Airlift

It’s good in SOME parts (very few).

For most parts however, this was a boring film, badly directed with very bad acting by the cast.

The Night Manager

I haven’t read the book (and it will be a while before I get to it. I am still trying to make time for the WoT series), so I have no idea how the mini-series compares to the book.

Barring the first and the last episode (which were rubbish, to say the least), this six episode mini-series was watchable. 4 out of 6 - Not too bad. I want to read the book primarily to see how Episode 1 and 6 have been written in the book.

The bits with the enforcement agency trying to make a case were extremely irritating and should’ve been handled better.

Hugh Laurie as Richard Roper is absolutely brilliant! The character is witty, cool, calm, calculating and disturbingly sinister. Well performed.

Elizabeth Debicki as Jed… She looks amazing. I had to replay most of the frames she appeared in because the first time around I was simply staring at her.

Tom Hiddleston as Jonathan Pine looks good. Speaks well. The character is… average. Tolerable for most parts. I do wish the director had informed Tom that Pine doesn’t have to do his ramp / model walk in every sequence. The gait looks completely out of place in some frames.

Olivia Colman as Angela Burr looks absolutely horrid. The accent/voice makes me want to mute the tele and the character is pathetic/sad/incompetent/dumb but manages to get extremely lucky with all the bits falling into place when needed.

I do wish there was more of Katherine Kelly though.

Bajirao Mastani

I have no idea how accurate it is because I am not at all familiar with the historical characters.

What I do know is that I enjoyed watching the film. Brilliant performances by all (I for one never expected Ranveer Singh to be capable of such a performance). The dialogues were pretty good as well and I will be watching this again.

That said, the film could’ve been better with fewer songs and less use of that screen splicing technique nonsense that seems to be catching up in Bollywood (The technicians clearly don’t know how to get it right, just yet).

The plot would be served a bit better if some bits were put in about the situation in Bundelkhand after Mastani’s departure. I mean… she is the king’s daughter. It did seem an oversight not to include a single sequence showing the concern of the king about his daughter’s plight/general wellbeing.

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You would have to be a complete idiot if you didn’t already know that SE meant Special Edition.

You would have to be an idiotic cunt (with way too much time on your hands and too little intelligence) if ‘your thoughts were consumed by this single, nagging concern’.

Versailles – Season 1

Done with Season 1. Excellent! The show is well made and manages to retain interest.

My favourite characters:

Françoise-Athénaïs, marquise de Montespan (Anna Brewster) – She has some of the best lines in the show. Not to mention – A delight to look at.

Fabien Marchal (Tygh Runyan) – Doubt anyone else can play this character with the same conviction and restraint. Most impressive.

Philippe I, Duke of Orléans (Alexander Vlahos) – Witty. Rather refreshing.

The two characters that I did have a problem with:

Sophie (Maddison Jaizani) – Confused stupid cunt. Forever sad. Annoying.

Béatrice Hiéronyme de Lorraine (Amira Casar) – In the beginning, she is just annoying. Later though, she plays the part of the conspiring bitch rather effectively. I just don’t like the way she looks in the show. I find her… untidy.

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Saw this the other day on TOI [Link]. Impressive. Thought provoking.

How is this for a thought – Let’s see how much the government itself has allocated for expenses that could be put to better use:

• The Gujarat state government has made a provision of Rs100 crore for the Statue of Unity in the budget for 2012-13
• The Gujarat government’s 2014-15 budget also sanctioned Rs 500 crore for the Statue of Unity project
• Union Budget 2014-15: Rs 200 crore for Statue of Unity
• Maharashtra govt clears 100 crore for Shivaji statue

Nationalism

The idiotic articles that got me started with this post:

• 03-03-16 - Youth must be told to say ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’: RSS chief
• 14-03-16 - I Won't Say 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai': Asaduddin Owaisi To Mohan Bhagwat
• 16-03-16 - Anupam Kher: 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai' only definition of nationalism
• 16-03-16 - MIM MLA suspended for not saying 'Bharat Mata ki Jai'
• 17-03-16 - Revoke citizenship, voting rights of those not chanting ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’: Shiv Sena

I have plenty to say on this topic but will try to keep this brief (and attempt to keep it civil).

To start – Nationalism/Patriotism is a thought/feeling/emotion. Either you feel it or you don’t. It can not be / should not be forced. If one feels a sense of unconditional pride towards his/her nation - that is NOT going to change if some people don’t chant the slogans. Similarly, if one doesn’t feel that sense of pride, it’s not going to be instilled by chanting of slogans.

That said, if you do feel that sense of unconditional pride and wish to shout it out from roof tops, there is no reason why you shouldn’t. Just because some people don’t get it, doesn’t make it wrong. You have the right to do it. I may disagree with what you say, but I will always defend your right to say it ~ Voltaire.

However, what you do NOT have the right to is - FORCING this down someone’s throat and insisting on nonsense like a particular chant be made the ONLY DEFINITION of nationalism (and other such idiotic demands).

The same way that YOU have the right to do it, others also have the right NOT TO do it. Unconditional love can not be forced upon someone. Be it love for another person or love for an entire nation.

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There are a few of us who are unable to understand the logic of Patriotism. Perhaps we do not have the correct definition or simply lack the ability to comprehend the implication of the term.

Just because you are born with a particular nationality doesn’t necessarily make that country the best/greatest. Every country has its history/tradition/culture. It’s rather idiotic to say X country has the greatest culture/history/tradition simply because I am a national of country X.

In my view - Nationalism/Patriotism is no different from Communalism/Regionalism. It’s just on a wider/larger scale. At least a majority will agree that Communalism/Regionalism is NOT a good thing (especially for a big country with a diverse population). Rarely (if ever) has something good resulted from notions like X community is best/greatest (simply because I belong to X community) or X region is best/greatest (simply because I hail from X region).

How can one then expect something good to come out from an insistent argument that just because one belongs to X country, that makes it the BEST/GREATEST country and is a matter of PRIDE that MUST be harped on about or chanted for or whatever?! Greatness of any nation in this world is NOT going to depend on the nationality that YOU happen to be born with.

Earthfall

7 minutes - That’s how long I was able to tolerate the horrible acting/production value.

Trashed it immediately.

Lok Sabha Discusses Wikipedia

“

BJP MP Anju Bala stirred up the sedate Lok Sabha proceedings on Wednesday when she dramatically declared she had been pronounced dead on the internet. Bala said that not only had Wikipedia announced her as "expired'' in New Delhi on March 3 but had also informed that she had been married twice.

… law minister Sadananada Gowda, who was in the House at the time, hastily rose to assure the MPs that the government took the matter "seriously'' and action would be taken.

Link

The government takes Wikipedia seriously and assures to take action. This is back to Kapil Sibal’s time when the MPs got their panties in a twist over FaceBook posts/jokes and DEMANDED action / screening and fuck knows what not.

Next - The Lok Sabha will probably discuss Twitter feeds and Whatsapp forward messages!

24/7 Support For 12 Months

You wouldn’t need to offer a free 12 months 24/7 support and advertise it IF you put in the effort in making a device work the way it should!

The updates are making the device a bit more usable, yes… BUT it should be MUCH BETTER and it should’ve been that way from the start. When a user buys a device, he isn’t expecting to be part of your Beta Testing team!

Android nonsense and issues are not BB’s look out, I get that! But the BB apps made for Android by BB ARE BB’s responsibility.

It’s nice to see the team sorting out issues and giving the updates, but for someone who ended up paying close to USD 800, I really don’t want a test unit that I end up testing without being compensated for my efforts in identifying and reporting the issues.

Fuck ANDROID and IOS. A wonderful and superior OS in all likelihood is going to be discontinued because a bunch of lazy ass fuckers majority of cell phone users wanted a big ass screen to watch videos and play games (and probably shit loads of other things which I am incapable of comprehending). FUCK YOU… ALL OF YOU.

Now I have to get used to a mucked up cluttered messy shit Android (with a PKB) OR IOS that won’t ever have a PKB option.

Grrrrr.

Batmobile Cabin Bag

 

 

http://www.toy-people.com/?p=31866

It may be just for kids but… err… well… it’s sort of cool. I could use one of these. Wonder how bad it would be at Airport Security? But, this does seem like worth the hassle.

Now… WHY wouldn’t you make this a bit bigger? It may be fine for some short trips but they should make it in bigger sizes. Perhaps an entire luggage set. Make it a bit pricey so not everyone is off getting one of these.

Actually… scrap the idea of the luggage set. I doubt I would want to check-in my Batmobile luggage. Losing one of these would be most upsetting.

For The People Who Don’t Understand My Issues With The Android

Posted The Same on Crackberry as well. A few additions here.

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I do not want to download a third party APP (and tolerate the ads or pay for an ad free version or 'premium features') to do something that has been working seamlessly on something that MOST users insist is an 'inferior' OS / Device.

What a lot of people are failing to recognise (in my view) is - The functionality being requested here isn't something that was previously unavailable or something super complicated. The device was bought for the purpose of organising.

For example - When one is told that one would have to PAY for a File Manager APP, it may not seem like a big deal to a lot of people. However, for me (and perhaps a few others) it IS the thin end of the wedge.

Had there been no File Manager ever, perhaps one wouldn't mind paying for the convenience. Since there have been File Managers that have worked well, it does cause some discontentment.

Another example - Suppose you pay USD 6,000 for a limited edition Omega Seamaster, and then discover that you will have to pay another 2 Cents for the Minute Hand for it to tell time to the minute!

I hope you guys get this part - The issue is NOT the amount of money or the additional amount for the app. Just something to ponder over.

It's ok to disagree. Perhaps there is a new definition of Basic Functionality (or a shift in the implication of the term) that disregards Calendar, Contacts, File Managers etc (citing that plenty of options are available as apps) and focuses on Camera, Picture filters, Speaker quality and what not.

Some of us may not be comfortable with that shift and are just voicing it out. A lot of us just may NOT be comfortable with granting access of our data to a third party developer. It may be fine for the majority, but some may not feel comfortable with it. Some of us may not want to bastardise our device.

Finally - The requests/posts are made to bring the issues in the notice of the development team IN CASE BB/Android/BBPRIV Team COULD do something about it. They have listened to some of the requests in the past (BB10). They are working on a lot of our requests even now (for the Priv, with the updates coming in). Some have been ignored/completely forgotten (eg. Universal Dark Theme).

The purpose of voicing it out is JUST IN CASE if these could be addressed or solved by the BB Team itself. One can hope, right? Or do I need to download an APP for that as well?!

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Jaahil, Gawaar, Duffer, Chutiye bhare hue hain!

Spotlight

Nice film with reasonably good performances put in by almost everyone. A good watch.

Liev Schreiber – I usually do not enjoy watching this actor. This film was no exception. There was hardly anything for the character to do and whatever little there was, seemed rather lazy (in my view).

There was this part in the film that made me roll my eyes. The bit about taking the 6% statistic to be an absolute FACT because the researcher says it’s his estimate. I am not saying that the researcher’s study has no merit. I am simply saying that accepting an estimated statistic to be a fact without ANY investigation is … well that’s just stupid. Of course, the estimated percentage does hold true in the film, but it would’ve made a much better sequence IF the journalists did the leg-work / grunt work themselves and THEN used Richard Sipe’s work as support for their findings - As opposed to doing the reverse (which was done in the film).

For an investigator, it packs MORE of a punch if the facts/incidents are supported by a relevant research/study. NOT the other way around.

Also, the same bit of the film - It just seemed idiotic that they didn’t think of identifying the Sick Leave mentions in the directories at the very start of their investigation (it does seem like a logical and OBVIOUS course of action from just about ANY competent investigation team) and only came up with that idea after another chit chat session with Richard Sipe.

Barring that bit, the film was rather well-made.