Third Wind

Movie Review: Prey Alone

2007-06-17T01:37:00.000+05:30

Prey Alone is a short thriller film shot totally in front of the Green Screen. The duration of the movie is around 13 minutes excluding the credits.

It was produced in Ireland and the backgrounds and props are entirely digital. This has been done before in a few Hollywood blockbusters like Sin City and the very recent 300 but with Prey Alone, the digitally rendered settings and props look amazingly realistic.

Other than the fantastic digital visuals what stands out for the movie is its storyline, I didn't expect such an elaborate plot for a 13 minute film. I don't want to give away anything about the plot, you should better watch it yourself.

I have posted the Google Video of the movie(full movie). The movie would be much more fun if you could download and watch it at an higher resolution, Click here.

PS: Post watch, don't forget to tell me how did you find the movie!

Random Thoughts

2007-05-02T11:31:00.000+05:30

Haven't posted for a long time for two reasons, first, got nothing much to write about and second, busy with end sem preparations.

Already finished with 3 of my end sem practicals, just 2 more to go before the real thing starts. Really studied hard for the practicals this time.
Aanchal has captured the flavour (flavor for US readers) of the DCE pracs very well in her post The "BRGR" Pracs.

Meanwhile, google just updated their page rank statistics. Third Wind got a jump from a rank of 2 to 3 (higher the better) which I feel great about. My other blog AseemBehl's Reviews still stays on 3 (it dropped from 4 to 3 at the time of last page rank update).

The examinations end on 24th this month, and so would the period of blog inactivity.

Movie Review: Eklavya

2007-04-09T19:28:00.000+05:30

This is my first Hindi movie review, and I am writing this for two reasons, one, because I thought the movie was excellent and two, I want the people who have not seen this movie just because it got really bad reviews from their friends, to watch it. Even I didn't have any great expectations from the movie, the first time I saw Eklavya's promotional trailer I thought it was a sequel to Parineeta(almost same lead cast). Also my friends who had seen the movie put it as a boring, slow movie(yeah, I know, I always get these misguiding reviews). But my mother wanted to see it, hence the good old download. Yesterday I saw it with my whole family(4 members) on my massive 15" computer screen. All four of us liked it, me the most.

I think every Indian would(should) know the story of the fictional character of the great Indian epic Mahabharata, but for those who are ignorant to the Indian mythology, I have pasted below a brief summary of Ekalavya's story.

In the Mahabharata epic, Ekalavya is a young prince of the Nishadha tribes, and a member of a low caste, who nevertheless aspires to study archery in the gurukul of Dronacharya. Despite being rejected by the Drona, Ekalavya embarks upon a program of self-study in the presence of a clay image of Drona, and achieves a level of skill equal to that of Arjuna, Drona's favorite and most accomplished pupil. Fearful that Ekalavya will excel him, Arjuna begs Drona to take action. Drona goes to Ekalavya and demands that Ekalavya turn over his right thumb as a teacher's fee. The loyal Ekalavya cripples himself and thereby ruins his prospects as an archer by severing his thumb and giving it to Drona.

Here in the movie, Eklavya(Amitabh Bachchan) is a royal guard who lives to protect a royal dynasty that no longer rules, he also has a dark secret of the dynasty to protect. He is the perfect marksman(which is why he was named Eklavya).
What makes Eklavya a great movie is that it has redefined the concept of Dharma, through Eklavya, Vidhu Vinod Chopra tries to debunk the belief that Dharma is all about following the path of righteousness as defined by tradition, rather, he endorses the view that righteousness is not an absolute concept but has to be rooted in reason- Dharmah Matibhyah Utgritah.(These are not my words)

Other things that make the movie stand out is its superb cinematography(every frame is a beauty) and some brilliant acting by most of the cast, Amitabh Bachchan comes up with a great performance, really deserves the Rolls Royce. Sanjay Dutt is just fabulous in the role of DSP Pannalal Chohaar. Saif just keeps getting better with every movie.
Some guys were not that good though, Jackie Shroff should try to open his mouth before he mouths his dialouges(most of his words were not audible) and Vidya Balan needs to loose some weight.

My two cents: Eklavya is 100 minutes of pure song less cinema with some great performances and an excellent theme, really worth watching.

Nike Cricket TV Commercial

2007-04-05T00:32:00.001+05:30

I am not a cricket fan but I just loved this one. It is the first time Nike has ventured into cricket advertisement. The advertisement is produced by Nike India which I think is also a first(previously all Nike advertisements were international ads).The video above is the full version of the 126 second ad, the one on television is an edited slimmer version.
The ad creates a cocktail of crazy cricket fans and chaotic traffic situations in India, both a very common sight for any Indian. The background music is awesome and the execution is almost flawless although I feel there was no need of the Cricket Stars(very sparingly used though).
A must watch!

Cool Commercials

2007-04-04T23:51:00.000+05:30

We all know that the quality of programing on Indian television is deteriorating at an alarming rate. The idiot box for the past few years has been hijacked by this huge number of indistinguishable and regressive daily soaps.
The only silver lining in all these years of television is the tremendous growth that has taken place in the advertising industry. In terms of creativity, production, reach, budget the growth has been phenomenal. There have been brands like Hutch and Pidilite(of Fevicol fame) which have received a cult status with some memorable advertisements.

So to salute the creators for their effort, I will be posting here some of the groovy commercials running on Indian television and some glorious old classic stuff.

Movie Review: Little Miss Sunshine

2007-03-27T12:09:00.000+05:30

Although the movie released in Indian theaters just a week back, it was available on the internet for a long time. It got great reviews at IMDb and a few Oscar nominations as well(finally received 2 Oscars). I liked the storyline and decided to download it. My friend who I share my movies with had already downloaded it and deleted it before sharing it with me. His excuse:"There is nothing in the movie, Bekaar hai". But after reading a rave review(a four-star rating) for the movie from Hindustan Times's Vinayak Chakrovarty(I trust his reviews, simple and unbiased), I finally put it on download. And now after watching it, I can surely say that it really deserves the appreciation it has received. Below is a very well-written plot outline proudly copied by me from IMDb.

Olive is a little girl with a dream: winning the Little Miss Sunshine contest. Her family wants her dream to come true, but they are so burdened with their own quirks, neuroses, and problems that they can barely make it through a day without some disaster befalling them. Olive's father Richard is a flop as a motivational speaker, and is barely on speaking terms with her mother. Olive's uncle Frank, a renowned Proust scholar, has attempted suicide following an unsuccessful romance with a male graduate student. Her brother Dwayne, a fanatical follower of Nietzsche, has taken a vow of silence, which allows him to escape somewhat from the family whose very presence torments him. And Olive's grandfather is a ne'er-do-well with a drug habit, but at least he enthusiastically coaches Olive in her contest talent routine. Circumstances conspire to put the entire family on the road together with the goal of getting Olive to the Little Miss Sunshine contest in far off California.

Its not like the regular Hollywood nobrainer comedy. It is more of a dark comedy with some amazing road movie situations. The movie has no big stars but the casting is perfect, really everyone is nothing short of excellent in the movie. It has been made on budget smaller even than the Bollywood movies produced these days.

My two cents: You shouldn't miss it unless you are not much of a fan of dark humor. It is still running in theaters in India.

Hurray! My first pay

2007-03-26T10:17:00.000+05:30

I have been waiting for this for a long time and finally it arrived just before the midsems. Yes, I have received the first installment of my pay, a rocking Rs 6239.01 and there is more to come. As I don't have a scanner with me, I will have to leave you with a mobile phone camera snap of the cheque.

(Click on it to see the enlarged view)

I am still not sure what to do with all this money, I am thinking of saving it to buy a Nintendo Wii. Don't forget to bomb me with ideas for spending this cash.

White is the new Black

2007-03-26T09:20:00.000+05:30

You people must have noticed the blog's new white clean look. Other than the white template, I have made some other minor changes to the blog like a neat recent readers section powered by MyBlogLog and a silver NavBar at the top. I have also switched my blogs's feed back from Feedburner to the Blogger default.

Tell me how did you like(or dislike) the new appearance of Third Wind. To me it looks much better now, the black had started hurting my eyes.

I am still experimenting with my blog's look so if you know of a cool blogger template website, just drop me a word about it.

Internet Safety Tips

2007-03-25T22:57:00.000+05:30

This is for all those orkut(or maybe hi5 or any other social network for that matter) addict guys looking to find the woman of their dreams by just sitting on that comfy chair in front of their computer. Wake up guys!

These friends are not going to jump out of your computer screen when you need them. Go out and make some REAL friends.

For guys vulnerable to this, my advice is please stop using that crappy IE6, upgrade to a safer browser.

I am back!

2007-03-25T22:47:00.000+05:30

Finally my mid-semester exams are over, so here I am writing my first post in almost a month. Midesms were different this time from the previous three semesters, and that is because I studied too hard for them this time. I hope the results are different too this time around.

On the blog front, expect to see a lot of action on the blog in the coming few days. I will be coming up with something different now, there has been too much of my college life crap. So watch out!

Bombay Rockers live at DCE

2007-02-27T18:00:00.000+05:30

College fests were so much fun this time. I didn't attend much of any techfest but was there in almost every event at our cultural fest(Engifest). I must congratulate all the organizers of Engi as IMHO the standard of Engi increased by leaps and bounds from last year.

I have a lot to write about but I will put everything in a separate post later(watch out for it!), this post is dedicated to the MEGA EVENT, live performance by Bombay Rockers. First, I have to tell you that Bombay Rockers is one of my favorite bands(you can confirm that from my orkut profile), this may sound as an amateurish choice but I really think they are awesome, I love the fusion of Hip-Hop/Bhangra and English/Punjabi they have created. There first album "Introducing" is from the time when I actually used to buy my music(like by paying for it), it is the album I have heard the most ever(yeah!)

So obviously I was very excited when I heard Bombay Rockers were going to perform at Engi, the only dampener in my excitement was that I thought they were going to lip-sync(they didn't though).

So after the Western group dance was over, it was announced that they were here and were going to perform in a few minutes so I went to Mech canteen to have a quick snack. When I was coming out of the canteen I heard something like a countdown, 10...9..8..(I ran to OAT)...7..6.....2..1...Ashish Jha(college student president) comes on the stage, lol, with his usual warnings of canceling the event.

Soon Bombay rockers came out and started with Rock the Party/Teri To(their most popular number in India), and pretty soon the whole OAT stage was crowded with fans(the crowd was huge, the reasons being IP examinations were over a day before, it was a Sunday and obviously Bombay Rockers were here). Me and Ajay tried to cut through the crowd and managed to come to the front(almost).

The next number they sang was Nonstop for which the lyrics said "We gonna start with the ladies in the front" where they wanted the girls in the front to cheer and then "We move to ladies in the back" when they wanted the ladies in the back to make some noise, this kind of audience interaction though had to fail at DCE(REASON--miraculously skewed sex ratio at DCE).

Then they went on with other tracks from the album, Ari-Ari(another popular number), Substitute, Wild Rose(one of my favorites), Out of Control, Sexy Mama, Bring your Girlfrind.
They didn't sing Shimi Shake, Lovesick, Name & Number and X-rated though, instead they performed a Bombay Rockers remix of the popular AR Rehman track Chaiyan Chaiyan, and some popular Bhangra numbers(they knew north-indians have this Bhangra-fever).

And one funny thing which kept happening during the concert was whenever Navtej(the Indian half of Bombay Rockers) addressed his audience as "DCE", the audience kept screaming "ROCKS". When the third time the same thing happened, Navtej had to say "Guys! I am not finished yet". This incident speaks a lot about the IQ of DCE students.

In all it was a great performance, much above my expectations, I couldn't stop dancing the whole hour they performed. I think others loved them too as there was a loud encore too.
If you enjoyed the performance as much as me, then say it with me "When I say Bombay you say Rockers...Bombay...ROCKERS...Bombay....ROCKERS
Repeat"

PS: The snap above is borrowed from the blog From The DCE Campus.

Bak-Bak,Bakwaas aur BAKRA

2007-02-17T10:42:00.000+05:30

So the blogging culture has caught on with DCE students finally. A very dear friend of mine at college, Ajay Goyal (yeah, AOL's Ajay Goyal, the same one) started to blog again on my persuasion (that is one of many other reasons). His personal blog Bak-Bak,Bakwaas aur BAKRA , shares his experiences (actually adventures) at college.

He can write all day about his college life but he would still have something more to write. This is because he is always in the midst of all the action happening at college.
He has been thrashed by college professors for asking them to allow students to watch pron at the college computer center, he has slept during the lecture with his phone ringing on the Garam Masala ringtone, like I said before he is always in the midst of action.

There are some other great posts too at his wonderful blog, so if you haven't checked it out yet from the DCE blogroll, go on and have a look now, I am sure you will find something amusing to read.

What the f**k!---My college life-Part 4

2007-02-09T19:53:00.000+05:30

As I have already mentioned in a blog post, I hate to sit idle, so I generally carry a book to read during lectures and the free time I have. On Wednesday I decided to take a text book with me as I had got the book-bank the day before(new books somehow motivate me to study).
I don't know why but someone so desperate for the book stole it. I was reading it, moved away from my seat for 10 seconds, came back...poof!, the book was gone. I asked around in the class if anyone had just taken it for a look, NO.
It is a pity that a student of a college like DCE can do something so cheap but I guess it is nothing new. Every other day you hear about friends loosing stuff from their hostel room.
The college library seems to be the worst victim though, first I have to mention that DCE's state-of-art library is the pride of the college and not many colleges in India can boast of a library like that. But DCE's students do not seem to appreciate the excellent facilities they have been provided with, they take home with them everything they can. Stealing of books are common form the library.
Recently about 20-30 computers were installed in the library for the students who wanted to refer to the vast online resources(the membership of which the college has bought), but guess what, there are no mice on the library computers. Why? You should have guessed it by now, THEY have stolen them too.

Movie Review: The Prestige

2007-02-03T19:29:00.000+05:30

Every magic trick consists of three parts, or acts. The first part is called "the pledge." The magician shows you something ordinary. A deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it, to see that it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But, of course, it probably isn't.

The second act is called "the turn".The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you're looking for the secret, but you won't find it, because, of course, you're not really looking.You don't really want to know. You want to be... fooled.

But you wouldn't clap yet,because making something disappear isn't enough. You have to bring it back. That's why every magic trick has a third act.The hardest part. The part we call......"the prestige."

I am doing my first movie review and what better a movie to do it. Three months back I saw a movie named Memento, which some of you may not have heard of as it was not released in India. It is a movie for which I do not find any adjectives good enough, I cannot give it a better compliment. The movie is in reverse chronology, which means that the movie starts with its end and keeps movie in reverse order towards its start. You can read a 6-page analysis of the movie Memento here.

Now you would be wondering why am I talking about Memento when I am writing a review about The Prestige. The reason being, Memento introduced me to a hollywood director Christopher Nolan. Curious, I checked out his profile on IMDb, he is a young 36 years and 7 films old director who was pushed into limelight after Memento released in the year 2000. I decided to watch his latest work which is The Prestige but had to be content with watching his Batman Begins (which again was a great movie but nowhere close to Memento or The Prestige) and waited for The Prestige to release in India. It did 3 weeks back but I for some reason couldn't watch it in theaters so I had to wait again, now for its DVDrip to be released, it released a week back. And now here I am writing a review on it.

I do not want to give away any spoilers in my review so that you enjoy the movie to the maximum. First the plot outline which I have copied from IMDb:

Robert and Alfred are rival magicians. When Alfred performs the ultimate magic trick, Robert tries desperately to find out the secret to the trick.

The best part of the movie lies in its detailing, they show you every minute detail. Even with the movie being so complicated I could not notice a single flaw in the whole movie. And again Cristopher Nolan doesn't believe in following proper chronology, this time he has experimented with some kind of recursive chronology, its like one narration inside another one(you will understand what I am saying once you have seen the movie). I highly recommend the movie, go and watch it!

PS:Do not forget to look into the FAQ for the movie as you will sure have some doubts after watching the movie.(I strongly suggest checking it out only after watching the movie as it contains some spoilers)

One Man Band

2007-02-03T01:54:00.001+05:30

Anything from PIXAR is worth watching, they are the biggest animation studio in the world and they certainly are worthy of their name. The last animated movie I watched was Cars which is again from PIXAR, I loved it.
The above short film is a simple story told in a simpler way but in PIXAR style.
Watch it!

Ice is Dangerous

2007-02-03T01:38:00.001+05:30

A bizarre video shows a bunch of idiots crashing their cars driving on icy roads. Its hard to imagine how dumb they are. But it makes a very enjoyable video "The real life bumper cars".

Cat on Fan

2007-02-03T01:27:00.000+05:30

Yesterday I went video stumbling and found some great videos. The above is a small humorous video featuring a cat. I have watched it at least fifty times and each time I watched it I found it funnier.
Watch it!

Girls can drive!---My college life-Part 3

2007-02-02T15:16:00.000+05:30

Today we were having our first Surveying-I practical for this semester which for some reason happened on the busiest road in our campus. We had to stop our surveying every time a vehicle passed, which seemed to happen every 10 seconds. As always it was a boring and super easy job which I had least interest in and neither did any of my friends.

Suddenly a Bajaj Pulsar with 2 girls on it sped away in front of us getting all the stares in the world from every guy in my practical group. This was the first time I had seen a girl drive a motorcycle and that too with such confidence. I didn't know the driver but the girl seemed to be quite popular with others in my practical group and I was told that she was a first year civil engineering student(yay! I study the same, why am I proud??)
For all those who are skeptical about the driving skills of the fair sex, I do not agree with you anymore, they sure can drive. And finally its time to change the tagline of Bajaj Pulsar, its not "Definitely Male" anymore.

DCE Blogroll

2007-02-02T15:06:00.000+05:30

I have got a new addition to my blog's sidebar and that is a blogroll for blogs maintained by students currently studying at Delhi College of Engineering(DCE).
For those who are not familiar with what purpose does a blogroll offer, look here.
Its just a start, as I have added just a few I know. So if you are a DCEite and have a blog, comment on this post with your blog URL, I will love to add them to current list of blogs.

DCE makes you lazy---My college life-Part 2

2007-02-02T13:33:00.000+05:30

Its almost a month since fourth semester at college started but I am still in vacation inertia. I go to college everyday, attend the morning lecture and then wait endlessly for hours for the next one. Seldom we have the second lecture for the day. This may sound like a "Dream College" to you but it has been very frustrating for me, all we do the whole day at college is just sit idle at the college open air theater(OAT). As I cannot sit idle I usually read something. When we are bored with OAT we go to the nearby mall Metro Walk. I am sure of this and this by no means is an exaggeration that I have spent more time at Metro Walk McD than my lecture hall this semester.
One or two lectures/practicals which are held in a day are boring as hell, we have got the worst lecturers in the college his semester, most of them have such an amazing accent that you cannot understand a word they say.
This all feels very strange since the last semester we had lectures through out the day with some excellent professors. But I know that things will change pretty quickly after the techfests are over and the midsems are on our heads. And I hate midsems, I hate all kinds of exams and like everyone I hate them more when I am under prepared, but again that is another college issue.

My college Life-Part 1

2007-01-18T16:39:00.000+05:30

I have been inspired to write about my college life by a blog(From The DCE Campus). The blog is maintained by my junior at college(junior...that is we second year students call the first year ones). The blog is actually quite fun to read. So here I am writing about MY college life.

First of all I should let you know what I study and where I do it. I am a student of Civil Engineering at Delhi College of Engineering, Delhi, India. It is one of top engineering college in the country rated 7th in India last year by India's most popular magazine India Today, although I am not sure whether it deserves the ranking, but still it is a great college and provides us with excellent career opportunities. The best part of DCE is that it never puts too much of a workload on students, it is up to the students to decide what is good for them.

So I am done with the boring introduction to my college, look out for more(many more) posts about my college life on this blog in future.

Come on, laugh out loud

2006-12-29T01:29:00.001+05:30

Math jokes are always fun to read and above is a new one I stumbled upon. What makes this joke much more fun is that it actually happened to guy named "Peter", and I just can't stop laughing imagining how clever that guy is. I have to say the same thing as your examiner, "Very funny, Peter".

Art Fusion Experiment

2006-12-28T03:02:00.001+05:30

The above video was recommended to me by a friend. I am like anti-tattoos myself, they are the biggest turn-off for me, and luckily for me tattooing is still catching up in India. But after I saw this video, I got to know how much talented these tattoo artists are. Yes, my friends tattooing is officially an art.

Gravity defying

2006-12-22T19:55:00.001+05:30

I am not much into Indian television but I watch one or two good shows aired weekly. This video above is from second season of celebrity dance show Nach Baliye. The video features the winning pair of choreographers Harshall and Vithall. It is one of the best dance performances I have seen ever on Indian television. Watch it, its fun.

Sony's invention

2006-12-19T15:21:00.000+05:30

This is one interesting invention by Sony. As you will see in the video above sony has developed a technology by which you can extend your laptop screen to the table you are keeping it on, you can just drag and drop a window from your laptop screen to the table. Watch it to believe it!

StumbleUpon launches Stumble Video

2006-12-18T20:33:00.001+05:30

Stumble Video is a new service from StumbleUpon that automatically finds and plays videos that match your interests. All you have to do is press Stumble! and rate the videos you watch. It then recommends great videos based on your ratings, and the ratings from other like-minded users.

As I have mentioned in my previous post that I am very fond of StumbleUpon, I have to add now that it has got much more fun. I can stumble endlessly on the videos I like, it is very addictive though. The only problem is that I don't have an unlimited access broadband connection so I have to limit my stumble video watching a bit. You don't need to be a stumbleupon user to access stumble video but it is better if you are. You can try stumble video here.

Hello world!

2006-12-07T02:07:00.000+05:30

Hello, I am Aseem Behl. I was introduced to blogging on March 4,2005.This is my second blog.My first blog is on StumbleUpon(SU), you can see what I do on my SU blog. I created this blog because of lack of proper blogging features on SU, its concentrated more on social bookmarking than blogging.Anyways I will keep that blog active as well.
I generally blog about anything that interests me, but I like to blog on computer related stuff.I am interested in web design. I love everything open-source, love anything related to Firefox. Currently trying my hands on the biggest open-source product LINUX.I am interested in programming too but don’t know much of it, except some C++, even that I have not applied anywhere.