Is Your Willpower Strong?

You Have a Fairly Strong Willpower

Temptation doesn't get the better of you all that often. If you set your mind on a goal, you'll do your best to achieve it. And while you don't have a perfect record with willpower, you do okay. If you fall off the wagon with something, you're usually not off the wagon for long.

This test might give you a few "ah ha" questions!

Is Your Willpower Strong?

What your workspace says about you...

What Your Workspace Says About You

You are generally fairly organized, but you have occasional slip ups. You find keeping organized challenging. You tend to work at your own pace. If this means things don't You enjoy your job and don't feel guilty about how much time you spend working. You have a good balance between work and your personal life. You are still trying to figure out your ideal career. You could quit your current job on any given day. At work, you are an introvert. You don't like people coming around your work space.

A good test! And an accurate outcome

What Does Your Work Space Say About You?

Are you bold?

You Are Bold When it Counts

You don't make a big fuss about getting what you want... unless it's really important to you. Then you're as bold as you want to be. You just go for it! You're often up for a little excitement and adventure. Well, as long as the cost isn't too great. You enjoy risk, but not for it's own sake. Let's just say you've learned a few lessons about risk in your life.

Are You Bold?

Atul Kasbekar

Click here to visit his website

On 12th July 2008, Saturday, I had the opportunity to attend one of his workshops. It was not a "workshop", per se, but a glimpse into his world. If you do not know him, check out his website for a mini bio. However, almost 100% surely, you have seen one of his photographs. From the covers of Vogue, Elle, Cosmopolitan to ad photographs of Sachin (Adidas), Sharukh (Tag Heuer) - you will find his name - or you won't, but he created those photographs! He also conceived the Kingfisher calender. You surely have heard about it right?

He was full of himself, but unabashedly so. Once you settle down to this fact, it is very enjoyable to hear talk. Perhaps, the true highlight was when he ran through a massive slideshow of his work - mostly pretty models with scanty clothes, but made with the eye of a talented photographer who also appreciates beauty. He fielded questions from the audience on technical aspects - and he withheld no information on how these photographs were created. He was supremely knowledgeable in his field and the comfort with which he shared his knowledge showed how grounded he was within (if you want to contrast - to this date, Kamalhasan has not revealed how he implemented the short "Appu" from Aboorva Sagotharargal). He made the session really spicy by sharing interesting tidbits of his interactions with the people he worked with, and it was done with the comfort feel of a known audience group. You probably won't hear him say the same things in an interview! (did you know Sharukh charges 1.5 cr per day for ad modeling?)

To me, the session was an eye opener:

1. I did not know there was a guy called Atul Kasebekar till then. But more so, the countless familiar photographs for which he was the creator. It opened up an entire world!
2. The ideas for the photographs and his insights on how he achieved them!
3. The amount of engineering that happens to a photograph after it was taken. What the camera sees and what you see may be totally different! Adobe Photoshop plays such an important role. This is not my preference (post photo engineering), but it is a necessity in some cases. For example, if you are a wild life photographer and if you capture an awesome snake in garbage, you most certainly want to remove the garbage after the fact and add a black background in place to just highlight the snake! Let us just say that much more happens in this world.
4. If you become popular as a photographer, the amount of money you can make by doing this for a living! In any case, kudos to him for quitting his engineering degree in his first year.
5. Camera equipement that cost an obscene amount of money!
   

One thing that settled down on me as a "point and shoot" photographer - even with the equipment I have - I was just scratching the surface of what was possible in photography! I really appreciate the fact that Atul volunteered to share his deep insights in an unbrideled way.

Are you a green driver?

You Are a Fairly Green Driver

You driving isn't the greenest, but it's greener than most people. Whether you have a fuel efficient car or try not to speed, you try not to use a lot of gas. You do your best to drive less. However, it's not always possible. You may end up driving more than you'd like, but at least you're doing what you can!

All this when I am in Chennai. Think about the US!?! The sad thing is that, in terms of alternatives, we don't have much.

Are You a Green Driver?

Snakes: A Concise Guide to Nature's Perfect Predators

This is a great book - and as it's title mentions quite concise too. What sets it apart are the stunning photographs that embellish the simple and factual statements about the lives of snakes. Some of them are so outlandish - it makes me wonder how they got a capture with such precision, both in terms of image clarity and the timing of the shot.

I read this book for a different reason - I wanted to see if I would be able to tell a venomous snake from a non-venomous snake if I saw one. That didn't happen, I presume that would require a more detailed study or some practical on field knowledge. In any case, of 2500 species of snake, I don't think anyone can possess a detailed know how of them.

Nevertheless, perfect predators or not, snakes are fascinating. And the little knowledge this book provided mystified their aura a little more!

Notes:

1) Click on the title link to see book details
2) The picture above is not from the book. See the blog post footer for details of this picture, used with permission.

---

Note: The image in this post is licensed with creative commons.

The copyright for this image belongs to Felix Francis. Click on the image or here to view the image on Felix Francis's website.

---

You Are a Summer Person

You Are a Summer Person

You are energetic, outgoing, and active. You love to be out and about... hanging out with friends or getting things done. Summer is the perfect time for you to be as hyper as you want to be. In fact, during the rest of the year you feel half-asleep!

If not for the very last statement above...

Are You a Winter Person or a Summer Person?

Dasavatharam - தசாவதாரம்

Very few movies get so much pre-release hype if you discount Rajnikanth from the scene. So considering all the hype how good is this movie?

First, I feel that, to properly review the movie, you need to dissect it into two: Kamalhasan and the script (not necessarily just the screenplay, the entire movie itself). Reason being, every one knows the ordeal the actor went through for his ten roles and that magnificence can get easily mixed up with the story and can distort things.

As the actor, it is sufficient to say that no one else in the industry (IFI at least) can pull this off! The person who is capable of the feat has acted in this movie. The sore point is the make up - even acknowledging the effort. It bears a mask like layer and can be discerned. If you have ever tried to maintain a distance from your personality, putting on ten different "masks" should give you an idea. Kamal has even managed to change the gait of "his" personality. I do not have details if all ten "voices" are Kamal's. If they actually are, the achievement borders on the stupendous. If budget was available (I read that it already was 127 crores {~30MUSD}), CGI could have been used more powerfully to really obliterate any traces of the "original" Kamal! Having said that, I think "ten" was picked to break an existing record! There is no real need script wise to do ten. It just complicates everything and the effort that should have gone into the script is wasted on the make up.

And now the movie! It is almost a total letdown! Considering that the movie is 150 minutes, about 90 to 100 of them are spent on chasing a stupid vial! Come on, with a 100 cr + budget and a humongous effort going into the "acting" part, some one should have taken up in building a steel-fortress of a script. The dialogues are all "crazy mohan" style silly-cracks and really get tiring. Kamal / KSR have done this in enough movies and should have steered clear of all these cliches. Kamal is really capable of excellent screenplays (cases in point - Hey Ram and Anbe Sivam). He has also acted in one recent movie with ultra solid screenplay (Vettaiyadu Vilaiyadu). I presume his effort got sucked into the mammoth task of forging his ten personalities. A management decision should have been to hire a professional screenwriter with Kamal overseeing the stuff (may be even Gautam Menon!). Some reviewer mentioned that the movie will not recover it's costs. If the budget is actually 127 cr, I doubt the same. Kamal has burnt his fingers (and others' as well) enough times without doing a cost analysis chasing fantasies (Hey Ram and Anbe Sivam were sad endings to almost everything done right, Aalavandhan was an atrocious act and this one - we will just have to see). It is probably time he does a sanity check before he runs out of sponsors for his ideas. That would be really sad because we have very few people with magnificent talent.

1. Some people opine that this movie is used by Kamal to voice his athiestic views. On the contrary, I feel he poses enough cases for both view points. The movie tantalizingly exaggerates enough incidents to suggest both, while the climax dialogues tend to tilt it in favor of atheism. (No spoilers! ). I would say, very well done!
2. Only 4-5 characters are really needed!
3. You will probably need to watch the movie twice. One for Kamal and one for the story! The sheer effort into his acting deserves this treatment!
4. For all practical purposes, the story is made of ten different characters (hmm, or nine!), despite the fact that one actor has done it. You should watch it the same way!
5. !!Spoiler!! Why should people on rebirth have the same appearance? AFAIK, every single movie in this concept follows the same style! And it is surprise that the athiestic Kamal is actually make this a factual screenplay setting! !!Spoiler!!
6. Kamal's fetish for gore is un-understandable. One scene, you can may be discount as a historical re-creation. Even then you were not there at that time and people will understand if you are toning it down! Time and again, we see him doing this in all his movies with painstaking detail - for what!?!
7. CGI is very ineffective - especially, in the climax, you can easily make out the graphics! Given the scale of this movie, I don't think budget is an excusable explanation! Hmm, if only Pixar was given the task
8. As an experiment, if some Hollywood studio gives Kamal a no-strings-attached budget quota (and given that 100 mill is a very paltry movie investment these days at Hollywood), it will be really awesome to see what Kamal comes out with. Some contact who can manage this? As a side note, I would also love to see if Ilaiyaraja can get such a leeway. May be, Kamal will make IR the composer and give him a no-holds-barred orchestra budget (think how "Hey Ram" came out!). Sigh!
9. Per my understanding, the inception of the movie and the climax are not connected. It is just a very trivial link. If I am mistaken, some one can correct me.
10. Some one posted a review linking the ten avatars of Vishnu and the ten roles of Kamal. That was way too mind-bending, but I cannot rule out Kamal thinking that way. If it really is the case, there may be screenplay ideas we have not uncovered which Kamal has already thought out. He can't keep his mouth shut about them anyway, so we may hear about them soon!
11. Asin! hmmm, Sigh!
12. I want to write about the individual characters - at least a few of them, but you cannot do that without spoilers!
13. Bio-weapons - nothing path breaking about the concept. The movie anyway degenerates to a silly chase sequence in the end. "Outbreak" has a much more focused screenplay around the same subject. It also provides a good case for a solid screenplay!
14. Kamal's spoofs about "George Bush" are really well done! If GWB really thinks that way - gives me the shudders! (Examples, !!Spoiler!! "Can't we drop a nuclear bomb on the city? We can't? OK!" or "If it's complicated, don't explain it to me!" !!Spoiler!!)
    

Overall, people spend so much time over reviewing and probably re-watching the movie. Kamal has earned that for himself with the effort and dedication he has placed into it - and he richly deserves it. But one can't help but say that the the movie maker has taken too much complexity upon himself without the necessary effort (yes, it requires much more!) and budget (yes, it requires much more!). In the end, it will remain a movie that could have been so much more!

A Lizard!

You Are a Lizard

You are intuitive and sensitive. You pay close attention to your subconscious and your dreams. You embrace your fears and the darker side of life. It's easy for you to be detached and objective when you need to be. You are able to let go easily. You don't get attached to much. And considering how often you change course, people shouldn't get too attached to you.

I don't know what to say about this! Too hard to validate or write off!

What Reptile Are You?

Bangkok Journal

OK - a final post to wrap up Bangkok!

Link to "Interesting things about Bangkok"

A selection of photographs taken at Bangkok is below. Hover over the "notes" link to read the picture notes.

Garfield - The Movie

The hardest decision as far as this movie is concerned must have been the presentation format. Garfield is too quirky to be portrayed as a "real" cat with CGI helping out on the implementation. Personally, the decision should have been to either

1) Go 100% CGI (Ice Age, Finding Nemo kinds) or
2) Go 100% CGI for Garfield and his dudes.

The right choice was to use Bill Murray as the voice man for Garfield. The offbeat wise cracks tune very well to Bill's regular screen flicks and match Garfield well.

The first half of the movie goes very well, but the ending tames out becoming very cartoonish! Part of the reason for going 100% CGI.

But you can't complain much when a favorite cartoon character is on screen can you? The risk is that the series might die out after one or two tries because it didn't work out very well - whereas the problem might be that it was not presented perfectly. I don't think Garfield is outdated!

The answer is blowin' in the wind

Read this article:

It is really painful to come across such articles. It is one kind when terror attacks happen. It is another kind when disasters / accidents happen. But when a life ebbs away due to sheer apathy - not sure what to say. The paper edition carried his smiling photograph as well and it was truly embarrassing to watch. Sadhguru used to ask us see other people as one's own kith and kin - and if I try to associate this person as my brother or my dad - it gives me the shudders.

This has been India's bane for a long long time now. I recall Bob Dylan's song ".. the answer my friend, is blowin' in the wind."

Isn't it about time that we evolve a policy where medical emergencies are just a call away, where public can help by just making that one call without fear of police or judicial entanglement? And isn't it about time that private hospitals take any medical emergency without redirecting it to a Govt hospital without fear of some police nonsense? And isn't it time that the absolutely nonsensical rule of registering a case prior to providing medical treatment goes away? And isn't it really time what we don't make an accident a movie picture where we drive away watching what is going on? I have only questions - without any answers.

Chennai - Diesel Shortage

Chennai is currently running on a severe shortage of fuel, diesel in particular. This has disrupted "normal life" in a good way, but nothing is in a standstill. The shortage however, is due to a major lorry strike.

However, it is a good glimpse of how things may become a few years down the line (say, 10 years or so). Fuel prices are already very high - the only saving grace is the Govt controlled pricing. I personally think it is a mistake, but that is a separate topic.
It would be interesting to see how things will turn out if this shortage goes on for say a week more. This however, is a remote possibility and I think normality will be restored quite soon.

It is a good opportunity for reflection and seeing how we can evolve alternate travel habits!

Vanilla milkshake

You Are a Vanilla Shake

Vanilla, yes, but definitely not boring. You are subtly complex and deeply sophisticated. You're the type of person who has always been ahead of their time. You don't fall for gimmicks or tricks. You are drawn to what's true.

I have always felt this. Only the world is lethargic in understanding!

What Flavor Shake Are You?

Ratatouille

The most outlandish dream...
The most incredible friendship...
The most outstanding graphics you can ever see...
All three coming together!

What else can you say?

There were certain times when the innocence of "Remy" is portrayed so well, it almost brought tears to my eyes. And it's graphics, for god's sake! I don't know how far Pixar is going to evolve this development. In my head, there is nowhere else to go!

Interesting things about Bangkok

1. The Bangkok airport is called Swarnabhumi – a very Indian name
2. Bangkok infrastructure (roads, buildings and technology in general) is awesome. The cars are all cutting edge – many you don’t see in other developing nations. In general, their usage of cars can be compared to that of the US. If Bangkok was extrapolated to the size of the US, it would be a humongous consumer of gasoline!
3. Bangkok is cramped for space!
4. Traffic discipline in Bangkok is exemplary! Even in highly congested situations, rules are always followed – even a honk is not heard! A co-commuter (my dad’s colleague) was commenting about this. India can take a leaf out of Bangkok’s book. Traffic jams are not avoided here – but it is proof that there is another way to drive!
5. Massages! Every odd street in Bangkok will have 2-3 massage centers. It is so common here! Foot massages, “Thai” massages, Aroma therapy and other unique kinds. Often, you can find people who make a pitch for a "different" kind of massage!
6. A colleague of dad remarked that I should have come to Bangkok without my dad!
7. It is quite easy to find (expensive) Indian food in Bangkok.
8. You can get by with English in Bangkok. Occasionally, you can get by with Hindi too. But to really enjoy the place, you must know the Thai language.
9. Car number plates are written in Thai.
10. “Pranti Plaza” – is a six storeyed building – a big one at that. It exclusively sells computer products. Another massive shopping mall is MBK (or MKB ?!?) center.
11. Bhat (Baht) is Thai currency. 1 Bhat is approximately 1.3 INR and 1 USD is approximately 32 Bhat. Exchange counters abound and it is very trivial to change USD to Bhat.
12. Cost of living in Bangkok is high. I also heard that the rise in prices is quite recent. To give you an idea, a 2000 sqft apartment costs 32000 Bhat per month. I presume the tourist attraction caused the spike.
13. Bangkok is extremely well connected by public transport. Three rail systems link the city – one underground and two air train systems. These are also connected across junctions.
14. Our Chennai auto equivalent is called a “tuk tuk”. It looks more like the auto but has a lot of leg room. One thing that is the same is the haggling before you can agree on a price. On one trip, we were able to negotiate the price from 200b to 100b!
15. Taxis are more standardized and can be easily found. The price is also reasonable – about 8b/km.
16. The king of Thailand is highly respected. His birthday is a celebration all across the city.
17. 24 hour supermarkets are very common.
18. Internet Browsing centers are very common.
19. Road side food shops are very common.
20. High rise buildings are very common.
21. Parking space is very limited.
22. Population of the city is moderate.

Michael Clayton

George Clooney is cool!
His body language, mannerisms, accent - all remain the same across movies (and even before that during the ER times). Some how, his charisma pulls it through.

Oh, the movie - you can definitely watch it once!
It's a riveting capture of a money-minded world and the turmoils of a lawyer (two lawyers actually) serving the corporation (yes, imagine that!).

The screenplay was written by the same person who wrote the screenplay for "The Bourne Ultimatum" (Tony Gilroy). BTW, I guess it's enough said about Bourne now!

Big House / Low Attention Span!

What the House Test Says About You

You have a high opinion of yourself. You think that you are quite important in the scheme of things... definitely more important than most people. You can't stand community oriented people and annoying "buy local" campaigns. You prefer to live the best life possible, and that doesn't really involve many other people. You are a social, friendly, and giving person. You like to bring people together and make them feel happy. You look attractive, but mostly because your rely on your natural good looks to get by. You are moved by romance and love. You are optimistic about people, and you love hearing about happy endings.

The House Test

Not sure about any of this. This test is an abstraction, and some things don't really strike home!

---

Your Attention Span is Medium

Your attention span is just about average. You may think that you have a short attention span... But being distracted is something most people struggle with. The most important thing is that you're aware that your mind wanders. If you find yourself daydreaming, you can usually snap out of it. It may be tough to concentrate at times, but you can do it... if you want to!

How's Your Attention Span?

More or less - spot on!

---

Superman Returns

The Surprise: For such a massive budget (270 MUSD), the film makers chose to underplay the screen script. Kids probably would be a little disappointed. For a movie making such a large come back, it was a surprise. It almost back fired! But it was a very courageous decision not to go out all-cylinders firing! It is almost like, after a trilogy is made, the film makers learn not to get caught up in the rush and make the movie more subdued. Here, the film makers saw through the process up front and went about this route right away.

Best Twist: When the man gets killed by the piano. That said so much without saying anything!

Painful Spot: When Superman gets beaten up by three thugs after he is poisoned with Kryptonite - he shouts, "But I am Superman!". It touched a raw spot and was very painful to watch. Almost subconsciously rooting for the hero!

Adrenaline Rush: There is only one! Where Superman saves the crashing airplane. If not the movie, you must watch this one at least!

Touching moment: For me at least! After Superman is poisoned with Kryptonite, and later rescued - he flies up, up and away, high above the clouds, spreads himself flat on his back to open up himself to the Sun. The Sun is what vitalizes Superman. It is almost a testimony that, even Superman, much powerful as he is, is not beyond the elements - but is only a small part of the Cosmos.

And yes, two other things of note:

1. The score by John Williams! His theme is used very effectively across the movie by John Ottman
2. And yes - the next Superman is out by 2009! . I wonder how they can avoid the scare they faced with this edition!
   

Credit Card Advice

Check this link by Seth Godin.

This is sane financial advice. But I wonder why, people either use credit cards to the hilt or abstain from it completely.

What kills people with credit card debt are the finance charges and, whenever it happens, late charges. But if we can use the 'grace period' and pay off the entire balance before the due date - credit cards degenerate to a 'cash substitute' and a convenience mechanism.

I feel using cards this way is ok. But it is true that cards make you spend more!