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Movie Review: Pirates of the Caribbean – At World’s End

So after a full three weeks after it released, I went ahead and watched Pirates of the Caribbean:At World’s End and I must say that it was a fitting finale (?) to the trilogy. Well, almost! For starters, it was a tad lengthy and a bit too hectic at times and also a bit loony if you know what I mean. Story-wise its all about how Will, Elizabeth, Barbossa, Tia and the gang embark upon the end of the world (nearly) to save Captain Jack Sparrow from the damned Davy Jones’ Locker. And in a situation which is reminiscent of X-Men III: The Last Stand, all the Pirates must fight for their very existence against the East Indian Company who have the Flying Dutchman at their beck and call owing to their possession of Davy Jones’ Heart. It all culminates in a galactic…nope…Ocean-actic battle amongst the pirate-lords and the Dutchman and -as expected – the bad (pirates) win against the pseudo-good (East India Company)

PoTC: AWE (nice abbro that!) is in many ways an exciting and rollicking movie. But I felt that it could have been trimmed a bit so as to make it more suave and effective. I felt the scenes involving Jack Sparrow’s alter-egos could have been done away with as they are a bit too much self-involved! Moreso the build-up towards the battle royal – esp. the Singaporean angle and subsequent disarray in the ranks could have been trimmed off. It doesn’t dampen the overall experience but only succeeds in putting off the end by that much a length of time.

Performances are once-again top-drawer stuff. Johnny Depp carries forward his swaggerish n’ impish portrayal of Capt. Jack Sparrow to another level and is less of the buffoon and more of a strategist this time around. Geoffrey Rush excels as the I-want-command deputy Barbossa and lays down most of the plans, much to jack’s chagrin. Orlando Bloom has a subdued role this time around and seems ill-at-ease in choosing between his love vs. his father. Keira Knightley has an extended role and somehow ends up making a bulk of the decisions en route to becoming a Pirate King. Her emotional reprisal as a lover plus daughter is a bit tacky though. Humor is the same ol’ pirat-ey stuff and the idiotic-comedy-between-two-crew-members is played out this time around between Pintel-Ragetti (pirates) as well as two guards of the East India Company fleet. Depp’s idol/role model Keith Richards makes a cameo as Jack’s father but what evokes a few laughs is Jack’s mother!

Wimbledon – The Championships

The Pre-eminent Tennis tournament in the world got underway last Monday. Yes, Wimbledon – or as they call themselves nowadays, The Championships – has started off. Its early days yet and once the business-half of the tournament gets under, it will be more interesting and exciting to watch. I usually catch the highlights show and that too the fourth round thereafter, so there’s plenty of time left to get the cheering started. Plus, the duo of Alan Wilkins and Vijay Amritraj is back at the helm of affairs in the broadcast – which always is so good fun to watch. Then there’s apni Sania Mirza who has had a good run at Wimbledon in the past and hope so that she does better this time around. She has a pretty tough match against Nadia Petrova coming up. All the best to her!

The favorite, once again, is Roger Federer on the mens side with other players such as Andy Roddick, Rafael Nadal et al playing catch-up. There are a bundle of Croats/Serbs/Russians that one ought to be wary of though…the Karlovics, Djokovics, Ljubicics are a dangerous lot on their day. Its a trifle balanced on the Womens side though; Henin-Hardenne has had a few tournament successes under her belt and so do Mauresmo and Sharapova. The Williams sisters are there though a li’l subdued…not to forget the female section of the Croat/Serb/Russian brigade. Kim Clijsters will be missed though!

Doubles and Mixed doubles don’t interest me as much as they used to…back then the Woodies, Lee & Hesh, Hingis & Kournikova, Stubbs & Stosur et al used to play hard-fought matches but nowadays all I see around are the Bryan Brothers (there still around, aren’t they?? )

As I’m penning this, Wimbledon is as usual being hampered by rain and there’s an interesting matchup that may come-up in the coming days – Roger Federer Vs. Marat Safin!

Twiddled Moi Thumbs!

Thatz what I did over the weekend! The rains had wreaked havoc elsewhere in AP (May the poor souls who lost their lives RIP) and they did just enough to ruin my weekend and literally ‘washed away’ my best laid plans

As a result the yet-to-watch movie list remains unchanged and if this goes on the same way, I can add Die Hard 4.0 and Aap Ka Surroor to the list. And yeah, add Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer too!!!

Dang! The Power just went off! Conspiracy

‘Blog’ is a hated word! So is ‘Blogosphere’!

Sometime last year, I had delivered a presentation at moi workplace, aimed at educating people about Blogging and the nuances therein. My presentation was titled ‘Blogs, Blogging and the Blogosphere‘. Little did I know that some ten months down the line, those very words woule become part of a list of the most hated words on the internet!

Anyone who has read a Blook, dabbled in a Blog or participated in a Webinar had better be aware of the correct Netiquette.

Those four terms are among the most annoying words that have been spawned by the Internet which is changing language at a faster rate than ever since the age of Shakespeare, according to a new survey.

Source: Reuters

I was alerted to this fact by a friend of mine – DB – who loathes my blogging and always looks for opportunities to dampen my spirit. The article was syndicated in the Indian Daily – Times of India and he literally jumped onto me with this delectable piece of news! The other hated words included folksonomy, wiki, netiquette, cookie and Blook! Whilst many articles on the web pointed out that these were the words that were chosen by britishers in an online survey, none offers an explanation as to why they’re considered loathsome! Well, for starters, Englishmen have always been proud of their impeccable words and meanings and it might be a genuine agony at seeing words concocted out of nowhere and put forth as the next great definition! In this e-enabled age, people look at ways and means to make their digital life simpler and maybe in that quest, these words got coined. Laziness aside, whats wrong in calling Net Etiquette as Netiquette or for that matter a Video Blog as a Vlog??? And though I hate to admit it, I’m still in th dark as to the origins of the word Blogosphere. Maybe an attempt to classify the world of blogs and journals as a universal entity. And I’m sure everyone knows that Blog itself is a short-form for Weblog. What’s wrong in that??

Damn Rains!

Itz raining incessantly here in Hyderabad for the past two days!  Alright, a little bit of rain never harmed anyone but it is the mess that it is creating that I’m  ranting about….as it is the number of potholes  on Hyderabadi roads is at an all-time high…and when they’re covered by water, there’s no telling them apart! I and a friend were driving down the road and over what we thought was a small puddle of water, which infact was a humongous pothole filled with water! We  almost did a wheelie (???) and I almost climbed on top of my friend and crashed in front of the bike! Not to mention that I’ve been getting drenched on my way to and from work…..half by the overhead rains and half by the splashing water from the vehicles zooming by

And on top of it all, the damn clothes won’t get dry! Bah! I hate Rains!!!

Bank’s Folly. I end up being fined!

For no fault of my own, I was docked a fine amounting to near about 500 bucks by two of the biggest corporate banks!!! Lets call these banks H and I (X and Y or A and B are so mundane nowadays!) I hold an account with bank I and have a Credit Card with bank H. For the month of May, I made a payment on the I bank’s cheque and deposited the same with H. Unfortunately, I’d forgotten to mention the date on it and hence was dishonored! On the immediate next day, I deposited a correct cheque which was subsequently cleared and amount paid! Well and fine!

Imagine my surprise, when a few days later, I got an automated response from I saying that a cheque has been dishonored again…and this time around the reason was of insufficient funds! A li’l bit of digging led me to the fact that H had presented the older cheque (which was initially dishonored) yet again…instead of sending it back to my address! It was only a non-availability of funds that prevented the cheque from getting paid….otherwise I would have ended up paying twice!!! And hold on…thatz not the end of the story! Today I discovered that H had slapped upon me a fine for a returned cheque and I had slapped yet another fine for insufficient funds ….all of this for no fault of mine (u can’t pin the blame of the missed date on me…can u?) After a lengthy tirade over the phone with the bank’s customer care division, I did manage to get one of the fine waived…but alas…I gotta cough up the second fine.

This just goes to show how these hotshots so-called corporate financial houses take undue advantage of loopy rules and indecipherable regulations and fleece the common man and take away his hard-earned money. <a lengthy torrent of profanity has been edited from here>

Snow White! But no dwarfs here!

No! I’m not talking about the fairytale that we all listened to in our childhood. What happened was, while I was leaving for work yesterday, I noticed this humungous borewell driller making its way slowly towards the empty piece of land just outside of our house. I was thinking Oh! Good that they’re drilling whilst I’m away! I’m away from the horrible noise! But imagine my surprise when I returned back yesterday into a snowy white land! Everything around me was as white as it could be. Well, the outsides were kinda clean because of the rain but the innards were covered with a fine white dust. The drillers had hit a rock and in the process of drilling through it, the rock-dust had spread all around and settled all over the house. And boy oh boy! did we have a hard time cleaning it off

P.S: Is that why ppl. have been complimenting me on my fairness today? Some of that dust seemed to have settled on me