BMW Film 8 - Ticker

BMW Film 7 - Beat the Devil

BMW Film 5 - Hostage

BMW Film 4 - Star

BMW Film 3 - The Follow

BMW Film 2 - Chosen

BMW Film 1 - Ambush

The BMW Films

Dibyo introduced me to the BMWFilms back during campus days and I loved each of them. Its a series of 8 movies by BMW directed by 8 amazing directors (imdb lists it as 9) and they are as follows:

1. Ambush by John Frankenheimer (Ronin, Manchurian Candidate)
2. Chosen by Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger, Hulk, Brokeback Mountain)
3. The Follow by Kar Kai Wong
4. Star by Guy Ritchie (Lock Stock, Snatch) feat. Madonna
5. Powder Keg by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Amores Perros, 21 grams)
6. Hostage by John Woo (Broken Arrow, Face/Off, Mission Impossible 2)
7. Beat the Devil by Tony Scott (Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop 2, Enemy of the State)
8. Ticker by Joe Carnahan (Narc)

And Clive Owen fits the character of the driver in all of these like a glove. I would have liked to see him as Bond but alas. Even Hugh Jackman. Anyways, coming back to the topic...I'll embed the films one after the other so this would be your one-stop shop to see the films.

Coming up...Ambush

I'm on fire

This is one of my fave Springsteen songs and videos. Somehow this one didn't make it to the greatest hits compilation or the essential collection! How??? Why???

Some people don't deserve a second chance

I love to hate 2 banks in India - Citibank and the other one (which recruits in truckloads from campuses). Very disfunctional. Both promise to make your life easy and make it a whole lot difficult. I had cancelled my Citi credit card back during b-school because of a couple of bad experiences. And I vowed to stay away. But because I have to bank with them on the salary account, I thought I'd give them a second chance to help me make my personal banking more convenient. I wanted a co-branded card because of specific benefits (tied to my phone company) - and got a gold card instead. First moment of disappointment as soon as you open the envelope! Then to link this card to the suvidha account I wanted to balance transfer the amount on another card. But no, they wanted 1200 rupees to do that and a 3% fore-closure fees. This is from a person who is a new customer and they are just making money out of me without me even swiping the card once!!! Go figure. I wonder what's the method to this madness. They actually get a customer from a competitor but want to make his life quite difficult! So I ordered my card cancelled. Simple. Must be the shortest time I've ever owned a card. No wonder the 'Citi never sleeps'. Customers must be giving them sleepless nights!!!

Update:
Looks like I wasn't the only one in strife! Desipundit has this compilation here and Arzan has one here.

Alice and the Mad Hatter discuss (NP)Tea!

This is a take on NPT the Alice in Wonderland way. Quite interesting.

"It's all very simple," said the Hatter as he handed out slices of cake and then went around smacking everyone's hand when they started eating it, "the NPT is a treaty in which the parties that have nuclear weapons agree to get rid of their nuclear weapons in exchange for the parties that don't have nuclear weapons promising not to get nuclear weapons. As part of the incentive for not getting nuclear weapons they're rewarded with the means to make nuclear weapons. Slice of Cake?"

Translating the blog

I had read this post by Rohit Bhargava and tried doing the translating thingy with my blog. My limited spanish told me there was something wrong in the whole thing. So I mailed a few of my german friends and asked them to read the translated version. As I had suspected it just translates word to word - screwing up the grammar big time which in return helps to make no sense whatsoever with most sentences! So my 2-bit is you can leave the option on the blog but don't expect your posts to make sense in another language!

Call Center - The Movie

A friend of mine sent this and I couldn't stop laughing. Its called Call Center Movie. Simple. Not a documentary but a laugh-a-sec lighter side to the whole outsourcing issue. If you haven't watched this, this is a must watch. Ofcourse, goes without saying, don't take it to heart.

'Dil pe mat le na!'

What I really need...

...is 1 password. Just one. 10 years back a password (on the net) was just a simple one. just choose a minimum of six letters and you are done and most of the sites followed similar password nomenclature. then came internet banking. Hacking. 128-bit encryption. Password's are now a nightmare.

On a given day I struggle with:

1. My windows login - A password that changes every 3 months and I can't use a password (which is close to a used password) thats been used in the last 18 months. Needs a capital letter, letters and numbers and a special symbol.

2. My emails - Have 4 a/c where the nomenclature is again different. Some want a capital letter, some want numbers, some want symbols.

3. My WEP Wi-Fi key - Needs 10 numbers

4. My activekey (for company wireless access) password - 4 numbers

4. My banks - Use 3 of mine and also monitor my dad's indian one. Some require 4 numbers and some require alphanumeric with symbol/s.

5. My auth-code for dial-ins - 6 digit number thats given to me with numbers preceding and succeeding that.

6. Newletters/News/Blogs - have their own password nomenclature - sometimes the login's a unique id and sometimes its an email (which one?)

Most of them have different logins and passwords. Some have numbers handed down which cant be changed. I wish I had a magic master-passkey which could give me access to all of these. One improvement is choosing a master passcode for firefox. Helps with all browser logins except banks. Maybe with a single masterkey its easy to access all info if its hacked. So biometrics could be the way to go in the future. Single access to things in life. Sigh!

restless

...and sleepless. don't know why. tossed and turned. couldn't sleep last night. drifted off to sleep at 6:15am only to wake up at 7am with the alarm. mood's a trifle off. has to be.

Good morning

I was encoding this video for my pod and I thought I would put it up here as well. This has been one of my fave songs and videos. A Ryan Adams cover, which sounds and looks beautiful with Andrea Corr and Bono in it, don't miss out their dance at the end. Am jealous. Am sure a few other men are too!

going home

It was quite weird. I had been feeling a lil' homesick over the last couple of weeks and yesterday someone suggested I might as well go home for a week. Most of my current work can be done over the internet or con-calls. Only the time difference would be an issue. So while I was interested, I wasn't sure.

Then I called home last night. Dad sounded very depressed. Mom's been having a lot of trouble with her left ankle. Yesterday it was the right that was swollen and she just couldn't walk. Crippled for the time being. WIthout medications. Why? Canadian healthcare. While healthcare is free for everyone, its a long waiting line. You can't pay and get ahead. So while the tests were over more than 2 weeks ago (to get the appointment for the tests took 2-3 weeks each), the scheduled appointment with the doc was a week away. Amazing. Thankfully, one of the doc's become a family friend and we were able to reach him. Again, the prescribed drugs are very strong with side-effects. But the thing is unless she takes even a little, she wouldn't be able to walk to go the doc's chamber. Same problem happens with the NHS in the UK. It took ages for my aunt in B'ham to get her knee replacement, even though she was in considerable pain.

Am waiting for the tickets. There's a rush to go back to Toronto right now. Since I have to use the staff ticket, it might take a week before I can leave. Will get the tickets by Tuesday hopefully and then I'm ready to go on the next viable flight.

This isn't why I wanted to go home.

With or Without You

One of my fave songs ever. For all my fellow U2 fans. Have a great weekend!

Playlist

Top 5 songs playing on my pod while coming to office today:

1. Maroon 5 - She will be loved
2. Bloc Party - Helicopter
3. Hard-Fi - Cash machine
4. Deepest Blue - Give it away
5. The Veils - Leaver's dance

Rewind

My bro turns back the clock with this. I have this huge grin on my face right now. The things we do in life! Ok. Atleast me!!! We always laugh at them in the future don't we??? Back then, that was the last thing on my mind!

Nomadlife

I'd been quite an active Aiesec-er during my college days and most of those memories are still fresh. It was a different world together. Meeting new people, travelling across India and abroad, meeting trainees, selling internships to companies. Sigh! A few days back in one of the alumni mail trail I discovered Nomadlife. Its run by aiesecers and hosts blogs of aiesecers and other travelers. I was reading a few blogs - indians abroad in their internships or non-indians writing about their experiences in different countries. Got me a lil' nostalgic. Its like going back in time through the words of other people. Been there, done that kinds. People getting excited about elections, about IPM, about Directors, about PAI, about the MC. I still remember my Aiesec interview back in '96. Made a lot of good friends along the way. Some I'm in touch with, some I wish I was in touch with. But its a small world. You never know when you might bump into eachother! So here's to all Aiescers -past and present!

New blog on nomadlife is here.

Customer Service Part 2

I had written this sometime back when I was trying to choose a broadband connection. And Airtel gave me a raw deal (took the initial money, only to tell me later they can't provide it). More on the previous post. So anyways, I didn't have much of an option and went with BSNL. Looked quite good at Rs. 500 for 1gb download. But then my bills started coming to almost Rs. 2-3K per month; steep, considering I do not download movies or music at home. Then I realised that BSNL charges for incoming and outgoing data and I was getting screwed for talking to my folks in Toronto and some of my other friends worldwide. So while skype was free, my service provider was making lots of money on it. So I changed to the Rs. 1000 plan for 2gb download (plus outgoing bytes) and my bill came down to Rs. 1.5k a month. But that means I can't cam and I can't talk too long on skype. That kinda sucked. So I then found out both VSNL and Airtel have 256 kbps unlimited (no cap on download or upload) plans at Rs. 999 and Rs. 1600 respectively. So I logged in a request on 10th March and I got those quick replies - it'll be up in 3 days etc etc. But today, 9 days down the line, I have called them 3 times each and neither has called me back yet. I was wondering if customer service is so poor even before I use their product, how would it be after I start using it.

Kau, Dibyo, Mama and I went to our fave IIMB prof's house for dinner the other day and he was telling us stories about service orientation of companies (including the ones we work in). Most of them (the companies) like to use buzz words like 'Customer Delight' without having the slightest clue about what that really means. Pissing off a customer before delighting him surely doesn't come under that!!!

Commonwealth Games, Melbourne 2006

In case, you were wondering what's the lastest with the games and wanted to follow India's medals tally, click here. India's reached the finals of TT and has hope in hockey.

Dilbert Supply Chain

My fave journey

No its not some exotic place in the farthest corner of earth. Its the journey from home to office and back. Hosur Road. And I'm not being sarcastic. I used to get quite irritated earlier as it used to take me close to 2 hours sometimes to go one-way. But as things usually work out, I have gradually developed an inertia and also as a result of a few permutations (as regards to what is the best time to leave home) I have gotten quite indifferent. On an average it takes me 30-45 mins to traverse from BTM to Electronic City (10.8 km exactly).

I like to look around. Junta on Infy buses (or trucks, whichever you like) which says 'For School Bus also'. People with their earphones tucked in their ears, either listening to their personal music or tuning into Radiocity with Vasanthi or/and reading a book. Some dozing off. Cars going left and right to find 'that' inch of space which would get them to office 'that' 1 second earlier. Its futile. They know it. But what's the harm in trying anyways? Buses that take a 90 degree right turn from the service roads to take another 90 degree left turn. 'Helpers' who have their left hand perenially outside for 'that' potential left which might come in the distant future. You were warned - I'm going to take a left you see - even if I might take the next right - aage hoga na koi ek left turn!!! The 'cement-mixer' vehicle which I see everyday just in front of me. Always. The traffic-guy with the huge moustache. He could have an alternative career as the doorman at the hotels for sure. Just needs a turban.

Saw the promise of an 'elevated expressway' in action today, just when you turn right into Hosur Road from Silk Board. Great idea to clog traffic at peak hours. As I was telling a colleague 'I would love to see how these projects work out when I get back to Bangalore in 10 years, but can't stay here and watch them work out'.

Blogger Sweatshirts and more

I don't know how many of you might have visited the online Google store. I dropped in just now and was quite amazed at the stuff they have. They have beanbags. Yes. Bean Bags!!! And Blogger sweats! Some nice stuff, but don't think am gonna ship them here, paying an equal price for shipping costs. If i'm in UK, then maybe. :)

League Standings as of 16th Mar 2006

Go here for the updated football (soccer) league standings from across the globe (most popular ones).

Happy Holi

Happy Holi/Dol - chhoti and badi! No chhutti here unfortunately, today or tomorrow. Have fun people!

Business Cartoons

I saw one of Randy Glasbergen's cartoons pinned at my friend's desk. Was quite funny. Go to his website and check out the business cartoons. He has tonnes of them.

The best F1 season ever?

Can't say for sure but it has a lot of promise. This season could decide the future of Schumi. Will he ride the storm and win yet another championship or will Alonso reign supreme again? The first race was quite awesome and while Schumi came in second, look at the top 3. Alonso, Schumi, Raikonnen! Thats the roster you wanna see on the podium every race. A few races can throw a few surprises. Rosberg and Button can push for a podium. Am ok with that. But it looks like the cars are finally quite similar in nature (McLaren still looks a lil' dodgy). So its going to be the driving skills and the tactics (pit stops, fuel) which are going to be the deciding factors. What I like most is the change in the rules for qualifying. I think this is the best format that they could have come out with. Makes for good viewing and is quite a cat-and-mouse game at the tracks too.

Sepang is going to be quite interesting!!!

The 7 Tag

Got tagged by Progga. So here we go:

Seven things to do before I die...

• Open my own restaurant
• Go traveling in South America and Africa
• Learn to play an instrument
• Watch ManUtd play in Old Trafford
• Watch India defeat Australia in a World Cup final at Lords/Eden Gardens/MCG
• Learn to speak Spanish fluently (basic is not enough I figured)
• See U2 in concert
  

Seven things I can't do:

• Ride a bike
• Read one book at a time (this is a recent phenomenon which I want to remedy)
• Suck up or kiss ass
• Say no to chocolates
• Say no to vodka + red bull
• Sing
• Grow my hair back
  

Seven things that attract me to Europe

• Cobblestones
• Friends
• Traveling
• Belgian beer and chocolates
• London (something about that city) – am one of the few who loves the horrid weather
• Old memories
• Motorways
  

Seven excellent books:

• Losing my virginity – Richard Branson
• Its not about the bike – Lance Armstrong
• Fever Pitch – Nick Hornby
• The Fountainhead – Ayn Rand
• The Inscrutable Americans – Anurag Mathur
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
• The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
  

Seven good movies:

• Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
• Crash
• City of God
• Amores Perros
• Reservoir Dogs
• The Usual Suspects
• American History X
  

People to tag:

Dhoomk2
The Other Side
Psychkick
Belfentines
Ravikiran
The Saint

Traveblogs

P, K, D and I set this new blog up. We don't know how this one will shape up. Drop in and suggest if you have something in mind. Please let us know if you would like to join in and contribute.

The greatest game ever?

Phew!!! What a game!!! Lemme catch my breath...till then click here. I'll be back with more.

The record was broken the same day!!!


Update:
Ok, am back. Those who missed the match yesterday missed the greatest cricket match ever! No one ever thought that the 434 runs would be chased down by South Africa. It started promisingly for SAF after Ponting had helped the Aussies to 434 with some lusty blows. Gibbs and Smith decided that they would give it back to the Aussies and it was well on course till Gibbs went for a shot too many and gifted his wicket. There was a hiccup or two but nothing our man Van der Wath couldn't handle. Boucher was still feeling his way around and Ponting took the decision to bring back Lewis. Why? He was the most expensive bowler and Clarke was doing reasonably well given the conditions. Van der Wath tore into him and the match swung back for SAF.

I have my dream set of bowlers who turn the match for the opposition. Naved ul Hasan was the first. Lewis also entered as his partner with 113 runs given for his 10 overs.

Anyways, back to the match and SAF were keen to give their supporters a heart attack or you doing their share of harakiri. Reminded me of the matches in the world cup where they gifted the matches to the Aussies after having got a foot in the door. Fortunately history didn't repeat and SAF did win! Phew!

I wonder if totals of 400 plus would be seen more often. Jayasuriya changed one-day matches with his batting and respectable totals of 220-230 are no longer that. Respectable. And 300 plus totals have been chased down with a regularity not seen before. Test matches have also seen run rates of 5 an over in a day. With 20-20 happening around the world, I wonder how that would affect one-day and test match cricket. Time will tell I guess.

Cutie-pie Portman turns Gansta Rapper

It was all in good jest as part of SNL (Saturday Night Live). Portman is awesome in this rap song, she even says 'I'm gonna kill your dog!' :)



Note: NBC has forced YouTube to take off this video due to copyright infringement. So if this doesn't play just go there and search. You'll find a new one. :) Power to the internet!

Rewind

When I was a kid, in junior school, both my parents used to work. At the Kolkata Airport. If I remember correctly, my dad's times were erratic (still is, in Toronto). But Ma used to get in by 6-7 pm. By then I was up from my nap (I used to get home around 3pm) and was at the stairs waiting for her. The first thing I always asked was 'Ki anto?' Translated to 'Ki enechho' or 'What did you bring?' And she always had something for me. She knew I loved books - actually I loved the bookshop in the airport. And my regulars were Amar Chitra Katha and the Hardy Boys. They were the beginning. Have moved on since then. I remember the first Hardy Boys I got - The Pentagon Spy! :) Quite impressed I remember the title. I long to have a house of my own where I can finally stack all my books nicely. Some are in Bangalore, most in Ahmedabad lying packed in boxes, some in Toronto I had given Ma to read. Am also getting scared of my dvds - running out of space to keep all of them. Hmmm.

Playlist

1. Freemasons ft. Amanda Wilson - Watchin'
2. The Upper Room - All over this room
3. Graham Coxon - Standing on my own again
4. Jack Johnson - Better when we're together
5. We Are Scientists - It's a hit

Bonus: Video of Jack Johnson's 'Sitting, Wishing, Waiting' - I love this guy's voice.

Here we go again...

Mourinho just can't stop crying. I had posted this a couple of weeks back. But he insists on eating sour grapes. I can't help it can I? Chelsea was outplayed last night and while Jose can crib about not finishing the Stamford Bridge game with 11 players, what was his excuse last night? Wine not too good? Or maybe the weather? How about you don't have a Ronaldinho in your team eh? And inspite of the 85 million minimum tag for his sale, Barca wouldn't be interested. Ask Ronnie himself! Bugger off Jose.

Cross-posted at Welcometotheballgame

Update

Check the video of the goal. Ronaldinho's pure class! I love Spanish commentators!!
Goooooaaaaaaaaaal!!!

Dilbert

Same works for training too. Especially if its long and winding like the one I was in today.

A few reads...

A friend asked me to read a few posts and over the day I did. The first is by Baudolino and it talks about everyday 'Everyday English' or so we think! The other was in The Morning News - about first liking the whole idea of how-it-would-be-to-live-in-NYC and then to actually live in NYC. Shwetha should identify with this. :)

My best lunch for quite sometime

No it wasn't at a plush restaurant or at the quick kebab place. It was at this Govt. Primary School in a nearby village, close to our office.

In 1992, ELCIA (Electronics City Industries' Association) was formed and lately as a part of Corporate Social Responsibility a few companies (9 in total as of now) viz. HP, Infosys, Velankani, Timken etc., have pledged approximately Rs. 3 lakhs each towards meals, stationaries, infrastructure etc. I was told that the approximate cost per child per year comes to Rs. 1000 odd. Electronics City has 11 schools amongst the 8 villages closeby. The schools provide the children free lunch, under the Mid-Day meal scheme, sponsored by the ELCIA trust. A colleague and I went today during lunch to serve food and give out oranges to the kids. And later we joined them for lunch - plain rice and sambhar. It was quite a humbling experience. We keep forgetting that what is not too much for us is quite substantial for some people. You should have seen their smiles widen when they saw oranges. And most said a polite 'Thank you' on getting one. My dad has always taught me and my brother that we should always value what we have because somewhere else someone doesn't even have the basic needs like food. While its always at the back of the mind, we forget that sometimes and we need to get reminded about the same from time to time. Kau had posted this sometime back. I'm not talking about a career here but I think if we all want to, we can contribute in our own little ways. Didn't the saying go 'Every drop maketh the ocean'? SO back to the title. Best lunch for quite sometimes. Yes.

CRASH-ing the party!

Crash won the best motion picture!!!

Well almost everyone thought Brokeback Mountain was going to sweep the Oscars. But I had been rooting for Crash since I saw this and wrote this. Crash tied Brokeback and Memoirs of a Geisha for 3 Oscars each. But what was nice was that both Brokeback and Crash won Oscars for screen play, adapted and original respectively. I always believe that the screen play is the basic foundation of a great movie. Its all in the words. And my close friend and budding author vouches for the same. Actors are mere mortals who make the words immortal. For the complete list of Oscar winners, click here to go the official Oscar website or go to the imdb site here, where you would get links for each movie and actors. And as I said before, if you haven't watched it yet, now would be definitely a good time to do that.

I did pick up a few dvds yesterday and March of the Penguins (winner of best documentary) and Goodnight and Good Luck are among them. Will write about them after I finish watching the same. And yes, after years of hunting I finally managed to buy 'Stand by Me'.

:)

Save the last dance

This was my London trip song (thanks to my aunt) - you always have one for every trip. I tried hunting for the mp3 online but lucked out. So this video. A lil' cheesy, but its the best I could do. I like what Buble's done to this oldie. Smooth.

Tip: If you are in the mood, get the song on a cd, turn up the volume and you would be dancing. Trust me.

The chicken or the egg?

Actually its neither. It was Knorr's Chicken Sweet Corn Soup!!! Thats what it has come to. Friday evening and the cook asked us what he should make. Chinese! Then as a second thought - veg chinese??? Nah. He convinced us about the paneer and veg hot and sweet. But what's chinese without the meat? So out came the soup and we had our taste of chicken in some weeks now. Life has come to this! I think I'm getting converted to a veggie thanks to this bird-flu. C'est la vie! Mummmy!!!

Songs from the past

This one I have been listening to over the years. Since school actually. Tale of scorned love. But theres a bit more to it in the song. I think you need to be a king of wishful thinking nowadays. Things don't always turn out the way you have been wishing for. But keep your chins up and look for the silver lining. Its out there. Pukka!



This one's just an all time fave. My uncle introduced me to Chicago and this was the first song of theirs I heard and you can't go wrong with this one.

Alba and Playboy

This one's different. No she did not pose in the nude. But she was on the cover. So she felt hurt that men around the world were 'tricked' into buying Playboy expecting to see her as the centrefold. Alas! So she's so hurt, she's suing Playboy for damages to her reputation and career.

The last bit in the article is intersting. Donald Trump was on Playboy's cover too. Did men around the world buy that issue expecting to see him as a centrefold??? Hmmm...I wonder!!!

But the bigger question is, can a magazine use a picture of a star without his/her consent? Am not talking about paparazzi pics. Wouldn't all the tabloids and magazines around the world cease to exist then! Most of the print media pay for the rights of the photos to the respective photographers who in turn have a right to use them (provided that the person who was shot had consented for the same). Thats my understanding atleast. I could be wrong though.

Calvin

Couldn't help but post! Hehehe.

BBC offers free Open Earth footage

This is a pretty good website, which has tons of footage. Only problem is that its free for UK residents only right now. Bummer. But junta in UK, please check this out.

Video of the day - Original of the Species (U2)

I like the album a lot and this a video which is un-U2 like, with special effects (animation). But its nice. If you want to know more about the video, click here. If you want to see Bono without his dark glasses for once, this video is it!

Pimp my ride

Check out these videos of Pimp my Ride - a special on Madonna. In her video 'Sorry' a 6 year old white Volkswagen is converted to a club-on-wheels, complete with the bling look. Nice.


Part 1 Run time - 07:54


Part 2 Run time - 09:08

A handful of movies

While I write the proposals, get into calls and try and shape my future I have been catching up on a few movies in the last couple of weeks viz. The Constant Gardener, Goal, Iqbal.

I had started reading the Le Carre novel (Gardener) a while back but somehow it started gathering dust and I never got back to it. So when the movie came out, it had to be seen. The immediate comparison as far as the setting goes would be to Hotel Rwanda. But these are two totally different movies and brilliant in their own ways. Ralph Fiennes is his assured and brilliant self while Rachel Weisz role is her best till date. The chemistry between them is very good and the movie keeps going forward and back smoothly as good scotch. Its been nominated for 4 Oscars thsi year. This should definitely qualify for your weekend viewing.

There's not too many football (not American football) movies made. Maybe thats because its not that hot in USA where the money comes from NBA and MLB. So we get the usual dose of basketball or american football movies and quite a few of them have been quite good. Remember the Titans, Friday Night Lights, Coach Carter, Rebound etc. So when this football movie (which is the first of a trilogy) was out, I had to definitely watch it (add to the fact that I follow football a lot). Well, all I can say after watching it is that its neither good or bad. Its a DVD movie that you don't mind watching at home. There are some nice skills and tricks but the whole movie is full of cliches. Why would someone fly from the USA to get a trial at Newcastle? Wouldn't he better trying for MLS? You get to see fleeting glimpses of Beckham, Raul, Zidane in addition to the Newcastle squad (of last year) and dear old Sven (English manager). The movie hints at Santiago (the main lead) joining Real Madrid in the next part. Save this one for a rainy day.

The one I liked most was Iqbal. I had been wanting to see this for quite sometime and but was too lazy to watch in the theatre. So finally bought the DVD and watched it. The first of this movie is brilliant with Shreyas Talpade (as Iqbal ) and his sister (Shwetha Prasad) warming your heart with their acting. The story is quite simple. Iqbal is a deaf-mute boy who lives and breathes cricket and has even named his buffaloes Kumble, Harbhajan, Kapil, Balaji and Irfan. But then the cliches start. After he is thrown out of the academy (headed by Girish Karnad) he looks to Naseer (an erstwhile player and village drunk) to hone his bowling skills. Then he gets into the Ranji squad without playing a game and then wins the Ranji trophy. Throw the bribes and ego-tussles with coaches and you have cliches unlimited. But inspite of that Shreyas and Shwetha are like diamonds in the rough and their smiles are infectious. So catch this one if you haven't seen it yet.

On the sitcom side, I have been watching the 3rd season of 24 and after having watched the first four discs, I'm really disappointed. Its nowhere gripping as seasons 1, 2 and 4. Some of the characters are too painful and its drags a lot. I can't seem to download the new episodes of Season 5. Sigh!

Results of 'What Would Jobs Do (WWJD)?'

Click here to check what people visualised as the next apple products - as a part of an Engadget competition. Its complete with pics. Neat.

I thought this was funny!