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Imagine a world where are tribesmen who can give martians a run for their money. Imagine them to be darker than any living creature you have seen, with crooked teeth which could give 100 year old mexican women the jitters.

Imagine that Steven Spielberg donated his refuse and cut out parts of all the Jurassic Park movies he made and gave it to Peter Jackson as a Christmas gift. Now further imagine how would hundreds of T-rex rushing into a valley would look like and a ensuing stampede – imagine dinosaurs falling on each other.

Imagine that a crazy overgrown monkey fighting three dinosaurs, all of them hanging by tree roots, ready to fall into a ravine.

Now stop imagining all of this, and go watch King Kong. Or better still, stay home, bang your head against a wall and sit still for feeling the desired effect. Is it that bad you ask me? And I say, NO, it worse.

Inarguably the worst movie of the year I have seen!

First of all, I must tell everyone outright that I have a HUGE respect towards Mahatma Gandhi. And from time to time, I keep looking for more information about this great man on Internet. Today while on such wandering, I stumbled upon Wikipedia’s entry for Mahatma Gandhi. While the article on Mahatma Gandhi seems reasonably good, one small part of the article left me perplexed, baffled and angry. The article in question is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi#Post-Independence

Click on thumbnail above and read the text squared in the red box – In the section “post-independence”, someone has mentioned that:

“Although Gandhi backed India’s annexation of Kashmir and an armed response to the tribal invasion…”

I might be picky – but err.. India’s annexation of Kashmir, and supported by Gandhi? As far as I know, Kashmir acceded to India after Pakistan tried to annex her, and not otherwise as above statement seems to claim! Why there is a official declaration of accession signed by King of Kashmir available on the Indian Government website for everyone to view. I decided to look up definition of Annexation on Wikipedia itself and this is what it had to say:

Click on thumbnail above for larger picture and look for the red square box – clearly it says:

“In international relations the term annexation is usually applied when the emphasis is placed on the fact that territorial possession is achieved by force and unilaterally rather than through treaties or negotiations.”

Which leads me to the question about the authencity of the person who wrote that part of Gandhi’s article. Did he or she seem to suggest that Gandhi supported India’s forceful annexation of Kashmir?! And he also supported India’s force against “tribal invasion”?

I immediately corrected the wording to, and thus contributed to my first Wikipedia contribution.

“After Kashmir acceded to India and following the war against Pakistani invasion, he was turmoiled inside when the Government decided to deny Pakistan the Rs. 55 crores [550,000,000 rupees] it was due as per agreements made by the Partition Council”

But the question still remains: How much damage has this done to us? Wikipedia is a great source for free information, but it comes at a risk of non factual and often irresponsible information getting embedded with actual happenings. Imagine a student reading Wikipedia for Mahatma Gandhi for a school project and the implication that can have on his impression about Gandhi. I think politically sensitive articles on Wikipedia need to be monitored on a regular basis, so that any misinformation on anybody’s part is easily rectified. I think Wikipedia in its nature is open for mischief, which has been well documented by the recent false biographies by the man in North Carolina.

What I found may be a small instance of misrepresented information, but I think we as Indians should be vigilant and should on a regular basis try to correct errors and misinformation that Wikipedia represents. Its important that we do and always try to represent the right information so that people reading about India and its history dont get misled by simple play of words.

Google and gmail introduced a new feature in gmail last few days. Now if you have a “Address” in your email (could be any location blah blah), gmail will allow you to “MAP” that address directly from their sidebar. Look at the image above and the red square. Now this has me concerned a bit for various reasons.

Google likes us to believe that no human read our emails, and only computers do that job. However, I am begining to feel that google computers are reading a bit “too” much here. ” Gmail is not only actively scanning our emails for context relative ad placement, but is also making sense out of the email – It is now perfectly reading the addresses and allowing users to map that location. I am like – why?! I suddenly feel that my privacy with gmail is not that secure as I had imagined it to be.

So what’s next? Next friday when I and my friends are having conversation about what we could do on Friday and Saturday, will google come up with ideas for us on basis of our conversation? Will there be a time, when google will look at where (the location) I am reading email from, take the contents of email and give me localized ads? Suppose I am in Chicago checking my email about my friends who had an amazing Italian dinner in d.c, will I get recommendations from google about Italian restaurants near my hotel in Chicago and ask me to visit them? Google already has embedded RSS readers into gmail – so whats next? “context sensitive” RSS feeds? No – that doesnt seem like feature to me – it feels like a feature creep!

The thing that does concern me is how much sense is gmail making out of our emails. It almost seems now that google’s two eyes are actively scanning every single sentence we write to our friends and trying to make up a gazillion ideas about what it can do with it to serve me better. Or may be serve the Feds. Or serve the government. Or serve the advertizers. Now this make me feel a bit jittery now. I only fear whats next.

And I am suddenly feeling a bit insecure about my gmail email now… For god’s sake, I hope google stops any more feature creeps like these!

So this is what is going to be discussed in Indian Parliament:

http://in.rediff.com/cricket/2005/dec/16sabha.htm

— Why was Ganguly sacked?

For heaven’s sake can the the people who run the country do their job and not get involved in sports? This is sensationalism and politics in sports at its worst.

OK. I am pissed now that Ganguly has been shown the door out of Test cricket in such a acrimonious method by the so called Indian Cricket Selectors. Much has been said about the impotent bunch of jokers we have had the helm of Cricket India, and much has been said about Mr. Politician Greg Chappell (Seriously I cant believe he is still around – he is the first person that deserves the boot badly from Indian cricket altogether! ). But what has really got me pissed off is the so called Indian Team itself, who don’t even want to speak a word for the very man who has groomed the team to the fighters they are today – not one? Not a single one? Wow – Indian team definitely is made of selfish money minded bastards and it shows and how – Yes, that includes Mr. clean image Rahul Dravid and Mr. God himself Sachin Tendulkar.

Back in 2000 when Ganguly helmed the reign of the Indian cricket team, lets remember that he took over when Indian cricket was at its lowest point, a point so low that the God himself couldn’t get it back to its feet. Ganguly and Wright helped to build a team – a real together; didn’t we have dissent and mud slinging – yes we did – but Ganguly stood by his players and it worked. It would be a good joke if we don’t recall how Ganguly has reacted over his support for Harbhajan, Yuvraj, Sehwag, and even Kaif, Pathan and Zaheer? Yet, where are they now? Not one – except for a while back with Harbhajan – has come in support for Ganguly? Ganguly and Dravid are supposed to be good friends off the field, and yet not one word from him? Do they fear the BCCI THAT much? After all that they have achieved in cricket, they are still shit scared of the big boss that they can’t speak.

…And yet, don’t be surprised if 5 years after they retire, the same Dravid, the same Tendulkar will hone the commentator’s cap and crib how Indian selectors are not doing their job – and how they don’t seem to have any logic or reasoning behind dropping players; The same people will write about negative vibes in the team 5 years before; the same people will then offer to air their “expert” views on issues affecting the team; why, some of them may even write a book about it, and again start the Ganguly tirade.

Ganguly himself has become a media scapegoat – trash reporters @ rediff and Times of India cried to no end to put Ganguly out of the team; why TOI started a send-hate-mail to Ganguly campaign and the Indian public was up in arms against him. Now, that he has been dropped again from Test Cricket, the same trashy publications are viewing their sympathetic ears towards Ganguly – Indian media is one big hypocrite, and its about time they stopped using Ganguly as a puppet to figment their sensationalist stories, and treat Ganguly as a human. Enough!

The list should include nincompoops like Sunil Gavaskar, Harsha Bhogle and others to stop cribbing, whining and complaining about Indian team, and more specifically Ganguly – for they are nothing but a bunch of people on a ego trip trying to settle scores through media. Where is Sunil Gavaskar and his column when Ganguly is dropped out of Test team? No – but he won’t speak for him will he? Should we really expect him to?

I feel sorry for Sourav Ganguly today that when he needed the support of his team the most, they have deserted him in lure of money and playing for their “country”. I feel sorry that Sourav Ganguly took the guts to stand up against a legion of mudslingers and built the “Team India” everyone is so proud of – he would have better off playing for himself.

What a bunch of jokers Team India are – shame on them.

Well, this was expected isn’t it. None of the players stood up when BCCI declared that it was a private entity and did not represent India – the bastards cared only for money – the same mr. Tendulkar and mr. Dravid who harp on representing India, couldn’t even stand up and say that they wanted to represent India when the government decided to forbid using tri colors on team’s shirt.

Even Karthikeyan had an objection and an opinion about Tri colors– but our team? Ha ha! And we expect them to support Ganguly.

Will the real Indian team, please stand up?

I’m so happy!!

I am a Ka-Ka now – i.e Uncle.

My cousin brother’s wife just had a child!! Both, the baby, mother and everyone around them are supremly happy!!!! So am I!

… And, suddenly I am also feeling old 🙂 – just a few years back, I and my cousin would be out wandering around in Bangalore, generally TP-ing – and now, he’s a father.

Whew… Time Flies!

These days these are the on goings on TV that keep me hooked

Jeopardy – A great general knowledge show. I am very impressed and dont miss it each day at 7.00 pm while having dinner.

LOST – Superlative suspense; The clues just keep coming and coming! – though I am begining to feel that LOST is getting too complicated for its own good. Also, between November and January there is just 1 original episode, while rest are re-runs! Can’t understand why would anyone do this!! Though week after week, this serial has me glued to the telly.

The Apprentice – Yeah yeah, everybody hates Trump, but I kinda like this show to all the other crap reality TV has to offer. At least there is something interesting about the projects the poor candidates end up doing!

Desperate Housewives – I thought this series was pretty good in the last season, but somehow has just run out of steam completely this time around; still the number 1 show on telly, this is not what it was – though the hot latino chick is enough for me to be lured back, I give it a miss frequently and dont care if something does happen in the series.

Grey’s Anatomy – Now this is one series which is really making its mark – this one got better in its second season, and this time its being supported by some really good writing both story and dialogues wise; also the background music they use is amazing – a great platform for indie artists to make their mark. Though trifle unrealistic and fairy tailish, the settings and stories more than make up for it – and its much much better than the melo delo drama called ER!

Football – Yes, I have almost followed all games till now. I have no idea why I like Pats – I just do, so I am rooting for them :P. Though Colts look strong – and Redskins may qualify for playoffs, though it looks highly unlikely.

And now some series which I am looking forward to actually!

Jake in Progress – I loved its really short 6 episode first season. I hope the second one was as good as first!

Prison Break – I missed a lot of episodes on FOX about the ones I saw definitely had meat in them; must see the DVD before the show starts again.

Crumbs – Fred Savage is making yet another comeback; Want to see how it goes this time around.

Scrubs – I am confusing this with Crumbs (For some odd reason!), but this is another series which has never really excited me, but I wont mind watching it either if its on.

Playoffs and Superbowl – Superbowl should be good – lots of previews of new movies, and perhaps a good performance in half time. I heard Apple might launch yet another new product through a TV ad during superbowl.

There. So much for my Telly life!

OK, now you may have no clue what Seven Seas is all about – it is a Chinese Restaurant, which I have got quite additced to. I cannot recall the last time I have not had food from this restaurant at least once a week since months now!! Yes, that addicted I have become.

Today I ordered the usuals – Chicken Chilli extra spicy and Mixed Vegetable Saute extra spicy for a home delivery, as I usually do. As any other time, I enjoyed the meal thoroughly.

Though what made it worth blogging about was about a call that came from the restaurant one hour later. The manager called me up and checked on me – whether the food arrived on time – was it as I had ordered it – did I enjoy the meal and such. I was like – WOW – now thats some customer service! Seven Seas has found one loyal customer for this now – (as if I wasn’t already :P)

…And to think, Seven Seas is like any other chinese restaurant on a murky street, and a place, I would never want to set my foot inside (thats why I always order!), such service could be expected.