Asides

You must be aware of the Mashable trend, they run headlines like 10 things you must know about the iPhone 5. The style has caught on with the rest of the web too. There are websites which run stories titled 100 things you must do before you die. 20 great shows to watch. 50 must read books. Then there is 50 things women like to see in men. 10 places to visit before you die, stuff like that. People make Facebook a horrible experience with sharing all these links. In real life too! I met people who swear by these things, shows how shallow they actually are. The other day someone shared a post – 10 reasons why you should travel alone. I hope one of them was “you can fart in peace.” This guardian article is worth a read – http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/05/100-top-things-dont-need

Eye candy cinematography as usual. How they edit the video is really amazing. The stunning camera work, the way the scenes quickly change from one focus to another or how Sherlock’s thought waves appear on screen, it is always a visual delight. The first episode The Empty Hearse was mostly catching up with Sherlock after two years rather than solving new mysteries. There are several versions of the jump which try to explain the ‘death. But I found it very dragging. Where is the razor-sharp Sherlock gone? His theatrics in the train carriage was intolerable.

Update: After watching the second episode The Sign of Three, I can only say the franchise is hitting new lows. This is not Sherlock!

Update: Episode 3 His Last Vow started rather well. Sherlock’s mind palace was better portrayed this time. Too much footage of his parents was a no-brainer. Come on, this is not a family show. By the end, I felt I was watching a Bond movie. And did anybody miss the enormous plot loophole? Could Moffat not come up with a story logical enough in two years! Now that season 4 is very much likely, I want the arrogant, disdainful Sherlock back.

“Don’t voluntarily deny yourself the restorative power of sleep. A good nap is the order of the day – and for the nights, sleep as long as possible. Remember that sleep is our natural state, in which we were first created, and we only wake to feed our dreams.” – Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine

As a Bond fan, I could not miss it. And it was a very good watch. The first half was a tad slow, but the second half was rivetting. I liked how the movie ended. Looks like old school Bond flavor is back 😀 Call me an old timer, but I can’t help comparing new Bond movies with the older ones, those of Sean Connery and Roger Moore era! For example, the villain’s maxillary prosthesis was truly in bond style. Very reminiscent of some old school bond villains who had disfigured faces and had to go for plastic surgery 😛 The humor element was missing though; we hardly laughed. May be because Bond has suddenly grown old, as pointed out by a friend who also thinks that the movie was part Bond and part Home Alone. Haha! You will get the pun when you watch the movie. And oh yes, there’s surprise in who is the Bond girl (though in a platonic way) in this movie!

I went out and watched HP7.1 today. For a non-reader like me it was pure cinematic exhilaration mostly and of course, an immensely beautiful Emma Watson. I did get confused by the flashbacks Harry kept seeing. Overall very good entertainment and the perfect movie for post exam prophylaxis (the 9th semester exams just ended in my college). My rating: 7/10. Read a very different sort of take on the movie here: Scepticemia: The musings of an Oslerphile

Guess what I got mentioned in a Bangladeshi newspaper! For my association with OmicronLab. I was really surprised to see my name there. The newspaper in question is a relative newcomer there I am told. But still I’m amused to see my name in print.

Here’s the article: ?????? ?????? ???????. They spelt my name wrong!

Recently I watched the Pirates Of The Caribbean series. Finally, that is! And am completely blown away. Thanks to the 5.1 speaker system I have just installed in my hostel room, the movie experience was all the more fun. I was trasferred to the world of undead pirates such as Captain Barbossa, in an age when Englishmen like Lord Beckett spoke with Shakespearean gusto! I am infatuated to Keira Knightley and I imitated Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) for 3 days in a row till my friends got tired of me! What to say about the extraordinary Johnny Depp! Read the post ‘Depp Buzz‘ by Anurima, one of his biggest fans, where she can’t stop raving about Johnny Depp.

The April sun is quite unbearable. It’s scorching outside. After evening, things will cool down quite though. Here in Siliguri, a cool breeze starts blowing in the evening. Like other days, I will probably go out on a walk with friends tonight as well. The halogen lights on the streets look magical at that time, with the cool breeze to soak our nerves into delirium. However, things in Kolkata are not quite as magical. Guess what, I will have to go down to Cal in the middle of this heat as something came up. However, Kolkata wasn’t so hot always. My dad says – Back in the 80s, Calcutta cooled down in the evenings when the wind blowing from the Hoogli was quite evident. But then, there were not so many high rises yet and not so much pollution.

So how to beat this summer? Well, no better way than to get involved in a green project. Students can get involved in the Green Summers project, arranged by Green 1.0 in collaboration with CommonFloor.com.