2009 Calendars - Holidays, Liturgical and Movie

I spent the afternoon working on my Google Calendars for 2009.
Here are a few of my public-calendars:  (Free to use)

• My "Karnataka Hols 09 " calendar:
• Can be found HERE (in HTML - as a stand-alone web page), in XML (for feed-readers) and ICAL (for Calendar-software)

• My choice of "Movies India Eng" calendar:
• Can be found HERE (in HTML), in XML and ICAL

• My Indian "Liturgical'09" calendar (catholic):
• Can be found HERE (in HTML), in XML and ICAL

Alternatively, all these calendars are "Public" in GCal so anyone can search for them and merge it to their existing calendars.

Notes:

The English Movies India calendar: This is a arbitrary calendar since it contains only release-dates for english movies in India - that i am anticipating. The movies have been cross-referenced between RottenTomatoes, FirstShowing and IMDB and the release-dates have been adjusted for India (usual dates listed are for U.S premieres). These are amongst the most awaited movies of 09 and are movies i'll definitely see. For a full list for 2009 head to the links above. Also, i will be continuously tinkering with this list as more interesting movies come to my notice. (refs: see links above)

The 2009 Karnataka Holidays calendar: Includes only Gazetted Holidays (18 closed holidays), not Restricted-holidays (35 days). Also, this is a Karnataka-specific list - but the Calendar demarcates both Central-only and Karnataka-only holidays, and is hence suitable for everyone. (Central and Karnataka holidays differ in a few instances...Rajotsava, Janmashtami etc.) (refs: Central 2009, Karnataka 2009)

The 2009 Indian Liturgical Calendar: For Catholics in India. The General Roman Calendar consists of Fixed Feasts which repeat yearly, without variation - eg: 25 Dec, and Movable Feasts which change yearly - eg: Easter. This calendar demarcates Fixed-feasts ad infinitum, and has Movable-feasts marked up till Easter2010, by which time the calendar will be updated for 2010. I created this after i found there is no online liturgical calendar specifically for India.
(refs: Movable Feasts, Fixed Feasts, Days of Obligation)
(To know more: "Why Lent moves around but X'Mas stays put?" - article)

GCal is nifty since it can send SMS's to your cell prior to the event.
I usually set most of my Calendars to SMS me 12hrs before any event, so that the night before - i get a heads-up whereever i am, irrespective of whether i am near a PC. I highly recommend GCal. It can even be integrated within GMail.

Image from tanakawho
Technorati Tags: calendar, 2009, holiday, karnataka, india, liturgical, hollywood, release

Collective Chaos - the muted adventure.

Ok, I finally have finished my exams. My last exam was yesterday. Since our class takes the exams as 2 batches on 2 consecutive days, there isn’t really any point celebrating on the 1st day since half the class still hasn’t finished.

So, for want of something to do in the evening, I decided to go checkout Collective Chaos. Now CC, is part-forum for budding young filmmakers, part-film-society which arranges weekly screenings of alternative cinema. How I know this? Because its on the website… beyond that, I know nothing. I first learnt about it on the college bulletin-board, and was told it was a nice place to go if one liked art-movies etc…and that further details could be obtained ‘at-venue’.

Also, CC is on Millers Road…really quite close to home. And the weekly screening is on a Friday, a day I usually find myself quite bored in the evenings anyway. I’ve been putting off a check-out-visit for a long time now, and I decided it would be a nice tension-release after the exam.


So yesterday I went to CC. I walked into the Cinematheque…it’s on the 5th floor. I’m 10mins late and so I’m not surprised to see a lone guard sitting near the door, and no one else around. I confirm I’m at the right place and walk on in.

The show must’ve started and that’s why there’s no one around, I figure. So I walk past the heavy sound proof doors and enter a smaller-than-expected auditorium. The lights are off and there’s a overhead projector on, playing a foreign-language movie with English sub-titles.

So, I take a seat. There are people all around me engrossed in the movie, but the glow off the screen isn’t enough to make out any details. I’m trying to make out the company I’m in….young/old? College/working? Serious/informal? I can’t make out anything, so I stop staring out of the corner of my eyes and pay attention to the screen.


The movie is called “Blackboards”, and is about a teacher who carries his blackboard with him everywhere, high in the Afghan mountains, persuading the boys who run the illegal paths through the mountains to Iraq to smuggle contraband to let him teach them. They’re obviously disinterested.

It’s a bleak landscape, and plenty of gallows humor. Still no one watching laughs, mumbles or says anything. It’s really weird. No one talks. No cell phones going off. No one getting up in between. Nothing.

Then suddenly the movie is over. The kids get shot as they’re crawling amidst a large flock of wooly sheep past the border guard. Still nothing. No shocked gasps. No whispers to the neighbour. There’s a pause. Then people start getting up and leaving.

No one’s talking much. People move out in groups of 2’s and 3’s. Outside, the volume is not much higher than it was inside. People quietly read the circular about next weeks movie, and move off.

The whole experience was absolutely surreal…like one of those weird dreams when things only ‘happen’ and no one talks. Like an out-of-body experience. I walked away feeling a bit numbed by the whole thing.

It was such a weird experience that I’m going back next week.

The 1st Years Chronicles/KU64 Review

A new batch of juniors has unceremoniously been inducted into the Bachelor’s programme at my college even as I write my final exams finishing 4 years at Dental-School.

Watching them troop down from one lecture hall to the other; they walk around the corridors, unsure of themselves, looking this way and that, eagerly absorbing the sights of a busy teaching-college.

Only yesterday, it seems, I too was one of them, just a “plus-two-pass”, eager and excited to begin the next big phase of my life. I can’t help but be envious of them.

It’s almost comical when they cross us in the corridors. While most of them fail to make the distinction between Patient and Senior, a few of them are already vaguely conscious of a hierarchy they are a part of…and they indicate this awareness by developing an uncomfortable stiffness as they cross us. Plus shifty eyes, and quickened pace. Nothing could delight us more.

KU64

It isn't a movie about a mystery airplane. It isn't a crack commando regiment. It isn't a super-secret molecule that can kill millions. It isn't a map-reference to a hidden bunker. It isn't a elite spy's code-name. It isnt a German U-Boat.

It's a Dental Clinic.
Make that, The World's Coolest Dental Clinic.
And its in Germany.

So, Maybe a dentist with some secret fascination with WW-II submarines decided to name his clinic KU-64?
Not really, it's named after its Kurfursendam address in Berlin.


Check out some pics of the place. The whole place is about 'light, space, freedom'...and YELLOW!

Here you combine dental treatment with a luxurious relaxing spa-retreat...

And relax in a 10,180-square-feet spread.......(Must be easy to get lost!!!)

It accommodates 8-fuck-lucky-dentists at one time...

Who probably treat beautiful hotties...all day long.

LUCKY BUMS!

Review: The DaVinci Code

Da Vinci Code!


I went and saw the Da Vinci Code yesterday- 1st day 2nd show. (The bastards had already done 2snips, as far as i could detect, anyway..)
Anyway, the guy who play's Silas- Paul Bettany is really creepy! Couple of excellent jump-in-your-seat moments too- this considering that MOST of the audience, like me, had read the novel before and knew exactly what to expect, and when. I think it actually heightened the experience...coz whenever anything was to happen, i was on edge well before it actually did. Tom dada looks podgy- he's done better work before.
And i SO wish Kate Beckingsale had played Sophie, not Audrey Tautou. She was considered and lost out in Casting. You would agree it was a mistake too...see. and here. and HERE. and HERE. and HERRE. Oh BTW, Audrey Tautou's dad is a Dentist!

Trivia: Officials from Britain's Westminster Abbey refused to allow filming to take place in the Abbey, claiming that the book is "theologically unsound". Instead, the filming took place at Lincoln Cathedral in eastern England.

The whole theatre was filled with 20-somethings....and when the opening sequence to the movie started there sound of cheers & hoots was Really loud! Good stuff...especially when the girl sitting in front of you isn't wearing a bra and has a short hot-pink top cut halfway down to her belly button!!!

Monster Protest
There is going to be one BIG mother of a protest on Sunday...check this site for details: Savebrandindia.org Youth4equality.org

The govt. might change its mind after all, if things go on like this.