Birthday wishes of the year 2010

It has been a week since my birthday. And it was a good one too if we look forward for the years to come and not worry about the years gone by and apparently the number of candles I blew before cutting the cake. Chini had to keep them stand in a large bowl to avoid using fire extinguisher over the cake.
Anyway, the day went good. Few surprises, great food and treatment equal to a free man! Now I am waiting for another year even though I know I will have to blow off a bonfire next time. Coming to the point, the birthdays are always special and something you count on other than the presents are for everyone’s wishes.

Starting from your school days where you could wear casual dress while everyone comes in a uniform and walking to all class rooms and hear everyone sing “Happy Birthday” for you, birthdays are really special to celebrate. As you move up the years, you get more than wishes and include cake on your face and kick on your butt. I wonder why people do that. But everyone got it for their birthday and so you would want one too. Happy day of the year! Back to the birthday wishes now. How different we celebrate our birthday and wherever we are, there is always one thing that makes the day a real birthday. It is the simple two words “happy birthday”. With the world being so big and our dear ones spread apart so far, we are wished by so many means. Apart from the telephone that made them sound closer, e-cards and social networking sites made everyone just few clicks away. So my birthday this year too had lot of wishes sent through various forms.


With nothing better to do, I thought it would be fun (for me) to chart down the numbers and statistics.

There were a total of 70 wishes including all advance and belated wishes. And as if everyone is closer by technology than reality, most of the wishes are through internet with 26 from Facebook itself. This is really a surprise as until last year, Orkut was the most widely used networking site in India. I believe lots of us were bribed to move to Facebook by games like Farmville and Mafia wars. There were a total of 12 wishes through telephone and 8 by electronic email which includes a cute message from my one-year old niece. While these numbers are normal like every other year, the shocking numbers come from SMS messages – Just 2. The guy who was banned by Aircel for sending SMS messages over the limit during college days received just 2 messages for his birthday. Time truly changes as years pass by. This could also be because of being in US away from free messages in India. Other surprising counts are from instant messaging and e-cards with 3 and 1 respectively. There would not have been any e-card if not for my in-laws. Thanks to them. I did get 7 greeting cards made of wood pulp commonly known as paper though 6 of them came from my Chini and the other one surprisingly from the apartment office. Now to rank the various wishes, the first phone call was from my dad, sisters and mom; instant message from Tirupur; Facebook and Orkut from Chini’s friends Karthikeyan and Mathan respectively; email from Kumaran; SMS once again by dad and the person to wish directly and through greeting card and also the first one to wish on the birthday is none other than Chini. Thank you. And whats more! She is the only one who gave me gifts in this year. So you guys not to feel bad, I am still accepting presents. Gift cards and credit through online transfers accepted.

PS: I have to speak about those who forgot to wish me too. Hey loosu, where were you? You used to wish me every year. Perippa, you forgot it. I had to call you for the second year now. Balappa, you almost forgot and anyway you are the last one to wish me. I am glad for that. And for the rest, that is ok. There is always the next year.

iPhone and my wife

There are two topics that have a lot to be talked and battled about, but I rarely discussed about them so far. They are nothing other than my iPhone and my wife mentioned in no specific order. Though the most precious of all, my wife and my iPhone (in the order written) have limited mentions in my blog. Well, there is a reason for that. iPhone as everyone knows is the single device that changed the entire face of the cell phone industry single handedly or rather with a single touch. Similarly, my wife as many might know already is the single person who changed my entire life without any need to touch. A single sight can do it all. The bed spread will be neat, shoes will slip into the rack and shirts will stay in the hanger. And all will happen with a single look. So you see, both of them have a lot in common. They changed my lives. Yet, I had little to say about them in my blog. How cruel am I? But as I mentioned before, I have my reasons. iPhone as the most popular device did not need my bragging and for my wife, let’s just say that I am handicapped in cooking and my food expense budget is very limited. If you are wondering how is it that I became bold enough to write about them now, I like to clarify that I still have not talked about them. At least not about the iPhone and also I proved that I can make onion chutney tonight.

திருமணநாள் பரிசு

எத்தனை பொய்களடி ஆருயிரே!
எத்தனை பொய்களடி!
ஆசையை உரைத்தது மட்டும் உன் கணவன்.
அழகாய் தேர்ந்தெடுத்தது மாமி மற்றும் மாமன்.
வருவாய் என்று வரவேற்ற மாமியாரும் உடந்தை;
ஊட்டி வளர்த்த தாயாரும் அறிந்திருக்கலாம் ஒரு கை.
நட்சத்திரம் தூரம் இருந்த ஒன்றை
கண்விழி அருகில் கொண்டு வர உடன்பிறந்தவன்!
அண்ணன் ஒருவன் கொண்டு வந்தான்,
மற்றொருவன் கண்டு மகிழ்ந்தான்.
உறவினர்கள் கிழங்கை மறைத்தனர் என்றால்,
நண்பர்கள் பூசணியை மறைத்தார்கள் சோற்றில்.
ஒரு நாள் இரு நாள் இல்லையடி -
பல நாள் நடந்ததடி இந்த அரங்கேற்றம்.
பாதி ரகசியம் தெரிந்துவிட
மீதி மறைக்க மற்றொரு பொய்.
அது மட்டும் போதாது என்று
முற்றிலும் மறைக்க மேலும் ஒரு பொய்.
கதை, திரைக்கதை எழுதி இயக்கவும் செய்தால்,
உண்மை அறிந்தேன் உன்னைக் கண்டு!

இவ்வைரக்கல்லும் வெறும் கல்லாகிவிடும்
அதனை அணிந்தவுடன் வரும் உன் புன்னகையாலே!

தலைமுடிவேண்டுகோள்

காக்கைக்கும் தன்குஞ்சு
பொன்குஞ்சு என்பதனாலோ
காடுமாதிரி திரிகிற என்முடியை
கட்பண்ண மனமில்லை என் கண்மணிக்கு

Saddle up your dragons

One should know that when I say that I watched this movie very closely before writing this review, the words should be taken in the literal sense, as I was sitting in the 2nd row close to the IMAX screen of 70" long X 50" height. With no need to say, I had a truly 3D experience turning my head sideways to watch the dragon flying from left to right. Chini watching along with me for sometime, decided that it is better to get a higher and overall look at the movie and moved to the back seats. Probably a habit from her college days. Anyway, coming to the movie, it is a simple movie of telling everyone that dragons are friendly creatures good enough to be pets for your kids and can also be used to ride to for a quick snack from McDonalds drive-thru. Gosh! The dragons are extinct now. Or is it the dinosaurs that are truly extinct? Does that mean that the dragons are not extinct? I am talking dragonshit. Don’t I? What to do? I just came back from the movie that taught me how to train my dragon.
It is actually fun and great. The movie maintains a fast action style throughout the movie. And the 3D experience is better than all the 3D animated movies released so far. (Avatar is not included in this list). Watching the movie so close (literally), I felt I could walk among the Vikings and the dragons and it was realistic and exciting to watch the camera diving through the open landscape and mountains taking us on a thrilling spin. One difference we noticed in this movie is the blurring or Out-of-focus effect for the background when focusing on the characters in the front. Even though this is something that is seen only in the normal films and new to the animated movies, the effect doesn’t quite feel good as it takes away the field of depth in many scenes and raises the question of what is the blurring in a 3D movie. Nice idea but not preferred.
Here is the story in a fireball. Distinct from the rest, the hero has more brains than strength and is considered a failure by his own father who hunts dragons as both the occupation and life's only mission. Trying to prove his father wrong, Hero catches a dragon, but couldn’t kill it. Slowly understands that whatever they have known about dragons is wrong as they are mostly tamable. Finally he proves the true nature of dragons and changes the future of the people after killing the monster dragon (I did say "mostly" tamable. Didn't I?) by riding on his "Toothless" dragon along with his friends. Just to clarify a point, he names the dragon he caught as "Toothless" as it did not have any teeth at his first sight. The second sight did show teeth enough to rip off a human though.
The movie is interesting not only for its animation and dragons, but the dialogues are well.... blazingly funny. The protagonist dialogues remind me of Justin Long in "PC vs. Mac" ads. And you also have Gerald Butler to voice as the Viking leader and protagonist’s father. Imagine King Leonidas fighting the dragons! Good performance indeed. All in all, the movie has almost everything fitting in the right proportions. Only troubling part of the movie is that we have seen this story in all the animated movies like Antz, A Bugs Life, Bee movie, Chicken Little, Finding Nemo, Happy Feet and Ratatouille. Probably, the audience is still accepting for the same old formula of "The hero is distinct from others and will save the world". Whatever it is, this movie is going to be as successful as the previous movies with the same storyline. A definite must watch for everyone and includes even those who do not have dragon in their home.

Inglourious

My blog though does not have a wide audience has audience from wide spread age groups. Therefore, I could provide only part of the movie name even though the second word was misspelled in the movie title intentionally.
Though this movie was not in my high list of expectations when it got released, it got my attention when I noticed that it was directed by Quentin Tarantino. It is the guy who brought us the samurai sword wielding bride slashing hundreds before killing Bill with the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique.
Finally getting a chance to see the movie on New year day, I should say that the year have started great in term of movies.
It is a great movie in Quentin's style. Long sequences, unexpected twists, sudden deaths, unique characters and a satisfying end. Even though Brad Pitt is credited as the hero, he has less role than the villain Christoph Waltz who captures the movie as the Jew Hunter with his amazing acting and his perfect dialogue deliveries. He surely deserves an Oscar and has already received many other awards for his role. Do not get me wrong. Brad Pitt too has done his job well. Actually very very entertaining with his accented speech demanding german scalps from his "<>". And all other characters like the German actress, the Nazi captain in the tavern or Wilhelm, a German Wehrmacht master sergeant celebrating the birth of his son have done a real good job throughout the movie. If these are not enough, the climax takes the glorious film "Inglourious" (Typo intentional).

Trivia:
#1 Isn't the Uitvich, the Ryan guy from "The Office". Good acting!
#2 Quentin makes minor appearances in the movie like he did in his previous movies. Actually twice. Probably KS Ravikumar of the Hollywood. No offense meant to Quentin.
#3 I recently learnt that the Season 5 finale "Grave Danger" of CSI is directed by Quentin. No wonder that I became a fan of CSI by watching that single episode. (And stopped after watching some other episodes)

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year 2010!

New sun rays of light ahead,
the world is brighter than before.
A day to dream higher;
An year to make them come real.
Shedding away the sorrows of the past,
Bringing along the happiness alone
and the lessons learnt so long -
To make this year count
as you wished for, dreamt for, prayed for.
Everything sweet, everything you need,
More than what you deserve and
All that you desire in this world.
May your prayers come true.
And the world rejoice in harmony, peace and you.
Happy New Year!!!!