The all-star weekend

The all-star weekend at New Orleans was easily NBA entertainment at its best.

Daniel Gibson hitting 11 shots from downtown in the rookie challenge, two 7-footers from San Antonio winning the shooting contest, Jason Kapono setting a 3-point shootout record, the best slam dunk contest ever and a thriller of an all-star game - the weekend had everything a fan asked for.

The dunk contest was the sickest and arguably the most creative ever. Gerald Green kicked of the creative extravaganza blowing off a candle on a cup cake placed atop the rim while dunking in. And Dwight "Superman" Howard put on an exhibition of amazing creativity and incredible power becoming one of the rarest big men victors in the contest.

Starting off with a vicious 360 windmill from behind the backboard, Dwight followed it up with the "Superman" dunk and followed it up with a left hand to backboard to right hand slam in the finals capping off the night with another sick dunk - picking up a ball from a small net affixed on the backboard and slamming in a windmill. Watch Dwight's sticker dunk last year - sad he did not make it to the finals!

There was also a flip side of creativity when Rudy Gay asked the public via youtube for dunks he can perform on stage.

The dunk contest has been revived and no one will fear that it will lose its sheen - atleast for the next few years. And the bar has been set so high that emulating it is going to need something out of box!

People and Poodle

Munaf Patel - Either get a haircut or bowl fast.

Now, one will talk about Ishant's hair style too. No offense meant to him but on the first look I thought his hairstyle resembled a Poodle. The comparison stops there - he has been a hound down under.

Talking about the usage of Poodle to refer people, nothing can beat the reference to Tony Blair as George Bush's Poodle.

180 + 180 = 360

Today was the first time I got to drive during a snow storm and oh boy, what an experience it was!

In the early stages it was just like "white dust" blowing heavily across and it was not tough to negotiate it. I continued my drive on I-84 and it was still okay and pretty much easily manageable until I got off the highway. By then, the roads were just nasty and full of tire marks and dirty snow. The marks took whatever grip that remained on the road and all that was there was hydroplaning. Or should I call it iceplaning/snowplaning etc?!?

Anticipating the need to brake often, courtesy a plethora of traffic lights I took a detour through a country road and that was it! A suave 180 degree spin at the entrance. That country road was hiddeous! Luckily the other road with all those signals was just a stone's throw away. So, left turn, detour again and boy, another 180 degree spin - this time even worse and wobbly. All these when driving at 5-10 mph.

Some presence of mind and absence of any cars around saved the day and I reached home safe. Malai had a 360 + 360 experience driving in sleet. Jeezaloo!

And, where is the guy who honked hard twice at me from an SUV? Why don't you drive a compact size car and honk from inside? Driving in snow ain't fun dude!

Anything is possible

Now, this has to be the best ad for a sports franchise. A rich Tamil + Telugu flavour, accent, local Chennai mix, a few finer points of the game and terrific creativity - its right out of the top drawer.



A few things worth noting

--> Toss... "Baetting"
--> The runner starting to wear sun glasses when the bowler is about to deliver
--> "Staap", "Releeese" and the runner's reaction at that time
--> Volume increase and its background score
--> Jujupee

Now go back and view it all over again :-)

And I must say, the ads of the other teams are about a light year away from that of the Superstars, who by the way are living up to their name so far to be the only unbeaten team in the league right now.

Atlast...

Google has launched "Group Chat" or conference chat as we know it. Waiting for more...

How to save $13

Book tickets for Azhagiya Tamizhmagan. I sure did. But the theater did not receive the prints on time. (Sir, theater-kku potti varala sir). Now... you know what to do when you live abroad. Bang! Save money!

Next is Vel and Polladhavan.

Black Friday...

err... Bongu (போங்கு) Friday!

Biting the dust(?)

He can be called the Asoka de Silva among Tamil cinema directors. He terrifies people making guest appearances in his movies. He is widely acclaimed as the "king of screwing up" heroes' images with movies christened after places in TN. His spell did not even spare the one and only Gabtun!

Here comes the king of crap Perarasu with his next venture, teaming up with Arjun. Huh!

Saawariya - சாவரியா?

Saawariya - is a recently released Hindi movie. If you are from Tamil Nadu, you would read it as சாவரியா.

Now here comes the beauty of Indian diversity. Saawariya in Hindi means "beloved" (source: google search results). And look what Tamil has in store for you. The word, in Tamil is always used as a question. Example : pOi saavariya? (meaning, why don't just go and die). Just like "gaandu" which means "irritate" in local slang. And we all know what it means in Hindi.

I heard Chak de India made brisk business down south and so if Saawariya runs to packed houses in Sathyam theater, imagine how black tickets will be sold - "சாவரியா, சாவரியா 40 rooba"...

என்னக் கொடுமை இது?

Thinking further in Tamil, what could be a sequel to Saawariya? How about "Seththu Poittiya"? ;-)

Festival Season and Ads

I caught up with this year's Deepavali special programms on Sun TV after missing out last year's. And whenever its a festival in TN and there are special programs, Leo coffee starring Arvindswamy leads the way. And of course there is, "VeLLikkizhamai... mangalam ponga" Meera seeyakkai thooL. இந்த pattern-அ மாத்தவே மாட்டாங்களா?

And I must say there are a plethora of pathetic ads out there - lead by 3 Roses and Reliance. On second thought, let the old Leo coffee and Meera herbal ads remain.

Now, this is ROTFL stuff - right at the top along with Fevicol, Tata Indica etc. simply brilliant!

=))

Kalaasals

I stumbled upon this piece which gives suggestions to deal with the innumerable "do you want a credit card" telephone calls. I tried one that's not in the list about an year back and got immediate rewards.

Rep : Sir, I am calling from citi bank. Would you like a credit card sir?
Me : I am from ICICI do you want one?

The rep instantly hung up the phone. More ideas/suggestions that would work or that have worked please...

Receptionists playing Solitaire...

... seems to be universal.

Back home, Windows + D or Alt + Tab saves them when a supervisor is cited in the near vicinity whereas lack of knowledge of keyboard shortcuts among a majority of the population could easily land them in trouble here. For example, people choose Format -> Background colors -> More colors to shade a cell in an excel. Even worse, to IM a person, they do not double click the person's name. It will be File -> Instant Messaging -> Find last name -> Chat... Phew!

Back in college days, I remember Sundaram using his hands trying to cover the monitor when "smarty" Saravanan opened an inappropriate picture in the computer lab. Sundaram will never forget Alt+F4 in his life.

Why?

Day light savings adjustments were annulled last weekend with a 25 hour Sunday. I learn that day light savings are done to conserve energy etc., in the interest of the nation but even a large majority of the people here do not buy the theory. One must have seen the chaos that prevailed on the roads at around 5PM and everybody I saw were literally cribbing about the time change.

Adding to this are a couple of things that let your body metabolism off the hook

• You get up an hour early (its good in a way). But you do not know what to do getting up at 5 when your first bus to office is at 7!
  
• You get hungry an hour early. This is the worst part! Junk items come into picture here.

Now another friend of mine reports that one of the applications at his work place "ran twice" on Sunday. Now who needs this? Adding insult to injury is the change in the dates the savings will be made which came into effect early this year.

Why is it one needs to have a 23 hour day sometime in march, a 25 hour day 6 months later and the whole world to adjust to these timings?

Why can't one just go early to office and avail all daylight?

Why do Arizona and a few other states not enforce daylight savings? Why does the place Navajo Nation in Arizona observe DST? Pure confusion. Read this for more info.

If DST fosters a better economic effect, if DST reduce the % of accidents, why can't one retain the DST settings throughout the year? I know the current timings are the actual ones, but its certainly better than tweaking clocks everywhere twice a year leading to application level checkouts in work environments at 2AM on the day of change, adjustments in body metabolism, having the entire world adjust and public curses.

Two clock changes per year since DST's inception in 1907. That's 200 times the clock has tinkered with already. How about one simple change and the whole world lives happily ever after?

The pleasure of driving

I was amazed on seeing a car ad - I guess its the Hyundai Azera, a few months after coming here. The ad demonstrated the ability of the car to do parallel parking pretty easily. My instant thought was "parallel parking" in downtown and how these kinds of vehicle would be a hit!

Now, read this. Driving can't get any better after MIT's project rolls forward.

Sense and Nonsense

Sense - A cricket match in Chennai in March (that's versus SA).

Nonsense - Non-stop cricket. Does anybody think about the players?