Jai Ho!

Ella pugazhum iraivanukkae. God is great.

These simple words summed up the Academy Award acceptance speech by the Mozart of Madras, AR Rahman, after picking up the award for Best Original Score for his racy, elegant and beautiful score for Slumdog Millionaire.

And this after paying tribute to his mother (to quote...I have nothing else, but I have my mother with me...end quote).

And I sat there thinking, if this guy were to win for one of his two songs nominated for Best Original Song, he is not going to be able to top that speech I'd just heard.

Boy, was I wrong!

This overanalyzed and yet often misunderstood genius doing his work from the oddly named Pachathan Record Inn in Chennai, turned up trumps again.

He summarized and succintly said what needs to be the mantra for everyone every day of their life..."the essence...is about optimism and the power of hope in our lives." And the exquisitely worded nod to love...as a choice as opposed to hate..."all my life, I had a choice of hate and love, and I chose love, and I am here. God bless!"

And finally...

D'oh!

Boston's New England Patriots lost. Tom Brady lost. Bill Belichik lost. Good for the rest of us.

Tom Brady's chip on shoulder at being picked very late in the NFL draft (he was the sixth round pick in god-knows-what year) was a good story for a while, but now it just rankles me whenever I hear that this apparent diss - is he such a wuss that he can only motivate himself for his profession by looking back on a diss that is so old that only his insecure a** can even remember it?

Oh well...I can only ramble on at this time...I am just glad that we got spared yet another Boston parade and chest-beating. Now if only the Celtics would get their behinds whooped the same way...

We got spared by the condescending Bostonians but the reward is a victory for an equally obnoxious and condescending New York crowd that did not really believe the Super Bowl winner QB and coach...

I guess this is why they say sometimes you just cannot win them all...

Return to Innocence

Wonderful wonderful video. Easily amongst the best that I have ever seen. And a wonderful song to boot. The lyrics...

That's not the beginning of the end
That's the return to yourself
The return to innocence
Love - Devotion
Feeling - Emotion
Love - Devotion
Feeling - Emotion
Don't be afraid to be weak
Don't be too proud to be strong
Just look into your heart my friend
That will be the return to yourself
The return to innocence
If you want, then start to laugh
If you must, then start to cry
Be yourself don't hide
Just believe in destiny
Don't care what people say
Just follow your own way
Don't give up and use the chance
To return to innocence
That's not the beginning of the end
That's the return to yourself
The return to innocence
Don't care what people say
Follow just your own way Follow just your own way
Don't give up, don't give up
To return, to return to innocence.
If you want then laugh
If you must then cry
Be yourself don't hide
Just believe in destiny.

I mean, I know it is just a song, but the lyrics are so wonderful. So thoughtful, and ultimately, so true.

You work for money...or money works for you?

Overheard on one of the episodes of The Cosby Show that runs regularly as part of the Nick @ Nite family shows.

To paraphrase Claire Huxtable..."your father and I are not rich. We work very hard for our money. You are rich only if your money works for you."

Now, that is an interesting statement. Makes complete sense I would say. And that got me thinking...using this as a qualifier, how many of the really rich people can actually be counted as rich...oh well...I am off...to work hard for my money...

Choreograph

Interesting and possibly inadvertant choreography. See this video at around the 45th tick on the countdown to see what I mean..."dancing to a different tune...from a report filed from inside secretive North Korea."

Tree of Gold

Sting sang "Fields of Gold" and of walking in 'em.

Shanxix (of relation to moi) simply executed it in his own version of digital poetry (er photos). Gold dust covering the trees on a fine winter morning as captured from inside a train running at 80 kmph.

The Sun or The Mist

My brother the nature fan(atic !!!) snapped this wonderland scene enroute to Tirunelveli on one wonderful winter morning. Talk of being there at the right time at the right place with the right equipment.

. 2 ?

Point. 2. Ponder.

This funny observation by the early 20th century New York Times columnist Don Marquis...

"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think, they'll hate you."

Now, why am I unable to stop laughing at its relevance to our beloved President Bush. Or for that matter for any damn politician alive today.

The Philadelphia Story

Superb star cast - Katharine Hepburn, Jimmy Stewart & Cary Grant.

Fantastic story about human prejudices and frailties and ultimately about that ultimate human tendency - the ability to forgive and accept.

But these two are never enough to make a good movie. What you need is fantastic writing - the script for this movie is sizzling. The dialog is sensational. And that superb cast mentioned above - well, it seems the lived and breathed the roles when the movie was made. Such sincere and earnest are their portrayals.

The superb dialog - "I am standing here solidly on my own two hands and going crazy!". "What's this room? I've forgotten my compass. I'd say south-by-southwest parlor-by-living room"
"You'll never be a first class human being or a first class woman until you've learned to have some regard for human frailty."

Ah! Such exquisite timing in comedy and such flowery prose in drama.

What else to say except, go, watch it. On cable on Turner Classic Movies. Or from Netflix or Blockbuster. Or if you are lucky, your local library.

Random Randomness

Things that I can never stop pondering about - well, there are always too many things. But the one thing that always fascinates me is the true measure of randomness. In short, how random is random?

For all practical purposes, we use calculated randomness - a random generator that has an initial seed. And that is the bias that prevents it from being truly random. It is like approaching infinity. Once you feel you are there, there is always something more. And more. And more. So, how do we actually achieve randomness?

Well, I suppose one way is to not strive for randomness at all. (Gulp! That is not a solution is it?). Well, maybe if we shrunk our perspective to something smaller, then events happening in that purview just might appear to be random. Note the keyword. Appear. Maybe that is all there is to it. True randomness doesn't really matter as much as the appearance of it. So typically human isn't it - the reality does not matter as much as the appearance of reality.

One final word I suppose - lack of bias or randomness maybe is crucial for a lot of our current applications and things, but in the grand cosmic scale of things, maybe everything is truly random and yet really programmed. Yes. Programmed, and random. Together. And yet disparate. Now I am totally confused. Heck. Who cares. Its 07/07/07 07:07:07 PM. Now, I have exactly one year, one month, one day, one hour, one minute and one second to come up with another such random tripe disguised as a blog-post. Boy, the summer heat is really causing my brains to go awry :)