Day: October 3, 2009

Normal: Awesome Criminal Minds Episode

- Roshan

I just watched an awesome episode of Criminal Minds. It will stun you as the story of a normal man, who lives with his wife & 3 daughters, changes abruptly when his youngest daughter is killed when a car hits her. The man, Norman, was changing the tires at the time and couldn’t save his little girl. This traumatizes him and causes him to go off the bend. ???????? ???????

Norman flips when a woman, who has cut him off, also insults him and he snaps. He shots at her and causes her to crash her car and paralyze her. He also kills two men, who inquire about him, after imagining that they are mocking him. He then kills his wife & 2 remaining daughters and flees in his SUV, all the while imagining that he is driving his car with them in it.

The guest stars for this episode is memorable – Normal is played by Mitch Pillegi (X-Files, Stargate: Atlantis), his wife is played by Faith Ford (Maggie Winters, Hope & Faith) and Elanie Hendrix (Joan of Arcadia) plays the woman who cuts him off. Gina Torress (Firefly) plays the LA detective in charge of this case.

Curve, Storm,Pizzas & Shakes

- Roshan

I went back to work today after a day of rest yesterday (due to Gandhi Jayanthi) and tried to finish off as much work as I could. Now that is hard, especially when a colleague and I started discussing Blackberrys. We were talking about the Curve 8320 (the one that I think I will be getting next month) and the Curve 8900 (pictured here).

There was a little storm on the horizon this afternoon and as my team and I went to the rooftop cafeteria for a little lunch, at around 1:15 pm, the storm blew in! Man it was windy and pouring rain, so much that it blew away venetian blinds, wicker blind, chairs, glasses & plates. A couple of really thin people were almost blown away. The housekeeping team had to mop up buckets of rain water once it died down.

By 3 pm it was hot & sunny! Sreekumar, a guy who was in my team earlier and who now works in Chennai came to visit us forthe first time in 2 months. He took 4 of us to a nearby bakery/fast food place for milkshakes (butter scotch) and small chicken pizzas. Don’t get excited, the pizzas were nothing more flat bread with some cheese, onions & cut up pieces of chicken and tasted bad!

Stargate’s The Wraith

- Roshan

The main villains in Stargate: Atlantis are the Wraith. The Wraith are intelligent humanoids who are genetically close to insects, though they are predominantly human, as the evolved from the humans who live in the Pegasus galaxy. The Iratus bug feed on humans to heal & sustain itself and as it evolved, the Wraith were born. The vampire like Wraith too feed on humans, treating them akin to livestock and regarding the act of feeding as nothing more than natural predation. The Wraith expand their population by cloning as they don’t have natural procreation methods. Most of the Wraith shown in the series are male with most female ones are Queens.

Some 10,000 years from the Atlantis first season, the Wraith defeated the Ancients (the original more evolved human race) who then returned to Earth. How the Wraith feed is by a feeding organ on their palm, which they place on a human chest, drawing out their ‘life-force’. The effect on humans is rapid aging, which could lead to death unless stopped in time. Wraith are biologically immortal and do not possess the life-inhibiting proteins that cause aging.

The Wraith do not have any names that we know of but Lt.Colonel Sheppard gives captured Wraith’s human names like Steve, Bob, Todd & most famously Michael. And finally the Wraith travel in huge Hive ships, lead by a Hive Queen, just like their insect counterparts.