Back again after a brief hiatus, I have been extremely busy and not found time to blog, and I thank you for coming back;!
First things first, being a great fan of the Da Vinci code, I watched it on the first weekend of its release, even though the movie has been ripped apart by critics I felt it was a good movie, no other actor or director could have done justice to the novel. The director has dealt well with a complex plot with a lot of intricate details. Unfortunately for viewers in India the movie has been banned in 5 states thus far in India including Andhra, TN, Punjab and a couple of north eastern states.
X-Men 3 released a week later on the memorial day weekend and created a new record for the second or third best opening ever at close to 122 million, after Spiderman and Star Wars.
Talking about records, Exxon Mobil Created history after being the firm with the highest profits ever at a staggering 36 billion. Its CEO Lee Raymond's pay package for last year was nearly 50 million and his retirement package included a lump sum payment in excess of a 100 million.
Thanks to Hurricane Katrina, an excuse for oil companies to hike gas prices, the worlds largest public company has been able to post such earnings.
I visited the Niagara falls over the long weekend, I think its a spectacular worth the time one spends to get there. There is a boat ride with a nice name, " Maid of the mist" which lasts around half hour and there is the visit to the "Cave of the winds" if one wants to get drenched under the falls.
The French Open got under way at roland garros with top favorite and second seed Rafeal Nadal cruising through the to the round of 16. The others still in the fray are top seeded Federer, Ancic, Nalbandian & French teen Monfils. On the womens side cruising through to the final 16 are Hingis, Clijsters & Venus along with a host of seeds except top seeded Mauresmo who was upset by Czech teenager Vaidasova.
Apprentice season 5 reaches its finale, the finalists are 33 year old briton Sean, and 22 year Cornell grad Lee Beinstock who is an analyst out of Business/Consulting firm Accenture's, New York office. This season involves voting by viewers to help Trump decide the winner.. This might give the American an edge over the Briton, but lets wait and watch.
And finally something I have been wanting to blog about for a long time now, about the Chennai born teen Kaavya Viswanathan who was accused of plagiarism after her first book "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life" was published. The novel was about a driven, high-achieving Indian-American teen trying to get into Harvard and it seems similarities were found between her writing and those of Megan McCafferty and Salman Rushdie. Her second novel, part of the original contract has now been cancelled and to make matters worse her former employer a local Jersey news paper has said that it will review all the articles she wrote while an intern back in 2
003 and 2004.
I feel even if similarities were found, it may have been purely coincidential because I personally feel the girl is very gifted to be studying at Harvard and to have graduated from a high school, Bergen County Academies, where the acceptance rate is one in four and the average college admission's exam score is 30 percent higher than the state average - She also attended the school's premier Academy for the Advancement of Science & Technology. I dont think a girl of such talent could have knowingly plagiarised, anyway I hope for the best for her future.
