Category Archives: Social

Whatever they may say …

People say Lance Armstrong has been stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and given a lifetime ban by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).

Lance

Lance says

“Today I turn the page. I will no longer address this issue, regardless of the circumstances. I will commit myself to the work I began before ever winning a single Tour de France title: serving people and families affected by cancer, especially those in underserved communities. This October, my Foundation will celebrate 15 years of service to cancer survivors and the milestone of raising nearly $500 million. We have a lot of work to do and I’m looking forward to an end to this pointless distraction. I have a responsibility to all those who have stepped forward to devote their time and energy to the cancer cause. I will not stop fighting for that mission. Going forward, I am going to devote myself to raising my five beautiful (and energetic) kids, fighting cancer, and attempting to be the fittest 40-year old on the planet.”

Also posted in Personal, Sports | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Do Facebook B’day wishes mean anything ?

Ever since, social networking was introduced birthdays became an exciting event. With overflowing scrapbooks, walls and even special greetings Birthdays became an affair where you went through messages from close-friends, the one you don’t see eye to eye and even that long lost girl in 5th grade you had a crush on.

Facebook makes you a better friend

But are all those messages really what they seem. Is a facebook wall post really equal to pat on the back, a smile and a sincere heartwarming moment friend. Obviously, no. So what is a facebook birthday wish mean ?

Consider an average person on Facebook [ as in a 21 year old ] – being in the fb-boom time we normally have around 500+ friends.

Also posted in Current Affairs | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

The Beautiful Game

You know how people always go on about football. I mean, it is becoming less and less rarer to find a football fan these days. I counted around a 100 Indian users for FIFA 11 on Gameranger on Thursday when the India-Australia match was on.

The beautiful game

But the annoying thing with them is how they go on about the beautiful game – about how slick the passing is and how they roar about when Berbatov misses a sitter or when Nani dumps a long one.

Football is all about the skill moves – the deft long ball from Scholesy, the sweet caress of Van der Vaart, the diagonal raker from Stevie G, the sheer power of CR7, the cut inside from Messi, the Rooney through-ball, Zizou’s piroutee and other countless tricks. They stand up from a mundane match and scream aloud – look at me. Look at me.

Also posted in Personal, Sports | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Love and Other Drugs – Unexpected

I generally find it hard to believe in love. Fact is I’ve found very few things in this world that believe in. And I still can’t believe that a movie – a movie ! was the reason that has made me write after such a long time.

Love & other drugs

I was pleasantly hooked in to the movie – when it diverged from the cliched I’m the one – You’re the one run of the mill love story. The people are purportedly real, properly disillusioned individuals who are not holier-than-thou and make mistakes. It’s a romance for adults – rather than the usual ones aimed at teens, which is akin to finding a traffic-aware cyclist in Madurai.

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The ‘Saarang’ Perspective

I recently lead a team to Saarang – the grand celeberation of the IIT-M. We had a smashing time there. Back from Saarang, I was kind of pleasantly surprised [ and secretly relieved :P ] when I got a call as a jury for Quest ’11.

Quest - The inter-school event

Quest was this interschool event that my college conducts every year. I was to judge a particular english elocution competition. I was pleasantly surprised to fing young kids speaking about H.D. Kumaraswamy and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act [Reckon you don't know this one - so go and read about it]. The topics were “Inclusive Growth of Indians” and “My vision of Indian villages”. The students who spoke did so with an vehement intensity – as if they had the power to change the world. The only thing I missed was my bathroom-rehearsed jury speech with the bit about how every participant was very good and I had a real tough time thinking through and selecting only three from such a huge talent pool … bla bla bla.

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Reign of Assassins – class

It’s been a long time since I’ve sat down for the entirety of a movie. One – I’ve been quite busy. Two – I didn’t find any exceptionally good ones. ‘Inception’ being the single exception. So, I was quite delighted to find another movie which made me sit through it.

Reign of Assassins

‘The Reign of Assassins’ is an action film – the Wuxia genre to be precise. They also try to make it humorous and romantic at the same time. There are too many cliches. The story is pretty predictable. The fights are not spectacular. But, I love the movie.

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CIA vs MIT and thereabouts

This is rather amazing.

MIT Campus

I came across this rather intriguing anecdote of the CIA and MIT

CIA vs MIT

Though urban legend it does seem, I do wish before college ends we end up doing something like this.
And then I realized what would happen if I did have the nerve to try out something like this at my college.

  1. In order to speak to the secretary of anything related with officials+Government+Security – We would have to cough up some cash. So, cash would be a big problem.
    Of course we wouldn’t give up and start a fund collection drive. Once we do that – our college would demand the x% it requires for conducting any type of events associated with the college. And the drive would then probably collapse.
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Rooney – The elegy

Heartbroken, Shattered and Saddened by the new that my football idol – Wayne Rooney wants to leave my beloved club Manchester United.WAYNE ROONEY had the world at his feet as a Manchester ­United idol – but it still wasn’t enough for the flawed genius. This feels as bad as being cheated.

Rooney

You were our knight
Not the better one by our side
But the shiny one brushing aside
the enemy ranks in any fight.

But then you say you want to leave
Are you sure you won’t feel
That you’ll be loved as in here
Your name chanted as we did here …

Also posted in Poetry, Sports | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Enthiran – robotic mess

I like Rajini. I’m not a diehard fan, but I like him. I like his style, majesticsm, charisma, jokes, humility. So, Enthiran supposed to be ‘magnum opus’ of Shankar, the director and Superstaroo star Rajinikanth was supposed to be the ultimate entertainment gala. This was the film that would redefine Tamil cinema. Except, it didn’t.

Thalaivar

I wouldn’t say outright that the movie sucks. But, it doesn’t do anything properly. Shankar could have either gone for

  • A true out and out Sci-fi movie – Bring in more of the iRobot and less of Kilimanjaro
  • An out and out Shankar Movie – Loads of Amazing scenes, saving the world plot
Also posted in Movies | Tagged , , , , | 25 Comments

FIFA 11- It's new

Yup, the demo’s out and my semester’s probably wrecked :D
Overall, they have something on for Kaka ;) – he is a good player. But he had an abysmal season . He stars in all the covers yet he is not even in Real’s playing eleven in the game.

Entry screen

The opening video has been done away. It’s been replaced with Kaka walking into a swirl of blinking lights and crowd chanting in the stadium.

The demo features Chelsea, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Juventus, Bayer Leverkusen and Lyon, although Arsenal can be unlocked by winning 5 matches.

Messi’s got 90. The highest. A couple of transfers are still pending like Ozil, Ibrahmovic – but they’ll probably do it in the final edition.

Also posted in Games, Tech | 16 Comments