Kali Muththi Pochchu

What Torture This Is, Saravanan?

The Dilemma

Going by my Wall Street Survivor performance over the last 6 months, I seem to have made a killing in profits. Does this mean I can graduate myself to the real thing? Well, well, well......

King of Pop

I have seen politicians in India using the hyperbole unnecessarily on each other! Like once when Manmohan called Dr. Kalaignar as the Architect of South Indian Heritage or something like that - Mostly, they should be taken as the aberrations of a delusional mind - but it won't be an exaggeration if I said a big chunk of the global music industry died today with the inarguably, most deserved King of Pop - Michael Jackson.

I think he was perhaps the inventor of the Music Video concept - with his smash hit Thriller. MTV, VJ etc etc - I think need to start everyday doing a poojai to MJ with the Thriller video on. While everybody recognize his dancing and singing skills, the man was a lyricist and the year after he was inducted to the rock and roll hall of fame, he was inducted into the Lyricist Hall of Fame.

My 5 Favorite MJ Songs (Audio only): Heal The World, Stranger in Moscow, Thriller, Ben and History (and perhaps Ghosts at the same list too)

My 6 fav videos: Thriller, Bad, Beat It, We are the World (it had the leading singers of that time in a single video - it was rumored that Jackson and the other guy who produced it, wrote the song and recorded the video on a single night) and Blood on the Dance Floor and Smooth Criminal (just for its Rajni-esque intro).

R.I.P

Siesta Beach

Accidentally, while flipping channels on the Travel Channel last week, I heard about Siesta Beach being in the top 10 beaches in the US. So the decision to check it out was made. The telly told me that this beach was special for its water color, sand and the sunset - the typical beach-y things.

The Travel:
The beach is difficult to map/GPS, basically because, it is not your typical touristy beach with lots of shopping areas nearby - so if you are interested, here goes: Take I-75 South, Exit# 205, proceed West on Clark Rd., cross US-41 and you shall hit on the Stickney Point Drawbridge and subsequently, Stickney Point Road. Proceed and the road hits on T intersection. Take the right and proceed approximately 3 miles and you shall see the beach to your left. Alternately, if you are a scenic route person, take the I-275 South, and it will join 75 after SunShine Skyway.

The Beach:
The beach has one of the whitest sands I have ever seen. Mainly, the beach is extremely clean and the absence of the typical beach commerce takes you by (a pleasant) surprise. The beach is quite long, by Florida standards, and on one end you see the skyline (whatever little it might be) of the Sarasota City and the other end of the beach is a awesomely located house which has water on 3 sides! The beach lends itself to a pleasant and long walk along the shoreline. The water, though not comparable to the sublime colors you see in Miami, is a cool blue for the Gulf Coast. The best aspect for me the conspicuous absence of desi junta in the beach.

Sunset:

The Sunset, was surely not over-hyped at all. It was absolutely breath-taking and I think this is the best sunset that I've seen, along with the ones I saw on board the ferry at San Fransisco, underneath the Golden Gate Bridge, near the Alcatraz prison. We reached the beach at 6.45 pm and the sun did not show any sign of going down anytime soon, though my Google Weather had predicted that the sun would go down at 8.30-ish. Right on cue, the awesome spectacle began around 8.27pm - the colors and the effect of the rays on the water has to be seen to be believed.

Super Commercial

This commercial from AT & T is really good - it has a basic theme, a very strong message, sugar coated enough to not jar you.