Top excuses avoiding exercise
Posted on: January 23, 2012
- In: exercise | Fit | General | General Lunch Time talk | Health | Real Life
- 8 Comments
All of us want to be healthy and fit. Most often exercise is the only way to achieve that and most of us have different reasons to avoid the same. Some of us like me openly admit that we are lazy but others give really funny reasons to avoid the same. Here are the top excuses I have heard from people,
Excuse 1: I have lots of work and have no time for exercise (Even though this might actually be true in some cases, the people who say that to me I know have none after they go home)
Excuse 2: I am married now; don’t have to worry about my looks (The funniest excuse. I would think that being married and having a family should make your health more important)
Excuse 3: I get bored while walking on treadmill (Another excuse which I have heard from some people. Saying that it is the reason for them not to do cardio)
There are more funny excuses people give but whatever it is, there is no simple way to stay fit. What are your excuses? Or what excuses have you heard from people?
Renu follows Ajeesh’s footsteps
Posted on: January 18, 2012
- In: Airtel Super Singer | Entertainment | General | Kollywood | Movies | Music | Reality Show | Star Vijay | Tamil Movie | Television
- 1 Comment
Ajeesh’s “Idhuvarai” from Goa was a chartbuster and he even got an award for best young singer. Now it is the time for Renu to shine. Her song “Pappara paa…” from Vettai is a huge hit and hopefully will give her the necessary boost in her singing career. Everyone who followed the 2008 super singer would know that Renu always used to stick to melody most of the times and never attempted anything different throughout the season.For her to pull off a mass song in Vettai with considerable ease was a revelation. Kudos to her for the same and congratulations to her for getting her first hit. Nice to see the Super singer 2008 candidates succeed in the music world. Hope to see more success stories.
- In: Cricket | Cricket and Sports | General | India | Legends | ODI | ODI | Rahul Dravid | Sachin tendulkar | Sports | Teams | Test | test cricket | Test match | World Cup 2011
- 1 Comment
As Dhoni said after India’s loss at Perth, the seniors need to be phased out. The Indian selectors during the golden Dhoni-Kirsten period did not try too many middle order candidates and sudden influx of young players isn’t going to help the situation. India needs to start by giving Rahane and Rohit Sharma a chance in the final test. The series is already lost and this will be a great chance to try out these youngsters.
The phasing out should be carefully planned. There are reports that VVS Laxman might retire after this series so this will be ideal time to test out Rohit Sharma at number 5
Click here to read the full article
- In: Australia | Cricket | Cricket and Sports | General | India | ODI | ODI | Sports | Teams | Test | test cricket | Test match | World Cup 2011
- Leave a Comment
The Indian test team has hit a road block and has pretty much gone downhill over the past year or so. In spite of the high of winning the world cup in 2011, the Indian team has for sure taken a step back in test cricket. The legends Sachin, Dravid and Laxman are at the cusp of retirement and we still havent got any replacement tested at this level. The big three have been great servants for the Indian team and with more than 35000 test runs and close to 100 centuries between them they have been one of the best players in the world. Replacing them is going to be hard task for the management. Let us look at some possible candidates for the middle order.
Please click here to read the full article
Happy New Year!!
Posted on: January 3, 2012
Wishing you all very happy and prosperous new year. I hope that 2012 brings more joy and happiness to everyone.
- In: Cricket | Cricket and Sports | India | ODI | ODI | Sachin tendulkar | Sports | Teams | Test | test cricket | Test match | Twenty20 | World Cup 2011
- Leave a Comment
The year has come to an end and it’s time to look back at a great year for the Indian cricket fans around the world. This has been the year of the world cup. Let’s look back at the year, the ups the downs and obviously the world cup.
The World cup
The World Cup returned to the subcontinent after 15 years and every Indian fan was hoping to see MS Dhoni lifting the coveted trophy. India did have a tough group and did come through reasonably well with just one loss. The quarter-final game against Australia was fantastic and Yuvraj Singh (Man of the tournament) played a blinder along with Suresh Raina to get India home. The semi-finals against arch rivals Pakistan was an emotionally charged one but a great knock by Sachin and some disciplined bowling effort got India through that.
Click here to read the full article
Great year for Tamil cinema
Posted on: December 30, 2011
- In: Ajith Kumar | Bollywood | Chennai | Entertainment | General | General Lunch Time talk | Kollywood | Movies | Music | postaweek2011 | Rajinikanth | Reviews | Tamil Movie
- Leave a Comment
This is not something we get to write that often. The Indian film industry is synonymous with Bollywood aka Hindi film industry and South films hardly get the recognition. 2011 in a way broke that trend and it will be fair to say that Southern Industries ruled this year. Not only did the south films (Malayalam and Tamil) dominate the National awards earlier this year but the Bollywood box office was dominated by southern remakes. It was a year when the Southern Industries got their day under the sun in India.
As far as Tamil cinema goes it was yet another great year. It was the continuation of the good work which started in 2010 and carried over to 2011. The year 2011 is when the Tamil cinema broke the language barriers and reached to nook and corner of the vast country. The year which began with Tamil cinema dominating the national awards along with Malayalam making it a very southern awards, ended with Dhanush’ s “Kolaveri Di” winning CNN international song of the year.
Dhanush was the year’s biggest star and he was part of couple of good movies this year. The biggest success of Tamil cinema this year has been the success of small movies such as “Engeyum Eppothum”. A movie which was Fox Star’s foray into Tamil cinema, sans top stars and with a new director at the helm was a super hit. Appreciation of good scripts and attempts by the audience has always been the success of Tamil cinema which was again in view in 2011.
This year had releases from Suriya, Dhanush, Ajith, Vikram and Vijay. This year also saw Ajith take over a bad guy role and pulling it off with great panache. Vijay shifted his path from masala genre and signed movies with big directors. Suriya and Dhanush once again confirmed their status as good actors. This year also marked some path breaking movies such as “Aaranya Kaandam”. A movie which received praise from all quarters was a great addition to the gangster genre. The movie did rounds in the International film festivals and won some awards.
Even though some great movies were made this year and some remakes were extremely successful in other languages, this year belonged to Kolaveri Di. The song broke the language barrier to be accepted by all the music lovers.
South cinema comprises of some of the best talents in the country and makes some wonderful movies and this year was really a testament to that fact. Hindi blockbusters like Bodyguard, ready, Singham and Force were all south remakes. The year 2012 promises to be a fine one for Tamil cinema and hopefully will have some great movies. As 2011 comes to an end, here is wishing a great 2012 for Tamil cinema and its audience.
- In: Australia | Cricket | Cricket and Sports | General Lunch Time talk | India | ODI | postaweek2011 | Sports | Test | test cricket | Test match
- Leave a Comment
India is about to begin their test series against Australia in few days and as it was in England earlier this year; the team is struggling with injuries. India had lost Varun Aaron and Praveen Kumar already before leaving the Indian shores and now it seems like Ishant Sharma would also struggle to make to the test team. If Ishant misses out India might field a very inexperience attack unless the replacement/cover is Irfan Pathan.
This scenario makes the presence of Zaheer very important for India throughout the series.
Click Here to read the entire post
- In: Bollywood | Entertainment | General | General Lunch Time talk | Kollywood | Movies | Music | postaweek2011 | SciFi | Tamil Movie
- Leave a Comment
Making a Sci-Fi movie in India is difficult. It is not something for which we have references from the past from our own industry. When director Shankar conceptualized Endhiran (Robot) in 2000 with Kamal Hassan in mind, he had to drop the plans due to lack of funds for a movie of such scale. The reason behind not many movies of this genre gracing Indian screens. The scenario in the recent times has changed a lot. Hindi movies aka Bollywood has always enjoyed more money than the other industries in India owing to their popularity and reach. So when Ra.one was announced my expectation was automatically raised.
When Endhiran came in 2010 (a year before Ra.One) people had nothing to compare it with in the Indian film history. Obviously it is a beaten to death genre in Hollywood where countless such movies are made and are way ahead from what Shankar and Anubhav Sinha could offer. Endhiran had its flaws but was entertaining. The movie had an experienced director at its helm and one of the greatest entertainers in Indian cinema playing the lead. The movie was a super hit and was loved by all (Well mostly). Endhiran had an advantage which Ra.One did not, it was the first movie of its type to grace the Indian screens and did not have too many Indian movies to be compared with (Even though in 2002 Upendra had already made a movie in similar theme).
Ra.One had a lot to live up to. It had to be better than Endhiran in every department. It was being made at a larger scale; it was being made in 3D and had one of the biggest superstars in Indian cinema starring in it. The movie released with lots of hype and Shahrukh went out of the way in promoting Ra.One. When I watched the movie I had lots of expectation. The concept of the move was interesting but the execution was amateurish. The special effect was obviously great but the story and screen play lacked substance. Shahrukh’s act as a Tamilian also was also in bad taste, I am not sure how many years Bollywood is going to stick with Mahmood’ s version of Tamilian from the 70’s. It’s boring and it is kind of irritating to say the least.
When Shahrukh went to Chennai to promote the movie I actually thought that his Shekhar Subramaniam might be different than the normal Tamil caricature Bollywood movies have but it was not to be. That was only a part of the issue with the movie as thankfully Shekhar dies within 30 minutes into the movie. The Game (Ra.One) used as the premise to move the movie forward made no sense. I will be surprised if anyone in their right mind would buy such a game. Starting from the presentation at the start of the movie in a UK gaming company which was surprisingly in Hindi with a host of English people in the crowd, the movie had gaping holes which was hard to look past.
The Ra.One game was the most mysterious one as if either of the characters can only be killed in the third level why have the first two levels at all? Why was there a Ra.One suit at all when no one can play as him? If the either of the characters can only be killed with their HART’s on, then why Ra.One (The bad one) went searching for it in India when it could be killed having it? There are lots of questions which arose while watching the movie. The only silver lining was obviously the “Chammak Challo” song, but again not sure which kids birthday party will have skimpily clad women dancing. Shahrukh obviously put his heart and soul in to this movie and was sure one of the positives to come out of the movie.
But overall the movie was a great disappointment. With such a grand budget at hand the director/writer could have spent some time in writing a better script. I would like to laud Shahrukh for attempting such a movie but for sure could have chosen a better script and probably a better director to execute it on the screen. The movie might have run on the hype but for sure was way below par on content. Shahrukh has Don 2 coming this weekend and I sincerely hope that it is better than Ra.One. This time at the helm is Farhan Akthar who is for sure a director of better pedigree than Anubhav Sinha and I am sure that this will turn out to be a better outing for the superstar.
- In: Australia | Cricket | Cricket and Sports | India | postaweek2011 | Teams | Test | test cricket | Test match
- Leave a Comment
Few months ago, the Indian team was at the top of the world. Number 1 test team, World cup winners and the captain Dhoni could do nothing wrong. One English tour later everything came crashing down. Even though India are still one of the top 3 teams in the world, the old quote “Tigers at home, paper tigers abroad” came to fore again. The English tour was an absolute disaster, an organization nightmare and the entire Indian cricket management needed to take the blame, not the cricketers alone.
The biggest factor on the English tour was the sudden spate of injuries to key Indian players. In spite of majority of them missing the West Indies series for rest, most of them ended up injured during the important English tour. The lack of practice games were another reason as the team had no time to acclimatize to the conditions. It seems like the Indian selectors and management have learnt the lesson the hard way. This time the players are there sooner and will be playing two practice games and will have enough time to get used to the conditions.
This tour is very important for the Dhoni and Fletcher combination. English tour scars still fresh in their minds, they will be keen to prove that the performance on that series was merely an aberration. The team this time is well prepared and most of the members are available for selection. Zaheer will be back to spearhead the attack, which is extremely important. The team management will be observing his fitness very closely as the English tour emphasized how important he is for the team. We have Ishant and Umesh to add to the pace department, literally speaking. Ishant too had a mild injury scare in the practice game but the team management has assured it wasn’t serious. Ashwin will lead the spin attack and the batting will be back to its full strength. India are coming into this tour with a good home season which started with blanking England 5-0 in a ODI series and winning the test and ODI series against the Windies.
Even though the injuries to Praveen Kumar and Aaron are a great setback, the team needs to move on with whatever resources they have. As Dhoni said ahead of the series, lack of practice cannot be the excuse this time and he is absolutely right. A series win here will restore the confidence the team might have lost during the disastrous English tour. A reputation which was built brick by brick by the Sourav Ganguly team since 2000 of a fighting unit away from home is something Dhoni would like to restore. The seniors will once again be the key and the middle order of Dravid, Sachin and Laxman for one last time will be back battling the Aussies in their own den.
A contest which has become a memorable battle since one of the greatest series in cricketing history took place in 2001. The series will be exciting and both teams have a lot to play for. The tour has already began on a good not with Dravid’s excellent speech in Bradman’s oration which was received with a standing ovation. The only thing Indian cricket fan would hope for is that India return with their first ever series win Down under. Dhoni and Fletcher know that this is their best chance and hopefully the team will click together to make that happen.