Pecking In The Bus

Posted on December 3, 2010December 4, 2010 by Roshan Leave a comment

I got into the bus at around 7:40 pm and got a seat at the last seat at the back of the bus. The ride from Kalamassery till Palarivattom was uneventful. At this point there were few seats left but a lot of standing room left. A couple of people got in at Palarivattom and among them was this gent who, as he was climbing up the two steps into the bus, was struggling with two big grocery shopping bags that seemed to be filled with something really big.

He got in and sat down right next to me. I didn’t pay much attention to him until I just happened to look over and noticed that his bags were moving. They were fucking moving! I could hear flapping noises and like wings hitting the plastic of the bags. He has two live hens in his bags! Live chickens! I asked him where he was taking those live chickens and he said that he was so tired of frozen chicken from all the stores so he just had to get two live ones and he was taking them home, where he would kill them and then cut them and cook them. Technodoll will shudder!

That was the weirdness for the day! Live chickens traveling in a bus!

I’ve Had The Blues Since Day 1

Posted on December 3, 2010 by Roshan Leave a comment

Anthony Gomes and band crank out Blues In Technicolour live in Toronto.

Predators

Posted on December 3, 2010December 22, 2011 by Roshan Leave a comment

Directed by Nimrod Antal and starring Adrien Brody, Laurence Fishburne, Topher Grace, Alice Braga, Walton Goggins, Danny Trejo, Mahershalalhashbaz Ali, Oleg Taktarov and Louis Ozawa Changchien, Predators brings back the franchise to where it truly belongs – set in the jungle. Producer Robert Rodriquez had come up with the script back in 1994 but had to wait till last year for the movie to be greenlit and out comes a worthy sequel to Arnold’s original Predator movie.

If you have seen the trailer then you will know that a group of humans – black ops soldier turned mercenary, a sniper from the Israeli army, a Mexican drug cartel enforcer, a Russian soldier, an RUF soldier, a Yakuza soldier, a death row inmate and a doctor – all find themselves parachuting from the air into an unfamiliar jungle. All of them are armed and trained to kill with the exception of the doctor and the inmate has no guns. Royce the black ops soldier (Brody) leads the team to find higher ground and as they reach there they see an alien sky and realize that they are not on earth.

Having found empty cages and a plant with a neurotoxic poison, the body of a maimed US soldier, they are suddenly attacked by alien wild beasts. Although they kill a few of them, the beasts seem to be getting the upper hand when a whistle blows, calling back all of the ‘dogs’ from the attack. This leads the team to believe that they are on an alien game reserve and are being hunted for sport or for training purposes. The Mexican is killed by an unseen force. The team then find a hunting encampment with a tied up alien Predator. Three large Predators decloak and attack the humans, killing the RUF officer.

They then run into Noland (Fishburne) a US air assault officer who was dumped on the planet but has survived for many years. Although he initially seems to help them with food & water, he tried to kill them. As the group escapes, Noland is killed by a Predator. The Russian Nikolai sacrifices himself to kill one of the Predators, while Hanzo (the Japanese enforcer) kills another and died himself in a sword fight. The inmate is killed by the 3rd and last remaining large Predator. Edwin (the doctor) is injured by a trap as he, Royce, and Isabelle head for the encampment. When Isabelle refuses to abandon him, Royce leaves them both behind and they are caught by the remaining large Predator. Royce frees the smaller Predator and heads for the ship as the two Predators confront each other. The larger Predator kills its foe and then destroys the ship as it takes off. Meanwhile, Edwin paralyzes Isabelle with the neurotoxic poison on his scalpel and reveals that on Earth he was a psychopathic murderer, and feels that he fits in on this planet among the monsters. Royce appears, never having boarded the ship, and saves Isabelle by stabbing Edwin through the throat.

The doctor is fitted with bombs to booby trap the Predator and Royce kills him. He & Isabelle are the only two remaining on the planet but as the day breaks, they see more prey being parachuted down to the planet’s surface.

Very good action adventure type movie. Brings the Predator back to the jungle just like the original one did and it thrives in that element of hunter & prey. 8 outta 10!

Hostel Mates

Posted on December 2, 2010 by Roshan Leave a comment

In a fit of nostalgia I remember the year I spent in Bangalore while I attempted to get a diploma in computer science from a polytechnic institute. I ended up dropping out of the course after a year and not completing it as I hated the college and the marks that I got after my first year convinced me that going for a hardware course just wasn’t my cup of tea. I just didn’t have the aptitude for it. But something made me think about the people I met there and by people I mean my roommates and other hostel mates.

I stayed in a room with 3 others for a while and then moved with 2 of them into a smaller 3 person room. We each had a bed and a desk, in which I kept my books, music cassettes & some other stuff. We shared the built in cupboards for our clothes. Tharun was a former priest wannabe and had spent 3 years in a seminary studying & preparing to become a priest but something (a family thing which I do not remember) made him leave it and join the polytechnic. My other roommate was Saji – I remember that he had a heart problem and he had lost his father barely a year before he had joined the course. They were the weirdest roommates as they both had their own ideas about how a person should be and tried to enforce it on me and some others and although we clashed a lot on such things, we were pretty good friends. It was a about a year later that I found out that Tharun had some issues with people being happy and would spread rumours and say bad things about you and generally try to bring you down in other people’s eyes. I avoided keeping in touch with him after I learned that. About Saji, the only thing I remember about him after I left there was that he got married really early, like immediately after turning 21.

Other people I remember during my year there was a dude called Rifay and his roommate Renjith – fast friends and I think they maintained that for a long time. Renjith was pretty normal and I even met him a few times after I left – he lived near my cousin and so I saw him whenever I went to visit my cousin. Rifay was one of the craziest person’s I have ever met. He had a huge Elvis music collection. In fact, he only listened to Elvis songs and this was 1995-96! Not a single other artist in his collection. He even liked to be called Elvis! And we did cause there were times that he would not respond to his given name but he would if we called him Elvis. He was a hoot to be around. Renjith and he would make all these crazy bets and see who won – like eat a huge big spoonful of salt and not drink water until it was all down for an ice cream cone! Rifay actually did it and won. The expression on his face was worth a year’s supply of ice cream cones.

These are the 4 most memorable people from my time in that hostel.