Vacation time

Long time no see bloggy. I was busy with exams and a lot of stuff happened that I really don't want to write about. So what is this blogpost about?

I don't know. I guess I'm just gonna write whatever I feel like here. Now that my holidays have started I've been busy checking out E3 2009 videos from Gametrailers and watching "The All new Batman Adventures" (TANBA), a show that took place after Batman: The Animated Series and I doubt, was ever shown in India. I remember watching the Gamespot review of Batman Vengeance. I remember enjoying the PC version. I was curious about it when I had seen it on Ubisoft's website before it was released. Then I had watched the trailer, and was like, man I gotta play this game! And now while watching TANBA, it brings back memories of Batman Vengeance. The artwork, character styles, voice acting, everything is just like the series. 

I plan to watch The Batman after that. I did watch a couple of episodes, read a few issues, etc, but the character design felt weird at first. The characters were redesigned. Take a look at Joker:

Creepy no?

I heard that the Wolverine movie would be released on the 19th here. Man, there's probably gonna be a lot of crowd. (Yash, remember when we had gone to watch Dark Knight on the first day?) I hope they're still showing the Watchmen movie here. Friends here talking more about Angels and Demons but for me, Watchmen movie gets a higher priority than Angels and Demons. I do wanna watch it. Indian Express's Pune Newsline isn't of much help showing movie lists.  

Ah, now that the holidays are here, I better start working on RTFS Adventure 2 and better get that tablet fixed. Stupid loose connection problem. Delayed thanks to Kunal.  Bah!

Finding Mimo

Mimo:- I first met him online via orkut. He seemed like a really excited dude online (you know how scary that can be!), but he turned out to be a very nice guy with a good sense of humour, and we turned out to be good friends. Been 2 years since we know each other now. I remember last year when he had decided to drop by in Pune to have a meet up. He came all the way from Baroda (all by himself and he's 16; What a bindaas guy!) and randomly landed at Chaphekar Chowk. He called me to pick him up. Luckily Chaphekar Chowk wasn't that far so I could pick him up. It was really nice meeting him. It was like we really knew each other (even though we had met for the first time.)

That was a year ago. It was time for a second meet. This was last week. He was free at the moment so decided to come to Pune. I asked him to stay for a week but he could only stay for 4 days. Good enough. "You have to pick me up wherever I land." OMG! No! Told him to get down at Chinchwad or somewhere nearer; or else i'd have to go all the way to Pune and bring him back home. He got down at Wakad. I asked him to come till Danghe Chowk, while I'd take my kinetic and reach there. It was hot, dusty and windy outside. So we met up. I brought him back home. Benji was happy to see him and guess what? As soon as we got home, the first thing I heard was "Take Benji for a walk". Oh well...

Mimo had brought many PS2 games with him, which was a good thing as I could test them on PCSX2. He also showed me his work. He is currently working on a RPG using engine 001. For more info on the tool, visit www.engine001.com. I also showed him how much I've worked on RTFS Adventure 2 so far. Gee, I need to complete it soon.

Those 4 days passed quickly, but we had a lot of fun. We enjoyed Super Smash Bros Brawl a lot, me whooping his butt. Muhahaha! Yash, gonna hafta wait yer turn fer a-whoopin' ya hear? We also watched movies like Highlander: The Search for Vengeance. Kickass movie and smooth as butter animation. Imagi rocks!

Finally it was time for us to leave. Mimo's folks had a bus from Pune so they were coming back from their Mahabaleshwar trip. There were like 2 hours left, so we headed to Crosswords at Sohrab Hall. The content felt less that day. But there was some interesting stuff to read no doubt. We took out issues of Forge and sat reading. Time passed by. Mimo got a call from his dad and then it was time for us to leave. The bus stop was close by. Met Mimo's folks for the first time. I was kinda nervous. What would they be like? They turned out to be very nice people. Mimo's mother gave me a box of fresh strawberries and some jelly sweets to take home. Gee, that was very sweet. Time to catch the 7 o clock local. Wow it was like everything had been planned systematically, for when I reached the station the local had just arrived. Talk about timing!

Bye Mimo, it was really fun having you here. I wanna come to Baroda soon, but after my exams get over. See you pal.

Watchmen demo impressions

[Click on the screenshots for a bigger view.]Firstly I am new to Watchmen. I haven't read the graphic novel, but I will someday; I'm not familiar with the characters, but the game lets you play as Rorschach and Nite owl. I haven't watched the movie either and nor have I read the motion comic yet but I intend to check them out soon. So here are my impressions on the Watchmen: The End is nigh demo.

The game uses the "Kapow" engine. I mistook it for the Unreal 3 engine. Hehe. When you get something dark, cinematic with plenty of eye candy, one thinks its Unreal 3 engine. Remember when the Doom 3 engine used to be the talk of the day? Anyway back to topic...

The story in the demo has Rorschach and Nite Owl visiting some prison where the prisoners are wreaking havoc and having a party inside. The cops are fools as always and refuse to cooperate with the vigilantes. Dumbasses...so anyway, the vigilantes land there to help tame the crazy criminals inside. The cops threaten to shoot the vigilantes instead of taking care of the criminals. Man why are cops so stupid? They hardly thank superheroes for helping them bust crime. Instead of thanking them they decide to shoot them down. Wow! What a bunch of incorrigible stupid bums! So the criminals are set free while the cops chicken out, leaving Rorschach and Nite Owl to do the dirty work for them. So you beat up thugs using various combos, move ahead to a new part of an area, more thugs show up, you kick their butt and so on. I played as Rorschach and pretty much had a good time doing so. Didn't feel like trying out Nite Owl.

So the game has you punch, kick, throw enemies (the wiser option). Its fun when the thug you throw falls on the other idiots. Its pretty satisfying. Its also fun when you fling them off and they fall to their deaths. The game has plenty of eye candy and some good physics, but seriously...does a dirty prison actually shine that much? The floor seems to be so shiny that no matter how dirty things get, you can always see the reflections. Shiny floor with reflections lol. That's what eye candy often boasts about. There's also a lock picking mini game in the demo for Rorschach to do which seems pretty easy. Rorschach has a rage meter which increases as he fights enemies and by pressing RT or R1, makes him charge at enemies. Sweet. After you clear out one phase of crazy whackos, you can
wait a bit while you regain your lost health. As a beat em up game, it gets pretty repetitive but hey its fun. I've enjoyed beat em ups since school days. Remember TMNT?

The plot in the demo gets more interesting as you go on and then bang! End of demo. Damn. I look forward to playing the full game.

If you enjoy playing beat em ups, get the Watchmen. Its available for PC, Xbox360 and PS3. Also make sure you have a friend to join you. That makes it more fun. Later.

Susan eats Veg Chopsuey!

Ok this has nothing to do with Susan eating chopsuey hehe. This blog is about a nice time I had yesterday. I was planning to go watch Monsters vs Aliens with Tejas. I also asked Supa to come along. The movie's title is kinda misleading ain't it? Monsters vs Aliens...sounds like some horror "bhoot" movie for those who are not familiar with Dreamworks' title. Well, anyway, our plan was to head for E-square. We were planning to start from here at 12 noon, get the 12:38 train, reach Shivajinagar by around 1:45, book tickets, do some shopping and then watch the movie at 3. Heh. But with the scorching heat outside, was it a good idea? 12-3 outside in the heat travelling like crazy? This is when Kunal comes to the rescue. He showed up at 11 Am. He told me "Why not go to Adlabs Chinchwad? Its nearer. Check the schedule online." Damn, why didn't I think of that? I had only checked E-square's schedule online. So check I did at the last minute. Monsters vs Aliens at 1:05 PM showing at Adlabs. Good to go. Kunal offered to drop 'monkey Tejas' in the forest (part of our evil plan muhahaha!) while Supa and I headed to Adlabs to book our tickets. It was so freakin' hot outside! I wondered if we'd be able to get the tickets but Kunal was like "Don't worry. Aaram se mil jayega. Zyada koi nahi deknewala." (Don't worry, you'll easily get it. Hardly anyone is going to watch it.) And he was right. Stupid Indian public. Haha. There wasn't even a big poster of Monsters vs Aliens. Only ones of Hindi and Marathi movies. Boooring! So we booked the tickets and waited for Tejas to come so we could go inside and relax under the A.c. Finally we went inside. Ah that felt so good. Tejas really looks forward to watching Dragonball: Evolution, but I'm like "its gonna flop, its gonna suck; its gonna make the real db\z\gt fan suffer from embarassment and regret!"

Tejas: You don't like Dragonball?

Me: Wtf!? The movie hardly has anything to do related to the Db universe? There's no Krillin! Piccolo looks like shit.

Tejas: Yeah there's no Chichi, but I wanna watch it.

Me: Fine. Enjoy watching it in theatre and let me know of your wonderful experience.

So back to Monsters vs Aliens, the movie was fun to watch. Some parts were funny, some were pretty cliche, Susan was hot and Derek was a selfish jerk. I loved B.o.b. The cockroach mad scientist did his evil laugh too many times. Can't say much about the missing link but he had his funny parts too-"A convenient truth".... Overall, it was a fun movie, though the trailer had given me a more interesting impression than the movie actually did. But it was fun watching.

After the movie, we went to Crosswords. We bought plenty of comics. Here's a pic showing some of them.Yes, WTF! (You'll find out soon why.) I love the "Six issues for just Rs. 99/-" offers at crosswords. Problem is, you won't find out which random issues you've got, until you open and see. Tejas bought Archies, Nights into Dreams (cool series) and World Almanac for kids. Okay. Supa got some more Archies. I went for the "10 comics for just Rs 99/-". Couldn't resist. I hoped I wouldn't get crap in it though. Last time I had got Archies and ended up with 2 of the comics being fucking Scooby Doo.

I was getting very hungry. Supa decided to go home. Tejas decided to hang around with me. He was getting hungry too. McD was crowded, so we went to Yo China and had Veg Chopsuey (where were the pineapple slices the menu had promised?) with Pepsi. It was fun. Stomachs being filled (somewhat), the feeling of relief and satisfaction from hunger and some interesting conversations were what made the eating part worth it. After that, we took a six seater to Nigdi bus stop and an auto home. We reached home at around 4:30. Time for load shedding. MSEDCL morons...

So let's see what we got in this 10 in 1. Spider-man. Check. Thundercats. Check. Dexter's Lab. Okay. Comic version of an episode from the show. Been there done that. Jonny Bravo. Wtf! No! Avengers. Check. Jonny Bravo. WTF! Again?? SH**! Ultimate Spider-man. Check. Batman. Check. Santa and Banta with Trendy First edition. This is pretty cool stuff. You can see the cover in the pic. Its cool and funny. And now, ladies and gentlemen, time for the crappiest of them all for which the number one  WTF is reserved for. You can see it in the pic (left side).  "Bollywood: The Ultimate Chase". W........T........F....... seriously. Why would I want to read a stupid Bollywood comic? The artwork is good though; But its Bollywood, so for me its crap. So we read comics until it was time for the MSEDCL morons to restore the power. Then we played some Mario Kart Wii, Super Smash Bros Brawl, Devil May Cry 3. It was fun as always. :) Then at around 8 PM I got a call from Kunal saying he didn't have his class, so he was in Nigdi near Vasu wada pav. I met him there. Tejas was busy playing Devil May Cry 3, so I told him to continue playing till I returned with Kunal. We ate some wada pav and took some thick shakes home, which we all  enjoyed along with some Smash Bros. After a few matches it was time for Kunal to leave so I dropped him off at the bus stop. 

Bahut mazaa aaya. 

An old friend arrives...

Tejas, the little kid who used to live next door. The kid who used to love watching cartoons, playing games and showing off his action figures; its been 7 years since I last saw him. He had moved to Mangalore and has come here recently for a brief visit, say 15 days. Its surprising and amusing. You see a little kid and after those many years; you see a grown, or rather,  growing-up version of him. Its an amusing experience - "Aww, the little kid has grown up". Goodbye kiddy days, hello Warcraft.

He has just given his 10th std board exams. Wishes to continue his studies there. Fine by me. Though his other childhood friends wish he'd stay. Can't blame him though. Life's changed for him. A different friend circle, a different phase in life, one must move on. He says it feels like it was yesterday that he lived here. Agreed. I remember the dreamy experience. I always feel that when I go to Mumbai, Tardeo, where we used to live earlier. It feels strange - that world you used to live in moves on and so do the people there. Things change. Its obvious, but it feels strange.

Enough of pondering lol. Tejas is a gamer which is a good thing for me. He has a Logitech Cordless Rumblepad2. Whoa. Doesn't that thing cost around Rs. 3k? Nice toy.

A next door neighbour of mine - a gamer? Too good to be true, but I intend to have fun while it lasts. We play Smash Bros, Soul Calibur 2 and many other games. He loves Warcraft 3, which tends to make me sleepy whenever he starts playing. Ha ha oh well. You can't win em all. Yet I'll beat you in Smash Bros, Mr Ike. Ha ha ha!

Friends and fun

This blog post is going to be about today.

I had a lot of fun today. The last week was a tiring one for me. Wake up early in the morning (4 AM to be precise), keep an eye on the pups, do some stuff on PC, get ready for college, fall asleep during the journey and keep yawning during the lectures. This daily routine made me feel dull and sleepy all the time. I hadn't watched a movie in a long time. As a result, I was getting bored and felt down, eventually looking forward to the weekend.

Thursday: We have been given assignments and must submit them within the next week. I groaned; I had forgotten about the fun in working together. Falling asleep almost everyday while travelling from home to college and vice versa, lack of sleep, noisy and messy pups and load shedding had really made me grouchy. But this time I thought it would be fun to hang out with friends for a change. Besides, there wouldn't be electricity at home anyway. And add the 'back to normal' slow net again. So I decided to hang out with friends after college; went to their room, booted up Smash bros Melee and had a blast! I also watched the movie 'One missed call'. That got me back in the mood for watching movies again. Lost count of time. But it was really fun. Multiplayer gaming, eating snacks, sipping sugar cane juice, fooling around. Wow, I need to do this more often and ligthen up.

Friday: Was planning to get together and work on assignments but I needed sleep so was in sleep mode for almost the whole day. Slept like a log! "Screw the world, I wanna sleep!" kinda sleep.

Saturday: I was quite fresh today. Normally, I'd grumble about going to a place near college on a holiday but today felt different. So anyway, I went to the friends' room. I really had no clue about Maya so I asked them to teach me a bit. We are supposed to make a robot in Maya using basic shapes, so I drew a sketch of a robot, while my friends made it in Maya and showed me how it was done. I kinda find Maya's interface and shortcuts confusing, because of 3Ds Max, but I'll adjust.

After that was done, we played some Super Smash Bros Melee. Awesome as always. An hour later, MSEB played spoilsport. We were getting hungry and I hadn't eaten lunch , so we went to this place near Meghdoot hotel and had chocolate toast! It was delicious! I had no idea how it was meant to be eaten (haha just like normal toast right? but with chocolate sauce) and got my fingers all  sticky with chocolate sauce, while Gaurav's hands were clean and he sucked his fingers. That's something I don't do hehe. ^^; Well anyway, I was reluctant to wash my hands here for fear of static shock. I had a feeling I'd get one. And yes I did get one as soon as I was going to pick up the tissue paper. Damn, I hate static shock! 

I was still hungry so Gaurav and I went and had some pizza at a nearby restaurant along with some cold sugarcane juice. Ah, that was awesome! The power got restored by then, so we got to work. Our assignment was almost done and so I wondered if I should spend the night there or take the 8 o clock train. It was 7:15 PM, and I got a call from Karan. The poor guy was waiting at my house. I told him if he would wait some more I'd take the 8 o clock local and get there. He okayed it. It was 7:24. I was beginning to doubt if I'd reach the station and get the train on time. Then I thought "Let me think positive. I will get the local! I will get the local!" Had to do some running but got to sit in the local. Relieved, I smsed Karan that I'd be there. The poor guy had been waiting there for one and a half hour. He sat for a while at my place, browsed through Gamespot and then left. Poor fellow...

Well that's for this blog post. I think I'm gonna go to bed soon. Good night y'all!

Dog is really man's best friend!

I never doubted that, but I just realised how very true the saying is. The dog is such a sweet and faithful companion. It loves you more than you love yourself! If you're reading this blog post and have a dog at home, do give it a pat, scratch its chin and rub its stomach.

Say hello to Cookie and Benji, our new family members.

They're now 3 months old. These little bundles of joy/mischief taught me something new in life; that dogs are really precious. I'll explain what happened.

Earlier I used to get annoyed with their excretory habits, having to take them out whenever they wanted (and leave everything else behind) regardless of whether they "wanted" to answer nature's call or not. Also with Golu around, it can be difficult to keep an eye on all 3 at the same time to make sure noone gets hurt, including me.

It was getting difficult to handle both pups. I mean, when we're not around, the only ones at home are my grandparents, and it wouldn't be fair for them as they are in their 80s. So we asked the vet and a trainer about it. We were advised to separate the pups as soon as possible, so they'll be able to adjust. We were advised to give away Cookie (female) and keep Benji, as Cookie was aggressive while Benji submissive. If we gave Cookie away, she needed to be in a home of dog lovers only! Someone who will love her, take good care of her. So after making enquiries, a Christian family happily agreed to keep Cookie. As soon as they heard Cookie would be theirs, they went and brought toys for her. Cookie would now have toys, good food, a better place to stay and roam around, a terrace and so on (paradise for any pup if you ask me).

The night before that day, mom and Supa cried a lot. So did Ammama (grandma). I was sad too though I didn't shed any tears. That night it was like Cookie realised what was happening. Before going to bed I patted her. She saw the sadness in my eyes and gave a little bark. She was sad too. Those gentle marble eyes were sad. All that mischief and loud barking had disappeared and all that was left was a sense of loneliness, sadness.

The next day,we visited their home. Cookie seemed happy there. She sat comfortably near the coconut tree they had planted. She rolled into some muck. She even pooped there. Guess she liked the place. If Cookie would be happy there, then I'm happy. With a heavy heart, we parted and went home. Benji seemed to search for Cookie but was cool about it. That night I wondered if Cookie was happy there. Guess what happened the next day.

We got a call from them saying Cookie was really very very unhappy that we left her there. She didn't eat any food. She didn't even sleep that night. She cried the whole night-she literally had tears in her eyes! After hearing this, mom and Supa rushed to bring her back. I didn't feel like going. Cookie was so excited and happy and super relieved to be back home. Wow. She gave up all that just to be back with us. Talk about devotion.

It certainly was a touching reunion. Welcome back, Cookie!