Earth Hour 2009 - The Big Picture - Boston.com

Click on the link to see some mind blowing images of most famous buildings and monuments across the world -

Earth Hour 2009 - The Big Picture - Boston.com



Love the dimming effect in the photos. I'm so happy that LA was part of it and more importantly I was part of it. I think we should have Earth Hour more often rather than once every year. Great job World !!!

Earth hour 2009

Earth hour 2009
Originally uploaded by krishh17

Most of the nights we switch off lights in our homes and head out, or we stay at home do usual stuff with lights on. But yesterday nite, the Earth hour was very special as we switch off lights in our home and stayed at home. I wish there were many Earth Hours. Enjoy the pictures I took during this hour. Click on the pic to see more from my photostream.

The Financial Meltdown - how we're officially, royally fucked

The short and long of the financial meltdown...

The short visually explains what happened



And the long really explains how few people in AIG and wall street took us for a ride (and continue to do so):

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/26793903/the_big_takeover/print

Men are so Simple Minded

One of life's cruel ironies is that the more comfortable and secure a man makes a woman, the less likely the woman is interested in sex with him. Check out this funny, yet sad in a way comic. Women just don't understand how much men think about NOT pissing them off. Yet we still manage to, all the time, because 99% of the things a man does will probably piss off a woman.



....and so his smile disappears.

For more of similar web comics check out Abstruse Goose

Rahman appears on Apple website

Cooooool. Something which was long coming..Read this interesting interview on Apple website

http://www.apple.com/logicstudio/action/arrahman/?sr=hotnews

Watchmen - This world is afraid of them, they've seen its true face

First things first. I hadn't read the comic book before. I had no clue about Watchmen until I saw the trailer before The Dark Knight. I got even more interested in it because of Zack Snyder, who made a visually spectacular "300" earlier. Agreed that movie didn't have soul, but yet it gave a new direction for a war movie and man what mind blowing visuals !! Now coming to Watchmen, before watching the movie I was knowledgeable enough not to expect a Spidey or a Batty kinda superhero flick. Neither did I want a popcorn spoon-fed flick where I just have to be awe-inspired by spectacular effects and graphics. I wanted a complete suspense thriller woven with powerful thought-provoking dialogues interlaced with some breathtaking action sequences played out with a haunting background music. Watchmen turned out to be all of that and more. This movie unlike 300 had lot of soul. It was complex, made me think for the most part of it. Made my brain work much faster. It was storytelling in a whole new dimension. Right from the fantastic one of the best intro scenes ever, till the grand finale, Watchmen was one helluva ride.

Lets start with this. Who is a "Superhero" ? What does one expect from a Superhero or in other words, what does one want a Superhero to do ?? Till date most of the superhero movies had this ultra powerful superhero ( except for The Dark Knight ) who looked like the good guy and his nemesis, who clearly looked like the bad guy ( green goblin, doc oc, joker...) and a plot where the good guy protects the common people/the world from this bad guy. Now what would happen if the roles got reversed, and we have green goblin, joker, and other baddies be the good guys and superman, spiderman be the bad guys. Thats something the general public would never digest. And thats exactly where Watchmen stands out. Watchmen forces all of us to think about the terms good, bad, protect, innocent, crime. It questions your judgement of right and wrong, good and evil. On the whole this film is made at the borders of intellectualism and entertainment, and it's as violent a place as any border town.

Throughout the movie, there are all the various characters figuring out answers to these questions. Watchmen made people think, but didn't tell them what to think. Of course that's going to tick many moviegoers off. In other words, this isn't a kids' movie. Not because there's sex and violence, for which individual parents' mileages will vary. It's a grown-up movie because it helps to have read the comic first, and to be old enough to understand that a challenge to your assumptions is not a personal affront, but an invitation to think. Some people will never be old enough.

As the movie is set in the 80s the mood, the setting and the music have an old world charm which always is enticing. I was pleasantly surprised to hear Bob Dylan's The times they are a-changing and Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. Its funny now when I think about it that I went to the theater thinking Rorschach is the main villain, just because he DID look like a bad guy. I've gone ahead and bought Watchmen the comic from Costco, which sells for jus $ 11.99. Most of the bookstores and sites like amazon sell it. Its turning out to be an engrossing read. I'm able to relate to every scene of the movie and also many more things missed out of the movie. That was obvious coz it looks like there's a lot of story in the 12 chapters which made it a daunting task for Zack Snyder to put it within 2:45 hrs. Anyways I'm glad he did that, because he's done full justice to the story and the message which the story gives. The message which it gave in the 80s, which is still valid even in these times.

JUST DO YOURSELF A FAVOR..WATCH THE MOVIE AND READ THIS BOOK!!!

One of the best dialogues :

Rorschach in jail - ""You all think I am locked in here with YOU...but YOU are all locked in here with ME!"

One of the best visually stunning scenes :

Nite owl and Silk Spectre kiss on planet mars with Nuclear explosion in the background.

One of the best action sequences :

The intro fight sequence between The Comedian and The you know who.

One of the best musical scenes :

The burial of Comedian with Sound of Silence playing in the background and Hallelujah playing while Nite Owl and Silk Spectre have sex.

"The Sound of Silence" by Simon & Garfunkel -

Undersea volcano erupts near Tonga..where is this place ??

Random news checking brought me to this spectacular never before heard news about an Undersea Volcano eruption. I've neither seen such a thing in my life nor read about it. I know...I wasn't a great geography student. But its not too late to learn. The Scientists are wondering it may be related to a quate of magnitude 4.4 which could have caused this volcano to erupt. However luckily there's no danger to the few living over there.

Check out the unbelievably breathtaking pictures at this site -
>> Undersea Explosions near Tonga <<

Also check out the video taken by the daring few -


So where is this place Tonga ?? Its actually situated in South Pacific Ocean, close to more popular Fiji islands. There are a total of 171 islands, with only 45 inhabited and apparently the archipelago of Tonga is affectionately called the "Friendly Islands,". Not anymore I guess, as these underwater volcanoes are drop dead scary. You go boating and all of a sudden u know u are in the air covered in ash. But most astonishing fact about Tonga is that its the only South Pacific country never to have been colonized by a foreign power. So they are still ruled by Kings.

Back to the explosion, this amazing occurrence of nature reminded me today that we humans, however far we progress, are very tiny in front of the mother nature. All our technology can fall flat if she gets angry. And so give respect and don't abuse nature. Ok from when did I start giving advices. Actually the clouds of smoke, steam and ash in the pictures are really scary. And the eruption took place just about 6 miles from Tonga's main island, Tongatapu, an area where upto 36 undersea volcanoes are clustered. Bottomline, if all volcanoes get angry, Tongatapus are screwed !!!

Kaisi hai yeh rut ke jis mein phool banke dil khile

While driving back home in crazy traffic of LA where the max speed attainable was 20 mph, all I wanted was every single car to come to a complete stop, except for mine which wud still move at 20 mph, and that I wud enjoy my drive in slow motion. Weird right ?? well that didnt happen naturally, but that fleeting moment of serenity happened with the help of this song from Dil Chahta hai. I don't know how i remembered this song, but for me this was the song of the moment which transported me to that mysterious world of slow motion. All happening in my mind...on the freeway...

Dekho, nadi ke kinaare
Panchhi pukaare kisi panchhi ko
Dekho, yeh jo nadi hai
Milne chali hai saagar hi ko
Yeh pyaar ka hi saara hai caarvaan

Bye Bye Circuit City

I'm not really a fan of Circuit City, but still this has been one of the giants from the time i came to the States. I still remember the first black friday sale when we guys were standing outside CC at around 4 am and ran like mad dogs when the doors opened @ 6 am to pick up free CD packs :). Yes those days CDs weren't that cheap and iPod had just arrived. No I'm not old school, I'm talking about 2001, just starting my college.

Anyways couple of days ago me and my wife saw big "Going out of business, massive discounts" sign @ the CC near our house and so we decided to go check it out. And believe me, there was nothing we saw which we thought was cheaper than what we get online. May be paper towels, which also were on sale, but thats about it!!!! Now what kind of massive discounts were they talking about ??

So yeah, with the rise of e-business and stiffer competetion from Best Buy, its no surprise that this one had to go down. However at a worst time like this, the fall of a major giant like Circuit City is depressing. Also imagine the state of all its employees. damn !!!! Hope somebody gets everyone out of this huge mess soon.

They watch over us...but who watches them?

Didn't Sri Lankans believe Indian Intelligence ???

A sad day for Cricket. But then again why did Sri Lanka ever go to Pakistan to play when India canceled their tour for security reason. Did they not trust Indian Intelligence ? I don't want to dwell into these issues, but I somehow feel Sri Lankans learnt a lesson or two from this. On the other hand, Pakistan as a country is still fresh in news for the Mumbai blasts and this act of terrorism just adds more fuel to the fire.

What boggles my mind is that the after the attacks the terrorists could escape quite easily.

Now how could they escape from such public place ???
How did the terrorist ever know that the bus was coming from a different route ???
More than that how in the damn world was live video of the terrorist's shooting at the bus was captured ???
And how come after such a superb planning no"fucking"body was killed ???
Is it a fucking signal for something even bigger ??? Or is there political hand involved in this shit ??? Did Mumbai Attacks also have a political hand ????

Another sad feeling for me is that the whole media including the whole world is focussed on the injured Sri Lankan players while nobody is talking about the DEAD POLICEMEN !!!! and thats the reason I didn't even want to put the players' picture in my blog.

RIP to all the 6 brave policemen who came to protect the cricket players and in turn lost their lives.

What a disappointment after such a hopeful start to 2009.