Can u recognize this guy?

THEN ....



....AND NOW :)



Found this extremely rare pic of Michael Phelps online...He was a tru champion right frm the beginning...or was it even before the beginning?! :D

Messi-merising!

Riding high on the absolute brilliance of Lionel Messi, the Argentines defeated a battling Nigerian outfit to make it two times in a row in the Olympics...
My favorite team finally managed to win a major(?) tournament after thr dismal exit in the 06 WC :D
Three cheers to the South Americans! :)

Bachana....He is here...

Ranbir Kapoor has arrived ....and how! :) Bachana Ae Haseeno obliterates the highly unsuccessful year and a half YRF has had with a breezy, likable, occasionally brilliant rendition of every guy's dream ;) :D

I wont dissect the movie much here because i dont feel like :) I'll just say this...its a well-directed, well-enacted, entertaining flick with a good script, competent performances from a supporting cast which thankfully stays caricature-free(Minisha-wow, Bipasha-hot, Deepika-mesmerising, Hiten Paintal-amazing), nice music, great locales (a YRF trademark!), its share of glitches, and surprise,surprise,surprise a rejuvenated Ranbir Kapoor, who overwrites any memories u hv of him frm Saawariya with a natural, suave, endearing and immensely likable show! Let me clear here tht i was one of those who hated his silly act in Saawariya....In fact, i had gone to the lengths of saying tht Bachna Ae Haseeno has 4 heroines and no hero...

Well, this dude surely hs made me eat humble pie...I take my words back... :) Welcome the next superstar!

Go...get entertained! with gen-y :)

P.S. : The only time i have ever regretted not joining Microsoft is while watching this movie...if you know wat i mean ;) :)

Ha!

Excellent one frm xkcd...

Just goes to show that math and love do not have a common denominator... :D

Check out the original and many more at http://www.xkcd.com/

Aaaannnnd...Here.......We.......GO!!!

To say that 'The Dark Knight' is a masterpiece would be a gross gross understatement...I can safely say tht i have seen no movie with so many layers to it, movie which not just keeps you on the edge of the seat for those blessed 2.5 hrs but which also makes you question ur own beliefs on morality and good and evil and above all, which makes you feel great after those 22 reels in the dark are over, not bcoz ur finally done with it,but bcoz u want more!!! Kudos to Nolan and his team for giving us this dark,brooding,intelligent and yet,adrenaline-pumping,pulse-racing rocker-of-a-movie, which no doubt, will go down the annals of history as a well-deserved classic!

I dont feel inclined to review the movie, simply because reviewing somethng as phenomenal as this is akin to insulting the movie-making effort! Just a word or two about the best performer of the show...You may hv read reams about how great Heath Ledger is as Joker, how he fleshes out the character in his own inimitable way, blah blah blah....All i hv to say is.... Ledger takes the audience by the scruff of the neck and immerses them in a whirlpool of such masterful psychological deceit that you connect to your own darker side like never ever before....Now if tht performance doesnt deserve an Oscar, nothing does...in fact, they shud rename the Oscars and call them the Joker's :) An overstatement probably, but just watch the Joker slurp away gleefully in the most tense of moments and u'll know wat i mean! :) His dialogue delivery, his swagger, the philosophy behind his character just blow you away...

That Nolan is a master at his job was evident in Memento, the lesser known Insomnia and Batman Begins...With TDK, he proves he's not just a gr8 storyteller but also adept at making you delve deeper into your psyche and question ur long-held conventions....

The Dark Knight raises the bar so high tht few movies probably might manage to become even half as entertaining and thought-provoking, if they care to try hard enough...Its one of those rare movies which you will watch again and again and again and again and again.....and yet everytime find some new layer till then hidden frm view...

A stupendous, worthy-of-a-bow effort!

Two sides of the same coin...

One of the most over-hyped movies in recent times, the unimaginatively and abominably named 'Singh is Kinng' (Wats wit the extra 'n' seriously??! That doesnt make a 'good' film! A good script does!), released day before....Here's two facets of this so-called movie...
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Here's wat critic-unparalleled Rajeev Masand had to say about SIK (or rathr SICK!) on IBN....

Masand's Verdict: Singh is Kinng, a dead comedy **

Most films can be divided into two broad categories - those that aim to entertain an audience, and those that have been produced with the sole purpose of making money. As far as I’m concerned, Singh Is Kinng is not so much a film as it is a clever money-making racket.
I know that people who make films shouldn’t be made to feel guilty about wanting to earn money from them - I agree with that completely. My problem is with people whose only objective for making films is to make money - they could be in the construction business, they could be manufacturing cigarettes, but they just happen to be making movies for a living. My problem is with those guys.
Singh Is Kinng is a film that has little or no regard for its audience. It’s the kind of movie whose makers couldn’t care less if you hated the film, fell asleep during the film, left the film in twenty minutes, or collapsed from a stroke midway through the film. They only care about the fact that you paid your two hundred bucks and bought your ticket. To hell with you after that.
I understand all filmmakers don’t want to change the world - they don’t want to make message movies like Swades or Lage Raho Munnabhai. They probably don’t want to address issues either. I get that. But how can a filmmaker not care about engaging his viewer - how can he not care if his audience is entertained or not? If you’re making what you describe as a comedy, shouldn’t you want the audience to laugh? The makers of Singh Is Kinng simply don’t care.
What better example of their indifference than the fact that they make a movie that they claim celebrates the spirit of being a Sikh, and yet they completely disregard the most basic detail of Sikh identity - how can your Sikh characters sport turbans but not full beards?
We’ve all seen enough films by director Anees Bazmee to know that we shouldn’t expect very much in terms of plot, and Singh Is Kinng is no different. Akshay Kumar plays Happy Singh, a bumbling do-gooder in a nameless village in Punjab, who manages to offend his friends and neighbours with his knack for causing trouble.
No wonder they pack him off to Australia with the responsibility of bringing back another Singh - underworld kingpin Lucky Singh (Sonu Sood, that is) who has tainted the reputation of their village and their community by his infamous deeds. Once there, by a strange hand of fate - the kind you can only expect in Anees Bazmee films - Lucky Singh slips into a coma-like state and Happy Singh is put in charge of his gang.
Not only does the new King set about reforming this motley group of criminals, he also falls head over heels in love with pretty-but-vacuous Sonia (played by Katrina Kaif) who sadly is already committed.
Singh Is Kinng is the kind of film whose screenplay is constructed almost entirely on the basis of silly coincidences and misunderstandings - airline boarding cards get exchanged by mistake and as a result passengers end up travelling to wrong destinations; dumbfounded Lucky Singh points accusingly at Happy Singh but his gang misinterprets that as Lucky picking his successor.
If this kind of pedestrian humour isn’t your thing, then perhaps the toilet jokes are. Like that moment in which Happy Singh inadvertently pees on the face of another villager, or the one in which it’s insinuated that his privates get entangled in a table fan.
The problem with this writing is that there isn’t any - the screenplay goes from one stupid gag to another, one set-piece to another. Singh Is Kinng goes through the motions of a comedy, but there is deadness at its center - a feeling that no one connected with it loved what they were doing.
I’m one of those who hated Welcome, director Anees Bazmee’s last film - supposedly a comedy. I thought the plot was preposterous, the humour completely banal, and most of the performances below standard. It’s a film I violently disliked.
In all fairness, I can’t say I feel the same way about Singh Is Kinng - it’s certainly not as bad a film as Welcome although that’s not saying very much.
Singh Is Kinng is the kind of film that simply doesn’t arouse any passionate response - I didn’t love it, and I didn’t hate it either. I just didn’t care. And there I think lies the failure of this film - few of the characters are even remotely interesting, the story can’t exactly be described as original, and the actors aren’t in their finest form either.
Akshay Kumar has an endearing goofiness to him and he’s the only reason you’re willing to give this film a chance. How you wish he'd use his popularity and his clout to do better films.
Of the supporting cast, Om Puri and Kirron Kher give the film its handful of genuinely comic moments, while the rest try earnestly to raise your spirits with the kind of lines you’ve heard so many times before.
Katrina Kaif is an eyesore in every sense of the word - her costumes resemble something you might pick up in a fancy dress store, her acting so weak you want to urge her to watch everyone from Madhubala to Madhuri so she might pick up a few tricks. But my heart sank when I saw Ranvir Shorey wasted in a thankless supporting role. I can only hope a fat paycheck was his reason for choosing this film.
In the end, Singh Is Kinng is a dead zone of comedy. It might have been a time-pass film if the makers had made even the slightest of effort, but in its current form the only thing you can appreciate about it is the fact that it’s not terribly long. When the lights come back on in the end, you leave the hall completely emotionless. You just don’t care.
I’m going with two out of five for director Anees Bazmee’s Singh Is Kinng. I do hope the makers can afford swanky new BMWs from the money this film will invariably make. Someone should get something from this film, because the audience gets nothing.
Rating: 2 / 5 (Average)
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Now here's a news report from, again, IBN....

A record breaking opening for Singh is Kinng

New Delhi: Akshay Kumar and Katrina Kaif starrer Singh is Kinng had a record opening in theatres across the country on Friday. The collections totalled to Rs 8 crores on day one and the weekend collections are projected to be anywhere between Rs 28 to Rs 30 crores.
The highest first week collections for a Hindi film till date is for the Shah Rukh Khan-Deepika Padukone starrer Om Shanti Om which earned Rs 37 crores. Modest projections for the first week collections of Singh is Kinng is put at Rs 45 crores, which could be a new box office record.
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A really sad state of affairs i must say! After seeing senseless and pretentious movies like Dhoom 2, OSO, Race, Partner, and the like raze box office records and raise the bar considerably high (in terms of both-the moolah and the banality!), to see a 'dont-care' movie lik SIK poised to beat much much better movies like TZP, DCH, RDB, Lage Raho at the BO is sickening...Dont get me wrong...i loved the spoofs in OSO, the Filmfare spoof in particular rocked!even parts of Welcome,Partner and even, D2 were enjoyable (who doesnt want to see Hrithik in top form!)....but to see such mediocre and highly hypocritical stuff reign supreme at the BO is jus so unfair! These movies delivered nothing of what they promised...and all the good stuf was thr in the trailers...so if u hd seen a promo, u hd virtually seen the whole movie! Such undeserving crap leading the list of Highest-Grossing movies of all time is unimaginable....and yet, the fact is, more ppl thronged to the theatres to 'enjoy' SIK than to take in the msg in TZP...
As Dilbert's pointy-haired boss would have said, IT IS AS IT IS! Guess marketing matters much more and scores over content in this age!

P.S. read this hilarious review online and wanted to share it with you...foll are some of the excerpts...to catch the full review, go to http://www.bombaybitch.com/site/singh_is_kinng/

1. The Bitch‘s Verdict: Vipul Amrutlal Shah, I want my money back
2. Bazmee thinks he can pull off retarded cinema under the guise of an entertainer.
3. Pritam‘s music is doing the usual rounds but for all you know it was probably copied. Some music producer in Korea must be buying a ticket to India right now.
4. Katrina Kaif is bad as always. Apart from her bangin‘ bod she has little to flaunt. Nobody cares how she acts anyway and that accent of hers seems will make you want to drive a pen through your ear...Especially when she says "theeeenk you" in that Brit accent of hers, you feel like causing her harm, but thinking of Salman you dispense the thought swiftly. Even Neha Dhupia is looking better than her this time. And now that‘s an insult.
5. Speaking of Neha, all those so called stunts she kept on boasting of, which she did herself, are never shown in the movie. Probably she considers jumping, hopping, running and staying clothed as stunts. In that case... Bravo!
6. All this and more crap is at a theatre besides you. The question is, do you still want to go and watch it?
:D

I wonder???

I wonder .....
if the thunder will breach the wonder of being under the surrender of the thunder, perhaps make a blunder, spread things asunder, begrudge the thunder and spoil the wonder?
I wonder....

On the rocks...

We waited with bated breath as the water came gushing down the rocks...it had been about 45 minutes since we had entered the water...we were drenched to the bone...and yet terribly excited...it had been an amazingly adventurous 3-quarters of an hour...and even me, someone who rarely lets excitement get to his head, had to admit tht my adrenaline was flowing at a pace several notches higher than normal :)

8 of us were new to this game...or adventure sport really...1 was a veteran...he had to be...he had done this for years,probably decades....it wasnt new for him...and yet in a way, every day, every time was a new experience even for him- someone who could genuinely claim to have seen it all...15 hours ago, if some1 had told me that the next day, i would be floating in the turbulent waters of Kali river-a name i had never heard in my life before-on a rubber boat,with 3 of my best frnds and 4 guys i hd never met in my life, guided by a Nepalese guy of unidentifiable age and unfathomable accent, i would have asked him to get his nuts and bolts checked! and yet, here i was, headgear and all, paddling away happily, happy to be back in familiar terrain, excited to be doing somethng completely new for a change...

We had spent a good part of the last 45 min trying to mitigate the obstacles, go around them, and all the while not forgetting to absorb each and every iota of the fun...the rapids were just awesome,unlike anythin i hd previously experienced...its one thng to go down along spiral rides perfectly engineered for safety in water parks with lots of ppl around u and a completely different one to sign a disclaimer where u own all the responsibilty of ur death, any injury or any trauma...the first one is just fun....the second one, a riot! :) without a care in the world, we 'rapid'ly crossed numerous rapids and now stood on the brink of wat was supposed to be the pinnacle of the adventure...the capping glory....the real thing...white-water surfing! :)

we had been instructed to paddle very very hard against the flow of the river and try to overcome the strong current to cross the rocks along which the water was gushing down...and the moment our force matched the river's, the moment the balance was at its tantalising best, we had to duck inside the boat and take the river head-on in a collision of sorts! Let me tell you the text feels nothing like the real thing! its gotta be one of the best experiences man can ever have...right up thr with...ummm ....well forget it :) The feeling when u are swaying on the beats of swirling water caught between a natural and a man-made force, with the natural force slowly but surely gaining an upper hand and swamping everythng coming in its way, is somethng tht cannot be described...

10 minutes later, after 3 'collisions', as we made our way to the othr end of the ride, we were feeling on top of the world...the outward calm was clashing with, and yet, somehow, in a strange way, complementing, the inward torrent of pleasure,happiness,adventure,pure adrenaline and above all, the wonderful feeling of being in the vicinity of such a powerful yet serene force....nature! :)

One for all and all for one! After conquering the tides...

The fab four: Andy, Me, Ravs and Jammy...clicked by none othr than dude Dhav :)
You can find more pics from the trip here

A swell book...

First things first....Lets not indulge in comparison and form a biased opinion about 'the 3 mistakes of my life'....Yes, it may not be as memorable as that cracker of a story 'Five Point Someone' or even the above-average 'One Night @ A Call Centre', but its a pretty entertaining and well-crafted book on its own. Yes people, Chetan Bhagat has done it again!

The book has been on the stands for almost 3 months now and i know its a little late to say somethng abt it....but Fountainhead held me up and thts as good as a book can get!
Coming back to 3, its a roller-coaster of a ride which makes you want to finish the book in one go! And considering its just 260-odd pages, its possible too, with Bhagat's simple language being the icing on the cake! Pretty well-etched characters, good incorporation of some real-life events into the story and a feel-good culmination make this book worth a dekko...

I went through a lot of reviews of the book, which accused Bhagat of writing the book such that it can be easily adapted into a movie....Hmmm, while its true the story is unabashedly 'filmy' and quite far-fetched, i dont really know if its a point that can be held against the author...He always made it clear that he writes books to entertain and not to enlighten....And considering his first two books are being made into movies by a well-known and a flop director (apologies Atul! and Salman!), none can blame him if hes looking towards script writing as a career option!
In fact, you can read his views on the subject here...

Dont go for it expecting another FPS and m sure u wont be disappointed...