Terminator Salvation

Like any other die hard fan of Terminator series, i went to watch Terminator Salvation yesterday. Terminator Salvation begins the story many years after the Judgement Day where the Resistance is fighting the machines. This is the future where Skynet controls the world as was told in the previous Terminator Series. John Connor is one of the resistance leaders looking out for Kyle Reese, his father, who technically is still a teenager. There is one more significant character introduced in this movie and that is of Marcus. Marcus was a criminal sentenced to death in the past with the agreement that his organs will be donated to a cancer patient. He resurfaces again in the future with a mechanical body but with a human heart. His objective is to locate Kyle Reese and John Connor and deliver them to Skynet, although he is not aware of it. He believes he is human and behaves like one. Even when his skin and muscles are blown away and all the internal clockwork is revealed. He even fights for John Connor in the climax and donates his heart to Connor to save his life. Arnie also makes a sort of comeback in a digitized form. Watch the scene where he turns his head slowly. You cannot deny that its Arnie.

The movie is a well made action movie and sadly nothing else. The underlying tone being, what makes us human? The action of Marcus, Connors and the Resistance leadership speaking in volumes. I was kinda expecting some answers to the questions the previous Terminator movies had raised. First and foremost is this - In the second Terminator movie, Arnie is sent back by Connor to protect him as a child because the Skynet sent another Terminator to kill John Connor. Why didn't the Skynet send the second Terminator back in time to the point where Sarah Connor was targeted, i.e, in the first movie? Likewise in the third movie T3 where Judgement Day happens and Arnie was sent to protect Connor. My theory is that there was a glitch in the Time Machine where it could send someone back to a certain point back in time only, say 50 years back. Or it could be that John Connor and his men were fighting to prevent the second Terminator being sent back in time and they somehow managed to mess with the time set on the machine and the said Terminator's objective were changed by Skynet accordingly before the Terminator went time travelling. An explanation would have been much better in this movie but the producers stuck to telling the story even before the time travel was possible in the movie timeline. In the first Terminator movie, Kyle Reese says the time machine was destroyed after he was sent. Nobody can come in and Nobody can go back, he says. Skynet wasn't even created at that time. And in the future, there was no way of Skynet knowing Kyle Reese went back in time unless the event happened. That brings to my second question, How did Skynet prepare a hitlist with Kyle Reese as its no: 1 target when he hasn't even travelled back in time yet? How was Marcus programmed to capture Kyle Reese and John Connor? One possible explanation can be that the Skynet got its information from the first Terminator sent back in time. After all, the future Terminators only provided the means to create the Terminators in the past.

These doubts remaining, there were some things shown in Salvation which were quite questionable. Why on earth would Skynet create motorbike killing machines which can be captured and ridden by man? Ridiculous. Why is there a touch screen control and display in Skynet? The machines can very well communicate over Shortwaves or can jack themselves up the old fashioned way. But a touch screen control seems like an invitation for some human to come and mess with the Skynet. Even if its there for Marcus, remember that he is still a machine. The reference to John Connor as some Messiah in the beginning also spoiled the fun a bit. It was so Matrix like but with a Neo who knows what needs to be done.

The movie was made loose enough to allow further sequels. The Time Travel is yet to happen. Kyle Reese is yet to fight along with John Connor. Connor is yet to give Sarah's photo to Kyle Reese. If I were to write the FINAL Terminator series, I would write the story which looks like a prequel to the first Terminator movie. In that John Connor and Kyle Reese are fighting the Skynet and its machines. Both discover a Skynet plan to terminate Connors by killing his mother in the past. They attack the Skynet base to prevent it. Both fight their way to the Time Machine but its too late. Arnie is already back in time and the whole base is gonna self-destruct in 1 minute. Connors know what is to be done and sends Kyle Reese back in time. The whole Skynet blows up as soon as Kyle Reese is gone and John Connor tries to escape but is buried in the rubble. He emerges later and walks away limping in the night. And the movie ends with the last line of the Terminator Salvation - There is no fate but what we make...

Conky Desktop

 

Weather finally worked in conky!. This is a newer version of conky-colors with temperature of HDD and CPU cores. I actually went through lots of wallpapers before settling on this one as I wanted conky colors to be white to match the letters in the toolbar above. And only a dark background would go with the white text.

The only minor problem as I see with this dual setup is that no items can be placed on the desktop. The conky would cover it up. But thats something I am ok with as I normally don't keep anything on the desktop.

With the conky conquered, i am looking out for some nice themes to dress up my ubuntu.

wallpaper courtesy: interfacelift.com

A little unplanned trip

This saturday I had planned to go to the Gateway early in the morning and take a snap of it minus the crowd. Each time I had gone before, there had been so much crowd that I get pissed off. The only time one can see the Gateway without the overwhelming crowd is early in the morning, so I am told.  On friday night I put the alarm at 6'o clock in the morning and went to sleep. The next day I woke up at 9. And for the major part of the day I rested my ass on the sofa infront of the television. Not happy, I tried again today morning and somehow managed to get up sharp at 6. Took a quick bath and rushed to the station to catch the train to Churchgate. An upset stomach caused some delay at the station but I did manage to reach Gateway before the junta started to pour in.

After taking out my mann ka bhadaas I went behind the Gateway to see if I can get a shot from there. But no, the place was not suitable to take a photo. But there was something else going on there that caught my attention. There were agents who were calling people to take ferries to Elephanta Caves. Caves! Tempting! Now I had not really planned for Elephanta Caves, you see. My plan was to click the Gateway and get back. I stalled for few minutes deciding what to do but then thought what the hell. Lets go! I checked out the rates. 120 Rs. Yeah, I had more than sufficient amount with me. And so I jumped on to the boat. The boat went on rocking, halting in between. I paid Rs 10 extra and went to the upper deck to have a nice view of the sea. One thing I wasnt prepared with my impromptu trip was drinking water. It takes roughly one hour to reach Elephanta caves from mumbai and the heat and sun can do things to you especially in this summer. I managed somehow, standing in the shade next to the drivers cabin. The steering wheel of the boat or whatever they call it caught my fancy and I ended up asking the driver if I can steer for a while. He refused saying that the engine is already in trouble and handing over the steer wont be a good idea.

The Elephanta Caves are up on a hill. You need to walk uphill for a while if you want to see those. I managed to climb slowly and steadily without losing much energy. There are 5 caves in total. The first cave is the one which has been carved out more than the others. I wonder why. The rest of the caves 2 - 5 seemed to be abandoned. As if they stopped their work halfway.  The pics are here. It was early in the morning at 9. There wasnt much crowd but there were few children who were running around in the caves thinking they were in some park! A guard told me its free for children below 15 years. I said they should start charging double for children. That should keep the place nuisance free.

There is also another place nearby called Cannon Hills. I climbed up that hill too. They have two cannons up there from which century I don't know. There was no information nearby but they seemed to be painted and maintained well except for the gears below which can move them in an arc.

I came down and had food from a restaurant at the base along with a beer. With nobody to say cheers to I sent few smses to my booze friends. The booze helped in walking back in the sun back to the boat. After we were back in the sea I went again to the driver and asked to steer. He agreed. And I was the driver of that boat for few minutes! Great!

Getting back home was not without incident. I slept in the train and ended up at Borivali, last stop. Caught the same train and got down at Goregaon. Back home my roomie commented that there is not much to see there in Elephanta. I disagree. There is so much to see there. All those rock carvings dating back from so many centuries. They were artists. They depicted life in those days on solid rock. Although some of us now do it with pixels, they did it with hand on rocks with their primitive tools. And to bring out expressions on a rock is a feat in itself. Appreciating them is the least we can do.

I ought to do more of these unplanned trips. And that too alone like i did today. No friends to pose for photographs, nobody to wait for and best of all nobody to tell you what to expect. The excitement is in seeing what YOUR eyes discover. what say?

PS:  was planning to post few pics here but the internet connection is damn slow. Have uploaded the pics in my picasa album here.

Saali Khushi - Dev D

jalte jalte raakh jaisi hui hai saaari

khak jaisi bewajah si umr saaari

kahan chali gayi hai saali khushi

kahan chali gayi hai saali khushi




jalti aanhein hain saaans bhi

jali hui jali hui

dhoondhu kaise hai aas bhi

jali hui jali hui




saanp jaisi kali raatein hai

hai zehar si yeh zindagi




kahan chali gayi hai saali khushi

kahan chali gayi hai saali khushi




..........chali gayi hai saali khushi

My Desktop

Last night my lappie latched onto an unsecured wifi and I could see the network in action finally in Conky. The conky still needs some work though. The hard disk temperature and weather are the ones still missing. Once that comes, the current conky look is gonna change. Till then, this is my desktop.

I am running the latest Ubuntu 9.04 with Gnome-Do. Also, installed is Chrome-unstable version (seen in the dock). Still needs to browse with chrome to see how it fares.