Likes and dislikes...

What makes us like something? I guess if it meets or exceeds our expectations we like it. What influences our expectations?

When you listen to a song, what makes you like it or hate it? I have noticed on many occasions that some people do not like english songs. Some do not like anything other than the ones composed by Ilayaraja. Some just don't like anything too fast. Some don't like anything too slow. Some don't want to listen to anything that does not have lyrics. Some only like songs with good vocals. And there's the kind of people who listen to any kind of music, no matter what language it is in (or even if there are no lyrics).

When you taste something, what makes you detest or love it? Some people hate anything that is not spicy. Some hate everything spicy. Many people I know do not like anything other than Indian cuisine. Some are adaptable to any kind of food because they are willing to experiment.

Why are we biased? What appeals to one does not to another. I think it's the way we grow up that influences what we expect. What we enjoyed right from our childhood stays with us. Do our minds get used to something so much that we are not able to adapt to any kind of change? I think so. But that's what makes people distinct. Their likes and dislikes. People's opinions and perceptions differ. And when they don't, people end up being good friends. We of course enjoy the company of those who like what we like.

But, what if we take a moment to try to adapt our tastes to like what we don't? Why, you may ask. Here's my reasoning: When you have a bigger bandwidth of what you like, you connect with more people. You get to experience what other people have been enjoying, which you actually disliked before.

I remember I used to dislike most of the english songs at one point of time. The only ones I liked were those that were pretty simple and had easy-to-understand tunes. I was watching MTV (I think) and there was this song Smooth by Santana which won the Grammy award that year. Having been used to listening only to Tamil songs (and a little bit of Hindi too), I couldn't see why the award was given to that song. I couldn't even recognize the tune, let alone the awesome guitar in the background. I thought it was a load of crap. But then I thought, millions of people don't like the song for nothing. There should be something that I should be missing. I listened to it carefully the next time. I gave attention to detail, trying to listen to each and every sound in the song. This time, I had no doubt why it was given the award. I could now enjoy what all those people have been enjoying.

It's the same case with food. I've grown up eating only Indian food, and so it was quite natural that I totally hated American cuisine. The meat was not as spicy as we cook in India. It was totally without flavour. Just cooked and served with sides. But, that's how people here like it. And now I am used to it. In fact, I've started liking it more. But, at the same time, my liking for Indian cuisine has not decreased at all. It's just that I now have a variety of cooking styles that I like to eat.

When a considerable number of people like something and you don't, you definitely are missing something. I am not saying you should make an attempt to like it, it's of course your decision. But, if you do, you will realize what you have been missing. You will give yourself a chance to enjoy more things in life.
Free your mind of all the bias. Expect or demand nothing. You will like everything. Well, that's just my view of likes and dislikes and I might be totally wrong too. For the same reason, I would love to know what you think. Please feel free to comment.

Billa movie review

Every single time an Ajith movie gets released, I sincerely hope he does something right. Not because I'm an Ajith fan, but because of sympathy. And every single time he has managed to disappoint. Billa does not just diappoint you. It pushes you so deep into the realm of non-belief that you wonder how such movies get produced in the first place.

It was not because Ajith had starred in the movie that I wanted to see it, it was the director. I liked Vishnuvardhan's movies - Arindhum Ariyaamalum and Pattiyal. How wrong I was to think this movie would be of the same quality. In an effort to make to movie look slick, there has been an excessive usage of black and white blazers, larger-than-face coolers (almost everyone in the movie wears coolers and I have absolutely no idea why), a blue-ish hue to almost all the scenes and lack of dialogues (which was actually good because the dialogues did suck big time). In the end, instead of making the movie slick, these only made it sick.

Prabhu wins the award for the best "allakkai" in Kollywood hands down. With his trend-setting role in Chandramukhi and now in Billa, he is a living example of how allakkais should perform on screen. In fact, it was Prabhu who kept the movie lively during the 1st half (he dies in the 2nd half so it was very boring after that). Namitha looks a perfect fit for Prabhu physically. Nayanthara's primary role is just to show off skin. Ajith does pretty much nothing other than wear blazers and walk here and there with abosultely no purpose. He is an example of the fact that just looking good ain't enough to be a successful actor. Music was also not very good when compared to Pattiyal or Arindhum Ariyaamalum. The movie on the whole was completely incoherent and the scenes were very disjoint (made me think of Simbhu's Kadhal Azhivadhillai).

I had seen SRK's DON which was a remake of the Big B's original version and I was pretty bored. But after seeing Billa I'm now starting to think perhaps the Bollywood remake was more stylish. Billa was a chance to prove that Kollywood can produce slick flicks and it is a huge letdown by Vishnu Vardhan.

Lesson learned: Never judge a book by its cover, nor a movie by its promos.

Just one!

In a scorecard that featured a double hundred, two hundreds and three fifties, there was just one sixer. Damn!

The Thanksgiving trip...

It was just a week before thanksgiving day we realized that we have no plans yet for the long weekend. Being the most ultra lethargic guys of Middletown, we only postponed the planning to the day before thanksgiving.

We already had in mind the idea of going to Washington DC and visit the memorials and museums there (Can anything else sound more boring???). Then I came across this. It sure looked pretty impressive and interesting, but a duration of 4 days would definitely not be enough to cover a road trip like that. So we decided we would merge these two plans and came up with this route:

Middletown - NJ (to pick up maama) - Baltimore - Washington - Ocean City - Atlantic City - NJ (to drop maama) - Middletown. We started booking hotels and found good deals on Sheraton in Washington and Comfort Suites in Ocean City.

The plan was to getup at 4 AM on Thursday morning and proceed to NJ to pickup maama at 7 AM. As usual we started 2 hours late. The morning fog had not yet cleared and it was a very good drive down CT-15 south. The leaves on the trees were still in their young stages of turning red for the fall and it was a better sight than the Kancamagus in New Hampshire. We reached Maama's apartment at around 8.30 AM. His apartment was in a very good location from where one can see the NY skyline across the Hudson river. We then proceeded to Dosa Hut to have some south Indian breakfast (after a long time). Driving a car downtown was the worst part :-(
We then started towards Baltimore on the NJ turnpike, which was even more mesmerizing to see than the CT-15, with the fog lifted off. Tragedy awaited in Baltimore. Everything - literally everything - was closed down on account of Thanksgiving day and we could do nothing but roam around and take photos. After spending an hour or two there, we started towards the next destination - the national capital Washington.

We checked into the rooms that we had booked the previous day and I immediately dozed off, thanks to the "sweet sleeper" beds in Sheraton National. We had ambitious plans of getting up early next morning and going to a premium outlet center nearby for black Friday shopping, which as usual got dropped due to us getting up late. The first destination was the Arlington war cemetery. We signed up for the Tourmobile package ($25 per head) that would take us on a tour around the Arlington cemetery and other places of interest in Washington. The beauty of the headstones arranged in perfect order along with the rich, proud history of the men underneath them gave a unique feel while going around the cemetery. We decided we will complete visiting the museums first since the memorials can be visited anytime during the day.

The Air and Space museum sounded the most interesting (actually least boring) and that's where we were headed next. Arun and I found the museum pretty interesting at some point. Then we decided we'll go to the planetarium show in the museum which was the most boring thing. Infact, it was so boring that Maama dozed off within seconds. We then wandered away to the National Museum of Natural History. Nice place to take photos.

After having a late lunch at Domino's and McD, we somehow found our way to the Lincoln memorial. Spending a brief time there to take photos, we walked our way to the Washington monument, Korean war memorial and the other memorials in that area known as the National mall. It was getting pretty late by now and we decided we would start off for our next destination - Ocean City.

The drive to Ocean City was a very long one along US 50 E. The drive would have probably been very good had it been during the day. Due to time constraints we had to cover the journey during the night. One annoying thing was the constant signals throughout the entire stretch of the highway. After checking into Comfort Suites in Ocean city we went to the KFC/Taco Bell right opposite the hotel (fortunately!!!). We got dinner from there and proceeded to our room to watch the movie "The Departed" on TV. After a very good sleep, we proceeded downstairs for the complimentary breakfast. Nice. Next destination: Ocean City Beach.

Ocean City should be a very, very popular destination during spring / summer. The beach as such is very beautiful and the boardwalk is filled with shops which cater more to the needs of surfers, bikers and sunbathers. Anyways, with the ice cold wind blowing all day, we couldn't find too many people around, even though the crowd was pretty good that day. Not knowing what to do there, we started taking photos and doing experiments in photography in different ways.

It was sheer coincidence that Douglas spotted a hewwwge Tanger Outlet nearby Ocean City and we started off to do some Thanksgiving shopping there. Shoes from Nike factory store and garments from Old Navy made our pockets as empty as our stomachs. We decided we'll have something on the way to our next destination - Atlantic City.

The drive to Atlantic City was one of THE most bizarre of all the places I've been. Instead of taking the Garden state parkway, we took the ocean drive which went through a very large residential area. That wasn't the bizarre part. The most peculiar thing was that even though it was such a residential area, we could find absolutely no activity - no, that was not an exaggeration - at all. No people on the streets, no lights switched on in any of the houses, no sounds, no trace of human life. Just houses, houses and more houses. It was like a drive through the haunted city full of haunted houses. Would have been really good for Halloween. We had to cross a series of bridges, all of 'em looking exactly similar, leaving us wondering if we were going in circles. Finally we crossed a toll bridge with a person inside the toll booth. We confirmed that we were on the right way to Atlantic City (before that we confirmed he wasn't a ghost by looking at his legs). At last... we arrived at Atlantic City. Caesars was the first Casino we visited. All of us being apprehensive to spend any money on gambling, we found the casinos pretty boring. Krishna decided finally to play on a slot machine wasted $5 on that. That was the end of our short stint at the casino. After entering another casino and realizing we had nothing to do other than look around, we decided we'll head back home. So much for the Haunted Drive!!!

From then on it was a hi-speed trip to NJ to drop off Maama and back home to Middletown. Normally people go on a vacation to relax and rejuvenate. We were so tired that we felt like we needed another vacation to rejuvenate. Yet, it was a very good memorable journey and we had lots of enjoyable moments to look back in the future and laugh to ourselves. Ain't that the whole point of a vacation?

Photos here.

Group chat on Google talk

I've been using Google talk ever since its inception, and one of the major drawbacks has been the inability to group chat or "conference" as it is commonly referred to. This facility is available in Yahoo messenger and also in Windows messenger (I guess).

The other day I was going through some widgets that I could use on my blog and I found this Google talk widget. What was more interesting was that it had an option for group chat where as my Google talk application does not have one! Check it out here:
http://chatting4all.blogspot.com

Then I did some "digg"ing and I found this:

http://digg.com/software/Conference_calling_with_GOOGLE_talk

Hope you find it useful.

The best wallpaper I ever had on my laptop...

Hubbard park visit

Went to Meriden last Tuesday when Arun remembered seeing a Kohl's store nearby and while searching for it we lost our way over there. We decided to drive around a little bit when we discovered the Hubbard state park. We just drove in to get a feel of how the park was and it was an amazing sight. We decided to go for a picnic sometime to that place since it seemed there were a lot of activities one could do over there (like swimming, tennis, hiking, etc).

Little did we know that the picnic day would come so soon. The following weekend we were all vetti and the four of us (me, Arun, Suren and Anu) packed things up and started off for Hubbard park. Reached there at around 3 PM. After having something to eat, we decided to start off for Castle Craig (the road to Castle Craig will be closed down at 5 PM) located on the top of the hill around which the state park had been created.

The journey to the castle revealed a hidden paradise. The Bradley-Hubbard reservoir to the left of the road is just breathtaking to look at with the clouds reflecting on the almost still water (as you can see below).

A 15 min drive brings you to Castle Craig. Now don't expect a fortress there. It's just an observatory tower kinda thing. You get a very good view of the state park from here.
After taking ample number of photos we decided to roam around the park a little bit. That's when we found some trails leading into the not so dense woods inside the park. It was a very nice experience going through the woods, chatting, singing and dancing along all the way :-)

Wanted to swim for sometime but then resorted to playing tennis for an hour. By then it was 7 PM and we decided it was time to go back home. It was a really refreshing experience and was a very satisfying pleasant Saturday. If you are anywhere near a half an hour drive from Meriden, CT, then I would recommend this state park for anyone who wants to have a nice getaway with friends or family.

More info on Hubbard park here. See my photos from Hubbard park here.
Thanks to Arun for losing his way when trying to find Kohl's :-)