NHL and LA Kings' Lubomir Visnovsky

I have played field hockey; but ice hockey is so different. Skill sets required are very different. I made myself sit through one of the games -- one of the teams that played was LA Kings -- they won. I was surprised to be able to watch Lubomir Visnovsky videos on my phone; quite instructive to watch this guy.

Kramer the movie phone directory

Why dont you just tell me what movie you want to watch? Classic Kramer. Its the kind of insanity that separates Seinfeld from the rest -- enjoy!

Yuvraj Six Sixes

Will the six sixes be a turning point of sorts? Yuvi with his in-the-zone hitting and Mahi's cool calm batting and 'no-fear' captaincy. The new generation they symbolize -- assertive, aggressive, knowing-how-to-have-fun and therefore performing -- bolstered further by Gambhir, Uttappa, M Kartik, RP Singh, Sreesanth does things in a different way and they look likely to have more moments of success than the old guard of Sachin, Dravid, Ganguly -- who were at least equally gifted but probably took themselves or their ad-supported careers a bit too seriously and thus succeeded less often where it matters most?

Is there a larger parallel to this wherein Yuvi, Mahi et al reflect the attitudes of younger people in India (median age less than 25 years!) and will that translate to larger improvements? I hope so...

For now savor that:

Jim Breuer on the stomach situation

For the DD gang:

Impromptu information Access -- Anything Anytime Anywhere

For quite some time now companies have gone on about access to anything anytime anywhere (AAA) -- Its not been realized thus far; but this is arguably a very reachable goal now partly thx to things like vtap. (disclosure: I work at Veveo which powers vtap)

One of the important pieces that needs to work anywhere anytime for the AAA access to really come true is random access aka search. Search even on the PC is often getting harder especially when you're looking for some specific nugget of info and not looking to research a topic to death. Even on a PC and even using the almighty G, the cost perception of 'search' to a user looking for a specific nugget of info seems higher when the search is happening on a whim (say you wanted to check something out that you dont fully recall or you have a lunch table bet you want to prove you won or you want to look at how to do something immediately at the moment you realized you need to do it) -- At that time going to the PC and typing out your query is a pain and you probably decide to postpone your 'search query'; and you may not remember it again until you're again away from your PC. (For specific nuggets of quick info, even if you're close to a PC sifting through web search results can be annoying.) So you need to be able to get what you want right here right now -- so has to be on your phone! On your phone if you want to use web search, you get a chance to type into a web search bar in a phone browser -- on that pesky 'keyboard' typing in your query is a pain and the act of sifting through your results for that nugget of info is even more of a pain. In fact its obviously harder than doing on the PC. And all this just to instantaneously satisfy your urge to get to that pesky little nugget of non-essential info? Not happening... So you have to live on with one more unfulfilled urge, right? Doesnt have to if you have access to vtap.com on your iphone or the vtap app downloaded on your phone...

Egs
I want to get the Bridge on the River Kwai whistling tune -- the damn thing just slipped out of my mind and I am dying to know it right now -- so I type 'river kwai tune' into vtap (results start coming in as I type so dont have to type a lot) and I get this:

How is this useful -- its a Dudley Moore video.. But play it (on your phone!) and you get the tune! And can also have an unexpected chuckle courtesy Dudley Moore...Try 'river kwai tune' in web search engines to get the tune and see how that goes

Say you want to get one of the lines Al Pacino said in the Scent of a Woman speech -- do 'scent wom speech' in vtap app (dont have to type fully either) and again one of the first couple results is

And cool I can now play on the phone and see Al Pacino 'just getting warmed up'...on the phone

Even for things where PC web search has nailed the problem already: you want to recall the capital of Venezuela -- So you type 'venez capital' and you could get
some clip say

and you see Caracas in the title (dont even have to view the clip) and know thats it..

This is close to the goal of getting to AAA for info -- and shd get better and better.

Hum Dono -- Zindagi kaa saath

I am sure this is the song that must have 'inspired' me to try my first smoke...Sahir Ludhianvi's awesome lines -- 'Jo kho gayaa main usko bhulaata chalaa gaya, Har phikr ko dhooen mein udaata chala gaya' roughly translated (by me) to 'What I lost, I learnt to forget; every worry I blew into a wisp of smoke!'

This is a classic song 'Main Zindagi kaa saath' from the movie 'Hum Dono' composed by Jaidev . The music and lyrics make even Dev Anand tolerable! Discovered via vtap.com

Btw this is the mobilized link (can play on Nokia and other phones that have Real player)

More on Sahir's stuff later; especially his work for Guru Dutt classics like Pyaasa.

Kevin Spacey philosophises in 'The Life of David Gale'

One of the scenes that I like very much -- Kevin Spacey's classroom scene in the movie 'The Life of David Gale' -- Says some pretty inspiring stuff quoting the French psychiatrist Jacques Lacan

I dont know much about Lacan; but Noam Chomsky apparently considered him a self-conscious charlatan.. :-)

Well no matter what, Kevin Spacey rocks -- check out this video discovered via vtap.com

Hello World

Hello World!