Posts tagged bangalore
[Spoiler] Harry potter and the deathly hallows
Jul 19th
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I am a big fan of Harry potter (HP)! I got hooked in to pottermania around 2001, since then I have collected all original HP books (all thoroughly earmarked) + audio books (US Version – Jim Dale) + first 4 HP movie DVDs. Like every other HP fan, I went ahead and booked the final installment – Harry potter and the deathly hallows – around June beginning. Indiaplaza provided an excellent offer, which I haven’t seen beaten by any of the other Indian stores yet.  My wife was like – “eh!? why did you spend Rs650 on a kids book?!”, what could I tell her? Certain things are better left unanswered, right?! 
As all muggles know, the book is going to come out this Saturday 12.01am. Only two more days to go, yayyy!! This time around, the publishers have really beefed up the security, but still some goof ups did happen and couple of copies leaked out (Check out these torrents:  Complete text of the book, all pages (photographed) )
BTW, I noticed yesterday that the HP5 (Order of phoenix) movie was uploaded in Google Videos, couldn’t find it today though! Should be in Veoh or Youtube…check it out and let me know if you find a valid link 
Though I was determined not to read any of the spoilers this time, today morning I gave in to the temptation and read the initial reviews of the final book here and here. Not much leaked there, compared to the more interesting spoilers in this page, telling us who dies when and other things!
I checked my order status in Indiaplaza and was pleasantly surprised to see the status as “ReadyToShip“. C’mon guys, what are you waiting for? Why not do a DeepDiscount and send me the copy today itself?! 
Conan O’Brien visits Intel head quarters in Santa Clara
May 14th
This is a funny video of Conan O’Brien visiting Intel HQ at Santa Clara. I have never been to SC, but I can relate to what he says very well. In fact, the saying inside Intel is “If you have seen one, you have seen them all!”, this is very true for the buildings Intel builds. In Bangalore, Intel has a building at Outer ring road, which looks more or less similar to the SC building shown in the video, though I’d say not as lifeless and dull! The one at Airport road (where I am currently sitting) is not that bad, actually.
Bangalore KempKids – Be careful of the dogs
May 1st
My brother visited me last weekend. On saturday, I took them to Kemp Kids (a.k.a Kempfort) in Airport road. Kempkids is actually a good-enough place to kill a couple of hours, but personally I would leave my wallet in home before going there. They quote exorbitant prices for everything! They have these furry animals (a golden bear-like dog, a spotted dog, a “king-kong” rabbit) at the entrance, amusing kids. I am sure if I had been a kid, I’d have loved to shake hands with them myself.
No doubt these characters are a big hit with the children. But, they are equally irritating to the adults. They try to act smart with ladies, especially of the attractive kind. Once I saw the person wearing the small spotted dog costume, hiding behind the front gate and scaring the kids – a good prank, I’d say, but the person was doing this to the ladies (note that, he didn’t try this on any of the males entering Kempkids), that too with an extra josh, freely touching them. Two of the six girls/ladies he scared, gave him a nice scolding before moving on. The others I am sure would have felt the same rage, but probably covered it up behind an embarassing smile.
I am not sure if Kempkids has any rules/guidelines for these cartoon characters, but if they don’t have them in place yet, its high time they did something about this.
How to play XVID files in a DIVX certified DVD player?
Mar 3rd
TO 
Do you have one of those DVD players that can play DivX? The ability to cram in 4 or 5 movies in a single DVD5 disk is something that I simply loved, when I got one of these DVD players. Mine is a part of DAV DZ720 that I bought from eZone, Bangalore. It is DivX certified (up to DivX 6). It played all my DivX videos with out a hitch, in fact, the a52 (Dolby) codec is well understood by this player and beautifully handled.
Unfortunately I also have lots of movies in Xvid, which are happily ignored by this DVD player. So, what do I do to play all those content now? I had couple of options:
- Reencode all the XVID I have to DIVX
- Update my sony DVD player’s firmware
My first gaming console!
Feb 24th
I bought my first gaming console, Xbox 360, two months back. Though I am not a big gamer, I always loved to design levels and develop simple games (no Unreal or Doom4 from me!). I bought the Xbox360 from Kempfort (now called Kempkids) in Airport road. I got the premium pack. There was a huge price difference between the core system and the premium system, but I preferred the premium as it comes with lots of accessories, which when put together with the core system’s price exceeded the price I paid for the premium. Not bad, eh? The Xbox 360 market price in US is around $400, which is roughly 18,000/- INR. Why then I was asked to pay another 7 – 8K for a premium system, is still a mystery to me.
The premium system doesn’t ship with any game. I was aware of this, even then I didn’t buy any games. First thing – it is pretty costly again – 2500/- per title is kind of expensive for a game. Next thing is, that day I wanted only to check out the interface and if possible connect my PC to the Xbox 360. So, I was not that keen on buying a game that day itself.
Sin-”bad” Adventures!
Apr 29th
This happened last month (March). March 25th was a holiday (Good Friday), so I bought a KSRTC ticket to Chennai, for Thursday night (March 24th), or at least that was what I thought I did! I actually had bought a ticket for Friday night (March 25) and I did not even notice that mistake until I went there to the bus stand!
Thursday evening, I left office by 7pm, went home, packed lotsa clothes (to wash in Chennai), stuffed my camera + other valuables along with my laptop in to a shoulder bag, started merrily to Majestic bus stand! As the next day was Good Friday, KSRTC expected lotsa passengers and had arranged for many special trips to Chennai. So, my 10.15pm bus actually came in only by 11.45pm!! Feeling relieved that I had not missed the bus, I boarded it and was shocked to see another person sitting in my seat, #14.
I told him, “Hey, I have this seat booked”.
“Really?! I also have this. See…here is my ticket”
I compared all the fields, could not find any difference! I was really irritated by then. Who wouldn’t be! I took both the tickets to the driver and told him the problem. He had one look at both the things and said I had got a ticket for the next day!! Only then I noticed it. I sheepishly apologized to that #14 middle-aged man, got off the bus as quickly as possible! I could hear the driver telling me it was possible to transfer the tickets. I didn’t even turn to thank him. Since, it was already nearing 12am, the ticket controller said it was impossible to transfer the tickets. So, I was standing there, with a ticket for the next day’s night, wondering whether to go back to my house in Airport road, or to buy a ticket in some bus and reach Chennai somehow! Unfortunately, I decided on the latter. More >
Real hot Bangkok!!
Feb 25th
HOT! Bangkok is really hot, I mean it literally. At 4am in the morning, the temperature was like 2pm in Chennai! Thankfully, all cabs have air conditioners. Because of the recent Tsunami, Bangkok has lost some of its tourists, I heard. It doesn’t look like that. You find foreigners everywhere.
Though, I had no plans for buying any electronics items, I ended up buying a MP3 player and couple of DVDs. Pantip Plaza, the mecca for electronics, will surely tempt anyone in to buying things they never wanted to buy. It is a five storey mall, with umpteen shops selling the same things, at different prices. If you are lucky & patient, you will find the cheapest price in one of these stores, but still the highest price quoted will be lower than the lowest price outside I picked up a 512MB MP3 player for 3100 Bahts. This is Rs.3500 or so. I was pretty satisfied with the deal. Unfortunately, it was shortlived, as I soon found the same model being sold for 2900 Baht in the next shop!!
