Jerry Maguire

I know I was supposed to write a review for The Bartimaeus Trilogy, but that'll take a while and I frankly am not in the mood to write a book review right now. In the past two days I've returned to what was once my habit, sleeping for just about 4 hours in a day! So as I approach my last subject exam in COEP; I suddenly have decided to write a review of one of my most favorite movies of all time - Jerry Maguire.
This movie is a must watch, brilliant performances by Tom Cruise as Jerry Maguire, Cuba Gooding Jr. as Rod Tidwell and Renée Zellweger as Dorothy Boyd [the only role I ever liked her in] and special mention for the amazing child actor Jonathan Lipnicki as Dorothy's son Ray [he's the same kid who was in Stuart Little]. Apart from this kid and Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone, I have not seen a better performance from a child actor. Seriously! You just have to watch his scene in the car with Tom Cruise with his "Did you know..." dialogues. Amazing scene.

The movies story is pretty simple, Jerry is an agent for Sportsmen in a large firm, he has a moment of career-misjudgment and sends a memo to all employees of the company stating what ails the Sports Agencies in terms of policies and stuff. The result is he gets fired, loses all but 2 clients and has to leave. The only saving grace is Dorothy who comes along with him when he is kicked out, because she believes in his principle. The lift scene which has the famous line "You complete me." is brilliant.

The best part about the movie is Rod Tidwell, in a standout role, which got Cuba Gooding, Jr. an Oscar - he kicks ass in every scene. The movie has brilliant scenes and memorable, catchphrase style lines like

1. Show Me The Money
2. You are my ambassador of Kwan
3. Help me, help you [I love this line]
4. You had me at hello
5. You complete me [brilliantly delivered in the climax scene, more recently used by Heath Ledger as The Joker in the Interrogation scene with Batman in The Dark Knight]


Scenes -

You Complete Me [Jerry Maguire]


You Complete Me [The Joker]


It's no point just watching the scenes of this flick, watch the whole movie and I am quite positive you will like it! Great, clean, heart-touching movie with some memorable scenes peppered with intelligent dialogue.


A still from the famous "Show Me The Money" scene. Tom Cruise gave his best performance till date in this movie. The movie is shot in a very simplistic and natural style giving it a very realistic feel.


The kid is a scene-stealer. Period!

Cuba Gooding, Jr. as Rod Tidwell in the pre-climax scene where his antics on the field turn into a life-changing event for both Jerry and himself!


4/5 for this flick! Do watch it.

Engineering Story - SE Lectures

This happened in TY. The college had been renovated to a great extent, especially the seminar halls and large rooms like Room No. 6. Anyways we used to have Software Engg (SE) lectures in Room 6 and it was a joint, Comp+IT lecture. It was scheduled for 5.30 and somehow I always used to be hungry at that time, so i had made it a bit of a ritual to give some cash to any friend and ask him to get the following from the BC while I crossed over to Room No. 6 -

1. Appy
2. Samosa
3. Lays or any other snacks

This carried on for many weeks. It was nice fun, to have Prof. Kelkar [or some similar name] yap in IIT-Powai while I had my fill. The room was nice and comfy, I had setting with "the dude, who snooped around to catch people talk". Interestingly a guy from my class was once thrown out of the lecture for falling from his chair after he fell asleep :D
So now you know I wasn't the only one screwing around with the system during the lecture. There were such Draconian laws in place for that lecture, like, the only Textbooks you could open and read had to be SE books, or else you were shunted out. And not that getting thrown out of the lecture was such a big deal, it was the resultant loss of attendance which bound us to our chairs in that god-forsaken lecture. That Prof also used to crack some lame jokes, e.g. if he was explaining something and he had to give us an example, invariably he would take an example of "buying a saree for ur gf or wife" and his voice had some sinusoidal pattern where in his voice frequency [pitch] would rise and fall. It was hilarious at times!

Anyways back to the main story, so I had my routine set, I would walk in, sit with my friends and have my evening treat. Many times, the guy sitting next to me would be Bhushan. Now that day Bhushan and I were sitting as usual. Only I had a really large treat in store, I had the Appy, Samosa, Lays and a Sandwich. Only, that day Bhushan too brought some "chana" along for his eating pleasure. Now, A. P. Maam was in charge and she's not very nice, to say the least! I skillfully avoided her gaze and had my snack. Then she comes and settles down on the last row of the class. Bhushan has a hunger attack and starts nibbling on his chana. I notice A.P Maam looking on and give Bhushan the warning with my elbow. Too late. She caught him, red-handed with his mouth full of chana :D
He couldn't believe his luck, he was sitting next to a guy who had just eaten half the canteen's menu, while he got caught eating his first fistful of chana!!! That's what you call irony.
That was a fun time, the SE lectures. The tests out there in room 6 were a revelation. I got an EX in SE, one thing I am proud of, even if u wake me up at 4am and ask me to describe the blackbox and whitebox method of testing or the waterfall model, I will be able to tell you :P
Anyways, that didnt deter me or Bhushan from many more "in-lecture treats"!

Voracious Reading Back In Vogue

There was a time when I was known to be a voracious reader, reading works of Ayn Rand, John Grisham, Jeffrey Archer, J.K. Rowling, Salman Rushdie, Dominic Lapierre, Gregory David Roberts and J.R.R. Tolkien almost one after the other. But then since I entered Final Year, I literally gave up reading because I couldn't find time for it. And now I've come to realize I've got to make time for reading and now I have taken up a challenge for myself - to finish the entire Bartimaeus Trilogy within 1 week. I'll have to juggle my free time between watching the IPL and my end sem exams; but then it's high time I did some solid reading.

I swear to give a blog post with a review of all 3 books within a week.

The Aphrodisiacs of Today

Dammit, all this while I thought that one had to be sensitive, romantic, interesting, courteous etc etc to get a girl's attention, but how wrong I was! Damn this world of books and novels which are filled with hundreds of pages of how a man should struggle to win his damsel's heart. But all that was just trash, i.e. if advertisements are to be believed. Originally it was just AXE and other deodorants who were responsible for enlightening us about how spraying yourself could get you your dream chic. But now others are following suit.
Almost all bike ads now come with the same storyline, guy on the road with his new bike and abracadabra, women go crazy! Weirdest thing in the bike ads is how the girl sitting behind the guy starts causing the background music to change to sensual feminine moans and groans. Damn, and here people read books about technique and stuff to evoke such responses from women.

Then we have the usual, underwear ads; which nowadays are exploring the wild side of the "Bharatiya Nari" types of women, i.e. wearing sarees and stuff... and yes, moaning in the background music.

But the weirdest ad, the one which caused me to write this post was the new Panasonic ad with Ranbir Kapoor. The entire ad focuses on a stream of women entering the guy's house, apparently coz he has an awesome TV. Obviously the women make suggestive gestures and moves, but obviously that was because of the TV and not coz of Ranbir, thats bcoz at the end of the ad, a geeky version of Ranbir gets all the babes after he installs the same TV.

I'm waiting for the day Saffola oil starts asking us to buy their latest low cholestrol oil pack, so that men could get in bed with hot women.
The ad would go like this -

Two men enter a shopping mall, hot chic notices them, First Man buys Dhara or some other brand, woman gives him the thumbs down. Second Man walks and buys Saffola with low cholestrol. Woman smiles and makes suggestive gestures at him, they walk out together, woman looks at screen and says "I like my men with low cholestrol"... screen fades to black, obviously with moaning sounds in the background!

Anyways, the point is that ads are really getting dumber by the day. Aamir Khan's recent Tata Sky ad as an old Sardarji is a welcome change, such ads should be made more often. But marketing is about success, and the only reason that ads involving "moaning background sounds" are becoming the order of the day, is probably because they're more successful.

I'll carry on doing the usual, non-advert style methods of impressing women, i.e. until the day my imaginary Saffola ad is actually aired! That day i'll buy Axe, a new bike, VIP Frenchie, Panasonic TV and finish off with Saffola oil to seduce my chic!

Who is David Flabbergaster?

Who is David Flabbergaster and why should I read what he has to say?

David Flabbergaster, is a great engineer who like many great engineers, hasn't done anything you've heard of. And you should read what he has to say, because you are here out of choice, obviously, you have nothing better to do!


One day David Flabbergaster decided that he should spread his knowledge to his fellow engineers. He chose to do so in the form of random quotes, only people who are truly knowledgeable and smart can understand the depth of his sayings and teachings.

Here are a few of his quotes -

An engineer who has a girlfriend is truly happy, an engineer who doesn't have a girlfriend tries to fake it!

English is the best language to use while making out... somehow "chalo, dusrey kaksh par jaatey hain" doesn't sound as good as "lets move onto base two".


The real purpose, the final destination of life is to get rich, find a beautiful woman and stay happy... by taking up engineering, I diverged from the path that could lead to any of these.


I now know for sure, that most guys believe that the real purpose of dating a girl is so that one can put up a pic with her on their Orkut profile.

The day an engineer is free of frustration would be the day politics is free from corruption, so forget it!

The most unfortunate man in this world is the one who's beautiful girlfriend dumps him after just one day, and during that one day he didn't even have a camera!

Watching FTV will not help you in meeting hot women in real life.

Voting for a reality show is 2nd worst method of spending your money, the worst is voting for a poll on Aaj Tak!

If the hottest girl in class, looks at the geekiest guy in the class and starts talking to him; there can be only one meaning, she wants his assignments!

If you are in an engineering college and see a beautiful, stunning, gorgeous girl walk right upto you... you're definitely dreaming!

Dressing nicely for an interview wont help you if your resume sucks!

Men have to wear suits, blazers and tuxedos to impress women; women on the other hand have to wear nothing!

Before I hit puberty, my most visited website was Wikipedia, after that it became Chicipedia.

There was once a time when engineers were happy people, then App Mech was born!

Many more such quotes will follow, as and when David Flabbergaster decides to bestow his knowledge for the benefit of engineeringkind!