Cricket Notes

* Enough said and written about Stanford and his attitude in the last few weeks. But on the positive side, he is trying to do something that ICC never ever thought of doing: tap the market in North America and other untouched areas that has a huge potential. ICC had always overlooked and even failed when it comes to globalizing the game. Even the established markets like NZ, Kenya, Zimbabwe are suffering due to lack of pro-active attitude from ICC. Pakistan and Sri lanka are struggling too due to IPL-ICL war. Looks like ICC has no control over BCCI and by NOT imposing strict regulations on T20 matches/tournaments, cricket as a game will suffer in the long run.

* Autobiography books from ex-cricketers has become a joke, and I am afraid Gilchrist might have joined that list. As a player, I really rate Gilchrist very high when it comes to being ethical, most of the times (he is human after all), but if his intention is to talk truth about Sydney test, why NOT write about Ponting's behavior or Clarke's stupid antics from the same test? I did not get a chance to read his book and I am sure our media had distorted facts and blown this out of proportion, but I am almost positive, Gilchrist did not write the whole story.

* Chris Broad had slapped a one test ban on Gambhir and I think it's a fair decision. But why ONLY 10% fine for Watson (Zaheer was fined 80% @ Mohali) who clearly seems to have started the whole issue and almost hit Gambhir by poking his hand out while the batsman was trying to take a run. Also, why there is NO warning or punishment for Katich who was very animated and uncontrollable? Something is wrong, right?

RIP - Director Sridhar

One of the greatest director from tamil cinema passed away. To me he was a brilliant story teller who was extremely talented, who came up with several "new" and "first time" in Tamil cinema.

His attention to details in his movies is amazing and he always had many surprises in all of his movies. His song picturizations are fantastic. Watch the song சொன்னது நீதானா from நெஞ்சில் ஓர் ஆலயம் where the camera zooms out of Devika, goes right behind Muthuraman and then zoom in on Devika again. The other song that comes to my mind is பூமாலையில் ஓர் மல்லிகை from ஊட்டி வரை உறவு. We usually see "continuity" in scenes but you can see continuity from scene to scene in this duet.

When it comes to comedy, who can forget டணால் தங்கவேலு in கல்யாண பரிசு. His evergreen காதலிக்க நேரமில்லை is still the benchmark for full time comedy movies.

His long list of new faces introduced to film industry includes J Jayalalitha, Kanchana, Venniraadai Murthy and Nirmala, Devika, Ravichandran, Srikanth, Vikram and may others.

May his soul rest in peace!

Office Space

Me: I need to know how far we are in terms of automating the tasks.

Developer: We are almost there, we have semi-automated the whole process.
Me: Could you please explain in simple terms so that I can update our clients appropriately.
Developer comes up with the following picture.

We had an issue with our restroom flush and there were notices/signs (with additional funny comments) to keep the place functional.

வாரணம் ஆயிரம் - Music

One of the popular director-music director duo, Gautham Menon and Harris Jeyaraj teams up again in வாரணம் ஆயிரம். Looks like the theme of the album is youth and Harris had leaned heavily towards rock music.

Adiye Kolluthe - This is typical rock number with some jarring instrumentals. The song sounds very western and reaches different levels due to change in tempo at different stages of the song. Shruthi Hassan's voice is different and the male duo Benny & Krish blends well together.

Ava Enna - Karthik is back (I don't hear him a lot these days) with a very versatile performance in this செம்ம local song. Very nice டப்பாங்குத்து considering the number of similar songs that have come in recent times. This will definitely be popular among all and will be a sure hit.

Mundhinam - This is my favorite song of the album even though it reminds me of Mutham Mutham from 12B and beats/instrumentals from 1942-LS. This song has too many good things going like Naresh Aiyer's youthful voice and the ease with which he sings high notes, Prashanthini's brilliant voice that keeps up with Naresh. This is probably one of the best orchestered song of the album.

Yethi Yethi - This is a very average number and reminds us of several latest hip-hops. Harris's use of Na.Muthukumar and Benny for this song doesn't help much and reminds us a lot of Taxi Taxi from Sakkarakatti.

Anal Mele - Typically, this song would have been sung by Bombay Jayashree, but this song has the beautiful voice of Sudha Raghunathan and she gives a fresh breathe of life to the song. Again, this song reminds us of some of the older songs composed by the same music director, especially the instrumentals in the middle portion.

Oh Shanthi, Shanthi - This song has a very nice rhythm and the voices of Clinton and SPB Charan sounds great in another typical rock style song. This is really short and sweet.

Nenjukkul Peidhidum - This is one of the sofy melody in this movie and in spite of Hariharan's magical voice, heavy chorus and Thamarai's catchy lyrics, the song is not so appealing. I am not sure if this song is an attempt to compose an "Unplugged" style melody or a "Typical" melody, but it ended up being neither.

All in all, this is another typical Harris Jeyaraj album that has a few surprises and lots of old songs reminiscence.