Desicritics Author: sami

TV Show Review/Tribute: The Gilmore Girls Are No More

sami — Sat, 19 May 2007 03:09:41 EDT

After running successfully for seven seasons, the popular American TV series Gilmore Girls came to an end on May 15th 2007. Though it can't be termed as an early end to a still popular TV series as it was lucky to enjoy success for seven long years, it definitely was an abrupt end - mostly (I believe) because CW was all prepared to shoot the eighth season if they could work things out with Lauren Graham. The lack of momentum in the last few episodes to mark the end of the long series was duly compensated by a very deserving last episode, which brought back the memories of the better moments that the series had enjoyed and the reason why it had become so popular in the first place.

When the Gilmore Girls started, it had to compete against 'Friends' and 'Survivor' - two of the most popular TV shows ever, and it reached the peak of its success during its fifth season when 'LOST' had debuted and swept everyone off their feet. The TV show is said to be more popular among the family(read female) audiences with youngsters preferring action based dramas more, like LOST and Heroes. But it is difficult to identify the exact reasons behind the success of the series, against such stiff competition, hence I am going to speak just for myself. But first a confession: I started watching the series only in September last year(The first six seasons have been released on DVDs).

The first thing that had struck me about the series (in its pilot episode) was the freshness with which the beautiful atmosphere of the (fictional) town Stars Hollow was captured by the camera. But the strongest reason why I even bothered to watch the second episode was the unique style of humorous and fast-paced dialogue delivery that I had never witnessed before. Then there were numerous references to English literature, classic Hollywood movies, music of all genres, and food from all parts of the world(there is a reference to Indian food too, and gotta love their pronunciation of the name 'Bangalore' ;) ). The generous footage afforded to incorporate the various town festivals(my most favourite: Festival of Living Art) into the main story line is just another impressive aspect of the show. If a TV show can make someone buy and read Proust, go back to watching black & white movies and try out Thai food, it must be one of their favourite shows. While watching its second season, I did call it my most favourite show, ahead of LOST, Prison Break and the other "youth" oriented TV shows.

The TV show also boasts of creating so many memorable characters like Lorelai, Rory, Luke, Sukie, Taylor, Lane, Ms. Patty, Babette, Michelle, Mrs. Kim that got permanently etched in my memory(I personally didn't like the characters from outside of Stars Hollow so much - except Paris). One character called Kirk, played superbly by Sean Gunn, is the stuff of the classics. If nothing else, getting introduced to this extremely funny(quirky?) and likable character is worth watching at least a couple of seasons in my opinion, the character is that good. Here is a sample:

Kirk: This is not how it's supposed to go. I'm supposed to take her out, we're supposed to exhaust my prepared subjects immediately, and then the minute I get up and go to the bathroom, she is supposed to sneak out and leave me here humiliated. Now I have been to the bathroom three times, and I have to tell you, I did not have to go, and every time I came back to the table, she was there and she was smiling, and... hey, did you see her touch my arm? What the hell was that all about? Luke: I think that means she likes you. Kirk: Shut up! You take that back!

Lauren Graham, the actress who played the lead role or Lorelai Gilmore, is given most of the credit, besides the creator of the show Amy Sherman-Palladino, for making the TV show such a big success. She did bring in a refreshing perspective to what could have become another stereotypical role and it is hard to imagine anybody else playing that character. Fittingly enough, in recent rankings given by a website to actors brining most value to a character, she was ranked third, behind the inimitable Hugh Laurie as Dr. Gregory House(House MD) and Kiefer Sutherland playing the iconic Jack Bauer(24). The other two major characters of the show, Luke Danes and Rory Gilmore, were betrayed by the ordinary performances by the actors Scott Patterson and Alexis Bledel respectively. If these actors were honest to their characters, then they at least weren't charming enough. Rest of the characters were very colourful: Sukie and Michelle were immensely lovable in the first few episodes, Paris was hilarious from the fourth season onwards and Taylor and Kirk were always causing a riot.

All was not well with this series though. After the first few seasons, it kind of became repetitive; there was also a lot of filler material in the last couple of seasons. The entire feel of the show got changed in the seventh season after Amy Sherman parted from the series giving the reins to David S Rosenthal. The real spirit of the show was finally visible once again, for one last time, luckily, in the very last episode of the series which ends with Lorelei and Rory at the Diner having coffee and Luke making Pancakes for them in the background - so reminiscent of the very first scene of the first episode of the series. I hope to watch the series again sometime in the far future, but irrespective of if that ever happens or not, the sweet memories of Gilmore Girls and Stars Hollow and Kirk will be there with me forever.

Movie Review: Dhoom:2 - Double the Masti and Double the Paisa Vasool

sami — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 17:51:38 EST

It's the season of sequels and remakes right now in Bollywood. The good news is that the film-makers are not just trying to ride on the popularity of the original films to make quick money from the sequels, as proved by 'Lage Raho Munnabhai', which is making even more business, and earning even better critical reviews, than the original 'Munnabhai MBBS'. Another success story is currently being written at the box office by the sequel of one of the biggest hits of 2004, Dhoom. In line with the success story of 'Lage Raho Munnabhai', Dhoom:2 is getting better reviews than its first edition and the industry pundits are predicting that it will be the bigger hit of the two. The age of sequels and trilogies has arrived in India.

If you liked the movie Dhoom, be ready to be completely blown by the Dhoom:2 experience. The primary reason for the success of Dhoom, and now Dhoom:2, is the unique combination of novelty and simplicity. Nobody would've believed that a bike-movie like Dhoom would get such a positive response from the Indian audiences, who are more attuned to the melodramatic movies of Karan Johar and Yash Chopra. Dhoom created a new page in the history of Indian cinema and Dhoom:2 takes the legacy forward in great style. The film of course cannot be compared with the timeless classics like Mother India or Deewar; nor do they come even close to message-oriented serious entertainers like Lagaan and Munnabhai MBBS. Instead, Dhoom quintessentially belongs to the genre of light, fast paced, action thriller movies whose success stands on a simple philosophy: Do not ever bore the audiences. Though not an intelligent or a captivating script, it scores where other similar attempts fell flat on their faces. It is also here Dhoom:2 does the job so well; it retains the spirit of simplicity of old Dhoom, yet takes the entertainment levels to the next stage. Hrithik Roshan has bigger star appeal than John Abraham; Indians will take Bipasha Basu in the swim suit any day over Esha; riding high on the success of the past year, Abhishek Bachhan is much more confident as cop-in-the-t-shirts than he was in Dhoom; Aishwarya Rai's experiment with the new look is refreshing and the film uses a much bigger budget for the action scenes and the picturisation of songs. The viewers are the winners in the end.

Dhoom:2 starts in the same way as Dhoom, with an unbelievable(?!) robbery executed effortlessly by the perfect conman - Mr. A(Hrithik). But more important is what it does NOT start with: Hrithik Roshan growing up as a child in a rural village, where the merciless villain murders his righteous father prompting him to take the wrong path. If he is a thief, he is a thief; no time spared for the justifications. In fact, the viewer is made to love the coolness associated with all his robberies, no place for any moralities here. The robbery is then followed by the dazzling entry of Abhishek Bachhan on a motorboat. The pairing of Abhishek Bachhan and Uday Chopra a second time in this film might take it next to the now legendary pair of Munnabhai and Ciruit. For some reason, the chemistry between Abhishek and Uday Chopra never looks as great as the characters seemed to have demanded. They entertain the audiences with their own style of comedy nevertheless.

Ash's introduction in her new tanned skin look and anime-girl costume is stylish too. She looks as cool as Angelina Jolie from the Tomb Raider series - until she opens her mouth that is. It is one of those aspects of the film that could have been better handled and the criticism should be directed towards the director in this case. A bit more effort in handling Ash might have made her iconic (or at least as slick as Shilpa Shetty looked in Dus). A victim of similar lack of attention or importance is Abhishek Bachhan's character; where every detail of Hrithik's dare-devil is given maximum attention, even the background music doesn't excite the audience much when Abhishek outsmarts Hrithik for the first time at the interval time. In that sense, it is an out and out Hrithik Roshan's film and the other characters are there only to support him in blowing away the audience's imaginations. He was the cynosure of all teenage girls' eyes and they didn't care if they were gasping too loudly every time Hrithik was shown doing the dare-devils on the screen. Uday Chopra did slightly better in this film than in the earlier Dhoom, surprising the audiences by bringing smiles to their faces on at least one out of five attempts. His day dreaming humour continues this time with Bipasha Basu, who has a forgettable role in the first half where she only has to fill the frames with Abhishek, and a glamorous one in the second half of the film.

Only one song succeeds in setting the stage on fire - Crazy Kiya Re, and with its fast beats and great hummable tune, not to forget Ash in the brand new look, it might be the strongest reason if you decide to watch the movie again. The last song is also full of energy and brings the entire cast of the film together on the dance floor. The rest of the songs are almost forgettable.

The film is completely devoid of any logic though, so remember to keep your brains at home while going to watch this movie. This is no intelligently written one-upmanship game between the cop and the thief. Hrithik uses one of the dumbest tricks to do all the robberies and Abhishek comes with even dumber ways to catch him. But you wouldn't be watching Dhoom if you were looking for a serious cop-n-thief chase game, now, would you?

On the whole, the film is a completely fun-filled, exciting, roller-coaster ride for those who enjoy light-hearted action films. If attention-grabbing stunts, thrilling chases, heavy background score with minimum bollywood-ish drama is what makes an entertaining film for you, then look no other way; Dhoom:2 will cross all your expectations.

Website Review: MyToday.com - A Public RSS Feed Aggregator

sami — Sun, 7 May 2006 09:54:16 EDT

(Having a general idea about RSS feeds will be helpful in understanding the following review more completely. If you don't know what RSS feeds are or what their significance is, a simple introduction to this technology is available here. Simply put, instead of having to visit different websites for reading different kinds of information, RSS feeds allow all the information from multiple websites to be collected at one place)

The creators of MyToday.com call their website a 'Public RSS Aggregator', differentiating it from the commonly known private aggregators like the popular Bloglines.com service. What is the difference between the two? Basically, its about the flexibility and control in one(private aggregator) and simplicity and ease of use in the other(public aggregator). In a private aggregator like Bloglines, you start with a completely blank slate; you have to manually add every single RSS feed that you are interested in to the aggregator, which puts the responsibility on the user to dig out the most interesting web sources that are present on the Internet, but it also gives complete control to the user about which feeds are actually collected by the aggregator. If you are a control freak, you need something like Bloglines.

But for the vast majority of the web users, the exact source from where the information is pulled is not very important; they may only care about the subjects that they are interested in: like news, entertainment, sports etc. Even otherwise, not everyone may be in the know-how of which websites are the most popular ones on a given subject. This is where a knowledgeable third person('Editor') can play an important role: collect the RSS feeds from some of the best sources on the Internet and then categorise them under different subjects according to the type of content that they provide. The users can then just select the subject of their interest and can get the most interesting content in that category conveniently collected at one place. For example, a user can just go to the "Blogs" page on MyToday.com where the feed content from all the popular blogs(yes, Sepia Mutiny, Desicritics etc are all there) are collected and presented in a user friendly format.

The interface of the website makes use of modern web technologies("Web 2.0/Ajax") which makes it easier for the users to view and navigate through all the feeds in the shortest time possible. Feeds are collected together under different panels allowing a user to expand(or collapse) the select panels to see(or hide) the feeds under only that panel. If you are like me who believes that only "The Hindu" follows responsible journalism practices(just a meek attempt at trolling ;) ), you can make the "News" page look like the following image, with all but the feeds from 'The Hindu' being hidden from the view.

There is also a button at the top of the website that allows all the panels to be collapsed or expanded with a single mouse click. What I did not like in the interface is the way the actual content is presented to the users: whenever you click a feed link, it takes around 4-5 seconds for the 'balloon' to pop up and show the content to the users. Sometimes it appears as if the website is not responding to the clicks at all(I scrolled away from the view so many times!) and some other times the balloon pops-up little away from where you had actually clicked. At least some feedback regarding the content being fetched from the server can be displayed(ala "Loading..." message in the GMail interface) at a corner of the web page. Another thing that I did not find impressive is the completely different look of the home page from the rest of the pages; I think the home page should not be so distinguishable from the remaining pages. There should also be a head/main menu at the top of every page containing the links to all the categories, which will save the user from the pain of having to constantly go back to the home page to select a different category.

A very impressive feature of the website is the concept of "Reader Lists". In a way it directly adds to the variety of the feeds as collected by the core editorial team. A 'Reading List' is a list created from the RSS feeds that someone else is tracking on a regular basis, allowing the other users to see what he/she(an editor of a newspaper, a technology freak, a popular blogger etc) is reading frequently on the Internet. For example, if you want to be the next Aaman Lamba on the South Asian scene, make a start by following his reading list which is available on MyToday.com here. If you think that the RSS feeds that you personally keep track of might be of some interest to a section of the netizens, then send a request to MyToday.com to create a separate reading list for you (submission details are on their home page). With more reading lists thus created in the future, it should be one of the most interesting services provided by the website.

I found it strange to see the official blog and wiki of the website being hosted on free, publicly available services like wordpress.com and wikispaces.com. I don't know what the exact requirements with respect to the blog and wiki were that did not allow them to host these softwares on their own servers, but whatever they were, in my opinion, hosting the blog and wiki outside of their own domain will severely affect their brand image(professional vs casual players).

A surprise is in store for you: the website is avaiable through a mobile interface too! Just browse to this location through your Internet-enabled mobile phone and enjoy the service on the go. Unfortunately, I couldn't test this feature in time.

Overall, I am impressed by the usefulness of this website for a non-geek user who wants to browse through the latest stories published on the Internet from one central location, through a convenient interface. For the control freaks, they promise to implement the ability to add one's own feeds to the website in the near future. When that day comes, a user can both browse the most popular articles as collected by the editorial team and add their own favourite feeds from the Internet too - a perfect combination of simplicity and flexibility.

Website Review: IndiaGram - Del.icio.us for Desis

sami — Tue, 2 May 2006 09:36:53 EDT

IndiaGram, released a few days ago, is a new online bookmarking service on the lines of the popular del.icio.us service but with a focus on the Indian/South Asian community. You can use it in place of del.icio.us to store your online bookmarks or, more interestingly, you can use it to keep a watch on what interesting websites are bookmarked by the other people.

The most recently bookmarked websites are shown on the first two pages; and there is a link that will take you to most popular bookmarks too. An added feature of this service is that you can vote for a particular bookmark if you find it interesting, acting very much like digg.com!! This in fact is the most interesting feature for me. Just like del.icio.us, it supports tagging of a bookmark with different labels, but its impressive enough to show the tags using the cloud view by default, which gives a better visual idea to the users about which tags have the most number of bookmarks. A user can also opt to keep some of the bookmarks private(a feature that was added only recently to del.icio.us) or can share it only with their friends(yes, you can add your friends to your account!). So a lot of options to chose as to with whom you want to share a particular bookmark.

The registration process is as simple as it is with del.icio.us. Whereas del.icio.us remembers you forever after your first login (at least if you keep visiting the website fairly regularly), IndiaGram gives you the option of remembering you for 2 weeks time. It also allows the registered users to post comments on any website that is bookmarked on it! You can see all the recent comments posted by the users in the right sidebar.

It has good help on the wiki(with a guided tour of how to do the basic things; don't believe me? see this!) and a google group for asking questions and getting relevant support.

If you think that you would like to support this new service, you have several options with you:

Get registered and start bookmarking your sites with it. Vote others' bookmarks that you find interesting. Post comments on your favourite websites that are bookmarked on the site.
Add a link/badge on your website. More details on how to do it are available here.
Blog about it!!(or in simple terms, spread the word about it)

Remember that its still a beta service and your use of the service and your feedback would be very helpful in improving the quality of the service in the final version.

For the techies:

I had come across an interesting open-source product called Scuttle few weeks ago(on a newsforge.com article) which does most of what del.icio.us does, and a few other things, but with the difference that you can actually install it on your own server and then use it. This allows one to think of myriad ways in which such a product can be used: bookmarking for only the internal network(employees of a company, students at a university etc), private bookmarking for a closed group(project work etc), bookmarking for a niche target.

IndiaGram is one such service that uses Scuttle behind the scenes to create bookmarking service with the focus on the Indian community. All the additions that people behind IndiaGram have done to the code base of Scuttle(voting and commenting system etc) are released back to the community - a gesture that is worthy to be commended; thanks to Prakash, one of the people behind IndiaGram, for informing me about it.

This article describes Scuttle in good detail but it also contains a few mistakes(some of them corrected in the comments).

A demo installation of this product runs here.

If your server meets the basic requirements of the software: Apache + PHP + MySQL, then download Scuttle and give it a try!!

Do You Call Me a Theist? (PART-II)

sami — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 12:28:04 EDT

(You can read the first part of this article here.)

It has been claimed that when the primitive human being couldn't understand a lot of things taking place around him/her, he/she attributed them to, what is essentially an invented concept, a 'God'. Fear seems to have played an equally important role for some of the other communities; when the thunderstorms, the floods, the earthquakes were beyond the comprehension of the human mind in those days - they attributed them to be the work of a supreme being called God. My reasons for believing in God are more fundamental than these.

There are a hundred thousand questions that keeps propping up in my mind and I am extremely grateful for the fact that I am born in a day and age when most of these questions can be answered to my complete satisfaction, thanks to the advances made by the science all through these centuries. Yet I see a void somewhere, a very big void in fact, where all the developments in science refuses to even begin to answer any of these questions, the questions like: what is life? What constitutes consciousness? How do we have such an excellent equilibrium in this universe?

The mechanical process of how two living beings, of opposite sex, can give birth to another life, is thoroughly explained by the science. But how exactly does the fetus get a life? In case of the humans, how does it develop the consciousness to say to itself "yes, I am"? How does it grow up to be a wise/intelligent/stupid/humorous person? Is it just a particular way in which the brain gets shaped and developed? Is there all randomness and no method to it? And where does it all go once the life is separated from the body?

Those people who claim themselves to be atheists because they prefer to be 'practical' and 'rational' in their thoughts need to give me some explanation here, as I can't follow their line of argument in this case. The above phenomenon is strong enough to suggest to me that its a handiwork of another, much more intelligent, much more powerful 'supernatural' force, that exists and pervades every aspect of our lives and the universe. When it required an intelligent being like a human being to create something as powerful as a computer, don't you think a human being/other animals/nature/universe cannot just get created by an accident? So much organization, so much control, so much methodical planning, all this by a sheer accident? That's definitely not being practical in my opinion. Those who speculate that aliens were responsible in planting the life on this planet, well, I don't deny the possibility, but please do tell me as to from where did these aliens come into the existence in the first place?

If I am allowed to dissect this conception of the God in a little bit more detail, I would say that the first precaution I take here, is not to make too many futile assumptions about it. I acknowledge such a presence. Unnecessarily getting into complications about its rationale behind the creation of the universe, the life and the equilibrium to sustain it all - I prefer to stay clear from it. But some questions still prop up in the mind - mostly because of the people who keep claiming various weird things through their religious preaching: the concept of hell and heaven (or what is right and what is wrong) is just one such example.

So what is considered 'good' and who gets to go to the heavens? Obviously it cannot be the 'good' as defined by a particular religion - we were never clearly told which one is the 'good' religion and God doesn't look like the one to ask us to roll the correct number on the dice to get to the heavens. It also cannot be what is generally acceptable by a society(by their usual standards) - we have seen the glaring defects of so many societies being exposed by the individual persons. So finally we rest with the ingenuity of the person himself to make the call as to what is good and what is bad for himself - and end of the story.

If I think that biting my nails is a corrupt practice, then its bad for me, however silly it might sound to the others. Someone thinks that killing a person of a specific race or a specific religion is their primary duty - then its still not being evil on their part(however harsh it might sound). If a person doesn't carry any guilt after performing an act, it cannot be termed as a sin for them. Do such acts invite any punishment from the Creator in the current life, the next life or the Hereafter? No speculations on my part regarding the next life or the Hereafter; but in the current life, I believe, in most of the cases, they do.

We were given a life to be lived in a certain atmosphere, we were endowed with the capacity to learn about our environment, adapt ourselves to it and make the best out of it all, in whatever way we prefer. If someone understood an act to be immoral or unethical, but still went ahead and committed it for some kind of narrow personal gains, and ended up carrying the pain of guilt derived from such an act, then the punishment is the erosion of the character that takes place due to this, that dents the confidence and the self-pride of the person, raises fingers at their inner conscience, and hence takes a toll on the calmness of their lives. For every conscious wrong-doing, there is a similar, proportional price to pay. The evils that one commits without ever realizing how much pain it might inflict onto the others, due to lack of awareness/sensitivity or whatever, mostly get punished, either:

1. In the form of repulsion from the same people around them; or
2. Once the realization of the wrong-doings dawns upon them.

I attribute this almost perfect setup of making it inherent to the nature of the human species - to define what is wrong, commit it, and then pay for the same - also as a sign of an intelligent supreme being behind the creation of this universe. Such a strong faith in a conscious supreme being may never allow me to wear the badge of an atheist, but i feel uncomfortable wearing the badge of a theist too, especially when it is loosely defined. When one of my friends had given me an option to select from one of the several schools of thought regarding different theist beliefs, I had selected this for myself:

'Those who just believe that "God's existence is necessary rather than contingent" and nothing else.'

Do You Call Me a Theist?

sami — Thu, 6 Apr 2006 00:04:47 EDT

All this while, I have always claimed myself to be almost an atheist (which might have become a legendary joke akin to Khushwant Singh's claim about English being his mother tongue, if I were a popular figure). That might not make much sense to those people who prefer to stick to the rigid definitions of this term (you don't believe in God, or you are an atheist - no middle ground). Even as I could never convince myself very much of any of the beliefs of the popular religions of this world, and in fact, find the entire concept of religion itself very intriguing and difficult to comprehend, I also strongly believe in the concept of God, or a supreme being, or whatever you call it, without ever knowing whether my concept of God can at all be called as a God or not. This seems to sufficiently complicate matters for me.

Moving in the circles of people exhibiting strong bonds with their respective religions, I have always counted myself as being completely different from them, an atheist, when it comes to our faiths. But after getting some opportunities to talk to a bunch of people in the last few years, who had no faith in the very concept of God or a Creator itself, I had to revise my own perception about my orientation i.e., I now think that I lie somewhere in between being a theist and an atheist. My own comfort level is that, I feel very close to being an atheist, but the usual definition of it, as we understand it, seems to categorise me otherwise, if not as a total believer.

Why this categorisation of mine('not an atheist') is a little uncomfortable to me is because, I find the believers to be so much different from myself; the difference is in the answer to the question: who is God? or more importantly, what is God? My friends have a very strong notion of God, as guided by their respective religious beliefs. Muslim friends of mine have no doubt that:

there is only one God;

he is all powerful, all knowing, all merciful and has no desires/shortcomings/needs, etc.;

he has no form, no partners, no rivals;

he sent the messages to his subjects several times, the last message being sent through the prophet Mohammed in 700 AD;

the holy Quran is the word of God;

I have no intention of hurting the feelings of anyone here, but how clear are our thoughts when we accept that our definition of the God makes him "all powerful", yet he has to make several attempts to put his message across? Why send the "last" and the "final" message so late as 700 AD, and why were the people who lived prior to this period kept in the dark from the real message? There are many answers to these questions, as my friends tell me, but how trustworthy are these answers when they are nothing but our own way of reasoning? God obviously did not leave any clarification regarding this in the holy Quran, not a clear message at least.

Similarly, Hindu friends of mine have no doubt that:

there is only one God, a common man may understand him/relate to him in many avatars;

he is all powerful, all knowing, has no shortcomings, but may show some signs like greed, weakness etc in his various avatars, as the common man understands him;

he has no form although some forms might be attributed to him for making it easier to approach him;

he has never sent a message to his subjects;

there is no ONE official word from God;

When there is no message, no messenger and no official word from the God, how do we even know that a God exists (or he wants his creations to acknowledge that he exists)? Believing in God may have different motivations for different people, but how are we imagining a particular kind of God, a Hindu God to be more specific, if we had no communication from him? How do we know he doesn't like to see his subjects committing any sins or going astray? That there is a hell and a heaven? That we have to go through number of incarnations to get the ultimate 'moksha'?

(All the literature from Hinduism, I am told, is written by people of great knowledge, great wisdom, who could see the truth beyond what a normal human being like us can see, BUT it is not the word of God himself.)

Speaking generically, how could God hold us responsible for a deed he NEVER directly prohibited us from doing? How do we know which literature is authentic and which one is not, and what concessions has God made for those people who innocently follow one religion and later on, after the death/moksha, discover that they have been following the wrong religion/literature all along? Will I be punished if I consume alcohol by being a Hindu, but the Muslim version of God turns up in the heavens on doomsday? Did I get any indications from the God that I am on the wrong path, or why did he keep quite while I was going in the wrong direction if he was so particular about me following the right path, only to correct me when it is the day to announce the results? These kind of specific and detailed definitions of God is what I don't believe in.

It doesn't mean that I don't believe in God at all. In fact, I am a very strong believer in God, but my belief is more close to the spiritual definition of God than the religious one, and in fact I don't even know if anyone would agree that what I consider as God can be called a God at all. Nevertheless, there are strong reasons for me to believe in what I call a God (reasons which I never use to try to force on or influence others to buy my argument that there is God), and there are a few attributes that I dare to attribute to my concept of God. Here are some of those:

there is a supreme being - more powerful, more intelligent than the entire human race;

the supreme being has no intention of establishing any kind of communication with its creations;

people doing good deeds will be rewarded and those doing bad deeds will be punished (but, what is good and what is evil? Where is it documented? Why are bad deeds punished when they are not prohibited anywhere in a clearly agreeable way? When and what kind of punishment it will be?);and

God expects no accountability from his subjects.

I will try to elaborate further on the above mentioned 4 points, and also the reasons which make me believe in God in the first place. Those reasons should also give a better idea why I find it odd to group myself with the majority of theists.