kirukkal.com

May 30, 2005

A Post Of Questions

Do you know ? Google’s “70% engineers” consume, 2300 lbs of chicken, 1600 lbs of coffee, 500 lbs of pasta and 112 lbs of wheatgrass. Apart from this there are some worthy stuff that’s happening in Google, including the Google Earth intiative. Just in case, if you have tons of bandwidth to spare, check out the webcast of Google’s Factory Tour. Also flip through the presentation.

Haven’t you unplugged the bad IPODs ? I just did after reading this scary Newsweek article, A Little Bit Louder, Please, that still resonates in my ear. If you are still busy listening to a loud shout of Aerosmith this what they say – One study estimates that as many as 5.2 million children in the United States between 6 and 19 have some hearing damage from amplified music and other sources. If they don’t take steps to protect their hearing, the iPod Generation faces the same fate as the Woodstock Generation. Or worse.

How Jobs turned the iPod into an icon ?. This man, Steve Jobs never stops from being impressive.

Sacred Cows, Their Horns talks about the protests gone wrong. Why and what went wrong with Jo Bole So Nihaal ?

Why India is searching for Edisons in Dozens ?. A long read but truly makes sense to me.
May 30, 2005

If jeans was the only

If jeans was the only trouser type available, I would be happy as hell. Like most of us, I love the jean clinging onto the legs and make you feel much younger than you actually are. Especially the original dark blue denim color like the one Rahman wears in Vande Matharam is my favorite.

It’s a great feeling to enter a new jean, straight from the store, with the labels still untouched. If only it’s fits you as though it was handwoven for you, like the Ray Ban on Kamal’s nose in Kurudhi Punal, WOW. Who wouldn’t love a perfect fit ?

P.S – Honestly, I wrote this non-stop with a stream of conciousness and couldn’t avoid those filmy mentions. Heck !!
May 28, 2005

Mt Rainier aka Thiruvanamalai

[Click image to enlarge]

Isn’t that lovely ? Doesn’t that seem like a mountain of snow just descended from heaven and was placed in the midst of greenery. That’s Seattle for you. It’s only on a lucky and sunny day you would see Mt. Rainier while travelling along I-90 highway. And that makes me even more curious. I turn back everyday while travelling on I-90 to see if I can spot Mt. Rainier.

On a clear day, I did spot the mountain and I fell in love, almost instantly. It reminds me of my favorite Thiruvannamalai mountain. While Thiruvannamalai’s mountain and it’s surroundings have a divine serenity, I am yet to discover Mt. Rainier and it’s personality. Am planning to take a trek soon to grab the beauty of Mt Rainier. Before you fall in love with this mountain, FYI from National Park Service, Mount Rainier is the most hazardous volcano in the Cascades in terms of its potential for magma water interaction and sector collapse, and major eruptions or debris flows even without eruption. It poses significant dangers and economic threats to the region but despite such hazards and risk, Mount Rainier has received little study.

That was a picture which I shot while travelling along I-90. Some more pictures also on Seattle Photoblog. With pun intended, an ending statement worth pondering, Who knows what’s burning inside a mountain of ice ?.
May 28, 2005

The posters of Kodambakkam

[Click on the image to enlarge]

After a heavy debate on why people protest for posters of kodambakkam, here’s a banner which I had shot few months back in Chennai. When nobody protested this banner where Kamal has his hands on more than two girls and two more girls hanging onto him, there shouldn’t be a issue at all in Simbhu’s Vallavan poster. Afterall its just a single girl in Vallavan.

My point of argument is simple. If they are protesting for one poster, then lets do it for very other poster. Or take as poll as to what is good/bad to have on posters. Then, probably we won’t have any Ad banners in Chennai. Chennai will look clean and simple.

BTW, they didn’t protest this Vasool Raja MBBS poster because it was being protested already on a different issue. Post dedicated to Katz for his high-flying debate !!
May 27, 2005

Yet again, Tamil on All-‘Time’

[Pic – Rahman Fan Club]

Haven’t this happened to most of us ?. Everytime you listen to tutung…tutung..tutung…tutu tung..tik you feel refreshed. I’ve felt it. For me, it opens up the screens of Abirami theatre where I was transfixed watching the camera panning over a villages of Sundarapandipuram with that tutung tutung pacing behind. For someone who was already in state of sweet shock after the intial scenes of ‘Waasim Khan Kaithu’, that was a pleasant start. By then, I knew why people outside the theatre where raving about the new kid playing some ‘different’ music in the movie Roja.

The kid went on score evergreen hits like Kadhal Rojavey, Kannalanae, Pachai Killigal , Vande Matharam, Tanha Tanha and ofcourse the Zikhr to name a few. The kid flew to say a Hello to Webber and now becoming Ring lord. Not just that but also got his name on the Time magazine’s list of Best Soundtracks of All-time. Though Richard Corliss quotes the songs from Hindi version of Roja, I would prefer to believe thats the version he got to see and hence he does.

To cut the controversies, I have to say Roja is certainly not the best of soundtracks in Tamil. It’s one of the best. It’s as revolutionary as Illayaraja’s Annakilli. Roja gave the world a revelation of sorts. It gave A R Rahman to the filmdom. And it took a Mani Ratnam to find the genius in Rahman. I am profoundly happy for what Rahman and Mani Ratnam have done for tamil movies. The world [which reads Time magazine, ofcourse] would start noticing Tamil movies. Though I believe that this should have happened sometime back with the genius of Illayaraja, its better late than never.

Thanks Prabhu and SriKriz aka Rady for passing on the info real quick.

A Post Of Questions

If jeans was the only

Mt Rainier aka Thiruvanamalai

The posters of Kodambakkam

Yet again, Tamil on All-‘Time’