Bones – Season 5

Seeley Booth returns to active duty with the FBI after being certified by Dr. Sweets and wonders if his feelings for Brennan are real or if they are just the effects from his brain surgery. Angela’s psychic Avalon (Cyndi Lauper) leads Booth and Brennan to a crime regarding bodies being buried under a fountain in Washington, one of which is Avalon’s younger sister. Wendell’s scholarship funds are cut due to budget constraints at the Jeffersonian but ‘annoymous’ donations (which is obvious to him was done by Drs. Saroyan, Hodgins, Brennan and Angels) let him stay. The team investigates the remains of a teenage Amish boy who disappeared two months prior to Rumspringa, where he would explore the outside world. They later discover the boy was a piano prodigy and kept it as a secret from his family. Cam deals with parenting issues as she believes her stepdaughter Michelle might be having sex, leading Booth to help out. The team investigates the remains that were found in a barbecue pit during a suburban neighborhood block party, leading to several secrets about the residents in the neighborhood being exposed. Iranian intern Arastoo confesses to everyone that he has been faking his accent and explains why he did so. Booth’s son Parker seems concerned that his dad does not have a girlfriend.

A mysteriously charred body that is found on an electrical fence turns out to be a mummified Egyptian royal that was loaned to the Jeffersonian from the Egyptian government & the curator that was prepping the mummy is found murdered. Booth’s supervisor, the assistant director of the FBI, Andrew Hacker, shows interest in Brennan and they later go on a date. Sweets convinces Brennan to give Daisy another chance, having her return to the Jeffersonian as an intern.Wendell & Angela begin a brief relationship. ooth, still dealing with effects from his brain tumor, has problems with his aim and must be re-certified for FBI marksmanship. He then seeks advice from Dr. Gordon Wyatt (Stephen Fry), who is now a chef, in hopes of overcoming the problem. Booth and Brennan travel to Roswell, New Mexico, after possible alien remains are found. Hodgins deals with his jealousy after Angela and Wendell confess they are in a relationship.

The Jeffersonian lab is put on lock down by government agents led by Mr. White when they demand Brennan and her team identify of cause of death for a highly classified set of remains. Cam finds a positive pregnancy test in the woman’s bathroom and after all the women deny it is theirs, she believes it might be Michelle’s, her stepdaughter. After, Angela confesses to Cam that it was actually hers, but did not want anyone else to know. In the interim, Cam had it tested again, and reveals to Angela that it was a false positive, meaning she is not pregnant. The team eventually come to believe the set of remains they are working on are actually that of assassinated President John F. Kennedy. The case causes tension between Hodgins and Booth as the information they gather supports the conspiracy theory about a cover-up, whereas Booth is a patriot and believes in the government. Mr. White terminates the testing before completing the cause of death, leaving the results inconclusive. To help Booth, Brennan performs a test on one of bones, proving it is not JFK; although Cam tells her she knows what she did was for Booth, and there is still a possibility it was JFK. A TV news report says the request to exhume the bones of JFK has been denied.

Booth’s brother Jared & Booth clash over the past of the former’s new girlfriend. While Dr. Sweets is on a subway train, a stranger tells him he has just been cured of leukemia, then the train is thrown off its tracks as a water main breaks, causing havoc inside the train leading to death of the man who had just been cured of cancer.  Sweets deals with the near-death experience feeling it was a message to live his life fully, leading him to propose to his girlfriend Daisy. We also learn of how Booth & Brennan first met on a case and also Booth tells Brennan that he loves her. At a case during her high school reunion Brennan learns how lucky she is to have the friendships she has today. Hodgins and Angela wind up in jail after some reckless driving and have to work the case from the jail cell. After spending quality time together, they realize they are still in love. Hodgins subsequently proposes to Angela and they are married by the judge who hears their case.

Brennan, Booth, and Hodgins are forced to drop their own charges against Taffet once they discover the missing remains of a young boy who was killed by the Gravedigger, so they could work and testify against Taffet. This evidence proves successful and the jury convicts Taffet of kidnapping and murder, but Taffet warns Brennan “that it’s not over”. In the season finale, many of the characters begin to embark on trips that will take them out of the country for one year, intending to return and pick things up where they left off one year from that day. Temperance, along with Daisy Wick, go to the Maluku Islands to study a full set of interspecies hominid remains that could be a crucial link in the evolutionary chain. Booth returns to the Army as a Sergeant Major to train soldiers in apprehending insurgents. Meanwhile, newlywed Angela and Hodgins decide to travel.

Me + 10…

In 10 years, I hope things are a lot more different. I wanna lose some weight, gain a lot of money. Have my own place. A nice big place with place of me and my stuff. And I want to get even more stuff, like I want to decorate my place the way that I want to and if I had the money to do so I would do so. Plus I need to be able to get those things easily and then I can do things to my place, my way.

I’ll be 46 by then and I hope I haven’t lost all my hair. As it is I’m balding but if it’s going to go all the way I hope it goes at a very slow pace. It’s inevitable that I’ll be losing most of it but it can wait until I’m much, much older. I also don’t want to grey that much in 10 years that I need to resort to dyes and stuff. I don’t want to do that but 46 isn’t an age when I want to have lots of grey hair either!

I’d love to be financially secure and spend without the fear of being short on cash at a later stage. A couple of extra sources of income, all legal ofcourse, wouldn’t hurt. I want to be able to buy the things that I want and also provide for my family & loved ones with ease. Also the extra income will mean that I don’t have to do a full time job, going for an 8 or 9 hour job 6 days a week. Be able to do some stuff at home over the phone or online for an hour or two, take the rest of the day off to relax and the money still rolls in.

And ofcourse, the better half. I sure hope that I do find Mrs. Roshan sometime soon and fall in love and get married. Have a healthy, loving & caring relationship. A couple of dogs & cats to share our love with. Not too sure about kids and therefore just furbabies. That’s all I want! The rest will flow through :)

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Federal Bank : Not Cool Or Impressive

Federal Bank is not a customer friendly bank at all. They have to fix their processes to make it more convenient (I say more convenient but what I mean is “convenient” ) for their customers. I have recently had to get a Federal Bank account because my current employers use FedBank for all employee salary purposes and create salaried accounts for all employees with them.

Point 1) These guys are so late. To create an account FedBank takes longer than any other bank I have banked with – HDFC, ICICI & SBT. Even frigging SBT! Federal bank took longer than any of them.

2) They send you the cheque book to your house in 10 days but getting the ATM card took much longer. Almost a month later since the account application was sent.

3) Once you get the ATM card you have to take it to the branch you have the account with and have them activate it and get your pin number from them! And the ATM card will be activated only 24 hours later!

4) All of that done, I now needed to get my online account activated. Ok – I had to fill a form over there and wait for 2 weeks to get it activated!!! They will send you a paper with an acknowledgement form and your user id & password and email you a token number to activate your account!! What the fuck? And so I logged in using my user id and the password, and the once I got in I changed my password to something more personal.

5) And then – – I have to apply to activate online transaction!! Oh please and my online activation did not work and so I now have to mail them my acknowledgement form to their offices and wait for the fucking thing to be activated so I can pay my bills online!

Federal Bank, you guys need to improve your services and make the damn process easier and more convenient for us. Like more 21st century and less 18th century!

My Routine

The first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is to grab my clothes and put them back on! I love to sleep in the nude, mainly because I live in one of the hottest and humid places on this planet. It’s hot and we sweat, there’s mosquitoes and we’re hairy! This is a case against those morons who think intelligent design is obvious – what the fuck are we to do with body hair and especially when people like me are balding? Is armpit hair so glamorous? Does god have a think for public hair and hair on the ass? Is he some fucking pervert?

Ok so, after that it’s getting my glasses and putting them back on, drinking some water from a bottle I keep close to my bed before I go to sleep and then ofcourse it’s to the bathroom I go to take a leak, wash my face with water from the tap and then brush my teeth and then go get my first cup of coffee of the morning. In that order!

The last thing I do before I go to sleep? Close my eyes I guess :D (ba dum pum tish). Well this is my usual bed time routine – post dinner I will spend around an hour online and then decide what tv series or movie I am going to watch for the night. Which is always on my laptop. Or maybe it’s a football match if there is one going on.Then I switch it on or play it and relax back on my bed and watch it until sleep comes over me and I place my glasses to the side table, switch the lights off and zzzzzzzz!

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Supernatural – Season 4

Season 4, which takes place, 4 months after the events of season 3’s finale, sees Dean mysteriously waking up in a coffin in a deserted cemetery and town. He digs his way out and tries to contact Bobby but is attacked by an unseen entity. He gets back to meet up with Sam and after reuniting with Bobby as well, they are introduced to a psychic named Pamela Barnes. Pamela does find out the name of the being, Castiel (Misha Collins), but, disregarding psychic warnings, the sight of seeing Castiel burns her eyes out, resulting in her becoming permanently blind. Sam meanwhile has been carrying on with Ruby, now in a new body (Genevieve Cortese) and is flexing his powers, which are fueled by his drinking some demon blood from Ruby. This would later have severe consequences.

Dean & Bobby perform a ritual to bring forth the entity Castiel and are surprised to find out that he is an angel who explains that he is responsible for dragging Dean out of Hell and, when Dean asks why he of all people would be worthy of being saved, that God has work for him to do. This addition in the cast works so well as he is a perfect foil for the brothers, especially Dean, who he later grows close to. Whereas Dean is fun, likes to kid around and crack onliners, Castiel is all sour & gloomy and has no personality (initially). Later, Castiel appears to Dean in a dream and reveals that “The Rising of the Witnesses” is one of many seals, which are being broken by Lilith in order to bring on the Apocalypse, in which Lucifer will walk the earth. They must do everything they can to stop it from happening.

In this season Dean is brought back to the future to meet his young father & mother before they were married. Dean finds out that it was Mary who was a hunter and that it ran in the family as she was following in her own father’s footsteps. John is unaware of her activities and it was her death, many years later, that pushed him into the life of a hunter. Sam & Dean will fight over Sam’s using his demon blood induced powers to stop demons and excorsising them. Sam decides to stop after watching a man struggle. We also learn that Dean is haunted by hallucinations of his time in hell, which he initially said he doesn’t remember. Castiel brings his fellow angel Uriel who clashes with the brothers as he has a low opinion of humans. We are also introduced to Anna, a fallen angel who questioned the divine plan and was living as a human due to amnesia. Dean also reveals to Sam that he does in fact remember Hell and what happened there: it was 40 years for him instead of 4 months, and every day Alastair (Hell’s torturer), tortured him and then offered him release from the torture if he tortured souls himself. After 30 years, Dean gave in and is now haunted by how he did so.

Dean is asked to use his torture skills to get information from Alistair, who Castiel and Uriel have captured. Alastair tells them that Dean broke the first seal when he tortured people in Hell, which is what Alastair had tried with John Winchester before he escaped, but failed. After Alistair is killed by Sam, they learn that Uriel is behind killing a lot of angels, having moved towards Lucifer’s side. Anna kills Uriel and saves Castiel, who confirms to a despondent Dean that he did break the first seal with his actions in Hell. We also meet Castiel’s boss, Zacharia and a prophet of the lord, Chuck who is also a failed novelist and who has written a series of novels based on the lives of the bothers. He sees what they do as it happens. As Sam’s addiction to demon blood continues, he is put in a detox room by Bobby & Dean. Sam and Dean have a blowout confrontation in which Sam chooses Ruby over his own brother. Meanwhile, Dean is kidnapped by the angels and brought to a room without any exit where Zachariah explains to him that the angels are not trying to stop the final seal from being broken—in fact, they want to start the Apocalypse, for it will cleanse the earth and bring Paradise. So Dean’s task is not stopping the Apocalypse from starting, but ending it once it has. Dean is furious at Castiel for deceiving him, but Castiel refuses to help at first but changes his mind and helps Dean escape, banishing Zachariah with a blood sigil.

The two get Sam’s location from Chuck Shirley and Castiel transports Dean there with Ruby’s Knife while he stays behind to confront Chuck’s Archangel. At Saint Mary’s Convent, Sam, high on demon blood, confronts Lilith who is practicaly powerless against him. Dean tries to reach Sam in time to stop him, but Ruby blocks him. Goaded by Lilith and Ruby, Sam kills Lilith with his powers, but killing Lilith breaks the final seal. Ruby reveals that she has been deceiving Sam all along to lead him to this moment, having worked for Lucifer all along. Ruby’s alligence was so secret that only Lilith knew the truth. Sam is unable to kill her due to his powers being exhausted by killing Lilith, but Dean breaks in and with Sam holding her in place, Dean stabs Ruby with her own knife, killing her. However its too late and Lucifer’s Cage opens and he begins to emerge.

A Perfect Sunday Morning…

The perfect Sunday morning? Is there such a thing as a perfect Sunday morning or a perfect Sunday? I’d really like to top things off make one Sunday much better than the previous one. I dunno – if I had a perfect Sunday morning then what would the point be in going on? No other Sunday morning would be able to match up with it and hence I will be constantly comparing and pointing out the things that are lacking in each following Sunday when compared to the previous one and then start to get all sad and grumpy and downright depressed because I have nothing more to look forward to when it comes to a Sunday morning! And that could ruin the whole effect of this great day of the week for me. And we wouldn’t want that!

Anyways….so where was I? Oh ok. To think about a perfect Sunday morning – how’s this? I wake up early unaware of the wonderfulness that awaits me. It’s a gorgeous and breezy morning and the sun is out but it’s not too hot. I open the door to get the newspaper and the milk and see, yes they both are there, but someone has also left freshly made croissants in a bowl for me! A well meaning neighbour perhaps. Brilliant, so now on to coffee making! I happen to make some which is just the right sweetness and just the right amount of coffee powder to create a heavenly cup. Awesome and the croissants taste delicious with my coffee! Read the papers, have a shave and a shower and check out what’s happening around town. Oh a new store that sells discount books and dvds/blurays? Must check that out.

While checking out the new store, I bump into a lovely woman who shares the same interests as me in music and movies and we get to talking. And surprise – she’s my new neighbour who left me the delicious croissants. “Thank you fair maiden and can I repay the favour by taking you out for some coffee as soon as we are done here?” I ask. “Why yes ofcourse. I’ll be delighted to join you for coffee”! (no I didn’t transport myself into 18th century England, no matter how it sounds). And so we sit in a cafe and we share a couple of cups of coffee and we laugh and we talk and the times goes on by….it’s only getting started!

So how does that sound?

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Cyberbully

Cyberbulling is a major problem affecting young people for the past few years. Teenagers especially are prone to get severe emotional trauma by the nasty comments and remarks made by their peers from school, in a world where they already are searching for acceptance and understanding. Cyberbully is tv movie from ABC family that addresses this issue. The movie stars Emily Osment (Halley Joel’s younger sister), Kay Panabaker (Danielle Panabaker’s younger sister), Meghan Rath (not sure if she is someone’s sister but hey – her mom is from Goa) & Kelly Rowan.

17 year old Taylor Hillridge is given a new laptop from her mother Kris on her birthday. Taylor, whose father recently left the family and is being raised by her single mother along with her younger brother, Eric, is close to two other girls – Samantha & Cheyenne. The three girls are usual targets of the ‘in-crowd” at their high school, led by queen bee Lindsay. At the urging of her friends, Taylor signs up on a popular social network site (like Facebook) and joins their school’s page. She also tries to attract the attention of her crush Scott and hopes he will chat with her online. Things go wrong when Eric hacks her account and posts a nasty personal post using her id, which leads to so many nasty comments by Lindsay and others on the site.

However she also befriends a new person, “James”, who seems to be understanding and appreciative of her thoughts. While chatting he tells her that he goes to another school, one which Cheyenne’s cousin goes to. However things go back when James tells others that he slept with her and that he got an STD from her. The nasty comments get worse and worse and Lindsay even calls out her lie of being a virgin. Both Scott and Cheyenne start to keep their distance with only Samantha sticking by her friend. The abuse that Taylor receives from the hands of her schoolmates pushes her to a breaking point. Her mother is appalled by the comments and tells her to delete the account. However Taylor is still curious as to who James is and tries to find out, while trying to convince the others that she didn’t sleep with him. However a mock video of someone using a blow up image of her face and wearing it as a mask surfaces on the site. The fake Taylor is also shown to be pregnant. Unable to bear the shame, Taylor tries to commit suicide and posts her own video saying goodbye.

Taylor is unable to get the the cap off the bottle of pills and Samantha, on seeing the video, reaches in time to stop her in time. Taylor’s mother and the ambulance arrives and Taylor is sent to a hospital. She meets a therapist and is assigned to a therapy group for young teens. Kris tries to find out about James and approaches Cheyenne, who tells her that she checked with her cousin and that this James guy does not go to her cousin’s school. However James has disappeared from the site, his account deleted. And then Samantha drops the bomb – she is in fact “James”, having created the fake account to make Taylor stay away from Scott, who she thought was a typical jock who would use and then dump her friend. She apologizes to Taylor and says that the didn’t realize that the comments would have this much damage. Taylor is stunned and retreats to her therapy group. She finds comfort there and makes friends with a gay classmate who has been bullied a lot at their school.

Taylor & Samantha patch things up with the latter comes to support her friend at a newspaper interview, coming forward as the guilty person. Taylor and Scott also star talking and she also becomes closer to her mother. On her return to the school, Taylor & Samantha stand up to Lindsay’s nasty comments. Cheyenne, Scott & the gay classmate also join in and stand up to Lindsay’s friends, who then leave the cafeteria to an ovation from the rest of the classmates. Scott joins Taylor and her friends for lunch as the movie ends.

A bit cheesy, ok quite a bit cheesy in places, especially in the reactions of the school kids. It also hurts that the main antagonist is played so badly by a silly looking actresses who tries so hard but fails miserably. Still 7 out of 10 as most of the movie is good. Shot in beautiful Montreal.

Arsenal 3 West Ham 1

Arsenal came back from a goal down to defeat their London rival West Ham 3-1. Arsenal has a good record away at West Ham and that trend continued last night as Wenger’s boys took all 3 points. West Ham took the lead against the run of play when Mohamed Diame beat Vito Mannone with a curling shot. Olivier Giroud scored his first Premier League goal for Arsenal as they equalised before the break when he poked in Lukas Podolski’s cross at the near post. Kevin Nolan missed two chances for the hosts and was made to pay when Theo Walcott came off the bench to make it 2-1 with Santi Cazorla hitting a third. Walcott, who replaced the disappointing Gervinho, helped the Gunners take advantage in the last half hour as West Ham tired.

But having been on top for large parts of the game, it was no more than Arsene Wenger’s team deserved as they extended their unbeaten record against the Hammers to nine games and moved to fifth in the Premier League table. As Arsenal began to assert their authority on the game, Walcott latched onto Giroud’s through ball just 16 minutes after coming on to score his fourth goal of the season with a precise near-post shot. Another chance fell to Nolan, but he fired over from the edge of the penalty box, and that miss proved costly once Cazorla smashed in Arsenal’s third from 20 yards to cap a superb individual performance.

That was an awesome attacking game to watch after a wonderful day.

Long Island Iced Tea @ Couchyn

I had my very first Long Island Iced Tea at the Couchyn lounge bar this evening. I think this version had – gin, rum, vodka and maybe a dash of tequila with some lemon juice. Not too sure if a little cola was added (I forgot to ask). As for the taste, I could mainly get the rum & gin and certainly the lemon juice flavour which was quite strong. Quite refreshing on a hot day. It’s expensive, even though it’s a huge tumbler, and so I only had one. But not bad, I’ll be having it once in a while.

My Time Online

Hmmm, let’s taken an average day, a day that I do not have to go to work and am completely free. And let’s say that I am at home for that day. I will be online all the time. I might be downloading some tv series or a movie or I might be actually sitting at my laptop and browsing, blogging, reading other blogs, commenting, spending time on Youtube, Twitter, Facebook etc. No matter what it is always on. When I go to sleep or I’m watching a movie on the lappy, the connection is still on and downloading some files for music or movies/tv.

On a work day, I wake up at 7am, get my morning cup of coffee and immediately go online to listen to some clips and check Facebook & Twitter. I take a shower, shave and then switch the notebook off and go to work. I check my mail, Tweets and Facebook replies on my BlackBerry from time to time while at work and on the bus to and fro. Once I get back home, it’s straight to the laptop and connecting to the internet as soon as I get to my room. Yes even before I change my clothes to something more comfortable.

So do you think that is too much? Me, I think I need more time online :P

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Thanks, But No Thanks.

I would like to visit a bunch of places. Many cities and countries. There is a lot of beauty, character and wonderment on this earth and mother nature can be partial to some places but over all this planet has a lot of lovely places that I would consider worth visiting and even settling down in. My favourite place that I’d like to visit would be Canada (isn’t it obvious ofcourse, just go through my blog archives) and many places in that lovely country. After that, the UK, Holland, most of the US, Germany, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Austria, Sweden, Norway, Thailand, Finland, UAE, Bahrain, Belgium, Italy, Japan, Greece, Russia, Hong Kong, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Barbados, Turks & Caicos, and quite a few more.

Whew! Is that too many? Well like I said the earth is so beautiful and we have so many places that one needs to visit to truly appreciate her beauty and grandeur. Everyplace has something wonderful & unique, some more than the others, but equally magical and wonderful. So many places and so little time & money to go to see these places, which I have never seen.

If there are places that I would never want to visit it’s The Vatican City, Saudi Arabia (Mecca in particular). No religious places for me, especially these places which have ruined the rest of the world for us. No Afghanistan and no bible belt places. No Hindi holy places either. And certainly not Pakistan! I would rather not visit any place rather than go to these places. Hell, the North Pole, South Pole, Antarctica would be preferred. Even Hell is preferred, lol! Otherwise, I have a lot of places I’d like to see.

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Edwin Boyd: Citizen Gangster

Edwin Alonzo Boyd  was a Canadian gangster and folk hero famous for his bank robbing exploits during the 1950s. The 2012 movie Edwin Boyd : Citizen Gangster was written and directed by Nathan Morlando, the film stars Scott Speedman as Boyd also includes Kelly Reilly, Brendan Fletcher, Kevin Durand and Charlotte Sullivan. Boyd was something of a folk hero in Toronto in the 1950s, a charismatic figure who dominated the media coverage for years — that meant newspapers and radio broadcasts, in those days.

Edwin Boyd was born on April 2, 1914 and was a second World War veteran, following in the footsteps of his father who fought in the first one. Post returning from the war, father of 2 young kids Eddie is working as a bus driver in Toronto. His dream however is to be an actor. We see him spending time with his wife and kids and being the family man. One day after he helps a wheelchair ridden man, Boyd throws his hat and leaves his job. Despite criticism from his father, who is now a police man, he then tries to meet up Lorne Green at the latter’s acting school but is told to sign up for classes which cost him money he can’t afford. To provide for his British war bride wife Doreen and his 2 kids, he robs a bank disguising himself with makeup. He buys a new car and buys things for his family, telling his wife that he got an acting job.

However she catches him removing the makeup and he confesses to her. After a few more heists he becomes a local celebrity and is soon caught by the cops. Boyd’s renown really takes off when he is finally captured and jailed and meets some new friends behind bars, mostly Lenny Jackson (the imposing Kevin Durand), a fellow veteran with a prosthetic foot in which he hides the hacksaw blades he needs to escape. Another experienced bank robber, Willie Jackson, aka “The Clown” also joins the two and they escape via the bars of the jail. They met a friend, Valent Lesso from Cochrane, one of the violent members of Lennie Jackson’s original gang, and the four became a team. Lesso was a talented musician who couldn’t find work; he changed his name to Steve Suchan and became a bank robber. The 4 soon become what will be known as the Boyd Gang and pull off several heists and live the high live with their respective lovers. Eddie becomes famous for his jumping over counters, moving quickly, and carrying a gun and also charming the women in the banks that the group steals from.

Things go sour when a drunk Willie is caught by the cops and thrown in jail. Suchan and Lennie Jackson working on their own end up in  a gun fight with a couple of cops kill a detective. They were later wounded and captured in a gun fight and ended up again in the Don Jail, charged with murder. Once again the 4 escape from the jail but using tips from a passerby, the cops finally catch the rest of the team, without Boyd, in a barn and are taken to jail. At the crack of dawn the police crept inside a house rent by Boyd’s brother that they had on surveillance and capture Boyd and his wife while they were still in bed. Steve Suchan and Lennie Jackson were sentenced to death for killing Detective Tong and were hanged back to back. Eddie got eight life sentences and Willie Jackson got thirty years. Willie Jackson and Eddie Boyd were both released in 1962. After his release he tries to reconnect with his now ex-wife but she has remarried and wants nothing to do with him. She however comforts him when her current husband throws Eddie out of the house viciously.

Eddie, under the name John, went to Victoria, British Columbia, where he drove a bus for disabled people and married a disabled woman whom he met on the bus. He took care of her for the next 35 years, until they went into a home. He was a pillar of the community and is given an award for his work, his past life being unknown to people there. What is not shown in the movie is that 2 months prior to his death, Boyd told a CBC producer that he had once killed a couple and left their bodies in the trunk of a car in High Park, Toronto years before his notoriety as a bank robber. The crime fits the September 11, 1947 murders of Iris Scott and George Vigus. Before a formal investigation into his confession could commence, on May 17, 2002, after a visit from his wife and his son, and a phone call from his former war bride and the mother of his three children, Edwin Alonzo Boyd died at age 88.

The movie suffers from the script which could have been a bit more elaborate and some dry spells which drag a bit but Speedman delivers his role of a lifetime in this movie and for that I have to award it high scores. A first time director also probably hindered what should have been a much bigger movie. 8 outta 10, mainly for the acting of Speedman, Kelly Reilly and  Kevin Durand.

The Big Bang Theory – Season 4

At the beginning of the fourth season, Howard borrows a robotic arm and uses it to for a massage at home and then to masturbate. Due to executing the wrong program he gets his genitals stuck in the arm and has to call Leonard and Raj for help. Meanwhile, Penny comes to know of Sheldon’s new friend, Amy Farrah Fowler (Mayim Bialik), when Sheldon reads out loud her text message. To everyone’s surprise, Sheldon announces his plans to conceive a child with Amy via in vitro fertilisation with Penny being the surrogate mother. Penny suggests that he should first go out with Amy on a date. Since Sheldon cannot drive, and because the date was Penny’s idea, she is forced into giving Sheldon a ride and ends up chaperoning.

Sheldon builds a robotic replication of himself which he calls a “Mobile Virtual Presence Device” that would go through all the hazards of life that Sheldon would otherwise have to endure, while he stays behind in a “secure, undisclosed location” (his bedroom). Sheldon and Amy are very compatible with each other, as evidenced by how well they can play “counter-factuals”, a game they invented requiring them to know what the other is thinking when answering a question about “an alternate world that differs from ours in one key aspect” (Leonard flunks miserably when he attempts to play this game). However, Amy’s presence does not go down well with the other guys, who already find it difficult to handle Sheldon by himself, and they start hanging out at Penny’s apartment to escape “ShAmy” (the name the guys gave for the couple). However one day at lunch, Amy belittles Sheldon’s occupation as a theoretical physicist relative to, in her opinion, her more superior occupation of neurobiologist, prompting Sheldon to terminate their friendship. Following the breakup (or according to Sheldon, “our friendship outlived its utility), Sheldon adopts 25 cats as a substitute for Amy. It takes Sheldon’s mother to use reverse psychology to get him to reconcile with Amy.

When Amy asks Sheldon to meet her mother, he becomes worried she wants to be his girlfriend, and embarks on a series of attempts to avoid her. She eventually tells him that she only wishes to please her mother, who wishes Amy to socialize. Meanwhile, Leonard, frustrated by the fact that he is the only one of the men without a girlfriend, invokes the “Girlfriend Pact” with Howard, last mentioned in “The Creepy Candy Coating Corollary” from Season 3. Howard gets Bernadette to set Leonard up on a date with Joy, one of her friends, whose obnoxious, inappropriate behavior makes for a horrible date for Leonard. Nonetheless, Leonard agrees to another date with Joy because he may get to have sex with her. Raj’s sister Priya visits and re-ignites a heretofore unrevealed past romance with Leonard, despite Leonard’s pact with Howard years earlier that they would not try to date her in deference to Raj. When Sheldon discovers Priya leaving Leonard’s bedroom one morning, he finds out that Leonard and Priya had sex and tries to devise an elaborate, flawless lie to cover it up, but Leonard’s inability to maintain the lie results in his blurting out the truth to Raj, in turn setting off a chain reaction in which each of the four men reveal heretofore unrevealed inappropriate behavior that each has concealed from another man in the group. Wil Wheaton returns and the 4 dudes have an altercation with him outside a theatre.

Penny gets Leonard to act as her boyfriend when her father visits. When an intoxicated Raj complains that “no girl ever wants to kiss him,” Bernadette shows sympathy for him and he attempts to kiss her. In a slow motion scene, Howard stops Raj from kissing his girlfriend, however ends up to be the one being kissed. Penny gets back with her ex Zack and they all dress up as superhero to go to a comic book store new year’s eve party. Sheldon is kicked out by the remaining 3 as he dominates the creation of a new app and plays his theremin as a lament. Amy asks Penny to join her, Bernardette and the other guys on a trip to a science conference in Big Sur, California, as she believes them to be best friends.  Raj develops a crush on Bernadette after she calls him a “hottie” and starts fantasizing about her. After two daydreams in which a departing Howard (once leaving to work at a university in Israel for two years, and once dying after being hit by a truck) tells Raj to take care of Bernadette sexually, he decides that he’s “definitely not gay”. In Raj’s last daydream, he and Bernadette perform a Bollywood style dance number, and he says that, dance number aside, he’s still very much not gay.

Leonard sleep with an older benefactor for funds for the university. Leonard & Priya later become a couple and stat hanging out at Raj’s apartment more, upsetting Sheldon who briefly attempts to get his own group going. Priya tells Leonard that she is uncomfortable with having Penny around her boyfriend every day. Penny spreads a rumor that Bernadette is thinking of breaking up with Howard. After the rumor finally reaches Priya, she informs Leonard that Raj has a crush on Bernadette and even writes poems about her. When Raj hears the rumor from Priya, he gets excited, as he could finally have his own shot with Bernadette. Howard is completely unaware of all this and plans to ask Bernadette to marry him. The others try to stop him from asking, as they believe that he will be blindsided when Bernadette rejects him, with Raj being the only one that selfishly encourages Howard to go through with his plan. When having dinner one night, Howard pulls out the proposal ring, as he can’t imagine a better time to ask her than with all of his friends around. Despite the protest of the others, he gets on his knees and starts to talk. At that moment, Bernadette cuts him off in what appears to be a rejection, however she actually accepts his marriage proposal, completely devastating Raj at the same time. Sheldon and Priya later clash over changes she has made to Leonard’s & the gang’s routine.

A lonely Raj decides to take an experimental drug to overcome his shyness in speaking to women. Mrs. Wolowitz is taken to the hospital after a bout a food poisoning which Howard thought was a heart attack when he told her that he was going to marry Bernadette. It turns out that Howard’s mother actually likes Bernadette a lot. Meanwhile, Leonard’s and Priya’s noisy sexual encounters sends Raj to spend the night at Sheldon’s apartment. When Leonard finds him in his bed, he proposes that Raj moves in with Sheldon until Priya finds her own place. Penny stops by, stays for dinner and the both of them get drunk from the wine Raj served. Penny tells Raj that she “screwed up”, as she shouldn’t have broken up with Leonard, and that she would be “on” him (Raj) if they weren’t friends. Priya receives a video call, Leonard overhears that she is moving back to India and storms out revealing their relationship to her parents. At the end of the episode, Sheldon discovers Leonard sleeping on their couch, Penny wakes up and is horrified when she notices Raj in Leonard’s bed beside her. She tells him that last night never happened and tries to sneak out of the apartment; however, they are busted by the others. Penny just states that “it’s not what it looks like” and leave Sheldon, Leonard and Howard confused. Sheldon inquires “What does it look like?”

Tweet, Tweet!

Twitter is never a time waster. Nothing in social networking or the internet for that matter is a time waster if you know what you are doing. It’s the people who waste their time if they do not know what they want or are looking for in Twitter. Someone who, say, whose idea of social networking is just Orkut, as a lot of people I know have, then Twitter will not work for them. Twitter is not Orkut and is miles ahead in usefulness. And to tell you the truth, Orkut is so fucking cheesy!

Ok, so only 140 characters, no problem? It still is great. Compared to that Orkut is still being used almost like a chat program by many of my fellow Indians. “Hi how r u?” reply “I’m doing great, how about you?” reply “missing you”! That’s not what it’s supposed to be. Posts after posts after posts of the same old crap until I finally cancelled my Orkut account. Never do I want to use that shit again! And all those glitter-art gifs and logos and nonsense – Orkut is so yuck! And that’s because people used it in a stupid way and the site itself is so dumb!

And although Facebook is the one you have to compare it to, Twitter is miles ahead and those who don’t use it will never be able to understand the fun that a lot of us who do use it have. It’s great for sharing links, images and thoughts. And ideas! Everything you can think of – so what if you have a 140 character limit, use more than one tweet to send your message across to your followers. Plus it’s a great way for someone famous to keep in touch with their fans and pass along information and converse with them. So use Twitter and chuck out Orkut! That’s all!!

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Beer Types – Hefeweizen

Wheat beer is a beer that is brewed with a large proportion of wheat in addition to malted barley. Wheat beers are usually top-fermented (as required by law in Germany). The best known and original wheat beer is hefeweizen. Using wheat as an ingredient in beer was the first exception made to the famous beer purity law, Rheinheitsgebot, and that exception was made specifically so the nobility could continue to enjoy this style. This Bavarian style of wheat beer is pale and cloudy. It is bottled and served unfiltered so the yeast used during fermentation is still present. This special strain of yeast contributes banana and clove notes to the aroma and flavor of the beer. Wheat beer is an ale so it is heavier and doesn’t provide the smack of a lager. But served cold, with or without a slice of lemon, it is no less refreshing.

The hefeweizen style is particularly noted for its low hop bitterness (about 15 IBUs) and relatively high carbonation (approaching four volumes), considered important to balance the beer’s relatively malty sweetness. Another balancing flavour note unique to hefeweizen beer is its phenolic character; its signature phenol is 4-vinyl guaiacol,[11] a metabolite of ferulic acid, the result of fermentation by top-fermenting yeast appropriate for the style. Hefeweizen’s phenolic character has been described as “clove” and “medicinal” (Band-aid) but also smoky. Other more typical but less assertive flavour notes produced by Weissbier yeast include “banana” (amyl acetate), “bubble gum”, and sometimes “vanilla” (vanillin).

Hefeweizen should be poured smoothly into a tilted, rinsed glass. Pause when there’s about a quarter of the bottle left, swirl the bottle to lift the sediment, then pour the rest into the glass to give a big, fragrant head and release the yeast into the beer to give it its cloudy appearance. The glass should be like the Franziskaner glass shown on the right — tall and graceful, with a narrow base widening toward the top before narrowing slightly again.

Although Germany has many excellent beers, the one I have pictured here is the Granville Island Robson Street Hefeweizen from Vancouver, which was a Silver medal winner in the World Beer Championships in it’s category in 2010 & 2012.