Religulous – Review

Religulous is a movie/documentary on religion by Larry Charles who was the director of one of the worst movies ever made in my opinion, namely, Borat. For this very reason, I was a little apprehensive about watching this movie. However, the fact that it starred one of my comedy heroes, Bill Maher and that it took a negative look at one of my pet peeves, religion was enough for me to give it a try. And I am very glad I did, the movie was excellent. I had expected the movie to be very funny, irreverant and vitriolic about religions. Suprisingly it is much more respectful than I had imagined it would be. Interestingly enough, this works in the favor of the movie. And the reason it works is that you don’t need to do anything special with the religious nuts to generate laughter, they tend to say stupid things on their own. And the movie is full of such moments.

Bill Maher goes around the country talking to “religious folks” and trying to create doubt if possible. Maher looks at threeof the major world religions, Christanity, Judaism and Islam and the goal is to convince people of the absurdity of religious practices and texts. The goal of the movie is to try and convince people that doubt is OK. Not knowing all the answers about God, about our life, after-life is also OK. What is dangerous is following religions that claim to have these answers and that too with certanity when it is obvious that they don’t.

Now I have watched Bill Maher for years now and agree with pretty much everything he says. But a few things really caught my attention in the movie.

1. When he says that not having faith is a luxury not everyone can afford. This is something every atheist needs to keep in mind when we ridicule organized religion.
2. When he equates orgainized religion with mass hysteria.
3. The bit about how using religion as a crutch allows us to ignore our duties and responsibilities as world citizens. Let us not worry about oil, global warming, war, terror because some GOD somewhere is taking care of it for us.

I will not give away any more of the movie than I already have but I would HIGHLY recommend it. 5 stars.

A little bit of light reading

I happened to read an article by John Updike during my flight to the bay area recently. Joh Updike is an American novelist, poet, short story writer and literary critic. I quite liked it. Here it is, word-for-word. I have hilited the parts I was particularly impressed by.

1. My Mother I grew up watching my mother, a Cornell graduate, clacking away at her Remington typewriter. She sent short stories off to magazines, then got them back in a couple of weeks, so that routine of becoming a writer was familiar to me. I owe my career to her example of trying to make a go of it in this strange trade.

2. Everyday Ethics Those of us who were born during the Great Depression, as I was, were born on the low end of the population demographic. We learned to make much of what we had and to make do. Children got the idea, too, that the good life was to be found in working hard. It’s worth remembering that today.

3. The simple Life I’ve always wanted to honor normal life, full as it is of magic and surprises, in literature. I grew up in a small Pennsylvania town, living with one set of parents and one set of grandparents. One of my first impressions was, “This is life. Life as it is lived by most people is worthy of artistic attention.” I didn’t need to go to war or climb mountains to have something to say.

4. Laugh Lines The nice thing about fiction is it develops our ability to empathize. How easily the mind takes you to the mind of a young girl in 19th-century Russia, for example. But humor is every bit as noble as drama and just as honest. To sit and hold a page and laugh out loud struck me as a remarkable enactment of the immaterial upon the material. The ability to get a reader to laugh doesn’t do any harm, as far as I can tell.

Confessions of a 30 year old

So I turned 30 last Sunday, on 21st September to be exact! My exact feelings at turning 30 were “Uh?”. I honestly couldn’t imagine how 30 years have just zipped by. Given the average Indian life-expectancy, I guess I am about half done Huge thanks to all my friends for the party(ies) and special thanks to B&R for getting my favorite Black Forest cake. Turns out old people enjoy cake too.

Everyone has been asking me the usual questions. Allow me to answer on a public forum.
1. How to you feel?
Answer: Pretty freaking awesome! I am happier, richer and certainly a lot healthier than I ever was. I never thought I would ever wear size 30 pants. If this is getting old, BRING ….. IT ….. ON !!

2. What are you most happy about?
Answer: I am healthy, I got great friends and wonderful family.

2. Any regrets?
Answer: Plenty. Just like everyone. Big one is that I am non-confrontational to the point of ridiculousness and really avoid sticky situations. Hence I have put up with a lot more shit than I should have, but one learns. Also, I am shy and do not share my feelings easily except with close friends and family. Although this has saved me from some pain it has cost me a lot happiness too. I also do dumb shit too often for my liking.

3. What next?
Answer: A little more “pedal to the metal”. Something I should have done in the 20s

4. Advice for people who aren’t there yet?
Answer: Don’t put anything off for later.  Do crazy stuff, make as many mistakes as you can afford, do dumb shit but just make sure you learn your lessons well. Also unless you really care about someone, do not care about what they think of you. Now I am totally preaching what I DO NOT personally practice but I am certainly trying.

Here’s to the next decade, year, month, day, whatever !!

Yahoo Music on Search

I usually don’t talk about work on my blog because I work 8 hours a day as it is. This bog is my release. But we really rocked today. I was a very small part of the team that did the following.

CNET
Yahoo adds full-length music tracks to search results | Webware : Cool Web apps for everyone
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10045466-2.html?tag=newsLatestHeadlinesArea

TechCrunch
Yahoo And Rhapsody Team Up For Full Song Playback In Search Results
www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/18/yahoo-and-rhapsody-team-up-for-full-song-playback

And my favorite online gossip mag, Valleywag which never has good things to say about Yahoo! Even this time, it was sort-of a complement, not a full one.
http://valleywag.com/5051762/the-ad-yahoo-ought-to-air

It is nice to know that what you do is consumed by hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions. It is also a little scary that if you fuck up, there are going to be a lot of not-so-happy campers. But that is what makes it exciting and challenging and fun and all the good stuff.

Also, although I know not too many people read my blog, I want to acknowledge all the people who were on the project and worked as hard (or harder) than any of us but will not get full credit because they aren’t with Yahoo! anymore. And no, they weren’t laid off or nething. They are among the smartest people I know and are doing their own things, very cool ones I might add. I usually don’t name names on my blog (without permission) because it doesn’t seem right but am going to make an exception this time. Lucas, Mike D, Ian, Lino, Doug: As they say at Yahoo! Mad Props !!

A little of Jersey City, and a little bit of Boston, and a little bit of NYC :)

Sorry for not posting for a bit but I just got back after visiting my sister for a couple of weeks and spent this week a little “under the weather”. East Coast was lots of fun though. I did not take too many pictures but stole some from A, Check them out at  http://www.flickr.com/photos/24791341@N00/sets/72157607069954058/. Some of the highlights from my trip:

Family: Got to see my sis and brother-in-law. Said bye-bye to S Dada and A Vahini before they just left for Netherlands. Also met N Mama and family after a long, long time. Overall, it was great to catch up with everyone and playing with A

Friends: A and his wife drove down from Virginia for the long weekend. I hadn’t seen him in years and we have been friends since forever. It was great to see them. Also hung out with K one evening. We walked all over NYC and chatted, a lot. It was fun! Had lunch with MC at Shake Shack. Those guys make the best Mushroom Burger in the world, also probably the most unhealthy. A portabello mushroom stuffed with cheese and deep-fried, in a bun. Yuuuuum.

Work: The Yahoo NYC office is real cool, right by Times Square. The phone where I was bunking totally sucked tho. I walked around Times Square a couple of afternoons and felt like a total tourist.

Food: East Coast food rocks! I would strongly recommend Helmonds in Boston, street food in NYC and my sister’s place in Jersey City She makes the best baked veggies in the world. I really pigged out, all the time. To make up for it, I ran quite a bit on the Waterfront in Jersey City and also worked out for a couple of days in Boston. But I still ended up gaining about 4-5 pounds over the 10 days. I can live with that though, I will get rid of them in no time.

I almost decided that I like Jersey City and NYC better than Santa Monica. Family, friends, not having to drive, cheap subways, it is pretty awesome. And then it started raining and got gloomy and crappy. Just a reminder how lucky I am to be down here in SM I loved catching up with everyone but glad to be back.

Viva NYC

I just got back from visting my sister in Jersey City. I also worked out of our Yahoo NYC office for a few days and visited Sachin Dada in Boston. I ate and I ate and I ate and I ate, East Coast has awesome food. And then I ate some more. Met Anand after what seemed like ages and also said hi to a couple of Yahoo friends, good times! Detailed blog post on the way !!!

Before leaving, I will share why I like NYC so much. It’s real, and there is nothing better I can say about it.

A little bit of news

A few days ago, I lost hope (at least for a while). If you know me, you know that I am quite an optimistic, glass-is-half-full kind of person. But I am extremely despondent and hopeless after reading the news over the last few days.

The Chinese used voice-over during the Olympics opening ceremony so that the world would see a cute little girl and go awww! The real singer was a girl who wasn’t so cute. Edwards cheated on his cancer-stricken wife. The Spanish basketball team insulted their hosts by posing with slanted-eyes. This has been the front-page news I have been reading. Why are these news so freaking’ important? I do not care. The Chinese wanted to make a good impression, but weren’t honest. Not a big deal. Edwards is just another lying SOB, no big deal. The world is full of such men. The Spanish team probably didn’t realize the consequences of their photo shoot. Again, no big deal.

But I do want to know about the real big ticket items, I do want to hear and read about real news. I want to read about how our polar ice-caps are melting,  how the White house forged a letter in order to link Saddam and Al-Queda. Why is oil so highly priced all of a sudden? What is going to happen next with the housing crisis? But the media has no word on those. And why should they? They are a for profit organization. They are going to give the people what they want.

And sadly, all we want right now is news about when Britney Spears had her latest break-down. Which celebrity is sleeping with whom. We want to comment on John Edwards and lynch him. Because it is so easy to do. It is so easy to either fall prey to gossip or have an opinion on black-and-white issues. It is so easy to stay dumb.

What is hard – is to be curious about the major issues affecting us, thinking about them and demanding action about them. That is so hard, our brain hurts, so we choose to ignore and focus on random crap. We do not want to lose sleep thinking about the hard stuff. But by choosing to ignore such issues, we lose something very, very important. We lose perspective. We lose out on knowledge and most of all, we lose out on our right to demand and get change, change for the better. Without arming ourself with knowledge, all we can do is sit and complain about how things are going down the toilet. But you know what, we only have ourselves to blame.

Olympics are so awesome

In the furore over Michael Phelps and Dara Torres and Tyson Gay, some truly inspirational stories and moments tend to get lost. Check out this one http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/beijing/wrestling/news;_ylt=Ar5J2mg3wt9SH1VXXDM40pAGqZp4?slug=ap-wre-mens55kg&prov=ap&type=lgns It is INSPIRATIONAL.

Following the Olympics and getting inspired

Heck, sometimes I feel worthless. I have been following the Olympics and watching these 18-20 year old atheletes achieve things that I cannot even dream of, it kind of makes me wonder. These athletes, even if they do nothing for the rest of their lives, are going to leave behind an inspiring legacy. What have I been doing for 30 years? Writing freakin’ code? And even that breaks

But wait, there is Dara Torres, a 41 year old mother, who is one of the fastest swimmers in the world. Compared to her I am a baby. So the lesson to learn I guess is that it is never too late, for anything. To try and become a better athlete, to try and become a better person, to try and become a better coder, to try and become a better “anything”. But as we grow old, we get stuck in a rut, we get comfortable with ourselves and our surroundings. And that sadly hampers us from getting better day after day. I will never run a mile under 4 minutes or lift 300 pounds but what I can learn these atheletes is to not be happy with status quo, to always strive for better. And we do not have to beat Olympic times either, we just have to beat ourselves. Now, that should be a easy job for most of us, shouldn’t it?

The Tyson Gay workout

Tyson Gay is an American sprinter, one of the best 100 meter sprinters in the world. He recommends a workout that I have tried and it is awesome. So I figured I would share it. Here it is

“Core strength is critical for peak performance. Master your midsection the way Gay does with this novel move: Lie on your back on a decline bench, holding a weight plate against your chest with both hands. Then lift your upper body off the bench about 6 inches. Holding this position, press the weight plate straight up from your chest, as if you’re doing a bench press. Lower the weight (but not your torso) and repeat. As you push the weight, your abs have to contract even harder, says Gay. Do 12 presses, rest 1 minute, and repeat once or twice.

I do this regularly at the gym now. After about 2-3 sets, you abs feel like they are on fire. Really works well!