Google Reader's friends of friends idea

The new concept of Google Reader to feature shared items of the friends of your friends, i.e. second circle of friends is pretty funny. I was actually reading my own blog and wondering for a second, "I've read this somewhere....". What I think happened is that since I am a friend of my friend, I recieved my own blog in my Reader. Doesn't make sense, does it? I'm also scratching my head. Anyway, this meant that I was reading blogs of persons I did not know, so I was reading a Google engineer's blog and some conversation about pre-marital relationships and 'cuddle buddies'. Something I'm not particularly interested in, given I don't know them.

Billa - - an awesome movie... The trip, a review, and tidbits

My seniors are a bunch of thala fans. So it wasn't surprising that they decided to drive down to Columbus, Ohio, to watch Billa. What was surprising was that they had driven to Chicago and Detroit to watch Sivaji and Kireedom I think. We set off, 6 in a car(all the while commenting that it was off limits for 6 to travel in the Chrysler car we were in, and telling Rajesh, who was the butt of all of Bharat's rip-roaring leg pulling, to disappear in case a cop stopped us) with 5 others to join us in a restaurant. This was 'Banana Leaf', and the food was awesome! It was $11 something, worth it. And so we came to the theatre. It was houseful, mind you. There were a lot of Indian people there(obviously). The projector was an LCD projector, and I wondered what the source was.

The movie started a little after 4 pm. Bharat couldn't control himself. Neither could I... Long time watching a movie in a theatre.. We we screaming and shouting when Billa came about, when Nayan made her swashbuckling entry(Bharat started jumping around for this scene, but stayed quiet for the rest of the scenes when Nayan was around - watch the film from a man's view ;-)), for Velu's entry and also for the My name is Billa song. I was really scared that someone would pull Bharat and send him out of the theatre for his shouting and commenting, he was doing it so much. And notwithstanding a character named Rajesh, Bharat leapt upon the moment and pulled Rajesh's leg again.

As for the movie, the most outstanding part was the style, richness and flamboyance in the film. The film had a lot of believable stuff in it, like throwing away the sim card after making a call, wearing the seatbelt to suddenly brake and some others I forgot. Ajith was, of course, his own self. He fit the Billa bill very well, with a lot of extravagant add-ons, like Jaguars, Mercs and BMWs, a samurai katana, his own helicopter, etc, etc. Nayan, was, all sizzling. I don't remember any other Tamil heroine in a similar role ever. Namitha was perfect for her character. Nayan also did an Angelina Jolie in one of the scenes when rescuing the new Billa. Santhanam was good with the comedy he did. The jokes all through the movie were good, especially when pulling Prabhu's leg. I must say the costumes, locations, photography, all were very well done.

The Petronas towers were featured in almost all the shots featuring aerial or rooftop or out-of-window shots. Vishnuvardhan has definitely done a very good job. There were some things I noticed in the movie:

1. In the scene where the original Billa is in the pool, you can notice Ajith has heat boils on the back of his skin. Maybe due to the effect of the even more humid Malaysian climate.
2. In the same scene, Nayan appears in the bikini, she seems to pull her stomach in to create a slimmer image(we all do that, don't we?).
3. When Billa is hounded by the police and the chase ensues, you can notice many skid marks all along the roads at the corners - multiple trials and shots for the perfect one.
4. For the Seval kodi song, the ground is always drenched for the first half of the song. This means that : either the ground was watered to cool it down, or the unlikely situation that it rained once during the shoot and so it had to be watered for the rest of the song. However one thing is that all of the song did not feature much direct sunshine.
   

Of course, there are many 'how did he do that' or 'how could he have done that' or 'that is impossible to do' in the film, but the film is good overall - worth watching it again on the big screen.

For the trip back home, Bharat didn't join us and we were engaging in talk mainly about the songs being played via the cds which Bharat had burned and we had brought along. It was then that I realised that my keys were not on me - I had dropped them somewhere(I later found them in the common TV room where I had gone to prior to going out for the movie... Thank God!). There was a light snow storm, and there were a couple of accidents, including a car on its side. Nearer home, Vinu, who drove all through, had to go over the kerb becuase the brakes didn't hold fast enough to stop behind the car in front of us. And at the end of it all, the good food, Ajith(Thala pola varuma?) and Nayan put a smile on my face for the rare good day I had.

My 'fans' on Orkut

I was going through my profile on Orkut and saw that I had 51 fans. I had seen that number and seen the first page of the fans' list, but had not gone beyond that. So I decided to do that. As I went down the list, I noticed that people who I hardly know, people who I never thought would consider me worthwhile to be my friend, were my fans. As I saw each person I tried to recollect my experiences with them - some were not so good - and as I mentioned, I hardly knew some. Some of the 'famous incidents' in college came to my mind, as did other possible explanations for these people. I never knew so many people even bothered to make themselves my fan.

Of course, there is also the possibility that since the facility to 'be someone's fan' is very appropriately simple to use, they could have randomly and carelessly clicked on the stars. I went to my friends list. I remembered clicking on some of my friend's ratings very scrupulously - that was way back when I set up my profile - so I found that most of my friends had no ratings apart from those I really cared to rate. Well, what a difference....

I really feel like posting so much, but don't find the appropriate time or forget the idea too soon...