scratching an itch

Speaking of kicking ass, I saw “Kick Ass” a week or two ago. The movie tries to be...

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 16:46:19 +0400

Speaking of kicking ass, I saw “Kick Ass” a week or two ago. The movie tries to be something - though I can’t place a finger on what it wants to be. Certain parts were funny, other parts were superhero movie-ish, and yet other parts were sad. Unlike the title, the movie doesn’t really kick ass!

Worse of all, they killed Nicholas Cage. Unnecessary. Nobody ever kills Nicholas Cage in a movie, even in a cameo role.

The fight sequence in the end was kick ass though. Where that little girl goes about killing everyone. Awesome. (The girl’s great, by the way. Much better than the protagonist). And the background score in that bit is cool.

I thought “Salt” would be like “Wanted” or “The Expendables”....

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 16:41:06 +0400

I thought “Salt” would be like “Wanted” or “The Expendables”. Wild, wicked, evil action.

But it isn’t that way. Its got some action, but that’s the usual sort as in all other action movies. And the story’s kind of predictable.

Watch it though coz its got Angelina Jolie. And its always good to see her kick ass!

Just saw “The Expendables”. Bloody cool movie, with some equally bloody action....

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 03:17:20 +0400

Just saw “The Expendables”. Bloody cool movie, with some equally bloody action. There’s not much story to the movie (obviously!) but the action’s great, and the movie’s cool. Sylvester Stallone and Jason Statham royally kick ass. Jet Li isn’t much in the limelight; I was hoping he’d have more screen presence and action. Jet Li sort of got beaten up in at least two action scenes. Possibly to make up for that, Sylvester Stallone let himself get beaten up in one action scene. (But the nice thing is that they joke about it and let you know this whole thing is a take it easy thing). Arnold S. had virtually no screen presence. Heck, Bruce Willis had more screen time and dialogue. Mickey Rourke had even more, and was fun. Go watch it! Great movie.

I am around, but just too lazy to blog. Saw a bunch of good movies recently, I meant to blog about...

Sat, 28 Aug 2010 16:51:14 +0400

I am around, but just too lazy to blog. Saw a bunch of good movies recently, I meant to blog about them but then didn’t feel like. Plus I had this feeling in my head that each time I saw a good movie I had this urge to quickly blog about it. And I didn’t like that … I don’t want to be compelled to do something just cause. So I skipped blogging on the impulse, and then my laziness took over, and hence there’s no posts these past few days. :p

Oh well …

I’m sure I’ve used this website before, but it was a pleasure to come...

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 16:29:55 +0400

I’m sure I’ve used this website before, but it was a pleasure to come across http://www.canyouseeme.org/ (once again). The website lets you check whether a particular port is open on your IP. Very useful!

Previously I’d use the “ssh” client on my N900 to try connecting to a particular port and see if the connection gets established.

Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” is beautiful. The experience of watching it was...

Sat, 14 Aug 2010 17:15:26 +0400

Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” is beautiful. The experience of watching it was similar to the sense of amazement and wonder I had while reading the book (I haven’t read “Through the Looking-Glass”, unfortunately). The characters and dialogues have this “mad” sort of feel to it. Everything is so surreal yet real. The plot is simple, and the movie progresses neatly through it. Wonderful!!

Robert Zemeckis’s “A Christmas Carol”, on the other hand, was boo boo boring! Too much special effects and drama. The story and the point it makes are simple, and yet the way this movie was taken makes it all so complicated and bigger than necessary, so you don’t really get the message through. I didn’t like it at all.

Saw Sajid Khan’s “House Full” this weekend. Eugh, what an experience. “House...

Sat, 14 Aug 2010 17:08:14 +0400

Saw Sajid Khan’s “House Full” this weekend. Eugh, what an experience. “House Full” is one of those rare Hindi movies that irritated me so much so that I actually left watching it midway. I am usually very patient when it comes to suffering through bad movies (heck, I even watched “Raavan” and “Raavanan” back to back in spite of not liking it!) and I am a HUGE fan of David Dhawan comedies that require you to usually leave your brain at home and just enjoy the movie - but I still couldn’t handle “House Full”. That’s how awful it was.

The three heroines are HOT though!

Stories such as these ([1], [2], and [3]) make me glad that I’ve invested in an alternate...

Sat, 14 Aug 2010 17:04:45 +0400

Stories such as these ([1], [2], and [3]) make me glad that I’ve invested in an alternate media-player (cum-phone) like the N900. At least with the N900 I don’t have to convert my videos to a specific number of limited formats, or use an media manager app to copy music/ videos/ photos to it, or be in any way limited as to what I can do with the device coz the creators so deemed it. I am free to do what I wish with the N900, and that’s a big deal.

Mind you, I do love the iPod Touch etc for its class and attention to detail. But I do love the N900 too, for the freedom it gives me.

That said, speaking of the N900, its been behaving better these past few days. I changed the theme from an-DROID, which I had downloaded through the App Manager, to the default one (the blue one). And the phone feels a lot snappier since then. I guess the theme choice too matters.

“Chloe” was a good movie except for the fact that the ending was slightly weird. I get...

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 02:52:01 +0400

“Chloe” was a good movie except for the fact that the ending was slightly weird. I get the fact that Chloe invented the elaborate story of David (Liam Neeson) cheating on her just so she could get close to his wife Catherine (Julianne Moore). And when Catherine threw her away after their one night stand, she just couldn’t accept it and so had sex with Catherine’s son coz he reminded Chloe of Catherine. But what was the bit after that? When Catherine has a confrontation with her, and Chloe pricks herself with that hair and then tries to prick Catherine, and then the kiss and Catherine pushes Chloe towards the window, and the window shatters and Chloe allows herself to fall … I didn’t really get that.

I had an inkling of an idea that Chloe was probably making up the stories so she could get close to Catherine. But I didn’t know what to expect when Chloe turned up at Catherine’s home (towards the end) to have sex with Michael (Catherine’s son). At that moment I wondered whether this movie was going to turn into something like “Obsessed” (maybe Chloe kills Catherine with the hairpin and then commits suicide?! This thought was strengthened when Chloe tries to prick Catherine with the hairpin), but it didn’t, and instead had this ending which I didn’t understand.

Overall, “Chloe” is a good slow movie. Worth a watch, but probably not now that you’ve read this post and know the twist in the end. ;-) The score sounds good, must check it out. The girl who plays Chloe - Amanda Seyfried - is good. She’s got this cute nad vulnerable look, and at the same time can easily switch to a “don’t mess with me” look. I think its her eyes that do the trick.

Caught a glimpse of “The Expendables” trailer yesterday. Sylvester Stallone and Arnold...

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 15:07:00 +0400

Caught a glimpse of “The Expendables” trailer yesterday. Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, together, in one movie? Wow! The kid in me skipped a heart beat …

This one’s a must watch. I grew up watching the action movies of Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger. 8-)

Anoushka: 1 year, 5 months

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 10:38:00 +0400

Anoushka: 1 year, 5 months

Heh, this is funny: Google’s joint policy proposal for an Open Internet. I am not aware of the...

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 09:17:25 +0400

Heh, this is funny: Google’s joint policy proposal for an Open Internet.

I am not aware of the background (coz I don’t follow the net neutrality news much) but what I understand from this proposal is that Google and Verizon are saying the *wired* Internet must be open and nondiscriminatory (which is a Good Thing), but that these rules do not apply to the *wireless* space (which is NOT a Good Thing).

Its sort of obvious why the latter is a good thing for Google though. Their primary are of interest is the wireless Internet (via the Android OS on mobile phones and tablets, the Chrome OS that will soon be there on net-books, etc) and by leaving it open for discrimination, they can do whatever they please there. Wired Internet is dying anyways; even in a country like Oman (where I live), our new ISP offers wireless Internet coz its so much so easier to get up and running (no need to lay cables all the way to end users etc).

Yesterday I setup email on my iPod Touch but not Exchange sync and so far battery life has been...

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 07:17:22 +0400

Yesterday I setup email on my iPod Touch but not Exchange sync and so far battery life has been excellent. So it looks like Exchange sync on the iOS 4 on a 3G device is what causes battery drain… Unless I am missing out on some setting with sync that can reduce the drain.

This is definitely not going to help my Google rankings. I changed the domain name of this blog once...

Sun, 08 Aug 2010 21:49:54 +0400

This is definitely not going to help my Google rankings. I changed the domain name of this blog once again. The blog began at rakhesh.com, then a month or two ago I moved it to ra.khe.sh, and now it’s back at rakhesh.com. And I’ve put a landing page at ra.khe.sh pointing to this blog and another.

Before I forget, must mention that I happened to watch “Once Upon a Time in Mumbai” this...

Sun, 08 Aug 2010 18:14:19 +0400

Before I forget, must mention that I happened to watch “Once Upon a Time in Mumbai” this weekend. I had heard it’s a good movie. My brother said so, and so did multiple reviews all over the Internet. I guess all these people saw something different to what I did.

“Once Upon a Time” is good, no doubts about that. But I wonder what the point to the whole movie is? Is it to chronicle the rise of a real life Don? I don’t think so, coz checking the Wikipedia page of such real life Don seems to give a different story. The movie gives the impression that its based on real life events (even though the disclaimer at the beginning does away with it). The name of the movie suggests so, and even when the movie ends, it does so with a message that this is the story of the great betrayal behind the myth (or something like that; whose myth, I wonder?!).

So - considering this movie to be a piece of fiction - I don’t see what the movie makers were trying to convey. Ajay Devgn’s character seem to be a good bad guy. Doing all the bad stuff, but for the right reasons. He was against smuggling goods banned by his conscience, for instance. He loved his girlfriend, even married her when he came to know that she’s dying. He was a believer of friendship and peace. And oh, he saved a train from derailing at quite a bit of risk to his own life. And yet in the end he’s killed. By one of his own men - a selfish jerk whose only purpose in life was to become the #1 Don, who didn’t care much for his girlfriend or friends, who would happily smuggle drugs etc to make a quick buck. Since this movie is a piece of fiction, couldn’t the creators at least do something to ensure the good guy doesn’t get knocked off? I wouldn’t mind if the bullet just grazed Ajay Devgn’s shoulder, so he escapes, and then there’s a gang-war that erupts. At least that would have been better than him getting killed!

Ajay Devgn did a good job. The change of name and marriage to Kajol has had the stars shining upon him. His eyes were expressive in the past too, but now many people have started noticing them. That’s good. He looked all tough and the part of a kind Don. Good good.

Emraan Hashmi irritated me. Which is probably indicative of good acting, coz his character should irritate the viewers I guess? Or maybe I was irritated coz I didn’t find his acting that believable - I don’t know. I felt happier with the movie when he was off the screen than on it.

I guess what irritated me about Hashmi, and the movie in general, is that it wasn’t convincing. Hashmi’s motives didn’t seem convincing enough. And the reason behind him deciding to kill Devgn - the great slap! - wasn’t strong either. (Speaking of which, I understand that the Devgn character left the Hashmi character in charge and went to Delhi. But when the Hashmi character started doing all the wrong things, couldn’t someone just call up Devgn and tell him so? Surely he wouldn’t be pissed at that. And surely phones were around in those times? If only someone had done that, this slap and the subsequent death could have been avoided!).

The only thing I really loved about this movie was the background music. But that’s Blackstrobe’s “I’m A Man”, and if you want to see another movie where this music is used, and where the movie itself is good, check out Guy Ritchie’s “Rock’n’Rolla”.

I changed the theme of this blog from the nice “Postage” theme to “Stirred”,...

Sun, 08 Aug 2010 17:58:00 +0400

I changed the theme of this blog from the nice “Postage” theme to “Stirred”, and changed its background and link colors. I have no idea why I did it. I got bored of “Postage”, and I couldn’t find any better looking themes, so I switched to “Stirred”. And to make matters worse, I am feeling “dark” and so painted the theme too dark.

Apologies to any readers who suffer eye damage due to this atrocity on my part.

UPDATE: Have now changed the theme to something more pleasant.

Feeling paranoid today. Thought I should create a backup of my Tumblr posts now that I am writing...

Sun, 08 Aug 2010 14:49:16 +0400

Feeling paranoid today. Thought I should create a backup of my Tumblr posts now that I am writing here more regularly. I was under the impression there would be tools that take care of this, but turns out there aren’t. The official backup app from the fine folks at Tumblr work only for the OS X.

I did find two tools though. The first one, Tumblelog Backup Jammy, creates an HTML file out of all your posts. The second one, Tumblr2Wordpress, creates a WordPress compatible XML file which can then be imported into WordPress. WordPress being available for installation on one’s own server, I guess as a worst case its always possible to restore such a backup to one’s own WordPress installation (or use WordPress.com).

When I saw “Shutter Island” I was bored, confused, and sleepy. But when the movie...

Sun, 08 Aug 2010 07:28:49 +0400

When I saw “Shutter Island” I was bored, confused, and sleepy. But when the movie concluded I was blown away. Awesome, what a master piece. Once you are told why all these events happened, everything just falls into place and you see light. A wonderful movie, I must watch it again…

After a few days of frustration, I removed the email and Exchange sync settings from my iPod Touch....

Sun, 08 Aug 2010 07:25:07 +0400

After a few days of frustration, I removed the email and Exchange sync settings from my iPod Touch. And the battery life does seem to have improved. It’s one day since I charged, and whereas previously (on iOS 4) the battery icon would be only half green, this time it is still full green. So one of these, or both, could be the battery draining culprit.

Tried downgrading the iPod Touch from iOS 4 to 3.3.x or whatever. Stupidly downloaded the firmware,...

Thu, 05 Aug 2010 15:49:50 +0400

Tried downgrading the iPod Touch from iOS 4 to 3.3.x or whatever. Stupidly downloaded the firmware, tried to downgrade via iTunes, and it failed. Then I learnt that nowadays iTunes looks to Apple for approval before flashing a firmware (this is the “verifying with Apple” phase when flashing) and last week or so Apple stopped signing the 3.3.x series (it had stopped the 3.2.x and prior series earlier). The only thing I could downgrade to was the 3.1.x series firmware of the 2G generation. That too should work, I guess, but somehow I didn’t like the idea of running that old a firmware and making my iPod Touch think its a 2G device (whereas it is a 3G device). Am sure some newer functionality and apps will not work because it thinks so.

Hopelessly tried to read about jail-breaking the Touch. No luck there either. redsn0w just kept hanging; and the new “spirit” (or whatever its called) refused to downgrade from iOS 4 and refused to work with 2G 3.1.x once I had downgraded to that. So I just upgraded back to iOS 4.

This does irritate me. I would have thought its understood I have the freedom to choose what firmware I want to run on my device. I don’t mind iOS 4, but its slow, and so I want 3.3.x which I am entitled to - so I don’t see why Apple should stop me. (Apple stops it because they don’t want users installing older firmware which can be exploited for jail-breaking purposes, but I don’t want the older firmware for any such purposes and so I feel pissed that I am having to suffer just because Apple came up with this blanket rule. At least now that jail-breaking is legal, I think they should simply allow everyone to downgrade to whatever firmware they want).

Since I downgrade all the way to 2G, my data backup didn’t help when I upgraded back to iOS 4. So had to set things up from scratch. The iPod Touch felt fast and less battery draining initially, but once I set up email and Exchange sync (for contacts and calendar) it seems slow and drain-y again. Maybe one of these is the culprit. Dunno. I don’t want to disable either of these just coz Apple is evil enough to not let me use the firmware I want to rightfully use.