I have moved

I had been thinking of moving the blog to a privately hosted website, and I have finally done it. The blog has now moved to http://www.akgoyal.com and so all readers (if any) should now head over there. Hope to catch you all there.

Meanwhile, thanks to the fine folks at WordPress.com, and even the new blog is hosted using WordPress.

~Goyal

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Tour De France

I have tried hating this event because of all the scams and controversies. But I just can’t. I love it.

These men are amongst my favorites (in order):

1. Andreas Kloden
2. Alexander Vinokourov
3. Robbie McEwen
4. Michael Rasmussen

Harry Potter – The Order of the Phoenix

The good things first – Helena Carter as Bellatrix Lestrange – devious, evil and totally believable. Imelda Staunton as that old hag, Dolores Umbridge. The dark side of the novel has been brought out brilliantly. The fight in the Ministry of Secrets.

The bad – is not as good as the book, which itself was not great. The book was long, and even though the movie tries to capture as much as it can, it misses out a lot and there is a lot of discontinuity.

Radcliffe plays his part as a frustrated Harry really well and Rupert Grint is loveable as ever. Emma Watson is cute as (swoons) Hermoine, but she does not play that significant a role in the movie. For that matter, no one does. And that is the entire problem. Other than Harry, no on else has a beefy role and it shows on the movie. I used to love Richard Harris as Dumbledore and the Michael Gambon, though he tries hard, does not match up. I think Gandalf from Lord of the Rings would have been a better replacement.

The kiss between Cho Chang and Potter isn’t worth all the hype and Ginny Weasly’s character has been built up slowly but solidly. The look in her eyes before Cho and Harry get “snoggy” is priceless. You can just feel her love for Harry.

If you are a Potter fan you will like the movie, even though you feel that many important parts have been paid less attention to. Go watch it. I would rate it 7 on 10.

PS: I am again in love with Nauheed Cyrusi. Watched Anwar partly last night.

Lucky Number Seven

It is once in a lifetime event.

07:07:07 on 07/07/07

Lets hope that the Taj makes it to the new seven wonders list.

Aap ka Surroor

Fans of American History X would know this line – “… someone else has already said it best. So if you can’t top it, steal from them and go out strong.”

I took the advice and here is the review. All hail GB!! All hail HR!! Jai Prabhuji!!

My Bad!

Well, call me a Google fanboy all you will, but this has to be one of its kind examples of admitting the “we messed up.” Keep rockin’ guys!!

The only other example I can recall is of Johnathan Schwartz when he apologized publicly on his blog to Matt Mullenweg (the brilliant WordPress guys).

Debugging!

I am sure Steve Jobs would be offended, but even he would agree that this is one brilliant piece of advertisement.

Courtesy: mental_floss (brilliant observation about the Volkswagen)

First set of snaps

As you might have known, I am now a proud owner of a Canon Digital Rebel XT, courtesy my brother.

I have uploaded the first batch of snaps from it here in the Thunderstorm folder. All comments welcome 🙂

Google Reader down!!

I think that the Google Reader service is down. I haven’t received any updates since morning, which is weird and near impossible. Any one else facing the same trouble??

Update 1: Mike Arrington blogs about the same problem here. Also, official post on the last outage is here. I am just praying it comes back online fast!!

Update 2: May not be true at all, but I think the entire Google RSS system is broken because the Techdirt feed on my iGoogle page has also not been updated, while the blog has two updates.

Update 3: Some updates have started appearing on Reader, though not fully. Techcrunch is still missing and so in India Uncut. Holy Cow!!

Update 4: Most of the feeds have been updated including India Uncut and Techcrunch. Also the iGoogle feeds like Cricinfo and Techdirt have also been updated. I think it is functioning normally now. How about a post on Google Reader blog to explain this?

Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi – A Review

The first question that comes to your mind after watching the movie is – why the hell is Chitrangada Singh not acting in any more movies? Damn – she is right up on my list after Scarlett Johansson.

Anyways, the movie is based on the Indian society and the revolution and Emergency in the 1970s. The film is centered around the lives of three DU students Vikram (Shiney Ahuja), Shiddharth (Kay Kay Menon) and Geeta (Chitrangada). I already have a very high opinion of Shiney and Kay Kay and to me they represent the best of Indian actors, ahead of the Khans and the Bacchans, well at least one Bacchan.

The movie weaves through their lives, while in college and then outside it, and is interlaced with the political upheaval in India in the 70s with Emergency, and Communism just about finding it roots. Siddharth, son of a judge, is attracted to the extreme Communist ideology and swears by the Naxalite movement. Geeta is initially reluctant about the movement but joins in later and starts working in a village. Vikram uses his networking skills to move up the social ladder. He is the man who can get things done. Though Vikram is manipulative and a political figure, he remains good at the bottom of his heart, and his love for Geeta is unending. Siddharth, though committed to the revolution, loses focus as the movie progresses. Geeta, initially not so optimistic about the revolution, works whole heartedly once she starts working, and in the course of her faces every possible misfortune and even gets raped by the autocratic police. Siddharht too suffers a lot at the end of the movie and is mentally disabled in a police beating. However, it ends on an optimistic note with him and Geeta coming together at the end.

The movie is very well directed and very well paced, and the actors give brilliant performances. In all, a must watch movie. I dont know how I missed the movie when it was released. The movie draws its name from a Mirza Ghalib ghazal quoted below:

हज़ारों ख़्वाहिशें ऐसी की हर ख़्वाहिश पे दम निकले
बहुत निकले मेरे अरमान लेकिन फिर भी कम निकले
मुहब्बत में नही है फ़र्क जीने और मरने का
उसी को देख कर जीते हैं जिस काफ़िर पर दम निकले

Another couple of lines from Rahim, which I really like and believe in are used once in the movie.

रहिमन धागा प्रीत का मत तोड़ो चटकाए
टूटे सो फिर ना जुड़े, जुड़े गाँठ पड़ जाये