Android vs Mom

To introduce mom to the amazing features of a smart phone I gifted her a Micromax Android phone on her Anniversary. Since she uses her phone just for calling and at most to listen to music, i guessed she would find it difficult to cope with a more advanced operating system like Android. But she has picked up the intricacies of Android so fast that I can no longer answer her queries. She just took a couple of months to figure out that  the 1GHz processor Micromax was a junk  phone and the amazing specs (on paper) could no longer convince her. She wanted a better Android phone. (The Micromax is now happy being accepted in the noble family of old 1100, w700i etc)

That is when I gave her my basic "LG Optimus One" phone which I was using happily for the past two years. And within two days she crashed the custom ICS rom I had flashed on it and the phone just went dead. She said she was playing with some settings and the phone went to a really long sleep (Somehow i could never do it in my two years of Android usage). She started cursing me for the poor visibility of ICS rom and it was no longer easy to toggle Wi-Fi etc. Somehow I convinced her that it's Google's mistake and not mine and with lot of pains recovered the stock ROM for her liking.

Since then there is no looking back and she now configures Wi-Fi on her phone and shares images with her friends over Bluetooth. she has already picked up words like "download", "upload" and replies in whatsapp using things like "OK cool". Is always glued to her phone till late nights and also had several visits to Eye specialists. She now helps her friends to upload apps on their phone (upload=install in her dictionary, also Internet=Google=Wi-Fi).  But her deep dive into the world of Android and her one-one with recent technologies was not always easy on my brain and my ego of being an Engineer. As I get blamed for most of the bugs introduced in Android by Google or any other developer of Apps. Following are some of her duels with Android/me:

Mom vs my M.Tech (round 1):
Mom: What is the difference between 2G, 3G and 2GB,3GB?
Me: aaahmmmm! 2G is second generation of wireless technology. The gsm technology we use for  calling is 2G or rather 2.5G. 3G is third generation which provides higher speed internet these days. 2GB is 2 Gigabyte's a measure of memory. More is the memory more songs you can store.
Mom: !!!! (puzzled) what are you talking about?
Me: 2G is for Sim card 2GB is for SD card.

Mom vs YouTube update: I thought of surprising mom with the new YouTube interface and updated it myself. Somehow her search history got messed up.
Mom: what did you do to my phone. I can no longer see comedy and cookery shows I had on my YouTube
Me: Those were just initial "Recommendations". You can always search for them.
Mom: Idiot don't ever touch my phone!

Mom vs WhatsApp: On profile pictures of other users, showing in whatsapp

 Mom: Why do people put their photos on "my" Whatsapp?
Me: !! %&@!! (Puzzled)
Mom: Delete them I don't want them on my phone.
Me: &@%#+&#! (Slightly dizzy)

Mom vs YouTube:
Mom: How do I download songs from YouTube?
Me: (Wondering how to explain her the Google policy on app market!) You need an app for that which is not available on Google play. You have to get Tubemate etc
Mom: OK cool
Me: !!

Mom vs my M.Tech(round 2):
Mom: What is the difference between Wi-Fi and the Internet?
Me: aah mmm (using experience from past will try to explain in kannada) Wi-Fi is a "Maadhyam" (medium) and internet is a "Saulabhya"(facility). Wi-Fi may provide internet but not vice versa. E.g Wi-Fi is like a plate in which you serve food called internet.
Mom: This is the stupidest example I have ever heard!
Wife: He is fooling around with you mother-in-law. Internet is nothing like that.
Me: %#?@+???
Mom: Idiot explain it in English
Me: I don't know :( ( my M.Tech proved useless again)

Experiences like these have definitely made me lot more patient these days :). Sharing this hoping that Google might hire her to test their future Android releases.

Chennai Express review

The review has been broken into two parts according to the group to which the reader belongs. Please limit yourself to your group only and do not bother to read the other part. 
Note: No spoilers (as if it matters).

i. For Shahrukh Khan Fans: Yes you heard it right, Chennai Express is a very entertaining movie. It is as good as all the other Shahrukh starrer movies and is a must watch. I say it is the super hit “DDLJ” made in tamil. Again the chemistry (and Biology) between Shahrukh and Deepika is awesome. Deepika has definitely got a more visible role in this movie compared to her other movies and has done good justice to her role.

The first half of the movie is very funny and is a laugh riot. So much that the family sitting behind me in the theatre went crazy laughing. You wouldn’t be disappointed in the second half of the movie too as there are action scenes with Shahrukh’s bleeding lips. The charm of Shahrukh has worked again and he has given another successful entertainer which would cross 100cr collection. It has all ingredients of a good movie like action, comedy, romance, item numbers and is a 100% paisa wasool masala movie. 
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ii. For Non Shahrukh Khan Fans: Yes your gut feeling is right. Chennai Express (CE) is as good as any other Shahrukh starrers. This is another crap movie directed by Rohit Shetty and crazily publicized by the Khan. Rohit Shetty has his own way of directing movies. The scenes in his movies appear to be comedy scenes but I wonder why I don't feel like laughing at them. Some people do get confused and laugh out loud and suddenly they themselves wonder what just happened and why they laughed. Many dialogues and scenes are from or refer to the self obsessed Shahrukh's older movies. Story is a typical Telugu movie story (hope this is not considered a spoiler).

You could enjoy the second half of the movie slightly more than the first half. That is because the level of jokes is so cheap that the creative part of your brain would go in deep sleep and the expectations of the remaining part of the brain would go very low. The family sitting behind me was the only ones laughing in the theatre. For a while i had the feeling that they were part of the CE publicity team. Others laughed every time they remembered that they had actually paid 350/- per ticket for this movie and cannot go back home without looking well entertained.

Deepika’s performance is limited to what we guessed by watching the trailer, "Ekdum bokkwaass" dialogue delivery. So you can definitely give a skip to this movie or go ahead and contribute to Rohit Shetty relief fund which will reach 100cr mark for no reason. Get a Tamil-English dictionary if you have any obligations (like me) to watch it. It will help you in understanding the movie better, if not at least you will use the time to learn Tamil. If you still want to watch this and also save money then better buy some popcorn and watch the trailer repeatedly until it premieres on television. Do some creative work or spend some genuine time with your family instead of spending time and money on such movies.

Man of Steel - A desperate review

Yes, the man is indeed of steel. Not because the Superman character doesn't even get a scratch after being hit by a flying truck but because the extraordinary chap has consistently maintained a blank puzzled  facial expression throughout the movie. Such amount of consistency would be very tough to maintain even for the best of our bollywood actors like Imran Khan or even Himesh Reshammiya. He is well supported by a brilliant crew of actors who seem to have written their own dialogues which is unlikely in most movies.

One of my favorite dialogues in the movie is when the little superman gets very disturbed in his school classroom after watching the x-ray vision of his teacher (in fact even i got a bit disturbed). Psyched out he runs and locks himself in a room saying “this world is too big for me”. That is when his mother(super mom) miraculously turns up at  his school and consoles him (rather hypnotizes him) saying “Clark, imagine this world to be a small island, can you see it? now slowly swim towards it.” Hearing this magical words the super kid calms down and learns to handle the x-ray visions of people there on. Even if the dialogues were probably not written for this scene but the brilliant actress could handle the situation with her impromptu dialogues.

Another brilliant part of the movie is that the villain Zod who doesn't seem to get hurt a bit even if a nuclear bomb exploded in his pants but our Super Superman kills him by just twisting his neck. Animation team has put more than 100% in their efforts actually more than what was necessary. Animation is so good that even the doors of spaceship do not shut simply. They shut as if joining thousands of broken pieces together showing weird patterns not seen in any sci-fi movies, just brilliant.

This superman is lot more matured and modern than his predecessors as he no longer wears his undis over his pajamas. The Superman is supposed to be from a planet called as Krypton. But actually i could identify two more people who are from krypton but is not revealed in the movie. Probably that would be revealed in its sequel. But i would like to break the secret for you guys. One of them actually is the Director of this movie. That is because just after watching 2-3 poorly made Hollywood movies he could make this extraordinary masterpiece. Another hint being that the scenes in the movie are completely disconnected which is a usual trend in all the Kryptic movies (movies made in the planet Krypton).

You wouldn’t believe that the third person from krypton is actually from India. He is none other than the reviewer from Times of India who gave 4 stars to this movie, a worthy rating for this masterpiece. Only a person from Krypton could actually appreciate the fine details and beauty of this movie. Like for we mortals from planet Earth it is very difficult to even guess who is younger among the heroine and superman’s mother, Or why Russel Crowe worked in this movie, or why Superman's father went to save his dog and got himself killed like a dog. Earthlings like me without thinking twice buy the expensive movie tickets for crap movies and somehow miss out on excellent movies like this one which could be a source of ultimate entertainment and fun. I don’t want to limit myself to just 5 stars to rate this movie. I would rather rate it with the sum of all the stars flying around my head from the time i paid for the ticket till the end of the movie.