The Lonesome Road

You know, I actually wanted to think of a witty title for this post, but I could not work up the required levels of annoyance and sarcasm to do so. To celebrate the teams return to form, I am reusing the title of an old post. Old colours deserve an old title.

Now, I know, I am hitting the team when it’s down. But it’s only because I care. We lost to the Windies, and that too 4-1. Why win that first match. Let them make it a white (brown?) wash. The problem with out team is that they give us hope. That most precious emotion is then cruelly destroyed when the team reverts to form and manages to lose spectacularly.

Take our record over the last few matches for instance. We’ve broken the shackles of being dependent on one man and play together as a unit. We even found people to pinch-hit, act as all rounders and bowlers who could actually bowl fast. We even managed to break the mind-set of choking when we chase a large total. People thought that we actually had a team could go and conquer the world cup.

Sadly, that dream seems to have evaporated. Yes, I am being premature as these were only the ODIs. I agree that the results of the test matches will tell us if our team has the guts and temperament required to bounce back from a series loss. I guess they should keep in mind that cricket is a fickle game - success today does not equate to success tomorrow. Also, our team should realize that when they play well, the teams facing them are going to plan better. Consider how the Windies got Dhoni out. Let me quote from Rediff :

Those two factors – shutting down the straight field, and getting the keeper up – combined to cause Dhoni’s downfall. Unable to hit straight or to change the length by going down the track, the keeper-batsman was forced to stay well inside his crease and try to muscle the ball square; an attempt to do so off a fuller length Hinds delivery that stayed a touch low and jagged a touch in off the seam ended in an inner edge onto the stump

Another factor is that our batsmen are not firing the way they used to. Dravid seems to be out of form, and most of the others are getting set and then getting out. We need a lot more work if we are going to take this team to the World Cup and have a decent chance of winning.

In any case, I will stop talking about cricket now. Yes, you may breate a sigh of relief.

In other (better) news, I have been experimenting with panorama shots. Am using a feature in my S2IS that allows me to take multiple photos that can later be merged to form a single, composite picture. You can see the photoblog for more on that.

That’s all from me for now. Later!

I’m a big believer that books do not translate well into movies. Of course, you are free to reject this notion as it’s based only on my opinion.

However, here is my reasoning: One of the major advantages in a book is that there is no time limit for the author. This allows him/her to develop characters, explain motivations and generally move the plot along. Film makers however, do not have this luxury. They have to tell the story in the span of two hours. Combine this with the fact that the average attention span of a viewer is 0.75 seconds (feel free to debunk this figure), the movie makers are forced to move things along pretty quickly.

Secondly, an author is free to take time to explain the thought process that a character follows. This gives the reader a little more insight into the players in the story. This is really hard to do in a movie. I mean, come on - won’t it be odd if an off-screen voice tells us what a character is thinking as (s)he stares into space?

Anyway, coming back to the DVC, I picked it up from the library as a friend recommended it. I read through it and thought it was a bad book. I won’t say it stinks, but it’s not exactly the masterpiece it was recommended as. I though Robert Langdon was a weakly developed character, the monk (who was into pain) was plain boring and the plot “twist” totally predictable. Now, the only things that were half-decent in the book were the puzzles. The initial ones were easy enough, but after a while, I was so out of the book that the puzzles no longer interested me.

Now, I usually give an author two books to prove themselves. You know, just in case the first book was a stinker. For example, my first Stephen King book was Thinner. It was crappy. Then I read The Dark Tower and I was hooked. Anyway, all that aside, I read Angels and Demons. If anything, this book was even worse than the DVC. Dull, uninspired and wordy are the words that come into mind when I recall my reading. Oh and Mr.Langdon falls of a plane (or helicopter - don’t really remember - was on autopilot) and lands safely without a parachute. Talk about divine intervention.

When I heard they were making a movie on the book, I was aghast. As I said, a bad book translates into a really bad movie. And it seems that the critics agree. Almost all of them have panned the movie. The best review that I have read is from The New Yorker - you can read it here.

For those who do not want to read the whole thing, here are some snippets:

A dead Frenchman is found laid out on the floor of the Louvre. His final act was to carve a number of bloody markings into his own flesh, indicating, to the expert eye, that he was preparing to roll in fresh herbs and sear himself in olive oil for three minutes on each side.

Our hero, needing somebody to trust, does the same dumb thing that every fleeing innocent has done since Robert Donat in “The Thirty-nine Steps.” He and Sophie visit a cheery old duffer in the countryside and spill every possible bean.

There is also Silas (Paul Bettany), a cowled albino monk whose hobbies include self-flagellation, multiple homicide, and irregular Latin verbs. He works for Opus Dei, the Catholic organization so intensely secretive that its American headquarters are tucked away in a seventeen-story building on Lexington Avenue.

As a rule, you should beware of any movie in which characters utter lines of dialogue whose proper place is on the advertising poster. (Just imagine Sigourney Weaver, halfway through “Alien,” turning to John Hurt and explaining, “In space, no one can hear you scream.”)

From now on, such penance will be simple—no lashings, no spiked cuff around the thigh. Just the price of a movie ticket, and two and a half hours of pain.

Anyway, you get the drift. I will stop here. Of course, this has not stopped the general public from flocking to the theatres and spending a whole load of money on the movie. Enough money to allow the studios to claim that the DVC is the “most popular movie - Worldwide”. I leave you, constant reader figure out how true their claims are.

In other news, Omen is being remade. I’m a big fan of good horror movies. I really liked the Omen as there is no blood and gore in the movie and there is a gradual escalation of terror throughout the movie. Awesome it was. Well, let us see what they do with the remake. I am scared..very scared

That’s all from me for now. Later all!

It’s been a while since I actually wrote something in a blog. It almost feels like wearing an old pair of jeans - you know that it fits, but it still feels a little awkward (see - I can’t even get my analogies correct!). So, please bear with me till I get my writing skills sharpened again.

As can be seen, I actually spent some time personalizing the look of the blog. Something must be wrong with me - I am actually working!

Anyway, jokes aside, a lot of work was done last night. Thanks to some very persistent inspiration from Anshul, the feed for this site was added to feedburner and the new feed was added to the header. Also, for those who follow the old blog, the older feed was updated to point to the new feed. Whew - all this work for 5 readers.

Another first for me was photo editing. The header photo is a snap of a path that runs through my college (I’ll put it up on the photoblog one of these days). It took some work with GIMP to get it to the size and transparency effect that I wanted.

What else..oh yeah. I am advertising my photoblog on my website. Hey - don’t mock me. If I don’t promote my photos, who will? Also, a little clean up was done in the sidebar and I added horizontal lines to differentiate between sections. As proof of my love for pain, I also added the feedburner chicklet to display the number of readers on my site (which as of now is at a huge 0).

As always, it’s up to you constant reader to provide feedback and let me know if you love/like/hate the look. One more thing, do let me know if I should put a picture of myself on the front page (we don’t want to scare of the new people, do we?).

In other news, all those who have been waiting for the new release of Colibri have to wait a little longer. It was supposed to be released earlier this month, but the site has been down for almost 2 weeks. I finally mailed Michael and it turns out that the leetspeak servers are down and Michael’s HDD has crashed. Until leetspeak comes back up, there will be no Colibri.

What else…another semester done. I can’t believe how fast this semester went by. Time flies when you are having fun, I suppose.

Well, that’s all from me for now. Until next time - bookmark the feed!

So, here we are - a new page and a new blog. I don’t know how many readers I have, but for those who do follow what I write, my thanks.

I will be moving the RSS feed on feedburner soon enough (proabably tonight) to point to this page. Also, now that I have a separate photoblog (http://sightings.loneroad.info), there will be (mostly) no more picture posts on this site.

Just hang on a little longer for the first major post here. Have a small poll though - what do you think of the site template. Do let me know.

Later all!

After a lot of thinking and reflecting, I have decided that this blog needs to move.

While I am not unhappy with the service that Blogger provides, I want the independence of having my own site and configuring it to my liking.

Of course, the moving process has just begun, and as usual, run into some technical snags. The posts will be moved soon, but until then, keep an eye on the new photoblog.

For the link happy people, here are the new sites:

http://ramblings.loneroad.info for the blog and

http://sightings.loneroad.info for the photoblog.

Until next time….

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

Smile, originally uploaded by shadowfall.

Camera: Canon PowerShot S2 IS
Exposure: 0.04 sec (1/25)
Aperture: f/3.5
Focal Length: 14.5 mm
Focal Length: 0, 0, 0, 68

Tulip Heart, originally uploaded by shadowfall.

Camera: Canon PowerShot S2 IS
Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/1000)
Aperture: f/4.5
Focal Length: 55.9 mm
Focal Length: 2, 5590, 230, 172

Fried!, originally uploaded by shadowfall.

Camera: Canon PowerShot S2 IS
Exposure: 0.017 sec (1/60)
Aperture: f/3.5
Focal Length: 19.7 mm
Focal Length: 2, 1970, 230, 172

Web, originally uploaded by shadowfall.

Camera: Canon PowerShot S2 IS
Exposure: 0.003 sec (1/320)
Aperture: f/4
Focal Length: 48.6 mm
Focal Length: 2, 4860, 230, 172

Green heart, originally uploaded by shadowfall.

Camera: Canon PowerShot S2 IS
Exposure: 0.01 sec (1/100)
Aperture: f/4
Focal Length: 26.8 mm
Focal Length: 2, 2680, 230, 172

Shoestring, originally uploaded by shadowfall.

Camera: Canon PowerShot S2 IS
Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/800)
Aperture: f/4
Focal Length: 57.8 mm
Focal Length: 2, 5780, 230, 172

Framed Clouds, originally uploaded by shadowfall.

I’ve been playing around with the focussing system on my camera (Canon S2 IS for those not in the know) over the past month.

I’ve also been very lazy in uploading the photos that I have taken. So, killing two birds with one stone, I am uploading another major bunch of photos. Of course, the thing that connects most of them (this picture not included) is that I have tried to see how much I can blur the background and present the subject in sharp relief.

Also, for a change, I have tried to think towards the composition of a shot.
Of course, still learning, so criticism is appreciated

Have focussed on a single group while the remaining groups stay blurred.

Here I was trying to focus on the intial plane, i.e get the complete first line in focus.

The last one - a bud that has opened a little more than the ones behind it.

All other photos (as usual) are on the photosite.

Enjoy