Gobbledygook and Other Unintelligible Cawing

It’s somewhere between half passed April and quarter to May. Game of Thrones season 5 got leaked online, and it looks like it’s going way off the course that GRRM planned with the original series. Marvel has been pooping out way too many promos for Age of Ultron, which makes me wonder if there will be anything good left in the movie. These trailers are turning into spoilers, and somewhere deep inside that’s pissing me off. I’m still expectant and super stoked about the movie. I really don’t know why.  Netflix aired Daredevil, which is starting to look really promising, although I’m yet to see Matt Murdock really transform into the man without fear. And I’ve finally decided to get out of my unexplained hiatus.

First of all a big shout out to the girl who’s no babe in the woods, listentothebabe. She reminded me that I needed to get back to writing. Thanks a ton! Sometimes motivation comes from the most unexpected people.

These past few months have been very intense where I’ve been dished out sudden unexpected blows in the dark, and equally rewarded with blissful nights bathed in moonlight. It stared with my grandpa passing away and moving on to eternal life. He was a veteran sports scribe with the Indian Express. I thought I’d write about him, but for some reason I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.

I then got a promotion at work. Which was long awaited, quite surprising, and totally rad. It was one of the best birthday gifts that I received. Life finally seems to be easing out and getting under control. I’ve moved to a better office, with a not so awesome view. Uncle Ben took the liberty of adding his 2¢ (With great power…), I’m now overloaded with work, some days are really crazy and some days are like islands in the sun.

I got around to becoming a mild social butterfly. I met a few interesting people and learned a few interesting things. For all my geekiness, I never knew that there was something called a copyleft. Do you know what copyleft is?

I made a few really interesting (flesh and blood, real people) friends. Wow I’ve still got some of my Gomez charm!!! I lost a few friends, something that I’ve still not fully understood or come to terms with. And I made a couple of frenemies. I also had to say farewell to one of my dearest buddies. She flew off to Saigon about two weeks back. (I realized I like the name Saigon more than Ho Chi Minh City.) On the bright side, this gives me a reason to go to Vietnam. I don’t think I would have ever considered visiting Vietnam otherwise.

If you know me then you’ll know that sports and I get along like Batman & The Joker. That being said, I’ve started playing badminton. I’m hilariously awkward at the game and you’ll probably pop a vein, or split your sides, or maybe even both, just watching me play. I kid you not, I look as stupid as all the three stooges put together when I play.

I tried Snapchat and found that it’s a really pointless app. I guess it’s cool if you’re a selfie ninja, or something. I’m not that much of a narcissist. I still use Snapchat though, because some of my friends use it to communicate with me, go figure. 😛

That pretty much sums up all that I’ve been up to. Tell me about your adventures, about all your stories  that I’ve missed. I’m really interested and would like to know.

Finally before I go, have you guys seen the new trailer for Star Wars – The Force Awakens? It was so epic, I had geekgasms all day. The ending shot with Solo and Chewie is the bomb.

The PhenoMENON

Have you ever wondered, what it would be like to be blessed with a silver tongue? To be able to talk your way into or out of anything? I am not really the sharpest knife in the drawer, and can never manage to get myself to express all my thoughts out vocally. I’m the king of comebacks, the only problem is that witty retorts aren’t cool when they’re five minutes late. More often than I’d like to admit, when it comes to talking I often end up with my foot stuck in my mouth. Quite an unlikely oddity for a guy who likes to write, isn’t it? Okay that’s enough of Joey bashing for now, this post is actually about my friend Karan who is everything that I’m not.

Karan is the only guy I know who has managed to seamlessly fit into his own name with such perfection, that his name is almost synonymous with his persona. He has successfully managed to turn his name into an adjective to describe peculiar quirks, that could only be expected out of him. For example if I was sitting at a rather dull party, like master Yoda on Dagobah, all I’d do is observe everyone around me, make mental notes, share an occasional smile, and wonder why I even decided to turn up for the event.

Master Yoda on Dagobah. I think my facial expression would also be the same.

Whereas when Karan steps into the same said party, you’d sense an awakening in the force. You’d be able to sense his presence even before you see him. Karan is the personification of flamboyance. If you checked Wikipedia for flamboyant you’d probably get his profile. His persona however doesn’t always work in his favour. I know people who have misunderstood him and avoided him like Pandora’s box, in my opinion it’s their loss.

There are things that you could only expect Karan to do and get away with. If you ever happen to witness something like that, then you’ve witnessed a phenomenon that I call the Karan moment. There was this one time Karan and I were standing outside an ATM since I needed some dough. There was a guy wasting time at the machine. After about three minutes I turned to Karan and said, “this monkey is taking forever, I wonder if he even knows how to operate the damn thing!” That was all I said, and the next thing you know, Karan was inside the kiosk checking the guys ATM slip and asking him what he was trying to do. Now that’s a classic ‘Karan’ moment. I don’t think I know anyone who could get away with invasion of privacy like that. But in the end he helped the ignorant fool and saved the day.

Another time we were at Dunkin’ Donuts, and Karan pulled a flawless ‘Karan‘ yet again. This happened sometime in May last year. Dunkin’ Donuts had just opened up all over Bombay, and they had an offer – everyone who got to their outlets on the first day would get a book full of coupons for free donuts for the rest of the year. On the opening day the lines outside Dunkin’ were like an unending python. There was no way that I was going to waste my time standing in a line for free donuts. About a week later, we happened to stop by Dunkin’. Karan randomly started talking to the manager about his love for donuts and how the Dunkin’ outlet he’d been to in Delhi was quite amazing, while Jervis and I ordered our donuts. Then just out of the blue the manager went to the back and got out the last remaining coupon booklet and handed it over to the man with the silver tongue. It was like Karan had passed some kind of subliminal communication to get what he needed without actually even asking for it. It was so ridiculous that I couldn’t help but laugh.

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Look what the guys at Dunkin's decided to give me! Free donuts for the entire year!!! #dunkindonuts #customerservice #itpaystobealoyalcustomer #freedonuts 🙂

A post shared by Karan (@karansaviomenon) on May 26, 2014 at 9:40pm PDT

Why exactly am I writing all this? I was reminiscing about my friend and felt like appreciating him. There’s a lot of things that I could tell you about this guy. About how he is like Pandora’s box. What people don’t realize however is that in the end the only thing left in Pandora’s box was hope. If there’s one thing that I should highlight about Karan, it is the fact that he always manages to speak hope into everyone’s lives. And that will always make him one of the best people I’ve ever had the pleasure of encountering on my journey through life. It’s like that quote by Stephen King from Shawshank Redemption, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.

Not That I Love Nolan Less, But That I Love A Good Story More.

I finally got to watch Interstellar yesterday. This was one movie I was waiting for and when it finally hit the theaters I couldn’t find the time to go and watch it. I actually thought that I’d end up missing it. And the fact that I was getting to read all the love and hate about it on Facebook wasn’t helping. To make things worse all my movie watching buddies had either already seen it or were out of the state or the country. Luckily I found the time yesterday, so I put on my spaceman tee and went to get my mind blown.

Personally I think that Matthew McConaughey was cast perfectly. He fit seamlessly in the skin of Cooper a NASA pilot turned farmer. Though I don’t get why NASA would not keep Cooper in the loop if he is the best pilot they have left. Anyway I’ll save my rants for later. McConaughey has had quite a good comeback lately and doesn’t fail with Interstellar, taking us where no man has ever gone before.

While Interstellar wasn’t as epic as Inception, Christopher Nolan is still a master at what he does best, didn’t fail to deliver an amazing story with beautiful visuals. You definitely get to see bits of 2001: A Space Odyssey here and there, and for a sci-fi geek like me, that was awesome. I liked how he has tackled subjects like black holes and wormholes albeit with help from Kip Thorne whose work inspired the movie.

The movie had a lot of beautiful visuals like these –

However what really got me was the science behind the science fiction. Thorne and Nolan left me thinking about a lot of things that I had never thought of before. A wormhole for example, I’m sure if you’ve grown up on enough sci-fi you’ll know that a wormhole is a space-time distortion, but the visual probability of a wormhole was neatly dealt with in the movie. When you think of a wormhole you think of it like a hole in the floor where someone could fall into, however what we get to see here is an interesting 3 dimensional hole like a sphere. Since it’s in space it’s a hole from any direction and yet it’s only one end of the theoretical tunnel that will lead out to another dimensions. The movie also made me think about concepts like gravity that I just overlooked. I do have a fair understanding of general relativity and that gravity can dilate time, but I never actually stopped to think about it’s significance. So I started to read about this further, and I discovered that this gravitational dilation of time happens daily and we don’t actually consider it at all. For instance, a GPS satellite orbiting high above the earth measures time differently than how we measure time on the surface. So relativity is taken into the calculation before the signal is beamed down to us to tell what the actual time is on the surface. Trust me this movie is full of interesting theoretical scientific equations made visual.

Now for the ranting, the movie isn’t only about black holes and wormholes, there are quite a few plot holes too.

1. Of all the planets you have, why would anyone pick a planet that’s close to a black hole? I’m not a NASA scientist but I do know that a black hole = a very bad thing. The farther away you are from a black hole the better are your chances of survival.

2. Why did the dirt just stop giving crops? I know that it is a possibility and we may be heading there, but scientists should be able to explain such things, right?!

3. Why was Murph upset with Cooper. She’s working with NASA for crying out loud. She knows that it’s going to take forever for a signal to get back out through the wormhole.

4. What kind of a scientist is Professor Brand? If he had solved that Plan A was never going to work why was he wasting so much of his life and time working on the equation.

5. The ending, Murph tells Cooper to go out to Amelia Brand who’s still out there. Why? They were hardly friends, it’s not like they had anything, apart from the fact that they probably go way back now. The Cooper space station was already near Saturn, thus very close to the wormhole. Cooper didn’t have to leave at all, he’ll probably just reach Brand a day before the space station.

That being said I’ll still say that the movie was interesting and quite enjoyable. The bottom line is, I was entertained and didn’t find the movie too long. I’d like to watch it again and I’ll wait for the Blu-ray version as well.

X-Men for Dummies

I have officially been christened “The living encyclopedia on all things comic related.” Highlight of my life!!! Thank you Jervis and Karan 😛

Well what can I say? I’m a geek to the core and I’m proud of my quirks. So upon the advice of my dearest of friends I have decided to write this post. Note that there will be a few spoilers, so consider yourself warned.

I had an amazing evening yesterday with some of the best people I know. We got together to watch X-Men: Days of Future Past, and boy was it worth it! The movie was everything it promised to be and I personally liked it more than X-Men First Class.

Photo Credit: Karan Menon

There are a few things that I have never liked about all the X-Men movies and considering that I live next to Timbuctoo, Hollywood probably hasn’t heard of me and will probably never call me to ask for my opinion. I guess I’ll just have to live with it.

The first thing that I don’t like about the X-Men movies, and I guess I’m going to make a few female enemies by saying this, is that all they ever do is showcase Wolverine. They might as well call it ‘The Wolverine Men.’ The X-Men are not just a regular team. They are like family living under one roof and everyone has an equally important part that they play. Wolverine needs to be the mysterious loner, not the guy leading the team.

 

Next up, except for magneto, you hardly ever get to see any of the X-Men in costume. If you do see them in costume then it’s monochromatic and lackluster. This is what the X-Men actually look like.

Another thing that I don’t like about these movies is that Scott Summers AKA Cyclops is portrayed as a douche bag. I can’t honestly say that Cyclopes has ever been my favourite character, but he is not as lame as they portray him in the movies. He is just as important as wolverine and he can be really awesome with his powers when push comes to shove. He is the level headed member of the team and wolverine is the loose cannon. Thus they bring balance to the force.

 

 

This Movie was the best thing director Bryan Singer could do. He erased all the mess that Brett Ratner created with X-Men: The Last Stand, thus bringing Cyclops back into the story.

 

X-Men: Days of Future Past, is an adaptation of the comic by the same name. In the comic Kitty Pryde, transfers her mind into the body of her younger self in the present day to prevent the anti- mutant war. In the movie however Wolverine assumes Kitty Pride’s role and gets to transfer his mind into his younger self. Errm I see what you did Fox studios, no surprises there at all. Well that being said the movie is very thrilling and quick paced, with a lot of interesting characters thrown in like Bishop, Quicksilver and Blink, albeit they have very small appearances. I particularly liked Quicksilver and I’ll go as far as saying that his prison break scene was the high point of the movie. The scene ends with a spectacular display of Pietro’s mutant power, showing him running around the room much faster than anyone can comprehend whilst listening to Jim Croce’s period-specific 1973 hit “Time in a Bottle.” It’s exhilarating, funny, and impressive in a season that is characterized by over the top action sequences. For that I must appreciate Bryan Singer’s vision as a director. I also liked how he tackled the fact that Quicksilver is Magneto’s son.

Like all marvel movies this one ended with a juicy after credit bait for the next X-Men movie, a scene of Apocalypse, the oldest and strongest mutant, being worshipped in Egypt with presumably the four “Horsemen of Apocalypse” on the hill in the background.

Overall the movie was entertaining. It was definitely one of the best movies I saw all summer.

 

Now here’s some dope on mutants and The X-Men for those who came in late

 

• Mutants are considered to be of the subspecies Homo sapiens superior, an evolutionary progeny of Homo sapiens, and are considered the next stage in human evolution. They are not aliens.
• The X-Men are a team of mutant superheroes led and taught by Professor Xavier.
• Magneto (Erik Lehnsherr) has most often been the primary villain of the X-Men comics, although in the comics, he has been an ally (as seen in this movie) and even member of the X-Men at times. He is a powerful mutant with the ability to generate and control magnetic fields.
• Wolverine (Logan) is a mutant who possesses animal-keen senses, enhanced physical capabilities, and a healing factor that allows him to recover from virtually any wound, disease, or toxin at an accelerated rate. The healing factor also drastically slows down his aging process, enabling him to live well-beyond a normal human lifespan. His powerful healing factor enabled him to survive having the near-indestructible metal alloy adamantium bonded to his skeleton.
• Quicksilver (Pietro Maximoff) is Magneto’s son with the ability of moving and thinking at superhuman speeds. He is able to run at supersonic speeds of up to Mach 10 and resist the effects of friction, reduced oxygen, and kinetic impact while moving at super-speeds.

You will find this and more info about the X-Men on marvel.com