The biggest influences on my sense of humor are PG Wodehouse and Douglas Adams. But there were a few other things growing up that taught me new ways of being funny, one of which is the the Mad Tea Party from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The wordplay, logical deadlocks, literary nonsense and the frustration of always being just on the verge of understanding what they’re talking about.
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Author: Devanshu Mehta
Bollywood Goes Geek
So- we were watching Pyaar Impossible yesterday, which is a silly little movie starring [Priyanka, Uday] Chopra and directed by this guy.
I’m not going to tell you if you should watch it or not– figure that one out for yourself.
∞
The movie is laced with all kinds of geekery. Uday Chopra is ostensibly a geek– his room has pictures of Asimov, Star Wars posters (vote Grievous ’08!) and a picture of Steve Jobs on his bedroom door.
His dad (Anupam Kher) had a picture of Bill Gates.
Later on, Uday Chopra has a lightsaber battle with a kid and the visuals are reminiscent of the carbon freezing facility in The Empire Strikes Back.
Also, he’s created a software called Unity that lets you run software from OS X, Windows, Android, Palm, Ubuntu, Symbian and other stuff on the same computer, with the flip of a keystroke, like VMWare on steroids. No, he doesn’t say all those names, but those are the icons I saw. Those, and one generic tux penguin.
∞
In the olden days, I would have sat watching the movie wondering who had all those ideas. Is Jugal a not-so-closeted geek? Uday Chopra? Some random writer in Bollywood?
But these are modern times. I just fired up Tweetie and asked Jugal Hansraj and Uday Chopra.
ooh more Pyaar Impossible geekery– a lightsaber battle! was this your idea @udaychopra or @JugalHansraj’s?
And four hours later, @JugalHansraj’s reply:
@devanjedi The light saber was Uday’s idea – he’s the Star Wars fan -as for me – give me ‘Lord of the Rings’ anyday!
Another glourious day for the Internet!
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The only thing that bothered me about the geekery in the movie was that they kept using the phrase “program files” when they meant source code. As in, “I can’t give you the program files, but I can give you the executable”. Why trust the audience enough to use the word executable, but not to say source code?
We Can Never Go Back to Manderley Again
Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderley again. #
I went back to my college, for only the third time since leaving it more than five years ago.
It was the same. I parked where I always used to park, walked up the same steps, past the labs where I spent many nights working on code while listening to the White Album.
But it was different. People looked much younger than I recall.
∞
There’s another college, in another town, that I left almost nine years ago.
Often I think of the beautiful town
That is seated by the sea;
Often in thought go up and down
The pleasant streets of that dear old town,
And my youth comes back to me..” #
Though “beautiful” and “pleasant” are probably overstatements. I’ve been back there too, about three times since leaving it nine years ago.
We can never go back to Manderley again. #
You can go back to a place, but you really miss the time.
Bottle Shock
Bottle Shock (2008) is a great little film, about Napa Valley in the ’70s. It tells the story of a time before anyone took American wines seriously, when a little winery named Chateau Montelena competed in a blind taste test against the best of the French wines, with French judges, and won.
It’s “based on a true story”, but knows enough to tell the story as a small comedy of quirky characters and unassuming underdogs. It stars Bill Pullman as the owner of Montelena, Chris Pine as his son and Alan Rickman as the British wine snob who is organizing the competition. Freddy Rodriguez (El Wray of Planet Terror!) is understated, but good as Gustavo Bramila, who works for Montelena and has wine in “his blood”.
Music Pick: Mad Tom of Bedlam
This is a seriously catchy song. I heard it once on the radio (thanks again, WERS!) and *had* to know what it was. As I described last week, the discovery loop is shortened immensely– you can go from hearing a snippet somewhere to finding out the name to listening on YouTube to downloading it within minutes.
So- the song is called Mad Tom of Bedlam, and it’s based on a 17th century song. The lyrics are pretty much unchanged, but the tune is something Billie Holiday would have knocked out of the park 70 years ago. It’s by Jolie Holland.
These words have been spinning in my head for weeks now:
It’s well that we sing bonney boys
Bonney mad boys
Bedlam boys are bonney
For they all go bare, and they live in the air
And they want no drink nor money
Things 
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