Act while You are Angry

While you still feel the anger from Jessica Lal case, here is something to read, think and act on.


http://gauravsabnis.blogspot.com/2006/02/manjunath-shanmugam-trust.html

As a matter of principle, I never ask people to forward any link/appeal etc. So I will not do it here either. You are free to do whatever you want.

Will it snowball in a positive movement on a much bigger scale? I don't know.
Will it help Manju get justice? I don't know.

But doing things like these, although not sufficient, are necessary to achieve the bigger result.

Even a small contribution goes a long way.

Getting Away With Murder

If you have been keeping up with News, you know what I am talking about.

Rediff has a chat with Jessica Lal's sister, a "Tell us" page for the cliched "Do the rich get away with crime?" (with a few ads on the side probably).

I felt bad about this, very bad. But not half as angry as I would have felt five years ago. Am I surrendering to the system? I had somewhat "I don't even want to read about this as it frustrates me" reaction to the whole thing. Tomorrow I will wake up, check my gmail while having my breakfast, go to the office and come back in the evening and probably blog more about this. Shame on me! The only thing that I can borrow some mental peace from is my belief in Karma. The punishment wasn't given in past lives, will not be given in the next life, will not be given to your progeny but will be given to the real culprits in this life and they will know what they are suffering for. I believe that.

Happy Days Are Here Again!

Or will be soon.

I am talking about Hollywood releases. After an abysmal year, a year so bad that I have not even gone through the Oscar nominee list, we have some promising releases ahead.


Here are the current must-watch on my list.

1. Eight Below
I knew I would not be able to pass this when I saw the trailer the first time. I watched an extended trailer on HD the other day and I am sure that we will watch this the first weekend.

2. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.
Yes, we WILL be the first in line.

3. Cars
No waiting in line but I will be refreshing ticketmaster every five minutes for this.

4. Ice Age 2
I missed the first one in theatres. We have the DVD though. I owe it to them.

5. Da Vinci Code
Some aspects of the book were predictable but the movie looks good.

6. Superman Returns
For old times' sake.

7. Monster house
Not much info available on this, but I liked the trailer. Decent graphics and a little action oriented. Looks promising and definitely worth considering for a "is there anything good in theatres?" afternoon.

8. Open Season
Watch out for this one. This one has very good animation and looked pretty funny. Fall 2006 release, if some other blockbuster does not manage to push it further.


Wait for DVD:
Click, Pulse, Snakes on a plane, Fast and the furious (just to get a kick from the HT).

I am sure there are quite a few more but will write about them some other day.

Thank You Stranger!

I did not have a car in September 2000. It was my second month in the United States and I was walking back home as I had missed the last bus (one of the safest communities). I found a wallet on the sidewalk with its contents all over the place (credit cards, cash and bus stubs). I collected it and returned it to the Police station that was right across my apartment. I never knew what that guy felt after getting his wallet back... until this weekend.

Last week, I lost a check.

I had kept it in my bag and then I could not find it 2 days later. The check was completely filled but that meant my name, address, account number and signature were out in the wild.

On Saturday, I received an envelope that had the check in it. It did not have a return address, just a few words in the back "Found this near the UPS store."

The person who sent this, spent his own money on the stamps (he had that extra 2c stamp too since the price went up from 37c to 39c recently) and more importantly spent his time for me.

Acts like these make you feel so happy. Nothing better than a reinforcement of the belief that good people outnumber the bad ones by a huge margin, no matter where you go in the world.

Thinking more, surely I would have acted in a similar manner. But now I have this strange feeling of obligation. I am almost looking out to help someone, and trying more to be helpful. If (s)he wanted to pass it on, (s)he succeeded big time.

Tidbits

First of all, I welcome myself back to my blog.

Now the tidbits:

1. Other than watching Irfan's Hattrick, there was no point in watching all the test matches. But money spent on watching cricket is never lost completely, right?

2. I have been spending some time with video editing. Hopefully would be able to share some interesting cricket/tennis clips soon.

3. At the moment, we are watching "Ramji Londonwaley". So far it looks like a well-made movie. Funny thing happened when I was in the Indian store today. Since I have learnt my lesson, I checked this DVD for scratches. There were a few fingerprints and I showed it to the owner. He took one look at the DVD and told me that I will have to clean it. I asked him to clean it as I have had a bad experience cleaning these pirated DVDs.

So he started cleaning it. He just started rubbing it over his shirt and I looked at him with a shocked expression. He realized that he should probably be using a different cloth to clean it.

And he did.

His undershirt!