- The A-Team
- Knight Rider
- Misfits Of Science
- Starsky & Hutch
- T J Hooker
- Moonlighting
- Remington Steele
- Gimme A Break
- Battlestar Galatica : Galatica 1980
- V
- Silver Spoons
Month: April 2010
Misbehaving With Passengers
I don’t know what is happening with the bus conductors and bus door checkers (known in the state as kilis) in the recent weeks. There has been three reported cases of violence & abuse concerning the bus service employees against passengers and it seems to be getting out of control.
The first case was when a lady passenger, traveling with her two daughters, was slapped by the bus conductor after she repeatedly asked him for the balance amount back from the money she handed over for her ticket. I don’t know what ticked him off but instead of giving her the change back, he slapped her. The other passengers confronted him but he escaped & ran and is presumed to be back in his hometown. The second incident was concerning a kili.
This bugger misbehaved with a lady passenger as she was getting down at her bus stop. I think he was only 21 years old or so but he needs a kick in the nuts. He was also punished. On Sunday it was reported that the city police have booked 22 men for behaving indecently with women & children. Cops have been traveling in the city buses undercover and nabbing anyone who misbehaves with innocent victims.
Something has to be done. Can the local government run a law that bus conductors & door checkers go for mandatory training & get certified on behaviour? This is after all a private industry and it’s customer service so why the hell not?
The Rumba Foundation – Jesse Cook
Firmly established as an icon & leading member of the rumba & Nouveau flamenco brand of world music, Jesse Cook brought forth The Rumba Foundation. Released last year the cd continues Jesse Cook’s journey across time, space and sound. Jesse melds his trademark rumba flamenco style with the music of Cuba, Haiti and Columbia, among others. With all of the dazzling instrumental pyrotechnics he employs, Jesse’s emphasis is always on the melody and the infectious rhythms that make him an airplay favorite. The album sounds very South American in style as Cuban & African music mixes with exotic Spanish guitar of Mediterranean, rumba flamenco, pop and world tones.
Let’s get things rolling, as you listen to Bogota By Bus, you get the image of a fun & energetic journey by bus with the travelers singing & playing their instruments and dancing to the beat. Compared to the flirty & cheerful opening track, Santa Marta is a lot more melancholic; visions of longing for a seaside town with family & friends waiting for us float through my mind as the melodic guitar licks fill the air. Tuesday’s Child starts off with sounds of a toddler in the background and then the moody music picks off.
Manolo’s Lament is the next track; again brings us the Latin world of fish boats and sea side towns. After flexing his guitar strings in the 27 second Improv 1, come the mid-tempo La Rumba De’el Jefe, a wonderful piece of musical restraint. After the brief 16 second Improv 2, we waltz into Gaita with it’s strong rhythm section and lovely melody. We slow things down for the ethereal Rain Day and it’s feeling of loneliness.
The last three songs – a middle eastern sounding Bombay Diner that creates images of a bustling neighbourhood with people mingling about, Afternoon At Satie’s which is a gentle intimate affair & the totally fun & sing-a-long version of Paul Simon’s Cecilia – are probably the best tracks on the album with the exception of the opening song. Great way to end the album and you’ll be hitting the play button many times over.
The cd features Juan Alberto Fernandez Polo, Jeremy Fisher (vocals); Chris Church (violin); Jonathan Tortolano, Kevin Fox (cello); Juan De Sedas (accordion); Drew Birston (double bass); Rafael Antonio Rodriguez, Jairo Rafael Herrera, Gabriel Eduardo Torregrosa, Dionisio Jose Yepes (percussion).
Secret Admirer : Blast From The Past
A movie from my childhood days always brings a smile to my face. Now, this movie, Secret Admirer was released in 1985 but I would have seen it probably around 1988-89. It remains an icon of the 80s directed by David Greenwalt starring C. Thomas Howell, Lori Loughlin, Kelly Preston and Fred Ward. The original music score was composed by Jan Hammer.
The movie is about Michael (Howell) an almost 16 year old high school student who has this big crush for the prom queen & hot babe Debbie (Kelly Preston). He gets an anonymous love letter slid into his locker on the last day of school, which his friends lead him to believe was written by his crush, Debbie. However, it is actually written by Michael’s best friend, the pretty Toni (Lori Loughlin)! Michael writes a letter back and asks Toni to give it to Debbie. Toni opens the letter, which is basically lines from cards, tears it up an writes another letter and gives it to Debbie instead.
Debbie, who is going out with college jock, Steve, falls head over heels for the way the letter is written and wants to meet her admirer. She & Michael meet and they start going out. Now here is the fun & confused part – Michael’s kid brother Jeff (the late Corey Haim), while stealing some money from his brother, reads the letter and places it in his dad’s book. Their mom, Connie finds the letter and assumes that her husband George is having an affair. George, gives his book to his night class teacher, Elizabeth (Debbie’s mom) and only sees the letter when he gets the book back. Now he thinks that Elizabeth has a crush on him.
Debbie, in order to hide the letter Michael wrote to her, puts it in her mom’s bag. Her dad, Lou a cop, finds it and assumes that his wife is having an affair. One thing leads to another and George & Elizabeth go out on a date with Lou spying on them. They call it off when they find Debbie (with a topless scene by the sexy Preston) & Michael making out in the car next to them. Lou goes to Connie and tells her about the affair and they have a brief making out session to spite George & Elizabeth. Confused?
Meanwhile Debbie & Michael hit it off and go on their date and make out. However Michael soon realizes that dating her is very superficial. They try to have sex on his birthday, much to the disappointment of Toni, but call it off when it doesn’t go right. Toni is upset with Michael but doesn’t tell him about her true feelings and is going off on a year’s educational trip on a ship. Michael realizes that he has feelings for Toni and when he matches the two letters together understands that it was Toni who was his secret admirer and not Debbie.
Debbie is upset and breaks it off with Michael. Both of them confront their respective parents, who are busy accusing their partners with the letters, and the confusion is sorted out. Michael goes to beg Toni not to leave and tells her that he knows it was she who wrote the letters all along. He tells her that he loves her and she jumps off the ship and the two kiss. Funny movie and it’s worth watch a few times. 7 outta 10!
Heat, Rain & A Squirrel
What a day! A little after I reached the office, I was called up the center head to his cabin and told to join the AM for HR and a guy heading the recruitment department and go to visit a training organization which has ties with the local government to try and place jobs for young adults from lower income families. We’ve been hiring and hiring and the monthly attrition list is alarming as the salary is not that good and most new hires use us a a stepping stone to the next job either in the state or in the Gulf.
And that’s cool, I don’t expect people to stay with us at the salary that we are offering for the rest of their careers or even for more than a year or two. But 2 months average! Come on, it’s not worth the time, energy, pain & money spent on recruiting, training these buggers and get them certified to become call center associates for inbound customer care. Hence the alternate option of the said government involved training institute. I was to join them for the visit and take a trainer along.
We ended up leaving our premises at 12:20 pm in a company cab and man was it hot outside. We went to Kadavanthara to meet with the man in charge of running this venture and then traveled to Maradu to visit one of the training batches. We met the trainer and the batch that he was training and interacted with them. Seems ok. By the time we came back to our office, it was past 3pm. We were tired, sweaty and hungry.
After the day’s work ended, I left the office and boarded a bus heading for home. With the heavy rains we’ve had from late afternoon, there were traffic blocks in Kalloor. And a transformer exploded (do I see a trend) in Kalloor just as I passed it. Bam! The poor went out in that area. Man was it loud & bright.
And then – I saw that the guy next to me in the bus was playing with …..a squirrel! A live squirrel in his hands. When I asked, he said that he found the squirrel when it was a baby a few months ago, while cutting down a tree in his wife’s parents’ land. The other babies died but this one survived and he saved it and raised it as his pet. He carries it with him in a small box lined with some cloth and keeps the box in his carry bag. The squirrel is his constant companion. Cool eh?
Anti-Spam Blues
As my regular readers would have noticed, I’ve changed my WordPress Theme…….again! That’s right! In my never-ending search for that perfect predominant white theme that screams “me”, I changed into this theme (SimpleBlog) that you currently see, a few days ago. And I liked what I saw.
What I didn’t notice was that there was a incompatibility with my anti-spam plugin (Peter’s Anti-Spam) & this theme. The plugin just doesn’t seem to work with this theme and shows an error message. I hadn’t noticed the error but I did notice a lack of comments since the change. Well, not that I get very many comments on my blog but it’s rare for a few days to pass and no comment on any of the numerous blog posts that I have.
While I was sleeping Meleah tried posting a comment and as she couldn’t get it done, she emailed me &, in Twitter, DM’d (now that sounds dirty) me that she was getting this error message. So morning cup of coffee in hand, I tried the same and got the same error message. I tried uninstalling and re-installing the plugin but to no avail. Just not compatible. So – I got rid of it and activated both Akismet & reCaptcha anti-spam plugins. Selma successfully commented on my last post just a few minutes later so that seems to be fixed.
I hope I don’t have anymore issues with the plugins; I get bombarded by lots of spam in a day.
An Awkward Situation
There’s A Grace Ascending To A Broken Sky
The video for New Love In Town off Europe’s 8th studio album Last Look At Eden. Don’t they sound a lot like Gary Moore?
Michael Buble Wins Big @ 39th Junos
The 40th Juno Awards were held in St.John’s, Canada during the last weekend. Crooner Michael Buble was the big winner this year, the 39th edition, with 4 wins. His fourth album Crazy Love took album of the year and pop album honours, while the song Haven’t Met You Yet snagged the trophy for single. Buble also won the fan choice award, beating out last year’s winners Nickelback. Held at a sold-out Mile One Centre in St. John’s and featuring a who’s who of Canadian artists as presenters and performers instead of a single host. After being shut out at this year’s Grammys, Toronto rapper Drake snagged two Junos — the new artist trophy and rap recording honours for the song So Far Gone — even though his debut album Thank Me Later isn’t due until June.
Somali-born singer-songwriter K’Naan, whose song Wavin’ Flag has become an anthem for Canada’s Haitian relief efforts and the FIFA World Cup, was named songwriter of the year & artist of the year. Metric, the Toronto rockers fronted by Emily Haines won group of the year, their second trophy of the weekend. On Saturday, their fourth album Fantasies captured the alternative album prize. Rising country star Johnny Reid crooned Dance With Me, the title cut on his Juno-winning album. And rockers Billy Talent cranked out Saint Veronica from their third self-titled disc, this year’s top rock album.
inger-songwriter Bryan Adams was given the Allan Waters humanitarian award for his long record of fundraising efforts and charity work on behalf of causes such as breast cancer research and Ethiopian famine relief. The 50-year-old singer-guitarist accepted his award via satellite from London after being unable to fly across the Atlantic because of volcanic ash clouds covering Europe. Halifax rockers April Wine — fronted by singer-guitarist Myles Goodwyn — were inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.
Sens Trail Playoff Quaterfinal 1-2 VS Pens
After the first game in Pittsburgh which the Ottawa Senators won, the Penguins have stepped up and won the next two, putting the pressure squarely back on the collective shoulders of Alfredsson & co. The second game in Pittsburgh was won with a 2-1 victory. Then last night with the series shifting to the Senators’ home stadium, Scotiabank Place, the Pens upped their game to win 4-2.
With Evgeny Malkin & Sidney Crosby performing the way that they are, the Senators better have a different approach if they want to battle the series out and win it. Home crowd should help the side get a victory in game 4 and then if they can do that, then it’s anybody’s series. And we need more goals from Spezza, Fisher & Alfredsson. All I can say is GO SENS GO!
Power Interruptions On Sunday
This weekend has not been the best! Last night after spending some time with my cousin Sujith at Barista Cafe, I took an auto back home and came in to watch some tv. There was football on the telly and I was also watching the movie Role Models on HBO. While the movie was reaching the end, I heard a big ‘boom’, saw some white explosion kinda thing from the corner of my eye as the transformer opposite our building blew a fuse or something.
The stupid idiots of KSEB (Kerala State Electricity Board) are so incompetent that this transformer keeps blowing up. This happened a couple of weeks ago when it rained a bit – a small gust of wind and a little rain and the son of a bitch starts acting up. We keep getting power losses in this building & the opposite every time. The only good thing I can say is that, perhaps we are in the city area, the electricians from KSEB do come and fix it quicker than it would have been if this were in the suburban areas.
But this is ridiculous. Each year it blows up a few times. Each fucking year. Last night it blew up at around 10:45 pm and it took up until almost midnite for the power to come back on. Then this morning at 7 am sharp, just as I woke up the power went off again for another 90 minutes. Then at 10 am it went off again, only to come back again – but this time there was hardly any voltage so only the fans work, very slowly at that and hardly giving you any breeze, and you can’t watch tv or switch on the pc. So boring Sunday morning with nothing to do went on by.
I took a nap and tried to read a book but it was getting quite a bit hot. I had lunch and then came back to my room and laid down. A little after 2 pm the power comes back on and this time it’s ok. What a waste of a day.
Update: The power went again at 4:45 pm and came after 7pm. Hot & sweaty I went in for a long shower immediately. But I wasn’t alone! I had a bunch of mosquitoes for company. My time in the shower was also spent swatting them vampires with my hands and spraying water on them when they sat on the walls. Bastards!
Cold, Refreshing & Yummy
Last evening I was feeling quite hungry, and as my cousin Sujith has asked to meet up at Barista Cafe in Bay Pride Mall on Marine Drive, I though “why not have an early dinner there.
So here’s a pic of it, my very own contribution to my ongoing ‘Sunday Morning Coffee’ photo series. This is a mocha frappe and Chicken Tikka sandwich.
Kopitar’s Highstick on Henrik Sedin
In the second period of Game 1 of the Stanley Cup playoff series, the blade of Anze Kopitar’s stick somehow managed to get wedged under the visor of Henrik Sedin. The call was not made as the ref felt that Kopitar was very gentle and did not intend to poke Sedin. Take a look.
Ringo Starr Rebuffs Vatican’s Forgiveness Of The Beatles
Ringo Starr has rejected forgiveness from Catholic Church officials who once called him a Satanist. Pope Benedict XVI sanctioned an article in the Vatican’s L’Osservatore Romano newspaper earlier this week, in which the Beatles were praised for their “beautiful” music and were absolved for their rock star decadence and experiments with drugs.
The front-page editorial also addressed John Lennon’s controversial comments about the Beatles being “bigger than Jesus” at the height of their success.
The newspaper’s editors wrote, “The Beatles said they were bigger than Jesus and put out mysterious messages that were possibly even Satanic… (but) what would pop music be like without the Beatles?”
But Starr is far from impressed with the paper’s unwanted forgiveness – the drummer says, “Didn’t the Vatican say we were Satanic or possibly Satanic? And they’ve still forgiven us?
In an apparent reference to the scandal over paedophile priests that has shaken the Catholic Church worldwide, he added: “I think the Vatican, they’ve got more to talk about than the Beatles.”
The Vatican has been battling for weeks to contain scandals which have broken out in one country after another, from Ireland and Germany to Brazil and New Zealand. The controversy has inched close to the Pope, who turns 83 on Friday and will celebrate the fifth anniversary of his papacy on Monday. He has been accused of being too lenient towards paedophile priests when he was archbishop of Munich in the 1980s and later, for more than 20 years, the head of the Vatican’s doctrinal enforcement department.
You’re Cryin’ Me A River But I Got To Get Across
It’s 1989, Aerosmith have made their big comeback and then they release their magnum opus PUMP and one of their hits of the album is the wonderfully catchy Take Me To The Other Side.
Men With Brooms
Ever since I saw Aspen Extreme, I was a Paul Gross fan, even before he floored most of the tv watching audiences who saw him as Constable Benton Fraser in Due South. Men In Brooms is a romantic comedy & sports related movie, revolving around the sport of curling, directed by Paul Gross as well as him being the lead actor.
The cast also includes Connor Price, Leslie Nielsen, Peter Outerbridge, Kari Matchett, Molly Parker and Polly Shannon. Members of the rock band The Tragically Hip make a cameo appearance in the film as a competing rink representing Kingston, Ontario, the band’s home city.
The plot is pretty simple: their old coach dies of a heart attack and his last wishes are that his ashes be stored inside a curling rock and that his estranged former team – Neil Bucyk (James Allodi) is a dissatisfied mortician in a marriage as lifeless as his customers; James Lennox (Peter Outerbridge) is constantly courting trouble, and this time he’s headed for a date with a thug who’s tracking him down in search of payback; and Eddie Strombeck (Jed Rees) can’t impregnate his wife because of his single digit sperm count & skipper Chris Cutter (Gross) who left town – get back together and play for the prestigious Golden Broom championships.
What follows next is fun practicing, coaching by the evergreen Leslie Neilsen, a love relationship blossoming between Cutter & Amy, the recovering alcoholic sister of his former fiance & daughter of his old coach. Some hilarity occurs during the competition stages and ofcourse, we know that Gross and company will win the tournament. But it’s an enjoyable comedy for grownups and the main theme is novel enough to set it aside from all the other sports related movies. 7 outta 10!
A Motor Mouth From My Childhood
When I was in the 10th grade I made a friend who was new to our school. He was a loud-mouthed, arrogant yet smart & friendly former Saudi resident named Sameer Siddique. Guy was a smart ass and pissed people off at first but then they understood that he was just kidding and soon most of my classmates started warming up to him. For that year and for the next couple of years, he was my best friend.
Sameer had a volatile temper and a mouth with a motor attached to it. Petty things that 15 year old boys could dole out in class could really rile him up. And the teachers would turn to me to calm him down! I had that effect on people (stopped when I started getting a really bad temper by the age of 25). Anyways, it was a really good friendship. My family knew him well. I got to know his sister & his mom and even went to his dad’s office (he was a heart surgeon) at times.
I hung out at his house a lot; whenever his parents & sister were away visiting relatives, I’d stay over and we’d watch movies, eat a lot of good food and talk about the future. I even went a mosque with him (I was an atheist by then but still curious). We’d go to movies together (I went to this really awful Kamala Hassan Tamil movie back in 1991) and teamed up for a couple of events at school. His sister’s first child was even named Roshanara after me despite their claims that it isn’t :)
By 1993-94 he moved to Velloor to study medicine and become a doctor like his dad. His friends would always support him and say that finally he would discover what was wrong with him once he could self-diagnose himself :P. But jokes aside, he was very single minded in his ambition to become a doctor and focused on it. I lost touch with him around that time. During the summer of 1997, he called me up and asked if we could hang out and go for lunch or something. So we hooked up with a couple of other buddies from school and went for lunch and a movie.
That was the last I saw of him. Over the years since I’ve thought about my childhood and my old friends a lot. I miss a lot of them and I miss Sameer. As I grow older I’ve begun to really appreciate the positive figures I met in my life and I’ve tried reaching out to the old friends I’ve lost touch with. I’ve tried Orkut & Facebook and MySpace in an effort to find out my old school friends. I haven’t found Sameer in any of them yet but I hope to someday.
And oh yeah – he had this big mouth so we used to call him Steven Tyler or Mick Jagger back in the day!