Fantastic Four

My rating: 3/10.
My advice: If you have a choice, consider it strongly :)

R.E.M @ Hyde Park

We had been to a concert where R.E.M and others played some real good music couple of weeks ago. The concert was in Hyde park, London and was very well organized. Originally scheduled to be held on the 9th of July, it was postponed because of 7/7 bombing incidents in London. We went by car till the suburbs of London and then took the metro. I experienced some psychological fears but those were far lesser in comparision with what I felt this week when I was in london.

Some of the songs that I liked (in order and only the ones I remember):

* Losing My Religion

* Leaving New York

* Everybody hurts

* Man on the moon (I smiled at this one as I kinda believe the conspiracy theory)

In quest of perfection

Don't you like it when things just work???

And if these things provide you an array of features designed to make the most complex things simple and easy, don't you just love them? I am compiling a list of products (software, hardware, etc), companies and other bits that I have encountered in my life that make me just love them (and say Wow! that is just great) for the near perfect level of engineering/service that they offer.

* Apple and apple products
Apple, I think, deserves to be on the top. The experience that it provides both in terms of hardware and software is just exhilarating. My experiences have been with the Powerbook that I currently have, Mac OS X Tiger and many other bundled software.

* Canon Ixus
Canon cameras, mainly the Ixus range are designed to make better photography simple to achieve. The size, the look, the interface and the results are simply the best.

* Google, gmail, google maps, etc
Google sets a high standard in the things that it does. Gmail has improved mail clients beyond expectations and its still in beta!

Any additions more than welcome.

The perfect cup of tea

How do you prepare a perfect cup of tea? Ofcourse, perfection in this case refers to ones taste. Everyday I use the same quantity of water, the same tea bag, the same amount of sugar (two tea spoons to keep my sweet tooth happy) and the same amount of milk. Looking at it with pride, I walk back to my desk. Some days I finish it off with happiness because it really tastes the way I want it to. Some days (like today) I wear a disgruntled look on my face wondering what went wrong. Why am I facing this terrible torture of having to drink a bad cup of tea? What can I do to ensure a perfect cup of tea when I need it? :(

Edinburgh in summer

Last time I visited Edinburgh was in January 2003. It was just after my first set of exams. Scotland was cold, I didn't want to spend much money and only a few months had passed since I came into the UK. Much has changed since then. Edinburgh is much more prettier in summer and so is the rest of scotland for sure. The photos that I took from my mobile phone don't do justice to this beatiful city though.

Is this summer?

I really wonder. Weather has been all time worse since I came to the UK. We have had a maximum of 2 weeks of decent weather with good sunshine and acceptable temperature since May. And its already JULY!!!!! Apart from being wet (which is usual for UK), its coooold.. max temp is well below 20 and min has dipped to around 10 in the last week.

I miss India.

War of the Worlds (2005)

As there are more than one productions of the original "War of the worlds" book by H. G. Wells, its probably appropriate to associate the movie with the year of production :)

< Blooper_Warning> This blog discusses the storyline in the movie and may be considered by the curious ones as a blooper. (even though the original novel was 'pen'ed back in the 19th century)< /Blooper_Warning>.

I found the story to be fundamentally flawed. The storyline seems rather short and to make it last for 2 hrs, Spielberg has introduced a whole lot of supposedly emotional scenes (wonder if someone from Bollywood was involved ;)). Vast number of tripod like creatures (similar to the ones shown above) were burried underneath the ground millions of years ago. One fine day, lightning strikes and these tripods wake up and begin exterminating earthlings. The question is, how did Aliens know the structure, shape and composition of human beings so many years ago? Even to the extent of knowing that our blood can be used as some sort of fertilizer?? The ending to the movie couldn't have been more abrupt; our microscopic friends come to our rescue and that is the aliens collapse.

I liked the first 45-60 mins and found it to be quite chilling. But then the focus was turned on to Mr. Cruise, his two misbehaving kids and the budding emotional bondage between them. That is when I couldn't take it. And those kids, Oh-My-God!...couple of times during the movie, I felt like slapping them. The younger one screams for everything and the the elder one is very annoying.

The tripod in the image (isn't from the movie), aliens, etc can be seen in the movie but images aren't shown in any of the promos (trying to keep the 100+ yr old suspense I suppose)

A generous 2/5 for the movie. My 2 pence worth opinion is that Spielberg could have focussed on trying to explain the strategy of the aliens and the aliens themselves which was comparitively clearer in the "US is the savior of the world" movie (The Independence day).