So its been a while since the Blogging extension for Firefox – Performancing – has been re-christened as ScribeFire but I got the extension updated just a while ago!
So basically this post is just to test the Scribing functionality of ScribeFire! BTW, what sort of name is ScribeFire? Like how one can Scribe from Firefox??
Powered by ScribeFire.
Sometime in July came the announcement of Aamir Khan being signed on as the brand ambassador for Indian DTH Cable TV service provider Tata Sky. Many had viewed it as being in direct competition to rival Dish TV – whose brand ambassador was Shah Rukh Khan. Few gossip magazines had even labelled it as a new era in the Khan Wars! Anyways, the latest Tata Sky Ads featuring Aamir Khan have hit the screens few days ago and I must confess that from a consumer’s PoV, Aamir’s ad is far more wacky and saleable than Shah Rukh’s.
The Ad features Aamir enacting the two characters of a Punjabi bride and her hubby, squabbling for a cable connection choice. Bride Aamir insists on Sky whereas groom Aamir insists on Tata. They reach a consensus in the end. It is conceptualised by Rediffusion DY&R. Interestingly, Aamir doesn’t have a double-role in it but enacts a two-faced character! Confused? See it for yourself after the jump.
Was about to post a random() post about the theme change when this Reuters news item caught my eye:
India’s “Hari Puttar” caught in Harry Potter spell:
Hollywood’s Warner Bros., which owns the rights to the Harry Potter movies, is suing an Indian production company whose new film is called “Hari Puttar: A Comedy of Terrors,” the studio said on Wednesday.
The studio had started proceedings against the makers of “Hari Puttar” over similarities to the international film and literary phenomenon, said Warner Bros. spokeswoman Deborah Lincoln.
Now what can I say about this! The (apparent) similarity in the title with the famous boy wizard’s name is sure to raise a few eyebrows. But it is also true that Hari is a common-enough name in Hindi and Puttar is a Punjabi moniker for ‘son’. Say if a Punjabi couple’s son’s name is Harjeet Singh, wouldn’t his parents call him Hari Puttar?
But the conglomerate that is Warner Bros. might not understand it. Seen from their point of view, they’ve spent a huge amount in securing the copyrights and they have to safeguard it at all costs. Even if it means suing production companies who dare to title their ventures with names which are similar to populist ones.
As William Shakespeare once put it, What’s in a name?
BTW, the tagline of the movie is “A Comedy of Terrors”. Wonder if tomorrow any Shakespearean rights-holder would come forward and sue the makers for that!!!
My last Blog post about the European Grand Prix has been blatantly stolen, ripped-off, copy-pasted at two other places! Those #$%#^#&$*’s copied my post word-to-word onto their self-hosted blogs and as a result, a Google Search for the term “Massa wins as Kimi’s Engine Blows” leads to their blogs instead of mine! I, who had painstakingly penned that post am not getting even a trackback for it
Fie, you spammers/post-stealers/copy-pasters/non-crediters!!! Note the “Creative Commons” license on the sidebar??? I bet you didn’t
A Ferrari Engine blew up for the second race in succession but this time around, it was Kimi Raikkonen’s which let go in a plume of smoke at the 47th lap. Teammate Felipe Massa had the misfortune last time around but he put that behind him and put in a flawless performance and won the first-ever Grand Prix at Valencia’s street circuit. McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton didn’t have the pace to challenge the lead Ferrari and had to settle for second place. BMW’s Robert Kubica took the third place ahead of McLaren’s Heikki Kovalainen and Toyota’s Jarno Trulli. Toro Rosso’s Sebastian Vettel converted his excellent qualifying performance into a sixth place finish and was followed by Timo Glock and Nico Rosberg in 7th and 8th place respectively.
The race was expected to have a few Safety Car periods but there were none! An early on-track incident involved Nakajima running into the back of Fernando Alonso which took out the Spaniard at his home grand prix in the first lap itself! Adrian Sutil drove into the barriers as a result of brake problems and those were the only two on-track retirements. Kimi Raikkonen’s too was an on-track retirement but that was more as a result of the Engine letting go rather than a driver error. There were a couple of pit-lane incidents and both involved Ferrari! Felipe Massa almost ran into Adrian Sutil as both exited the pit-lane at the same time and that incident will be investigated after the race. The second was a more serious one and it involved Kimi Raikkonen. He and Heikki Kovalainen came into the pits at the same time and in his eagerness to beat the McLaren out of the pits, Kimi lifted off well before the light turned green and brought down the fuel-rig person. The car’s rear wheels hit the mechanic as he was coming down and he was taken into the medical center for medical check-up. This cost Kimi oodles of time and he lost two places after the stop. But of course, the engine failure dealt a bigger blow for the Finn as he picks up no points from the race and Massa overtakes him in the Drivers’ Championship.
As it stands, Lewis Hamilton still leads the Championship with 70 points with Massa in second place with 64 points. Kimi Raikkonen drops into third place with 57 points with Robert Kubica 2 points behind. Ferrari’s lead in the Constructors’ Championship dwindles to 8 points – 121 to McLaren’s 113. The next grand prix is at Spa Francorchamps in Belgium where Ferrari scored a 1-2 last year.
Ferrari’s Felipe Massa took the pole position for the European Grand Prix at the new street circuit of Valencia with a neat performance in Q3. McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton will start alongside him in P2 with BMW’s Robert Kubica and the second Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen occupying the second row. P5 went to Heikki Kovalainen ahead of early pace-setter Sebastian Vettel of Toro Rosso. Jarno Trulli, Nick Heidfeld, Nico Rosberg & Sebastian Bourdais complete the top 10.
This was the first-ever Qualifying session at the street circuit of Valencia and all the teams had a learning phase before they could put in a flawless lap. Lewis Hamilton & Felipe Massa were expectedly quick but the surprise P1 holders were Vettel and Trulli who were the fastest cars on the track at some point of time. Q1′s dropouts included the unlucky David Coulthard and both Honda’s of Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello and both the Force India’s of Giancarlo Fisichella and Adrian Sutil. Q2 accounted for local hero Fernando Alonso and his teammate Nelson Piquet alongwith Kazuki Nakajima, Timo Glock & Mark Webber.
The Valencia track is wider than Monaco but it seems overtaking will be at a premium here also and that makes the race all the more exciting. Massa needs a win desperately and Hamilton will want to extend his lead in the Championship, so it will be interesting to see the start of the race tomorrow. Hope those two get into a skirmish and Kubica gets held up behind them, thus paving the way for Kimi Raikkonen to jump into the lead!
Classics and Duds notwithstanding, Ram Gopal Varma’s movies always have an air of expectance around them and the latest movie to bear the weight of expectations is the ‘Black Magic Story’ – Phoonk. RGV has the knack of following a good movie with a dud: Daud after Rangeela, Kaun after Satya, Naach after Bhoot, Aag after Sarkar and Contract after Sarkar Raj. Going by that RamGopalVarmacci series, Phoonk ought to be a good movie……and is it? Well, IMHO, Phoonk delivers, but in parts. Some of the sequences bear the RGV stamp all-over them; they’re broody, not-too-dark-not-too-lit, enthralling the audience and holding them in rapt attention. And some other scenes are lackadaisical and mundane. Black Magic, as a premise has rarely been used in Bollywood and that adds a novelty factor to this movie.
Phoonk is the story of Sudeep – an engineer who is an atheist and rubbishes the notion of divine or evil forces – and his family, wherein his wife and mother are believers and he lets them be, without letting himself be dragged into the rigmarole. He dotes on his children – a son and daughter and it is the daughter who is apple of his eye. As a consequence of a work-related-feud, evil suddenly descends into his midst, affecting his beloved daughter. The very supernatural forces which he used to rubbish and ridicule, now wreak havoc in his life.
Mobile carrier Vodafone, one of two Indian Mobile Carriers who will make available Apple’s iPhone to subscribers (the other being Airtel), have announced the pricing of the phone. The 8GB iPhone will retail for INR 31,000 whereas the 16GB variant will retail for INR 36,100. Vodafone subscribers who had chosen to be intimated about the prices received an SMS containing the details today morning. Yours truly included.
The Apple iPhone 3GTM, the phone everyone’s waiting for, is coming on Vodafone on August 22, 2008 With fast wireless technology, Maps with GPS, support for enterprise features like Microsoft Exchange, and the new App store, iPhone 3G puts even more amazing features in your hands. And just like the original iPhone, it combines three products in one – a revolutionary phone, a widescreen iPod, and a breakthrough Internet device with rich HTML email and full web browsing. iPhone 3G. It redefines what a mobile phone can do – again.
The iPhone 3G is available in 8GB and 16GB at Rs 31,000 and Rs 36,100 respectively. And as you have already pre-registered with us, you can get it before others do. All you need to do is drop in at a select Vodafone Store between August 20 and 21 and confirm your booking by paying Rs 10000 through cash or credit card. Don’t forget to show the iPhone booking SMS, which you would have received from us, when you visit the Vodafone Store to make the deposit
Source: Vodafone.in
