Thursday, December 31, 2009

"Aaall is well"



We saw 3 idiots yesterday. As we drove up to Square One because of the Year end shopping craze, the parking lots were choker blocked. This caused some tension and if I had known of the "Aaal is well" mantra prior to the movie -- I would have used it then.

What a great movie! I have come to love Amir Khan & Boman Irani. The other two ( Raju & Farhan) were outstanding as well. The innovativeness of "Rancho" was commendable and I am sure every engineering student seeing the movie ( we have two in the house) wanted to emulate Amir & if not atleast everyone now knows what is a "vacuum delivery" thanks to the movie. Some great scenes from Ladakh made me reminiscence of my days at Dras and the great NH-1A ( the national highway from Srinagar to Leh)

As it happens with every movie I see, the effects linger on for a day and the effects of this one had me smiling away to myself for much of the following day. If you haven't seen it-- go see it and "aal will be well"

Monday, December 28, 2009

Skiing Day



Aay and me made our yearly ski/snowboarding trip during the Christmas break. This time we chose the Kelso Glen Eden slopes in Milton as against our usual choice Chicopee, Waterloo. Kelso being closer won our business. Ant had decided to stay back as per his logic doing this just once a year gave him more aches than thrills. With just 39cms of snow on the slopes (Kelso had their snow making eqpt churning out the white stuff to compensate what global warming is doing to the skiing business around the GTA) and the wind chill factor hovering around the -20 degree mark I made 17 runs on a not so challenging slope and most of which I completed in a "snow plough" position. It was quite embarrasing to see little kids whizzing past with such superb skills and one could easily see that its the likes of these kids who will be representing us in Vancouver in Feb 2010. My careful snow ploghing and slow meandering ensured that I came away without a spill which was not the case with Aay who felt he must push himself over the edge to emulate what we all see on TV and not surprisingly he has come back with a sore behind. I tried to placate him with some piping hot choclate but with all my good intentions the hot choclate did not know which part of his body needed it most :)
I could not get too many pics -- obviously not -- it was too bloody cold to take off your gloves and stand there with exposed hands ,waiting in the feezing wind to get a pic which in all probability would come out a blur anyways.
Towards the end of the day we drove away exhausted, bundled up in a warm car, it had just started to snow. As I sipped my hot choclate I could not help think that this had been a day well spent.

Friday, December 25, 2009

Christmas Day



The last two weeks of 2009 are finally here. Ant & Aay are back from Waterloo and in front of us are a whole string of holidays. On Christmas eve we lit a fire and settled down for Angels and Demons with some Pizza. Tom Hanks was great though many a times I found it too stretched when Tom looked at a sword/arrow held by a statute and took that to be the location where the bomb could possibly be. Very eerily the very next day we heard of the assault on the Pope in the Vatican. I wonder if they summoned Tom Hanks to get to the bottom of it!!
Holidays are a great time to indulge & there was lots to eat-- Anitas's famous burgers and "alo gobi"-- I gorged on cake and every time I ate some I knew i should'nt-- but then its Christmas. Later on Christmas day we drove down to the office where Ant will be doing his internship for the next few months. We found a Timmy's just below and we all trooped in to buy our own favourites ( English Toffee, French Vanila and double double). Its been raining all day.. Toronto has had a very wet christmas.