The mental block that was removed when I passed Death Row in GTA:Vice City has done a lot of good things. For one, I am concentrating more at work. There was this code review – and it’s official – someone other than myself has acknowledged that my code rocks. Which does wonders for my confidence, thank you.

Then I was coming back from lunch, and in the lift, a senior colleague looks at me and says – “Where do you get your hair-cut?” Expecting the usual barbs, I say – “Ok, some place near my house.” And hastily add – “It’s weird, right, the haircut? Everybody says that, I know.” And he says – “Well, actually, no. It’s quite different. Very chirpy. Very cheerful.”

Oh, great. A new perspective on my hair. After all the years of self-doubt and mental torture and i-know-my-hair-sucks-don’t-stare-kind of looks, that remark mollified me somewhat. In fact it gave me this milk-curdling grin that refused to go away. I think it went away when I fell asleep. Am not too sure. Most likely I had this rictus on my face in the night – good thing I keep my door closed.

And at night, we went to see Boys. As is my underdog-complex, I liked it a lot. I liked the graphics, though they drown out the music of Boom Boom and make it seem like I am watching that annoying Chito-program on MTV. ( Is that programme still on? ), loads of weird squeals and squeaks and what-not. Shankar may be the master of the Deus ex Machinae, but he sure knows how to entertain. And yes, I seem to understand Telugu better than I thought. I wish I understood the language enough to get all the wink-wink stuff. The Boys ( the girl included) have just the right amount of chutzpah to carry off the whole thing, without making it seem a routine Yo-Pepsi-type movie.

But seriously, where exactly is it so vulgar? I didn’t see anything that bad. Or is it because I am less puritan?

One major irritating part: Ok, so you take a song and shoot it in beautiful locales to enhance it. Good. You dress the hero and heroine in matching-matching colours and let them prance around. Not too good, but ok. You see too many reruns of the Matrix and decide to use Freeze-frame to shoot some part of the song and go around town publicising the above fact. Oh good. But why the heck do you have to ring some freakin Windchimes everytime a freeze-sequence comes onscreen, Mr Shankar? We get the point!

I just realised that listening to Boys on headphones, properly, is a completely different experience from listening to it on 5 speakers. (The center one still doesn’t work, ahem ), which in turn is a different experience from listening to it while working. God apparently works in Mysterious Ways. In the middle of the night, of course.