the camera..it reads "No Quit".
Then, well the oak tree fell. and the unbelievers rejoiced. Three aeons of snickers were to come back to haunt me in one ..and powered through people as abominable as the abominable sabu, chabi & bhatia. man! i've read books where newbie armed forces boot-campers cant walk two steps without being tripped. it was like getting rammed in-hemmed in-fenced in and all of that, using the same friggin tricks that the author used to use..once upon a time. bastards would start a'singin, a'dancin', a'cajolin' at the drop of a hat...while the poor moi leanrt that, being nice to them when people are down, is a stooopid decision. one's gotta kick the other mofo as swift and as hard as one can.
time flew ..and well, it isnt that important..we lost touch. i gained weight though, and along with that lost a little bit of that sharpness of wit and tongue, a little less armored and started being a bit more adventurous and not an uptight ass who calls himself Unbreakable. Never again, i vowed would the aggressive son of a gun come to the fore again...No, i wasnt nice, warm & understanding ..not even a long shot, but a little smarter and more whats-it-called.. manager-clones of the great indian cloning dream - MBA, i mean.
that was the situation till this err..let me put it like this..recent past. A pair of specs was all it took for the deja vu experience. how it is relevant is not important, the upshot is that i came across one and then all of a sudden i got into this time-warp where a voice from across the past called out and said.."start, duh!". and the music began It was great fun being me again, should particpate in games like this, more often. i can still feel like one of Stenbeck's hero's. back in the tortilla flat..seeing the winter of discontent departing. Ah! i feel renewed. Amen!
Author adds~there isnt a point to the tale. Not at all. Or perhaps it does. If thou is one of the esteemed mofos that i had mentioned earlier, thou'd know the context. For newbies/well-wishers and other misc assorted folks, all i can tell thou is..the tale is not memorable, infact its downright arrogant and insightful. However, please note the absence of 'Y's in the post. No, it wasnt a superior demonstration of verbal skill..the thou-knows-what is malfunctioning.~
ok ok..that was blatant plagiarism from Payne's Blog. To see more of his pics..move to flickr.
darn! why doesnt my camera ever pick up pics like these. and to add insult to injury, i keep running into guys like Payne & Solo who keep on making me feel like a n00bie with their magic-enabled digicams.
Anyway, i just wanted to complete a post that i had written last year but somehow never got the time to completely edit & publish..i goes like this
First up, something really good happened today. we have all been formally inducted as the batch of 2007 at FMS. so finally, we have been relatively assured of a slightly lesser punishing schedule for the next month or so, till the summer placement thingies start. while it does seem strange to feel euphoric about a detail as pedantic as this, it's a really soothing feeling neverthless. for better, for worse now i am in it for two years..
i know, i am off the rocker. but theek hai. this expression of 10 minutes of my life should not be snuffed out just because it fails to satisfy the incredibly urgy tastes of the jury at large.
Ok so, for the not-so-urgly. i am now in it for a year. last chance to read my 1.03 million ebooks. and finish those unsteady stacks of movie DVDs. Yippie, fun never looked so much like work. And learn atleast...something. Cant be a writer for life, and a bad one at that. that'd be one heck of a short life.
Talking about bad writers, Harry Harrison is a good one. no, not a good bad one silly. a good bad good one. or the other way round...
uh..something wrong here. chalo, who cares. The guy's real fun to read..specially if you have like a couple of hours to while away and nothing much to do..like a lazy sunday afternoon. And if you like SF..waaaaooowww !!
Well..its been a couple of years since i last read a Stainless Steel Rat one..but the exploits of Jimmy de Griz are well..quite literally out of this world. It's like reading up all your boyhood action stories in action. it delivers on the action, the story & the semi-laconic, wholly-enterprising hero and his once-fiendish devil of a woman. the writing is so breezy that at the end, you end up feeling refreshed, amused and ..ah well..wanting more ;)
Sometimes some authors do that..but usually they dont. which is kinda sad because you dont get to realise the sheer versatility. Consider the obscure fact of Authors like Asimov posing as Paul French to write the absolutely smashing Lucky Starr series or the publishers of those boyhood wonders like Hardy Boys or that sissy Nancy Drew, the publishers Grosset & Dunlap writing as Carey Rockwell for the equally entertaining Sci-fi Tom Corbett Series. Dedicated funny-man sci-fi's like Lewis Padgett of the Twonky & Gallegher fame get consigned to historical dustbins.
Consider path-breakers like Astounding SF. The SF bible of the 50s is now published as Analog Magazine As an aside, wonder how many people know that one - either Astounding or Analog. Real SF comes from places like these. At one point of time, Robert Campbell used to be the editor of Astounding SF and the "contributors" included legends like Heinlein & A. E. Van Vogt. But back to our vein, Astounding is the magazine to read if you want to read breezy SF fiction. I was fortunate enough to grab a 1951 & 1955 anthology edition (hard back) from some some shady deal during my engg college days & it's pure gold for any SF freak. Though nowadays, i get Analog mailed to me every month. (All free ofcourse, before you mouth the outrageous alternative)
To cut a rat tale short, Harrison is one author you definitely can pick up. And Stainless Steel rat is much more rewarding than any contemporary "heavy" fiction. Go ahead. be a kid. IT's FUN !!
~happily rolling back years ..engrossed in Bill, The Galactic Hero~
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