The more I run from it, the more I’m tempted. Yeah, I’m referring to the TCS IPO. When the whole corporate crowd and the media is around that, why would I be looking around without nothing. But stocks are certainly not my area of my interest/passion. A colleague, through email, keeps sending a running commentary of the TCS stock prices every half hour. I could do nothing but delete it, after reading. Tempted.

In the evening, as I neared my bike in the parking lot, the clouds gathered together to rain. Its Chennai dudes, it wouldn’t rain. Wait, thats not the point. The point is, my splendor’s handlebar had a dozen papers inserted onto it. TCS IPO Applications. So now, in the night, after spending a couple of sweet hours reading through the tiny letters in the apps from end to end, I’m still puzzled whether to buy or not to buy. Please don’t help me. I don’t want to be tempted in.

Follwing the note on Kribs blog, I am also experimenting with Google Ads. Check out Google’s Adsense for more idea on these content based ads that they deliver dynamically to the web pages. Give it a shot if you have a domained blog/website.

I’ve adjusted the color of the ad content so that it isn’t obtrusive to the readers. Pass on any suggestions if you have.

Manushya Puthiran‘s Uyirmmai publishers are celebrating their first anniversary hence they are putting up a function in the Book Point Hall, Opp to Spencer Plaza on Saturday(31st July 2004).

Uyirmmai publishers were a hit during the Chennai Book Fair 2004 and also during 2003 because of re-releasing Writer Sujatha‘s books like Eppozhuthum Penn, Nila Nizhal, Srirangathu Kathaigal and Thiraikkathai Ezhuthuvathu Eppadi. Apart from Sujatha’s book they have also re-released books of other writers, my favourite being Enn Peyar Ramaseshan by Athavan.

This function will be star studded. For a change, not the kollywood stars. The stars from the world of books. The lists includes the Writer’s Writer Ashokamithran, Sujatha, Vanna Nilavan, Indra Parthasarathy, Jayamohan and others. The invite at thinnai says that Sujatha will click-open Uyirmmai.com and Indra Parthasarathy will release the 12th issue of Uyirmmai.

I am planning to check-in and get Up-Close & Personal with my idols like Sujatha and Ashokamithran. Anyone interested, do let me know and we can join together. Thanks to chenthil for the pointer.

A group of people will be tapping their keyboards, while the democrats hold their convention in Boston. This group of people represent a movement that is slowly, steadily picking up as an alternative source of news. They are bloggers.

Now that the world of blogging has accepted blogging as a new protocol of information on the net, a handful of bloggers are being acknowledged and given credentials for blogging the Democratic Convention in Boston.

These accredited bloggers with blog along with other 15,000 journalists from the conventional news sources, who will report news on the convention.

Meet the Bloggers who are making news with blogging. Also, here is the full list of bloggers who will be blogging the convention. This would be an important milestone for bloggers. We can be sure that such other conventions also will appreciate the blogging network. Way to go, bloggies !!

It’s awesome to get little surprises when you least expect them…listening to an NPR interview with Matt Damon, and watching Catch-22 with the Director’s commentary qualify as two of that kind.

A large part of Matt Damon’s interview focussed on the little things behind the Good Will Hunting screenplay (and how he got one of his few ‘A’s at Harvard writing a play which led to GWH…). Piece of trivia - the one scene which stayed in the film (when it was adapted from the play) was the one in which Hunting describes the impressionist, color-by-numbers painting in his psychologist’s office.

Catch-22′s director commentary features Steven Soderbergh. What’s funny is that he has nothing to do with the film, but makes up for the technical stupidity of the director, Mike Nichols. Classic moment – Mike forgets the technical name for the introductory shot in the film, one worth watching… (and Steven Sob reminds him – a “time-lapse” shot).

Steven’s days are being counted too – Ocean’s 11, 12…13 (now that Bruce Willis has signed up)… and still counting!

When I took a flying catch of the Ananda Vikatan which the paperwala threw to my balcony, today morning, I flipped through the pages fast to see what Vikatan had to say about S J Surya‘s New. (Un)Fortunately, Vikatan did sport a review of New this week and I am upset about the biased outlook of the popular Tamil media, especially Vikatan. Keeping this discussion to the fag end of this review, New is a movie filled with gross vulgarity and intense close-up cleavage shots. Last week, on Saturday, when I watched New in the Udhayam theatre, I felt it had nothing new in it except that it’s a pretentious flick in form of a breakthrough science fiction film.

Over two years in production, this movie started with Ajith and Jyothika as the lead pair. Due to untold reasons both of them moved out of the movie, so S J Surya decided to star himself along with Simran. There is a rumor that Surya told the story to A R Rahman in a Chennai-Mumbai flight. The excited Rahman then agreed to tune for the movie.

All that details aside, New is inspired(?) from the Tom Hanks and the beautiful Elizabeth Perkins starrer Big where a 5th grade kid wishes to a festival wishing machine and the next day morning the kid becomes Big as Tom Hanks. With a mind of a kid, Tom Hanks goes through the adolescence and also manages to get a girl friend in this process and finally he becomes a kid again. This story added with some garam masala, customizing for tamil/telugu audience(!) has become as NEW. Having enjoyed S J Surya’s direction in Vaali and Kushi, though both have some shades of other movies, I was completely disappointed in the route S J Surya has taken to ensure that the film is a success.

The only solace is some intelligent screenplay tricks that he has managed to do and the MTV type music videos with the help of A R Rahman. Full scores for Surya for the picturisation of the songs. Great job. And A R Rahman with rocking tunes like New, Sakkarai and the Amma song. SPB‘s comes back in the Sakkarai Inikkira Sakkarai song. The experimental spiderman song also gets full points.

S J Surya, stars as a man with a kid’s mind. New to the front-of-camera, he wades through the character and passes it. But one always gets a feeling that he could have done this rather comical character better that what it is. His intonations at times don’t go with his body language. Simran does her role convincingly well.

The movie is clouded with explicit dialogues and unnatural bedroom situations, which gives the viewers some time to enjoy. But every time when people clap for such scenes, I have no idea, where the Tamil cinema is heading for. I am definitely not against sexually explicit scenes in Tamil movies. We can be as explicit as possible but vulgarity or unnecessary comical scenes that make one get a sick feeling about the humor sense of people can be avoidable. You can either make a healthy comedy out of sex or make it seem crazy. This one belongs to the later category. Especially when the kid gets a devilish idea and leans on Simran in the auto, the scene where Surya explains what happens in the bed with Simran, Balaji making explicit visual descriptions while saying Kiran to Simran and when Surya talks about Simran to Karunas are some of the avoidable scenes. These are just scenes. A huge array of dialogues have also found their way through the censors.

The movie is already a hit and there is no way the media can oppose it. Because when people bend their heads towards the movie, the media too has to go by it. Ananda Vikatan, which out rightly rejected to review Shankar’s Boys and just said ‘Chee…’ as the review for Boys, has given 34 marks to New. Now isn’t that being unbiased. Vikatan also drops a line that because this movie is just about a husband/wife relationship and not exploting the curiosity of adolescence, the movie is ok to be reviewed. I hate to call this as a husband/wife bedroom story. This one talks about a eight year kid, getting transformed into a 28 year old guy’s body and getting a baby. Also the review compares Surya’s acting skills with that of Jim Carrey. Huh !. The TV media says New is a new experiment and people have accepted it. So much for the experiment, guys. Poor Shankar who got flamed in Boys for showing the reality.

Calling all the dads/moms who walked out of cinema halls of Shankar’s Boys, for a viewing of this New. Watch it, Enjoy it. Sure, it doesn’t show any of the real things what your teenage boy/girl does. It doesn’t show how they date girls in mahabalipuram, it hides the fact that they read porno books, it also doesn’t call love as the function of a teenage mind. It doesn’t show any of those realistic expressions. It’s fiction. So enjoy dudes!.

One song that has revolutionised the Malayalam film music scene is also here. Lajjavadhiye is currently topping the charts in Tamil Nadu. Composed and sung by Jazzy Gift(I think I got his name right), this song was composed for the mallu movie 4 The People. It’s been dubbed into tamil as 4 Students.

Our Boys fame Bharath[Bob Galy] and the latest drool-over of kollywood Gopika dance for the song. For the kind of a melodious ghana it sounds to be, it could have been picturized better. With very quick cuts and the dancing steady cam, the songs look very amateurish. But for the voice of the singer, this song wouldn’t have even be noticed.

I also liked the other song in the same movie Adi Annakili Nee Vaadi Enn Kadhal Seet Edukka. This one also is a sound-alike and look-alike of Lajjavadhiye.

Here is the Lajjavadhiye ringtone that currently plays on my Nokia. You can rest assured that your buddies who either love this tone or hate it for life. Thanks to the unknown person who sent it to me.

Lajjavadhiye – For Nokia – Tempo:80 BPM

Keypress : 288* 088 49 48 5 69 09 68 6 5 6 5 4 29 19 0 288 08 49 48 5 69 09 68 6 5 6 5 4 29 19 0 68 68 6 29* 68** 6 6 6 29* 68** 69# 68 5 6 49 5

What started as a close shot of the bronze-god Achilles ended up in a detailed write-up of in medias res.

Mdeii Anand who’s interesting review of Troy started a comment mela which led to his explanation of a storytelling method called ‘in medias res’. From his words, in medias res often refers to the narration of a story that starts off in the middle of an action wherein standard things such as character introduction, setting introduction are dispensed with. The characters/ setting are apparent from the actions or if they need to be explicitly stated are done so through the course of the narrative.

If you interested how Homer’s Iliad and Kalki’s Ponniyin Selvan were connected finally through the same blog post, read in medias res. Very neat and informative, especially for movie buffs.

I have created a new blog, seperate for guest blogging. Here is where you can find it Lazy Geek Guest Blog.

I’ve asked a few of my friends who share the same interests alongwith me to contribute to the guest blog. And I wish they keep the guest blog content fresh and exciting. The guest blog like this personal blog will celebrate literary interests, movies, music and other finer aspects of life. The guest blog will be unedited by me and I disclaim of any bouquets / brickbats that it recieves.

The old posts by Anand and others are archived to the guest blog. Over to LGGB.

Guest Blog #24 – Anand C

[reproduced with permission]

Could not find anything that expressed the mix of emotions on the Kumbakonam incident better than Caught in the Bud on Balaji’s photo-blog …

What was Ganguly of trying to achieve by allowing the kid (Partheev Patel) bat first while he was having a tiger like Shewaq sitting there praying for his turn to come? This decision didn’t pay off at all.

Ganguly’s wicket was such an easy one and he did nothing but to pose so badly that the ball found the way to the bat and back to the short mid-on fielder’s hands.

Dravid is a darling. Truly. Though we refer to him as the Wall Of India, he proves time and again that he is capable despite his slow start. But, why does he look so sober look in the Hutch Ad. It looks to me as though he is forced to do that Ad. Becoming the MTV youth icon of the year, this year will be a hallmark for him. I am soon looking forward to Captain Dravid.

We know Vaas is one hell of a pacer. Now Sri Lanka has managed to manufacture one more. Zoysa, with the number on his shirt as 00, did a great job in keeping Indians from runs. And Sangakarra, the wicket-keeper of Sri Lanka, is classy. Great Find.

But for the bad breeze that blew Balaji and his T-Shirt, we would have managed to win by scoring a few more in the early overs.

Tendulkar may be 31 by age, but he still rules the cricket kingdom. And those who demand or even think that he should retire watch the straight drive boundary of yesterday’s match are take a pilgrimage to Badrinath immediately. This guy has been in form for most of his career.

And finally, I found the reason why India might even loose the Asia Cup. The man of the series gets a car. A Car. Yes, Maruthi Esteem. Huh! When these players think of paying taxes for Ferrari cars where the tax itself could cost more than 15-20 esteem, who would aspire for a Man of Series title. Doesn’t that explain that bad stroke of Ganguly yesterday? It does to me.

LBG: Just Arrived. Unable to find record companies ready to promote an all-English rock album, the band members pooled in Rs. 20,000, recorded their album and put the copies out for sale during a concert last week. They sold 50 albums at Rs.75 within an hour.

If you are regular to the IIT Saarang, friday evenings @ Unwind Center or other places of rock in Chennai, you know what they are talking about and you can(!) stop here. Others read ahead about how Chennai Rocks in Rock.

Check out The LBG.

There can be no adjective to qualify the fire accident that happened yesterday. The Mahaamaham temple town Kumbakonam‘s worst fire accident took away close to 90 lives. All of small kids. If you were watch the tamil television yesterday and the whole of today this kumbakonam disaster has occupied the space.

Being associated to kumbakonam through my relatives, I personally feel the pinch. But it isn’t necessary to be associated to mourn for such an incident.

Except for The Hindu daily, nobody from the media have even warned of the graphic scenes that were displayed from this accident. The Hindu did put up a box news that photographs displayed could cause distress to the readers but the enormity of the accident makes such visual news presentation unavoidable. Three Cheers guys, for their professionalism.

Although, we need to pat the media for the importance that they have given for this news. Jennifer Arul on NDTV was on tears when she reported and walked through the debris in th accident spot. Even the news reader who was watching the video was on the edge of tears. Not to ask the people in the house, who were all upset and in tears witnessing the horrible happening in the television.

People’s prayers from all over the world for this incident will be the only solace for the parents of the kids who died. Nothing else can match the prayers.

Guest Blog #23 – Anand C

[No Spoilers Ahead]

Fahrenheit 9/11 and Control Room (made by Jehane Noujaim) were both released within a month of one another. One starts from several parts of the world (Michigan, Texas, Iraq) and concentrates arguments from these multiple sources to mount a coherent forced attack on the Bush administration. The other starts from a dusty broadcast room (of the Qatar based Arab news agency Al-Jazeera) and paints its view of the outside world through that media lens. One spews hatred and has no pretense of an “independent” film, the other is a sincere portrayal of a very controversial topic, and deserves praise for sticking to its “independent” stand even though there is ample temptation to succumb and ride the controversy wave!

Both leave their mark, but not as staid, sober documentaries.

In an already polarized country, F 9/11 provoked like none other (maybe JFK brought forth this kind of intense reaction…). Democratic groups like MoveOn.org are organizing Fahrenheit parties to get people to carry their anger all the way to the ballot boxes! In fact, it’s probably fair to say Michael Moore is an activist who uses film as his propaganda tool, than a director who portrayed a sensitive (and controversial) issue (judging from his themes in Roger and Me, and Bowling for Columbine).

When Quentin Tarantino handed Michael Moore the first ever Cannes Pale d’Or for a ‘documentary’, he made it evident that the accolade was for the film, not its political statements. Did he see the coming of a new genre before the public did?

Wonder if we are seeing the arrival of the “opinion-entary”?

PS: Stupid comment of the month: Ray Bradbury’s (awesome writer and author of Fahrenheit 451), whining that Michael Moore did not ask him for permission to use the title!

[Pic : Vijay TV]

Chinni Jayanth and Santhanam are back to rock the Sagalai Vs Ragalai show in Vijay TV. That guy Ragalai (Santhanam) is extremely funny and has superb timing for his comedy. This show was stopped long time back. Now, they are trying to give it a 2nd life.

The most talked about political talk show Makkal Yaar Pakkam was stopped abruptly in the same Vijay TV. No clue why they stopped it. Probably not much is going on socially and politically here except the Kutti Saamiyaar and Budget.

The kid is called Kutti Saamiyaar & Bala Sanyasi by tamil and english dailies respectively. Let the name be whatever but I think it’s should be a case of Child Labour.

Talking about budget, last week in a very ‘famous’ tamil daily, Rabri Devi calling Laloo’s railway budget as the best railway budget ever, was a big box news. Was that a mock or serious news reporting ?. If it wasn’t a mock, I pray to nanganallur anjaneyar that the reporter gets tranfered to rajasthan to report on camel feeding techniques.

Today’s FM played Kaadu Potta Kaadu from Karuthamma. While listing Vairamuthu‘s songs, this was also one hell of a song that should be included. It talks about the pains of a villager and his lifestlye. Bharathiraja‘s rocky voice really sounded well. I know that Vairamuthu got a president award for Poraaley Ponnuthayi from the same movie. This one also deserved one.

“Fantasy films are not for me. I can’t do films that I can’t relate to. Middleclass is my milieu. That’s why it’s a recurrent feature in my films. And when your subject is middleclass, it can’t be removed from reality. So the earthy feel comes naturally.”

Nagesh Kukoonor, the guy who brough in a paradigm shift for independent movies talks to hindu on his second serving of Hyderabad Blues. Having been inspired by Hyd Blues during my college days, I am waiting to get some time to watch Hyd Blues2. More here, Blues Boy.