Whither Bollywood?
Another post mortem report. I shall post my comments here in a bit. In the meantime check outDeath of the good film

Early Morning
Well it has begun. What I mean is not sleeping late but being awake till almost breakfast time. I was getting some HW done and what I wish to avoid happened. Working till the wee hours of the morning.
Much as I like to bitch about it, it has its advantages. Till about 12:30 the world is awake and at least in the library its prime time.
From 12:30 to about 2:30 are the hard core late night workers for whom its just another day. After that is the graveyard shift guys. These are the guys who don't do it everyday and are the ones who have HW due later that morning. This time is perfect. Its really quiet also you feel energetic somehow at 3:00 am.
Why was I up then? At 12:00 before the cafe closed I had a double expresso shot - doppio and that kept me awake till four. Next time I might have the good sense to choose something sweeter, milkier like crammin caramel.
Another advantage is getting a free ride home in a taxi. There are some intrinsic pleasures about FREE food. Yeah but at 4:30 am nothing beats a taxi dropping you at your door and that too free.
Of course getting through the next day with some 3 hours of sleep is sheer hell!

Generation X..Where X is a variable?
There are many names for this generation. Perhaps we the first generation of Indians that became the first
1. Channel Surfers (Thanks to STAR TV circa. 1990)
2. Web Browsers
3. First to come of age when Real Highways were built
among other things
Eyes Wide Angled
Doing what my generation does best I was browsing the net (on my new laptop [of course]), chatting with people and at the same time some else was watching the Wide Angle series on television. I suddenly hear Indian voices on the tube. Naturally hearing the Great Indian Accent I feel a great bonhomie, a homecoming of sorts. Its about the NBA and the story. Then as expected Arundhati Roy pops up in the last segment of the show in an interview. What surprisingly caught my eye was the interviwer Mishal Hussain. Guys you might want to check her out!
Anyway as things are in life, one always starts with ignoble purposes in life ...Mishal Hussain lead to more reading about the whole Wide Angle series. They are great. Really well shot and directed. The topics (Al- Jazeera, Aids warriors in Angola, Human Trafficking) are nothing new but I like the treatment.
Well Mishal is still beautiful but the Wide Angle series I am forced to admit are better.

New Blogger on the Block
After almost 4 months after having got my cousin to get a blogger.com account he has finally entered the world of blogging. He has an interesting post on 'Driveway moment'. Check it out! We have a lot in common and most importantly what we share is The small stuff that makes life so interesting
It has come at a cost though. All the tech support has been heaped on my capable shoulders so to speak till I get to New England later this month to tricks of blogging.The HTML on the template page scared him off. He has my sympathies being a doc and Mac user. Since I had the privilege I quite shamelessly crossliked it to this page here. So much for megalomania! It about time that I put some crosslinks on my sidebar. Not exactly Big Mama Thornton's - RECIPROCITY, though some really have interesting blogs. Better than readin the NYT, which is "All trash that's just fit to print"

Bike building
More on the lines of DIY, I spent a good 5 hours building a bike from sratch. It was good to have Tom and Jerry ( those ARE REALLY their names) help us tyros out. I removed the innards out, cleaned the bearings, aligned wheels. All the fun stuff.
At the end of the day I had a few interesting observations
1. People REALLY WANT TO KNOW how to fix bikes and stuff in general.
2. Yet they DON'T TAKE THE EFFORT of learning.
3. Some who did stay back to just observe did not regret it one bit.
4. The best things in life are FREE!
There is a little work left. Putting the cables on. Considering that at 12 noon it was just another bike frame rusting away..

Half-time Show
The Engineering College at Umich is celebrating its 150th year and as part of the festivities is the half-time show during the Michigan vs Houston game this Saturday. I knew college football at the big universities was a huge thing, but I had not inkling that it is this huge a deal.
There is a complete flag team that does these fancy Olympic Opening Ceremony kinda of moves on the field during half-time. Of course there are about 100 people in the music band. A whole battery of coaches. I have to check this fact out. Who is the highest paid employee of any university? The football head-coach. Seems a little hard to believe, that even Nobel prize winners at a top university are less-paid than the football coach. The university makes so much of money on tickets, TV rights, all the advertising.
The self-sustainability of this sport is amazing, given the fact that American football is played only in America and watched primararily only by Americans. There is so much of hoopla. Yet ironically, despite everybody making tons of money off it, the athlete is paid nothing. It is an amateur sport. My sympathies with Maurice Clarett (Who is Maurice Clarett?)
Everyone's secret wish
So guys I shall be on TV, this Saturday 12:00 EST ( Michigan versus Houston) which along with seeing your name in print is everyone's secret wish.