Maalamal Weekly

Recently watched "Maalamal Weekly".

My take:
1. Good story
2. Poor characterisation
3. Lots of old one-liners
4. Overacting by some actors - especialy Om Puri
5. Weak role to Riteish Deshmukh
6. Good twists and angles to a predictable plot
7. Slight problem in pacing of the movie
8. Excellent negative with comic shades in Sudha Chandran and Rajpal Yadav


My verdict!
Still good - worth watching.

I particularly liked the way Sudha Chandran rides the side-car of the motorbike :)

Watch it - good timepass!

Ugh!

Q: Why do Gorillas have big nostrils?
A: They have big fingers.

What a shell account looks like!

This is what a shell account looks like - completely text based browser. This is how yahoo looks like on shell. Imagine I surfed for more than a year on this!! Really getting nostalgic :)

I used Lynx browser on telnet://arbornet.org for this screenshot.

Those of you who could understand the previous line can get their free account there.

Next in line, a screen shot of some old BBS (Bulletin Board System)!

Email Archives

I am an email junkie. I live, breathe, eat and drink email. I have been using it since January 1997 and the last 9 years have been an ever increasing reliance on it for doing my work, and keeping in touch with friends, colleagues and clients.

I opened my first email account on hotmail, through what was a shell account of VSNL. For those who do not know, and I suspect most do not know, a shell account was a stripped down, text based internet service that was very costly. The normal service cost Rs. 15,000 for 500 hours, Rs. 5,000 for 100 hours, but the shell cost 900 for 100 hours.

Since then, I ported my email account from hotmail (1997) to vsnl paid email (1999) to gmail (2005). In the process, I bought my first PC (1998) and then my second PC (2000). I always took great care to transport my complete email, my address book, bookmarks and documents with me. I took backups, both online and offline.

I have not been very successful with transporting my bookmarks, which got split between browsers (maxthon, IE, opera, firefox) and various PCs.

I have been fairly successful with my documents, with only some documents lost over the years.

However, I have been very successful (touchwood!) with my email. Since most email software are designed for quick and fairly painless import of email from one software to another I have been fairly succesful with this portion of the journey.

I have used Outlook (horrible), Outlook Express (passable), Incredimail (2-3 days, atrocious) and finally Eudora since 2001. Of course I have used webmail interfaces of hotmail, yahoo, rediffmail and gmail. Eudora is fantastic and I rate it 9/10. Gmail is very nice, with 9/10. There are somethings in Eudora that I desire in gmail (delete attachment, edit email before storage) and some in gmail that I desire in Eudora (conversations).

I deleted a lot and preserved some email over the years. Whatever I preserved, I preserved it carefully. Reading it is like delving into a treasure trove. Old friends, acquaintences, memories, meetings, clients, projects, promises all come flooding back whenever I chance to search through it.

Hierarchichal archiving makes it easy to find things. Searching is not difficult and therefore interesting! I currently have 15,266 emails in my eudora in 133 email boxes. That's a lot of email. The earliest saved email is from 18th June, 1998 and the last one was received 33 seconds ago. Carefully preserved archives of my life. If one were to read them, one would get a very accurate picture of me, my interests, my likes and dislikes and therefore, the real me.

Three cheers to email! Hip Hip Hurray!! Hip Hip Hurray!! Hip Hip Hurray!!

Main Aur Mere Room Mates

This was written by my friend Akhilesh Shukla, when he lived with a few colleagues in Kolkata, circa 1999-2000. A real gem of an expression, if you ask me!

N' joy!
===================================
Main Aur mere roommates
Aksar Yeh Baatain Karte Hain
Ghar saaf hota to kaisa hota
Main kitchen saaf karta,tum bathrooom dhote
Main hall saaf karta, tum balcony dekhte
Log is baat pe hairaan hote
Aur us baat pe haste....
Main aur mere roommates ,
Aksar Yeh Baatain Karte Hain

Yeh hara bhara sink hai
Ya bartanon ki jang chidi hui hai
Yeh colour full kitchen hai
Ya masalon se holi kheli hai
Hai farsh ka naya design
Ya doodh, beer se dhuli hui hain
Yeh cellphone hai ya dhakkan,
Sleeping bag ya kisika aanchal,
Ye airfreshner ka naya flavour hai,
Ya trash bag se ati badboo
Yeh pattiyon ki hai sarsarahut
Ke heater phirse kharab hua hai

Yeh sonchta hain roommate kab se gum sum -
Ke jab ke usko bhi yeh khabar hai
Ke machhar nahi hai, kaheen nahi hai
Magar uska dil hai ke kah raha hai
Machhar yaheen hai, yaheen kaheen hai !
Taund (pot-belly) ki ye haalat, meri bhi hai, uski bhi,
Dil mein ek tasvir idhar bhi hai, udhar bhi
Karne ko toh bahut kuch hai magar kab kare hum
Kab tak yoon hi is tarah rahe hum
Dil kahta hai Safeway se koi vaccum cleaner la de
Ye Carpet jo jine ko joojh raha hai, fikwa de
Hum saaf rahe sakte hai, logon ko bata dain,
Haan hum roommates hain - roommates hain - roommates hain
Ab dil main yehi baaaat, idhar bhi hai udhar bhi......
Sab ko bata dain.........

Main Aur mere roommates
Aksar Yeh Baatain Karte Hain
===================================