Sarkar (2005)

I had a talk with one of my friends about taking Step II (for me) and what to expect on an ADT/things to do before getting there (for him). Helped me docus on how to direct my studying... in the meanwhile, I still managed to make time to watch the new Hindi movie Sarkar... a Ram Gopal Verma film about (surprise) the Mumbai underworld. It's actually inspired by the Godfather, and, surprisingly, is actually an original movie unlike most "inspirations" done by Bollywood which tend to be word-for-word remakes. Though, as my sister pointed out, RGV's films are pretty original historically.

Anyway, the movie was excellent, featuring both Bacchans are father and son. I have to admit, it is kinda cool to have a father and son duo acting together in a movie as father and son. Especially when the father is the greatest movie star ever in Indian cinema history.

Sin City

So I saw the movie last night as it came out on DVD, and it was very different than I expected it to be. It felt like I was watching something out of Max Payne (the video game). VERY cool, very interesting. My sister and I were watching it late last night, staving off our drowsiness. Too bad I didn’t get to see it on the big screen–would have been something. Today’s obligatory movie will be Stealth. I heard it sucked ... but we will see. Movies with Jessica Biel do make me wary though... For example, what exactly was she doing in Blade Trinity??? It was very annoying to find a seventh heaven cast member in a vampire movie of all things.

Lola Renna (1998) Courtesy of amazon.com 

Hooked on Run Lola Run

I any of you have still not seen this movie (Lola Rennt), you SO need to see it. It's short (80 min) German film from 1998. The DVD version does come in English audio, and it's pretty decent, but trust me, you will like the German version a lot better. It was my favorite movie of '98 - mine and Dana's actually (we were both taking German at the time we first saw it). I am sure she'll appreciate it that I showed it last week to a friend of mine and his sister, and they seemed to love it. In fact, my friend was only going to watch for 10 minutes after my insistance, and he ending up watching all of it. And yeah, Dana, it was still great to watch it even now.

Best News Article EVER

How sad... but how sinfully satisfying....

Russia's Spam-King Brutally Murdered

Vardan Kushnir, notorious for sending spam to each and every Russian citizen with e-mail, was found dead in his Moscow apartment on Sunday. He died after suffering repeated blows to the head.

Kushnir, 35, headed the English learning centers the Center for American English, the New York English Centre and the Centre for Spoken English, all known to have aggressive Internet advertising policies in which millions of e-mails were sent every day.

In the past angry Internet users have targeted the American English centre by publishing the Center’s telephone numbers anywhere on the Web to provoke telephone calls. The Center’s telephone was advertised as a contact number for cheap sex services, or bargain real estate sales.

Another attack involved hundreds of people making phone calls to the American English Center and sending it numerous e-mails back, but Vardan Kushnir remained sure of his right to spam, saying it was what e-mails were for.

Under Russian law, spamming is not considered illegal, although lawmakers are working on legal projects that could protect Russian Internet users like they do in Europe and the U.S.

MosNews

Who Says you Need Eyes . . .

Close you Eyes and ... FIGHT! Who needs to see to do a Fatality!

Read this unbelievable article....

Brice Mellen is a whiz at video games such as "Mortal Kombat."

In that regard, the 17-year-old isn't much different from so many others his age.

Except for one thing: He's blind.

And as he easily dispatched foes who took him on recently at a Lincoln gaming center, the affable and smiling Mellen remained humble.

"I can't say that I'm a superpro," he said, working the controller like an extension of his body. "I can be beat."

Those bold enough to challenge him weren't so lucky. One by one, while playing "Soul Caliber 2," their video characters were decapitated, eviscerated and gutted without mercy by Mellen's on-screen alter ego.

"I'm getting bored," Mellen said in jest as he won game after game.

Blind since birth when his optic nerve didn't connect because of Leber's disease, Mellen honed his video game skills over the years through patient and not-so-patient playing, memorizing key joystick operations and moves in certain games, asking lots of questions and paying particular attention to audio cues. He worked his way up from games such as "Space Invaders" and "Asteroid," onto the modern combat games.

"I guess I don't know how I do it, really," Mellen said, as he continued playing while facing away from the screen. "It's beyond me."

Mellen knows this much: He started playing at home when he was about 7.

"He enjoyed trying to play, but he wasn't very good at first," said his father, Larry Mellen. "But he just kept on trying. ... He's broken a lot of controllers."

When the question of broken controllers comes up, Mellen flashes a smile and just shrugs.

"I used to have quite a temper," he said. "Me and controllers didn't get along very well."

Now they get along just fine.

While playing "Soul Caliber 2," Mellen worked his way through the introductory screens with ease, knowing exactly what to click to start the game he wanted.

He rarely asked for help. Once the game started he didn't need any help.

"How do I move?" an exasperated opponent, Ryan O'Banion, asked during a battle in which his character is frozen in place.

"You can't," Mellen answered before finishing him off.

"That's what happens. It's why I don't play him," O'Banion said after his blood-spattered character's corpse vanishes from the screen.

How Mellen became so good is a mystery to his father.

"He just sat there and he tried and tried until he got it right," Larry Mellen said. "He didn't ever complain to me or anyone about how hard it was."

Mellen hangs out any chance he gets at the DogTags Gaming Center in Lincoln, which opened last month. Every now and then someone will come in and think he can easily beat the blind kid.

That attitude doesn't faze Mellen.

"I'll challenge them, maybe. If I feel like a challenge," he said, displaying an infectious confidence. "I freak people out by playing facing backwards."

There's nothing he likes better than playing video games, Mellen said.

He will be a senior in high school next year. After graduation, he plans to take a year off because he wants a break from school.

When he does go to college, Mellen wants to study -- what else? -- video-game design.

Source: Buisness Week

Lazy Friday and More of Narnia

So today was my last day of procrastinating. I had to pick up my sister from Philly, but my dad ending up driving, so I just accompanied him. It gave me a chance to read more of the Narnia Chronicles.. I am almost done with the last book - I think about 50 pages to go. I'll finish that in the next hour and finally be done... I have to say, I remembered almost NOTHING from this series - it's like reading it for the very first time. I can easily see all of the novels being turned into movies. Since they're so short, you could probably make two or three movies encompassing all seven of them.

Since I was near my "basement", after we picked up my sister we went to my place. I had to pick up something I had accidentally left behind on Sunday, and I also managed to pick up a few study guides. Too many books to read, but it's nice to have them just in case. Maybe I whould get an early night's sleep to prepare for tomorrow... but somehow I doubt that will happen. I can always watcha movie instead - Sin City? A Hindi movie? My sister bought a few that she wants me to see. I, in turn, want her to watch The Family Guy movie (hilarious, as I mentioned, though I wonder if it will be R rated - I can't wait to watch it in theater!), and a DVD I made of her and my parents' trip to California last year. It came out pretty well, though I didn't do any editing and stuff. It's just too bothersome to any cleaning up and soundtracks and so on... Though since most of the video is from a car, it already comes with its own soundtrack :)

Family Guy Movie

So I saw the Family Guy Movie yesterday and it was hilarious–as expected. What I didn’t realize until a few minutes ago was that it won’t be released for another two months... that’s kinda weird.. though I am very glad I got to see it. That’s also where I got my blog name (Grind my gears)... you’ll see in due time :)

Here’s a couple of related links:
IMDB Entry
Leaked Movie

Playing Doctor: Responding to Tom Cruise's psychiatry rant.

I found this great article at slate.msn.com
I am posting it here:

Playing Doctor
Responding to Tom Cruise’s psychiatry rant.
Posted Thursday, July 28, 2005, at 3:35 AM PT


Get “Dear Prudence” delivered to your inbox each week; click here to sign up. Please send your questions for publication to prudence@slate.com. (Questions may be edited.)

Dear Prudie,
After hearing Tom Cruise’s ignorant and uninformed rant about psychiatry being a “pseudoscience,” I had to write. Unfortunately, too many people listen to the opinions of celebrities and take them as gospel. Tom Cruise’s irresponsible preaching could harm many people and increase the stigma our society already attaches to those with mental-health issues. I respect your support of the mental-health fields, so I hope this message can get to those folks who need help but are afraid to get it because of people like Mr. Cruise, who have easy access to the media. I am a licensed clinical psychologist currently providing care for our nation’s military. I could only stare in disbelief at Mr. Cruise’s announcement that psychiatric disorders “can be treated with exercise and vitamins.” Part of a soldier’s job is to exercise and be healthy, including taking vitamins as appropriate, and let me tell you, those things have never “cured” a psychiatric disorder yet. Tell a soldier with post-traumatic stress disorder that exercise and vitamins will “cure” him, and he’ll walk out of your office and continue suffering. Tell a suicidal young mother that exercise and vitamins will “cure” her, and you will leave her feeling just as hopeless as when she walked in. I don’t know what “research” Mr. Cruise is reading that tells him there is no such thing as a chemical imbalance, but I suspect it is more of L. Ron Hubbard’s. Talk to any reputable neurologist; it is not Mr. Cruise who can read the results of PET scans or functional MRIs. For those of you out there who are suffering from depression, anxiety, PTSD, or any other mental-health disorder, please don’t listen to the preaching of celebrities who claim to be experts in mental health. Seek help from a licensed mental health provider. Contact your HMO, NAMI (the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill), or talk to your family doctor for a referral. There are affordable mental-health options in every community.

—M.D., Ph.D

Dear M.,
Prudie seldom runs comment letters like yours, but it seemed worth doing in light of the massive publicity given to this particular actor’s pronouncements. We must hope that thoughtful people do not take their medical directives from celebrities who have ties to a religion or a cult, however one wishes to see it. And of course Prudie is a lay person, but jumping up and down on a couch—on television—did suggest that this young man was, at the very least, manic.

—Prudie, consequentially

(copyrighted to its respective owners/Dear Prudie/MSN)

And a picture of me in my uniform - served as a sort of interview picture, but I need to snap a better one to email the secretaries of all the people I interviewed with at Walter Reed. 

Convoys in downtown DC... that was an interesting sight to see.. You can see Jared on the left taking pictures of the procession as well. 

No, this picture is NOT altered 

First Blog Day

I'm not sure if I am even going to use this, but I guess I am going to have to make a first entry. I have about 19 days left to study for Step 2, and I haven't really started yet. Hopefully, tomorrow I should be able to start... A lack of a car makes my plans of driving to Piscataway to study at the school library very unrealistic. Thankfully, I do have some study material here... Let's see how it goes.

It was definitely fun being at Walter Reed for 4 weeks, and even though it was low stress, the hours were a lot longer than I expected. I guess I should have realized that I'd need a few days to just do nothing before I could start studying again. Though it is a little weird to be staying at home, and knowing I will be here for another five months instead of being in Cherry Hill. I am glad though, because I can worry less about food and other items when staying with family. With Henry staying at my place, I don't mind dropping by when needed to pick up things. I am still paying one-third of the rent there for the rest of the year, as it is.

It'll be sad to go back down to DC from now on since Jared's been moved to Kuwait. No matter who else I could stay with, Jared was always nice to have to visit and crash over when needed. Though thankfully Dana is still in the area and, in her own words, why do I need other friends to visit when I can have "quality instead of quantity." I guess she is right to a certain degree - as I have known her for seven years now (I can't believe its been that long already) and she's always happy to hang out with me. Plus, as Marc is now working, he is also a stable presence in that area, and I have to say I really enjoyed hanging out with him, and I am glad that He, Dana, and I got to spend my last day in DC together.

Oddly enough, it's more fun than I thought it would be to write my thoughts on here. However, I really doubt I will have meaningful things to say everyday. There's a reaosn I don't keep a jouranl.. though I do think I tried a few times... (I wonder what happened to those entries??) No wonder Scott's been having fun with his blog on xanga. But I guess he's actually doing something cool while secluded from the rest of us. It makes perfect sense to use a blog on a VERY long World Tour. I think he said he was in Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh City) last I talked to him... I wonder if he ever went to Cambodia.

Anyway, time for lunch (brunch).