Myriad thoughts on a million things
Archive for August, 2009
Hot Vampires and Cute Werewolves
3
‘Hot’ Vampires and ‘Cute’ Werewolves sound like oxymorons, but that is exactly what Stephanie Meyer’s ‘Twilight’ series is about. The first book, ‘Twilight’ introduces the reader to the world of Vampires in the cloudy town of Forkes. It starts like a regular book on teenage issues…moving to a new town, the scariness of a new high school, blah… blah. But it quickly turns interesting with the entry of the intriguing ‘Cullen’ family.
Into the narrative steps the ‘Hot’ ‘Mr. Perfect as Adonis’ Edward Cullen. I was having difficulty imagining someone as good looking as the author describes Edward. So I picked up the movie ‘Twilight’ to give the characters in my imagination some shape. (To start with, I only saw the beginning of the movie…just up to the point I had read since I did not want the movie to spoil the fun of the book!)
Robert Pattinson (who btw was Cedric in Harry Porter movies) plays Edward. My first reaction to that was ‘uh huh…not that good looking’. But once you sit through the movie, he sort of grows on you. Interestingly, some info on the net says that the millions of ‘Twilight’ fans were initially disappointed with the casting of Robert as Edward. Stephanie Meyer’s official site says that Hayden Christensen (the actor who plays Aniken Skywalker in the newer Star Wars series) was the first choice for ‘Edward’. I am not sure if he might have been able to carry off the cool marble skinned hot vampire look.
Anyways, back to the book. The story line of a vampire who falls in love with a mortal girl and his internal conflict of wanting to drink her blood vs loving her and wanting her to live, keeps the story edgy and interesting. The book pulls the reader in with the slow unfolding of the mystery of the Vampires, the unraveling of Edward’s character, his unique family and his unique confusions with respect to Bella. To the author’s credit, she has managed to create an epic love story of sorts. Bella’s emotions of being in love for the first time, the breathlessness and euphoria of first physical contact, the indescribable feeling on a invisible connection are quite well portrayed. The anticipation of ‘what next’, kept me hooked. The book is fast paced and I found myself sitting through late nights to just read one more page.
What I wasn’t ecstatic about that the slight whiny edge that Bella has sometimes. Her continuous internal dialogue on how she is unworthy of the love and attention of ‘Adonis’ Edward can sometime get to your nerves. But I guess, having the plainness of the Bella reiterated so often, even the reader is left wondering the same. As the author says, she supposedly plain and as the reader can make out isn’t exceptional witty. The character as described in the book would have still been ok…but when one starts to visualize her as Kristen Stewart (the actress who plays Bella in the movie) is when the disappointment happens. She definitely needs acting lessons and her blinky, unsure, lack lusture portrayal of Bella was really a dampener.
I was quick to pick up the next book in the series -‘The New Moon’. But was as quickly disappointed. The lack of Edward, itself was a downer. The first half of the book is all about how Bella is dealing with the loss. Her whiny self effacing feelings really got to me after a bit. The books picks up with the introduction of the werewolf angle. The twists and turns toward the end are interesting but really not worth the wait. Even the Werewolf vs Vampire angle was not dealt with in an in-depth manner and with the re – entry of Edward in the narrative, Jacob was dropped like a hot potato. The whole first part that built up to the werewolf transformation falls flat ineffectively and it’s sad to see Jacob dismissed with a twist of the pen.
There are two more books in the series – ‘The Eclipse’ and ‘Break of Dawn’. I’m looking forward to laying my hands on them and finally seeing how Bella’s transformation happens.
The series really falls into the ‘Fantasy Chick Lit’ category. I don’t think men would find the detailed introspections into the emotions of a teenage girl all that engrossing… even with a little vampire and werewolf action thrown in. The series are actually hugely popular with the women. There is even a FB test on how much you know about Twilight. I got a 100% on it! J
Life‘ville’ !
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‘Farmville’ is the new thing on Facebook with tons of people playing the game. I’ve been on it for some time now. I am currently at the level 15! (That’s like the mid stage of the game). The more one plays the game, the more hooked one gets to it. It got me thinking that the designers of the game must know the human psychology quite well. How else can a game about repetitive planting, ploughing and harvesting become the new fad with almost everyone on Facebook?
Come to think of it, the game is very much like life itself. You have to start from scratch with basic stuff (Level 1 with basic seeds and land). You have to gain experience to get to the next levels. The little incentives that keep you going on (and get through the repetitive planting, ploughing & harvesting parts) are the new things that you can plant and buy with each new level that you gain. Isn’t that very much like life, where one keeps at the regular routines just to get to the next level in life so that one can get the little incentives it offers(like the bigger house, bigger car, bigger TV, etc)?
And that’s just not it, in ‘Farmville’ you have neighbours and neighbours’ neighbours whose farms you can visit. ‘Farmvillers’ can usually be seen checking out everyone’s farms (and of course helping them out) and wondering how some of them have pets, trees and decorations that their levels don’t offer! Very much akin to life, people with neighbours / friends at a higher experience level (or higher station in life) are recipients to special gifts that are only available to the people with the higher levels of experience.
Well, like life the game definitely is… and I guess that’s what keeps people hooked to it. Oh, gotta go now… my ‘super berries’ are ready for harvesting! J
Your Internet Presence
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I was reading an interesting update from silicon India. It said that 42% people in offices spy on their colleagues! Here is the link for the article
It got me thinking about how we leave a very personal imprint on the internet that is just waiting for anyone and everyone to look up. Social & professional networking profiles, blogs, tweets… there is so much out there about you that people have access to in order to know you better (if not spy!)
It made me also think about the impact of personal opinions that one expresses on the net on the way potential employers view you. I know of some recruiters who look up networking profiles to get a better understanding of the candidates that they shortlist. I’m not sure it’s a widespread trend now, but I’m sure it is catching up fast. Some people may blog/ comment about work that they are doing in an unflattering manner (maybe in jest)… does that mean they could be overlooked by recruiters? How careful should one be with their personal content, comments and profiles on the net? Sometime ago I read about a teenage girl in UK who got fired because she made a FB status update that said she was bored at work! There’s even a ‘youtube’ video about ‘how your FB profile could get you fired’.
These examples may be a little extreme, but I can’t help wondering if this explosion of online action with networking, tweeting, blogging is slowly and steadily blurring the lines between who we really are and who we pretend to be at work.
Random Musings
5908 days
by Anmol
in Random Thoughts
This is not really a post about anything in particular…Just some random stuff I was wondering about.
Staring at People
I wonder what really is the science behind being able to ‘feel’ it when someone stares at you. How does that work? How can you ‘feel’ someone’s eyes on you? Stare at someone for a bit (even their back) and without fail they will ‘feel’ it and turn around and look at you. It’s just strange isn’t it?
The collective consciousness of City Traffic
I’m not much into driving…It’s just tough for me to focus on so many things together. The pedals, the gear, the car, the traffic….So sometimes when I’m being driven around; I often think about how it seems that the traffic has a collective consciousness. It feels like every driver on the road is tuned into a collective consciousness system and subconsciously knows what the other drivers are thinking … a little turn here and subconsciously the driver behind turns/brakes a little. They don’t even have to think about doing it. Packed roads…with less than a few inches of space between vehicles…and everybody moving like some smooth flowing river. It’s like watching a well coordinated show…. Most of the time that it. Sometime, maybe the collective consciousness misses a few beats and there are scrapes and accidents.