10 things about Ms. Right (Switchblade)

Aaah…isn’t this a topic that sets all us single guys at attention? I mean there’s probably not a single bachelor out there who hasn’t already prepared a list in his mind of what the perfect girl for him should be like...

Now normally such a topic would get me recalling all the things I actually want in Ms. Right…but then again isn’t every dude looking for more-or-less the same kinda girl give or take a few preferences?
So apart from a plus points…ill also enlist some of the minus points on my rating scale…(yes I do have one…)...and all those who think I’m being chauvinistic by mentioning a rating scale…yeah right! Like you don’t have one!!

Ok here goes…its not really 10 points but who cares….





Apart from the fact that Ms. Right has to be a ‘she’….

Plus points…

1. She’s gotta be a good God-loving God-fearing Christian…She cant be Ms. Right for me if we can’t agree on the foundation of our lives.
2. We have to be on the same ‘wavelength’.
3. Ms. Right would have a zany sense of humor. I guess zany is the only word I can think of but its kinda like a combination of corny + goofy + sarcastic and a bit of the ‘ol ROFLMAO kinda humor too.
4. If she my Ms.Right then she’s gonna be a Ms. Foodie too.
5. Musical inclinations score brownie points. Minus 5 points if she likes Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys or any other cheesy American teen music act…. Metal-heads will be greeted with open arms.
6. She’s gotta love kids…
7. People say I have a weird sense of which girls are cute and which aren’t….she’s gotta be cute to me :)





Minus points…

1. If she cannot speak English fluently…
2. No one likes smelly people and I’m no exception.
3. Nag nag nag nag nag nag…
4. Replace ‘Nag’ from point 3 with ‘Yak’
5. She shouldn’t be too ‘girly’. I really cant stand girls who are too ‘girly’…everything is so cute and so sweet and so adorable….just kill me!!!
6. She’s gotta be neat and tidy…I mean at least one of us does so Id rather it be her :p

Then there are those things which don’t really matter like height, weight, color, hair length, nationality, race…. etc.
All girls are beautiful no matter what they look like and where they come from. It just takes a bigger man than me to notice the beauty in all of them...

Fantastic Four: The Rise of The Silver Surfer Movie Review (Switchblade)

Movie: Fantastic Four: The Rise of The Silver Surfer
Directed: Tim Storey
*ing: Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis, Julian McMahon




Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.


When I first heard that a part 2 of the Fantastic Four was in the making I nearly soiled myself with excitement...coz not only were they bringing back the family of cosmically empowered superheroes, they were going to face off against one of the greatest heroes of the Marvel Universe...The Silver Surfer.

So what we have is The Silver Surfer aka 'Norrin Radd', a humanoid alien from the planet Zenn-La. When the peace-loving folk of Zenn-La were faced with extinction at the hands of the planet-devouring Galactus, Norrin traded in his freedom for the safety of his homeworld becoming the herald of Galactus. When Galactus needed to feed, Norrin as the Silver Surfer would scout the universe looking for planets to be devoured by the insatiable Galactus. Able to travel the vast interstellar distances with his silver surfboard and armed with the Power Cosmic (the same power that made our four heroes fantastic) the Surfer spent several decades serving his new master...until he came to Earth!

The movie kicks off with the wedding of Mr. Fantastic (Ioan Gruffudd) and Invisible Girl (Jessica Alba). However the arrival of the Surfer puts a monkey wrench in the marriage machinery and the Four are off to kick Silver butt and drive away the intruder.




As with most of the super-hero movies that come out these days...the special effects in this installment are absolutely brilliant but sadly the story line is a bit too weak. From one fight scene to the next, the story flows quite smoothly but it lacks depth. At times it feels like there's just too much talk and not enough fighting.

Carried over from the first movie are the playful fights between the Thing and The Human Torch, The Invisible Girl's public wardrobe malfunctions and Mr. Fantastic’s inability to control his stretching powers making you feel like the director is at his wits-end trying to come up with new gags to keep the audience entertained.

The Silver Surfer, portrayed by Doug Jones and voiced by Laurence Fishburne (Morpheus from the Matrix trilogy), is one enigmatic character. In a struggle between saving the Earth and doing his master's bidding, he is the only character in the movie that the audience can really relate to. Good news for the villain lovers...the handsome Dr. Doom (Julian McMahon) is back! And he's badder, meaner and more powerful than ever before!!

Overall it is a good movie and a decent entertainer but it lacks the 'oomph' that the first movie had. This one had the potential of being a true summer blockbuster but sadly wont make too much of an impact at the box office.

Pros
Amazing special effects and fight sequences.
Julian McMahon is a really good actor and truly brings out the character of Victor von Doom.
Few elements of humor courtesy the Thing and the Human Torch.
The Silver Surfer...need I say more??

Cons
Once again...Shallow character development.
Jessica Alba looks fake! Too much make-up and very bad acting...IMO Charlize Theron would have made the perfect Invisible Girl.
Stan Lee (creator of the Fantastic Four) and his cameo appearances that are kinda getting on my nerves!
Why do they insist on making super-heroes dance?? Didn’t we have enough of Spidey doing the Salsa?? Now we have Mr. Fantastic shaking his elastic booty!!

Overall Rating: 7/10

PS - For those of you who are interested in getting to know the finer details of the movie, check out the Silver Surfer cartoon uploaded on youtube. The first and second parts of the first episode detail the transition from Norrin Radd to the Silver Surfer.

Cheers!!

Silhouette (Switchblade)

Sorrrry for not putting this up earlier…. Hope I’ve made it in time before the topic ends….

When the time had come to vote for the current topic I was furiously voting for ‘Introduce your best friend to us’ coz I have one dear friend whom I was dying to introduce to you guys. His name is Gagan and he’s perhaps the best friend I ever had…Since my choice of topic wasn’t chosen, I think I’ll bend the topic a bit and post a pic of Gags n Me :)

Short background on my friendship with ‘Gags’…we studied together from LKG uptil the 3rd in India…then I left for Bahrain to continue my studies and after I got back to do my engineering we happened to land up in the same college…Now we’re part of the same church and conduct bible studies together. A lot of people think we’re brothers coz we think alike…laugh at the same jokes…and quite often its only the both of us who understand each other while the rest of the world thinks we’re off our rocker! We’re planning on starting a 2-piece band and naming ourselves GnR…to heck with Guns & Roses!

Now for my favorite pic (this is just one of the many favorites I have)…its one of Gags and Me when we were on our trek to Ticona Fort near Pune way back in November 2005.





I know you can’t see much but that’s taken from the inside of a small cave. That's me on the left of the picture…Gagan like silhouettes :)

Cheers Gags!!
Friends are friends forever if the Lord is their God...

A special day with a fellow BUFer (Switchblade)

The one person who stands apart when it comes to picking a person who I'd like to spend my day with just happens to be Ishita.

So Ishi...When I first came across her blog about a year ago I was fascinated by the colors, sounds and pics she had used to decorate her page...after reading through a few posts I thought to myself...hey here's a really cool girl...Then I read that she was married and had a son too!!

This totally shattered my image of married women...somehow I couldn't conceive that a woman with a husband and a son could be 'cool' coz in my mind she'd get slotted into the 'aunty' category.
In short, Ishi helped destroy the rather narrow-minded and false image that I had...Thanks for that Ishi ;)





Over the past year I've come to know her an extremely sensitive and caring person who totally loves her family and friends and is simply an amazing person to have as a friend. She has a lot to say and is very expressive in the way she pens things down...just have a look at her creative blog! How she manages to be a full time wife, mother and blogger at the same time never ceases to amaze me.

For our one day out we'd probably go walking through the market places in Delhi, letting the sights and sounds seep in...then we'd head off for a mushy English flick (along the lines of Notting Hill) and finish it off with nice dinner at some obscenely expensive place where we'd both complain about the sky high prices but still end up enjoying ourselves thoroughly :)

Looking forward to meeting you dear...Cheers and God bless!

Spiderman 3 Movie Review (Switchblade)

Movie: Spiderman 3
Directed and Written by: Sam Raimi
*ing: Tobey Maguire,Kirsten Dunst,James Franco,Thomas Haden Church,Topher Grace



Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Its been a while since I've written a review on any movie...and this movie in partcular is one that I've been waiting to see for nearly about a year now...yeah thats right... a whole year!

As I sat through the movie last night I thought to myself...aw crap!! The movie is a classic case of too much turning out to be not really enough... Handling a project with an emotional superhero is one thing but its a whole different ballgame if you got 3 supervillians to boot. Sadly director Sam Raimi wasn't able to delve into each of the villians well enough which resulted in a shallow character build-up.

The love triangle between Peter Parker, Mary-Jane Watson and Harry Osbourne (Green Goblin Jr.) seemed to be the major part of the storyline with the Sandman and Venom taking a backseat. Venom infact isnt seen until well into the second half of the film. The special effects are the saving factor of the movie with the fight sequences bigger and better than ever before...especially the four way finale which is a complete brawl between the four super-powered humans and Mary Jane hanging in the balance like the proverbial damsel in distress for the third time in the row..(she played in a very similar part in the previous two installments of the series)

So go watch this movie if you are a true marvel fan...if not..watch it anyway for the special effects. Afterall how can you miss a summer blockbuster? However those who are Spidey fans to the core might be left a bit disappointed coz of the high expectations that this movie has to live up to.

Pros
Amazing special effects and fight sequences.
3 supervillains for Spidey to handle.
Gwen Stacey looks really good :)
Brilliant performances by Topher Grace(Eddy Brock/Venom) and James Franco (Harry Osbourbe/Goblin Jr.)
Hilarious cameo by Bruce Campbell of Evil Dead fame.

Cons
Shallow character development.
Spidey crying his eyes out like a third standard girl in a pink frock.
Sam Raimi taking a bit too much liberty with the comic sequences involving Spidey (You'll know what i mean if you watch the movie)
Kirsten Dunst's (Mary Jane Watson) sub-standard performance.

Overall Rating: 6/10


Pop Quiz!

Spidey does one of the following in the movie...guess what it is??
(This is for those who havent seen the movie)

a. Steals a lollipop from a small girl
b. Plays the piano and does an impromptu salsa dance at a jazz bar
c. Goes out web-slinging completely naked and flashes the public


PS - If ur watching the movie make sure you catch the last scene where they show Mary Jane's hands close-up....someone forgot to wax! XD

Cheers!!

Death by Metal (Switchblade)

I'm a metal head to the core…I love my music and I love it heavy. More specifically I love Melodic Death Metal, which is a sub genre of heavy metal characterized by sweet guitar riffs, atmospheric sounds and more often than naught, deep growling vocals. Of the many notable bands that play this genre of music I’m most enamored by Insomnium, Blood Stain Child, Mors Principium Est and Dark Tranquillity.

That’s not to say that I don’t like slow songs…its just that I outgrew them several years ago. Starting from my early days when I rifled though my mom’s old Abba and Engelbert Humperdink cassettes to my real music awakening with Linkin Park and The Prodigy, I’ve heard most of the music types out there. Somehow nothing appeals to me more than death metal.

However listening to death metal has always had a certain stigma attached to it…A friend once asked me if I get aggressive and angry whenever I listen to my music…on the contrary I actually find it soothing and a great way to unwind.
Theres nothing like a double bass beat with a twin guitar attack and good bass lick to calm the soul and transport you into headbanger's heaven.


Insomnium – Mortal Share

The lyrical themes of Melodic Death Metal are mostly expressionist and are much more ‘user-friendly’ compared to the satanic/anti-Christ themes that black metal songs usually revolve around. Safe to say I’m not into black metal and I wonder if their moms know what they’re up to!

Now it seems that not a single day can go past without my music…I even listen while on my hourly bike ride to work and back thanks to my I-pod.
What more can I say? Abba put it best…”Thank you for the music…for giving it to me” \m/

Dating….A primal practice (Switchblade)

Since most of my esteemed co-bloggers have written volumes on contemporary dating dos and don’ts…I decided to take a different look at the dating scene altogether and postulate the dating habits of Neanderthal man. Not much is known of our supposed ancestors let alone what they did on the special night…hence all the data and ‘facts’ published here are quite open to discussion.




Being a Neanderthal on a date brings in a lot more complexities than one would imagine…

First question that arose was what to wear on that special first date? For them its wasn’t as simple as popping into the nearest mall and picking up a suave ensemble…our ancestors would have to hunt down their evening wear. Luckily they weren’t too spoiled for choices…it was either bear, wolf, or dog. The upper strata of prehistoric society could even indulge in the luxury of saber-tooth and wooly mammoth skins. For underwear, wild cats were usually hunted because of their soft hide that gave just the right amount of comfort and support…. and lets face it…even Neanderthals knew better than to be caught wearing dirty underwear on that special night.

Being presentable to the ladies was also a major concern among prehistoric men. Some learnt the hard way that Eau d’ Skunk wasn’t exactly the best perfume to wear. Most men would rub flowers on themselves to get rid of offensive odors (Showing up on a date with flowers for in your hand finds its origins in this practice).

Asking a girl out wasn’t too hard for them though…it was only a matter of spotting the girl you like and knocking her out with a blunt object. The girl was then dragged to the man’s cave. The few hours of unconsciousness that followed gave the man just enough time to set up the candle-lit dinner table.

Dinner preparations were also quite simple with the more resourceful men using the meat from their recently killed clothes as the main course.

The conversations around the dinner table were sadly quite limited, as the concept of a language itself wasn’t very well developed. Through grunts, groans and gestures the man would try to wow the lady with tales of his hunting exploits.
If the lady was impressed enough then the man would get 'lucky' and would have himself a girlfriend. Subsequent dates would not involve as much preparation or the use of blunt objects.

If however the man were to fail, it would mean a few more days before he’d have another passed out dame in his cave with a big leg of boar roasting over an open flame.

Its only through these primitive practices that us contemporary men have come to perfect the art of dating over the years. Herein ends this brief peek into the dating lives of our Neanderthal ancestors.

<Drumroll> Introducing....

Switchblade or as my parents christened me,Royston....You can call me Roy though.

First off methinks this blog is a great idea and whoever thought it up is quite brilliant...<winks at Ishi> Thanks for the invitation!



Thats me and thats not my bike

Now a little about me. I'm a true blue Goan born and brought up in the Gulf and currently working in an IT company here in Pune. Im a Christian, an audiophile, a horror movie buff, a totaly foodie and also an avid gamer.
Been blogging for about a year now... and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep....oh yeah...I'm a terrible poet too.

That's all for now...I'm sticking to the short and crisp posts rule. More about me through my posts.
I'm planning on having a great time sharing my views here with the rest of y'all...Cheers!