2012 April 24

Share A Favorite Summer Memory

I remember one summer holidays which I spent in Coimbatore with my cousins Manoj, Sandhya & Navin and their parents. They lived in Coimbatore for a few years between 1986 and 1991. The summer I was with them must have been 1989 and that was the also around the time that Manoj & I discovered Guns n’Roses. We were both huge hard rock fans; I still am but I am not so sure about him now as I really don’t know what all stuff he listens to now. I spent around 4 weeks or so with them in their rented place in Coimbatore. Which was a 3 bedroom plus den kinda apartment house. Manoj & I slept on mattresses in the living room as we watched movies till all hours of the night.

I have fond memories of those days. The four of us kids would spend the day yakking our heads off probably driving their mom nuts. She was a saint, always looking for goodies to cook up for us while we either played games or watched tapes of recorded music videos that they got from their friends in the UK (my cousins were all born in the UK and raised there with the exception of a few years that they lived in India). So we sang in harmony (badly at that) with the songs that we loved and must have competed for air guitar solos and rock god poses. The only reprieve we gave their mom was when we went to a local library nearby – I distinctly remember reading a few Astrix comics that year and some novels. But during the afternoons and evenings post dinner it was movies.

My three cousins introduced me to the brilliance of the comedy duo Abbott & Costello and I love them for that. When I recently watched some of the movies towards the end of last year I remembered those days spent in that apartment living room, laughing our asses off, rolling on the sofas with laughter filling the air. I also remembered some of the silly kid stuff – Manoj & Sandhya fighting for the nth time and he insulting her with “You are so dumb, you don’t know what 2+2 = is?” and silly girl (she was 12 at the time) haughtily replying “I know, I know…..5!” (no Sandhya) and all four of us laughing at her dumb mistake! Good times, I will always hold those memories close to my heart as long as I have life in me.

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Apr 24 2012

Criminal Minds – Season 4

We start immediately from the tense ending of season 3 and it is revealed that the SUV where the bomb blew up was the one in which Agent Hotcher & his friend SSA Kate Joyner. Kate is injured and bleeding badly due to the explosion and cannot be moved due to her injuries. Hotch has minor cuts & bruises and his hearing is affected due to being very close to the loud explosion. The team manages to track the terrorists before they can kill their target. Next they go to Ohio to stop a copycat killer connected to a serial killer named the Angel Maker who had been executed a year ago. Hotch struggles with his ear problem, a result of the explosion in the previous episode. The 3rd episode sees Prentiss & Dr. Reid go undercover in Colorado to investigate alleged child abuse at the compound of an underground cult and find themselves being held hostage when a federal raid on the fortress ends up going disastrously wrong, with guest star Luke Perry playing the leader of the cult. Next the team has to catch a serial killer, Will Wheaton, who tortures and kills couples inside hotel bedrooms and conceals the manner of his crimes by staging car accidents.

With JJ off on maternal leave, Agent Jordan Too (the lovely Meta Golding) temporarily joins the BAU. Reid begins to have dreams that force him to recall long-forgotten memories from his childhood as he investigates the case of a young boy kidnapped by a woman suffering a psychotic attack. He discovers possible connections to his own past, including his own father. While the rest of the team head back to D.C., Rossi and Morgan stay in Las Vegas to help Reid solve the case once and for all. A narcissistic psychopath obsessed with the Fibonacci sequence shows up at a FBI recruitment talk given by Rossi and Reid and turns himself in, confessing he has killed seven people and more will die, but doesn’t reveal where his latest victims are being held, so it’s up to the team to locate his latest victims before it is too late.

Jordan joins Emily to go undercover in Atlanta to profile a serial killer who has perfected his skill as a pick-up artist and uses his masculine prowess to lure his next victims. The BAU is then called to assist in the catching of a serial killer, dubbed the “Road Warrior” by the media, who is shooting blonde women as they drive along freeways in Orange County, California. The case is complicated because the heinous acts appear to be at random. The team also tackles a family of Romani origin working together in what may be a ritual seemingly designed to acquire wives for growing sons and introduce new blood into the family. This is Jordan’s last appearance in the series. Then the team has to identify a serial killer who kidnaps, murders, and embalms his victims to spend more time with them, also to assist in the pursuit of a serial killer who appears to be copying the methods used by famous serial killers from the past such as the Son of Sam, Jack the Ripper and the BTK killer and goto to Dallas to investigate a serial killer who’s drugging and murdering high-powered executives by posing as a high-class call girl.

The BAU then has to investigates a series of deaths involving possible exorcisms in the Washington area that appear to be sanctioned by the Vatican. Prentiss finds herself becoming personally involved in the case when it appears her friend might have fallen victim to the rogue priest. The BAU travels to Boston when the Boston Reaper, one of Agent Hotchner’s first cases, which involved one of the most notorious murderers in the history of New England, returns after 10 years. The team interviews the only victim that survived, George Foyet (C. Thomas Howell), to find clues about the killer. Later we learn that Foyet is the Reaper, but he escapes. Next it’s off to Texas to investigate a serial killer who is raping and killing male teenagers on spring break on South Padre Island. When a serial killer in Buffalo, New York who films his victims as they die sends a videotape of one of his crimes to the BAU, the team discovers a message from the murderer begging them for help in stopping his killing urges.

In one of it’s most difficult cases the team goes to Detroit to help track down a serial killer who is killing homeless people who forces the team into Canada to catch him. Loosely based on a real life case, in Canada they learn that the serial killer they were looking for is a pair of brothers who were kidnapping people to perform medical experiments on them. The invalid but controlling older brother directs his younger but larger brother to kidnap the people and kill them during the experiments. At the end of solving the case, Hotch finds himself in life-threatening danger when he arrives home to find the Reaper waiting for him. He is shot and left for dead.