Mountain Biking, a bliss

I have taken to biking more seriously these days and especially during the winter nothing beats that. It is the inital mental break through point about the cold, the distance, the uphill but with time you just dont think about that any more. It has been incredible for the fact that I am clocking 25 miles almost every other day but with the weekday I guess I would not be able to be consistent with that. And this jaunty has been helping me indirectly (call it the Butterfly effect, " "If a butterfly flaps its wings on one side of the world, the ripple effect could cause a tempest on the other"), I burn up 350 calories on each trip,which is quite remarkable.

One of the days when it snow stormed real bad. It was quite eventful that it happened.. But contrary to the common belief about biking having to make a man sexually impotent, is a fab. But I think everything within the sanity side of the line is all good.



Cycling in gym also is no bad thing at all. Atleast we end up doing something better to ourself. They say the "apple" shaped stomach for men and "pear" shaped bottom for women, is not good at all in the long run. And this is no forum for the health benefits, it is just a thought. The fun starts when we start doing it.

Pan's Labyrinth, The Movie

This movie is directed in the past during the Spannish civil war period and it is quite well directed as such. I am not going to go into the details mentioning what is where and how coz that would dilute the effect from the movie. This was the first time that I ventured to watching a Foriegn language movie and I feel that does not dilute the flow of the movie at all. What I like the most in that movie was the way the director mixes parallel story lines and attention to minute details, for example, when shot in the cheek the right eye starts to become bloodier slowly and when the major fights with Mercedes and is cut on the cheek, the cut is pretty much the same length of the small knife that she used. Sometimes, when screens flip over there is a good chance to overdo the actual. Knowingly or unknowingly, this film had the mixture of all.

I would rate the move a positive 8.5 er (not an average movie). See it then you will appreciate the fact why this was oscar nominated in 6 different categories.

Betrayal or Love

I don't know how many times we see this happen around us. The tagline being something related to Moses and Ramses. Moses was left to himself when he was a baby in a river by the parents (family) who were slaves to the then ruler of Egypt. The baby is set adrift in the water and dangerous one that too and finally reaches the noble family of the King and they see the baby and without any big deal adopt him and eventually give birth to Ramses, thereby making two kids in the royal family.

The brothers grow up for a while and into teens and post those nice moments, I am talking about a period *say* 20 or 21 years of upbringing in the royal family, Ramses takes over the kingdom and appoints his dear, intelligent brother as the chief officer (I forget the position name). That is when Moses meets his "sister" who are the bonded labourers that belong to Hebrew community. She says something about being abandoned and that he was the foster son to the king. If this was not enough the "sister" sings a song ! Dang , the brother is so mesmerized and enquires the King about this and knows the truth which is a slap on the face kind of thing.

Moses leaves the kingdom and goes to a far away land in the desert and marries a girl from well to do family. Now the plot. Moses changes his mind and wants to act against Ramses by asking for the freedom of "his" community because the god of the Hebrew's came in his dreams ! Ramses refuses and the fight and the famine and finally Ramses loses his son in that famine where the "god" protects Moses and his crew because they have the Lamb's blood mark on their house. Eventually, Moses makes a pathway in midst of the river and takes his men to safer land and promptly Ramses attacks, more to do because he lost his progeny because of this idiot. And Moses tricks him and the river closes the pathway and bingo ! Ramses is dead caught there.

Question: What was worth to note from a back stabbing, sick history such as this? The kid is in the river all by itself and the royal family takes him to their own and for 22 freaking years Moses does not know if he was the royal blood or not. Suddenly, from no where , when he knows it he admonishes the Kingdom. How worse can it get? I mean, what was for the King and Queen who showed atmost love to the Idiot, Moses, who saved the best form of gratitude by leaving and back stabbing. And that is the Histry we present to the future generation.

I mean, even if, say god came and did manage to say something about freedom et all .Moses, where is the thinking? What is it that we are trying to tell our future, well here is the deal, what ever happens forget your present family and try to bind and save the unknown because they are the actual parents? People make a big deal about that saying Moses made that sacrifice and blah blah. I think he was a bad example of how a kid turned into a man should not be.

I got a better story in conjuction to this. How about Mahabarat, an Epic story from Indian civilization. We had the same remake situation and I forget that person's name.. Say "X" he did not leave his "Foster" family when he knew about that. X said, "well the foster family was so good in treating him as theirs so I cannot leave them in the need of crisis. Even if it is wrong I will fight for the Kauravas."

This is a good moral compared to what happened in Egypt. Sometimes people becomes so self pocessed that we don't and fail to see the bigger picture. In real life, there are more such incidents which we can relate to. I think, we should grow up to a person who can take decisions not just self-aggrandizing ourself.

Having said all that what would have happened if Moses stuck with Ramses and had the empire expanded. Positive side, we would have had many more pyramids and nice wonders (intact) of the world. Negative side, there would have been slaves. But who was not a slave in that era.

Anyway, we are but full of reasons for what we do. I think if Moses came to life now, he would have his "nicer and socially acceptable" reason which will go well with everyone... For the moment, I am not pleased anyway by that Egyptian history. And let's not become one like that ever after from now.

Disclaimer: The above observation is not specific to any religion or caste or anything. It was an example that could just fit so well and more importantly, this was my thinking and has nothing related to anyone else.

Snow storm

The worse is always in store until the end. Now, how can this ever happen, I mean, on valentine's day and it was a snow storm - worst snow storm that got the entire Northeast america to the knees. I have never seen something this worse. But the point being why on that day. New York had so many poor story lines. Folks wanted to surprise their parters by making floral orders which were supposed to be hand given at the appropriate time and guess what we got an uninvited snow storm messing up the party.

I, for one, felt quite helpless - both for the situation I found myself in and thiers. Story my end was equally apalling. The snow cleaned us up big time and crippled us. Total connection to outer world lost, interstates shut down and here I was looking at my room heater which is right at the woods. The longer it was covering up with snow, my heart was skipping a beat. Coz that is the only source of heat to the house and should the heater konk out, guess what..

But I am not against the snow but the time and date the artic cold had to pass over. I hated that. Feb 14th - Valentine's Day. The artic freeze in NorthEast which resulted in the snow storm was called the Valentine as well. And Saint Valentine would have been mighty disappointed with what he would have seen.

I am grumpy now... anyway that is how I am always :-)