Friday, June 30, 2006
blogging from singapore airport....
Always wanted to do this.... feel really high-tech and jetset and such...
The flight was modestly ok... got to sit at the very first row.... next to two bickering teenage brothers... the choice of inflight movies was shocking... saw "16 blocks"... then I had a choice of Basic Instinct 2 or benchwarmers or she's the man or the two boys bickering... so I had my earliest cocktail till date.. a singapore sling at 10:30AM.... followed by the most nauseating screwdriver EVER. It's the orange juice. THe singapore airlines special orange juice. They serve it everytime. It's the most sour, acidic glass of juice you'll ever taste.
Anyhow... will probably take a nap or soemthing... probably won't venture out...
Another bengali family in perth has entrusted me with their son... a 19 yr old with the mental capacity of a 5 yr old and the hormones of a 12 yr old. Can't shake Rat-boy... must try.. the parents of another Perth bengali also boarded with us.... I was asked to look after them. But I have succeded in shaking them at arrival gate.... but I can find them again. The gentleman wears a orange monkeytupi.... I could find him from the moon.
Anyhow... my time meter has almost run out... so bye for now
I will be in Kolkata for the next 3 weeks or so... drop a message with your number of whatever... will give you a call if you are open to the idea.... time and petty insecurities permitting...
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> 6 comments
11:14 PM
I'm on my way.....
> 0 comments
8:35 AM
Friday, June 16, 2006
Alrightey... tickets bought.. so there....it's final...
I'm going...
My mom can get my dad to fake all the hernias she wants... no good now!
But there's work to be done.
1. Must complete exams.
2. Must buy blue goth hair colour from punk store in the red light district of the city... spoke with the store owner and convinced them to specially bring some in for me.... made it sound like I was desperate to get my hands on it....this'll be fun... especially since I am bald... and anything but goth....will post more on this later... the things I do for people I met over the internet.
3. Must buy as much Aero mint chocolate as I can. Same reason as above.
4. Must buy something nice for someone who has specifically asked me not to buy anything.
5. Must make copies of Oblivion and other RPG's for blue haired freak.
6. Must buy some good white wine. Possibly some absolut vodka.
7. Must procure worthwhile reading material for the flight/14 hr stopover. This'll be the greatest challenge of all.
8. Must remove all compromising material from computer. Can't lock it with password. Will arouse suspicion.
9. Must buy food. Enough to last me 20 odd breakfasts. Can't stand breakfast in India. Especially that thing you pass off as cheese.
10. Must shave off beard. Must make myself look like the 15 yr old baby faced chump with flowing hair that is on my passport.
> 14 comments
8:28 PM
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
You've got to love Aparajita...
Incredible female.
Calcutta International School for 4 years... bunch of other schools before.... but finished at CIS... came to Perth... bounced around a bit... finally joined my uni... with Biomedical science.. her overzealous went and met the HOD a number of times to discuss her daughter's "future"... good ol' HOD... saw another person with the same surname and immediately passed the buck... to me...
Then she looks me up... from the phone book! On google... finally traces down my phone number and calls me up.....
We meet.. and meet again... I ask her why she is doing this... she says she wants to study neuroloscience.. and then combine that with her interest in occult and supernatural... and start a business...hmmm...
but I just can't get over the conversation we had yesterday
A: Hey man! I really need your help.
Me: Sure. What's wrong?
A: I only got 52 in my essay in Anatomy.
Me: ok... But you said You did a great job.
A: Clearly not. I think the teacher has it in for me. I will challenge this.
Me: That's strange. I know the guy. He is fairly harmless. How much work did you put in?
A: About 2 days.
Me: Ok.. that's pretty low. Normally they expect you to put in about 2-4 weeks.
A: Yeah. But isn't the quality of work more important than the quantity.
Me: True. You could do the work in a short time and still do well. Tell me. How many references did you put in?
A: 3.
Me: WHAT? You submitted a major essay with 3 references?
A: Isn't quality more important than quantity? I could put in pages of references and they could all be meaningless.
Me: True. But normally you actually have to READ the references and use that material in your essay. That's what the reference list is for. Not for just putting in random references. But ofcourse a few quality refernces are alway better than a ton of rubbish ones. So what kind of references did you put it?
A: Internet sites mostly.
Me: Dear god! You DO know that internet sites do not have any weight whatsoever in a scientific essay? You have to put in proper stuff. Proper printed stuff.
A: I did!
Me: What was it?
A: Encyclopedia Britannica.
Me: You submitted a scientific essay in anatomy with two web references and one reference to an encyclopedia? Lord! You have to reference journals!
A: You mean like... TIME?
Me: No. Not magazines. Science journals.
A: Like "New Scientist"?
Me: Never heard of Nature? Or Science? Or Biological Reviews? The Lancet?
A: No...
Me: Those are journals.. you have to refer them. You have to refer primary material. You have to have atleast a dozen references for a first year essay. Atleast 8 primary articles.
A: Oh man. Shit. They didn't tell us any of this.
Me: What do you mean? That's what the "Foundation unit" is there for. What foundation unit did you do?
A: "Structure thought and reality"
Me: That's a philosophy unit! It's meant for people doing philosophy, education, humanities and shit. Why did you do it? You should have done a science foundation unit.
A: I do what I feel like. And I like philosophy.
Me: Anyway. Too late now. But I bet even the arts people know how to reference and stuff. Surely. They must have taught you some of that in the workshops.
A: I didn't attend the workshops. Just the first two.
Me: Why not? There is a mark for workshop attendance!
A: It's only 8 marks. Screw that. I figured out I was passing anyway. Besides the teacher doesn't like me. He has it in for me.
Me: Well. What are you going to do now? This is exactly what the foundation unit is there for. To learn stuff that you will need the rest of your professional life. It's not there so that you can "pass" it. Infact that's what this entire university is there for. To LEARN!
A: Ah fuck it. I can't be bothered man. I tell you what. Why don't we sit down one day. You teach me this shit.
Me: You want me to teach you all the stuff you were suppsed to learn in the first semester but you didn't?
A: Yeah yeah. Ami toke khaiye debo (I will treat you).
Me: Really? Toke to oyster khawate hobe (you'll have to treat me to oysters). A tutor would charge you $60 and hour.
A: HAHAHAHA. Chal yaar. We'll meet up sometime after you come back. Meantime let me challenge all the results. Whaddya reckon? Will they rule in my favour and increase the marks a little? 15%? Even 10% is enough. Won't ask for anymore. Whaddya say?
hmmm
I tell you... you gotta love her.
> 2 comments
7:27 AM
Friday, June 09, 2006
These are the days of miracle and wonder
Don't cry baby don't cry.
I found this album while walking around scoffishly at a Malaysian neighbours garage sale. The way you walk around garage sales... like to say "Ha! I have better stuff." but at the same time looking to pick up something special. And I found this lying at the bottom of a cardboard box full of old pool toys.
Paul Simon's Graceland. I had always wanted to get hold of the full album. It is widely acclaimed by critics to be a masterpiece.
And I wasn't disappointed. The album is just perfect. It is like a dream... the lyrics make sense at some subconcious level but you lose sense of it if you try to analyse it. Isn't that what good poetry is supposed to be?
The music is perfect. It's complex yet delightfully instinctive. Orchestral and full yet subtle and distinct. Paul Simon apparently travelled to Africa for influence. And there is a lot of that in the music. It's blended in, in the most seamless manner with his own style of country/rock.
This album really is a gem. A must have for any true music-lover's collection.
So here you go. Listen to the radio blog for the songs. Let me know what you think.
You don't feel you could love me but I feel you could...
> 6 comments
8:41 PM
The microbiology II exam is a funny one... they have to make it that way... because it is a purely elective unit. So every single schmuck (yours truly included) doing the unit.. is doing it because they wanted to. Nobody was forced. So if they start failing people... they won't attract too many enrollments... and that means no more $75 haircuts for our bruce willis look alike lecturer (yup... the guy's bald.. don't ask me why it costs $75 to shave a head... I do it for free... but he does drive every single girl in the class wild.. so I am going to end this argument before it hurts my insecurities).
Here is how it works...
There are 11 lectures.
Each lecture covers 1 topic.
There are 10 questions only in the exam. All questions carry equal mark.
You are not likely to get more than 1 question per topic.
You have to answer any 4 questions of your choice.
Do the math.
I am not a gambling man (actually I am... not with money or clothes... just with life changing decisions and career choices and such)... but I like the odds...
> 0 comments
9:36 AM
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
I am surprised at how few people have seen the year's two best movies (so far) in my opinion
V for Vendetta - What a killer movie! Political, cruel, no holds barred comic book movie. Absolutely fascinating stuff. From the Wachowski brothers. I just think it wasn't promoted enough. Loved it.
Inside Man - Probably the best thriller of the genre I have seen for a long time. It's actually uunfair to call it a genre movie because it completely re-invents it. Amazing movie. And the fact that Spike Lee has directed it probably makes it extra good. It makes it so much more than a bank heist/hostage movie.
*
Recently saw "Brick". A really good movie. Very interesting premise. It's like a classic noir film set in a high school. Like Chinatown meets the OC. I know... sounds cheesy. But it is anything but. It's exceptionally well done. Do watch.Saw the Da Vinci Code.... I don't know why everybody hated it so much. Come on...It's not THAT bad. It's nothing spectacular, but still as far as movies go there have been worse. I think it's being mauled a little undeservedly. Feel sorry for Ronny Howard. If he had adapted any other book for the movie, he would have chopped and sliced it and moved things around and put in extra scenes and taken out unnecessary ones. But here he was adapting the most famous book of our time, and he got the jitters. Every time he picked up the scissors, some part of him said "What are the fans going to think" and in the end he just decided "screw it... I'll put it all in... if it ain't broke, don't fix it". And that's where it fails. There was entirely too much information, too many things happening. I reckon he should bring out a "director's cut" DVD... pick up the scissors and just re-edit the whole thing. Even that would seriously improve it.
Saw X-Men 3. Really annoyed now. I am actually a big fan of the X-men saga. Probably the only comic book movie franchise I am really fond of. I was so looking forward to this. And now I am disappointed. They changed directors. Brian Singer is too busy with "House" so they got in some other schmuck. And he just turned it into a fireworks show. It's still reasonably fun to watch, but it completely lacks any depth or dimension. Something there was plenty of in the first two movies. Which is why they were so great. The feeling of teenage melancholia, the gothic foreboding, the internal conflicts, the social ostracisation themes. All these things are gone. Just crash boom bang. So sad.
BTW: If you want to see a BAD movie... watch "Bloodrayne". This movie takes bad movie making to a whole new level. It's shocking how bad a movie can be. I'm not kidding. The story, the acting, the cinamtography, the direction, the sound, the special effects. It is just so uniformly shockingly bad. I reckon if they had just strung together the cut scenes from the game it would have made a better movie. Even I could have made a better movie with my handycam. And what a waste of a cast... Michael Madsen, Ben Kingsley, Geraldine Chaplin, Kristanna Lokken (The terminator 3 chick... she has a pretty hot sex scene in this... probably the only thing worth watching), Michelle Rodriguez, and Meatloaf. If he had jsut locked these actors in a room for 2 hours and filmed them it would have made a better movie.
Movies that I am really looking forward to:
1) The Namesake : Jhumpa Lahiri meets Mira Nair. Trailer looks good. Don't know why they didn't use any bengali actors though.
2) District B13: I love french action movies. This one is supposed to be one of the best.
3) Apocalytico : The new Mel Gibson. Looks bizarre. Like "Cold Mountain" set in ancient Mayan civilization.
4) Clerks II: Remember how much fun the first one was?
And there is this semi-animation, semi-live action movie called "princess" which made a huge impact at his year's canne's. About a priest who single handedly wages a bloody and brutal war on the porn industry. My kind of stuff. Must get hold of it somehow.
> 4 comments
7:32 PM
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
some guy picked up my coldplay tickets today..paid cash...now they are gone... final... no second chances now..
The Whitlams are playing at our usual hangout "The Hyde Park Hotel" this weekend... I have a Microbiology exam this Monday... DAMMIT!!
In desperation for some quality live music I tried to score tickets for the Split Enz concert... even they are sold out...
WHY? Why have thou forsaken me?
I have a sneaky suspicion my mom is going to screw up my India trip as well.... I know she will... she always manages to do these things... I told her I was planning to buy a Ford Probe... and she flipped "No... you are buying a small car for $2500"
"What's it to you. It's my money, my car I'll do what I feel like"
She did not reply... which just means she is thinking up some particularly disatrous way to exact revenge.... like botching my trip...
She was watching "Everybody Loves Raymond" the other day.... shaking her head at the antics of raymond's mom..... and muttering beneath her breath... "tsk tsk tsk... amateurs"
> 0 comments
8:23 AM
Sunday, June 04, 2006
Ok.. so I cheated... I was supposed to come up with a new theme for radio blog... instead I am putting up the entire Whitlams album "Little Cloud"Now... I don't know if you have ever heard of the whitlams... great great aussie band... but this album is simply spectacular... I strongly suggest you give these tracks a try... 16 songs on 2 discs... pure beauty...
Rarely am I this happy about an album.. but this one is really worth it...
Give it a listen.... especially "Wite Horses", "Tonight", "Keep the light on", "Beauty in me"... argh.. they are all so good...
Tell me how you liked them...
NOTE: "The pokies" is actually froma different album... but it probably falls in my favourite songs of all time list... so I put it in there anyway
> 2 comments
4:40 AM
Saturday, June 03, 2006
In my experience... there is nothing funnier than real life... and I mean REAL life... in the raw.. unedited...
I am not talking about the version of "real life" some people put up on their blogs, chronicling the minor events of their life in beautifully crafted language and well measured wit and punctuated with wodehouse-wannabe one liners.
No... I am talking about the real deal..
Which is exactly the reason I like reality comedy and observational humor and watching weirdos...
Which is why I am so fond of orkut these days.... it's pure, uncut real life... real people doing what they do best... be complete idiots...
I spoke about this before... and now I am doing it... I am actually starting a blog dedicated to these people.... the best of orkut profiles... presented with a touch of preamble (i love preamble)... but with only the minimum.... so you can gawk at them... in their pure, unmodified idiocy...
> 2 comments
8:47 AM
