Tintin, The noble hero & Tintin, The truthful movie

What I like most about the Tintin stories is that Tintin is an Ideal, Noble, No frills adventurer unlike the regular fare being treated out with the American adventurers and super heroes where female angles, sob stories are an integral part of the mixture.  

Got to watch the Tintin movie today. I did have some apprehension after reading a few reviews. The movie has captured the spirit of the Tintin stories well – It is fast paced adventure, Clean comedy, No blood shed or ripping of guts etc, Noble characters that stay true to their characters. Although some complain that the spirit of the captain Haddock and Bianca Castafiore are a bit subdued, I feel that on the whole, it is the best way the clean adventure could’ve have been handled. I am sure Herge did the right choice in handing over the rights to Spielberg. I have decided that in future, I would read the half baked reviewes with a pinch of salt and have more trust on Herge and Spielberg.

I think the end scenes capture the characters in true light. 

Tintin is happy that the adventure is over and is looking forward to the next tone. 

Captain Haddock is filled with pride and struts with his ancestor’s hat. 

Nester is happy to be back with his original Masters.

No one is overly interested or focusing on the Jewels or the Treasure. What a team!

Kudos to Herge on creating the Hero(s) and Kudos to Spielberg on bringing the best of the story and Characters.

If you are even remotely interested or want to show a good, clean, noble movie to your friends or kids (even to neighborhood ones), do them a favor by taking to the movie.

Sachin - He is an Icon, He is a cricketer, No!, he is an actor, an Artist

Seems Sachin tendulkar's primary profession is an actor/artist and cricket is his "other source" of income. Referring to his tax filings...

Read here...
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/actor-sachin-tendulkar-gets-tax-break/1/139537.html

As a fan, I am aghast that this was tried, rejected and re-applied. Is this even required by him? or is he being hood-winked/ill-advised by his accountants/legal team. Eitherway, it is a blot and a stupid one! and what to say about the Tax department that accepted such a claim!!

Mumbai test Seems Ripe for Sachin's 100th ton

Well, the pitch seems to have tons of runs in store. As of the 3rd day, it looks like draw might be the inevitable result. Ideal conditions for Sachin to score his ton of tons, don't you think?

Do you also have difficult sorting in gmail?

Have been wondering about this many times during my usage of gmail and today google-ed it. Seems many many netizens have this same problem. One of the links is here

Observations such as Gmail is search based and not sort based - is like the many junior guys in my company hiding behind technical jargons instead of looking from user perspective. What does the user care?

Anyway, the above link gives round about workarounds in which you can get the mails you want - Not the same as sort, but can probably help 80% of the needs. One good think from google is that if you enter "to:" or "from:" in the search box, it displays the available options from your contact list.

Anyway, My suggestion would be to Convey to google our displeasure and prioritize its implementation in a straight fwd way - Will helps us cleanup megabytes of data and free data center hard disks:)

To provide your Vote for the suggestion, go to http://mail.google.com/support/bin/static.py?page=suggestions.cs

Deepavali wishes and a nice surprise

Wishing you all a wonderful Deepavali. May the festival of lights bring in a lot of cheer, good health and success to all of you.

The world can definitely do with a bit more Cheer and good-naturedness. Let's add our bit to it.

Nice Surprise today - A Happy Diwali message from Seth Godin - http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/10/shubh-diwali-and-digital-lights.html

Blue Cross of India - In the Service of our 4 legged and 2 legged friends

Blue cross of India, is doing service in the areas of rescue, rehabilitation, Shelter, adoption and many other for our neighbors - the animals and birds that we share our place with.

Urban habitation makes life very difficult for these neighbors and put them frequently in face of danger.

Here is the link to the Blue cross site to get information. http://bluecrossofindia.org/;

Their contact #s in Chennai are 044 2235 4959; 99628 00800;

Here is the link to donate http://bluecrossofindia.org/donation.html

I'm not affiliated with Blue Cross. I Just happened to see their service in action yesterday and making a donation to help their cause. Thought I would help spread the word

Fruits of Labour are Sweet - Thanks to Chennai Corporation Sewage department

Did someone say "Fruits of the Labor are Sweet - Harder the labour, sweeter the fruits"! - No one!, well, in that case, let it be yours truly..

For the past couple of days, Chennai has been receiving good quota of rains. After y'day's downpour many parts are flooded (As an aside, I find that there is a good amount of interpretation of difference between "flooded" in India and "flooded" in U.S.A - For e.g. while driving on U.S. highways if there is even a thin stretch of water that has not drained, a board "Highway flooded" will warn you, I've many times searched for the flood water in such cases.. In India, mostly "flooded" is used as a synonym for 'inundated'). Many parts of Chennai including the main G.S.T road was under a few feet of water for many hours.

Going back a few days, over the last week/10-days, I've been watching Guys cleaning up the Drains in the R.K. Salai. The stench was unbearable for the passers by. One can only imaging how it would be for the cleaners. The debris was being dumped on the footpaths and the roads and I thought "What a mess!"

Cut back to today, and after the rains, the Salai is so clean. Even after a few minutes of rains, portions of the road will be filled with water and Pedestrians would have to navigate a tight 3-way balance between walking on the dirty water, Getting water splashed on them by vehicles and walking on the middle of the road in the dangerous company of speeding vehicles.

But today the regular culprits like the corners next to Tafe, the entrance to Dewberrys' cafe, stretch near Citi center are so clean, that there is no water logging.

Appreciate the difficult, dangerous, dirty and nasty work done by the Cleanup guys. It has been their Labour, for us bearing the sweet fruits. Thank you lots!