New York, New York...again!

I went down to visit Sam and Mercy down in NJ for Thanksgiving 2007. I left early Thursday morning from my garage in Boston. It was smooth sailing except in CT where I hit heavy fog for most of the travel there. I arrived in NJ around 9:30 AM. Milton, who lived in Philly, met us there with his wife Shiney and young son Kevin. He was stopping by on his way to Washington DC since Kevin had been itching to see the Aerospace museum there. While the womenfolk were busy prepping the Turkey (for the record, they added a bit of spices to it) and Kevin was watching Chicken Little, Tom & Jerry, and playing with his toys, Sam, Milton and I whiled away the hours chatting.


Kevin. It was unseasonably warm on T-Day.


The food was phenomenal...


...and we made short work of it!

In the evening, we visited Sam's friend Ragu and his family in a brand new community near Windsor. It was a beautiful house with a huge basement where Ragu had a Table Tennis setup. So we played a good bit of TT before returning to Sam's place. Once back home, we put on the projector I had brought with me and watched Shooter before retiring for the night.

On the morning of black Friday, the shopping began. While at home, Milton was placing orders online for some electronics. I was amazed at how these guys shopped, searching for the best deals and using coupons, etc. Wow! I rarely buy stuff and when I do, I buy stuff regardless of the price. Although lately I've become painfully aware of my own spending habits.


Me and Milton. The hunt was on...

Then it was time for Milton and his family to leave for Washington but first...real shopping in the real world! Sam and Mercy decided they needed to buy some stuff at Kohl's while Milton decided that he finally had to get that electric guitar of his dreams at Guitar Center (he did get it for half the price...at $500!). I got tired of Kohl's after about 15 minutes. I think that I was the only single guy there and just could not relate to what was going around me :) So I went to a Starbucks across from the mall. It was across. Sure. But it took me about 10 minutes to cross NJ-18 because of traffic!! Anyway, I was relaxing over an eggnog latte when Sam and Mercy showed up. We lunched at a nearby Boston market where Mercy (this was her first visit to a Boston Market) sampled a variety of sides with her chicken. After lunch we left for Liberty State Park. Both Mercy and I had never seen "the Statue" close-up (on a side note, this has definitely been a "NY month" for me).


Sam and Mercy at Ellis Island.


A message for cynical immigrants.


I don't know who she was, where she came from, anything about the legacy she may have left behind, if she had time for hobbies or the money for after work drinks. But she was super cute. So there!


I played with the light a bit.


I played with the light a bit more. Look, no tripod!

It was bone-freezing cold by the time we were done with "the Statue". As soon as we disembarked from the ferry, we rushed to the warmth of the car and back to Sam's place in NJ.

The next day (Saturday), Ragu and his family dropped by for lunch. So Sam and I did a bit of grocery shopping in the morning. After lunch, I returned to Boston. Traffic again flowed smoothly except near Hartford were 91N was closed because of an accident. I had to take a local exit, drive a bit around Hartford before finding 84E. Once home, I promptly shaved my head, took a piping hot shower and went to bed! All in all, a weekend well-spent!

Until Death (A brief movie review)

This is another movie where the good guy starts off as a bad cop, gets beaten up into a coma, recovers and dispatches the actual bad guys. Having said that, I have to say that for a straight to video B-grade Van Damme flick, this movie had a surprisingly good screenplay and an acting side of Van Damme that I have not seen before. He doesn't throw a single kick (he does throw a variation of punch while in the driver's seat) as the primary means of delivery of violence here is always through a form of gun. But he did show some acting chops.

The supporting cast could have been better fleshed out. On more than one occasion, it was painfully obvious that people were acting. The producers of such low-budget movies apparently cannot rope in a Scarlett Johanssen. So they should commit more time to finding good casting. The girl playing Van Damme's wife was pretty hot (but then I am always horny so I could be...um...gushing here). The romance seems to have been thrown in so as to add a layer of complexity to Van Damme's "disturbed cop" character. And I thought that, for the most part, his scenes with his wife were actually effective.

So the lack of a good supporting cast along with a more expressive look from Van Damme would have elevated the quality of the movie from average to good. For the most part, his eyes stay rather lukewarm, something that I have noticed a lot in his previous "dramatic" work. A certain amount of fear or stark realization conveyed through his eyes here and there would have significantly raised the tension that Simon Fellows (the Director) was trying to convey in many parts of the movie.

Finally, the action scenes, considered a staple of Van Damme movies, are very few and, except one, are rather bland. Had more creativity been poured into the action scenes, that would have elevated the quality of the movie from good to great.

Thankfully there are no cheesy special effects. I didn't really notice the background music but I have to say that the set design was very professionally done (like in a big-budget movie).

So to recap, for a really good movie to happen next time, Van Damme will need to work with:

1. a better supporting cast,

2. more expressive eyes and

3. more thoughtful violence in the action scenes :)

In defense of Bear Grylls

You might want to visit the following two links first:

"Man vs. Wild" now truth vs. deception

The Man Vs Wild DVD set (and some real skeptical reviews) on Amazon



And here is the review I placed on amazon for the DVD set:

"I think that Bear (with his background in the military and a climb on Mt.Everest) started his show with a bit of cockiness. Personally I didn't mind that. Still I am glad to see the disclaimer/warning that they are putting up now before each episode begins (and Bear seems to have mellowed a bit as well). That should tell the skeptics that, like the reviewer below says, Bear's show is a "demonstration" of survival skills (something tells me the skeptics don't care). I like his show. My brother likes it. And a few other people I know like it. And we are all very active folks (not couch potatoes).

Now free climbing a 30 foot cliff to save hours from going around it (as he demonstrates it in the recent "Sahara" episode, which is not found in this collection) may or may not be stupid. But its thrilling (and, yes, I climb for fun) and you can't do it if you are overweight and prefer a couch to a cliff...which means you are naturally going to be skeptical of it :) That also means you have no business being alone and out in the kind of places where Bear does his filming. His show is entertaining and informative to me. But if I were going into unknown territory I would still seek out advice and knowledge from trusted sources before I go because that is the sensible thing to do. So...ease up, people. I agree that Les Stroud's "Survivorman" is more "realistic" but in terms of entertainment value, I feel drawn more to "Man Vs Wild"."

What a magnificent animal!

Looks a bit like a thug...Hi, baby, sorry I didn't call last night!

Great whites are perfectly capable of breaching. I wonder how the person who took this photograph did it: using a telephoto from a tall ship or a wide angle from a smaller boat. Its likely the latter since the pectoral fin, just below the surface of the water to the right of the photo, is clearly defined (unless the above shot is cropped). I wouldn't want to lean out of a small boat with a great white around. See video below for what I am getting at.



And that is a fish that can grow to 5000 lbs! But despite such impressive statistics, they are vulnerable....very vulnerable! They are not fished by humans as much as, say, Cod is. But fishing mishaps happen. And great white sharks mature very slowly. They may not reproduce until they get to be around 12 years old. This means they won't reproduce rapidly enough if their population, already low, were to decline quickly for some reason.

New York, New York

I was in NY this past few days meeting with friends. So I took some photographs. I know. Isn't that amazing? I actually took photographs!!

Although I have been to NY many times before, this was the first time I visited the Empire State building. The light was falling fast but I managed to take some decent pictures using the D70 (no tripod).


View of Central Park.


A different view. This was a handheld shot. I love my D70!


Note how much the light has fallen. The above three pictures were taken during a 15 minute period. I was constantly tweaking exposure in full manual.


Then they had this room with colorful lights. I felt compelled to take at least one shot. Well, I had to do something!


I attempted some rear sync shots so that the background won't be darkened by the flash. This one came out pretty decent. Although, without a tripod, camera shake is evident.


Back on earth, we had to do the ubiquitous Christmas tree-like shot.


At night, we flocked back to our friend Palani's house in Lawrenceville, NJ, a sprinkler city.

Later...

Festival of Lights

Today in India, Diwali (aka Deepavali), the festival of lights, will be celebrated all over the country. Because of major construction work in my parents' kitchen here in Quincy, we are planning to observe the festival on Sunday. They will probably invite some friends over for a big lunch.


Setting up lights (through oil lamps) seems to be done more elaborately in northern India.


Everyone does firecrackers, of course.


People play with firecrackers on their own. There isn't that much of a fire hazard since most houses in cities are built in concrete and brick (unlike here in the US where a lot of wood is involved). Any mishaps I remember from my childhood had to do with light burns on my hands from handling firecrackers.


The Rangolis become more elaborate on such "auspicious" days.

I've been calling up friends and family in India this morning and wishing everyone a good time!

ZMA = Deep Sleep

Ok. No one is paying me to write this stuff. So here goes...



I have been using ZMA for about a year now. The serving size is 2 to 3 caps a day. But I've been taking more like 2 to 3 caps a week. I was slacking off and, sure enough, I didn't see any noticeable effect in my sleep or recovery from training. I thought that since I was already sleeping in a pitch black room with the air purifier on (to provide white noise), the quality of my sleep cannot get any better. And I was recovering fine from training. Boy, was I wrong? Well, at least when it came to the sleep component, I was wrong.

In the last two weeks, I've been taking 2 to 3 caps of ZMA before bedtime. And I have gone into deeper sleep than I had thought possible. This happens on all nights except Monday nights (which is when my 130 lb neighbor has pretty vocal sex with her 350 lb boyfriend). So...I go to sleep and wake up the next morning completely awake. No grogginess. Nothing. Nada. Its like my Nikon D70. You turn it on and its ready to shoot instantly. To re-iterate: One moment I am asleep. Next moment I am fully awake. Like I had just been pursued by a bear that grudgingly decided I was too fleet-footed and hobbled back to where it crawled out of.

Apparently most people (which, I know, is a rather broad term) are deficient in Zinc and more so in Magnesium. While Zinc levels can be brought back up relatively quickly, things don't happen as quickly with Magnesium.

Charles Poliquin explains this a little better in this article:

http://www.t-nation.com/readArticle.do?id=459745

He explains it again in this one:

http://www.t-nation.com/readArticle.do?id=1257805 (then scroll down to the section "Age, Training, and Dwindling Hormones")

Dave Barr mentions ZMA in his outstanding article on developing a solid sleep routine:

http://www.t-nation.com/readArticle.do?id=1221529

You get the idea.

At 9 bucks, ZMA is a steal:

http://www.t-nation.com/onlineStore.jsp

Try it out.