no words, no talk, we'll go dreaming

If I choose to use a sample of a techno song as the title of my post, and the techno artist sampled that lyric from another source, how far am I removed from actual artistry?

This weekend was not busy enough to excuse my lack of posting, but every time I've gotten ready to write, I've gone to sleep again. Tonight was going to be no exception, but I decided that I couldn't abandon my blog for the third night in a row or my mother would kill me. So, to recap my weekend:

Friday: I went to work, and we had another fun-filled Friday afternoon meeting. A couple of guys had gone to a lot of effort to find a lot of English and Hindi songs and movie clips, and they had set up a trivia game around these clips. We split into eight teams; the first round, every team got an English and a Hindi song, sans words, and had to name the song and what movie it came from; the second round, every team got an English and a Hindi music video, sans music, and had to name the song; the third round, every team got a Hindi film and an English film and had to describe what happened right after the clip. It was really fun, even though all the expats were a liability, rather than an asset, to their teams. The people in the office knew *all* the songs, movies, etc., and could even sing all of 'Sweet Child of Mine' when asked. Crazy!

Saturday, I had brunch, sat around, and then saw 'Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith'. Despite the fact that I've only seen bits and pieces of the original three, and had not seen either of the most recent films, I really, really liked it. The overall Star Wars story arc is so ingrained in popular culture that it would be hard not to have *some* idea that Anakin Skywalker was going to go over to the dark side. The very knowledge that his fate was already known made the whole movie so much more tragic, and I enjoyed it immensely. I'm making a push to watch the other five movies with another girl who hasn't seen any of them; however, we discovered tonight that we can't watch them with people who've seen them a thousand times, because it's much too annoying. We started to watch 'The Phantom Menace' tonight, but the presence of a lot of people who had seen it before was not appreciated. So, we stopped the movie and pretended to lose interest...then waited for everyone else to disperse and started the movie over by ourselves. I think I enjoyed 'The Phantom Menace' more than a die-hard Star Wars fan, especially since I was satisfied with Episode III and am willing to tolerate the back-story that leads to Anakin's fall.

Seeing a movie in India is very fun. The theatre is a huge complex, replete with a gaming center, food court, and an IMAX screen. We saw the movie on a regular theatre screen, although the seats were pleasantly tiered so that everyone had a pretty good view. The movie started exactly on time, which took me by surprise (no trailers!), and the ushers were constantly walking back and forth with flashlights to escort latecomers to their seats. They also cut off the movie abruptly in the middle for an intermission, which was really strange and not appreciated at all, although I know that it happens in every movie. There was also a mouse in the theatre; while I did not feel it, I heard reports that it was crawling across the back edge of people's seats, which must have been discomforting.

After the movie, we went to Angeethi, a super-tasty Indian restaurant with the ubiquitous giant naan. Then, we saw part of our company's first corporate cricket match against another company in Hyderabad. Some of the guys set up their own team, replete with jerseys, and are entered into some cricket tournament. The game didn't start until 10pm, to beat the heat, and apparently didn't end until our victory at 2am (although I didn't stay that late).

Cricket is a fun game to watch because it is so weird. We waited half an hour for the game to start, and it seemed that the only things we were waiting for were a) some of the cricket players who were chain-smoking in the field behind the stadium, and b) these two people who were pushing this really large, really heavy metal roller across the main part of the field in an apparent attempt to keep it as flat as possible. It looked like a miserable job, made all the more miserable by the fact that it appeared unnecessary.

Today I had brunch at the Taj Krishna, then went to Hyderabad Central and picked up swim goggles, then back home (where I started to read a book but fell asleep instead). I talked to my parents, and went upstairs for dinner (we ordered in, as the staff has Sunday off). We watched 'The Phantom Menace', and now it is definitely my bedtime. I will endeavor to be more communicative in the future.