Friday night, mundane night

Apart from my roommate getting a new TV set for himself for his new room (he's moving out tomorrow), the evening went off sans events. Everyone else watched the basketball game, which I was least interested in.

A moving evening, an obscure drive, dinner and an allegorical film

So my roomate (Mahesh) spent most of his evening packing his stuff while Harish spent his time moving his stuff over. Sandesh dropped over with his car to help with moving all the stuff. After achieving the goal in several trips everyone decided to drive to Denny's for dessert. The closest Denny's is located in a tricky spot off an exit and sure enough although my memory served me right for the exit, we missed the place and were soon driving on Cheshire Bridge Road (which for the unaware is known for a high density of adult entertainment avenues). Sure enough, a rather bizarre drive past stores and bars with often hilarious names (The great Sundown Cafe is also on Cheshire Bridge Road). Finally we settled on Bamboo Luau's Chinatown. The food was good although service was a little slow (which, according to the reviews) is not unusual. Back home we settled down to watch Kalyug, Shyam Benegal's flawed interpretation of the Mahabharat in the corporate world.

Did you know that Greek composers were inspired by Indian film songs of the 50s?

Well, Helen Abadzi discovers in Hindi Films of the 50s in Greece:The Latest Chapter of a Long Dialogue: Most people know that Alexander the Great conquered northwest India in 327 CE. But very few people know that India conquered the heart of Greece around 1960. Not even Indians know of this remarkable event. ... The invasion started in 1954 and took place on the screens of working-class movie houses. It was an invasion of spectacular colors, music, dances, songs, and gorgeously dressed actresses.

Netchecking and some Psychology

Chris pointed me Chad Lundgren's blog entry on Google and Psychological Reality. Chad refers to John Rhodes' post on netchecking, which essentially means checking their facts using Google or some other search engine. I liked the following section of Chad's post (before he wandered off on a merry tangent): Google does not find the most authoritative source. It finds what people believe to be the most authoritative source. It is a good meter of what people believe something to mean. This is the psychological definition of reality: someone can have an intense belief that seems to them as real as anything else, but only they see. For some things, the only physical manifestation the rest of us can see is chemical level in the person afflicted.

E3 bits

John Carmack talks to Gamespy about Doom E3 and also makes his video card recommendations. More comments on E3 can be found on ShackNews and there's some delicious audio as Wired discovers that Doom III has a story to tell.

The winner of the First Google Programming Contest is Daniel Egnor, a former Microsoft employee. More details about Daniel's winning entry and other notable entries can be found here. More information about the contest itself can be found here.

Carolyn Keene is no more

Well, actually Mildred Augustine Wirt Benson, the first writer to be commisioned as Carolyn Keene by the Startmeyer Syndicate, is no more. Didn't care much for Nancy Drew, but if you want to know more I would recommend reading The Mysterious Case of Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, which, if you reside in the US, may still be found in the clearance bins of the nearest BORDERS. {source: Chris}

Obscure Apple Knowledge, Served Up In One Place

If you're into Apple nostalgia, you're in luck. Check out The Apple Museum . Here's you'll find information about Apple people, products, and code names.

This site is divided into four parts: history, products, biographies, and codenames. (The biography section isn't finished yet so we'll skip that.) The history section is a timeline, the front page of which is divided by pictures: pre-1975, 1975-1979, 1980-1989, 1990-1999, and 2000-present. The timelines get more detailed as they get more recent but even the pre-1975 page has plenty of information.

The products page will appeal to you old-timers. It's divided into several categories (personal computers, portable computers, personal digital assistants, etc.) Each category opens up with a page of introductory information and a list of products in that category. The PDA page includes the Newton, for example, and the printer page includes those old noisy Imagewriters. The software section doesn't look complete, though, and I wish some of the pictures were a little larger.

Finally, the codenames section describes all the codenames Apple products have had over the years. This section includes the story on codename BHA as well as some pretty surprising choices ("Hulk Hogan"?) The whole site will take you down memory lane even if you're not a big Mac fan. Worth
a look. {source: ResearchBuzz}


Searchable, Browsable Directory of Medical Eponyms

An eponym is "a word based on or derived from a person's name." Medical eponyms are conditions named after people. Whonamedit.com is a searchable and browsable directory of almost 5500 medical eponyms.

You can browse categories, view people by last name, or search by keyword. A search for Asperger found Hans Asperger, Asperger's Disorder, and Asperger's Syndrome. (You can also search by symptom or other keyword; a search for "thyroid" finds 35 results.) Search results include a brief description of the condition; click on the name of the condition for more extensive information including an extended description, synonyms, and bibliography. {source: ResearchBuzz}

Yet another Pancham site

Shailendra Musale, a member of the Pancham Yahoo! Group, has a little Pancham tribute site, which includes screenshots of a recent interview with Marutirao Keer, longtime assistant to the late R D Burman, by the Maharashtra Times.

Pancham fans unite...the magic of electronic communication and music conjure new friendships

So I met Renu Thamma, an RDB fan from Boston on the Yahoo! list. The thread that brought us in contact was an interesting discussion about 'Aise Na Thukrao' from Zabardast. To quote Shashi from his post:


Nasir Hussain's insistence in once again adding more commercialism to his last venture ZABARDAST led to the ignorance/cancellation of
the originally composed song 'Suno Sitamgar'. Not finding it commercial enough, Nasir preferred to picturise this song as Jaya-teases-Sunny song - an oft repeated theme of Nasir Hussain's movies. Hence Pancham was forced to re-record a hashed-up Genesis inspired 'Aise Na Thukrao' - which was too late to make it to the original soundtrack print. Hence you find this number in T-Series compilations - not in the original T-Series/Venus soundtrack.


We exchanged information and song listings for some rarities that we had each unearthed and in one of her last emails for the day, she talked about how she ordered CDs from Rhythm House and had them shipped to her home in India. She had praise for them because their online catalog seemed "to be linked real-time to their inventory" But their search engine (to quote her): "... words fail me here .. the exact same keyword on two consecutive searches will produce different results. Searching on 'burman' will not return 'Amit Kumar sings for R D Burman' but a search on 'amit' will return the same CD. The bloke (or bloke-ette) who they hired for their e-commerce site should be tied to a chair and be made to listen to Sridevi sing, IMO... Touché.

Pancham inspiration for the week

I visited the Music Listening Room (aka MLR) at the Georgia Tech Student Centre today and finally got a chance to listen to Donna Summer's I Feel Love (Her second Top 10 R&B and pop hit from 1977, also to be found on I Remember Yesterday) off the live LP Live and More. Why was I listening to this? Well, listen to that chord progression and the rhythm programming and if you are an R D Burman your ears will perk up -- Pyaar Karnewaale Pyaar Karte Hain Shaan Se from Shaan {bollybob review} {zulm.net DVD review}. One can almost picture him sitting there working on a tune for the lyrics and then hearing this song and jumping up to finish off another entertaining composition. The melody has nothing to do with the Donna Summer original, mind you. Listen to Shaan on MusicIndiaOnline and a clip from I Feel Love (track #8) off CDNOW.com.

An interesting part about Donna Summer's song is the extensive use of a flanged tone spanning the speakers/headphones, almost like the wind in an airfield. When we had performed this song for our college gathering, I had ventured using the flanger for a similar goal as an embellishment, without having ever heard the Donna Summer original (although the RDB song has generous little sprinkles of processed guitar sound throughout the song too). Delicious coincidence.

Blogosphere: the emerging Media Ecosystem: John Hiler has a great article on How Weblogs and Journalists work together to Report, Filter and Break the News (includes the Google/Church of Scientology business too). {Blogosphere defined}

And if you're interested in a map of NYC Bloggers and a distribution breakdown, check this cool site out.

Jon Udell has a lucid article on Social networking in Radiospace and his channelroll.

The New York Times reports that a problem in Carnivore fouled up an F.B.I. investigation two years ago that was apparently linked to Osama bin Laden's terrorist network.

They Weren't Careful What They Hoped For: Barnaby J. Feder discovers what children are learning from Internet e-mail experiments.

Vitamin Shoppe is moving into a big industrial building in North Bergen, N.J that had been leased to Webvan (now defunct) and lay unused for over two years.

Teaching début

I filled in for my guitar instructor yesterday for a few classes (two beginner level classes and one intermediate level class). Quite an interesting experience. Occasions like this present great opportunities to learn about musical tastes, influences and cultures (especially since Georgia Tech has a sizeable international student mass). I even had a left-handed guitarist in one beginner's class. Of course, since the guitar is re-strung for left-handed playing, there's not much to instruction except getting the strumming and fretting hands right. The rest of the evening was the usual day in the life of PIGS (Poor Indian Graduate Student[s]): cook dinner (eat to survive), watch some TV, read a bit and turn in.

Unicode URL Spoof

Scientific American has an interesting article about how a pair of students at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology registered "microsoft.com" with Verisign, using the Russian Cyrillic letters "c" and "o". Even though it is a completely different domain, the two display identically (the article uses the term "homograph"). The work was done for a paper in the Communications of the ACM (the paper itself is not online). The article characterizes attacks using this spoof as "scary, if not entirely probable," assuming that a hacker would have to first take over a page at another site. {slashdot} {slashdot: why Unicode won't work on the Internet}

Yet another asian cinema site

Just discovered Cineraider, which includes a little section on desi cinema too.

Film Comment on Bollywood

The May/June 2002 issue of Film Comment has gone Bollywood. Sushmita Sen adorns the cover (a little feather in her cap). The special section, guest-edited by David Chute includes Bollywood: Further Research by David Chute, an interview with Aamir Khan and Bollywood Abstracts by David Chute (which includes capsules from the articles not available online).

I2FS plug: Karthik has posted the Karz/LP find on I2FS and even referenced my post:
A pretty good (read blatant!) find for the day. Laxmikant Pyarelal's Karz theme tune (and consequently the song 'Ek haseena thi' based on that tune) happens to be a direct lift from George Benson's 'We as love' (part of his 1977 album, 'Weekend in LA', written by his keyboard player, Ronnie Foster). Thanks to George Thomas for the info. George has also posted this info in his BlogSpot [Third entry under 'Thursday, May 23, 2002]. Other relevant trivia: Karz, the movie itself was a lift from the 1975 movie 'The Reincarnation of Peter Proud'. Subash Ghai's website talks about this tune too, though, as George adds in his blogspot, they could sure do with a decent proofreader..."The signature tune on the Guitar is still one of the most haunted tunes ever composed in the history of Indian Cinema"!!!

Dinner Déjà Vu

Well, since it was Memorial Day most of our options for eating out went to nought, what with the stores closed. Eventually we ended up back at the same place as yesterday and just switched our orders. Caught a lot of reruns after dinner: Seinfeld, Friends, Just Shoot Me.

Customer Service Jokes and User Manuals

Remember all those jokes about weird complaints to customer service? The Washington Post has a hilarious article on why people don't read manuals. The simple reason: combine impatience and the time it takes to pore over manuals.

Movies on Memorial Day Eve

So Sunday evening was auspicious since the TV didn't conk off, allowing us to watch The Tingler and Sleepless in Seattle.

The Tingler lives up to every expectation I had from a William Castle film. Be it the noirish edge where everyone seems to be destined for ruin or the fairly serious face Vincent Price keeps on camera as he handles the Tingler (I recall legend that he could barely contain himself while handling the fly with David Hedison's head! He plays a scientist (again!) who discovers the hidden organism that creates fear in all of us, of course violating the ethics of scientists in the process. The reflexive moments when the Tingler actually enters the theatre are priceless. As with every Castle film, this one used a couple of theater gimmicks: Whenever blood-curdling screams occurred in the movie, hidden buzzers vibrated the seats. (This feature was called "Percepto.") Shills planted in the audience let out their own screams. The film is also supposed to be the earliest to feature an LSD trip (if you notice the title of the book that Vincent Price is reading it includes the words "lysergic acid"). The tape we had was the reissue, which meant that we could relish the brief colour sequence originally included in the film. It's grainy (being 8mm versus the fine 35mm in the rest of the film), but it includes that splendid shot of the hand reaching out of a bloody bathtub. Camp homage to Edvard Munch before the opening credits unfold. The opening notes of the score (which also form the musical motif in the film) recall Herrmann's score for Vertigo. Maybe not. This is the quintessential William Castle film. {more William Castle}

Sleepless in Seattle is everyone's favourite chick flick (it would seem!). What's a chick flick? A movie about and/or for women. Although that doesn't mean everyone can't enjoy the film. Lots of great references in this one. Rob Reiner (who made the classic modern chick flick When Harry Met Sally (WHMS), also number 23 on AFI's top 100 comedies) stars in this film. Nora Ephron who directed (and wrote the screenplay for) this film also wrote WHMS. Want more? Countless similarities between this one and Frasier. Great lines, good laughs and competent performances. Enjoyable, unless you think people will call you a sissy for watching movies like this (in which case, you could go watch The Dirty Dozen).

As Promised, Microsoft to Offer Concealable Icons: An update to the Windows XP operating system will let users hide the computer screen icons of some Microsoft programs. {my last update}


Venture capitalists Still on the Lookout for New Technologies: When Paypal's chief technology officer, Max R. Levchin, accepted Technology Review magazine's award for innovator of the year in Cambridge, Mass., on Thursday, it was an indication that innovation on the Web, while not close to its level of two or three years ago, is far from dead.


New Order of Web Researchers May Rise From Jupiter's Ashes: Components of Jupiter Media Metrix, once one of the most prominent Internet research firms, are being bought by rivals who want to continue in the same business. Yes, that's right. They sold their key patents and international contracts to NetRatings, their main competitor.


From a Few Colored Lines Come the Sounds of Music: A new software called Hyperscore lets the musically illiterate compose complex works. No musical notes and notations required.

Cannes Winners

Well the Cannes Winners have been announced. Roman Polanksi clinched the Palme D'Or for The Pianist. Get the complete awards list here or as a PDF. There's an Indian winner too: Manish Jha shared the Jury Prize for A Very, Very Silent Film. Paul Thomas Anderson (remember the frogs in Magnolia?) won Best Director for Punch-Drunk Love (starring Adam Sandler !!!). Allen joked about France's fondness for him, saying the French have two misconceptions: ``that I'm an intellectual, because I wear these glasses, and that I'm an artist, because my films lose money all the time. Neither of those things are true.''

Blaxploitation resurfaces

For Fun, a Mucho Macho Black Hero: Undercover Brother, a comedy opening on Friday, is a parody of early 70's African-American macho familiar from the blaxploitation films of that era � Shaft, Superfly and Black Belt Jones.

Mike Myers is also planning to use themes from the genre for Goldmember, the new Austin Powers film.

Degrees of blog separation

So, a friend of mine from college just dropped me a line. Turns out he was searching for information about Devdas at Cannes {my old post}. Keeping in touch has been such a pain in general, and now a blog acts as a catalyst. What more can one ask for?

Library hauls and an evening of music, mystery science theatre, and some great ice cream

So it's getting warmer now and summer will soon be in (sweat and dread!). Got a few hauls at the library

• Books
  
  
  
  • The regatta mystery, and other stories /Agatha Christie
  
  
  • Murder in retrospect : a hercule poirot mystery/Agatha Christie (also known as Five Little Pigs)
  
  
  • Folk-style guitar/Harry Taussig
  
  
  • How to make & sell your own recording/Diane Rapaport
  
  
  • Bold! Daring! Shocking! True : A History of Exploitation Films, 1919-1959/Eric Schaefer
  
  
  
  


• CDs
  
  
  
  • The best of the Band/The Band
  
  
  • Graceland/Paul Simon
  
  
  
  


• VHS: Sleepless in Seattle, The Tingler, Guitar Method in the style of the Beatles

In the evening Vijay (a friend from the guitar class of Spring 2002) came over and we spent our time exploring my little CD collection: Starting off with the blues roots of Clapton and Led Zeppelin (Listen to Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe singing 'When the Levee Breaks' and then switch to the Led Zeppelin version: sheer magic), we proceeded (inevitably) to R D Burman. Here's what I remember:

* The Kronos Quartet covering Aaj ki Raat from Anamika (with Zakir Hussain on tabla)

* O Maajhi from Bandhe Haath (the 'cabaret boat song')

* Teri Meri Yaari Badi Purani from Charitraheen (the tea saucer hitting a tympanum)

* Listen to the Pouring Rain (as covered by Usha Uthup in Bombay to Goa. A tune that RDB later used in Double Cross as did Anu Malik in Sir for 'Sun Sun Sun Barsaat ki Dhun Sun')

* Mere Liye from Raaton Ka Raja

* O Jaaneman from Chhalia (with bonus dialogues from Shotgun Sinha and the infectious RDB-favourite bossa nova surfacing again with some great horns and his impeccable 'everything but the kitchen sink' instrumentation)

* Dil ka Darwajja Khol De from Hifazat

* Nasha Husn ka from Mardon Wali Baat (which seems like the seed for 'Bholi Si Surat' in Dil To Pagal Hai) (A Planet Bollywood reviewer also seems to have noticed!)

* Our recordings from Firodiya 1996: The Workshop (How I wish I had the other recordings!!)

* Rangé Mehfil from Samundar (guitar solo picturised as a sax solo)

Post-dinner I paid a visit to Ara and Pari as they watched Hera Pheri, Priydarshan's Hindi remake of Siddique Lal's Malayalam monster hit Ramji Rao Speaking (which even had a sequel called Mannar Mathai Speaking). Priyadarshan has done this a lot -- adapting Malayalam/Tamil films for Bollywood, that is. Remember Gardish (from Sibi Malayil's Kireedam, which also had a sequel, Chenkol), Viraasat (from Thevar Magan)? Although the film did well at the box office (why oh why???) Priyadarshan had differences with the producer, especially since they added two songs into the film without his consent (and let me tell you, the songs stink and stick out like fat sore thumbs). That doesn't excuse him though. From what I made of it, the film was tired, the comedy flat and there was just no chemistry anywhere. Add to that some extremely strange cheap wide angle shots and fast first-person camera without reason; an underused unfortunate Om Puri; a performance of Paresh Rawal that soon goes from exciting to interesting to bearable to irritating, especially since he has to bounce off two fine pieces of wood as Akshay Kumar and Sunil Shetty. A perfect candidate for Mystery Science Theatre, which is what we indulged in, as I downed some generous ice cream.

Collectors over the phone, a triple thick shake and a great compilation of rarities

So I had an hour-long conversation on Friday over the phone with Mrs. Manorama Pandit, who has been hosting the 2-hour long "Music from India" radio show on Sundays from 11am to 1pm on WRFG 89.3 FM {see: Radio Pancham}. Turns out we are collectors of the obscure, except that her time frame begins from the 1940s, while mine would start from 1961 (Chote Nawab). Besides, I have an R D Burman focus, while she has a more general palette. Still, there seems to be a possibility of exploring and exchanging collections.

Skipped dinner and settled for a triple-thick milkshake (from the MacDhaba, desi lingo for MacDonald) thanks to Harish, who wanted the fudge sundae and (as always) they were out of it! Back home it was time to open up another of my RDB purchases, and I chose Anokha Pancham. Didn't regret it a bit. A great compilation of RDB rarities from the 70s, it included the title song of Dheeraj Kumar's 1970 film debut Raaton Ka Raja (yes, I remember the film too!). The compilation betrays RDB's soft corner for the bossa nova, which he introduced into Hindi film music with "Maar Dalega Dard-e-Jigar" from Pati Patni (1966). I followed that up with another combo of RDB scores: Anamika(1973)/Paraya Dhan(1971).

Desi eBay (NOTE: links are active only for the duration of the auction)

Laparwah / Indian Soundtrack: Laparwah � Bappi Lahiri (EMI, India, 1980) Includes a funny mix of Electronics and trad music on �Tumko Mainne sapnon men to dekha tha�, plus a funny easy track called �Background Music� between Ennio Morricone�s spaghetti soundtracks and John Barry�s James Bond music

The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies became the top response for Roger Ebert's Answer Man request for the funniest movie title. My favourite long one was: Carl Andersen's Austrian z-grade flick entitled "I Was a Teenage Zabbadoing" (alternative title: "I Was a Teenage Zabbadoing and the Incredible Lusty Dust-Whip from Outer Space Conquers the Earth versus the Three Psychodelic Stooges of Dr. Fun Helsing and Fighting Against Surf-Vampires and Sex-Nazis and Have Trouble with This Endless Titillation Title"). Wow!

September 06, 2002: Carl Andersen found my blog in an internet search and dropped me a line to include a link to his website. This film is available there.

Devdas, Copsite and the old Chemistry Laboratory in Fergusson College

Elizabeth Bunt reports on Devdas at Cannes and the new global market that Indian films are looking at.

In local news, the city police pf Pune are all set to make their official website more interactive and community-oriented. {source: Chris}

Fergusson College pressed the panic button for a few hours on Thursday afternoon after their chemical laboratory caught fire due to a cleaning mishap. The principal A K Wagh suspects the unholy union of sulphuric acid and phosphorus. No fire though, just a lot of chemical smoke. Sigh! Memories of that cloistered stuff lab where everyone took delight in producing weird colours at their fingertips and noxious odours like never before. {source: Chris}

Aaron Swartz (see earlier post) has a weblog dedicated to all things and happenings Google. Check it out!

There's a Yahoo! IM GoogleBot called YIMGoogle based on the new Google API and Praya.

And the Sets demo on Google Labs passed the Borges test. {results on Google} {more about Borges' Animals}

Netflix went public yesterday

Netflix, everyone's favourite online DVD rental portal, went public with 2 other technology companies (for the first time in almost 20 months, says Kenneth L. Gilpin). Way to go!

Ringtones for mobile phones based on popular film songs

Just caught a post on ramli about Imran Shnawer's site listing several ringtones based on your (ostensibly) favourite tunes.

Sona, Gump and two loud dogs
So, thanks to the interest I generated in a friend about Sona Imports, an Indian store for audio/visual material in Decatur, GA, I got a free ride again to the place. Thankfully my friend was impressed as well. Made a few more purchases (what else can you do with so much to choose from)

Evergreen Hits of R D Burman (CD | T-series) {which was the catalyst of my trip. See Radio Pancham}

Karm/Mukti (CD | HMV)

Dil Tera Hua (with 3 songs from Parinda as a bonus) (CD | Weston)

Anokha Pancham (Audio Cassette | HMV) {This one has an interesting gramophone logo and the recording company is actually called GCIL - Gramophone Company of India Limited ... strange}

My roommate has reached the first leg of his long drive west -- Fortworth, TX. Great going.

Essential Blogging is up for review. For those not in the know, it shows how to install and use the major weblog tools: Blogger, Radio Userland, Blosxom, and Movable Type. They are also looking for contributions.

Doom III: First impressions
GameSpy has a sneak look at Id's much-awaited Doom III. The emphasis this time is on atmosphere and scares and a gentler pace to the game versus its previous traditional shoot-em-up (FPS) approach. Screenshots are interesting, but this is Id we are talking about, so should we have expected less? And yes, it supports Dolby 5.1 surround sound!

Famous desi song lift for the week

No one who has seen Subhash Ghai's 1980 hit Karz (itself a remake/rehash of The Reincarnation of Peter Proud) will forget the soundtrack, especially the theme riff of the film that forms the backbone of the Kishore/Asha song Ek Haseena Thi. Well, guess what, composer Laxmikant-Pyarelal filched that from "We as Love", the last track on George Benson's acclaimed 1977 live album Weekend in L. A. composed by his synthesizer/keyboard player Ronnie Foster. Check out an audio clip of Benson's track on CDNow (song #11) and of the Karz piece on MusicIndiaOnline. Incidentally, the LP score won the Filmfare Award, becoming the only disco/pop Hindi film soundtrack to win the award. More Karz trivia on Mr. Ghai's site. Mr. Ghai must get someone to correct the English on the site: The signature tune on the Guitar is still one of the most haunted tunes ever composed in the history of Indian Cinema.

Digital Cameras have revamped the idea of a 'Family Album'. With their associated technology and ilk, they typify the traditional American value of convenience. Katie Hafner has a nice little piece on this in the New York Times {note: free registration required}

Dinner, a fresh fruit juice chain, innovative marketing and departure: As of 0630 EST my roommate is finally on his way on the road to Stanford. We had a great dinner (again!) at Malaya we spent most of the evening and night discussing issues as varied as movies, music trends, political upheavals and marketing strategies. We even came full circle to what we started.

It's interesting how much interesting information you glean from such diverse conversations. I found out about Odwalla, an innovatively succesful fresh fruit juice chain that takes its name from a musical piece entitled "Illistrum", composed by Malachi Favors, and performed by The Art Ensemble of Chicago. ("Fanfare for the Warriors" Atlantic SD 1651, April 1974).

Jamba Juice, a chain responsible for delicious, nutritious, convenient meals filled with enticing fruit and vegetable flavors, vital nutrients and total convenience (their smoothies bear similar qualifications), decided to save on investing millions in figuring out good locations to set up shop by just posting themselves next to every Starbucks outlet. Since Starbucks was (and is) doing well, so could Jamba Juice. Seems to have worked!

Bollywood breaks onto U.S. screens: Moulin Rouge (with a fragment of Anu Malik's 'Chamma Chamma' from the China Gate soundtrack) and Ghost World (which opens with 'Jaan Pehchaan Ho' from Gumnaam and credits rolling against Thora Birch dancing to the song running on a TV screen in her room) have done their bit in pushing Hindi film music from cult status to mainstream acceptance: In a scenario derived from Agatha Christie, a murderer is bumping off the survivors of a plane crash on a deserted island. So what do people with their lives in danger do? Among other things, they have a beach party and perform the exuberant song-and-dance number "Jaan Pehechaan Ho."

A Classic City, 19 at Wild Wings, a Car Wash, Rock-Bottom Prices and Dicksian Dreams

Took a drive to Athens, GA with my room-mate who leaves town today. A farewell trip for both of us in a way. Being there was cathartic. The classic city defines everything an ideal city should have. Atlanta has always been a pretentious attempt to masquerade as a metropolitan/cosmopolitan progressive city, but has ended up as a confused melange of old town, sparse desert, ugly environs and desolate distances. As if the walk through classic downtown wasn't pleasant enough, we entered the Wild Wings Cafe for dinner. It being a Tuesday, they had a deal on their wings, which meant you could have twice the number of wings in an order for the price of a single order (and your choice of the two types of wings). I had a great mix of habanero wings and a mild ranch variant, with homemade bleu dips and celery. The jukebox blared out one hit after another and we left the place shortly after the karaoke had started. After a generous car wash we drove over to the Athens WAL*MART super centre (which is the biggest one I have ever seen) and relished the low prices and wide range of items. Desolate dark vegetation peppered with occasional bright spots that marked a Waffle House (the ubiquitous American milestone), a chain gas station, or a car dealer's lot (what a waste of power!). Just the qualities of a boring drive. We had music to keep us company, and the local radio station didn't fade out for quite a while after we entered Atlanta. The confused mix of meat I had ingested could only contribute to the eclectic obscurity of my dreams -- too involved and tiring to describe, except my house wasn't what it used to be, and neither did the occupants. Time and space had no meaning. All this cranial overload peaked (on schedule, as always) as the alarm clock launched into its cacophonous revival riff.

Interesting news group thread: Authenticity of music in Historicals
There's a nice long thread on rmim about the authenticity of music used and performed in Hindi film historicals.

Open Content Network: P2P Meets Open Source

The creators of Swarmcast have announced a new peer-to-peer content delivery network called the Open Content Network. The OCN will allow users to download open source and public domain content from multiple peers and mirrors in parallel. The system is designed to augment the existing mirrors with bandwidth from the p2p network and should eliminate the "Slashdot Effect" for popular open source content." {source: slashdot}

The Top 10 Hot Jobs

As people live through the economic slump and dread stories of pink slips, Chris Taylor looks at what the top 10 Hot Jobs will be in the near future. The presence of more than one CS job is a welcome sight.

Linux, GNU and Freedom: RMS (that's Richard M. Stallman) responded to Joe Barr's account of the FSF's dealings with the Austin Linux users group. {source: slashdot}. His constant insistence on calling the system GNU/Linux, although well-founded (read: not completely unreasonable) may rub a *lot* of people the wrong way, but I respect his courage in sticking to his stance. Had a chance to attend his talk in Pune when he visited India (although I missed a chance to have dinner with him). Very entertaining speaker, although he was disappointed when he came to the part of his story about GNU and Linux where he said 'all that the system was missing was the kernel'. Clearly, people thought more of the kernel than he did!

Dilbertian Google

Should have posted this yesterday. Starting Monday (which is yesterday, of course) Google has teamed up with Dilbert creator Scott Adams to create a set of Google Doodles peppered with Dilbert and Co.

New Registered Hindi Film Titles: Just took a look at Taran Adarsh's list of new titles registered, as of May 03, 2002. The list is short and hilarious enough for me to just dump it below. I discovered the list in February.


Adhura Pyar* (lsha Films)
Kaho Na Turn Mere Ho (")
Good Morning (Varma Corporation Ltd.)
Phir Mile Na Milen (Numero Uno International Ltd.)
Mile Na Milen Hum (")
Piya Ka Ghar Pyara Lage (Aditya Entertainment)
Khule Aam (Kabeer Production)
Parchhayee (Khushan Nandy)
Dil Dil Hindustani (Simple Minds)
Thoda Sa Deewana Mai (")
Thodi Si Deewani Woh (")
Bahut Khoob (")
Sagar Jaisi Aankhon Wali (")
Lets Play The Game of Death Deewar (V.R. Pictures)
The Game Of Death Deewar (V.R. Pictures)
Let's Bring Our Heroes Home Vijay (")
Operation Vijay Lets Bring Our Heroes Home (")
Vijay Let's Bring Our Heroes Home (")
Kambakht Mohabbat (F.K.F. Productions)
Dil Dushman (")
Kyaa Koi Hai (Mohan Movies)
Mere Gareeb Nawaz (Vardhman Entertainers)
Rajguru Bhagatsingh Sukhdev (B4U Entertainment)
Mauka (Seven Plots Present)

Bollywood remake for the week (well it's a forthcoming film, but early news reports never hurt anyone)

After their desi ripoff of Consenting Adults that bore the moniker of Ajnabee (where the cat was let out of the box in the previews of the film featuring the song 'Mehbooba Mehbooba'), the brothers Abbas and Mastan proceed to take apart yet another Hollywood assembly-line product with their forthcoming film Humraaz (not to be confused with the Sunil Dutt-Raaj Kumar starrer for which B. R. Chopra became the first recipient of the national award for best director) starring Akshaye Khanna, Amisha Patel and Bobby Deol. The source? A Perfect Murder, the Michael Douglas/Gwyneth Paltrow remake of Hitchcock's 1954 classic Dial M for Murder (or if you want to try being desi, the 1985 Suresh Oberoi-Raj Babbar-Dimple Kapadia starrer Aitbaar from late director Mukul Anand, which came there first!). Nice ground to cover. As an innovative (read: merciful relief from trite mushy pointless Hindi film songs) strategy, the promos of the film are action-only (read: no song snippets or the like). So people who want to find out how audio-visually bad Himesh Reshamiya's songs are can wait for the film to hit the theatres.

The Clowns didn't break Spidey's opening box office record, but I'm sure it's going to recover every worthless cent invested in it. Sorry for being overtly critical/cynical about it, but ever since Herr Lucas decided to digitally touch up his 3 contributions to the list of top blockbusters of all time with CG foundation, I stopped following the magic of the series. The principles for dispute are not unlike those behind the endless LP vs CD debate. And who needs prequels anyway? The mysterious Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader should have stayed mysterious. And since when did CG supersede good old-fashioned storytelling?? Needless to say, Herr Lucas has gone and put in more racial stereotypes</