What's been going DOWN?

Lots. Lots has been going on. And I'm filled with the urge to fill in My Online Journal. So here goes.

Wake Up Did? NOT happening any time soon. (Inside joke. You could replace DID with NID, if you want.

So. I saw Wake Up Sid last night. Cute Happily Ever After. Could've been made better, but whatev. 'Twas a happy happy movie with a simple story- A dude who has no motivation in life, meets a young writer and his life changes. Ka- ching!

High point of the movie:
When Aisha (Konkana Sen) gets her books delivered home, the first thing she does is open the box and she smells the books. And here I thought that I was the only freak who was obsessed with the book smell.

Low point of the movie:
(TMI alert!Don't say I didn't warn you) I don't get out of the movie theatre during the interval coz the intervals over here are really short and I hate missing even one tiny bit of the movie. So by end of the movie, I really had to pee. And it was like the movie was mocking. In the end, all they showed was oceans and seas and waters and Bombay rains and pouring and OH, it was a long wait. Right. I'm done now.

General advice:
It's a nice movie to see if you're free on a Saturday night, but really, don't go out of you're way just to watch a good looking conceited brat getting a life. (For girls, SO good looking.)

Ratings: 6 Golden Nidhies out of 10.

The Book Scene
Guh. Bleh. Pfoo. And everything in between. Been reading fully depressing stuff.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak? Well written. Intense. Good story. But, OH, so depressing. It's a story told by Death and the name of the first chapter was the only reason I read the book. It was 'Death and Chocolate'. You can see what I mean.


A Walk to Remember and True Believer by Nicholas Sparks. Both pretty okay books. But now I'm sick of romance. It gets tiring after a while. Now I need some bloodshed and war and some killing. Yeah, I'm weird like that.


Other than that, I'm going through a whole lot of Calvin and Hobbes. Much fun.

Wake me up when September ends.
This has probably become the most clichéd song of all tim es. The number of status messages and blog posts I've read with this title..are a LOT. But September has been a sucky kinda month. First, the weather. It was all indicative of the bad things happening in the month. My Truck (It's this old camera which I used to use like a mad woman) died. It was most sad, but some of myfriends were verily happy about it. Hmph. (The picture below is a of my Truck and me. Sigh)

Also, a month of fights. Romance? Guh. Friendship? Guh. Lots of fights and a general aura of depressing-ness. Hence, the sad books, I think.


Other stuff:
(This calls for bullet points, methinks.)


* There was a false alarm of a Bangalore trip this month. But now I'm not going and am most depressed. It should be against the law to raise a person's hopes and shoot them down. I hope the desired people have GOT THE MESSAGE. (Your cue, parents)

*Girl politics. I've not had it for SO long. And now, it's like BAM I'm back in the game with backstabbing and gossiping and bitching and all the girls stuff. It hurts, but I couldn't love it more.

*It's raining in October. Pune's ALWAYS been a weird sort of place.

*Went to Lonavla yesterday and was RIGHT in middle of the clouds. So beautiful. And I love the tunnels on the way. I was all 'Wheee!' while we went through them.

* The Dad took two weeks off and was at home specifically to annoy the hell out of me. But he's off to work tomorrow. Say it with me: YAYYYY! He's going going going! Two weeks with him, and gaaah, I neeeed my alone time at home.

Contemplations
I'm five months away from THEE most important exam that will decide the rest of my future. And I'm addicted to Facebook. I'm thinking of leaving it for a few months but I lack the will power. Maybe I'll delete it before my Diwali vacations. And then get down and study. (That is the most nerdish sentance I've EVER said and you cannot use it against me in any way.)





That's about it, I guess.

Apwush

It is a word. Apwush, I mean. Did I say apwush? Yes I did. A word? Absolutely. Used frequently? Oh yeah. By me, at least. It is a word that is embedded in the soft tissue of every human's mind, but few wish to express their apwush-ness.

Apwush can mean anything you like. It can be whatever YOU want it to mean.
For example,
"Dude, wuzzgoinon?"
"Apwush, nothing much. Same apwushofying shit. You?"
"Same here, man. I've been so freaking apwushed lately"

Apwush. Wondrous word. Nice meaning. Rolls on the tongue so well. Using the word 'apwush' can make you so happy. It warms the cockles of your heart, it does.
Anyhoo, I'm too apwushed right now to write more. So later, then.

Keep apwush-ing :)

Book Talk

The Story Girl
By Lucy Maud Montgomery

I'm not a big fan of classics. Actually, I have a love/hate relationship with them. But The Story Girl by LM Montgomery is my favourite book of all times. It's simple, sweet and leaves you very content with yourself after you're done reading it.

The story is simple: Eight kids, The Story Girl, Felicity, Cecily, Sara Ray, Felix, Dan, Peter and Beverly, and their summer. The Story Girl is the only book I've read which does not have a story line, no plot whatsoever and yet, it keeps you hooked. It's a charming kind of book which portrays the innocence of children exceedingly well.

The best part of the book is not the setting, the simplicity or the summer. The best part is The Story Girl. Sara Stanley, otherwise known as 'The Story Girl', tells magnificent tales with her enthralling voice. The way the book is written, Montgomery leaves The Story Girl's voice to the reader's imagination. Her voice can be whatever you like, whatever you want. Whatever captures you. And THAT is the beauty of the book.

Ratings: Nine Golden Nidhies out of ten.
Best time to read: A lazy afternoon.

PS:
As much as I hate E-books, Here is a link to The Story Girl for people who can't find it in a book shop. However, let me warn those people that reading it online will take away some of the charm and rob you of the glorious smell of the book. So read at your own risk.

The Aliminium Foiled My Plans*

(*Sorry, couldn't resist a food pun in The Bad Pun Department. But it is a good one, isn't it? *wagging eyebrows*)

Since the world has fantastically succumbed to the swine flu, I'm left at home all day with absolutely nothing to do. IT'S DRIVING ME INSANE. At least I know I'm not the only one. All teenagers are losing it. I mean, we want to take over the world, start a band and eat jalapenos. Crazy stuff like that.

Anyhoo, my dad and me were extremely bored yesterday. Extremely bored. So we started going through websites of fancy hotels. Oh, not just fancy hotels. Fancy British hotels. And it's not that the hotels didn't look inviting or anything, but that's not what we were interested in. We were interested in the Menus. The Menus of fine British restaurants. We stumbled across this lovely website and went through all their menus. The afternoon teas, lunch, dinner and dessert menus and OH, I want some Devonshire Clotted Cream. I don't even know what it is. But I want it. I wouldn't mind some Wild Scottish Smoked Salmon. Or some Eggs Benedict with a Sash Of Bacon. (Btw, I don't even like bacon. It just sounds so nice and fancy and British)



Yeah, and then we went over the menus of this hotel. Lovely hotel, really. Excellent menus. (Here are the links.) And then we skimmed over the the menus of Burj Al Arab menu and this restaurant called Le Bernardin in New York. We tried to go over some restaurants in Paris but it was too French and complicated. So yeah.

THIS is what I have stooped to. I'm looking up E-menus of unattainable places. Time to grow up, yeah?

Happy Blorgthday to me :)

It's my Blorgthday! Exactly a year since I started blogging. Kinda cool. I could be very cliched and say, "It feels like just yesterday when I opened up my blog. And, oh, now it's a year!" but that's not true. It actually feels like I've been blogging forever.

Advantages of blogging:
1) It keeps you writing regularly. I mean, without the obligation of having to write/type every now and then to keep my blog alive, my writing would have gone for a toss.

2) It's FUN.

3) Them good ol' blog days. (Tagging: Namrata, Tapan, Anish and Vaishnav + The Common Blog)

4) Even if you don't blog a lot, having a blog always gives you the feeling that you've got a place to put stuff out to the outside world.

5) It keeps you connected to the outside world.

6) It keeps the outside world connected to you.

7) It's FUN. Oh wait, I mentioned that.

8) Blogging lets you put out your opinion without ANYone forcing you to shut up or forcing their opinion on you.

Disadvantages of blogging:

1) Blogging never allows you to enjoy a moment fully. You (that is, me) are always thinking if you can convert a moment into a blog post. It's kinda annoying.

2) It worries me that others might read my blog and not like it. But I guess that's the point of having your blog open to the world.

.......that's about it. Clearly the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. My case rests, your honour.

HP6

As usual, it was a major disappointment. Why do I watch HP movies? Who knows. I end up ranting about them for days after. Everyone HATES it when I get into the details of what they missed/screwed up, so I'm going to vent on this blog! Brilliance, I know.



SPOILER ALERT. STOP READING FROM HERE.



Good stuff in the movie:

1) Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton?) Pure hotness. (HAWTNESS!)

2) Ginny turned out to be quite pretty.

3) Harry remained short. Heh. Didn't make me feel inadequate about my height. Though others made up for him. Hmph.

4) The humour. Whole Harry imitating Slughorn thing.

5) The Brit accents ( I also want)

6) Bellatrix Lestrange. Brilliant actress, really.

7) Last time the pony-tailed Dumbledore appears on screen. YES.

8) Cormac McLaggen. *faints*

9) Luna is PERFECT.

10) Fenrir Greyback suited his role.

11) Draco Malfoy! Oh wait, I already mentioned him. Damn.



Erm...that's about all the good things. NOW. For the rant :-



*Where. were. the. Dursleys? Dumbledore. was. supposed. to. pick. Harry. up. from. the. Dursleys. NOT a random train station with attractive girls.



*They invented a random attack! In The Burrow! WTF. They can't INVENT stuff. How about putting in REAL stuff that you didn't have time to put in, freaks?



* Harry-Ginny get together in the WEIRDEST way possible. They're supposed to get together after a quidditch match. But, NO. They have a random make-out session in the Room Of Requirement. And, wait for it, this part doesn't even EXIST in the book. It wasn't even a proper make out. It was one kiss and they're together. Hello? Reality check.



*Waaaayyy too much on Ron and Hermione, baby, waayyy too much. WHEN, in the book, does Hermione confess her true luurrrve for Won-won? Really now. Take your own creative liberty, but Jesus, don't take it too far.



*Em, The Snape dude put on a li'l weight. But that didn't annoy me too much, whatev.


*Action in the movie was minimal. Like dude, the romance was high.


*They didn't show Rufus Scrimgeour! They didn't show the part in The Burrow where Perce and Scrimgeour come!


*Horace Slughorn didn't look like a walrus. Hmph.


*Horace Slughorn had more of a role than Harry.


*Fluer! Bill! Where WERE they?


*No apparitation lessons, either.


*Fred and George weren't wearing magenta robes in their store! Gaaah.


* Where. were. Kreacher. and. Dobby. WHERE, I ask you?


*Didn't show Voldemort (Btw, HATE it when people say "Voldy") asking for the DADA job! THAT was important!


*The House Of Gaunts was missing! M-I-S-S-I-N-G!


*The Funeral. A-hem? It was missing, too.


*Ok, lots was missing so I'm going to stop with that.


*The movie wasn't too intense, was it?


*In fact, it kinda got boring.


*Dumbledore's death wasn't so spectacular.


*The stuff in the cave? IT WASN'T GREEN. Where the hell did all the crystal stuff come from?


*Last of all, it disappointed me. I'm done venting now.

Ok, so final ratings:
Compare the movie to the book: Zero golden Nidhies out of five.
Look at it as a just a movie: Two and a half golden Nidhies out of five.

Wokay, I'm done. Watch the movie and tell me what you thought :)
xoxo

Gotta lurve tradition

With most of my friends, especially the Bangalore ones, I've always had traditions. When we meet up we ALWAYS do a specific set of things. Mostly sleepover traditions with tha girlfriends.

So here I am, making another list. Of ALL the traditions. I mean, it would kinda suck if I forgot a tradition, no? So here goes.

1. Ramila and me have like gazzili-milli-trilli-god-knows-what-eth traditions. When we were kids and she came over to my place, we had this game where we had obstacles on my bunk bed. We jumped through holes, hoola hoops, pillow forts and what not. And in the end, we always drank Litchi squash. We used to do this for HOURS together. OMG, and Neopets!!! We had a combined Neopets account and we used to feed and play with our pets so, so religiously. We even went for Faerie quests, fun stuff.

2. When I went to Ramila's place, we had a whole lotta new traditions to cover. She had this World book which was like a suitcase and you opened it, it had dozens of tiny hard bound booklet thingamajigs shaped in the world map. We used read out ALL because they had adorable pictures and cute descriptions of each place. I ALWAYS read out Italy, North America, Australia and India and she always read out The British Isles, Scandinavia and Spain. I love, love, LOVE the World book. Oh, and at her place, it was always tradition to fight with each other. EVERY SINGLE TIME. She never ever believed I kicked in my sleep without knowing. She always thought it was a plot to give her bruises. She STILL says so. Some things just never change. And of course, she sings this song called Walk On Water which is the most beautiful version of that song. Ramila and me have some gazillion traditions and I can't possibly list all out all.

3. Sanju, Swathi, Smrithi and me have spent hours and hours of lazy afternoons with our traditions. We skate. We play with the hoola hoops. We talk about boys for hours. Hah, and we always, always have lunch at Beijing Bites. Though Sanju never eats. But, yes, lunch at BB is a must.

4. All Tanya and me EVER do is talk. If I need to get something outta my system, she's the first one I call. And even when I go to Bangalore, we spend hours talking about stupid nothings. That's our thing, I guess. OH, and to obsess about Star Wars.

5. Namrata and me used to have lotsa traditions. Now we're all for spontaneity, I think. We used to have this Scrap book in which we randomly scribbled lotsa stuff. It was kinda cute but now if we look back, so 8th grade. Hah. Oh, and Namrata and me used to do Neopets too. Damn, I think our pets are, like, dead. Hmm. (The red dragon below was our Shoyru called Thorn.)

6. This is not much of a tradition or maybe it was, I'm not sure. But when I was a kid, one of my friends Sneha who is now, like, 25 (?) and me used to have our Lazy Walk. We used to walk around real slow around the buildings and , this is embarassing to admit, sing our "walking" rhyme. I even remember parts of it. It started out like "dum dum day, dum dum olay olay.. dissee day, dissee olay olay..." ok, I don't remember the rest. But now, it sounds so stupid. I bet we looked like a couple of drunkards stumbling around the society. Exept I was 7 and she was 17. But why quibble?

7. Namrata, Saee, Mihika and me have only one set tradition. We sit on The Protractor. Okay, no we're not crazy. Our school has these jungle gym things set in shaped of math things like protractors, set squares and stuff. So, The Protractor is our place. Our Adda. We sit there all the time and we don't even have to talk. It's our kinda thinking place.

8. Namrata, Vaishnav and me have one tradition, too. We're ALWAYS stuck together. Just the Natural Order Of Things. Somehow, The Three of us are always stuck together and we look at each other and go, "Shit. All of us here. Again?"

9. Aakash, Akash and me. We had loads of things to do. Akash's house was RIGHT next to mine and Aakash's house was one floor below. We were The Terrible Three. Our tradition was simple- Meet. Make trouble. Laugh.

10. This tradition, I almost forgot. Good thing I'm making this list. Ramila, Leila, Aditi and me in the bus. Leila and me used to sit in one seat and Aditi and Ramila used to sit in the one exactly in front of us. This still makes me laugh and Ramila still admits it's cute, Aditi and Ramila used to play "dino". The curled up their finger and claimed it was a dinosaur and made weird crooning noises. Leila and me used to make endless fun of this. We still do, whenever we meet up.

11. Sanju and me. Summer (duh). Locked in my room for hours. No, we weren't doing anything bad, you perverted people. We were just 10. We did our hair so, so colourful. All you have to do is look at this picture.

Yes, we did this stuff ALL summer. Tradition.

So I think those are all of them.Now I'm all happy and nostalgic. :)

PS- My blogging is going to reduce in a short while. You see, I'm a busy and important person, but you can always catch me on twitter.