The Voice In My Head…

Why? Because my blog has been nagging majorly fighting with me that I’ve just not been paying it any attention any more, that there’s been nothing really worthwhile written on it for a while, that I’m not replying to comments - *and* worst of all - that I’m flirting having an illicit affair with (God forbid!) Facebook! (seriously darling, how could you even think that?!)

So, here I am, trying to convince you, my dear dear dear darling thevoiceinmyhead.com; as much as I’ve neglected you & my commenters in the recent past, as perhaps not upto your high standards as recents posts may have been - and as much time as I’ve spent on Facebook recently - TVIMH, I do love you.

I love you very very very much. Really, really.

There have been SO many (so many!) times in the recent past I’ve wanted to post about stuff - like the time I “discovered” Pot Pourri has fabulous breakfasts - in fact it’s become my new favorite brekky place (I’ve done Crepe Station to death)..

Like all the stuff I want to tell you about my new favorite male-friend-in-a-supporting-role (deyamm you lead actor, where the bloody hell are you?) - he’s British (rather old fashioned & grandfatherly) and on occasion buys me African Daisies Oh, ho-hum & hurray!

Like when I saw ‘Get Smart’ and I wanted to tell everyone to go see, it was SUCH a fabulously fun movie. Oh, how I laughed. Laughed, laughed, laughed. I still have this nigling (is that a word? hmmm) doubt however, that they censored a bit of the movie… Anyway I enjoyed it despite that - and despite the loss of hundreds of my hard earned paisas (ok, the date’s paisas) that went into the Rs. 180/- popcorn at Metro Adlabs late late night show (seriously, it is just me or is popcorn at all our theaters becoming RIDICULOUSLY expensive???)

Or like the time I wanted to post about how because our President Pratibha Patil decided to visit Mumbai - they STOPPED ALL THE TRAFFIC (seriously WTHECK?????) - for hours on end. I waited for exactly 25 minutes on my way to the city in the morning (from 11.05 to 11.30am) and for about 45 mins on the way back in the evening (rush hour, 5 onwards) and I’m thinking:

BLOODY HELL, seriously.
Why can’t the President be FLOWN in from the airport to the city in a helicopter? There’s a helipad at the Mantralaya (& other places too in the city) and if someone’s important enough to stop traffic completely for hours, then they should be flown in! It’ll be faster for them and it won’t inconvenience the entire city.
I mean, seriously, how bloody inconsiderate. I don’t care if you’re the President of the country - you have no right to disrupt anyone’s work schedules. It’s just not right.
And in rush hour too? Seriously, you should have seen it - one side of the road jammed with cars, miles & miles & miles & miles on end. The other side perfectly clear.
And I counted the entourage: 42 CARS. Seriously, I kid you not. 42 BLOODY CARS.
For this, we have to wait. While madam and her 42 cars pass by roads that have been “cleansed” & cleared for hours ahead.
If I was the President of India - I’d be ashamed that I was whizzing past miles & miles of people I had inconvenienced (imagine those without air con cars or those in taxis paying by the meter!) - I’d use the power I had to do something about it. Either helicopter or travel in the night or early morning.

(click on the image above to enlarge & see the miles of jammed cars & the empty road on the other side).

So you see darling blog - I had this whole post planned - see I took pics & everything - notwithstanding the hawaldar who questioned me and told me to stop. I was thinking about you & only you all the time (Facebook, who facebook? Arey yaar, sheesh.)

I thought of you VERY much when someone told me recently that I was “ruining my chances” of finding a nice boy to marry me since I blog so much. I though, what the hell - “love me, love my blog”. And if you don’t, heck, I don’t want to marry you. Sorrbloodyrey. I wrote out this whole post in my head & I even thought of great title - “I blog therefore I am, single”. It was a great post. Unfortunately I just didn’t get down to typing it down.

So you see darling blog - it’s not that I don’t love you - or that I’ve replaced you by anyone else online - no, no, never! Perish the thought!

It’s just that I’ve been slightly busy. You know, I have to go out, earn my daily wage to pay for your hosting and your url and the fancy Manolo Blahnik shoes you like (ok, perhaps that last one was just for me, and only in my fantasies. Sigh, but you get the drift). I’ve been busy, but it’s all for you. It’s always been all for you.

And I hope this rather loooong post has made up for my seeming lack of affection recently.

No?

Gosh, you are quite the drama blog aren’t you?

Ok, here’s something more just for you. Some breaking news!

I’m off to Switzerland for a bit - and then onto France. Not too long, just a little holiday - but enough for you to miss me some more before I come back & fill you up on a regular basis. Quality AND Quantity, baby, you have my word.

I promise you, I’ll miss you VERY VERY VERY much. And I also promise you I’ll give you all the khabbar when I return.

AND - I’ll also throw in a photo of me for free. To heck with the people who tell me my feeds are high only because I post photos of myself. I happen to think I write pretty decently. See how much of insults I take on your behalf blog? How much I am spat at & humiliated - and yet, undaunted, I continue to blog being true to who I am and write & post the way I like to? See, see, see??

(the precious pup incidentally isn’t mine, he’s belongs to a friend & his name is ‘Reo’, awww)

So you forgive me darling blog?

You do?

Can we have make up sex now? (heck, I’m not getting any offline anyway).

And seriously, to heck with all of those ppl who called me up after one of my recent posts & said WHOA, seriously, you prude you, what the heck are you blogging about?! To heck with them, I say.

I want you blog.

Now!

Am just back from the very star studded Red Carpet Premier of Sex and the City, where one spotted almost every page 3 celeb under our star studded Mumbai night sky (among others, trust me, you’re going to see very very funny pics of Karan Johar outside the loo in tomm’s papers!!)

(Sarah Jessica Parker at the New York Premier)

The movie was two and a half hours long - which for someone who doesn’t watch Hindi films, is ridiculously long to sit inside a theater for - but the entire story is so well written and so in keeping with the series and the hearts of the characters, that the time just flew by.

Add to that more than plenty of other stuff that I went to see the movie for - the awesome female bonding between the four lead girls, the amazing clothes, shoes, bags & other things designer and lots of wedding couture (ah! I’m in heaven, seriously!!).

There wasn’t much sex in the city (what do you expect with our Indian censor boards - who incidentally have chopped the film so ridiculously noticeably).

However there was plenty of love. And plenty of forgiveness. Which if you really think about it, are the only two things which sustain any relationship.

I wasn’t a die-hard fan of the series like a lot of people I know - in fact some of the raunchy episodes quite put off my prudish self - however I loved the movie! In fact I’m sure even real die-hard fans who’ve had high expectations for the film will not be disappointed; it’s *that* good.

(click on pic to enlarge)

My beautiful “date” and I enjoyed the film thoroughly - we giggled and laughed out loud (& silently cried) together as only girls can do when watching a girly film.

We both dressed up for the film - I wore a satiny dress as a tribute to Carrie (& Sarah Jessica Parker), while my friend dressed rather Charlotte York-ish. I also wore brilliantly sexy Calvin Klein underwear.

I mention the underwear because after the movie we went to Vistas, at Taj Land End, where I had a very Marilyn Monroe-esq episode - with my dress flying completely up - yes indeed, I was glad I wore the lovely underwear

Couple of hours, coffee and conversation later, we left for home (my dress firmly tucked down with all my strenght) and I was happy.

And as I’m typing this, the only thing I’m really thinking is that love is a wonderful thing. I know it’s coming to me real soon, I can just feel it

At long last, lasting love.

Went to see this flick with group of friends - we were 9 of us totally - and the large number of us turned out to be a totally good thing (especially the loud laughing 3 or 4 who kept the rest of us going).

I knew nothing of the movie beforehand except that it was a comedy starring Jack Black - and since I haven’t seen a single Jack Black movie that I haven’t enjoyed, I was looking forward to it in a way.

I think the script writers of this movie are some brilliantly funny dudes who must have been on dope the whole time while they were writing the script - so ridiculous stupid is the movie. So nonsensical.

At times I wasn’t sure where to be flat out annoyed at it’s blatantly ridiculous stupidity, at others I was laughing out loudly. In retrospect, whatever I may say, I have to give it this - it’s unique!

I recommend you go in a large group of friends like we were or perhaps you’ll just find it ridiculous.

Whoever thought of this nonsense ought to be awarded the Critics Dopey Award. Definitely.

You may or may not know this about me, but I am an IMDB junkie. Well, it’s not like I visit the home page & browse through, but without fail, I check out every movie at IMDB before I decide to go.

A high rating usually prompts me to go & vice versa - so much faith I have in the imdb guys.

But apparently they’re not god; apparently they make mistakes too (shudder).

Yesterday cute boy calls up & asks me out to see ‘Iron Man‘. I’ve never heard of the movie before, so naturally I check it out with imdb.

The rating is 8.3 / 10 - which even a non imdb user can tell, is bloody high. Add to that user comments like this one:

“Robert Downey Jr. is perfect! Gwyneth Paltrow is perfect! Terrence Howard is Perfect…and Jeff Bridges is brilliant!”

Honestly, for a moment there I wondered whether the review was written by a 12 year old, but cute boy was very enthu, so off we went.

And of course, I didn’t like the movie (oh come on, with the title & the intro, you didn’t get that?).

I think there are lots of reasons I didn’t like the movie; to start with, I didn’t know it was based on a comic book. Maybe if I had, I’d be more forgiving and less expecting. I also thought that the movie tried to do too many things - it tried to be funny, suave, serious and all techy all at the same time. I cannot take squirt me with a gas gun haha funny to war in Afghanistan serious two frames from each other.

Cute boy loved the film, though he agreed with me that Oscar winning Gwyneth is totally wasted in it (I personally think she did it only for Apple. My thoughts on ‘Apple’? Another time).

A lot of the plot was completely lost on me - the whole movie was like a Hindi movie in English - except for a few parts, which really were in (a funny accented) Hindi (I kid you not!) with wrong translations.

Though undoubtedly the specials effects of the movie are good - but honestly special effects have come such a long way that I wasn’t really impressed by any of that either.

All in all though, not a waste of a movie experience. Why? Because I was with cute boy of course…

If you can get him to go with you, you might even enjoy the film

… and in pictures too

Have been busy helping organize, praying for & finally, ushering (!) at a 4 day Church Lenten Program which got over on Sunday past. Crowd ranged from 2000 about 3500 people each day, and trust me, ushering is no joke!

In between stuff, have also managed to attend the premier of 27 dresses. The movie got terrible reviews - one called it “Porn, for chicks” so I wasn’t expecting much. And perhaps that’s the reason why the picture was pretty alright imo. It was a chick flick, yes. It was predictable, yes. But then again most chick flicks are. And they’re still nice (if you’re a chick or on a date). Lascelle Symons was just near me - all alone - I’ve noticed usually his wife accompanies him to premiers. Perhaps the designer only came to check out the dresses?

I’ve also started a two year offline, correspondence Diploma course on the Bible through the St. Paul’s Bible Institute, Chennai. It’s a fairly comprehensive course that spans both Old & New Testament. Booklets are mailed each month & answers have to be written and mailed back. The only tough part is actually writing the answers. Ever since I started this course, I’ve realised I type much much faster than I write. In fact I rarely write at all - so it’s hard getting back into school/college frame of mind and write answer sheets. But I guess it’s good for me, both in terms of the learning & the writing!

Have also become addicted to going to the sea front with giggly friend who I spend most of time with these days. We take long walks by the beautiful sea. On most days we giggle like schoolgirls though some days we’re uncharacteristically quite and enjoy the serene sea. And of course our mandatory Sev Puri, which I’m also become addicted to. Yumm (just googling for pics right now is making me hungry!)

And yes, I have (finally) cut my hair Excuse the pic, not me looking my best, but it was taken by me (as is quite apparent!) ONLY FOR YOU GUYS and only to see the HAIR, so cut me some slack ok?! Arnold & Karl, thanks for the many inquiries after the lenght of my hair, trust it gets a thumbs up!

My sides are still hurting from all the laughter. Also, my thumb is jammed (door accident before I left) *and* it’s past 1 in the morning, but still thought I should type this out with one finger, one letter at a time (darnsd this is annoying).

And oh, I nearly threw up.

Seriously.

That is how ridiculously funny the black comedy ‘Death at a Funeral’ is.

And that’s all I’m saying. Because you HAVE TO go see this movie. Also because my bloody hand is still freakin’ paining.

And because I’m slightly high drunk from laughing.

Go.

PS: Damn our Indian censor board for cutting out so many funny parts.

I really really wanted to see this movie - the whole idea of teleporting is something I’ve fancied for a long time (’Beam me up Scotty’ long!).

The whole teleporting thing is dealt with really well. I loved the way the special effects were done, barring the drive through Japan in the Mercedes (talk about product endorsements), all the other scenes seemed simple and realistic enough. It was nice because a lot of films tend to overdo the special effects, especially sci-fi films whose very premise demands it.

The story however could have been more developed. It’s basically about a boy (Hayden Christensen) who discovers he has the power to teleport himself. A lot of the movie then revolves around him honing his teleporting skills and taking us for a tour around the world. For a travel buff like me, it was fun anyway, but perhaps some of it could have been replaced with some proper storyline on his relationship with his mother (Diane Lane, who has the most ridiculous & disjointed role ever, appearing & disappearing for 2 mins) or his father or even his girlfriend (Rachel Bilson, the OC’s Summer) - yes, it would have been nice to have the dynamic between them explored just a tad bit more.

Jamie Bell plays another ‘jumper’ (that’s what them teleporters are called apparently) in the movie and one finds oneself thinking - ah now, the story’s finally begun. But then an all too short time after, and rather disjointedly, it ends.

All that said, I still recommend you go see this movie. Despite the failings in the plot, it’s a superbly made movie & the whole teleporting thing was enough for me to enjoy it.

In between someone asked, if you could teleport yourself somewhere right now, where would you go? And I thought, no where, I want to finish seeing this movie. That should be testament enough.

===

PS: If you’re gonna catch this in a theater (& I recommend you do that for this and for any special effects movie) be warned that you might be subjected to rather brilliant people, the likes who can identify the Sphinx when they see it. Seriously, I am not worthy of sitting alongside such genius.

My two word review for this film is: “Children’s Movie”

That being said, it was a fun children’s movie and I had a nice overall time. It was mostly silly, funny at times but best of all (for me) there was a very very very nice bod - Matthew McConaughey that is! After excessive movies flashing women, it was refreshing to see a hot sexy man for a change (though I’d personally have liked him so much better had his hair been short).

The movie’s about a sparring couple (Matthew McConaughey & Kate Hudson) who get divorced and then through a series of weird events rekindle their passion to find treasure and finally end up back in each others arms. Oh shush, I didn’t just give away the plot, that much was apparent from the start.

What wasn’t apparent - and which continued to be very confusing throughout the movie - was how exactly they figured out where the treasure was at. It took a good part of the movie (rather long scenes) and I didn’t understand any of it.

The “bad guys” in the film provide the comic relief (though I’m not sure that was the intention!).

Other comic relief - and eye candy for the men (well, there had to be some for them too) came in the petite shape of Alexis Dziena, who I mistakenly thought was Miley Cyrus at the time. Don’t they look similar though?

McConaughey & Hudson make a cute couple & this would have been a good date movie had the relationship been dwelt on a little more than the treasure.

All in all, I think this a movie you can take your kids to (ok there’s one “sex” scene in a library which isn’t really shown, but!) and chances are you’ll all have a good time & go to sleep dreaming of pirates, treasure and lots of glittering gold.

Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Wahlberg team up to produce and act in this Crime / Drama / Thriller, in a movie that’s as much about family dynamics as it is about war between drug cartels and police forces.

It’s about a family, a father & a son in the police force - and another son, who manages a busy night club. This second (seemingly prodigal) son, with a completely hedonistic lifestyle (starkly contrasting with the holier-than-thou images of both his father & brother) slowly by virtue of his job, gets sucked into a drug cartel against his wishes. He is faced with classic dilemmas of family versus career & reputation, good versus evil, finally life versus death.

Though this is not an action film (it’s mostly drama) the movie moves along quickly and is interesting enough, but somehow after ‘The Departed’, this seems rather less for Wahlberg. Phoenix is brilliant in the main role however, the role completely became him.

Eye candy & a brilliant performance (though most men, I’m betting only paid attention to the former) by Eva Mendes, who sizzled in every which way in the movie as Phoenix’s girlfriend.

Not a date movie definetely, this movie is filled with lots of blood and gore - including a scene where a man slits his own neck - and you see the blood gushing & spurting out.

The movie is scary, moving and makes you think all at once. Coming home we had a long discussion on whether drugs should be legalized (surprise surprise, I’m against that) and the implications of the legalization of drugs and it’s effects on society as a whole.

This film is set on the epic poem ‘Beowulf’ (more details, worth the read, here), part of which goes like this:

But a warrior of Hygelac’s
heard of Grendel’s doings;
he was the strongest of men
alive in that day,
mighty and noble.
That man called for a ship,
said he would cross the ocean
and help the king who needed help.
Wise men urged him
to that adventure
though he was dear to them.
They examined omens
and whetted him on.

So the good Geat chose
the bravest warriors,
fourteen of them,
and that crafty sailor
led them to the land’s brim,
to the ship.
They readied the ship
on the waves under the cliffs
and the warriors stood at the prow
as the water wound against the sand.
The warriors bore
into the ship’s bosom
bright weapons,
fitted armor.

It is a very (very) long poem, 12 “episodes” long, you can read it online from start to finish here. Apparently in the UK the poem has national epic status and most children go through their basic school levels having studied this poem.

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