12 02/2012

What's that? Today's date in Indian/European style, 12 February 2012. Or in US, 02/12/2012. Nice date huh? It's not bad for sure.. Anyways, this weekend's been mostly a cleanup weekend for bedroom floor, kitchen counter-top & living room area. Which was nice & quite an accomplishment. Also watched 2 movies, again.. The Artist (8/10) which is a great film (here in US, we make movies, american movies.. leave the films to french) with nice performances, good story line, great visuals & great dialogues.. oops, almost no dialogues but I could feel them & felt nice. It's almost a silent movie with mostly soundtrack only. & it's black & white. Still lot of fun to watch, great job for sure!! Also watched Woman in Black  (6/10) starring our good old Dan the Harry Potter. Well, he's older now, playing a widower dad.. and he does quite well. But I do not really appreciate horor movies who just try to scare you with shock value & loud sounds but nothing really scary to arouse your fear from inside. That's what this does mostly so not super-impressed. But if you are a fan of horror genre or dan, you can go & watch it for once. Also went to this decent diner next to water in Edgewater, NJ (apparently, Whitney's mom lives here) and had this nice Banana Split.. YUM!!!!

Sad news for many, Whiteny Houston died yesterday... RestInPeace Whitney!!

Annie Hall (10/10)

La-dee-da, la-dee-daa... I just watched Annie Hall, one of the most wonderful, entertaining & fun movies I have seen. Yeah.. I am giving it 10/10, cuz I loved it so much. It's funny, it's neurotic, it's crazy, it's silly, its smart & it's AWESOME!! It's my kinda movie, like my style... Woody Allen is so smart with his dialogues, his ideas, his actors, & everything... His frequent breaking of fourth wall is so nice (same as I talk to U guys.. U think he copied me?). Watching of past events live, very well used. Great concept & thinking behind the movie too. It's story of a neurotic jew comedian, born & brought up in Brooklyn & living in Manhattan. He meets Annie (beautiful & wonderful Diane Keaton, really great), he dates annie, they break up, they get together, they breakup & all that. Lot of stuff happens in between.. in New York and some in "LA, the city where only cultural advantage is being able to make right turn on red light", LOL. Just watch the movie & you'll love it.... Congratulations & Kudos Woody Allen (I know it means a lot to you & you've been waiting for this)!!

NY Giants WON Superbowl

That's the biggest news of the weekend of course. Second news is I went to Metropolitan Museum of Art which is not just an Art Museum as I thought or people may expect but has lots of awesome artistic & historic & cultural artifacts including, sculptures, paintings, crafts, designs and lot of awesome stuff from all over the world. I saw some Egyptian & Indian stuff only with little Japanese & American/European paintings etc. It's really huge too, I probably saw just 10% of it. Third news is, I saw Tree of Life (5/10). One of most boring movies I have seen in a while. Good performances & great imagery but BS movie. Overall, it was a nice weekend!!

Agneepath (8/10) & Underworld 4 (5/10)

After last "Quite a Weekend", I watched 2 movies today.. Agneepath is definitely a great movie.. very well acted, very well presented & very well done. As most of you may know that it's remake of 1990 movie of same name with Amitabh Bachchan in lead role & directed by Mukul S Anand. I honestly do not remember a lot from the movie except Amitabh's introduction as Vijay Deenanath Cahuhan, his white suits, some fights & the climax scene (spoiler) where he dies in his mother's arms. I do remember Mithun da as Krishna Iyer MA, which role has been completely eliminated from this movie. But Karan Malhotra has added Rauf Lala played by Rishi Kapoor in negative role, which is most definitely one of his greatest performance & highlight of the movie. Rishi is menacing, mean, crooked, fierce & BAD.. & most definitely REAL. Unlike Kancha Cheena played by Sanjay Dutt, which is definitely a great performance by him, but seems quite unrealistic & out of place for the movie. He has this semi-devil kinda role which would be great in a mythology or fantasy or some crazy movie, but does not seesms to fit in well in this movie.. which in turn make the Scene with Sanjay Dutt not as fantastic.. which in turn makes the whole climax scene in Mandwa, not as awesome as you would expect. Because movie has got you in high wits and emotional state by 2/3rd of the movie with all the things going on, some great scenes between Hrithik (who's at his usual best, nothing exceptional but very good) & Priyanka (who's really good in the movie), mother-son scenes & ofcourse Scenes with Rishi. Regardless, it's a fantastic movie with great visuals, background score, music, dialogues & performances. Definitely a must watch great movie!!

Underworld Awakening on the other side was quite a bore.. or maybe not. Wasn't horrible, it was just what you expect. But definitely not as good as first two movies. It's very low on content & high on action. 3D is again a misuse and just seems the money making scam. It was a an okay/kinda-fun watch.. If you are an Underworld or Vampire franchise  fan.. then go ahead!!

Quite a Weekend.. Really!!

Why? Well.. it all started on Friday when I was supposed to take Bolt Bus to DC from Newark and I ended up on bus to Boston.. yeah!! The driver checked the ticket and didn't say anything and I thought it was bus to DC as it was on same spot & boarded it. No announcements made either.. Half way through I realized I am on wrong bus and asked the driver, he tells me I need to go to Boston & take another Bus back. WTF? I call customer care & they get me to dispatch, which tells me to get off at rest stop Burger King & they'll have bus to NY from Boston pick me &take to NYC where I can take bus to DC. They talk to driver about location & the idiot again screws up by giving them wrong location. I end up waiting 4.5 hrs at that stop when after making five calls, finally a bus shows up. I get in NYC at 10 where I finally board Megabus (which I don't like, but they came to my rescue) to DC reaching DC at 2 in night after 15 hrs of journey.. Could have made to India in that time!!

Next day i.e. Saturday, paid a visit to National Zoo in DC with Tani. Small zoo, but okay. Orangutans & Gorrillas there are nice & active & smart seeming. Orangutans take the high rope & fly across one cage to another, was fun to watch. One was pissing & pooping while hanging in air, weirdo.. The other specialty is Giant Panda. They were being leased fro $1 Million until recently and now US is paying $500,000 to China. All they do, is sit & eat Bamboo. For that kinda money, they should do a dance show or something... Regardless, it was fun but the evening was not. Went to Amy's birthday party at PF Chang in Arlington where I was served with completely wrong dish, extreme opposite of what I ordered. The manager came & apologized & all that, but still.. very-very bad.. We did get free appetizer coupons  and $45 gift card for me & Amy each. So anyways, all in all, it was REALLY.. QUITE a WEEKEND!!

Happy India Republic Day 2012!!

Jay Leno's insult to Sikh

US defends comedian Jay Leno jibe

Really? Why so?? With republic day coming tomorrow.. I mean, maybe be more open to humor... I do not personally approve of what Leno did, I don't even like him actually. But this is right of free speech and what he showed what just sarcastic skit. Didn't say anything in particular about Sikhs or the religion at al in this skit. So maybe  loosen up & take it easy. We see even more in India itself, direct insults & dis-respect. This is an American guy just doing his job the way he does it.. & it didn't show any direct dis-respect to sikhs or even Golden Temple.. Maybe we as a country and as Indian people need to losen up a little & take things easy??

General Motors Diet Plan & SNOW

Should I call it Part 2? Returns? Back? Again? Or what?? I was on the GM Diet Plan again, today being the last day. How was it? Good!! (I did cheat once on Day 3 by eating 2 rusks and 2 kachoris, real bad of me huh). I started last tuesday and finished today. I have not been back to Gym since last August due to various reasons and just wanted to lose some weight, detox & feel good. I do feel good. Crash diets are not easy, probably not good either, but this one is good I think.... The weekend was pretty slow with SNOW & cold & all that, with mostly sleeping -> waking up at 10-11 -> preparing & eating diet food -> watching movie/tv/show -> quick nap of an hour -> waking up & watching movie/tv/show -> preparing eating food -> watching movie/tv/show -> sleeping. Sounds boring?? It really wasn't that bad.. Here's what I watched:

• Good Will Hunting (9/10) Amazing performances, excellent storyline.. Ben & Matt are great in not just writing this story but acting too, Ben's scene with Matt where he tells him he'll kill him is awesome.. just a great movie!!
• Following (8/10) One point extra for being made with so low budget. This first feature film of Chris Nolan, could show you what's in future of this great director (FYI: he has achieved it!!).
• Cashback (5/10) Interesting idea but not that well executed, it's alright.
• Donnie Brasco (8/10) Quite a nice not-so-mob movie with great performances and interesting storyline based on real story. Forget-about-it!!
• GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra (6/10) Great Action & FUN.. but that's it.

So.. thanks for reading (so generous of me!!) & feel free to comment (like you are dependent on my instructions) & keep coming back and.. that's it!!

Wikipedia Blackout - How to bypass?

As usual, I was searching for something yesterday after midnight on Google & then clicked on Wikipedia link to it.. lo'behold (does that mean anything? is it appropriate??) Wikipedia is on blackout for 24 hrs & this is what they say:

Imagine a World
Without Free Knowledge

For over a decade, we have spent millions of hours building the largest encyclopedia in human history. Right now, the U.S. Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open Internet. For 24 hours, to raise awareness, we are blacking out Wikipedia. Learn more.

I do not know much about SOPA & PIPA, but I would like to support something Wikipedia is supporting cuz I like them & they seem to be non-profit kinds. I don't know right now, but I like them for sure cuz they are source of lot of my knowledge. But anyways, its the same for many of you & I am giving a way here to be able to bypass this blackout & read the information you need:

Method 1

Step one: Search for the Wikipedia page you want to view

Step two: Wait for the page and the blackout to load fully.

Step three: Add '?banner=none' to the end of the existing URL and press enter.

Method 2

Step one: Use a search engine to find the Wikipedia page you want to read.

Step two: Once you have have clicked on the page you want to see, you need to click the 'Stop loading this page' button in the address bar of your web browser before the Wikipedia flash page loads. You may need to hit refresh a few times to get used to the timing. (See right)

 Note: You will have a one or two second window to stop the page loading before the black out flash page takes over the site. So it's just a matter of timing when you stop the page loading.

Alternatively you can Google to search for the Wikipedia page you want to read.

Method 3

Step one: Perform a Google search for the Wikipedia page you want to view, allow the page load as normal and wait for the blackout to takeover.

Step two: Copy and paste the URL back into a Google search and hover your mouse over the relevant result, then click on the '>>' symbol.

Step three: You will then see a cached preview image of the Wikipedia page you have searched for. You'll also find the word 'Cached' at the top of the preview image, click on this and it will take you to a non-blacked out Wikipedia page - however, the page will most probably be one day out of date.

Method 4

Step one: Download the official Wikipedia app for your smartphone or tablet. The black out has not effected mobile devices.

Before you bypass the black out, you might like read Wikipedia's statement on why it's "blacking out" its content for 24 hours, to see whether you agree or disagree with its stance.

New Hope PA & Lambertville NJ | Princeton University | Jersey Gardens Outlet Mall.. & Movies!!!!

Yep. that was my long weekend. Full of activities - Really FULL. On Saturday, went to New Hope PA & Lambertville NJ which are right on the banks of Delaware river on either side. It's a beautiful little town with nice restaurants & small non-chain shops (I bought Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh in 3D, without glasses) & all that.. pretty & cute. We had a meal at Marsha's Brown, a protestant church converted into a restaurant - nice food, great vibe, interesting place but bad service (maybe it was just the server guy we got & the girl, both!!). Overall, it was really nice!!

Then, the next stop was Princeton University, I likes it. Nice campus, looks lil like Harvard, but more organised & nicer campus. After a lil hangout there, went to Bent Spoon for a dessert - lovely place & great service (the girl kept asking to try more & more stuff). They have great hot chocolate, loved the habanero flavor. The ginger ice-cream was very good & they have very nice cookies & cupcakes specially I hear. Woudl love to visit Princeton again soon. On the way back stopped at the Durga Temple, a north Indian temple, which was very nice too.

Sunday was the visit to Jersey Garden Outlet Mall, which is huge & nice & indoor (thankfully, for the freezing sub-zero weather). there was 40% store wide discount sale at Old Navy, which made me buy lots of pants & shirts there and at Marshalls. Also watched lots of movies over the week/weekend:

• Sucker Punch (7/10): Nice action & imagination & interesting story
• Take Me Home Tonight (5/10): Kinda funny & okay
• Band Baja Baraat (8/10): Very well made, great performances by Ranveer & Anushka
• Freakonomics (8/10): Very interesting & FUN
• Sherlock (9/10): This is British TV show but I love there adoption of Sherlock, one of the best.. almost better than the movies!!

That was pretty much it, I guess.. how about you??

Got my New Jersey License & Car Regn.

So, today I got my New Jersey Driving License. Also, got the Car Title & Registration, moved to New Jersey. I went to the center in Jersey City and it wasn't bad at all. Took like an hour or so to get all 3 done. I was impressed how easy it was. For license, just make sure you have proper 6 point verification documents. Go to the reception, where they give you 2 small forms. Fill all info, get the documents verified, get picture taken & get license in few mins (this does not include driving test). Title & registration was even easier, just make sure you have original title on you and rest is taken care of by filing 2 small forms with car & your NJ DL info. Getting personalized plate is little pain as you have to get it from Trenton DMV or do it online. Also.. for change/transfer, I also had to call Virginia DMV & County Tax office to tell them of move so they can cancel my registration & not charge me any car tax. (One bad thing is that Virginia does not refund your registration money back unless its more than 6 months :-()

It's been as low as 10 F(-12 C). My room was so cold last night, I almost couldn't sleep. I have steam heating, which I think is very good, makes it more than 80s sometimes & I have to crack the window open, but been cold last 2 days. Maybe it was because of this very cold weather or there is a window open somewhere in the house. Need to check....

Happy New Year 2012!!!!

After 2011.. Happy New Year 2012 to all my followers/readers & everyone!!!!

Had a good new year's day taking stroll in Liberty State Park.. eating at India Street at some new 'Haleem restaurant' with delicious chat & nice haleem.. and then watching Pirates of Caribbean's: On Stranger Tides (5/10: not really good, not funny, not nice action and not understandable either. lemurly lemurable). Looking forward for one of the most wonderful years, till date, this year!!!!

The year that was.. 2011

Can't believe that the year is over. It was okay.. nothing special, except MnD visit. or was there more?? Lets see as per my blog, what this year was about:

• Alcatraz and Drive on CA-1 to 17 mile Drive & Big Sur!!
• Maximum India @ Kennedy Center DC: Kailasha with Kailash Kher.. Symphony with Zakir Hussain, Shankar Mahadevan, Hariharan 
• Maximum India @ Kennedy Center DC: Ismat Apa Ke Naam with Naseerudin & Ratna Pathak Shah 
• Comedy Central Roast of Donald TRUMP... by Rahul~RT 
• India won the ICC Cricket World Cup 2012.... & cricket explained!! 
• Luray Caverns & Shenandoah National Park 
• Obama: Osama Bin Laden's DEAD 
• I just gave $25 to a roadside fraud... or person in need?? 
• Century 21 is horrible, really sucks... No End of World / Shackleford wins Preakness / Bloodworth 
• FLORIDA Vacation begins... New York to MIAMI Beach 
• Savannah, GA to Charleston, SC to Washington DC : End of Florida Vacation
• I am a New Yorker... 1 year in NYC!!
• I had hand surgery... MCP Joint RCL tear & subluxation
• Hand in 4 week cast / Dinner Cruise in Manhattan
• Moved to Jersey City... I am not a New Yorker??
• Visit to Amish Village... Memories of my Indian Village
• Happy / Sad | Rakhi / Shammi Kapoor
• Irene was here & she was not bad...
• HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!!
• 4Peaks @ Adirondacks
• 'How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying' review - My First Broadway Musical
• 10 years since 9/11
• My mother finally got her U.S. Tourist Visa!!!!!!!!!
• RIP Steve.. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs died :-(
• Jagjit Singh, the Indian ghazal king is dead :-(
• My First American Wedding Experience
• MnD are 'here' in USA
• Dev Anand is Dead... RIP :-(
• MnD left.. back home to India
• MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY HOLIDAYS 2011!!!!

Hmmm.... this is lot (30=2.5/month), but still not all.... so, it was a wonderful year!!

War Horse & Don-2

Watched War Horse (6/10) and I don't think it's really great. Just okay.. Not bad, but not great either. Somehow, couldn't feel the emotions. No connection to chracters - the horse Joey, the boy Albert or anything else. The french girl story was the most emotional/touching.. and a scene od the british & german soldier saving the horse together. But not as great as I expected....

Don-2 (8/10) on the other hand was quite good. Great action/crime thriller. It was FUN. Good performaces, nice storyline, cool action, pretty cinematography & great dialogues. FYI: At the end scene, the car to pick don has Don 3 written... SO??

MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY HOLIDAYS 2011!!!!

A very-very Merry Christmas (to all Christmas celebrators) & Happy Holidays (to everyone else). Holiday time of US has started with Christmas & goes untill New Years aka Dec 24th to Jan 1st, which is like more than a week. People ususally spend time with family & do things & have fun & all that. I am celebrating my Christmas in Boston with Tani & her parents and seeing/enjoyig with other friends in Boston too (It's going to be almsot 2 yrs since I left Boston and this is 2nd time I am going back. I think it's nice to visit, just staying there was becoming unlemurable.). Christmas last year was fun. I went to see the Christams tree at Rockefeller Center (which was really cool unlike this year) and then went to midnight mass at St Patricks (managed to get in, in half hour, without ticket). Let's see what goes on this year, excited & waiting... again, Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays!!

Misssion Impossible: Ghost Protocol & Girl with Dragon Tattoo

MI4 aka Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (7/10) is quite good. Good to see Tom Cruise back, good to see him in action,, good to see him in style.. so, it's basically his movie & he has doen very well. The movie is about Nuclear launch control device & codes have gone missing and Ethan has to track them down & stop them . The chase takes him to Kremlin, Dubai & India (where you see Anil kapur in his famed hollywood stint for almost 100-200 seconds, dancing around like a charming cobra, as an Indian biliionaire business tycoon should be.. also, somehow you see lot of tamil/telugu script written on sign boards all over in Mumbai, India). Movie is exciting & fun, performances are good.. especially by Simon Pegg & Jeremy Renner (this guy is really good). Great action & great fun what you expect from MI!!

The Girl with Dragon Tattoo (7/10) is exciting in some ways, interseting in other ways, vulgar & gory in some sense & maybe disappointing in others.. Great job by Rooney Mara as the dragon tattoo girl, the investigator & all that. Others are good too & the movie is captivating is ome senses. The portrayal of woman abuse is very clear message in story & comes across appropriately. I think I would like to watch th eother two upcoming movies of the Millenium Series..

Another day without water, second time..

Basically the water supply is gone for the day today from 8am in morning to 12 midnight. It's not as bad as last week when water was suddenly gone in the late evening until next afternoon. I practically had no water except half a jug for drinking. This time I have filled & stored a little more. Also, the steam heat here gets shut off if there is no water. So, it's going to be cold as well. I have never had it happen to me in USA, but as they say, there's always a first time. Although, this is second time. So.. wish me LUCK!!

Weekend with Sherlock, Harold & Kumar!!

Another nice weekend.. Why? Just had a god time meeting friends & hanging out & shopping & all that. Got stockings for Christmas, a nice rosy watch & many other things, JLT. Good mexican & vietnamese food (PHO 98) & Naked Pizza, homemade cookies etc etc. Sounds pretty festive, it was, it is. Watched 2 movies as well..

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (7/10) was pretty good. I would say as good as first one overall, sometimes better & sometimes not as much. It doesn't have the first time charm like previous but still has lots of action & stuff going on. Humor, action, adventure, drama & all that. Robert Downey Jr is a great actor & very good, so are others. Jared Haris as Prof Moriarty was good too. Seems they left scope for another one too.

A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas (6/10) was fun to watch. ALthough not as funny & iconic as previous two movies, it had its moments. Little more vulgar maybe & crude but still the pair of Harold & Kumar, cracks you up. NPH had a smaller part, would've been nice to have more of the hypocritical $%#@&. Seems they left a scope for another one too ;-)

A really nice weekend...

This was first weekend after MnD's departure back to India. I miss them, a lot. However, still the weekend was good. Starting from all the awesome food that my mom has left for me in fridge & some frozen too. To a wonderful dinner at Komegashi too (really great japanese food, not that much of a city skyline view except tip of the south if you are sitting at a good spot. but you can be seated right by the water & enjoying wonderful traditional japanese food). To a nice stroll in the city watching SantaCon (its not Santa conning people, it's more like a Santa Claus Convention aka people dressed as Santa Claus or Christmas themed & walking all over the city) & the famous Christmas Tree at Rockefeller Center (it was not very impressive, just a huge tree with lots o flights on it, no fancy decoration etc). And the movies: Delhi Belly (8/10 - great comedy & very good performances too. Imran is good, Shehnaz was much more lemurable, Vir & Vijay were great but Kunal Roy Kapur was total pleasant surprise).. & Horrible Bosses (6/10 - good comedy & decent fun, not mind blowing ROTFL kinds but good laughs & all that). It was nice, very nice!!

It was Tani's Birthday on Dec 9th, a very-very Happy Birthday to Tani!!

MnD left.. back home to India

MnD left today to India. After a stay of almost 7 weeks, they left. It was so nice to have them here, very-very nice. It was one of my best times of my life and specially of my stay in US. It was sooooo GOOD. MnD's love & affection & caring, hanging out every weekend or even more, movie every sunday & more and on top of everything - the love & caring. I am going to miss all of it ofcourse. But it's awesome that they were here & we had such a good time. The life moves back to normal/usual, so it will. The pictures, the videos & the memories will keep bring smile to my & MnD's face :)