WALL.E

Who could have imagined that a movie with a trash-compacting robot and a vegetation evaluator robot would turn out to be such good emotion-filled fun ride. The animations experts of the film should get the accolades first. They have created a masterpiece, emotions of WALL.E and EVE are brought alive. The 2 robots in the movie almost act human. Next, the artists who did the voice over for the robots, esp WALL.E, for the wonderful job. The best scene in the movie when WALL.E emerges from the tunnel with the plant and cries out "EVE" (pronounced EVA), you can almost feel it. The central character WALL.E, of course, is too appealing, too cute, too charming, and the way it (or should I say 'He'?) cries out 'EVE' is too pleasing. You cant help but fall in love with WALL.E. WALL.E made my Saturday afternoon.

I was too moved, and too happy after watching the movie, that I am strongly recommending it to my friends. Its not the kind of the movie which is intended for children, it has got its own message subtly put across. The way the director portrays the skyline and then zooms the camera in to reveal mounds of trash is very effective. Its one of the best movies among the recent crop. B.t.w WALL.E and EVE in the movie are acronyms. Waste Allocation Load Lifter-Earth Class and Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator.

What makes you come out of the movie, thinking, is that WALL.E has a soul. Go, have a watch!

A day may come...

A day may come when India would be the leader in the Olympics medals tally...
A day may come when India is no more divided on linguistic barriers...
A day may come when we see orderly traffic on Indian roads...
A day may come when we see clean streets...
A day may come when we can get things done without greasing the palms of the Babus...
A day may come when consumer is king in India...
A day may come when India selectively issues visas to global citizens...
A day may come when the average Indian citizen is law-abiding...
A day may come when India and Pakistan are friends again...
A day may come when Communist parties are banned in India, and we have the 2-party system...
A day may come when kabaddi sportsmen are sought after for advertising everything...
A day may come when Indian politicians are accountable...

but this is not the day. This day...we live on!

PS: Inspiration from the speech by king Aragorn: Battle Speech at the Black Gate, from the movie 'The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King' (2003). "A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day.This day we fight!!"

Fedex and Rafa

This week, Rafael Nadal takes over from Roger Federer as the new top ranked guy in Men's tennis; The Numero Uno. Though I am a staunch Federer supporter, I am happy for Nadal, because he's worthy of the position that has come after a lot of hardwork. He had been trailing behind Fedex in the second spot for 160 weeks now. So no doubt that he deserves the accolades being showered on him. In the midst of all this, the focus has now shifted from Fedex. His recent form slump has resulted in critics labelling him a spent force, and doubts are surfacing if he would ever regain his past glory, go past Sampras' 14 grand slams and ever win at the Olympics and the French open. Spent force? Well certainly the facts below should be speaking for themselves. I came across these from the ATP website.

For starters, Federer has reached the semi-final of the Australian open and the finals of the other 2 grand slams this year. His Wimbledon final against Nadal is already being called the greatest game of tennis in the open era. He now holds the record for the most consecutive weeks at no 1 - 237; The second in line is far behind with 160. w.r.t other statistics,
Aces 3rd position - 461 in 55 matches
Second server points won, 2nd position - 58%
Service games won, 3rd position - 88%
1st serve percentage, 15th position - 65%
1st serve points won, 5th - 77%
Break points saved - 66%
Points won returning 1st serve - 33%
Break points converted, 21st position - 42%
Points won returning 2ns serve, 8th position - 53%
Return games won, 10th position - 28%

So why is this being called a serious slump and fedex being written off? Probably the standards are different for different people. This which looks like a no mean achievement, is bad from Fedex's standards. Its not the fact that fedex is losing more matches this year - and that too with players, whom he used to dismiss them with the wave of a wand - its the way that bothers more. The federer-on-court, ever composed has started showing mortal signs, on-court emotions, frustrations and helplessness. Is it age which has caused a deterioration in his armoury? Certainly not. Both of these player are pushed to the limit by each other, trying to find that one spectacular shot, to explore that small chink in the armour to out-do the other. Its probably more to do with the Mind. Rafael Nadal has gotten to him, his mind. The best of duels are fought more in the mind, than on the field (remember the australian strategy in Cricket?) and this moment Fedex is intimidated by Rafa. Ultimately this has to be overcome if he needs to achieve greater heights. And I do hope and pray that he returns stronger, both mentally and physically, next year and this rivalry continue for some time to come.

Zeno's paradox

Yet another lunch hour, and yet another pointless discussion. A couple of puzzles and tricky mathematics questions found their way to the table. I was introduced to a Mathematical puzzle, more of a paradox. I'll try and recreate it in my own words. It involves the classic old tale of The Hare and the Tortoise, as narrated by my friend. The story goes this way. A hare and a tortoise agree to a race but the hare concedes to the tortoise, the luxury of having an initial lead before the actual race start. When the race was about to start, the tortoise presents an option to the hare. It says "You would not be able to win the race anyway. You would take time to come up to the point where I currently am. And by that time I would have drifted further away. And again when you try to reach me, I would have gone some more distance. So theoretically, I am the winner of this race." The hare did see a logic here, and conceded the race. (Am wondering, was this the origin of the phrase hare-brained?) Obviously there has to be a loophole here. Dying to get back to my seat to google it out.

Here is what i found. The exact version is slightly different, though. Its strangely called the Achilles and the tortoise paradox of motion. Thus it goes. Theoretically, rather paradoxically it states that In a race, the quickest runner can never overtake the slowest, since the pursuer must first reach the point whence the pursued started, so that the slower must always hold a lead. Strange, according to this, there would not be any of those chilling come from behind victories in modern sport. I was not able to find any fallacy in the logic. The post gives the false assumptions made to support the paradox. All this sounds interesting? Have a read here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno's_paradoxes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno%27s_paradox_solutions

Movie Weekend...

Its been more than six months since I stepped into a cinema theater, if you discount the one movie, 21, that I saw while in the US. The last one was Taare Zameen Par, on the 1st of Jan 08. Since then Many movies have come and gone, and though I have caught up with most of them on DVD, I still miss being at Sathyam. Infact, I have been trying hard to get someone along to see Jaane Tu...but without much success. Finally, I decided Torrentz is the way to go...the entire movie took about a day to get downloaded, the repeated breaks in between, and the log-offs did not help either.

I dont want this to turn into another film review too. Just that there is no one at home and am feeling bored, I switched the computer on and started typing something. And this post has been due for quite a while too. Most of my blog entries, sadly would be back-dated ones, with me thinking and writing about them after the dust has settled. And I wanted a change for once.

This weekend was more of a movie weekend. Saturday afternoon - The Wanted. Saturday night - Subramaniyapuram. Sunday afternoon - Jaane Tu ya Jaane na. The Wanted was a ok-ok type of movie, though you get very less of Angelina Jolie in the movie. If you can discount the logic behind the extravagant stunts, they are a visual treat.

Already there was so much hype about Jaane Tu...it better live up to expectation. At least the movie started off well, different from the crazy bollywood masala movies off late. The chemistry between the lead pair was good, though they were claiming for most of the movie that they were friends. Genelia looked good, and didn't have to act much too. Her character in the movie was played to perfection, the lively, charming girl. Sadly her act changes as we go deeper. She mostly appears in a sombre mood, as the movie progresses, and I was wondering...Was she the one who infused life into the earlier part of the movie? The movie become predictable as it progresses, and the common Bollywood idiosyncracies start creeping in. The end, almost predictable. All in all, a decent movie. I should add though, that I truly liked the screen character Aditi.

Yesterday night I watched a movie, Subramaniyapuram. A tamil movie by a debutanat director, set in the 1980s. It was a masterpiece act where all the scenes in the movie truly look, feel and ooze the 80s. A movie of friendship, bits of love, and betrayal. 5 friends, a mute for the most part heroine, a crooked politician and his crooked brother, protagonists' initiation into crime, deeper and deeper they fall, BETRAYAL. Certainly left a lasting impact on me. Way to go, Director! We need more of such thought-provoking cinema, amongst the tons of mindless crap being dished out.

So whats up for Sunday night? Sadly, the Monday morning office routine, and the impending GMAT does not allow that luxury.