Sunday, June 17, 2007

Blue Sky Adventures of an Adrenaline Junkie

My summer travels with the Mater brought me to the San Francisco Bay area, where I pitched tent for a fortnight at my numerous cousins' places. Like Bangalore, the region has a salubrious climate, a HUGE immigrant/multi ethnic population, is peppered with tech companies and is very urbane. However, in stark contrast and far cry from its South Asian counterpart, THE Silicon 'Valley' (aptly so, as the region is surrounded by small mountains) does not have issues with pot holed roads, paucity of water, irregular power supply, unrealistic traffic (jams) and extremists shutting the city down every other time they decide to 'salvage' their culture and language, which, in their books, include matinee idols!!

One fair day, with highs in the early 20s (degree centigrade), we decided to dodge the famed Six Flags of Northern California a.k.a Discovery Kingdom previously called Marine World. For those of you unfamiliar with Six Flags, it is a chain of amusement (well mostly thrill rides) parks in the US serving the most ardent of adrenaline junkies while also accommodating the kids and family. So if you are to choose between Disney Land, Universal Studios and Six Flags, unless you have kids under the age of thirteen or prefer to 'fudgepack' in lines of Tirupathi fame or just outright prefer Gay rides, opt for Six flags.

Now, before I went to Six Flags, unfortunately, family did drag me into Disney World and Universal Studios. These places do offer some thrills, like Space Mountain and Indiana Jones in the former and The Mummy in the latter. In fact, if bad fate does land you in these places, do check for the rides marked in red for 'Max thrill' and do them before you move on to the other "useless" attractions. All said, these parks do serve the family well, and if your mom's visiting, she's better off here. So no guesses on how hard their toughest rides are, veteran Six Flaggers would have them as appetizers, at most. None of them have inversions (rider is hanging completely upside down), Dive Loop not exceeding a few feet, no Zero G Roll (feeling of weightlessness due to accelerated falls) and no Flatspins (commonly known as corkscrews, where the ride goes in spirals at high speeds). While rides here are easy to handle, some people still chicken out, leaving the ones who brave it feeling rather heroic and unconquerable. Just you wait till you step foot into Six Flags.

The build up to most of the Six Flags is intense. You can see the GIANT towering rides from at least a couple miles away, even with all the hills! Note the plural, there are at least 4 mammoth coasters in most of these parks. The North Cal one is no different, green coloured Medusa with its 150 feet elevation and almost 4000 feet in ride length stands out distinctly with its many loops and twists. Kong, another juggernaut is a red King and holds the record for the longest inverted coater on this side of the coast. V2: Vertical Velocity is not only massive, but startling in its unique shape and awe inspiring in its 70 miles per hour speeds within seconds of launch!

Having never before done rides with 'inversions' and suddenly being pushed into the lap of the roller coaster Mecca, I had to validate my pre-notion of being an adrenaline junkie before mounting the Goliaths. I started off with the Hammerhead ride. Think of a fast moving Ferry's wheel (Giant Wheel in Cubbon Park lingo), except that your seats are not hanging, but fixed to the chassis, meaning when you get to the top of the ride, you are upside down!!! Now this rather extreme ride was given a 'moderate' thrill level by the park map!! Although the cries were loud and speeds high, I decided to get aboard with the confidence of a million other people having emerged 'alive' from it! And after doing it, didn't feel all that bad. This is how riding it feels first hand:



A little further down Hammerhead was 'Boomerang', and living up to its name, it 'catapults' you into a roller coaster at super high speeds, and then brings you back (yes, backward!!) the same effin way!! This had a rating of 'Max Thrill' and fully lived up to its expectation. Apparently, each of the Six Flags parks have this ride. Check out the video!



So, if you did the Boomerang and didn't emerge crying, throwing up or shivering, count yourself as one among the adrenaline junkies. NOW you're really ready for the biggies. The ones with 4-5G accelerations (1G = acceleration of earth / 9.8 m/s), top speeds of 7o miles per hour, prolonged feeling of weightlessness or extreme weights and free falls of upto 200 feet!! Yes, we're talking about the limits of human endurance, and still millions line up each year to test theirs.

So, we decided to do Medusa next, the biggest and fastest in the park and this side of the coast with 7 inversions including a Vertical Loop, Dive Loop, Zero G Roll, 2 Flatspins (commonly known as corkscrews) and the first and only Sea Serpent Roll. The line to the ride was short (yeah, not many people think they'll come out alive) and surprisingly, was filled with a myriad of people, from the visibly thrill seeking rock and roll kinds with their goatees and goth-black attire to overweight housewives in everyday clothes to 14 year old kids above 55' (that's the height limit)! Before you enter the ride, the dock is filled with people getting on and off the 3 simultaneous 'snakes' serving the line, each having 7 rows with 3 seats (well, they are hanging supports without a floor, dunno if you can call them seats) and with loud alternative music. Just the setting to pump that nitro-boosted, high octane adrenaline you need to endure such, ahem cataclysms. And then, much against the will of a doting concerned Mater for her only bairn, I boarded it! Haven't you always wondered how it is inside of the cocktail mixing cup/shaker, how it would feel for one to be thrown vigoursly from side to side and up and down at lightening speeds, at nauseous angles and orientations, at zero gravity or 5 times that of gravity . For 2 whole minutes:





Oh, Check this out too

Yes, Medusa is worth 3 videos! Right next to it was Kong. No less scarier, but having done Medusa, the decision to do it wasn't hard coming.




And then there was the traditional wooden coaster, Roar. Good, but not worth spending videos on. It does vibrate a lot more than the new age steel coaster and can bruise your bum. The ride I did chicken out of was the Vertical Velocity. It will
  • Rocket forward through a 45-degree inclined tower (up one hundred and fifty fucking feet at 75 miles/hr)
  • Shoot backwards down a 90-degree vertical tower
  • Fly through the ride with nothing but air below your dangling feet!!




Now, that's a good days fun. And for approx $50, its your moneys worth. Unless you chicken out and decide to do the elephant ride, with the other kids :-).
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Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Its Evolution Baby!


Change is the only constant. While religions past, present and future will wipe themselves out in denial of this very fact, the Hindi movie industry has taken to it with surprising gusto. All of a sudden, movies actually have strong characterization, mature plots, stunning visuals (and im not alluding to skin) and cinematography and lean more to the alternative than ever before. Omkaara is a perfect example of the flux. For a change, Saif Ali Khan has his shirt on, and doesn't wear lipstick. In fact, his performance as the Machiavellian, malicious limp is almost as good as it gets. Others deliver well too, but the real star is Vishaal Bharadwaj. This guy is has been nowhere near a film school, but still writes, directs and composes (music) better than any other in the business. Talk about genius! If you havent yet watched his previous work, Maqbool, you have most certainly missed the seed of the Indian movie renaissance.


Metro is another one bending towards the semi-commercial arroyo, but lacks the meticulousness of Omkara. While the background score is mostly good and resembles that of a Hollywood drama-thriller, the songs are a huge waste of time. Somebody decided to hire a highly unoriginal, not to mention bad looking, rock act for all the songs. Their visualization in the movie is even the funnier, the 'unkept' vocalist bawls, punches the air in front of his face, and slowly moves it down a la a boyband vocalist/Micheal Bolton, all this for soul-less ballads sounding like the lizard, Celine Dion, in Hindi. The plot is audacious and performances strong, but still very predictable. The style is a less meritorious version of Crash/Babel (disconnected story lines purposefully intertwined in the bigger picture), and reaks of imitation. Still, very Maverick for Bolly. Just dont watch it with your mom!

Here are the (kind of) songs I'd have put:

Artist: Antaraagni / Raghu Dixit
Song: Mysore Se
Comment: Hope these guys get to go Big. Still very underground in Blr.


Soul Renditio n


Song: Woh Lamhe


Soul Renditio n

Artist: Fuzon
Song: Aankon Ke Saagar


Soul Renditio n
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Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Song for after Break Up Blues

Artist: The Killers
Song: Mr Brightside
Album: Hot Fuss


Soul Renditio n


Coming out of my cage
And I've been doing just fine
Gotta gotta be down
Because I want it all
It started out with a kiss
How did it end up like this?
It was only a kiss
It was only a kiss

Now I'm falling asleep
And she's calling a cab
While he's having a smoke
And she's taking the drag

Now they're going to bed
And my stomach is sick
And it's all in my head
But she's touching his chest now

He takes off her dress now
Let me go
And I just can't look
It's killing me
And taking control

Jealousy
Turning saints into the sea
Turning through sick lullaby
Joking on your alibi
But it's just the price I pay
Destiny is calling me
Open up my eager eyes
I'm Mr. Brightside 
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