Category Archives: Humour

January 28, 2011 · 5:06 pm

How to… be a clock-watcher

1.    The expert clock-watcher doesn’t just rely on any old clock on the wall of the office/school/college, etc. Who knows when it was last synchronised with Greenwich Mean Time? No, any clock-watcher worth his salt relies only on his own perfectly synced watch (checked once a week for perfect time and its batteries changed at the merest hint that it’s losing even a second or two). After all, absolute accuracy is essential to ensure you’re prepared to bolt at 4.59.59 p.m. on the nose.

2.    There’s a lot more to clock-watching than just the passive tracking of the time – preparation is key. You must work with single-minded devotion towards being ready to leave as the clock strikes that all-important hour – paperwork neatly put away (whether complete or not; out of sight is out of mind), your bag packed and ready to be slung over the shoulder at a moment’s notice, and finger poised on the shutdown button of your computer (it has to be pressed at that final instant and not a moment before; otherwise you just seem lazy).

3.    Such clockwork-like precision can only be achieved by organising your entire workday down to the last minute, and then sticking to the plan with complete ruthlessness. Regular mortals complain about delayed meetings/classes and longwinded colleagues/professors; nothing short of a raging tornado outside is going to stop a clock-watcher from keeping that deadline. People who get in your way do so at their own risk – you’ll just have to mow them down on your way to the exit gate (apologies can wait until 9 a.m. tomorrow).

4.    An important part of clock-watching is learning to carefully mask the actual act of, well, watching the clock. Only a wet-behind-the-ears newbie makes the mistake of obviously staring down at his watch dial (or cell phone) repeatedly (and longingly) in the middle of the boss’s speech. Very gauche and a big no-no. A master of the art knows that the watch glance must happen within a split second, in the middle of a perfectly innocent action such as rearranging your hair or opening a folder.

5.    And finally, the experienced clock-watcher never reveals just how aware of the time he is. If someone asks for the time, an instant response of “Two fifty three p.m. (and 45 seconds)” is a bad idea. Instead, make an elaborate show of blinking vaguely, frowning, checking the clock / wristwatch / cell phone etc. and answer off-handedly, “Around 3-ish?”. Then you can go back to working studiously – and watching the clock, of course.

Leave a comment

Filed under Articles, Humour, People

Tagged as ,

January 18, 2011 · 1:25 pm

Year of the Ear Muff

PhotoL K. Ananthan

If there’s been a style statement this winter in Chennai, it’s been the ubiquitous ear muff. You’ve probably seen it perched snugly over the ears of men and women, senior citizens and toddlers alike as they wait for buses, whizz by on bikes or make their way on our streets. It doesn’t matter what they’re wearing – veshti or sari, jeans and jacket or school uniform and Keds. The ear muff, it seems, is the perfect accessory.

“I sell about 10 or 15 a day, for Rs. 10 a piece,” says Hassan Mohamed, who stocks ear muffs at his little roadside stall in Tiruvallikeni (they lie nestled amidst those other staples of Chennai winter attire – the monkey cap and that wonderful invention, the cap-and-muffler-in-one – and, a little disconcertingly, underwear).

An elderly gentleman shopping nearby adds disapprovingly, “Some stalls sell it even for Rs. 15.” But, he assures me, you can get it for much cheaper in Parry’s Corner. Hassan nods sadly, “Yes, they sell many more there.”

He’s one of five others who sell ear muffs on that single stretch of road, and you’ll find sellers just like him everywhere from Mylapore market to Pondy Bazaar. Sometimes you’ll find the muffs hanging on the hawker’s arms as he sells them at street corners and at other times dangling jauntily off conveniently placed lampposts or poles.

“They’ve been very popular because there’s been so much pani (mist) this winter,” says Venkatachalam, whose muff-ware is lodged on one such lamppost.

Like most of the muffs in vogue this year, his too are all in camouflage patterns (to survive the urban jungle, perhaps?) and in highly unlikely colours at that (what exactly does bubblegum pink-and-white camouflage protect you against anyway?). But it’s been brisk business, and you can feel Venkatachalam’s pain as he adds wistfully, “We’re reaching the end of the season now; we’ll hardly sell any from now on.”

Leave a comment

Filed under Articles, Humour, Madras, People

Tagged as

December 29, 2010 · 1:14 pm

How to… keep your New Year resolution

1.    It’s all about picking the right resolution. For instance – ‘I will lose 10 kgs’ or ‘I will go to the gym everyday’ – is just not going to happen. You know it, I know it and your gym instructor knows it too. On the other hand, ‘I will not waste money on unused gym memberships’ or ‘No more fad diets for me’ are perfectly doable. And they make you feel vaguely virtuous at the same time. See what I mean?

2.    As a corollary, it pays to be deliberately vague while wording your resolutions. In other words, give yourself wriggle room. “I will wake up at 7 a.m. everyday so I can go for a walk” – not good. “I will wake up earlier in the mornings” – good. Because 8.29 a.m. is earlier than 8.30 a.m. and you did keep your resolution, so there!

3.    If you must make impossible resolutions that give you a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach even as you make them (“No more chocolate chip cookies!” and such), keep them to yourself. We’re entering slightly murky ethical waters here, so pay close attention. The idea lies in this deeply philosophical question – if you break a resolution that no one knew about in the first place, was it ever really broken?

4.    Ok, so you have an over-developed conscience and Tip No. 3 makes you uncomfortable on various levels (“I’m just fooling myself” etc.). Well, in that case, you simply need to enlist extra help – your family, your closest friends, you colleagues, et al. Whine to them about your resolution everyday. Ask them to cheer you on and support you by giving up alcohol/chocolates/burgers along with you. Whine some more. They’ll either end up actually helping or (more likely) beg you to just give it up please. Either way, you’re home free.

5.    Another sure-fire recipe – make resolutions for others (e.g. “Will teach the dog new tricks”, or “Will support the husband in quitting smoking”). The advantages are, of course, many. You get to feel the gentle glow of the selfless do-gooder because, after all, you’re doing something for someone else. And even if it fails, well, it’s hardly your fault if the dog/husband/friend/parent wouldn’t cooperate, is it?

Leave a comment

Filed under Articles, Humour

Tagged as , , ,

December 27, 2010 · 10:38 pm

To all the Divya K(umar)s out there (Part III): The Downfall

Well, it was bound to happen eventually. It was, as I said on my Facebook wall — rather theatrically, I admit, but dammit, I’m allowed! — only a matter of time. Yes, gentle readers of my blog, the sheer infuriating common-ness of my name has finally collided with my career. No, it isn’t another reporter at the MetroPlus or the Hindu writing with the same byline — that would be bad enough. No, there’s now a young lady who’s joined NDTV-Hindu, the new Chennai TV channel (a joint venture between the Hindu and NDTV), and her name is — naturally — Divya Kumar. Why is this such a big deal, you might be asking yourself. There are many people out there with the same name, working in the same field. What’s all the drama about?

Well, it’s like this. See, this young lady (a perfectly nice and harmless person, I’m sure) does interviews with Chennai-based artistes on this channel. With musicians, etc. The sort of thing I might do myself. In fact, given the nature of the relationship between our paper and the channel, I’ve actually done an interview on NDTV Hindu once myself. A lot of my stories are featured as part of the MetroPlus Show that plays on Saturdays. So you couldn’t really blame anyone who doesn’t know what I look like and has only ever seen my byline for MISTAKING HER FOR ME.

After years and years of the nuisance of getting the wrong emails, those meant for all those thousands of other Divya Kumars or Divya Ks — their bank statements, avowals of love from their significant others, etc. — I will now have people putting the wrong face to my name. And the wrong voice. And the wrong body… you get the drift. I feel like I’m in some bizarre remake of The Body Snatchers.

Now those of you who’ve read my earlier pieces on the subject know the commonness of my name has long been a sore spot for me. So naturally I ranted and raved to my family and friends (the poor sods) when I first came across this young lady’s interview. But I told myself to put it in perspective. Be rational, I said. It’s not such a big deal. I was finally reaching the point when I could giggle about it (and I only flinched slightly when a colleague pointed out that it could be worse — the Divya Kumar on TV could have been a guy). Then it happened. I got an email from a well-intentioned professional contact saying she’d seen ‘my interview’ with a prominent music personality on the channel and liked it. And all that was left to say was –aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrgggghhh!

Because it finally hit me. I knew why this was happening. And it was all the worse because I’d brought it upon myself. It was all that gloating I did after I created this blog earlier this year. I thought I’d won, you see, because I got the domain name, divyakumar.com, snatched from the grasp of all those other Divya Kumars, and suddenly all those searches for the wrong ‘Divya Kumars’ and “Divya Ks’ were landing up on my blog! I thought I’d thumbed my nose at the universe when finally, after years of hanging around at the bottom of the search results list on my name (yes, yes, it’s pathetic, but you do it too) I was suddenly on the first page with my blog. I believe my precise words were ‘Bwahahaha’.

Well, Universe, you win. You get the last laugh. I eat humble pie. Now, just below my blog’s link at the top of the search results for “Divya Kumar” on Google, we have the link to the TV channel’s interview. And that ain’t my face you see. So yes, I give up. I realise now that I can’t fight it. I will always be one of many. But at least my blog still comes first on the results page. I am resigned. To all the Divya Kumars out there — learn from my mistakes. From now on, we follow the path of Zen.

13 Comments

Filed under Humour, Madras, Series, To All the DivyaKs, Uncategorized

Tagged as

December 12, 2010 · 11:51 pm

Men & Cars: The Beemer Safari

Disclaimer: Writing up this blog post was delayed by the fact that Google informed me that BMW enthusiasts frown upon BMW cars being called Beemers. Apparently only BMW bikes can be called that. The cars, I discovered, are called Bimmers (hee hee. Sorry. But doesn’t BIM-mers have a slightly funny sound to it? No? Just me? Right. Moving along then.) Now, being the good little get-the-facts-right journalist that I am, I promptly changed my title to ‘The Bimmer Safari’, but it just didn’t feel right. So I sat and pondered, browsed Google for more gyan and consulted UrbanDictionary for a bit (now you see why I so rarely get any  writing except for the submit-or-else-your-head-will-roll type done) and came to the conclusion that using ‘Bimmer’ here didn’t make sense. No one I know, and certainly none of the people in the little story chronicled below calls it that. They all call it a Beemer (with a nicely satisfying, long eeee sound), just like most other Indians I know. So ‘Beemer safari’ it became again. But to all BMW enthusiasts who read this blog entry (and I’m certain there’ll be legions of you), let it be duly noted that the mis-naming is deliberate and not just a result of general cluelessness (which you’ll probably find plenty of other evidence of below anyway).

It was a beautiful day for a roadtrip. Or even a mini-roadtrip. Oh alright, it was more like just a nice, long drive. Whatever it was, we had the perfect weather for it, cool and windy, with plump white clouds shrouding the Chennai winter sun just enough for it to be pleasant rather than dismal or gloomy.  It was the sort of weather that made you feel like a heroine in a Yash Chopra movie, what with the soft-focus lighting and the gentle wind teasing your hair and making your dupatta stream behind you just so (later there was rain, but not to worry, dear readers, there were no sultry dances in see-through saris. We stayed indoors and ate hot kebabs and drank hot coffee. So much more comfortable, don’t you think?).

The final destination of the trip doesn’t matter for the purposes of this story (if you’re dying of curiosity, I’ll just have to feed you the clichéd ol’ it’s not the destination but the journey that counts blah blah quote). What is of significance is the fact that we — two yuppie couples — found ourselves at the massive Mahindra World City development at Chengalpet in the suburbs of Chennai on this gorgeous morning. And there, in the middle of that quiet 1550 acre property with large corporate and residential buildings laid out across wide-open grassy spaces, the two men in the car had something close to a religious experience.

Now, I’m not generally one for gender stereotyping. God knows I’m not your typical girly-girl (I own precisely four pairs of shoes and hate shopping. Yes, really), and I know enough people of both sexes who defy gender norms not to put much store in it at all. However, even I had to admit that our reactions to what happened next on that particular day were quite ridiculously stereotypical. A crappy TV show like According to Jim couldn’t have done it better.

Girl 1 (Me): [Typically clueless] “Why are we stopping here?”

Girl 2 : [Exaggerated eye roll] “Oh god.”

Guy 1 (the husband, henceforth known as TH) and Guy 2 (the other husband, henceforth known as TOH): [In a state of breathless excitement] “Oh. My. God.”

Me : “What??”

Girl 2: [Sighs] “It’s the BMW office. We’re going to be here a while.”

Me: [Still confused] “But there’s nothing there. No showroom or anything.”

A gasp from the front seat. “It’s only the mothership,” said TH in a pained, trying-to-be-patient voice.

“But…” I started.

And then it happened. TOH, who’d been inching the car forward till its little grey nose was virtually touching the wire-mesh fence surrounding the office (sorry, Mothership) building and its grassy grounds, gasped again. “Look!”

“Oh man, a car!”

“A test drive car!”

“They must be doing a test drive!”

“With that car!”

“Oh man!”

I turned to the only other person in the car who had not apparently lost their mind and said, tentatively, “Do you see anything? I don’t see anything. What’re they talking about?”

She sighed again with the been-there done-that air of one who’s been married a lot longer than I, and pointed.  And then I saw. Sort of. In the distance, past the mesh-wire fence, mostly hidden by long, uncut grasses, I got a glimpse of pale-grey metal glinting in the sunlight. I squinted and I could just about make the shape of a car sitting there, apparently sunning itself.

“But it’s not moving,” I said, starting to sound a bit plaintive by now.

“Shhhhh,” TH said, apparently afraid I’d spook the Beemer. “What series is it, can you tell?” (Obviously he’s not talking to me, but I ventured “250?” which earned me a dirty look).

“It doesn’t even have the BMW logo in front,” pointed out Girl 2.

“It doesn’t need to,” said TOH in his pained, trying-to-be-patient voice. “You can tell from the front grill.”

For a few seconds after that, all that could be heard is the odd gusty sigh, as they peered reverently into the distance, not moving or speaking, drinking in the sight of the car sitting still amidst the waving grasses.

“Oh for god’s sake,” snapped Girl 2 suddenly, breaking the silence and making them jump. “It’s like you’re on a bloody Beemer safari.”

The sarcasm, inspired though it was, unfortunately missed its mark completely.

Wide grins spread across the guys’ faces as they turned to each other. “Yeaaaah,” said one. “We’re seeing it in its natural habitat.”

“Yeaaaah,” said the other, grin getting even goofier. “A Beemer in the wild!”

By this point, I was pretty much useless since I was busy fighting off a giggle fit brought on by mental images of the two guys in full safari gear ala Shikari Shambu, training their binoculars intently on the wild Beemer.

But the G2 hadn’t given up. “It’s all dented and stuff. It’s not even new,” said that lone she-ranger of sanity, persevering, trying something, anything that’d get the show back on the road . “Can’t we go now?”

“Oh man. It’s like… like a tiger wounded in battle,” said Shikari Shambu 1, eyes shining. “Yeaaaah, that only makes it even better,” said Shikari Shambu 2.

“Oh, I give up,” huffed G2.

We finally got on with the trip,  but only having promised our intrepid explorers of the wild that they could stop by again on the way back. And then we drove on for… well, about 200 metres. Because we simply had to stop at the the pastry shop G2 and I spotted down the road, its sinful confections beckoning seductively  (we may or may not have turned to each other and squealed “Cake!” as we passed it).

Sitting at the shop and having a moment with my rich chocolate truffle cake (with a blueberry muffin packed to go), I realised something. It was a bit of a Eureka moment, so bear with me with I lay it out to you. You see, what had happened was that the guys had just indulged an urban, automobile version of The Hunt (I suppose the ancient equivalent would have been cavemen scoping out the biggest, furriest woolly mammoth around — they were never actually gonna kill the thing and bring it home for supper now, were they?), and we were just indulging in the modern woman’s version of ‘gathering’ (is it any surprise the two of us were the ones that noticed the cake shop? I mean, if we’d lived a couple of thousand years ago, we’d have found all the berry-bearing bushes like that). All four of us were, I realised, just following our anthropological imperatives, giving into to hunter-gatherer urges programmed into our genes by our cave-dwellin’ ancestors thousands of years ago (yes, that’s right — my genes make me go in search of cake). This wasn’t stereotypical behaviour. This was science, see?

No?

Oh well.  That’s our story and we’re sticking to it.

Here’s to plenty more hunting and gathering, I say!

Note: A big thank you to Preeti Seshadri (Girl 2) for the awesome ‘Beemer Safari’ idea and to both her and Anant Sood (TOH) for a wonderful day out 🙂

2 Comments

Filed under Humour, Madras, Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

November 13, 2010 · 5:03 pm

Book launch: Samit Basu’s ‘Turbulence’

It isn’t often that a book launch begins with a dramatic audio-visual presentation. Especially one that looks like a promo for a summer Hollywood blockbuster film. But then, not every novel has 17 superheroes fighting to save the world…

In spite of a delayed start, the launch of ‘Turbulence’, fantasy fiction writer Samit Basu’s ‘breakaway’ mainstream novel (his quirky version of one, anyway) at Landmark ended up being quite as lively as the book itself.

The event had Basu in conversation with author, poet and dancer Tishani Doshi, and it was refreshingly laidback, with both writers joking around (you know any conversation that begins with mildly off-colour references to the anthology of Indian erotica they both wrote for isn’t going to take itself too seriously).

That isn’t to say the packed audience didn’t get a feel for the book; both readings from the book brought to life Basu’s comic turn of phrase, and had the listeners chuckling more than once. And the chat that followed was full of information about random old superheroes (“Arm Tear Off Boy”, anybody?) that would make any geek giddy with happiness.

“After seven years of writing fantasy fiction, I decided to do the sort of novel Indian writers are supposed to, dealing with the realities of contemporary India and the questions 20 and 30-year-olds ask themselves,” says Basu, who became one of India’s youngest published authors when he came out with the first part of his GameWorld trilogy at the age of 23.

Somehow, though, his ‘big crossover book’ turned into a superhero novel, even as it covered a host of urban Indian issues – the media, politics, and terrorism, Bollywood, cricket and other ‘popular Wiki subjects’. “I realised our world is far more bizarre than any fantasy universe,” says the author, who’s also done comics, screenplays and a graphic novel. “I kept turning up the volume on the characters so they won’t be lost in the middle of it all, and in spite of myself, ended up with a superhero novel.”

‘Turbulence’ tells the story of a group of people who step off BA flight 142 from London to Delhi and find they’ve all gotten superpowers – and this is the cool part – linked to their innermost desires. A wannabe Bollywood star can now make anyone love her; an overworked mom can split herself into multiple copies; an Air Force officer can fly, and then there’s the guy who can control the weather with his stomach…

“I’m sure every superpower in this book has been done before by some insane comic book writer in 1940s America,” he says. “But I’ve done away with costumes (the good ones are all taken anyway), sidekicks and origin stories (gamma rays, radioactive spiders, etc.); I wanted this to be about a group of people dealing with real life situations.”

Except for the fact that they have superpowers, that is. Not surprisingly, the rest of Basu’s free-wheeling chat with Doshi and the audience was superhero-themed, from the sad state of Indian superheroes (“Shaktimaan? I mean, come on…”) to what superpowers he’d like, personally (“Not invisibility – I don’t think I’d use it for good.”).

And, of course, everyone wanted to know – what about a sequel? “I actually have it all planned out in my head, but I’m tired of writing series. Maybe I’ll do something completely different instead,” he says. Sounds like a plan.

DIVYA KUMAR

Leave a comment

Filed under Articles, Books, Humour

Tagged as , ,

September 21, 2010 · 5:59 pm

How to… be a drama queen

1. Drama queens (or kings; this is certainly not restricted to the fairer sex) must live life as if all the world really were a stage, and the spotlight were perennially shining upon them. Any event at any time of the day can be cause for Drama – no happening is too trivial or small. What the rest of the world shrugs off as minor irritants, the drama queen must turn into grand Shakespearean tragedy. The milk boiled over! Oh the horror, the horror! You missed the bus! The agonising pain of it all!
2. What drama queens needs most of all is, naturally, an audience. In any emotionally charged situation, they must find a way to be the centre of attention, whether it’s warranted or not. In other words, become the bystander who bursts into hysterical sobs or faints away dramatically at the scene of an accident or crime and has to be comforted/sedated/revived, etc. (while the actual victim sits huddled sadly on the sidelines). Or the guy throwing a massive temper tantrum for having been kept waiting for 15 minutes at a government office, while about 100 others around him have been waiting in quiet resignation for the last several hours.
3. Perhaps the greatest pleasure in a drama queen’s life is the re-telling (and re-living) of these moments of great personal strife and tragedy. An audience, therefore, is once again a prerequisite, and the more incredulous, the better. Because with each telling, the tale must get more and more improbably dramatic, and the drama queen’s own role must get more and more tragic/heroic, until it loses touch with reality altogether. Being a stickler for the truth is a strict no-no.
4. That’s why drama queens must always have their own posse (P. Diddy has nothing on them) – after all, they need to have a mobile audience unit with them at all times to provide round-eyed responses to their stories and/or splash cold water on their faces when the histrionics go overboard. And what’s in it for the posse, you ask? Well, they revel in all that constant drama – It’s like being part of a real life soap opera, and the gossip never runs dry.
5. When drama queens/kings run short on ‘real’ audience members (even the posse tires at times), they can turn to the virtual. The possibilities are endless online – dramatic Facebook status updates! Cryptic tweets about (vaguely hinted at) tragic events! And to the big one, darkly emotional diary entries on the blog! And soon the Internet audience is clamouring for more. What could be more satisfying?

Leave a comment

Filed under Articles, Humour

Tagged as ,

September 21, 2010 · 5:56 pm

How to… be a bookworm

  • You don’t read books, you inhale them. Once you start reading, it’s going to take a pretty earthshaking event (or really, really rotten writing) to make you stop before you get to the end. (Skipping to the last chapter and reading the ending is simply not an option, as any self-respecting bookworm knows.)
  • Reading through the night and going to work / school bleary-eyed and half-asleep the next morning is a bookworm’s badge of honour. And nothing, of course, is better than having a day all to yourself to just read, continuously and obsessively (family and friends know better than to try and come between you and your book on a day like that).
  • Going to a library or a bookstore is both incredibly exciting and incredibly stressful to a bookworm. So much to read and so little time… you usually end up cross-eyed after hours of non-stop browsing and in a state of frenzied despair over what books you should choose out of the hundreds calling out to you.
  • Simple pleasures that make a bookworm’s day– that wonderful new-book smell (you’ve been known to stick your nose between the pages and breathe in blissfully), the joy of re-reading that well-thumbed old novel (in which you know every fold or tear of the pages), and that warm feeling you get when you see a stack of yet-to-be read books sitting invitingly on your bedside table
  • Book listings, literary review columns and such may be just something to skim over for most; for the bookworm, they’re the Holy Grail. If you find yourself constantly making mental wish-lists of what to read, and insist on lugging half a dozen heavy books with you even on a trekking holiday (because you’ll never get through your list otherwise!), you are firmly in book-geek territory.

    • Leave a comment

    Filed under Articles, Books, Humour

    Tagged as ,

    August 23, 2010 · 10:11 pm

    Movie Review: Grown Ups

    Here’s the thing about ‘Grown Ups.’ Yes, it’s poorly crafted — hardly any plot to speak of — and is quite silly and gross in parts (as expected, several done-to-death gags on various bodily functions, plus a running joke on breast-feeding). But it’s just so good-natured and its leads are just having so much fun together that it’s impossible to actively dislike it.

    It’s really not worth going into the story (such as it is). Suffice to say that five friends reunite after 30 years at their high school basketball coach’s funeral and spend the weekend of July 4 at a lake house with their families. None of the rest matters. Because this flick is just about putting together the ex-Saturday Night Live gang of Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Rob Schneider and David Spade — with the addition of the loveably goofy Kevin James — and letting them have a ball.

    The camaraderie between the guys is obvious. From the moment the five meet up on screen, they basically pick on each other mercilessly. The jokes are sometimes mean, sometimes lame, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, and most often seem like they were ad-libbed on the spot or are in-jokes among the guys. You can just see they’re enjoying themselves, and that’s infectious.

    It also has some genuinely hilarious bits — Rock as a tantrum-throwing house husband, and Schneider as a super-sensitive new age sop with a flapping toupee are just inspired choices. And like most Sandler comedies, the movie has at its core a sweet message. This time it’s about those good old-fashioned childhood pastimes — playing out there in the sun and splashing about in a lake — that are being forgotten in our world of video games and designer clothes for 12 year olds.

    Amazingly, the ladies aren’t completely forgotten in this boys’ reunion — they do tend to take second place and disappear off screen for long bits, but we actually get to see them having fun together. Sandler’s super-successful fashion designer wife, played by Salma Hayek, is possibly the most real character in the movie. Hayek brings depth to her role (not to mention oomph); she almost seems too good to be part of this crew.

    Of course, all the ‘issues’ in each family (never particularly well-explored except in Hayek and Sandler’s case) are simplistically resolved in a single scene. And then the movie limps to its good-natured end. But with its beautiful backdrop of Maine and its essential harmlessness, it’s hard to be mad at this breezy summer flick.

    Genre: Comedy
    Director: Dennis Dugan
    Cast: Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, Rob Schneider, David Spade and Salma Hayek.
    Storyline: Five friends reunite for the 4th of July weekend after their high school coach passes away.
    Bottomline: A feel-good flick that’s good for a few laughs.

    Leave a comment

    Filed under Humour, Movies

    Tagged as , , , , , , ,

    August 11, 2010 · 12:20 pm

    How to… be a gadget guru

    1. Research. You spend sleepless nights on intense online research. You visit every techie site; you memorise every spec of the gadget down to the last byte or circuit or megapixel. You spend every weekend glued to your computer screen obsessing over which version of the gadget you need (putting up colour-coded charts mapping out the pros and cons of each is optional). For a true-blue gadget geek, this is possibly the most important step of the process; even more than the actual acquisition.

    2. Acquisition. This one is obvious, of course. There is no question of not buying it. Whether you have to repeatedly outbid a fellow bloodshot-eyed geek for it on eBay or you have to have it shipped at five times the cost of the gadget itself from some obscure corner of Japan or Germany; whether you need to pitch a tent outside the store overnight to be The First to own one or you have to trawl the grey market to get hold of it from a one-eyed Burmese pirate. The bottom line is, you must own the gadget.

    3. Give gyan. Once you own it, the job of the gadget guru is spread the word. Constantly. Loudly. And in exhaustive detail. Whether people around you want to hear it or not. All those weeks of research have made you a walking, talking fount of wisdom on the subject and you can’t contain yourself. Whether you’re at a la-di-da cocktail party or at a stodgy office meeting, your mission is clear — inform the poor, technologically Stone Age masses around you just what they’re missing out on.

    4. Online gyan. Let’s face it. Sometimes there just aren’t enough ‘real people’ around to enlighten. And for some strange reason, they don’t seem to appreciate being lectured to by you. So, once again, you take recourse to the Internet, that haven for geeks of all sorts. Now that you know it all and own it all, you get to be the one writing those long, supercilious reviews on techie websites. You get to put newbies and trolls alike in their place, and smack down pretenders to guru-dom online. Ah yes, being a gadget guru was never so sweet.

    5. Rinse and repeat. Unfortunately, the cruel truth is that there is no rest for the gadget geek. Because that next and improved gadget is always just around the corner, and if you stand around gloating for too long, the snotty-nosed kid down the street will end up owning it before you do. And there’s nothing sadder than a gadget guru with (gasp) an outdated toy. So it must begin again — research, acquisition, gyan… and you wouldn’t want it any other way.

    2 Comments

    Filed under Articles, Humour

    Tagged as ,