how to lose a guy in 10 days

kate hudson

matthew McConaughey

unbreakable

cast:bruce willis, samuel jackson

director: m night shyamalan(one of my favorite directors)

draft

vitruvian-man

thanks to mr. surendra atkuri for finding me the name of this photograph. it has haunted me for a long time now. i have spent oodles of time googling for this picture trying terms such as " man in circle, man with hands" etc.

my blue friday

cast: steve martin, one of the villains from home alone , a lot of other known faces etc

2 fast 2 furious



40 days and 40 nights



50 first dates



Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London (2004)



Alien (1979)



American Pie 2 (2001)



American Wedding (2003)



The Animal (2001)



Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)



Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)



Bandits (2001)



Beauty and the Beast (1991)



Behind Enemy Lines (2001)



Bend It Like Beckham (2003)



Birthday Girl (2002)



Black Hawk Down (2001)



The Bourne Identity (2002)



Bruce Almighty (2003)



Catch Me If You Can (2002)



Cats & Dogs (2001)



The Cell (2000)



Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003)



Cradle 2 the Grave (2003)



Daredevil (2003)



Desperado (1995)



Die Another Day (2002)



E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)



Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001)



Finding Nemo (2003)



Gladiator (2000)



Godzilla



Gothika (2003)



The Guru (2003)



Harry Potter And the Chamber of Secrets (2002)



Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)



Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001)



Holes (2003)



Hollow Man (2000)



How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003)



Ice Age (2002)



Identity (2003)



Intolerable Cruelty (2003)



The Italian Job (2003)



Johnny English (2003)



The Jungle Book 2 (2003)



Jurassic Park III (2001)



Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001)



Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (2003)



The Lion King (1994)



The Lion King 1 1/2 (2004)



The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)



The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)



The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)



The Matrix



The Matrix Reloaded (2003)



The Matrix Revolutions (2003)



Memento (2001)



Men in Black II (2002)



Minority Report (2002)



Miss Congeniality (2000)



Mystic River (2003)



Ocean's Eleven (2001)



Original Sin (2001)



The Others (2001)



Panic Room (2002)



Paycheck (2003)



Pearl Harbor (2001)



Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)



Red Dragon (2002)



Resident Evil (2002)



The Ring (2002)



The Road to El Dorado (2000)



Road to Perdition (2002)



The Rundown (2003)



Rush Hour



Rush Hour 2 (2001)



Save the Last Dance (2001)



Scary Movie (2000)



Serendipity (2001)



Shawshank Redemption



Shrek (2001)



Shrek 2 (2004)



Signs (2002)



Snatch (2001)



Solaris (2002)



Spider-Man (2002)



Spider-Man 2 (2004)



Spy Kids



Stuart Little 2 (2002)



Sweet Home Alabama (2002)



Swordfish (2001)



Tears of the Sun (2003)



Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)



Toy Story 2 (1999)



Training Day (2001)



The Tuxedo (2002)



Two Weeks Notice (2002)



Walking Tall (2004)



What Women Want (2000)



Windtalkers (2002)



Woman on Top (2000)



X2: X-Men United (2003)



XXX (2002)



Zoolander (2001)

trip?

the last week hasnt seem much activity in me. just regular stuff. we played a cricket match during the weekend. the isco tournament. we lost big time. i picked up two wickets and i think chintu also picked up a wicket. i was the man left not out. but i had scored 6 till then. i am still, proud of that achievement. maybe thinking back i should have opened or come one down. nobody wanted to stay. it was easy hitting coz they gave us huge gaps in the field to exploit. i felt like how rahul dravid feels.wag the tail and eat the snail.
i am planning an india trip in december. i started looking late so i dont know if i got the best deal. but i think i got the best deal now.currently.1500$ for a trip from Detroit to hyd and back on emirates with a stop-over at dubai while returning doesnt seem too bad. i know ppl who have bought it for a higher price and ppl who have bought it for a lower price but with a lower airline. this flight wont have any long delays and waiting at any place.not much at least. hopefully everything passes off cool. i book tickets this afternoon. "tickets" meaning anjani is also coming. i almost persuaded chintu in to coming, but he changed his mind last night.

third twin

third twin...a story by ken follet..i like the earthquake book of his better...where a guy tries to simulate earthquakes in florida. this one is abt gentics and clones. how a guy is cloned and he has different look-alike brothers(8 of them) each of whom is different in character. from faultless guys to majot murderers. the story dragged on a little. i stopped atlas shrugged so that i can finish and return fountainhead.
fountainhead also seems boring once you know the thing abt ayn rand and her style of wrting. sure the story is different and myabe it keeps u glued to it. but that is true of every book i read. this one disappointed me since i was so looking forward to this. it is in the same style as atlas shrugged.i repeat this point to stress on it. i havent finshed it yet, but hopefully it ends better than it starts.

balaji...pittsburg balaji!

this trip was the simple reason that i wanted to tick pittburg off my checklist of places seen and visited. its a nice city. the downtown is clean and mug-free. the crowd is friendly and the day we went (sept 11) , there was a festival of some kind going on. the temples are a little away from the city itself. the sv temple is at pitt hills abt 40 min away from the city and the sai baba temple is another 20 min from this temple. the food was ok. nohting special.at least on that day. the crowd was not huge either. considering its a saturday.
going to a temple and getting archana done makes you recall the things like gothram etc. i was in a fix reg that. mom used to say "kucchusa". thatha had once said "kutchusa", i think. i seem to have mixed both and said a mumble-jumble like "kutcchusa". also i dint know my nakshatram(birth-star). though i vaguely recall mine being something prominent, maybe "alpha-centauri" though in telugu.(just a joke).
there were 5 of us. me,chintu, saily and midhun. and one frinds of rahul's called pradeep. the drive was abt 4 hrs. i shudve gotten my license done by now. poor sailu had to drive all the way.
eventless trip but not boring. the one thing kind of bother was money in cash. we ran out of cash and though we all had credit cards, none of the rest on the way wud accept that. so we were planning on drawing some from the atm when i realised that i had a 100$ from the time i had brought it to the us. from the india. we used that. no point getting charged at the atm for non-local bank usage.

pawan kalyan down! down!

to make a mistake once is forgivable. to make it twice is unforgivable. i made the mistake of going to a telugu movie without reading reviews and listening to friends again. this one was by pawan kalyan(though he got someone else's name on the director title). there is no doubt abt it. i thought i cudnt give a more scathing review to a movie after last week's debacle "arjun". but i have to exceed my extremes and still fall short of this movie's crude level. there was a barely bearable 40 minutesin bewtween which had comic relief for the audince. that part was by the villain and his uncle.
there is no story. if there is one, it is hidden by so many things that watching citizen kane again would make more sense.
but what can i do. i have to call telugu my mother tongue and i'm proud of it. make no mistake. but to call telugu movies my own, from my own, for my own, by own ppl is not very pride-giving. i am embarassed to say so. but its the truth. this is what olga once told me abt telugu movies: "i heard that telugu movies are cheesy." true for all the post 90's movies.
even the most hard-core fans of pawan kalyan will/have not forgive this mistake. again calling it a mistake is an understatement of the infinite magnitude.
next day we left for pittsburg.

non~book time

its been some time since ive written abt a book. two reasons. 1. i havent had much time to read books and write the review.2. i have been reading ayn rand's atlas shrugged. so it will take some time to finsih it. i have read it before so its not a surprise to my brain but it still revolutionizes thinking. ali hasnt read it yet and i recommended it to him just for the sake of reading somehting unconventional. i also ordered foutnain head form ohiolink for further 'ayn rand'-ing.
i will be going to pittsburg for the weekend. it shud be nice to see what i have been talking abt for some time. we'll be going to the temples there and also the city if possible. they have a good downtown and it shud be fun just walking there. i'll take a lof of photos i promise, if i can still hang onto mihir's digicam. also apologies to thise who are waiting for the cedar point photos. i think ill go to mihir's house and collect it from him(the cable).
in other very pleasant news, i received my cd from amazon.com from cdwarehouse. the cd copsts only 2.99 and the shipping costed me around 2$. so i got the title ive craving for more than 5 years ultimately.it has been worth the wait. though im kinda disppointed. but i think the disappoinment is from all the anticipation, kind of. i expected this disappointment before i even ordered the cd.

cedar point's dragster

cedar point's dragster

cedar pointed?

we went to cedar point yesterday. the rides were amazing. just the thrill of going through was worth every dollar. we took about 6-7 rides. more importantly,we went through the main rides. the top thrill dragster, the millenium force were easily the most mind-numbing and thrill giving rides. the mantis was another very new style ride. you are actually standing through the ride. i will put up the photos as soon as i get them.
the dragster takes you to a height of 450 ft in about 3.5 seconds and drops you in a lesser time.that feeling cannot be described in words.
just click on the cedar point link to see what i mean.
we went to the rides on a bus. about 30 of us including chinkus.it was fun

arjun?

i saw the movie 'arjun' in the novi center in detroit suburbs. it was a lousy movie save for a few jokes scattered around. the humour was also provided by the villain. people were actally laughing at the hero for his superhuman ability to fly-kick more than 3 people at once. the cinema could have been bearable if the fight sequences were more realistic. this is supposed to be one of telugu cinemas' most awaited movies of the year and a lot has been spent on the making.this is the state of tollywood. while movies like yuva are being conceived in tamil we are lagging behind in originality.
i think actually they built a temple for the movie. it is a replica of the madurai temple. so the ppl living around atleast now have a temple. what saving grace!
mahesh babu was as usual the guy with a girl's voice. the heroine supposed to be wasnt in the movie for more than a dozen minutes. the hero's sister was played by keerthi reddy. she did a better job.
the best actor in this movie is prakash raj. he plays the villain.prakash raj is the best man around telugu cinema. he is more movies than i have ever seen in the recent times. he plays the father or brother or villain in every alternate movie.
thoughout the movie the hero's name is never said except at the end when he announces his name.if it was supposed to have saved the movie from the fallacies it has commited earlier, it fails miserably.
so much for arjun.
while tamil movies are bad and lousy, at least their industry is making a conscious effort to make better and original movies. our industry is lacking the very basic essence of a original movie. even the so called hits like 'manmadhudu' have some sequences lifted off from the 'holly' or 'bolly' woods.
enough bad-mouthing for today.
in other news, i have decided to make a list of the movies i have seen through the recent years and those i can remember. i am contemplating as to how i should divide those categories
options:
1. language-wise: english , telugu, tamil, hindi
2. genre: action, drama, telugu (ha, ha: now u see my state of mind abt telugu movies)
3. date-wise: as per the year i have seen
4. list: just a long list with no distinction.
x---x---x

sing a song

http://www.sr.se/cgi-bin/p1/src/sing/default.aspThese guys made an awesome website. you can actually hear ur song being played when u type the lyrics

Ind. Day part2

Roni sent the link for the other photos of the independance day.. I am in a few of them too. Im wearing a black jurta with an orange scarf around my neck.

Link:http://www.tfas.net/parade04/