lucis

A moment of silence for the thousands who lost their lives, and millions who are now homeless and starving as a result of the deadly killer wave that caused perhaps the worst natural disaster in history!

I recently came across this search engine by amazon. It is actually a fancy front-end for google. So far, I am pretty impressed. In stark contrast to google, a9 uses your amazon identity to remember you. What this means is that it can use your previous search queries to refine the search results. You can also simply drag URLs to add them to your a9 bookmarks. Another really cool feature is the a9 diary, which lets you leave notes about websites you visit. You can also get search results from Amazon’s “Search Inside the Book”, and imdb! To top it all off, there is a really nice and functional toolbar for Firefox. The site makes heavy use of javascript (very similar to gmail), and is extremely configurable. Read more about why you should care.

I dont think a9 is going to replace google for my day-to-day searches quite yet, but I am really excited about the future possibilities it holds.

I had absolutely no idea what to expect when I went in for Closer, a movie by Mike Nichols (director of The Graduate). The movie has some really big name associated with it (Natalie Portman, Jude Law, Julia Roberts, Clive Owen). Unfortunately most movies with big names like these turn up to be nothing great, and Closer came precariously close to being another one of those, but in the end I think I really liked it.

The first thing I really liked about the movie was the dialogue. All four characters are extremely witty and snappy. Whats makes this better is that the acting was really top-notch. A very interesting thing I read on imdb was that ONLY the four lead characters ever say anything throughout the movie. In fact, the camera never really focuses on anyone else. I didnt notice this during the movie. I think to pull something like this off requires a really good director. Pretty neat!

The movie starts off with a really nice song (The Blower’s Daughter) by Damien Rice, which really sets the tone for the rest of the movie. However, unlike The Graduate, is really very little background music in the rest of the movie. I think this goes very well with the really strong dialogues.

About two-thirds through the movie, it felt as if the movie had started to lose its punch. The story was getting nowhere, and I was almost expecting another one of those crappy Hindi movie style endings, where everyone lives happily ever after. But I think the end really pulls the movie together. It was quite unexpected, and is really what sets the movie apart.

Its interesting how I almost didnt want to go for this movie at first, but now I really like it.

Its been over a month and a half since my last post. My excuse? I was vacationing in India, and though I had access to the internet, and also had lots to write about, I was just too busy and never really felt like it…

But now I am back in the icy cold Chicago, and there is lots to share.

• The one year anniversary for the blog has come and gone (12/3). Happy b’day lucis!
• Veer Zaara is one of the worst movies ever made. Terrible music, predictable and super boring story, ordinary acting, and extra-extra long. That said, Yash Chopra could have given it a really awesome ending by making a small change, but he preferred a more traditional hindi movie ending. I wont reveal this alternate ending that I have in mind, but think on the lines of The Usual Suspects, and Primal Fear. Even if he had given the slightest hint of the alternate ending, the movie might have been worth the time. Come to think of it, maybe there was something to suggest this end, and I was too stupid to see it. Or, maybe it was subtle enough to make some people (like me) conscious of it, but not apparent enough to disturb the vast majority of hindi movie watching population. Okay, now I am trying to read too deeply between the lines. The movie was a total waste of time.
• The Philips DVP642 is a DivX-certified DVD player. Yes, it plays practically anything you throw at it, that includes MPEG4 encoded files on all kinds of media.
• The traffic situation in New Delhi is probably as bad as it was two years ago. Someone needs to tell them that flyovers at all intersections merely transfer the points of congestion, and dont really create more space for cars to run on. A double-decker Ring road, and Outer Ring road is probably what is needed (other than better public transport, ofcourse)!
• Dell is at it again. This time they were stupid enough to list a $1400 worth Canon zoom lens (the 100-400mm L IS) for under $200. Needless to say, this news spread like wild fire at various online forums, and thousands of orders were placed. With confirmation mails sent out already, Dell is still in the process of deciding how to handle the situation. If they honour this price mistake, it would be an order of magnitude bigger than any price blunder they have done before. Lets hope for the best.

Lot more to come, so stay tuned!