This is a song sequence from a real movie, honest. Note that I am not responsible for any damage to your delicate eyes and ears.

I am now desperate to watch this movie and declare myself a Disciple of this Actor.

(Discovered through Lightning Strikes Everyday)

My brother and I went to the Chennai Open 2008 last evening (the stadium is just a kilometre or two from where I live) to see a couple of second round matches.

The first match involved World No. 2 Rafael Nadal and was the big draw of the evening. Nadal, of course completely outclassed his opponent Rajeev Ram (USA) in a couple of easy sets. The other match on Centre Court involved Robin Haase, the highest ranked player from Netherlands. Needless to say I took my camera along and took some good shots. I thought I'd share a couple of them (original resolution 1600x1200 scaled down for conserving bandwidth).

Here's a picture from the first match:

And one from the match between Robin Haase and Lovro Zovko (a Croatian player). Robin Haase won the match in a couple of sets too, but the second one was closely fought (result: 7-5 in favour of Haase).

(snap credit: my brother, Ramshankar)

All evening there was a slight drizzle on and off which kept threatening play, but just as the second match got completed the rain really began pouring down heavily, so we were lucky to get to watch two full games.

Afterwards, I managed to get close to Robin Haase just before he left the stadium and took this snap before he got into his car:

This point was Nadal saving a break point (in the second set I think):

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfozgKKnOv0

It's not often that we get to see international quality tennis played in India, so I enjoyed every bit of it. At least I won't regret having missed seeing Rafael Nadal in person when he was playing in a court in my neighbourhood.

I thought it would be cool to create a video tutorial showing how easy it is to use GIMP to create 3d objects using lighting and bump-mapping effects, combined with the 2d blending mode. More than words, this video shows how simple GIMP really is. Writing a full fledged tutorial would have complicated the whole process. I created the following video using XVidCap.

(Yes, YouTube does blur the video even though I tried to keep the captured region as small as possible)

Instead of explaining in a hundred words why I love Vijaykanth's movies (a popular South Indian actor and politician for the uninitiated) here's a video which perfectly illustrates the reason. Dealing with rogues and thugs, he has his own style, Take a look at this video.

Video URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OKE1pUnkoQ

You don't need to know Tamil to understand the scene above. And here's another classic: Where our hero gives even electric current a "shock" when threatened by his foes

Video URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EKHebxZOJY

Ah, well. I don't want to link to more videos and go against my own principles. But all you have to do is search for "Vijaykanth" in YouTube if you want many more gems like these where the Gabtun takes on evil-doers, terrorists, wicked politicians and criminals with ridiculous ease. I don't go in for high-level intellectuality when watching movies. When it comes to entertainment, there's nothing to beat this for sheer laughter.