Barbershop

Another thing that is similar in India and United States is the idle talk when you are getting a haircut. The only difference is you do not get a cheap and cool head massage here.

Along with my weekend plans and where I used to get my haircut in Cincinnati, I was asked two personal questions. If I have any children and if I am married.

Same questions, different order.

Here is a cool link for people who are still visiting my blog. This is nothing out of the world but I always find myself enjoying and recommending such sites.

Hope you like the ultra slow motion videos, idea is not new but there are quite a few that you can watch, whenever you want.

Fatta

Now that we have DISH, I spend a lot of my free time watching TV. Today we watched I, Robot. I don't know if I liked it because of the action/sound/story or because it was shown in High Definition. But this post is not about that movie.

The title of this post is a word that is usually used to describe a lot of bollywood movies, especially the action sequences. It basically means "no one is stupid enough to believe this". You remember those old kung fu movies.. well many bollywood movies have those backwards jumps from ground to the second floor. If they are not in a Shaolin Temple setting in ancient China, they are called, well, Fatta.

This is not to say that Hollywood does not have fatta scenes, but yesterday I saw a few minutes that surpassed any fatta in recent memory. The movie was "Torque". I had seen a preview of this movie earlier. At that time, I thought it was a preview of some new action video game. The CG looked so fake! Anyways, let me describe the chase sequence and you decide if it was fatta or not.

Martin Henderson (Bride and Prejudice-wala) is being chased by Ice Cube (this is the name of a rapper/actor).
Both of them are on bikes. Ice Cube wants Martin dead for some reason that I missed. The chase is going at full speed (I know this as they even show speedometer). They are now one on one.

Enter train.

Now they are riding alongside a train. Henderson has a brilliant idea. A strategically placed inclined bar, motor cycle, train.. well you got it. He jumps on the train and manages to stop the bike on the roof. Any Hindi movie would have stopped at this with Henderson waving at Ice Cube who mutters "kab tak bachega?" under his breath.

Torque went an extra mile.

Ice cube does the exact same thing (its a long train). Then there is a chase on the top of the train ( keep in mind that they are on their bikes until I say otherwise). They jump their bikes whenever they reach the end of a compartment onto the next one. Then Ice cube starts shooting and to save himself Martin falls in between two compartments and gets stuck. Check and almost mate! Ice cube now is about to shoot him from the top when our hero manages to set himself free and rides his bike into the compartment at full speed. Now one guy is over the top and another inside the train with people on both sides, riding at full speed.

Fast Forward..

Somehow MH falls to the side and IC falls on the tracks in front of the approaching train. His leg is stuck just like er.. Gulshan Grover in RamLakhan?? The train driver who knows nothing about this so far, tries to apply brakes when it is useless to apply brakes. But in a flash, MH manages to release IC and they are now on opposite sides of the train (which BTW has stopped the attempt to stop and moving at full speed)with IC looking at MH during the inter-compartment gap with confused gratitude. MH is smiling as if he is going to say "yeah to mera farz tha" ('it was my duty', one of the most used dialogue in 80s bollywood). And then another deja vu: When the train ends, MH has vanished.

I stood up, applauded and changed the channel.

Promised pictures

Better late than never!
Here is a link to all the pictures of my visit to 2005 Cincinnati Masters. I know some should be deleted as they are duplicate/not so good but it is better if you just ignore those for now.

Cincinnati Masters Album

I will add captions to all the pictures soon. And I have not forgotten about the video clips. That has been postponed to the weekend. And yes, you will not be able to see the full resolution pictures. Do let me know, if you like to see any picture in full-res.

Wanted to write more on many of the topics mentioned in the last post but tonight, I am just too sleepy.

A quick update

I have been busy and lazy. Caught in that loop for the last 2 weeks. When I was not busy or lazy, I was not in a mood to write anything. Woke up on the wrong side of the bed for a day or two. Anyway, a lot of things are to be blogged. Let me list them here so that I do not forget them, after all, this IS my diary.

1. We got a new TV.
2. We got DISH Network and their customer service clearly finds new ways to hit rock bottom on customer satisfaction. I will give it to them, they are pretty creative about this.
3. Abhijit Dixit and his wife, Shilpa, visited us during the Labor day weekend and we had a ball of a time with some great food and some amazing tennis.
4. We just finished watching one of the best USOpens ever. Thanks to DVR I did not miss anything.
5. Yesterday's men's finals needs a separate blog entry or two. It was a dream/nightmare matchup when it comes to rooting for someone. AA is not just another player for me. The way he has fought back as a tennis player and as a person, the way he has overcome all his setbacks, is goosebumpedly inspiring. No wonder that he and Lance are admirers of each other. It was not very easy for me to support a single person in that match. I will quote myself from another blog entry to reiterate this:

" It will be sufficient to say that for me what Tendulkar is to Cricket, Federer is to Tennis. Ever since I saw him play his first Wimbledon finals, I have been a big fan of his. It is true that I will not know who to support when he plays against Andre Agassi but (un)fortunately, Andre withdrew from Cincinnati Masters this year."

I will be back soon to talk about all these things and yes, there are a few new pictures too.