Idiots of Us All

I don't know about other third world refugee camps, but Trichy does not have good cinema halls. I discovered this fact a few weeks ago, when pestilential friends of mine beleaguered me into acquiescence to a ridiculous suggestion involving an air-tight claustrophobic nightmare that called itself a cinema hall and 3 Idiots, making me board a rickety bus that galloped its way across the obstruction course that connected our campus in the middle of nowhere to the ghetto of Tiruchirapalli. Ignoring the dull tipsiness that blanketed our heads, we got down the bus in front of a dilapidated pile of rubble made to resemble a building. Now that we reached the cinema hall, we arrived at the conclusion that we had little left to do other than walking in and try giving the much hyped adaptation of the stale soup of literature that Chetan Bhagat spewed into the society in the form of the written word a shot. I had the misfortune of sitting through the movie 3 Idiots, with all it's ballyhoo, lock, stock and barrel. The film, contrary to my initial expectations, was terrible, it really was. Every film is spawned by a central theme, an idea it tries to convey. In this film, it was the oppressively pungent atmosphere of an engineering college, amusingly christened, the Imperial College of Engineering. Not a very bad central idea, quite a good one and will make a brilliant movie, if only it was executed properly. It was this execution, unfortunately, that made this movie so intolerably abysmal. For starters, it was a heinous idealisation of an engineering college, with the stereotypical absent-minded professor who is also, incidentally, a ruthless jerk, running the place. Ironically, he was the only lovable character in a world of over-acting self-righteous pin heads the movie seems to be a part of. The other characters were just around to nod their heads to the all perfect Aamir Khan, who has it all figured that education is all about getting drunk and marking territory in teachers' houses, feline style, and if the professor gets angry because a drunken idiot is passing water in his hallway, he's a tyrant. Besides such fallacies and moral inconsistencies, the film has little to offer apart from Aamir Khan ranting on about why he's right and everyone else is wrong. The humour, something I've heard is rib-tickling, is actually stale, recycled and let's face it, it's simply not funny if you know the punchline even before it is crassly delivered by first-rate actors who for some unseen reason chose to parody themselves instead. The acting was a celebration of mediocrity; an unfortunate turn of events because even after a star studded cast and a sky high budget, wooden expressions on Aamir Khan's face is not the expected outcome. All he ever did was act like he was on dope, with a floating far away expression on his face, something to make Orlando Bloom proud. Most of the scenes were awfully artificial, it was almost like the director got his actors sloshed, let the cameras roll and simply hoped for the best. The script was shoddy, unplanned and plot twists included in the last minute for convenience were jarringly apparent. The ending was as far-fetched as Bollywood could make it and it was insulting to the viewer's intelligence that those scenes were actually intended to be taken seriously. At the end of the day, the film was unfinished, half-baked and incomplete, it was an idea that would have been more appealing if left an idea. Frankly, aall was not vell.

Introduction.

I was supposed to put this up some where around the 24th of November, but lazy me decided to wait untill most of the memories faded away. I had learned a few lessons in life, the most important being " cover your head when ur walking under a tree infested with pigeons" the second being " when ur frnd's dad says ' u wanna get married' wen ur slowing the team down, he probably means it (at least if ur fairly intelligent)"

Chapter 1: 20th Nov. 2009

"Do u hav the tickets??" i ask Sunil Kumar(not his reall middle name) Dulani. "Ya buddy, I hav it, but it is waiting list 39 and 40, but dont worry we will get a place to sit. We will just give the TTR 4o rupees and he will let us sit." "U sure?" i asked. "Don't worry" comes the reply "I have it all under control. the train is at 3:50 P.M. and we will reach at around 7:30." "7:30 the next day?????? Why the hell did u not book bus tickets? heck we can walk there faster!! what were u..." "7:30 PM the same day" he says. To quote Weird 'Al' Yankovic in the song Trapped in the Drive Thru "Oh! And all that i could say was oh."

Guess it shouldn't be called a chapter judging from the size of chapter 1- 1: 21st Nov 2009, 2:50 PM

Caught an auto with the trade mark betel chewing-uniform ignoring "uncle". 30 min and 90bucks later I'm at the station, or so he said. Never have i ever been so directionally clueless (although the time i got lost in my 2 bedroom flat comes in at a close second). i think, wait and decide to Dirk Gently it. I start following random people into a subway (at this precise moment the Iron Maiden song Killers was playing in my head). Fortunately they were all heading towards the station and there i was. Just then i see SO MANY pigeons near a tree (no morals learnt yet). i thought awesome and moved on.

We had decided to meet at the SBI ATM and found our train.

The Train, 21st Nov 2009, 3:50 PM

We step in and all be damned the place is filled wit... Candy? no! Other IIFT students? no! Totally awesome, pretty girls?... Yes!.... in bizzaro world!!! The train is filled with noisy, gritty, spoilt, boy scouts!!! I mean come on god throw me a line here!! its bad enuf i'm standing! Must I suffer so??

A Sneak Peek into the next post
Second Floor:
Girls, pearls, and plenty of swirls. Knives, wives and bee hives. Shows, crows and mangroves??(nah!) Watch your step

The Lost Book

For my inaugural review that bashes all, I inflicted a certain book by a certain author upon yours truly. Said book was The Lost Symbol by the lost Dan Brown. I understand completely that he has done lots of research before writing a piece of fiction as fit to hold water as Labsman Filter Paper TM, whose review is under serious consideration and may feature in consequent posts, but frankly, I'd be more delighted reading those research papers as they were, rather than reading it with a bunch of colourless characters appended as footnotes, shamelessly parading themselves openly inviting Mexican-born Hollywood directors to make a flimsier movie out of it. The book pans out to a five hundred odd pages, every chapter ending with cliched cliff-hangers that made no sense, much like the science that backed his research. The plot revolves around the unrealistic Robert Langdon, a Harvard symbologist who's perfect in everyway, thank you very much. He's a stud, with eidetic memory, a perfect physique, a deep rich voice and is also (Drum roll), a professor(Tada! Applause). Give him a pair of wings and X-Ray vision and voila, Superman's second cousin stepped out of his closet and is out to save the world from evil villains trying to take over the world with the help of a pyramid and objects of similar consequence. The other characters are equally idealised, and I've noticed this with every single book of his, there's always a female, single, eligible and voluptuous, (did I mention superhumanly qualified in their respective fields?) and always around Langdon, dewy and wide-eyed, as he lectures her on abstract symbols and answering questions no one asked. The plot in itself is tiringly predictable, with Langdon and his trusted femme-fatale side-kick running from the security agency of whichever country they step on, an old trusted friend of Langdon thrown in to answer a bunch of more questions and also briefly provide sanctuary for these fugitives even though the charges against them make no sense. The whole running from the government routine, I trust, is a cheap ploy to make the story seem racy and fast-paced. It was interesting in the first book, little so in the second, and downright annoying now. One can't hope to come up with a new novel by just changing the locations and the names of the bad guys. The only change between his previous works involving Langdon and this one is that there's no insane plot twist at the end that would make you go rolling your eyes saying, "Not again". Anyway, Brown delves in the world of the Freemasons, a deeply secretive and childish little club that no one cares about, other than deluded conspiracy theorists who love glorifying small tunneling mammals to mountains. The book also dabbles with Noetic science, as mainstream as alchemy and astrology, among other things. It also talks about providing concrete answers to the most fundamental of questions that have plagued humanity since he started walking upright, ending the book providing vague metaphorical references and rhetoric, something we already know.(Hello? 42 is more definite an answer to life, the universe and everything). I don't blame him for not knowing the ultimate truth, but the least he can do is not jump around claiming to know everything.(By the way, if the secret answer is coded so well that only the best and the brightest can decipher, how did Dan Brown do it?). In the end, The Lost Symbol is just literary evangelism trying earnestly to portray religion as a scientific method, fooling no one whose I.Q is greater than that of a dying jellyfish. On the whole, it's just another hollywood style suspense thriller manufactured by people whose only talent is cheap showmanship aimed at wooing the obese, gullible Joe American.

Omegle

With all due respect to Indian superstition, I believe I'm inaugurating this blog at a not-too-auspicious time. Oh well, at least we have something to blame if things don't go well.

Our first review, sadly, is not of a movie. Or a renowned brand of underwear.

What it is about, is this - Omegle. It has a name that goes astonishingly close to Omigod! (Try saying that repeatedly. Loudly. At a bus stop). Omegle calls itself "a brand-new service for meeting new friends". The former, yes. The latter, not entirely. I rediscovered (visited it a month or two back for some reason) the service when I saw the chat log of a friend attempting to, in colloquial terms, flirt with a member of the opposite sex. Apparently, it went well. Driven to curiosity, I decided to spend some time chatting up random strangers.

Most of the chats I entered ended (abruptly) as soon as I revealed to the stranger that I was male.

The average chat went thus-

You: hey

Stranger: hey asl

You: 42/m/london

You: u?

Your conversational partner has disconnected.

 Since the people involved were strangers, I decided to have some fun:

You: would you quit if i told you i was male?

Stranger: no

Stranger: i'm a girl

You: whoah, thats surprising

Stranger: :)

You: asl, if you dont mind

Stranger: 19, girl, russia

You: ah, russia!

You: are you a communist spy?

Stranger: yes... where are you from

Another one:

You: im a pschic monkey
Stranger: cool, i'm a telepathic panda
You: hello, panda
Stranger: hi monkey
You: i like pandas
You: they taste good
You: with fava beans and a nice chianti
Your conversational partner has disconnected.

 I also tried to scare people into thinking I was Basement Cat. I believe it worked.

You: do you want to see a picture of me?
Stranger: sure...
You: http://icanhascheezburger.com/2008/11/12/funny-pictures-summons-the-undead/
You: my mates call me basement cat
Your conversational partner has disconnected.

Yes, the website proves to be entertaining. I would go into a detailed score sheet but I guess the point has been made with all those chats. Try Omegle. It's fun.

Us.

So, we're here. And we've got on our hands a blog that will, with time, be read by hundreds of people hoping to glean information from the mess that is the interwebs.

Even though this weblog is classified broadly under the header of a blog for reviews, it is not imperative that we stick to the specified line. This is a log where we are free to write about things that might matter to people. If we feel a website is interesting, you might find it here. If we come across a good game or movie, its likely that a review for the same would wind up on these pages. Along the same lines, you're equally likely to find a post raving or ranting about the comfort and feeling of nakedness embodied by VIP underwear (As suggested by Ramzee; this is one review I'm looking forward to).

With the 11 authors (and possibly more in the future) adding to the content on this blog, it shows the promise to provide varied, calculated, objective and altogether messed-up views on topics grabbing our interest.

That said, please do tell your friends about this. We will not disappoint you.

Mod

P.S. We're still recruiting. Two more would get us to our lucky limit.