Showing posts with label review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label review. Show all posts

Monday, May 06, 2013

Book A Free Man NOW!

If I try tracking one thing I've been consistent with in the years since I got out of college, it is - drumrolls - reading. If you were certain it was either among cycling or trekking, then I won't be surprised. Yes, I have been doing both, but inconsistently. Since my public face is limited (thankfully) to the context of wanderings, one could obviously be lead to think that's what I've been about, only NOT.
Besides the wanderings, are also the meanderings, times which I spend in either thinking about the phenomenology of survival and modalities of morality, or - better - flicking the imagination/mulling switch from 'broadcast' to 'receive', to read a few sincere books instead ['sincere' with the exception of "The Monk who sold his Ferrari" by Robin-something, a book I could gladly see being turned into recycled tissue paper, instead; a book which forces me into Chrome's Incognito Mode (better known as the "P0rn Mode") to search, so that my regular search history isn't polluted].

Where was I... oh, about reading consistently enough to make the fact visible (not that I had it hidden). Well, and in the continuing tradition comes "A Free Man" by Aman Sethi. To show how mature I am at making selection after all these years of reading, I picked it up at seeing the mere mention of Gary Shteyngart among the reviewers. All the more maturity reflected in the fact that I didn't even like G.S. that much, having merely read "A Supersad True Love Story". I didn't like it raving-mad types, but to guess, it was in that aura a general sincere text creates before fading away from memory, that I stumbled into reading G.S. review elsewhere and made a purchase decision based on that.

This book (AFM) had long acquired a "lost" status, it arriving (through Infibeam which-is-generally-cheaper-than-flipkart) at the time Gulmarg happened, and Ma - who was visiting - having kept it somewhere in her caring ways, and then left back. [for some reason she had to hide it so well that the book would've survive even a holocaust] It was only today, when handling a pan-residential search for a pair of binoculars for an upcoming trek in Nepal, that I found it!

I started with the book in the afternoon, and closed it after a few pages. I didn't find it boring, but I found something distracting instead. A perfect opportunity came cloaked inside a social appointment later, that needed me to travel across the city, taking the Metro for an hour's ride to some other adaptation of 'loathsome' that Delhi offers, giving me at least 40 good minutes of read either side. The book started in a very cliched joint session, but soon grew out of that, and - coincidentally - to be about Delhi. I was living and experiencing a city, while reading about someone's fictionalized/experienced version of it; nice. It vividly details on the heart of Delhi, and its fascinating 'mazdoor' populace. The dialog forces you to work a translation in Hindi, which I think is a bother?

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Romeo fail

This was the line I used on a (female) friend a day back, before we were to catch up on lives, in the company of the Agave bomb aka tequila.
me: romeo and juliet and tequila
friend: i aint any juliet :D

Sure I scared her. But it turned out to be a day for Romeo and Juliet, indeed - the cigar brand, let me clarify, in case someone had assumed something else. Romeo Y Julieta Puritos, to be specific, a lot purchased from that sole cigar store in GIP, Noida that now seems to be on the course of bankruptcy (their main stall shut down and they stack a narrowing variety now).

I'd tried one on the Mukteshwar trip, and besides the novelty factor it didn't impart much flavor to the evening. I tried one yesterday, and it was the same dull experience. One clearly doesn't make friends on these Cubans - the draw is light, the flavor is just that of smoke, and the lingering aroma is negligible for any occasion. This was after I changed my choices, being promised a fresh stock of these against an older stock of what I was gonna purchase earlier.

My cigar spree was at its peak around the same time last year (blame it on the Monsoons?). The Cohibas were much better. Even the Monte Cristo cigarillos (which people say are of residual tobacco, and not a 'cigar' anyways) got more likes. On the level of phony, the Phillies chocolate cigars were also okay and had a dense draw.
R&J are just a disappointment. I've got three cigars left, and unless somebody asks for it right now, I'll be spending them on evenings with wannabe-cigar-aficionados who will smoke anything that burns and looks like a cigar - the taste of good alco shall probably mask the cigar experience, as it did yesterday.
[yesterday... yesterday... yesterday...
no don't cut to yesterday, i just got here
]
[see: BFM 9]

Friday, August 31, 2012

Mandala finished - I'm no wiser

Two consecutive days of facepalm. Yesterday it was the incident with the Army guys. The day before was when I finished with Jamyang Norbu's "Mandala of  Sherlock Holmes" in the last hours in Gethia (Nainital). Oh, I'd - so eagerly - ordered it from Flipkart to wrap myself in a beautiful lingering memory...

The novel went from exciting to a pulp fiction by the last chapters - I was eagerly finishing my chapters in the first couple of reads, but on this last read I was praying for it to stop; the incredulous moments and illogical subplots took me off balance. There was a Jung's UFO-Mandala essay (for effect to something like a digestif) that seemed either misplaced or misprinted.

The book, though less on imagination, is soaked in some very interesting trivia - I loved the descriptive settings, objects, and customs around the middle of 19th century. If I ever try this book again, I'd need to sit with two dictionaries - a regular one, and one for the 'quot erat...' type latin phrases.
There's a hunch that I might give it away by the next time I feel like having it... any takers?

Monday, September 12, 2011

Reviewing Subway's healthy? Subs

There shall be two days in every week, when the wise shall be fooled, when thousands would walk into Subway chains across India to gain weight and my sympathy.
*facepalm*

Just earlier in the day, I was trying hard to not focus at work, hence taking up the task of learning if Subway was really healthy - or the healthiest fast food chain - as claimed by several people. I could argue that Subway doesn't even qualify as a fast-food chain considering the 10-minute wait if 4 hungry customers decide to land at the same time. But leaving that fact aside, we turn back to the original discussion, to which I answer: Well, yes. I could bring more juice into it by saying "well, both yes, and no", but I'd rather respect the average intellect here that can judge when they're turning their regular sub into a fat-laden anti-Sub with the extra meat, and extra cheese, and their request for more sauce "mayo thoda zyada kar dena, aur woh ranch wala bhi". But I do have a reservation against Subway's offering to the vegetarians that, surprisingly, fares worse on the health chart than what the meat-lovers get. Veg always used to trump Non-Veg, then how come?

Friday, August 05, 2011

reviwing FdW bathing bar


Bathing is much like a picnic. You do it at your leisure. At least I do. On one of such days of leisure when shirking the office didn’t induce much of a guilt, I felt like I should bathe, just for the kick of the ‘ol times, and also in excitement about this new brand of soap I had got after my old discount 3-pack Camay ones had expired. I also wanted to smell today, smell like “sea minerals and blue lotus” as the packaging promised. So I set ready for my foam-trip, and made way into the bathroom.

I grab the “bathing bar” – yes, apparently it isn’t a mere “soap” but a “bathing bar”, which gives some higher purpose to my least significant minutes of the day. At least it makes good foam, so it didn’t take much time to foam-wrap myself; which is when I took a pit-stop and broke into musings on the dimensions of this “bathing bar”.

Tuesday, August 02, 2011

Weekend in movies

Where but on the couch would you have found me over much of the weekend. All purpose dissolved, all deadlines lassoed and forwarded to the coming weekend.
What it left me with is a prospect list for the best of 2010 indian cinema, and surety of a malevolent force that feeds us the likes of Dabangg, Guzaarish, Robot, despite the presence of super-better alternatives.

Saturday, December 26, 2009

3 IDIOTS review

Here's a chronology of reactions/emotions through a show of 3 IDIOTS. I seemed to be in minority at the theatre, but suggestion to NOT see this film is one I can give with great certainty.

--------

What fuck, it shouldnt start this way.

Haha, his penis gets electrocuted.

lol, Boman Irani looks like Einstein.
Eeh, Boman Irani rides a bicycle. That does it for my image.
"नहीं भाईसाहब, अभी ज्यादा film नहीं छूटी" [to a couple arriving 10 minutes late]
Oh no, That US/Russia space Pen/Pencil hoax again?

Oh, wasn't expecting this song this early.
OMG, bathroom orgy in the boys' hostel. Sheild me!

Hah! I know Aamir would fix this flying thing.
ROFL, and now he hanged himself...
...pwnt, his own invention (that wasnt working earlier) conveyed his death.
Oo, Aamir is so against the system. Down with it.

Yech, there's Kareena. May she get crushed under the wedding pandal.

ROFL, funny speech. He replaced the words 'magician' with 'rapist' and 'support' with 'breast' using the Office 2007 "Replace All" feature. genius.

Yech, there's Kareena again. Where are those ancient Indian daggers Saurabh clicked pictures of - ones whose blades bloom like a flower inside the body?

Boring phase. Aamir just ranting about a failed education system and other things in a very loose manner. Chetan Bhagat, you fucktard and your fucktard novel.

Boring phase

Kareena again. Die.

INTERVAL

Boring phase

Boring phase

The is the stretch beyond Rohtang, towards Koksar. "Hey Atul, this is right after Rohtang. I've been here on a bicycle."

Boring phase

Boring phase

This is Darcha. I'm sure of it. "Hey Atul, this location is about 6 hours from Manali"
[dialog] R Madhavan/Farhan: "Lets go back, Manali is only 6 hours from here"
Yesss! Nailed it.

LOL, could it be any more melodramatic?
YES it can
OMG Aamir Khan would deliver Kareena's sister's child on the Table Tennis table.
OMG Aamir Khan is inside his Vagina trying to suck out the baby child.
OMG the dead baby child was brought to life by "all ij well" song
Atul: "film थोड़ी जल्दी ख़तम होती लग रही है" [after the grotesque delivery sequence got over]
Me: "अब और क्या देखना बाकी है?"
Some guy sitting besides us, to his wife: "Haha, उसने पूछा 'अब और क्या देखना बाकी है?'"

Ah, at least Boman Irani did rectify on that space pen myth.

Boring phase

Haha, his penis gets electrocuted

Pangong Tso! Please don't let it end here, at such a beautiful place.
And now they're onto the same piece of land that extends into the lake where me and Deepak lounged out (a wider view). Perfect. I wish I had a stone in hand.
SCHIZER. This is just sacrilege.

ZE END OF ZE MOVIE
---------

I'm happy to be spending only 80 for the balcony seats for this one at Pratibha. But I could've spent 60 had we gone to Novelty.

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

To Kill a Mockingbird

Didn't intend to do that, but I did. I spoiled a movie experience - for me own self, that too for a movie that the American Film Institute (AFI), in 2006, voted the 2nd Most Inspirational Movie of All Times; one that sits at #47 on IMDB list of the greatest movies of all time. A big honour, na.

Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" has remained somewhat restrained in terms of popularity, but those who know about it know the modern legend it is. That Harper Lee never wrote another book in her life, and never pushed the book beyond its initial years might have contributed to that. Firstly, debut novels often begin their journeys with little efforts from the publishers or promotion teams. The hype only starts from #2, at which Mrs Lee made no attempts at. Secondly, some bibliophiles might scoff at an author with 1 book in their oeuvre - they need a new God to worship. Hence the book remains an esoteric masterpiece.

The book came in 1960. A movie adaptation followed in 1962; the perspective and details in the book itself made it easy to turn it into one. It won 3 Oscars, and another couple of nominations. But having read the book, I can only complain at how loosely tied the movie adaptation was - I bet everybody would - after all there are people who will perceive the book better, esp. the Americans to whom the events would bear a familiarity from their perspective. Events were muddled up to keep things linear. Introductions and discoveries were pruned off. Time frames were messed around. Characters stayed generic and under-developed: Scout felt a pesky helpless runt, Jem's coming-of-age seemed trivial and Atticus was a shadow of what he was in words. The trial seemed a frivolous affair, so did Boo-Radley. Was I asking too much?

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

retailmenot

retailmenot is the best thing I've come across online this year in terms of making visible something that was always there. We all want bargains wherever available, and its generally something you discover yourselves or through a well-wishing friend. People feel very smart when they get more from a deal than the ignorant joe next door. Picking on that concept, the company behind bypass registrations - bugmenot - came up with the idea for retialmenot: aggregate the bargains at a single destination and build communities that share more and add to the website. The consumer should be able to squeeze out the most from the market juice.

The site looks slick and the homepage makes one feel rewarded to have discovered it. To build their community and keep it in the forwards direction, there are incentives to those who contribute.
Just searched techcrunch, and found this about retailmenot. Seems that they were pulling big numbers/cash back in March, so I can only double that, considering the rate at which it has been growing.

Sad thing is that the concept is lacking in India - that of referrals and coupon savings. I'll have to wait.