A Cool Site For The Hot Summer!

Hi Folks.

Still scratching your itchy backs what-with the scorching summer?

Then picture this:

You are lounging in your private room, on a lazboy recliner, air conditioner going full blast, sipping on fresh lime soda and watching a BluRay movie / playing your favourite game on a PS3?

Heaven? Hell Yeah!

But alas, not all can afford one of these black beauties popularly known as PS3. Definitely not me. So what do i do to keep myself occupied?

Browse for latest tech of course!

And today, thanks to google, I stumbled across a website called Blog Oh! Blog

This site cought my attention as it specializes in custom themes for wordpress. As you might know, I have opened this wordpress account and am transfering my BLOGSPOT blog here. The reason I migrated to WordPress is for the fact that wordpress is fresh as a cucumber. Whenever I browse a wordpress blog, it feels like a cool breeze. No exaggeration. You will be amazed at the aesthetic pleasures a wordpress blog offers to your eye! And did I mention the myriad of widgets/plugins?

So if you are a wordpress user, or about to start a wordpress site, then Blog Oh! Blog is a must visit.

They offer:-

* FREE WordPress Themes (Yum!)
* Premium WordPress Themes
* Custom WordPress Themes
* A FORUM! (My favourite section)

* Free Learning Resources!

Now, for someone like me who is new to the field of web development, any help in this regard will go a long way. And that is just what this forum specializes in.

Jai Nischal Verma, the site owner, is doing a great job without much fanfare. He is devouting his skill and time to help newbies and alike. To prove this point, there is a nifty little chat applet right on the home page where Mr.Jai will be online and available for chat/technical queries. Beat that! He is offering free downloadable E-Books and tips on SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Using SEO, you can make your blog a hot cake, with significant increase in visitors/traffic. This is great news if you incorporate advertising in your blog. Incidentally, the site provides google adsense compatible themes. So one can make use of the SEO resources available at blog-oh-blog.

Mr. Jai will also be offering PHP Lessons at this site! Anyone interested can write to him with your details.

And don’t make a folly of assuming that this site is only into WordPress. It has great content on other topics like piracy affecting the gaming industry, facts about google, flash games etc. And if you are inclined towards business ventures, you also get to earn some cool moolah with wordpress templates through their affiliate programme. So you do get a wholesome package at a single site! I recommend you give it a try. Its a win-win situation.

I literally jumped from my seat when I read that this generous site is giving away a Sony Playstation 3+game of choice in a contest.

So here is a chance for you to experience the heavenly bliss I mentioned above.

And Jai has announced another contest (coming soon) where the winner will walk away with a MACBOOK as a prize! So keep visiting this site for updates and subscribe to their RSS FEED NOW!

Point your browser to BOB today and see for yourself how cool (or hot!) this site is and surely you will appreciate the wonderful service it offers.

(All images and icons © of Blog Oh! Blog)

WORDS FAIL ME

Date: 04 February 2005, 10.30 am.
Place: Kauveri Theatre, Bangalore
Movie: “SHABD”
Cast: Trying Hard
Direction: Kinda Slick but no Kick.
Rating: Puhleeez…

HELLLLOOOO, why the one-and-a-half generous stars of Shabd which actually leaves the viewer wordless? Well, that’s purely for debutante director Leena Yadav’s attempt to articulate something (strange) about a Booker prize-winning novelist’s effort to vault over a writer’s block.

Hmmm, otherwise this is an “Oh-NO!”.

Toddle off with your poodle, then, with Sanjay Dutt (puffing Cigarettes Light), Aishwarya Rai (as infuriatingly fake as an 11-Rupee note) and Zayed Khan (Hey dude, get real, the oohhs and aahhs from the ladies notwithstanding).

Ever so furiously, throughout the reel, Mr. Booker bangs away at an antique typewriter. Meanwhile, special effects or letters of the alphabet keep drip dropping on your head.

Snore.

Next: Writerji connives an illicit romance between his fake-o-wife and the Sardar joke-cracking dude, in order to construct a nah-nah narrative for his next novel. Which incidentally, The Walrus publishers (big brothers of Penguin?) refuse to accept. Gasp. An exercise in futility this, at long last, the mad mad writer’s confined to a lunatic asylum.

Actually, you might go loony yourself. At least I did. Forewarned is Forearmed.

A HARD DAY’S LIGHT

Date: 04 February 2005, 6.00 pm
Place: Kauveri Theatre, Bangalore
Movie: “BLACK”
Cast: Ayesha Kapur,Rani Mukherjee, Amitabh Bachchan,Shernaz Patel, Dhritiman Chatterjee, Nandana Sen. Direction: Sanjay Leela Bhansali, in brilliant form.
Rating: I am not worthy enough to do such a thing for such a film

Somebody out there’s listening. Just today morning (after “SHABD”), I was brooding about the state of the movies, about how love stories don’t have a heart anymore, sentiment is sadly lacking and the little remaining talk rarely to any point.

And then along comes BLACK.

Let the self-appointed paan masala pundits and plain philistines (like Srinidhi) say what the hell they want to. Let the action at the box office dictate what it will. None of that matters because here’s a labour of love that’s spectacular.

For indeed it follows the rule of fine movie making, with a story to tell and a comment to make. Moreover, there’s a perfect collaboration between the technicians and director, actors and the camera, to transmit both. As a result, Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s fourth feature film emerges as a civilized, inspiring and literate celebration of the human condition, discovering light and grace within the depths of darkness. (Did I just write that? Somebody please inform the Booker people).

Okay, so the credit titles acknowledge a debt to Helen Keller, whose real life battle with physical impairments, catalysed the Oscar winning American masterpiece, “ The Miracle Worker” by Arthur Penn. Yet it would have been great if Bhansali bhai had tipped his hat to the film as well. Oh well. Redeemingly, the adaptation has been crafted with such an unprecedented amount of compassion and care, that you’re more than willing to overlook that trespass.

Beauty, undeniably, lies in the eye of the beholder. A myopic, ageing and tipsy teacher of Braille (Amitabh Bachchan), makes it his manic mission to tame a wild child, born blind and deaf into a well-heeled Christian family of the early 1920s. The period atmosphere in a snow-flaked Shimla, is evocatively captured as a battle royale of nerves begins between the strong-willed teacher and his equally stubborn kicking-biting-snarling pupil.

In the end, the teacher succeeds, with the girl learning to pronounce the word “water”(wa..a..ter, the girl says with that very thing, a bit salty though, running down our cheeks) and also learns to speak to her “Ma” and “Paa”. If you aren’t weeping during this scene, go join the communist party.

Stay put, this is only the intermission. The tables are now being turned.

A touching plot twist this. Now, the pupil (Rani Mukherjee) must bring her guru out of the abyss he has descended into on being struck by Alzheimer’s disease. Throughout, their little big victories in making contact, exhilarate you in the manner of Climbing Mt.Everest. Alternately sad and sunny, child-like and mature, touching and troubling, the two-character drama evolves from the theatre of life.

Gratifyingly, the supporting ensemble is etched with dexterous strokes. The eight-year-old Ayesha Kapur, enacting the childhood segment of the blind girl, is absolutely stunning. If this girl doesn’t win all the awards, Oscars included, then those awards are nothing but scrap metal.

As the mother, Shernaz Patel, is marvelous. Dhritiman Chatterjee as the father and newcomer Nandana Sen (cute!) as the neglected younger sister fit the bill.

Several scenes are splendidly done: the girl-turned-woman asking the teacher for a kiss(“I may never know what it is to be a woman,” she pleads); a dance performance with sign language; the sightless one arguing that the blind can “see” dreams too; and the teacher’s joyous jigs on accomplishing impossible tricks and feats.

The dazzling technical wizardry, the deft camerawork and the British age décor, contribute immeasurably towards realizing Bhansali’s ode to human resilience.

However, almost as an afterthought, one does wonder why the dialogue relied so excessively on English, the angrezi frequently being translated into Hindi. Also what were those Michelangelo De Leonardo paintings doing in the background when the mother is informed that her child is blind and deaf?

Above all else, BLACK is a triumph for its two performances. Rani Mukherjee is a revelation, belting out a multi-faceted performance that compels you to reach out for that hyperbolic adjective, awesome. Lock up all the awards already. They’re her’s.

As for Amitabh Bachchan, he surpasses himself. Veins knotted, eyes like flickering flames and laughter that stabs the air like a chilled knife, he’s magnificent.

And the director, bow….hail the king….bow.

After the tumbling experience I had watching SHABD, BLACK was a hard day’s light. BLACK is beautiful. Do yourself a favour, go watch.

And as to why I repented for having invited Srinidhi to the theatre, is this.

Not even ten minutes had passed since the movie began, his highness, the holy pontiff Srinidhi Swamigal started to twitch, twist and turn in his seat, often jabbing me with his elbow. And during those emotional scenes, he would turn to me and start regurgitating words like “what the hell is this” or “oh no not again” and “ I wanna go home” and stuff. After the intermission, buddi left the seat next to us and went 50 miles behind. Smart guy.

Sri, your prayers were powerful son. It was your lucky day. You walked out alive.