Christmas In Goa, Disaster in Indian Ocean

Was in Goa for a friend's daughter's baptism during Christmas when I heard about the Tsunami. First I didnt get any clear idea about the scale of the disaster, but as the death toll rose, I knew it was bad.

Rabbi is Sold Out!

I chanced upon Rabbi Shergill's Bulleh! Ki Jaana Maen Kaun on MTV the other day. In these times of senseless bangras and noises called remixes, I havent heard such a simple and original song! (More about the 18th century Sufi poet Bulleh Shah)

I tracked the song down and listened to it the second time. I understood not a single word he was singing, but the music was so haunting that I loved it. No song has touched me like this since Brothers In Arms.

I rushed to a music store to pick this album, but it was sold out. I tried another, and it was sold out there as well. The same was the case at four other big music shops. Sold out! He truly deserves it (Read the Triumph of Will story in Tehelka)

If you havent listened to it yet, go listen, NOW. No excuses. And tell me if it didnt touch you, I really would like to know how you felt.

Shaun of the Dead

This movie was highly recommended by RT but took some patience and time to 'begin'. 20 minutes into the movie, I was still wondering what this was about, when it kicked off. Then it was fun, in a strange way. It sure is a weird movie, but if you like Brits' take on end of the world type movies like 28 Days Later, this one is the next best thing. Brilliant sub stories, very well acted though there is some gore (lots of that, in fact)

Two ways to make a teen movie

(1) Teen coming off age, pushed into a new environment, surviving in different ways. Lots of M&B elements. Watch Mean Girls, if you want to know. Proto-typical movie structure, but comical and fun to watch. It is the story about a home educated girl, joining main stream school in America. Fun, and it feels like a movie

(2) The real serious take on teenlife. The ones that immly come to my mind are Basketball Diaries or Thirteen. Thirteen is a MUST WATCH. It was written and acted in by a 16 year old on her true life experiences of growing up in the harsh world. It was just unbelievable. Didn't feel like a movie. You probably wouldnt want your child to "do the teens" in the US after watching such movies.

Dont Gross Out The World

In Sudan they say that to show you are enjoying your food, you need to put your feet up on the dining table! In Thailand putting your feet upon the table is the worst insult! How do you cut your potato in Germany, with a knife or fork? How should you ask the chef for ketchup in France? Take this quiz and see if you will survive at the dining table in different parts of the world :-)

Eliminate the Blind Spot

Found a very useful article about how to use the side mirrors to eliminate the blind spot.

This may not quite "eliminate" the blind spot(s) but it sure makes them small enough so that a car cannot fit there. But as a friend pointed out, a two wheeler _can_ fit in the little blind spot you still have. It is always recommended to have a quick glance over your shoulders while changing lanes, even when using this trick.

This is a must do. I have seen well educated well to do people drive with both or left mirror folded in. I guess, to save the 180/- of a mirror repair cost, in case a2 wheeler knocks it down? Well, education and sense doesnt always go hand in hand, right?

My mirrors are always open, (a) to see what's behind me and (b) if someone's gonna squeeze through the free space, then they are gonna do it with the 'mirror' as the reference, not the 'door'

The Stepford Wives

I have seen stupid movies, I have seen pointless movies, and I have seen irritating movies. But this is the first time I see one that is stupid, pointless AND irritating (and felt like breaking the DVD into pieces, so that nobody will ever rent it). Despite what people say, Veer-Zara must be better :)

Sold!

VERITAS, #1 storage software company, out of the blue, is sold to Symantec, the #1 in security software. The combined company will be fourth largest software company in the world, after Microsoft, Oracle and SAP. The name will be Symantec, and VERITAS brand will have to go, as the holding ratio is 60:40. Anyways, VERITAS is a combination of ~10 companies bought over in the last 15 years, so it _is_ a case of big fish vs small fish. Anything that goes around, comes around.

According to many Veritians, there may not be much synergy in VERITAS and Symantec, but the new company looks more palatable to some folks. Now instead of trying to buy SAP, Bill the whale can try to eat this Symantec fish which has a $13.5 billion fat tummy?

Conference: Pros and Cons

It is about the India HCI conference in Bangalore, and thank god it's over. Well, it was the first such conference, so one can forgive the nature of the content and say, it took off at the very least. Yes, but I cannot stand the condecending Brits giving a lecture on what needs to be done, or what happened in their country (the operative word being, giving).

And I dont fully blame them, if you go by the standards of papers presented at the conference workshops! I dont blame the students either, the programmes committee should have gone through the abstracts a little bit more in detail, is that too much to ask? Some presentations were outright silly. Wasted my time.

But there were three gains/realisations: (1) Indian Design/HCI researchers when not looking at the west for 40 year old ideas, are all game to get the Indian farmers a gmail account; (2) I met with a lot of old friends and had a ball; (3) And that even if you are not a writer, if you do not keep writing, it is quite hard to get back.

In Bangalore

Folks, I am in Bangalore for the India CHI conference. I am there from Sunday evening till Wednesday morning, I am roaming on 982-329-5927. Can we meet?

Spontaneous vs Analytical

Shashank and I were just talking about using paper sketches as THE first form of designs, than sitting on a comp and making them/ typing the ideas down. The point in discussion was the method adapted by the two fresh out of school designers who were 'comfortable' doing it directly on the comp. Well, we brushed the debate aside by saying we were old school, and may be they find it easier. But I was wondering about it even after I got home.

The scribbling is done with your hand which is part of your own system, while using a keyboard/mouse requires some processing and use of an alien system. The former, I felt was more hands-on. When one uses a different system to note down/sketch the ideas, isn't one processing the idea to align to the systems? Wouldnt that make the idea, not raw?

In such people - the analysts, who get used to expressing ideas after processing would it be possible to accept ideas before processing? If you process an input before it reaches you, then can you sense the pure idea/problem? Can you feel the problem?

I think if one can take raw input then one can give raw output. Some may call such people spontaneous, or mavericks. Such people work on intuition or depend on their senses to feel everything raw. I am not saying that this type is better than the other, but aren't we all trying to classify something or the other into baskets? So here is my contribution.

I can see a comment coming: Both these characteristics are necessary to build the well designed world and can/will co-exist. I agree.

Narration in a Movie

Watched Alfie (Jude Law) today. A light lovely little movie, brilliantly cast, well written and it has some amazing moments. A must see, if you like stuff like 'a day in the life of' or 'lessons from my life' or say, Amelie.

While the movie was well made (it is a remake of a 1966 Caine movie of the same name), our discussion went to Jude's acting and whether it will fetch him a Golden Globe nomination - looks like Oscar nominations have all been taken, for those who are wondering, why GG. One never expected Jude to carry the whole movie on his 'sexiest man alive' shoulders. It was quite a (close to) brilliant performance, frankly. I feel, he might just get one.

When we like a movie, we always look at what we didn't like in it or how better it could have been made. Well one thing about Alfie was that most of the scenes are connected by, or have interludes of narration. Basically what the character is thinking. Yes, it works well for this movie, Jude talks to us while in the scene, which is quite interesting. But in general, using VOs is a beginners' way of making a movie especially when one is doing an adaptation. That's so easy, isn't it?

I believe, it is THIS factor that makes the difference between a great movie and a good movie. A great movie is one in which viewers read what's on the character's mind and since it is their own (self processed) thought, the viewer gets attached to the character, with the scene and the movie. It is the director's craft, and one that rises above the script. There are many movies that fall into 'this' form of greatness, at least what I call the sense of greatness.

One of the reasons why I would rate Collateral above Alfie. Alfie works equally good as a movie, but from a direction perspective, my vote goes to Michael Mann.

Kumb(le) Mela

Kumble, going into the last test against SA was just 5 short of breaking Kapil Dev's record of 434 wickets. The pitch of Eden Garden traditionally favoured spinners and medium pacers alike in a strange way (Remember Srinath's 6 wicket haul ? And of course Bhajji's 13). With Anil being branded the medium paced spinner, everyone knew that he was going to grab atleast 5, if not more this time. This simply meant that by the end of day 5, the record would be his.

India won a good game, as expected spinners grabbed quite a few, but Anil could only get 4 in total. That meant that he could only equal the record, not break it :-( He must have been disappointed, for sure. He mentioned that in the post match interview, but there were quite a big lot of people who got stumped by his not breaking the record --

There were trophies ready to be presented to the man for breaking the all time Indian record, there were full page templates ready at newspapers with snippets from his life on and off the ground, headlines were ready, there were TV programmes planned to celebrate his achievement.

Well, they all carried out the preplanned activity, saluting the man's achievement of 'equalling' the record. Of course, it is by no means a lesser achievement, but the awkwardness was felt all over, even though most of the people behind these plannings put up a brave face and acted as if, THIS itself calls for a celebration!

Kumble is the most unsung hero of Indian cricket, and he deserve all the praises. And 'they' deserve that awkwardness they felt.

PS: The only (sort of) disappointment I had was that I had predicted India to win by 7 wickets at the end of day ONE, and for everybody else's happiness, Sachin didnt get out and we won by 8 wickets. But I am not unhappy about it. It feels nice to lose a bet, when we still win it!

'Change' your car music!

MP3 CD changers are available in India, but they cost about 12-16k, be it SONY or Kenwood. And the Pioneer HDD player costs a bomb ($1500), which is the cost of some used cars here :-)

So what is your option? What about Kenwood KHD-C710? This component connects to the normal CD changer input of your headunit and plays like one. Only, it has a 10GB cartridge that is removable, which plugs on to your computer through a desktop cradle (USB port)! And the street price is about $200!! (9k). It works with only Kenwood head units, but you can get any Kenwood cassette player (like a 389) for 3k and that's it - start rocking!

Being Humble

Gautam Gambhir, playing only in his second test was notout on 85 when play ended yesterday. When asked about the approaching milestone of a 100, he told the media that he will dedicate it to his nani - grand mother.

I thought, isn't he talking too soon? He is playing only his third inning. His first two were completely forgettable. Talking big boosts your confidence, but I thought this was being over confident. (Learned from roommate Sehwag, perhaps?) I didnt pray to God to teach him a lesson, but he got one alright - he got out at 96. Hope it teaches him to be humble.

Be humble, guys - Think high. But talk low, so that the fall is tolerable.

'Fly low, so that the fall is tolerable' is a quote from Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Amazing writer; Awful ending

I think I am pretty bad when writing about writers (call it an inferiority complex: Can I write about one, who has published a book?) and I end up making a hash of it. I read Hari Kunzru's Transmission a few weeks ago, and was amazed by his flow of words and ideas. Some of the lines from the book were striking -- "If you find someone walking on the roads in America, they are either of the three: jogging, foreigner or mentally ill"

But I was let down by the ending. Yes, it built up well and went the way one thought it would, but even with my above mentioned inferiority complex, I have to say that the ending was sort of patched up. An ending like that works great for short stories, I guess. Like those in the works of Roald Dahl or M Night or Phil Dick.

PS: Shashtibrata was 29 when he wrote 'My God Died Young', and I was 24 when I read it. And I was shocked to find that he wrote it that young. Brata didn't write anything meaningful after that (just like I predicted about Arundati Roy), underlining the axiom "You can write one book. Your own story". Kunzru is only 35, but more importantly it is his second book. That's nice to know.

I am 33, I cant even write beyond this box :-(

Dreamworks (1-0) Disney

Are fish so interesting to make movies about them? That too two in a row? Guess so. After the Nemo last year, it is a Shark's Tale now. Though Disney works more (and better) on the emotion levels, I hadn't completely liked Finding Nemo. But it is a different tale here (by DreamWorks, and they score over Disney here)

Shark's Tale is a rocking winner!! The picturization of characters, and matching of the voices are out of the world (well, it _is_ not this world, is it?) Will Smith is incredible, the Shark - the don - that De Nero voiced almost looked like him! So was Angelina Jolie or Rene, so real. The film is not completely without issues: it wasn't really a shark's tale and that lack of focus shows in the ending, as well as the sub plots. But,

If you like Animations, go watch it. If you loved the Shreks, you will love this too! If you liked Nemo, you will adore this one. If you didn't like Nemo, you still will love this one.

The Theory of 90% Storytelling

Currently reading Roald Dahl's short stories, I see a lot of similarity in his and M Night's style of storytelling. Both of them directly jump into the main plot without spending much time on the introduction, and so are their climaxes (they just trail off so fast!)

I am tempted to call this The 90% Storytelling. It is an interesting thought (or theory, or rule - Sinoj's Theory of 90% StoryTelling). Basically, one need to leave out 5% of intro and 5% of climax. Leave them to the readers/viewers. Come to think of it, it is a better way of involving the audience than what Syd Field proclaims!

PS: David Lynch has mastered the art of 60% Storytelling (LOL), so I have no intention of calling my silly thought a break through idea or some such thing, FYI.

Learn the rules well enough...

Syd Field ('The Guru of all screenwriters' - CNN) says in his books that one need to build the plot, plan sub plots, look at transitions between two plots amongst tips on how to involve the audience in the visual storytelling called cinema. Most of the movies that we see fall into this structure, including Bollywood :-)

The funny take on such teachers in Nicolas Cage's Adaptation notwithstanding, I have really gained a lot by reading his books. For I believe in - Learning the rules well enough so that you can break them well enough.

I have been watching M Night Shyamalan's movies lately and I feel that his storytelling is quite different. He builds up the plot well, and abruptly turn to the sub plots; His climax is almost like a flash. But is he forcing himself to be unpredictable, to be different?

Point(er) Blank

Programers say that there are two types of people in the programming world: those who know pointers, and those who just dont get it.

The Y generation had come up with something similar saying, there are people who have done it, and others who havent. I think for any community, there is one single point that divides it to half - if you have it, you are on this side, else the other. I found a minor one about Algebra yesterday, hence the post.

Confession: I havent got the pointer thing yet. (I havent looked inside any code for ages anyways) but I just go blank when I see a *

Microsoft is now searching

They are big, and done it before (remember Netscape?), but I am not too convinced. In their attempt to beat Google and Yahoo, the big fat liar is getting into searching. Check their beta search at:

http://beta.search.msn.com

I think they got scared by the desktop search tool by Google which is just amazing! It may have small security issues, but hell, what a great search! Digging up old mails used to be a _real_ pain earlier, but a breeze now. If you havent seen it working, go now and download it.

Coming back to MSN Search, I did a small test. I tried the same keywords on Yahoo, Google and MSN. MSN returned much less results than Y/G. Especially in the case of image search. Are they better results? I dont think so. It was, may be one-third?. May be they are still indexing the web. Let's see.

Greece, it is!

Was catching up with Jacob after a long time, he was talking about his travels and in particular, Greece. He was there when Greece won the Euro!!

It seems in Greece, people work only for 6 months an year. And they are very friendly (Sounds very much like Goa!) With the climate very mild throughout the year, it should be a great place to visit. And I love mediterranean architecture - the azzure/blanca villas! If you switch your camera on, it should make a great frame by default.

I dont know when I can do it, but I have decided. If there is a planned vacation in the horizon, Greece, it is!

Dirty Game

Any management guru will tell you that there is a difference between winning and winning. Australia seems to be doing the former. And the mere fact that they cannot take defeat, shows how "good" this team is. The team may be proud, it has all reasons to be so, but they are plain dirty. They play to win, only to win; just to win. And they will do anything for it. That is not winning, is it?

This series, they tried to change some of these bad images. Like they started "walking". Mark of true sportsman spirit? Then why did they appeal for Sehwag's dismissal? They didnt hear that nick? Come on, the guy in the last row in the stands would have heard it, at least seen it. McGrath is lying, so is Gilchrist.

I remember this one interview that Ponting gave a few months ago. Lara had just broken Hayden's world record of 380. And what does Ponting have to say about it? That Lara is selfish. And he went on bad mouthing about Lara. He had not a single word in apreciation about the innings. That showed his character, and this exactly is Australia's character.

They just play it dirty. I liked what Harbhajan meant while talking to the press about Ponting's dirty pitch play in media, "Shut up!"

"Great Homes"

I googled precisely that - "great homes" in images. I was looking for something less disturbing than the Indian scorecard (Well, they went on to win, but that was later).

I was looking for interesting houses. It is my exercise on visualization: I look at unknown things and try to visualize what is inside/beneath, here in this case, the plan and interiors. Works great for houses, and it is fun. Sometimes I look at a house on the screen and walk into it. People call it different things. FBI might call it profiling, an engineer might call it analysing, a doctor might call it something else, but it sure is fun.

But the post is not about 'that'. It is about the results. Of the 900 odd results, on random sampling, atleast 60-70% were pictures of dogs or cats. And 100% of such reults are homes in America. I dont know what to conclude about it, but I thought it was interseting enough for a post.

What happened to Farhan?

After a path breaking movie like Dil Chahta Hai, Farhan Akthar chose to direct papa Javed's story of an aimless young man coming of age through his stinct with the army. It is a battered and recycled hindi movie concept, but since Farhan was doing it there was lot of hype around it. And they were so confident that they didnt even promote it like a normal movie.

His direction is quite average, he or the script doesn't even attempt to develop any character but Hritik's. But for a rock climbing scene, the army sequences are paper thin and outright silly. Most of the actors were wasted. The transformation is clueless, there is no focus, forget the glaring errors. Some scenes by part are good, but as a movie certainly a waste of time.

Even in DCH, the rift betweens characters was a light one, which would have been unacceptable in normal Bollywood terms. But the narration flow countered it well. In a pukka hindi movie like Lakshya, it doesn't work. I think he should stick to (realistic) lifestyle movies... dil chahta hai.

Movie Moulds

Come to think of it, even a more experimenting Hollywood has this fixture of hero winning the final battle. It seldom ends on an 'even' note.

The one movie that I really wished to end so - Michael Mann's Heat - ended with a never before handshake between the two, but still not bold enough to 'break even' when it easily could have (De Nero is killed in the shoot out). In fact, the script really stretches the imagination to get to a 'normal' ending.

Mann's latest movie Collateral is also built on similar lines, this time there was no super cop though, making it a little lighter than Heat.

The only (I think) movie that broke this 'Hollywood Studio Plot' pattern was Swordfish. Travolta makes that (in)famous statement at the beginning of the movie about why people make movies in which the villain invariably dies. He plays a villain similar to the one he did in Broken Arrow, and wins the game in the end. But the lack of super cop/hero (though it had Halle Berry and Hugh Jackman) and with the production classified too slick even for MTV standards, the movie was no where close to a classic in the Heat lines, and went sort of unnoticed.

But broke the proto-type anyways. Better than watching the same saga over and over again.

Happy for Spielberg

Almost all his movies (combined gross collection higher than any other director in the history, barring none, including inflation) depicted the fight between big vs small, and the victory of the latter. Take Duel, Jaws, ET or Jurassic Park, they all had humans pitted against the impossible bigs.

While Indiana Jones Trilogy (soon to be Quadra) continued the trend of adventure like in his other movies, it also showed a humor angle to his story telling. Which took a backseat as he directed Schindler's List or Saving private Ryan and finally winning the Oscars that he richly deserved.

Things changed after that: his movies became sort of medleys, not in a compartmental form, but conceptually. The big and small theme continued, but in a very subtle way. It was more of man versus man, or man versus system. The backdrop, instead of being the highlight became what it is supposed to be, the backdrop to the story. Be it the Minority Report, Catch Me If You Can or the latest, The Terminal.

Terminal also has the theme of man versus the state/situation. But here he doesnt take the fight, but lives through it. Critics may have termed the movie a no-go, but that happens when you have such a reputation and they expect you to make movie in the format they have set for you. But I am happy for Spielberg, the movie was light and touchy, and most of all, current.

Waisa Bhi Hota Hai Kya?

The moment I saw "Item Girl - Maria Gorreti" in the opening titles, I had a hunch that this one would a interesting ride. Well, come to think of how I decided to rent this movie itself was an interesting one.

I was reading about Quentin on imdb.com and to my surprise saw a Hindi movie in his filmography. I was like, are you serious? It was part of the end credits (Thanks to: QT), but the movie had a few QT elements.

First the title - Waisa Bhi Hota Hai: Part II; It was first of its kind for a Hindi movie. The soundtrack was excellent as in all QT movies todate. Then the light, random (but yet connected) way of sub-stories threatening to merge at some point . Casual killings. Splashing limelight on unknown characters (remember The Bonnie Situation?). Director's brief cameo and ofcourse, the natural acting. There were a few words about the Japanese mafia as well, just to make the viewer doubly sure :-)

Prashant Narayan, who played the killer in distress, is a find (and that is an under statement). I fail to understand how Arshad Warsi failed to make a big mark in Bollywood (notwithstanding Maria Goretti and Munnabhai). There may have been some disconnect or bad flow in scene times/ sequences towards the end, and some disappointment in the initial story build-up, but this one was one of the "real" hadke crossover movies. Excellent (4.5/5)

Not to miss: The song, "Allah ke bande"; Trivia: Director Shashanka Gosh was the creative director of MTV and [V]

Business of Education

Carrying on a discussion over lunch table with Rama. He is a design student doing his thesis in our group. The point of discussion was about the quality of the design students that come out of institutes like NID which by legacy itself is seen as the face of design education in India.

The number of student intake has increased many a fold in the design institutes over the past few years. One reason for that is the "seeming" requirement from the industry, they seem to be appreciating design skills now (for a change?).

Many of the schools have tie up with industries. This, in a way is very helpful for the schools who are left to raise their own funds. But my point of debate was that the industry can influence the school management on the decision on the "character" of the design school, or in a rare case a design movement.

And the practical stand point of institutes like NID is to have more students in new and different streams but the same staff to teach them. Plain mathematics of profit as the fees are much hiked up now. Education sadly has become a business, just like the industries that are supporting it!

IMO, the character of the designer is built by teaching with the agenda of having no agenda. Business has no role to play here, but to support education, unselfishly.

My Rock

Michelle made a post about her 100 favorite songs. But I guess with a list that long, you will end up including a few on 'how-can-I-leave-that-out' reasons. So I thought I will put down 10, and another 10 as close runs.

Exposure to music happened during college, the place where 70's rock rules! The list may sound like a college party request list. But how many of the newer songs stay with you longer than 3-6 months? Drops of Jupiter? May be. But as for music in general in the new millennium, I doubt any.

1. Stairway To Heaven - Led Zeppelin
   
2. Layla - Derek & The Dominos
   
3. Dust In The Wind - Kansas
   
4. Comfortably Numb - Pink Floyd
   
5. Still Loving You - Scorpions
   
6. Brothers In Arms - Dire Straits
   
7. Smoke On The Water - Deep Purple
   
8. Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd
   
9. Nothing Else Matters - Metallica
   
10. With Or Without You - U2
    

Quote

While we are at it, one more quote. I was single, careless and in search of (meaning of) life when I first heard this. Tell me, it wont haunt you, liar.

A guy told me one time, "Don't let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner."
- Neil McCauley (Robert de Niro), Heat

Old Dreams

"The old dreams were good dreams; they didn't work out, but I am glad I had them"
- Robert Kincaid, The Bridges of Madison County

October Movies

1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: Excellent (not intimidating) concept, and very tricky to handle. Beautifully directed. Story about two lovers peeved off with each other, trying to erase their memories of each other. During the process, in their memories they realize that they are making a mistake. They try to run way and hide in unexplored memory and cheat the process. Needs patience, not for the casual movie goer for sure. Jim Carrey definitely would get nominated for this one. (5/5)

2. Man on Fire: I rented the movie because of Dakota Fanning (and, yes, Denzel). It could have been a John Woo movie, the plot is such, and Tony Scott's swoosh visuals and overlays could have made it a Matrix genre. But the script spends time on the characters, even small ones, and gives a very indulging feel to the movie. Denzel should get a nomination (4.5/5)

3. In America: It is a story about how an Irish family migrated to the US is building a new life after the loss of their third child to brain tumor. The story is told from the first daughter's perspective amongst poverty and hardship. The sisters (in real life too) are outstanding. Amazing story telling and very gripping style of direction. If you are interested in independent films, this one is a must watch. (5/5)

4. Collateral: Typical Michael Mann structure and storytelling. Not anywhere close to Heat, but if you liked its story and script, watch this one. I see a lot of similarities with the kind of roles that Tom Cruise is doing, with Indian actors Kamal Hasan and Aamir Khan. (Guess, great actors will always have something in common). Tom's last line in the movie is just brilliant script writing in terms of closure (4/5)

Who remembers Holodeck73?

I tried to, but couldnt remember the first URL that I ever typed into the Netscape 2.0's location bar (No, not netscape; It must have opened home.netscape by default).

But I do remember my first search: "graphic design". And though I dont recall the result page, that's where I really discovered the power of hyperlink. And amongst others, Holodeck73.

h73.com was one of the best design portals while I was growing up with the Internet (read mid 90's). There were others like Project Cool or IPPA, but h73 was different. It was truly the inspirational launchpad as it called itself. I discovered many other great sites like Shift or PrayStation from h73. But in 2001 or so, the site was shutdown to make way for newstoday.com

After years, yesterday I was going through an old note and remembered the guy who was running h73, googled his name - Mat Mejia - and reached his current site, droppod.com. And through the second scroll, saw this once familiar winged logo. Archived there, was the last homepage of h73. That was nostalgic. It even sounds nostalgic - the last homepage of h73!

I wrote to Mat and said Hello. He said Hello too, but probably didnt know the background of my mail. Anyways, it paved a way to rediscover those very hyperlinks that I had once chanced upon on a results page. The next post looks like: "Design Links Update"

Philadelphia

I cant believe I never watched this movie in full, till today. Every time I caught it while surfing the channels, I always wished I could catch it from beginning. And after all these years, I watched the movie tonight.

It wasn't about winning, thankfully. It was about love and life. Tom Hanks was outstanding in the scene when he walks out on to the street from Denzel's office - he deserved the Oscar for that alone. Cannot forget the opera scene, especially Denzel's reactions. Demme is one of the best director when it comes to telling an underlying story.

Rita Kempley of Washington Post said what I want to: "It's less like a film by Demme than the best of Frank Capra. It is not just canny, corny and blatantly patriotic, but compassionate, compelling and emotionally devastating."

The Plug

Having seen Movable Type engine in action, I became a fan and chose to ignore my blogger account and set up my blog at mblog.com sometime ago. (That explains the silence here)

Guess what? Sighting some silly reasons they just one day pulled the plug to mblog.com. And are demanding $35 to retrieve the posts on the server! I have not done anything on my blog that is remotely a breakthrough in my writing, so I just let it pass. I am wondering about the serious writers. Poor souls! (Sigh)

Lessons learnt from this episode: (1) Always keep a back up, (2) Do not blog anything serious - LOL and most important (3) Be loyal.