FAO Neo.

Neo Anderson,

When I told you to let it all go, I meant let go of your Fear, Doubt, and Disbelief. I didn't mean that you should let go of your own self and presence from Zion (ie, this blog). I mean, I know you *are* here, but not often enough. Ya' know, I get stiff backs once in a while, and those blasted Agents are getting peskier by the day. I can't hold fort by myself all the time. Only yesterday I was lurking around at a coffee shop, and an Agent stole my coffee cup from right under my nose and ran away. I watched helplessly, coughed, pretended nothing had happened and coolly ordered for another coffee (I had money for only one). What's worse, as I was trying to tiptoe out of the shop and flee the yet-to-be-paid cafe owner, the dude chased me down on his mule, and roped my waist - cowboy ishtyle. All this, in bhare bazaar. How insulting! Imagine, there was a time when I could dodge bullets! And look at me today. I'm losing my edge! Sigh!

On a more important note, Zion stands defenceless to the whims of the Machines at the moment. The other day, an Agent pinched 2 human kids and whisked off right from our backyard. These kids shall be moved to the Energy Harvester, and their (kids) brains be sucked out to power their (machines') darned batteries. Anti Child labour campaigners here at Zion are stepping up pressure on the senile Councillor Harmaan to own moral responsibility of the incident and step down, while the Oracle is of the opinion that some more kids will be pinched soon. Since the resistance is too conked at the moment to beef up its ranks, I was hoping that we could delay Oracle's prophesy by an alternate technique - by giving Zion a cosmetic makeoever. We'll completely renovate the way Zion looks. Machines, being dumb as they are, will fool themselves to think that this different looking place is some other city, Lyon or something, and pass us. Of course, this is a temporary arrangement, and them machines will surely get back to Zion to pinch some more kids sooner or later. See if you like this or this as prospective get-ups. Or tell me, do we even need a cosmetic makeover? Can we manage without it?

Secondly, get your ass back to work here at Zion. I dunno whats keeping you away - has the obsession with chasing a wild cat given way to chasing Trinitys? Or have you gone back to your Dream World and job as a programmer? Or has your mind has got trapped in that dreadful computer netherworld, the Train Station*? Wake up Neo! Zion was hoping that you would come back to chowkidaari asap, and especially start that new section about your reviews of links - links that you constantly dig out from the web and forward as emails (Besides of course performing your other usual duty of long posts). A few links once in a while are necessary, they also make Zion a safer place - trespassers, bots, Agents and other machines would inadvertantly put foot on these links, and these booby traps would fling them away from the Zion to another website, webserver or whatever.

And lastly, fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony. I'm having to send you this missive through a machine - a computer! And I'll have to flash it right on the enemy's mouthpiece - blogger dot com! But this is only one way to save our city. Neo. Yes, You. Wake up! The Real world awaits your service!

While I go and get a shower. The bloody mule licked me when the coffee shop owner had me all tied up.

Your friend,

Morphy.


*Train station is a strange construct stuck between the Matrix, the machine mainframe, and the real world. It's a way station used to ferry programs between The Matrix and the machine mainframes. Effectively, he's stuck in limbo (source: some website). In the 'Matrix Revolutions', Neo's mind gets stuck in the Train Station. Morpheus believes that saving Neo's trapped mind from the Train Station is the only way to safe Zion.

George Best 22 May 1946 – 25 November 2005

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.

Had Charles Dickens been around in the 1960s, he would have definitely rephrased that opening line from his French Revolution tale.

Berlin Wall, Kennedy, Vietnam, Napalm, M.L.King, Beatles, Dylan, Woodstock, Surrealism, Rock and Roll, Sophia Loren, Pele, Audio Cassette. A decade of turbulence, shifting identities and alliances, which took the human thought to unchartered frontiers, and even the Moon. An era of unrest and uproar - an era of love, hate and hash.

And in the midst all these exciting turmoil and shifts, a flawed genius dribbled his way to be one of the best footballers the world has ever seen. A true icon of all times, and especially of the swinging sixties.

George Best.

The fifth Beatle, the Magician at the Theatre of Dreams. Although he never could play at the world cups because he was from Northern Ireland, he stole every possible heart due to his mesmerising and glamorous stint at Manchester United. Pele reportedly saw him at the 1968 Euro final against Eusebio's Benfica and called him the greatest footballer he had ever seen.

George Best lived a life of a famous star, with chicks, cars and champagne. He made as much news from outside the field, as he made on it. His riotous lifestyle eventually gave way to bankruptcy, countless near death encounters, and a very painful liver transplant. But once a star, always a star. He never amended, and after a long fight, his health and life gave up on him yesterday.

He will live on in our memories as the most joyous of players. George Best zindabad.

My Inner European'

Your Inner European is French!

Smart and sophisticated. You have the best of everything - at least, *you* think so. Who's Your Inner European?

I'm tagging this Quiz to BD, Aloka, Ayesha, Divya and Oook. It's fairly simple to take - just 6 questions. I would have liked to tag a few more people (including my pardner Neo), but I'd also like to spare myself the ignominy of snooty refusals.

If you are reading this page, and want to be tagged, here's an open invitation - feel free to go ahead and tag yourself from here. Like every other tag, you'll have to link this page with a 'I've been tagged by Morpheus' on your page. (and your tagees would have to link you, and so on)

Let the Tournament begin

I went ahead to watch the Friday Night show of "The Goblet of Fire". Expected it to be a visual treat of sorts. And it had some truly stunning moments. The mood was ominously dark in the beginning and the end. The slithering snake coming out of a stack of skulls - a grotesque image - in the very first scene has rightfully earned the movie a PG-13. Even the usually chiming "Harry Potter Theme" with cymbals and treble et al, has been transformed to a more haunting note. The graveyard/Riddle house opening sequence is on the lines of popular thriller flicks/shows like Jurassic Park or X-Files. The house-keeper gets a Avada Kedavra and we snap to Quidditch World Cup.

Next 15 minutes move really fast, sometimes jerkily and discordant. For that brief period, I was having a sinking feeling that the rest of the movie would be a fiasco. But, the director and editor have spared the 100 minutes to follow. We have a rushed sequence of going to Quidditch World Cup grounds, a view of the stadium and appearance of Death Eaters. This part is really weak; it hardly captures the lurking danger emphasized by the appearance of the Dark Mark.

Surprise. The plot takes a divergence from movie here. The role of Winky, the house-elf, has been purged off. And with that, the irritating-yet-useful, Dobby meets the same fate. Perhaps, we can be critical. But the volume of the book could not have been fixed in the movie otherwise.

Without much of an announcement (and somewhat ruefully in the spirit of teenage flicks), we are introduced to the French girls and Hungarian boys, Fleur and Krum. Mad-Eye makes an appearance simultaneously. Its a short sequence, probably done to justify the TriWizard Tournament. The challenges, as expected, have provided the directot to showcase some wonderful SFX. In his zeal to capitalize on the same, the dragon sequence has been overdone. No doubt it has been well-picturized, but we could have done more with "the Dark Side" of things than witnessing a reluctant Harry doing all the oomphs and aahs.

Rita skeeter serves as the perfunctory to-be-hated-comedian. The role has been well executed, but again, it takes up valuable minutes of screen time.

Ron's jealousy, Hermoine's anguish, Harry's drooling for Cho - all the twists which identify the leading characters' adolescence - have been dealt with reasonable justice. They also serve the comic platter (even Hagrid accosting Madam Maxime). Moaning Martyle gets more than her share of "peek-a-boo" at an all-wet-and-naked Harry. I wonder how did this scene get Rowling's approval and how do parents react to such explicit display.

The Yule Ball is a beautiful scene. If for nothing, at least for -
1) A stunningly beautiful Hermoine
2) Subcontinental influence in British society (Parvati and Padma Patil).

The underwater sequence with Merpeople is probably a better fare than the dragon fight. A message of sportsmanship is brought out when Harry receives extra points for a show of strength of character. Here again, the Gillyweed is supplied by Mad Eye himself rather than Dobby stealing it from Snape's cupboard.

There are two give-away scenes here and quite blatant too. Mad-eye providing the Gillyweed and then Mad-Eye confronting Barty Couch with a peculiar mannerism of tongue movement give away the suspense (if-any). I guess the director hasn't bothered much on that, especially as the story would be know to all the Potter fans.

The film goes back to the dark mood from the time the Maze challenge begins. Its all misty and grey; perhaps cold too (I was watching this at 0000hrs and the theatre's ACs were on song). Finally, the Portkey leads to the most awaited sequence. The Dark Lord rises.

Am I disappointed by the scene? In retrospect, I think not. But, my immediate reaction was, "It is happening too fast" (much to the contrary of the mood of my companion's "Sahi hai" take on that). Yet, Ralph Fiennes has delivered a powerful performance. Wormtail has appeared little too brave, Lucios Malfoy would have deserved a better charade (perhaps Darth Vader would have done that properly). What I missed - Voldemort should have had red eyes. What I liked - bald head, the serpent nostrils and the flowing black robes.

The film has two disappointing aspects - both in the same breadth. They are the character portrayal of Dumbledore and Voldemort. 2 powerful characters, they deserved a better appearance. They have way too much body movement, much more verbose than they should be, much less threatening than they actually are. Dumbledore is part of some unrequired humour (Filch firing cannons before the countdown and Madam Maxime dancing with Dumbledore). He appears so much shaken and unnecessarily grumpy to hear Harry's name come out of Goblet. Even the voices are so tawny. Voldemort gets dealt with same grace; the saving part is that he doesn't get any humour played on him.

My ratings for the movie - 3.0 out of 5.0. Had it been for a stronger and composed Dumbledore, some scenes could have done better.

Its a 3 hour affair. But, not long or tiring for ardent Potter fans. Let the magic continue.

P.S. : Where can I get Voldy's robes. Neo, Vader, Voldy... all get cool black get-ups!!!

scowls and howls

In college, we were clearly divided as far as the vote for the scariest Ogre was concerned. Martin Keown was the undisputed winner almost always, and Stefan Effenberg a creditable second, often in nail biting finishes. Roy Keane used to muster a few sporadic votes from here and there, mostly from the Manchester United coterie, but after his bust up with Effenberg where one scowl from the formidable Teutonic Goth almost made the Irishman pee in his pants, they dared not vote for Keane again.

Life as a minority in any form of social setup is most often than not, extremely tough - there are some things that you simply can't do freely without getting criticised, exorcised, berated, labelled a traitor, sometimes hanged, or as in this case - getting ridiculed and mocked at. Hence minority people often end up suppressing their true voice and reluctantly succumb to the whims of the majority, and pretend that everythings fine, rather than pressing for a crusade. Same thing with the poor Manchester supporters. Being in the minority, life itself was difficult, and hence, these chaps didn't want to complicate their lives any further by voting for Keane the Sissy as the scariest ogre and subjecting themselves as sitting ducks to the sarcasm of us nasty majority, who absolutely hated Man.U. (and still do). I mean, they had to survive college, and if you have ever been in college you'll know how difficult life can become once you get labelled something that is totally uncool. So these chaps not only succumbed to social pressure and voted for other ogres like Keown or Effenberg against their natural wish, but additionally had to pretend that they were doing that willingly. If someone was a fresher in college cum Man. U. supporter, then he also had to go through the additional embarassment of having to announce loudly in some public place or social hall or toilet room that Keane was a Sissy.

My votes went to neither Effenberg nor Keown. They were reserved for Paolo Montero, the scraggy pahelwan from Turin. Being a Juve player, Paolo Montero was outside the petty Man Utd - anti Man Utd. skirmish spectrum, and although a few eyebrows were raised initially, and some of the girls even found him handsome, people eventually adjusted themselves to this choice I had made, without making an issue out of it or fishing for an opportunity to pull my leg. Imho, Paolo Montero looked non-ogreish when he used to walk out to the pitch, but moments before the whistle, his expressions used to change totally. From then on, he looked positively doped, coupled with a bloodthirsty face that used to transform to hideous scowls each time the ball was on his feet, or an opponent forward was nearby. He was pretty useful too - won many Serie A medals with Juve, and had World Cup caps for Uruguay. He should have won some more World Cup caps, but the other day, the Aussies pipped them for the final berth, which means that Uruguay and all its fine players - Recoba, Forlan and especially the doped ogre Montero won't be seen in Germany. Montero is quite old, so he'll definitely not play in the next edition either.

I'm not optimistic about the ogre scene of the future, and I really worry about what the college kids must be discussing today. I mean, I definitely hope that they don't discuss who's the biggest metrosexual out there after David Beckham. Not that I blame them entirely - the tradition of ogres is badly on the fall from the hey days of the 90s - Valderrama, Effenberg, Tony Adams, Martin Keown, Paolo Motero, Stig Tofting, Oliver Kahn etc etc. These guys set high standards - they were not only great players, but one frown from them could send shudders down many a feeble heart. With the likes of Wayne Rooney as probable flag bearers, the future indeed is VERY bleak.


Note - the phrase 'Scary Ogre' is not to be confused with 'ugly' at all.

Note 2 - this is unrelated, since Christian Karembeu isn't exactly an ogre, nor a fine player - but he's an extremely lucky guy because his wife is the ravishing Adriana Sklenarikova. Lucky bastid, you!