My life so far!

2:30AM - Never gets old!

When I look into your eyes
I can see a love restrained
But darlin' when I hold you
Don't you know I feel the same
'Cause nothin' lasts forever
And we both know hearts can change
And it's hard to hold a candle
In the cold November rain
We've been through this such a long long time
Just tryin' to kill the pain
But lovers always come and lovers always go
An no one's really sure who's lettin' go today
Walking away
If we could take the time to lay it on the line
I could rest my head
Just knowin' that you were mine
All mine
So if you want to love me
then darlin' don't refrain
Or I'll just end up walkin'
In the cold November rain

5:44PM - Value of money?

What would you do if you were given 500 Rupees?

My honest answer would be, buy lunch and dinner (10$). But I would suggest the guy to give the money someone who needs it more. Afterall we are all born with two hands, two legs and a powerful brain. We can make our own money!

Update: I did not mean counterfeiting when I said we can make our own money. I meant "EARN"!

1:03PM - Inside of you....

Old as Ancient Skies
I'v had these wondering eyes
And you took me by suprise when you let me insdide of you

Inside of you
Inside of you
There's got to be
Some part of me
Inside of you

Inside of you, I could cross this desert plane
Inside of you, I can hear you scream my name
Inside of you, while the stars unfold
I've crossed me heart and I've crossed the world
And I need you here and I need to be
Inside of you

12:42AM - Who's got the money?

I wanted to write about the most expensive Indian movies ever made. For a minute, lets set aside inflation and lets look at the raw cost of the movie. Lets do the hindi movies first. I have not updated myself on this. But so far, this is what I know,

1. Jodha Akbar starring Hrithik Roshan at a cost of 60 Crores
2. Love Story 2050 at a cost of 50 crores
3. Devdas starring SRK at a cost of 50 crores (probably the most expensive if you consider inflation at a rate of 5%)
4. Krishh starring Hrithik Roshan at a cost of 50 crores
5. Singh in Kingg starring Akshay Kumar - RS 50 Crores

I find this pretty funny. Bollywood has the highest number of viewers in the world. They still make pretty cheap films. I wonder whats stopping them from taking that extra step in spending more money in taking worthy risks. Jodha Akbar was a welcome entry in my opinion. I really enjoyed it, and I felt it was money well spent. Even though it was banned in many states in India, I am happy that they ended up making profit off the movie. Also, is 50 crores a physical limit for bollywood movies?

As you all know, I am a big fan of tamil cinema, and my opinion is probably biased. But, the evidence in pretty clear. The risk takers and the ones that cash the cow are in the south. Here is the top 5 list of most expensive tamil movies.

1. Endhiran starring Rajinikanth at a cost of 120 crores
2. Marmayogi starring Kamal Hassan at a cost of 100 crores
3. Sivaji starring Rajinikanth at a cost of 80 crores
4. Dasavatharam starring Kamal Hassan at a cost of 60 crores
5. Villu starring Vijay at a cost of about 55 crores

Here's the list of the highest paid actors in India,
1. Rajnikanth charges about 30 crores and a percent of the profit, usually totals to about 50 crores
2. Akshay Kumar charges about 20 crores per movie. No idea why he is even on this list. He doesn't really command the stardom like others on this list
3. Hrithik Roshan charges about 15 crores per movie
4. SRK charges about 12 crores a movie. This ofcourse is insignificant as SRK gets most of his money from endorsements. I am pretty sure his annual salary is way higher than everyone on this list (perhaps except superstar). SRK was in the top 20 list for highest tax payers this year.
5. Aishwarya Rai got a paycheck of 10 crores for her role in Endiran. It seems fair to add Aamir khan too. He gets close to 10 crores per movie. But Aamir khan is a bit above the money thing.


Also, Check this out. This is currently the most expensive hindi song ever shot.


Want to know its inspiration? This was the third most expensive song shot at the time of its release, after two other songs from the same movie.

8:35PM - Forgetting....

I watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall this evening.

Girl: "Pete, you know I love you, but I feel we are growing apart and we are not meant for each other"
Boy: "Hold on, you are breaking up with me, arent you? is there someone else?"
Girls nods.
Boy: "is there someone else?"
Girl: "No, its just me."
Boy: "I think because you have been so busy lately, you have just forgotten what it means to be with me. Come here, let me hug you and make you remember some of the good times"
Boy hugs girl.
Girl: "Pete, there is somebody else"

How on earth can girls lie so blatantly??? Its because of girls like this that Cigarettes, marijuana, Alcohol, night clubs, strip clubs, and "ladies of the night" will never go out of business!

I spoke to cousin this morning, and she was telling how bad the situation with marriage has become in India. Sky high premarital pregnancies, and divorce rates, I can seriously considering speaking to dad and mom about marrying someone from America. Many girls I met here are simply so awesome, and understand what it is to commit. Also, a couple of really nice girls asked me if I was gonna get the arranged marriage stuff. I was... but now, I think I really need to think this through.

Update: The movie could not have had a better ending!!! Love is such a beautiful thing... when its with the right person.

2:08PM - Biggest Cities in India by Area

I did some research and I could not find the biggest cities in India sorted by area anywhere. So I compiled my own list, taking area values from Wikipedia. Here's the top 6 list,

1. Hyderabad, Area = 6857 km2
2. Kolkakta, Area = 1888 km2
3. Delhi, Area = 1484 km2
4. Bangalore, Area = 741 km2
5. Mumbai, Area = 603 km2
6. Chennai, Area = 181 km2

Ofcourse, this is only the official city limit areas, and don't not include the metro area. I was really surprised to Hyderabad at the top, and Mumbai/Chennai at the bottom...

9:36PM - WE WIN!!!! WE WIN!!!!

WE WIN!!!! WE WIN!!!! WE WIN!!!! CHANGE TO THE FREE WORLD IS ON ITS WAY....

Here are some polls that I thought were interesting.

All Obama: 82.10% McCain: 17.90%

By Gender
Male Voters Obama: 82.23% McCain: 17.77%
Female Voters Obama: 81.64% McCain: 18.36%

By Country
Australia Obama: 85.71% McCain: 14.29%
Brazil Obama: 80.60% McCain: 19.40%
Canada Obama: 87.50% McCain: 12.50%
Estonia Obama: 85.71% McCain: 14.29%
France Obama: 90.00% McCain: 10.00%
United Kingdom Obama: 84.85% McCain: 15.15%
India Obama: 82.31% McCain: 17.69%
Italy Obama: 90.91% McCain: 9.09%
Japan Obama: 100.00% McCain: 0.00%
Pakistan Obama: 42.86% McCain: 57.14%
Singapore Obama: 75.00% McCain: 25.00%
United States Obama: 83.33% McCain: 16.67%


This is ofcourse, from most people who have access to internet and are pretty outgoing. So they will definitely support Obama. Check out Pakistan, They are all supporting McCain as Obama promised to comb through the country in its effort to capture Bin Laden.

11:49AM - Where is the party tonight? Updated.

I am campaigning for Obama this evening at Westlake, CA. Just the routine, make calls to people in Ohio, Missouri, Florida and other battleground states and try to convince them to think rationally instead of voting for someone who has a hotter VP. I also get chances to try and raise funds. I think this is an awesome experience to have.
It is also a lot of fun when you work hard to help realize the values that you stand for: Free education to poor kids, food and clothes for those who cant afford it. I am planning on starting a fund, that will pay out money to one highly motivated graduate student in India, to pay for his/her tuition, books, accessories and so on. Hopefully that person will grow up to help someone else in similar ways too.

Update: The campaign was great. Made a few calls to Ohio. Most of the people were pretty mad because it was already kinda late for them and they dint feel like talking to me. Things got really weird when I saw my ex-girlfriends name and number on the list, along with many of her friends. I would have received some nasty talk had I called one of them. It was a fun event, We have an election night dinner tomorrow. Hope Obama wins :)

12:25PM - Movies!

I had not gone out to the movies for quite a while, So I called Amy a couple of days to ask her out for a movie. Sadly, I gave her the option of choosing the movie. I wanted to watch "W", which is a movie about George Walter Bush. I love political comedy, and I am sure I would have enjoyed the movie. Instead, Amy wanted to watch a romantic comedy, and I succumbed to her demand. The stupid !#!@$!#%#@$ chose to watch High School Musical 3. Take a bollywood movie and multiply it by a 100 times, and High School Musical is what you get. The movie has close to 10 songs or so, carelessly placed. I have a high limit of tolerance when it comes to movies. I can sit and watch any movie and still come out giving positive reviews. I go with no expectations. But high school musical was the limit. Amy and I were simply shouting at each other after the movie and blaming each other for choosing the movie in the first place.


Movies - Just one more thing that I added to the list of stuff that I swear not to do with amy again.

12:22PM - Heyy Baby!

Last weekend was the first time I felt that my life was going in the right direction. The events that happened over the last couple of days have brought in new meaning to my life.

K.raj and me went to the topanga westfield mall to do some shopping. I bought a couple of pants and a shirt and as we walked back to my car, a couple of SUPER HOT white girls in a car, stopped on the road, honked like crazy and shouted at me "HEY SEXY"!!! Finally~!!!!!! Danm I waited 24 years for this... it was like a dream come true! :P and we were only getting started.

Kanakaraj said he wanted to go to a club that night. Things have been going so well for my social life, that a couple of calls later I was on the guest list for Hollywood's top rated club. This is the club that Rihanna DJ's frequently, and has had every rap artist come over for live performances. That night went so well for me. For the first time, I dint want to dance just to "arachufy" chicks, I danced to have fun. The difference was awesome. I danced with so many women that night... and they were HOTTTTT!!! There was this chick from Bulgaria named Irida or something. Boy, A bomb in a small package! I could hardly understand what she was talking, but after about spending 30 minutes trying to talk with her, I figured out she wanted a drink. Damn, I danced with girls from every nation that night. Chinese, African, American, japanese, Indian... hell I even danced with a 50 year old grand mom for a couple of minutes, before her 20 yr old grand daughter took her place.

So to sum up, A couple of girls called me SEXY!!!! actually screamed it!!! That was clearly the highlight of the weekend! :D I think its all the key changes I have undergone in the last 2 months, the early morning showers and the expensive Gucci fragrances have finally paid off, damn not to mention those expensive treatments to kill p.acnes...

If things go this way, baby, I am gonna correct some serious girls!

1:55PM - Say "NO" to Prop 8

Proposition 8 is a to-be-signed law in California asking for a complete ban on same sex marriages. Gay marriages have been approved in the state of California since 2005. There has always been resistance from the conservatives in the state to ban this, and they have requested the state not to recognize same sex weddings.

Let us for a minute think about who gay people really are. They are our friends, our neighbors, our colleagues. They also care for their loved ones just the way we care about our loved ones. They have also been among our soldiers who fought and died for our nations. They too enjoy tight family bonds, and share the same love we have. When every company in the US encourage Gay and Lesbian people, why do we to act on a ban for going that road? (Basically says "You can love someone of your own sex, but you cant marry them"). Sexual orientation of a person is a very personal thing. Telling someone that they cannot follow their hearts is very demanding. We do NOT have the right on deciding who a person can or cannot marry. Everyone in the world are born with equal rights, irrespective of race, sexual orientations, or any other factor.

Banning the right of a person to marry another that they truly love is outrageous. What gives us the right to tell others how to live their life? People should be able to do what they want... I think it is more of a civil rights issue than a political issue.

P.S. News just in, Barack Obama is against Prop 8, and Apple Inc. announced that they would donate $100,000 to the "No to Prop 8" campaign.

12:00AM - Imagine what it feels like to be in someone else's shoes...

1:57PM - Random Thought

I think people love the idea of being in love rather that being in love itself.

Once you fall in love, its not as great as it sounds. I guess that's why many guys keep breaking a relationship so often. They Break up with a girl so often because they don't really like the person they are in love with, once they break up, they miss being in love rather than missing the person... making the mistake of falling in love again!

There!!! Better put than Einstein's Theory!!! Unfortunately, while it is fun for the person who breaks up and keeps patching up, no one realizes that breaks the heart of the person that these games are played on... Pretty sad.

I am sure there are millions of people out there just falling in love because of the hype around the word...

12:03AM - This is hilarious!!!!

10:18AM

....Shopping with Amy again this evening... wonder whats in store....

10:11AM

The below review was one that was published in Behindwoods. It was written by some lady who is a fan of tamil cinema ofcourse. I thought it would be funny to poke some fun at it.

"I recently saw the movie 'Saroja' with my family. I got attracted when I saw the trailer in Behindwoods. I made it a point to catch up with the 2nd day of the show even though I was going through a hectic schedule with my university classes.
>>> oooo did you bunk any of your classes?

I have just one word to describe the movie, STUPENDOUS! The movie was both thrilling and hilarious. The plot of the Saroja story was excellent. I never expected the 4 guys and Saroja to collide into each other. I thought it was going to be totally two separate stories.
>>> Not really, I was under the impression that Venkat Prabhu was showing us two stories for the price of one ticket.

Thanks to Premji, I had a good laugh; I actually laughed my heads off while watching his performance.
>>> Laughed your heads off? how many do you have?


Sincerely,
Nishalini Nair
hrisha_roshanair@yahoo.com"

12:13AM

This is awesome. Atleast we have the choice of voting for someone who takes responsibility :)

9:23PM - Shopping with Women

Do you know how tough it is to go shopping with women?

I called Amy this afternoon to accompany me as I needed buy some pants for work. (I have been lifting weights like crazy for the last few months and I have gained weight like crazy, and all my pants are kinda small). Anyway, We went to the mall at 4, and walked into j.crew. I looked around and found a nice shirt, and was ready to go. About 40 minutes later, Amy was ready to get her stuff billed. Trust me, that was not the worst part at all. I just kept looking around for stuff in the men's section while amy was busy. Our next stop was Ann Taylor. Actually, it was an unscheduled stop, and I found myself being dragged into the store. :)
Ann Taylor is women's store. I was the only male in there, and it felt weird. But it definitely wasn't as bad as the time she dragged me into Victoria's secret (:D). But hanging around for 30 minutes at a women's store, especially one where only old chick's go, is not the kind of shopping I like. (Also, dont ever tell a girl the dress that she is gonna buy looks like your mom's night dress - I learnt that the hard way)
At about 6:30PM, two and half hours after we got to the mall, we were finished with three stores (and all I had bought was a t-shirt). It only took me about an hour more to realize that I was not gonna get enough time to finish what I came for :P.

But one thing I have to admit. I feel so much confident when I go to stores like Victoria's secret and bath and body works now. Dahm, the first time I went, I was all red every time the sales lady asked me if I needed anything. But now, I can walk into just about any store provided I have a reason to be there. Also, when you get dragged into stores like bath and body works, you figure that you might as well look around instead of just standing at a corner. I got this awesome mint flavored soap, that even tastes like mint, (psst, both mom and amy got so grossed out when I told them that). Some of this stuff really stick to you, and keep you smelling good all day. lol, all these days I would only have bar of dial soap, which I thought was good enough.

After about three hours, we were forced to leave as the mall closes at 7. We had some awesome brick baked pizza and got back home. Shopping with women is pretty tiring. Unless you want to learn something about this fashion that people talk about all the time, I would strongly advise you against it :)

P.S. Amy says you might as well go as you need to do it anyway after you get married. I say, just because you are gonna die someday, you don't go about trying to kill yourself today :)

11:18AM - VIP

About a few months ago, I got a Bank of America - American Express Credit card. The card has a rewards program. So basically, every time I spend a dollar, they give me a point. At some merchants, they give several points per dollar and so on. I recently bought a pair of Nike shoes for 50$ and I got 350 points for it.

Once you have your points, you can redeem it for really cool stuff. American Express gives me access to a LOT of stuff. For instance, I can fly in one of their private jets with a friend for about 50,000 points. I can get an iPod for 10,000 points. These are alright, but the best part is yet to come. When you have a girlfriend, the girl expects you to buy her flowers, necklaces, remember anniversaries and so on. You can easily redeem these points for such stuff. You can automatically have Amex send her stuff on her birthday, anniversary and so on. And you don't even have to remember it. As far as necklaces go, they are so beautiful. I had once designed a necklace for my girlfriend with a heart and our names on it. I roamed all over south India to get someone to make it for me. The smallest quote I got was 2 lakhs INR. A bit too much for someone who earned $70 a month. I saw a necklace to similar to that on AmEx's collection. Of course I dint have our names on it, but it was pretty much every thing that I wanted. With Swarovski Crystals all over around the other edges of the heart. The heart itself was made of sterling silver. Even the materials matched my design. It was beautiful.

Considering you are a total romantic, and you buy flowers for your girlfriend pretty often, think of how this will save you. I once bought a set of 24 roses or something for valentine and it cost me $70 (one month's salary for me back then). I could have gotten that for free now. I learnt about the power of AmEx too late... It does save you a couple of bucks here and there. Makes me want to sing

"My chick could have what she want
And goin every store for any bag she want
And know she ain't never had a man like that
To buy you anything ya heart desire like that"

I think the problem with love is that you take stuff for granted at some point, I never thought I needed to reinforce my love. This is true of any love. Be it with your girlfriend, or family, or even friends for that matter. You need to put time and effort into relationships for them to work. You need to be there, and I mean "literally".

10:54AM - Sex and Stocks

A recent study published in the HK's "Apple" magazine shows that:

Survey includes 15000 respondents who trade stocks for more than 20
times a year (Group A) and 15000 respondents who trade stocks for less
than 20 times a year (Group B) and the result shows that
1) # of sex per week
Group A: 1.5
Group B 2.6

2) Happiness of Life (10 is highest):
Group A: 5.8
Group B: 7.1

3) Relationship with family members (10 is highest)
Group A: 4.9
Group B: 6.9

4) Their satisfaction of their wealth (10 is highest):
Group A: 6.6
Group B: 6.5

I trade less than 20 times a year.... but that's just because it costs 200$ in commissions to trade 20 times. lol, but sex 2.6 times a week would be good.