Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder
In a small golf pond, I'll be a big fish
Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2001 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.
So much fun yesterday! An all-day Fun Session with Leonard made Stockton more bearable, despite the fact that it was Expletive-Gerund Hot.
So we played miniature golf at Golfland. He beat me narrowly. We both went way above par. Perhaps the "medium" level was a bit too tough. I did, however, beat him handily, twice, at air hockey in the Golfland Arcade. (The air hockey tables there, quality-wise, are simply not as good as the sole air hocket table in the BearCade at Cal.)
Hey people, if you're going to play mini-golf, obey the rules that actually make sense, e.g., the four-people-to-a-party rule. It keeps things from getting backed up, and people don't have to wait for you, and so on. There was a group of about ten people in front of us -- or maybe it was only eight, but there were so many kids running around the group that I couldn't keep track. At least they stopped around hole 12 or 14 to go (I think) eat cake and such. Argh.
We also watched "Terror of Mechagodzilla." I now have seen the canonical mad-scientist who actually says "I'll destroy them all" and so on, and the alien overlord, and the beautiful scientist's daughter, and the evacuation of Tokyo, and -- of course -- the big Godzilla fight scene. Now I can make real knowing references, as opposed to fake knowing references. I will still, however, feel fake about it.
(Katsuhiko Sasaki, the star (well, aside from Godzilla and his fellow monsters) looks a lot like my friend Anirvan.)
I saw "American Desi" twice this weekend. I hesitate to call it "good," but I certainly enjoyed it a great deal. It's a terrific in-joke for American-born Indians such as me, just as I'm sure "Half-Baked" was a terrific in-joke for American-born stoners. I recommend it only for other American-born Indians, or perhaps for people who know American-born Indians well. The acting is good, the dialogue swings between inspired and functional, the characters have more depth than you expect at first, but the most appealing thing about the film is the sense of familiarity with my bicultural situation that I've never felt in any other film.
Why does the film's star, Deep Katdare, look so familiar? I say he looks like a guy in a Mentos Ad. My sister says he looks like Salman Khan (a Hindi film star). IMDB tells me that he was in an episode of "New York Undercover" seven years ago. OK, he just has those All-Indian-American "good" looks, then.
The villain is great. The character is named Rakesh, and he is such a great schemer! It's so fun to watch! You feel as though a "Mwa-ha-ha-ha" will escape at any moment, but of course he just smirks. Fantastic.
I'd rather be a really interesting villain who gets beat in the end than Student Pouring Ketchup, when it comes time to view the credits to life.
Originally published by Sumana Harihareswara at http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/6/3/154013/3929
