The Maverick Chronicles

My 11 year old nephew has come to my place and he suddenly asks me which was my favourite animated series when I was a kid? Now that set me thinking, hmmmmm.... Now there were quite a few cartoons I used to watch when I was a kid, especially since cable television had just come into India (referring to the early 90s). But I don't know why, suddenly GI Joe sprang to mind. My nephew was not sure what GI Joe is considering this is the age of the Dragon BallZ, Bey Blade and other Japanese nonsense which you cant really make head or tail of but yeah,the kids nowadays are stuck to them like glue. So to tel him about GI Joe, I googled it and low behold, I was surprised to see the 1st search result showing up as G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009) at imdb.com (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1046173/). I went on the imdb page and was delighted to see that the GI series is being made into a blockbuster action movie. Now, this is something which the Action movie buffs like me would like to see i...

As reported by various media sources and the Madrid based newspaper Marca, it seems Florentino Perez the presidential aspirant & hot favourite to become the Real Madrid president has his greedy eyes set on none other than Andres Iniesta. Iniesta tops the wishlist for Perez for his all new look Real Madrid. Though, Iniesta has vehemently denied the rumours and pledged his loyalty to Barca, it would be the greatest coup since Perez managed to lure Figo to Real in 2000. Though I don't think its remotely possible that Perez would be able to pull off this coup, there are other names being bandied around as potential Galacticos viz. Ronaldo (the usual suspect!), Villa (quite possible considering Valencia's financial situation), Kaka, Cesc, Ibrahimovic and Messi. There are also reports that Ribery has already signed the deal to move to Real till 2014 but the news is being kept under wraps fro him to concentrate on the Bundesliga season. Nonetheless, its going to be an interesting ...

Here is the first amongst many signs of the Music Director from Chennai reaping the rich benefits of Slumdog Millionaire. Though the score for the film was hyped beyond oblivion and the movie itself was ordinary to say the least, the artistes (atleast some of them) with the Oscar winning movie have plastered themselves on the global stage. Lo & behold, Mr. Rahman has been signed on as the glolbal brand ambassador for Motorola replacing David 'Golden Balls' Beckham. Now, this comes as a bigger shock considering the brand presence that Beckham commands across the world though it might be waning now that his football career is coming to an end, the Milan loan notwithstanding. Though these reports are appearing on almost all the Indian websites & blogs, I haven't seen any announcement by Motorola officially neither in the broadsheets since yesterday. So I assume its a April Fool's prank being played by someone. Any sane person would not see truth in this story as B...

The Automobile industry around the world is in doldrums along with the rest of the world economy. The most recent victims being General Motors and Chrysler. Now, the Obama administration has declared that it won't allow the American auto industry to vanish. That's some claim, I must say what with crisis written all across the number plate for the industry. The Obama administration has already told Rick Wagoner, Chariman & CEO, GM to go. In the last four years of Wagoner's leadership,GM lost $82 billion.Of course, Chrysler is again in the pits.How it wished Mr. Iaccoca was here to save it, but even he would have been helpless in this situation now. The automobile industry has had this coming since a long time especially the Americam automakers. Even when the world economy was booming, the Top 3 US auto companies were churning up losses left,right and centre. But Ford transformed itself one and a half-two years back after staring at bankruptcy whereas GM thought it coul...

With the news article hitting the print that MAN U having approached TATAs for a sponsorship, finally the world seems to have come a full circle. Long gone is the disdain with which Western nations & their businesses used to look down upon at the Indian businesses and on a more broader note, the Asian countries. It's a win-win situation for the TATAs and MANU. The football club is looking out for sponsors (having earlier approached SAHARA group also) as the current embattled AIG group not willing to renew their shirt sponsor deal what with the entire American population baying for their blood.The TATAs can negotiate very hard to get a worldwide presence on MANU's top stars and with the Premier League being the most braodcasted football league in the world, you can just imagine what it would do for TATA group's branding efforts. Being a fan of both these entities, I could just not control imagning the Red Devils with TATA logo on their shirts. Here is my impression of th...

So finally the day has dawned upon the aspirational Indian: The Launch day of the TATA Nano. The car every two wheeler riding middle class family man was waiting for. The car will hit the showrooms today.There will be three versions-The base version,the one promised by Mr. Tata and other 2 higher versions. The higher versions it seems would have all the goodies but the power steering it seems is going to miss out.The bookings are going to commence on the 9th April till the 25th April. The Nano will be sold to the first 100,000 buyers at a price to be announced later . The delivery of the first lot of Nano cars will begin in early-July and that applications for booking of the car would be available in 30,000 locations in 1,000 cities across India. Of course, there are some Indians in this great country of ours who will be kicking themselves sore and cursing their political parties for losing the Nano project from their state. While the land of the traders & businessmen would be p...