I recently bought a Nikon D80 from BH Photo Video and had to immediately exchange it due to a bunch of hot pixels on the CCD. Their customer service is arguably one of the best I've encountered on the web.

I had to call them twice for various clarifications and the telephonic conversations were a breeze. They promptly answered questions and did whatever possible to make me happy.

If you are buying camera/video equipment, here's a company that will relentlessly help you until you are satisfied. Three Cheers !!

The whole world knows that you have bought a grey-market Apple iPhone which costs upto $500 USD in India. You don't have to wave it while making the judgement call(which is usually lousy), every week, on the Jodi No.1 show.

The whole world loves the movie. I don't. I thought that it didn't even come close the Transformers script. Adding to it the Rajinikanth-ish scenes when Ironman saves the villager from getting shot by terrorists.

I get it now. It was probably the theatre and sound effects. And I want to watch it again to like it. I will try, honestly.

Venkat sent me an email about a site, lendbee.com, that allows you to share books and DVDs, for free. This idea seems to have caught on at Chennai with employees of different companies forming groups at a company level and exchanging books/DVDs.

While it isn't a revolutionary idea, someone has to do the work of designing and hosting a site for this purpose. Whoever designed it did a good job of user interfaces. I'm sure its pretty useful for intra-company or intra-city interactions. These social services turn out to be fun and useful as more people jump in. Jump in.

This is possibly the only full length video interview with Writer Sujatha Rangarajan that's available in the public domain. A friend of mine(also a frequent commenter in this blog) sent this video file two years ago, immediately after this interview was broadcasted on Vijay TV. Though watched this interview on Vijay TV, I loved to hold onto this. I watched it numerous times and I can now literally talk the entire text of the interview without watching it. I also ripped the video to make it into a mp3 version to accompany me in the car.

The reason to brag about this is due to the fact that I lost this video file sometime last year. I later found that I uploaded a copy of this video on Google and forgot about it totally. This video was also played during the condolence meeting that was arranged by Uyirrmai team.

It's clichéd to say I couldn't believe that Sujatha is no more with us but honestly for last two months I haven't read much(actually any) of Sujatha's writings. Whenever I try to pick up his book, its tough to forget my little interactions with him and the sheer magical spell he had on me/millions of us through his writings.

I booked sujathalogy.com, a site about Sujatha and his writings sometime last year and also informed Sujatha about it. But I was too late on taking this site live, before which he passed away. The plan now is to slowly add content to this site and make it as a full-fledged fan site of Writer Sujatha.

A prolific writer that he was is making my my job tougher to list every single book/movie with a short synopsis. I would certainly need help from his fans and friends. Desikan has already accepted to help me with this. By next year, this site will have enough content. As of now, it only has a tribute page. Many thanks to Keerthi for designing the start page. More to come. Stay Tuned.

And before I forget, Happy Birthday Sujatha. You're still alive in our memories and in your writings. We miss you.

Just like Santhosh Subramaniam, I haven't seen the original Telugu version. But I couldn't believe that Selvaraghavan can get so damn boring with his screenplays.

The first half of YNM literally begs for a good screenplay writer. It just drags and drags and starts to sleep midway. The second half of this family-romance is where they teach audience the proven effective ways of kaalai kadan.

The trio, Dhanush, Karthik Kumar and Nayan are boring thanks to their bad characterization and pathetic dialogues. Udit Narayan's rendering of Yengeyo Paartha Nyabhagam and Nenjai Kasakki is sprinkled with bad Tamil pronunciation, though the songs are very tuneful.

The only good thing about the movie is that is starts very naturally and ends in a similar fashion. Everything in-between is a huge heap of mess. Tamil Cinema still awaits a realistic portrayal of a software engineer's life.

For all the help with Dasavathaaram soundtrack. Romba thanks.

I didn't have any hope for the film knowing that it was a re-make from the remake king Raja. But it turned out to be the exact opposite. It was fun, pure fun and clean entertainment for a genre that's out of fashion in Tamil cinema. Priya's Kannamochi Yennada couldn't bring back that classic romance-family combo. Yaaradi Nee Mohini attempted to do that and failed badly. Not only Santhosh Subramaniam kept me awake for the entire span of the movie but it also brought back memories of yesteryear films that were mere theater plays made for the big screen.

In what seems like an acting competition between Prakash Raj, Geetha and Boys fame Genelia D'Souza, Genelia wins hands-down. She will probably walk away with the heroine of the year award, if Asin wouldn't match her performance with Dasavathaaram. Genelia seems very natural and the major part of her success in this movie should go to Savitha, the dubbing artist. Genelia is becoming a talent to watch-out for. Watch out.

Prakash Raj wasn't spontaneous in Mozhi and even in Vellithirai. He probably takes too much of importance in films he produces and I didn't like his performance in those movies. But in SS, he rocks. Thanks to his controlled act as a strict father, I am starting to like his performance, again.

Geetha, one of my all time favorites in Tamil cinema and a much under-rated actress makes an impact with her stereotyped Kamala Kamesh role as the Kollywood mom. Everyone including Balachander[Azhagan] to Mani Ratnam[Thalapathi] under utilized this great performer and its one of the many shames of Kollywood.

Jeyam Ravi delivers a better performance than what one expects from him. And that's good for his career. Santhanam cracks a dozen wordplay jokes on others. Another talent to watch out for. I've saying this from the days of Sagalai Vs Ragalai. And what was Sadagopan Ramesh doing there as the brother. Dude, aren't you supposed to play cricket ?

The editing by Mohan(father of director Raja) is just perfect. He has to be thanked for the crisp climax, just like Chennai 600 028. T Kannan's camera and combined with Mohan's editing makes the film an easy watch. Two neat tunes by Devi Sri Prasad.

I haven't watched the original Telugu movie, Bommarillu and so I am not sure if this is a scene-by-scene remake. But I'm sure Raja has sense of the big screen. He brings back Kollywood's classic formula of bubbly romance mixed with family drama in a perfect fashion. This is a perfect rich-family-boy falling in love with single-parent-middle-class-talkative-girl story. For the fun filled first half, thanks to Genelia and Director Raja. Paisa Vasool !!

In a recent interview to Ananda Vikatan, Gautam Menon talks about Vaaranam Aayiram in length. Vaaranam Aaayiram is rumored to have the storyline of Forrest Gump. This is Oscar Ravichandran's second big movie of the year after Kamal's Dasavatharam. The movie's website is almost ready to go.

Gautam's calls Vaaranm Aayiram as a man's saga and he is appreciative of Surya's effort in the film. The interview doesn't end there. When the interviewer asks if he is Surya's director, Gautam blasts kollywood heroes for dicatating terms to directors. He accepts that Sarathkumar in Pachaikilli Muthucharam was a bad choice.

This is what he has to say about Vijay -

இன்னும் சில ஹீரோக்கள் பொழுதுபோகலைன்னா கதை கேட்கக் கூப்பிடுறாங்க. நான் கதை சொல்லி முடிச்சதும், அவங்க எதிர்பார்ப்பு நான் சொன்ன கதைக்கு எதிர்திசையில் இருக்கு. விஜய்கிட்டே கதை சொல்லப்போனேன். அவ்வளவு அமைதியாக, எந்த எதிர்க் கேள்வியும் இல்லாம கதை கேட்டார். சொல்லி முடிச்சதும் 'அருமையா இருக்கு. உங்களோட வேலை பார்க்கிறதில் ஆர்வமா இருக்கேன். இந்த டிவிடிக்களைப் பாருங்க. இதில் உள்ள கமர்ஷியல் அம்சங்களை உங்க கதையில் கண்டிப்பா சேருங்க'னு அவர் கொடுத்த டிவிடிக்களை வெளியே வந்து பார்த்தேன். 'திருப்பாச்சி', 'சிவகாசி' டிவிடிதான் அது. என்னத்தைச் சொல்ல..!

BTW, Gautam's next film is with Ajith. Should that say something about this comment ?

Thanks for keeping us entertained.

Thanks to Anoop for de-constructing the trailer.

Flying cars, Kudumi mama, Mottai paati, Daler Mehndi, Apollo 13 and the Oval office. It's an all encompassing, a very shankar-like, trailer. Hurray !!

Himesh sure did his job pretty well, atleast in this trailer. I'm sure Rahman and Kamal, mutually missed each other.

From Kamal's recent interview -

With an ambitious storyline featuring 10 characters, ‘Dasavatharam’ will have contemporaneous messages encompassing such concerns as the environment, science and faith. “Dasavatharam has a lot of Al Gore in it, and also Ramanujar,” he says.

Describing the film as “honest to the core,” Kamal says he has explored religion at length. “Are we going to continue using the same blunt tool…religion,” he asks.

Is there a strong story line that elevates it from other blockbusters that we have seen in recent times? “For one, there are 10 characters, ranging in scope from a Ramanujar and a Galileo to a particle physicist. Computer graphics bring to life many of the scenes.” ‘Dasavatharam’ has convinced him that audiences were ready for good film stories even a decade earlier.

Shot using the flip and edited for a one minute clip.

Again, I wasn't trying to say much. Just another editing trial to see if i can actually fit some narration into one minute.

Info Overload has been a recurring theme in this blog for the last 2+ years. Info overload is nothing but a heap of nonsensical stuff that you read/write(blog) online everyday.

NY Times has wake up call for bloggers and I'm sure it should also include blog readers and web wanderers.

Too many blogposts on a single blog makes no point. As the information gets more and more duplicated over the web, some one has already written about what you want to write about. The ad revenues or the number of people reading your blog feed is not significant than one's health.

So as said before, don't read this blog and more inportantly take it easy.