Top of the "list"...

Dido

Drat!

Yup, thats it...

Heh...

http://www.sunpowerusa.com/ricecookerfaq.html
Neuro fuzzy cooker...yeah, someone would really need that...

India's gain...

Sonia Gandhi makes way for Manmohan Singh to become PM...mostly because of the left shooting off its mouth (as usual), the markets reacting haphazardly and Sonia Gandhi realising the intelligent thing to do...couldn't the left and the esteemed Sitaram Yechuri have waited till the government was formed before it started preaching...and shouldn't policy decisions be discussed between the allies and within the government before being brought out to the media...ok, so the left did something stupid, which is predictable...the markets then reacted irrationally (ok, when have markets reacted rationally)...what happens?...Sonia Gandhi realises what the best thing to do is...I hate the fact that something as stupid as the reaction of the markets managed to change PM's but the result is still good, for the Congress, for Sonia Gandhi and best of all, for India...Manmohan Singh is a much better candidate for PM than Sonia Gandhi...most people and politicians in India have faith in his competence and not without reason...I am very skeptical of Sonia Gandhi's ability to run a nation, and I don't think she would ever have come close to Dr. Singh's level of competence...and she probably realised this...and in stepping out she also ensured that the risk of her screwing up as PM and hence affecting her children's political careers was avoided...Dr. Singh runs the government this term, Rahul Gandhi takes over in the next, and Sonia Gandhi is remembered by history as a brave martyr, and honest, selfless daughter of India...the Congress gains, Sonia Gandhi gains, and India gains with a better PM...who loses?...the BJP...and rightly so...all the whining and sulking has got them their just desserts...they should have behaved in a mature manner and moved on...but they didn't...they kept harping on the stupid "foreign origin" issue...now Sonia Gandhi is a martyr and the BJP is the villain, and this will definitely not do them any good...it affects their chances of coming back to power next time, something they could have avoided after having already lost this election...they should have taken a moment after the defeat to realise what went wrong and react sensibly in the face of turning fortunes...but they didn't...and they will pay.

The BJP needs to move on...

Sonia Gandhi is the next Indian PM, everyone knows it and if she is able to provide good governance, I don't see why this is bad...and her governing capabilities will be proved within the next year or so...the BJP seriously needs to stop harping on the foreign origin issue and instead needs to concentrate its efforts on rebuilding its support base...any efforts towards trying to prevent Sonia Gandhi from becoming PM right now are a waste of its time and resources...the BJP needs to get back to the grassroots politics which helped build it before it came to power and let complacency ruin everything...it needs to get back in touch with the people whose vote it lost in these elections, the vote of the rural, the vote of the poor, people for whom livelihood is a lot more important than someone's foreign origin...it needs to get back to what is necessary instead of continuing to sulk...the sooner it accepts its defeat and the shortcomings that caused and moves on to dealing with them, the better will be its chances of bouncing back the next time...

Murli Manohar Joshi loses...

...and now hopefully the whole IIM fracas will comes to rest...

The Congress is back...

And deservedly so...with the BJP royally screwing up...the first head to roll within the BJP should be the person (Pramod Mahajan, I think) who came up with the stupid "India Shining" campaign...that is what happens when you put an incompetent yoho like Pramod Mahajan in charge of such an important campaign...instead of trying to actually trying to deal with (or put up a pretense of, if only for the sake of the elections) the problems of the masses, the BJP thought a stupid campaign telling everyone how great the economy was doing (even though a majority of the masses weren't) would do the trick...well, it didn't...combine good old complacency with anti-incumbency and bad poll alliances (like dropping the DMK) and the result is there for all to see...and what was the deal with all the "foreign origin" crap?...did the BJP actually think anyone was going to vote for them just because of this?...the BJP failed to realise that if anything was going to bring them down, it would be an anti-BJP vote, not a pro-Congress vote...and that is what has happened...if only the BJP had paid more attention to solving its own problems rather than concentrating on brainless strategies like attacking Sonia Gandhi's foreign origin, it would have done much better...geting rid of the vote against it should have been of more concern to the BJP than trying to wrest votes away from the Congress.
And kudos to the Congress and Sonia Gandhi, in particular...she managed to get some good alliances (even if a few were completely immoral, such as the one with DMK after having accused it for so many years of having killed Rajiv Gandhi), managed to organise and push the campaign in such a way as to concentrate on the constituencies where the Congress lacked strength, and managed to capitalise on the idiocy of the NDA...this election was probably her last chance to be PM and she managed to pull it through...am still skeptical about how well she will do as PM (her interviews during the election didn't really impress me much as far as her ability to understand and define policies stands), especially in a coalition, and with the support of the left becoming necessary...but that is something we all have to wait and find out.
Which brings me to the exit polls...again and again over the recent years, exit polls have gone completely wrong and have really lost their significance (if they had any in the first place)...all exit polls manage to achieve is a month of futile discussion based on their predictions, which, in the end, hardly have any relevance.

Rant from e

Now I don't want to go off on a rant here, but does the rampant Gumpism-the
distrust of anything intellectual-run so prevalent in the bourgeoisie that
even translating J.K. Rowling into movie form requires the exclusion of
intellectuals trying to solve problems?? But what to expect from a director
named Chris Columbus? Where even a dupe like Superman must battle against
intellectual--here's the kicker--and *hence* evil villians? Where courage
lacking forsight is valued over cool intellect? What about Hamlet's
"...blest are those whose blood and judgment are so well commingled, that
they are not a pipe for fortune's finger to sound what stop she please. Give
me that man that is not passion's slave..."?? Alas, "Harry Potter and the
Sorcerer's Stone" in movie form is an example of this anathema to thinking
people everywhere. Oh, when shall we get over our insecurities, ignorance
and of our distrust in Machiavellian strategy?

I must admit to watching it, to see whether the subtle mythic quality of the
book is captured on screen. I shall not comment on that, but only remark
that an entire scene in the book is cut where Hermoine uses
logic--**deductive logic** mind you--to solve a puzzle in the name of Good
over Evil, a struggle so ancient, and hence outdated, that like nose rings
and rolling up your jeans seem so, like, awesome. Here:

"Danger lies before you, while safety lies behind,
Two of us will help you, whichever you would find,
One among us seven will let you move ahead,
Another will transport the drinker back instead,
Two among our number hold only nettle wine,
Three of us are killers, waiting hidden in line.
Choose, unless you wish to stay here forevermore,
To help you in your choice, we give you these clues four:
First, however slyly the poison tries to hide
You will always find some on nettle wine's left side;
Second, different are those who stand at either end,
But if you would move onwards, neither is your friend;
Third, as you see clearly, all are different size,
Neither dwarf nor giant holds death in their insides;
Fourth, the second left and the second on the right
Are twins once you taste them, though different at first sight."

Not so difficult. But it was cut. Not good enough for kids whose passionless
parents have to hump every night to the tune of New Age Jazz and the sound
of the hubby getting sprung from Viagra? Mind you, I wouldn't want
manipulative, calculating brats for my lot, but come on; I surely wouldn't
want dumb ass freedom fighters either, whose conception of humanity and
fairness extend no farther than their myopic comfort zone of, well, me me
and me.

Kill Bill Vol. 2

Forgot about this...watched it on the first day, the first show, and it was definitely worth it...vol. 2 is as much of a pleasure as vol. 1 was a disappointment...Tarantino lends himself more to great melodrama, and less to hollow style and reminds you of how much fun movie making can be...not as fast paced as vol. 1 but still possessing a lot more energy...

Friends' Finale...

...was as expected - pedestrian. Generated absolutely no laughs and no emotions. You could see the writing team had absolutely no idea what to do. For all the hype generated leading to the finale, it was really awful. Well, didn't expect a series that has become very mediocre over last few seasons to suddenly come up with a great finale. I personally am glad its over. To me it was a show that had lost its sheen but continued to remain over-hyped. And plus, none of the stars of the show can really act and its a pain to see people so hopelessly talentless make so much money (ok, thats me being jealous cause I can't make tons of money without doing anything worthwhile, but its still true). It was a show just being dragged on and on. Happy its over. Hoping popular American sitcoms get better.