Rohit Mordani’s Blog

I just came back from the movie (Taare Zameen Par) and this is one hindi movie I didn’t want to miss, and let me tell you that I am not BIG on hindi movies, so when I say that I don’t want to miss a hindi movie it translates to “You shouldn’t miss this hindi movie !”. I saw the movie from the corner seat of the 3rd row and didn’t complain one bit - now thats a shocker !

This movie is awesome ! A 5 star for me no doubt - a simple story with no BIG actors dancing and trying to be cool ! This movie doesn’t try to be cool or prove that we are hip in India too ! Instead it has emotion, spirit and character written all over it and for me that is much more cool than sexy actress just prancing around in a skimpy dress swinging to a sexy tune ! Aamir - good job directing this one mate ! As usual its the small things that I like. For example, at one point everyone has enough hints to figure out that Aamir’s character is also dyslexic but there is nothing said about it. At the end of the class, the way he breaks it to “Ishaan” (the dyslexic kid around who the story revolves) is something that stuck on to my mind ! Anyways- won’t give away more spoilers ! Go see the movie !

Some other things that struck me in this movie were the sketches and the animation - It was very well incorporated into the movie, not just for the heck of it !

Oh - and by the way, the soundtrack to Taare Zameen Par is awesome. I must confess I had not heard it before I saw the movie, but I did download the entire album right after I got back from the movie (and just before this post). I am listening to it right now and I like most of the songs. My favourite song is “Kholo Kholo” - I have already heard it some 5-8 times !

A few posts back I wrote how the Bollywood industry was going down the drain, but there are still people like Aamir who will keep up my hopes and expectations ! On my way back I realised there are a select few in Bollywood whose movies I like. Some of them include Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Ashutosh Gowarikar and a couple more.

Well - everyone, including my wife, thinks I spend wayyy tooo much time at my computer and they always wonder what the hell is it that I do ! Well over the years the technology has improved so much that now I can do pretty much anything using my computer. Be it watching TV, writing a blog, reading news, seeing a gallery of photos, planning a trip, checking mail or just listening to music. Here are the tools that I use - I bet there are more, but here is what I use.

Watching TV/Videos

• NFL : I use SOPCast to watch those games that aren’t aired in my area. As I write this blog entry, I am watching the Colts vs. Bucaneers game. Want to know where I find the appropriate channel addresses to watch the games? Here is a link to the page that has links to all the games - This is updated weekly.
• Bollywood Stuff :Want to watch Zee TV, Sony and other hindi movies? Check out muft.tv
• Joost : Ye, I do have a Joost account. A friend of mine invited me to it and I have been using it for a while. It is a great software tool and I really like it, though it does have a long way to go where content is concerned. The quality is really good. I think Joost is now open to anyone who wants to use it - they can download the software from the official site
• YouTube : YouTube of course is the tool that I use to search for all the videos that I might have missed over the week. It is awesome though not as awesome after Google bought it out - They had better content before that !! Nevertheless - they still do have some good stuff. For example they have an official page for clips from late night shows like Conan and Jay Leno.
• Online shows : ABC, Fox, CBS and all others now host their recent past shows on their websites. So if you missed the last Desperate housewives episode or Heroes or Lost episodes then check out the respective channels - though they are put up online a day later

Photography Tools

• Adobe Photoshop CS2 : A Graphic Designers best friend ! This is by far the best softwareI have ever used ! Read my blog entry about Adobe Photoshop here
• Panoramas : I take a lot of photographs and I use the best stitching tool that I have come across so far - Autostitch. I love this tool and the guys over at University of British Columbia have done an awesome job ! There is no other tool that I consider better than Autostitch
• HDR Composition : Recently I started taking a lot of HDR photos and to compose them I use Photomatix. There are a lot of other tools there including Adobe Photoshop, however I think Photomatix does a good job - it has some presets for noobs.
• Online Hosting : My brother hosts a web server at his house and we run Gallery. We have been using Gallery from a very early version and we have a lot of photos now ! I also use Flickr and Picasaweb.

Downloader/Conversion Tools

• SUPER : SUPER is an awesome tool that I found a little while ago. You can convert a lot of media from one format to another. The biggest plus - its FREE - woo hoo ! I love these guys who make awesome software and distribute it free of charge !
• flvconvert : flvconvert is another great tool based on an open source tool called ffmpeg that allows you to convert flash videos (flv videos used by nearly ALL online video sites like YouTube etc.) to mpeg or avi files. You can then transfer these to your iPod or any other PMP.
• Audacity + lame encoder : Audacity is another free tool that I use. I love ringtones and Audacity is what I use to create my own ringtones from the mp3 files that I own.  lame is the encoder that is used to export the snipped songs as mp3s. You can then transfer these to your phone. Someday soon I shall write an entry about how to create ringtones.
• AVI MPEG RM WMV Joiner/Splitter : Join or split the video files. Sad to say its a paid utility.
• SDP Downloader: Some time ago, I wanted to download some wma and wmv files and I couldn’t. I grabbed this tool and voila !
  
• Firefox +DownloadHelper add-on : Download all those flv videos from any site using the DownloadHelper add-on with Firefox 2.0

There are ton of other tools that I use. I shall update this blog entry whenever I find out about them and use them !

Is that a question to ponder over at all? No, Not for me - With all the advance in the way movies are made, I would still stick with the original 70mm Sholay !! Even if Spielberg made Sholay - I would stick with the original. Why? Because nothing beats the cast of the 1975 original ! The cast and the performance was unforgettable.

Dialogues like “Aese Kaise” (Soorma Bhopali’s) to Thakur’s “Mujhe Gabbar Chahiye - zinda ya murda” to Gabbar Singh’s “Ab tera kya hoga kaalia” to Jai’s “Tumhara naam kya hai Basanti” to Veeru’s “Chaki peesing and peesing and peesing” . How can a remake of this movie even come close to having dialogues like this?

Or for that matter come close to the songs, location, the epic cast and the roller coaster of emotions that the movie takes you through ?

What was Ram Gopal Varma thinking when he decided to remake this movie and name it “Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag“? WTF is up with the name?? And with people like Ajay Devgan playing the role of “Veeru” and some random newcomer playing “Jai” . I will give RGV the benefit of the doubt and watch the movie, unless I hear atrocious reports about the movie, just so that I can be proved right about how wrong he was in deciding to re-do or out-do an epic !

The one thing that I MAY be excited about in the new movie is that Rapal Yadav is going to be playing the role of “Soorma Bhopali”. This guy can be quite hilarious !! I MIGHT be fractionally interested in watching Amitabh as “Gabbar Singh” - oops I mean “Babban Singh”

Boy, was I excited today when I saw that “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” was back on air ! This is a drama/comedy (termed as ‘Dramedy’) that airs on NBC. This show is excellent ! Everything has a cause and every dialogue said is needed and not just something thrown in. It has fun, comedy, drama, excitement (sometimes) and a nice cast and yet it doesn’t do well and the ratings fall and the show is nearly cancelled ! Hmm…why am I not surprised ! Why does America always want the slapstick comedy shows or the reality shows - which are barely “real”. Why does everything have to be “in your face”. For once can they appreciate something really good?

Anyways, this is just another one of my ramblings ! I can go on and on but lets focus on the show. The show features Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford as 2 directors re-hired in Studio 60 when the current director is fired. Everything revolves around the show and that is what makes this show so intricate. The entire cast have their own lives, which are intertwined every now and then, but the glue is always the “show” itself. I really like this show no matter what the general public thinks of it - I give credit to Aaron S0rkin for creating this show - It takes a lot to create something intelligent, funny and dramatic - not many people will appreciate that but when you see what I see then you too will appreciate it !

All in all - a series worth watching - I hope all of you’ll who read this will take some time to see this show and appreciate it. Give all of those reality series and other shows a break and watch this - It is worth it…

Oh did I mention all the “Stars” that have performed on this show? Take a look…

• Sting - and he sang my favourite song - “Fields of Gold”
• Macy Gray
• Corinne Bailey Rae

Watch online episodes here

UPDATE: Watching the episode tonight, I realised why I love this show so much - every person in the show has a character. From Matthew Perry’s secretary to a doctor performing some routine tests on Amanda Peet. Each one of them have character and it takes only a single dialogue by the actor playing the role to give the exact description of that character and that in my mind is simply Brilliant ! You don’t need a full episode, not even a full scene - just a simple dialogue to make it clear to the viewer what kind of character the actor is playing - What a Beauty !

Yes, I am talking about the 1968 flick directed by Brian G. Hutton. Where Eagles Dare is a wartime story of a covert operation by the Allies into a strategic Nazi castle. There is more to the story than just that but I will not ruin it for those who are interested in seeing this epic movie.

So why did I think about writing this post - well 2 reasons - the DVD for the movie came out just a while ago and I got it on Netflix today !

I grew up seeing some of these classics - I give credit to my dad for making me see some of these greats ! He and I watched some great movies together such as “Guns of Navarone“, “Force 10 from Navarone“, “Mackenna’s Gold“, “Lawrence of Arabia“, “Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines“, and “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea“. I have had a great childhood and I am grateful for that. I did more than most of the kids have done (even in comparison with todays kids) and at the same time I learned a lot from what I did and what I saw. Movies, poems, music and everything else taught me a lot and has given me values that I cherish and hope to pass on to my kids - I hope they also see the value in things as I do. I love literary works, poems and even some movies ! All these have attributed towards my growth as a person.

Back to the movie. I still remember seeing this movie when I was in the second standard - that would make me about 7 years old at the time that I watched this movie - so approximately around 1985 !! Wow - that is a long time ago and I still remember the first time I saw “Where Eagles Dare”. My dad had rented the VHS tape (which he eventually owned) and we watched it in my neighbour (Paul, Suzie, Danny and Hep) place. It was amazing - sitting by the fireside and watching Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood kick some German ass !

I loved the music score of the movie and the impact the starting tune has had on me is something that I will never forget. It gives each scene so much dept. Some of the scenes are so intense - and it is all because of the great music. Even today when I see this movie and hear the score - it gives me the same old tingling feeling. Kudos to Ron Goodwin for the great music direction.

To explain how much this movie meant to us. Here is something we did - As a kid we would always play with each other and imitate Richard Burton over the walkie talkie (in his British accent) shouting -

“Broadsword calling Danny Boy. Over”

This movie had everything a great war movie should have - plot, character, location, action and a lot of explosives ! Simply genius - it is worth the watch and I recommend this movie (and the others listed above) to everyone ! Its is definitely a 10/10 for me. It is amazing how you grow up and some things are just ingrained in your mind. This is just one of the things the will remain with me forever.

Check out this fan site for Where Eagles Dare

Trivia: The title is taken from Act I, Scene III in William Shakespeare’s Richard III: “The world is grown so bad, that wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch”.

Oh my God !! What is the deal with Indian Idol this year???!! Everything sucks in this show from what I have seen. The contestants suck, the judges might be good in their respective fields but they suck at judging !! All of them say good things after the performances and the next day (judgment day) they criticize the people ! the contestants look like kids - its more of a talent show rather than a serious singing competition !

What is up with Sony as well? They are airing 2 hour shows EVERY DAY for a whole week and voting out 3 contestants at a time - guess they just want to get done with the show as well - Boy, talk about budget cuts !! Bottom line - this show sucks and should be killed ! What a waste of time ! Simon Fuller - please take back the rights to this show from all of these fools !

I have been using Adobe Photoshop since ver 3.0 (1995) and I can proudly (and mostly non arguably) claim that I am very proficient at it ! I am not saying that I am the best or that I have mastered it all, but I am good. I have loved this software since ver. 3.0 and have hardly had any complaints with it - Some suggestions surely, but no complaints whatsoever !

Photoshop is the premier image manipulation software for graphic designers, photographers and many more professionals in the business. Some people do complain about the lack of vector support and text support, but those features are present in the current version of Photoshop - not too advanced though !

How I got into Photoshop, I myself do not remember. The earliest memory of me using Photoshop was when I was designing a poster for the IEEE society at my Engineering college - Thadomal (undergrad) called 360 Degrees. I think I had used ver. 3.0 for this. This is when I realised the power of Layers in Photoshop ! I became pretty good soon and started teaching the basics of Photoshop by example - This is the way I learned it and this is the way I was going to teach it !

I must say, I was pretty famous in my college and no one came near when it came to designing - I may sound arrogant right now, but I am not. Everyone has their talents and I had just found mine ! I learned Photoshop by following tutorials on the web. There are tons of tutorials out there - probably the most number of tutorials that I have seen on the web are the ones for Photoshop. I also did a website where I put up some of my own tutorials. This is quite an old site, but the tutorials are still good if you are a beginner ! Check it out if you are starting off as a beginner. Here is some of my Photoshop works…

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If you have ever been to Pier 39 in San Francisco then you must have definitely seen the entertainers on the street ! One of the “entertainment sections” of Pier 39 are guys who put on some loud obnoxious music and sit in front of a crowd and display their talent - the amazing spray paintings that they create from a scratch !

These guys are amazing - to see them paint in front of a large crowd without a reference picture is quite something ! Everything is right out of their heads - at times you don’t even recognise what they are doing until the piece is all done. Its pure TALENT ! Their only tools are the Spray Paints, a circular cover (for the planets), a small blade, and magazine pages (to give the texture on the planets). Amazingly, the theme is always a “Space Scape” and some famous landmark of the city - The Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz or even the Transamerica Pyramid. I have also seen this kind of spray painting in other cities - New York, Las Vegas etc.

Check out these videos if you haven’t seen these people doing their thing . The next time you are in one of these cities do not miss out on this - You can even purchase one of their paintings for a mere $20.

I just figured out that there is a website dedicated to this kind of art. Check it out : spacepaintings.com . It also has some tips and instructions for beginners - in case you get inspired and try to do this on your own - I am planning to do this sometime
UPDATE: I actually went out and got the paraphernalia to spray paint and tried it out. The result - Well, I am not (yet) as good as the ones in these videos but am just starting off - I will learn more and more and become good at it ! I encourage you to go out there and try it out as well - Its fun - try to mimic these guys in the video and you will learn !

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Once in a while there comes along a song that will move you. You can feel the hair on the back of your neck and on your arms stand up when you listen to such songs ! If you don’t feel that with some songs then you need to ask yourself - “What moves me?”. I love musicians/artists that actually perform for a cause - No wonder why Bono is one of my favourite artists !

On American Idol this week there was a special episode called “Idol Gives Back” and all the contestants sang songs that inspire ! This show was good and I appreciate all the work they are doing. If you want to help check out this website called ONE.

Here are some songs that move me:

• If Everyone Cared : Nickelback
• One : U2
• Imagine : John Lennon
• Change the World : Eric Clapton
• Winds of Change : Scorpians
• We are the World : USA for Africa
• That’s what Friends are for : Dionne Warwick
• Heal the World : Michael Jackson
• You Raise me up : Josh Groban
• Lean on me : Don McClean/ Bill Withers

These artists have a talent and they use that towards a higher and better cause - not just to earn money for themselves ! I hope there are more artists that do this. We all have talents and we should all use it towards that higher cause !
My last word : Each of us can make a difference. You can contribute in countless number of ways. The least you can do is save up your change and give that to charity. You can give away your old clothes, computer or even your old car. There are tons of charity organisations that do a lot - Help them out in your own way. We are blessed to be in a better position - lets help out those who aren’t as blessed as we are !

Some of the Non-Profit/ Non-Government Organisations (NGO) you might want to look into:

• International Association of Human Values (IAHV)
• 5H project

There are tons more - I don’t care which one you choose - Just choose one and help them out !

Over the years I have come across some really catchy lines that Companies use to sell/market their products and I was amazed how few words can be so precise in describing the product and/or service that are being sold ! I bet there are companies hired by the sellers to come up with these innovative lines - and I bet they are paid heavily to come up with these concise lines !

From movies to products to services - there are taglines for everything - I guess that stems from our nature of getting bored of things really quickly and the fact that the first impression is always the last impression. If there is anything that requires a second thought - then we think lesser of it ! Some taglines are also random and probably do not make any sense, but they still capture our attention ! Our attention span keeps getting shorter and shorter and so do the taglines !

I was once playing a game with a friend of mine where each one said the tag line of a product/service and the other had to say what product/service it was for ! I also played this game with my wife on our way back from a trip to Lake Tahoe - she was amazed at how many of them she remembered. See if you can identify these tag lines with their products…

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