Found Vijay after 11 years....thanks to Orkut

My never ending searches finally paid. It was as if I was searching zillionth time for Vijay singh anjana on Orkut. As usual, I didn't find him this time, but I did find one Man singh anjana. It was Vijay singh's brother's name. I asked him if he was his brother. He wasn't his brother, but knew both of them somehow. He gave me their numbers and voila! I had found Vijay after 11 years! Other than Bhumika, he was the most treasured friend for me there, in those days. I never had a sleepover at any one else's place but his. We were together everywhere (he was in my standard too, so obviously it did put us together everywhere). Playing cricket, in hospital (that was three times, all three times my head was burst open by stones), while going home after schools (true that contradicts with my statement of me and Bhumika going home together. It was actually dependent on condition), on Birthdays (I remember he once bought me a plastic guerrilla, pressing whose stomach used to lighten its eyes. My mom, out of curiosity, opened it to see its anatomy that same day and it never worked again), on his shop (ironically, his uncle had a tube-well shop named 'Kamal bore wells'), at his home (he had a real big home right behind the bus-station, I never ever disliked going there, enjoying my moments of luxury I guess!) or while reading comics (I remember the last comics we read together, it was Parmanu's Automatic, in which he lifts a vehicle while flying).
I havent called him yet. Its 3 in night. But I will tomorrow, I surely will. I hope not only to talk to him after 11 long years, but to meet him too. It was 7 years after I met Bhumika, but it is 11 years after I will meet him. I hope to have 11/7 times more excitement this time! It is such a great feeling to find a friend after so long!
Oh and lastly, thanks Orkut Büyükkökten, for making Orkut.com, because of which I found Mamta (which in turn resulted in finding Ashish, Nikki, Ajeet and Khushboo), many others and now Vijay.

In other news, in music challenge of iLike on Orkut, I have achieved the rank of 'Music expert', with 2500 points under my belt. I answered 582 questions till now, out of which 276 (47.4%) were correct. Average response time 4.8 seconds.

Ten sites without whom internet is drained

For me, at least.
1. n4g (news for gamers)-

http://www.n4g.com/

A site dedicated to gaming news. The best and probably fastest source of all gaming related news.

2. Wikipedia

http://www.wikipedia.org/

Knowledge for all, from all. This free encyclopedia is the biggest enclyclopedia ever existed, and is growing at a tremendous space. It is very very rare to not find an article on anything.

3. IMDB (Internet Movie Data Base)

http://www.imdb.com/
Biggest and most comprehensive databse of movie available anywhere. Be those in English or in any other language. In my experience, it was no more than 10 times that I didnt find a movie there. Also allows users to vote, comment and discuss on movies. You can check out my votes here. As of today, there are 397 titles in my list (273 hollywood movies, 60 Hindi ones, 38 TV Series or episodes and 26 video games).

4. GPO mail

http://gpo.iitb.ac.in/Mail only for IIT Bombay students, specifically made by IIT Bombay. Each IIT has its own version. My mail here is kamal_k@iitb.ac.in

5. Gmail (Google Mail)

http://mail.google.com/
Its still in beta! That is a fact, although strange. After Yahoo! mail, this was another which suddenly revolutionised e-mail landscape. With sleek interface, in-built chat system, innovative mail management system and plenty of space, this is the best mail available out there.

6. Tweakguides

http://www.tweakguides.com/
A site dedicated to twaking PCs to run best. especifically for games. Has the most intelligent and meaningful gaming discussion forum.

7. IIT Bombay freedom

http://iitbfreedom.com/md Made by IIT Bombay students, for IIT Bombay students. Must have access password to get to site and must have a gpo mail account to get registered. Made for announcements, discussions and fun. Even faculty of IIT Bombay isnt allowed to register, only students.

8. My blog

http://kittoo4202004.blogspot.com/
No need to say even a single word.

9. Orkut http://www.orkut.com/
A social networking site by google. Extremely popular in India, Brazil and Pakistan. Very user-friendly, just like all other google products.

10. Google search

http://www.google.co.in/
Guess importance of this for me from this fact- I have used google search 11090 times in last 2 years (according to my web history). That even counts only when I was logged in. So its highly possible that the actual number is more than 15000. Its no joke, is it?

Everybody knows Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but do you know Chernobyl?

Probably every person on this planet, who has taken elementary education, knows about the bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (if you dont know about this incident, and claim to have taken the elementary education, die die die). But how many know Chernobyl? It was a question I deviced in my freshmen year at IIT, just to check the level of General knowledge of my friends. I was surprised to see, that only 8 out of 14 people knew about it. And if this was condition of the students of one of the most prestigious universties in the world, I couldnt even imagine was the case outside. But I would still say, if you dont know anything about Chernobyl (not so fast Three mile island, you are not that famous), you have no right of praising your trivial knowledge.

If you know about Chernobyl, great. If you dont know, keep reading.

On 26th of April, 1986, Pripyat (where Chernobyl Nuclear Reactor was located) encountered what was the biggest Nuclear disaster in history (in terms of Nuclear Fallout). Reactor number four at Chernobyl Nuclear Reactor exploded at 1:23AM in the morning, due to massive power excursion. Mayhem of explosions and fires followed and soon, 30 to 40 times more radioactive material was in atmospehere than what Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined gave us. The plume went over western Soviet Union, Easter-western and northern Europe, and on eastern North America. About 3,40,000 people were evacuated and relocated. Death toll is estimated to be about 9,000-9,500 (50 from direct effect, 4000 living nearby and 5000 more living far away, due to various diseases). The 30km Chernobyl exclusion zone still remains uninhabited, mostly.

It was Sweden where radiations were first detected, obviously other than Soviet Union. The world was shocked. Chernobyl put a question mark on safety of Nuclear reactors, forever.

The famous Pripyat ferry wheel
Pripyat, the city where Nuclear reactor was located, is empty from last 22 years, with everything untouched. It has been referenced in popular culture many times. In games like Call of Duty 4: Modern warfare (50,000 people used to live here, now its a ghost town) and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.-shadow of Chernobyl. In Spider-man: the animated series, in book Tom Clancy's splinter cell: Checkmate and in Aqua teen hunger force.

Read more about it here.

Review- Mass effect

Politics, sex, greed, betrayal, corruption and....oh...aliens!

Ever fancied of landing on distant, barren and deadly planets? Ever fancied of saving the galaxy single-handedly? Ever fancied of having an inter-galactic travelling space ship of your own? Ever fancied of having sex with aliens? Or, even better, ever fancied of playing a game with fantastic story, setting, graphics and production values? Then, Mass effect is certainly for you. And even if you didn’t fancy about any of these (and you call yourself a gamer? Shame on you), this game is absolutely worth a try.

                                  The Citadel

Bioware, one of the best RPG creators in the market, bring another absolutely immersive and fun game which takes you places few other games ever took. 
It starts with a small routine assignment, to save a marine team under attack on a human colony called Eden prime. Although, another big assignment is attached to it, to find an ancient Prothean beacon, which is recently unearthed. You are an exceptional soldier on human battleship SSV Normandy, who is the first human to ever be considered to become a Spectre. Spectres are special agents appointed, and controlled only, by The Citadel Council. They send another spectre, Nihlus (a turian), to assist in mission and to judge if Shepard (our character) is eligible enough to become a spectre. Eden prime is under attack from a hostile alien life form called Geth. Shepard and Nihlus take different pathways to reach the beacon. But Nihlus us killed by another turian spectre- Saren Arterius (the best spectre in whole galaxy). When Shepard finally reaches the beacon, it gets activated and Shepard gets visions of biological creatures being slaughtered by machines. Why did Saren kill Nihlus? What was the meaning of those visions? Will the council believe that their best spectre has killed another spectre? These are the questions which start the game, which soon turns into an epic story dealing with saving the galaxy, tricks of dirty politics and status of humans in the galaxy.

Greatness is recognizable from the first glimpse, and Mass effect gives such a glimpse right from the start.  Right when it takes you to its extensive character creation menu, it amazes you with the detail of faces. But that is not the best part of the character creation system of this game. What is truly mesmerizing is that, even though you can create thousand different types of characters (male or female), when the game begins, it just feels as if the character was the only one around whom the game was designed, it feels so right. The lip-synch, the reactions of other characters, the animation, the expressions and even the movement in cut-scenes and in-game is superb. It is truly genius of Bioware that they were able to give such exhaustive character creation and even then did fit it in perfectly in game.

The graphics are nice. They are not the best out there (that crown is awarded to Crysis for next two years at least), but they are perfect for the setting and there will be times when you will be taking screenshots for your desktop wallpapers. Although, on highest settings, this game does require a bit of horsepower to run and still, there will be times when you will encounter hiccups because of streaming. But it runs fairly smooth most of the times. What actually takes the cake here is the art rather than graphics. The galactic world was never so convincing in a game. From the huge Citadel, which is the headquarter of whole galaxy, to distant barren planets on which you will land, each having different environment and terrain. 

                                   Not Mars!

The game is one of the most cinematic games ever. It especially feels when you are talking in game. A good credit goes to the convincing animation system. There is an option of adding film grain effect in graphics. This is to add a 90s movie feel to the game, to make it more cinematic. Whether you like it or not totally depends on your tastes. I didn't like it and turned it off.

Graphics- 9/10

The story is one of the real good ones ever told in any game. With a plethora of different alien races and with recurring themes of their relations with each other and politics, it makes one real convincing galaxy (which is our own Milky Way by the way). Yes, there is a cliffhanger ending, but one can see it coming miles away because Bioware already stated that this is going to be a trilogy. What could have been easily lost in a game, but is not the case here, is the epic feel which should be present in game dealing with whole universe. It's a galaxy we are talking about here, and it rightly feels so in the game. No stone is unturned in giving it the scope and pouring every little detail in the world. 

                                  The Milky way

The voice-acting is A-grade. Even the less important charcters and NPCs have been given class treatment as far as voice acting is considered. The music suits the setting perfectly.

Presentation- 9.5/10

Gameplay, arguably the most important part of any game, is another high point. Its a RPG, and one would expect a lot of talking and decision making. It dosent disappoint, not the least. Plenty will be adrenaline pumping action, and so will be emotional decision making. After the excellent The Witcher, here is another game where your decisions really shape the game. There will be some really emotional times, when you just wont know what to decide cause each option will be as hard or correct to make. 

                                  A hard decision

The chatting system is improves on previous games. Rather than showing whole sentence, only the intention comes written. Decide on that, and your charcter will say what you intended. For example, you want to ask someone why did he kill someone. Screen will just show 'Why' for you to choose, but upon choosing, Shepard will ask him- "So, why did you kill him?" This system works like charm and is not annoying as previous games where you had to choose whole sentence. Even the chatting system is used as a innovative gameplay tool at some places. The best example is the time when you become commander of your ship. You give your first speech to the crew, by selecting what you want to say. As you keep choosing correct options, Shepard gives an adrenaline pumping speech while the camera keeps moving, showing entire ship and its crew, their emotions and courage boosting as you speak. 

Gameplay- 9.5/10

Technically, the game is quite solid. Apart from little bugs, like famous overheating bug, it never gave any major trouble. It didn't crash even once in the whole time I played it. AI is a general affair, not the best but not bad either. Collision detection works fine most of the times. The biggest technical blunder people are talking about is about surround sound, with many people claiming that it dosent work on any other card than X-fi. For me, if worlked perfectly on my Live! 5.1. The only problem I was having was that it kept using my software audio (SigmaTel) rather than Sound blaster, even when Sound blaster was set as default device. I just disabled SigmaTel from device manager and then everything worked fine.

Since the game is port of a console game, it is expected as every PC gamer will have doubts on how it works on PC, especially controls. I am happy to report if feels like Mass effect has come to its rightful home on PC. With the added precision of mouse and much more easily accessible charcter, squad and inventory pages, this actually is a better version if controls are concern.

Technical/Controls/AI- 8.5/10

I will end the review with same line I started it with.  Ever fancied of landing on distant, barren and deadly planets? Ever fancied of saving the galaxy single-handedly? Ever fancied of having an inter-galactic travelling space ship of your own? Ever fancied of having sex with aliens? Or, even better, ever fancied of playing a game with fantastic story, setting, graphics and production values? Then, Mass effect is certainly for you. And even if you didn’t fancy about any of these (and you call yourself a gamer? Shame on you), this game is absolutely worth a try. 

                                   I saved the galaxy!

                             

Overall- 9.25/10

Have dreams, will travel

What is a great movie exactly? A movie which leaves impression on you, a long lasting impression? If this is the right definition, I just can't forget how deep impression of Bridge to Terabithia was on me. I was depressed for three days! Never had felt anything like that from any movie. Obviously, that movie made me a huge fan of both AnnaSophia Robb and Josh Hutcherson. And as a result, I was dying to see Have dreams, will travel. But the movie, although made in 2007, isnt released widely yet. It was only shown in some film festivals and thats it. I started searching, that I could find a copy anywhere. At last, I found. Obvioulsy, I didnt find it legally. In short, I pirated it. But I guess it dosent matter cause it wasnt released anyway.

Coming back to the movie. AnnaSophia and Cayden Boyd both deliever majestic performances. Their on screen chemistry is perfect and AnnaSophia's charm lits up the screen whenever she is on it. But it couldnt have been a great movie without good story, screenplay and direction. And it was relieving to see that it excels in all of these. Tale of a girl who had lost her parents recently in a car accident (although she dosent seem sad about it, a mystery which is) and a boy whose parents are so delved in their respective passions that it seems they dont even care if they have a son. They leave their home, to cassie's (AnnaSophia) aunt's (Heather Graham) home cause she is very hip. The tale of these two getting married, getting caught by police, ultimately reaching their destination and a very emotional revelation, is wonderfuly told. I have little doubt that both of these actors have bigger destiny on silver screen. There are certain people, certain actors you cant take your eyes off from, these are certainly such actors.

Its a rare movie and very very hard to find, but if you ever get a chance to see it, dont miss it. Here is a video of one of the most beautiful scenes from the movie-

Scene from Have dreams, will travel.

Getting bored is something synonymous with being at home. To get out of these monotonous vacations, I am watching a lot of movies these days. What could have been better to watch both of the movies inwhom Casey Affleck gabe some of the best performances this year, also getting an Oscar nomination for one. So yeah, I watched both- 'Gone baby gone' and 'Assassination of Jeese james by coward Robert ford'. In both of these movies, Casey affleck gives performances which triumph all his previous performances and indicate that he has come in a big way.

Gone baby gone, based on famous novel of  Dennis Lehane of the same name, is story of a private investigator who agrees to investigate an abduction of a little girl, who is missing and nobody has demanded anything. Starting from her drug addict mother, he reaches far into the mystery and just when it seems everything has ended, another abduction throws him where what he will discover will force him to take a decision he might regret his whole life. The best part of this movie, is the end. It is not the typical end, nor it is the one everyone would expect. Instead, its an ending which makes audiences perplexed. Its all your real character who would decide whether what happened was correct, or not.

Casey affleck handles the movie on his shoulders alone and he succeds, without a shred of doubt. Ben affleck cast his brother in movie he was directing, which probably didnt seem well for everyone initially, but the outcome proves that his belief was not misplaced.

Assassination of Jesse james on the other hand, is a western, with both Brad pitt and Casey affleck performing some of the best performances of this year. Brad pitt as Jesse james, a convict of train robberies and murders, who seems to know that his end is coming. And Casey affleck as young guy who has Jesse james as his idol and wants to come in his gang. But when he does come near, perceptions change. He himself changes and when his end comes, what he is is what he never intended to be. He too seems to know that someday someone is going to kill him.

Praise for this one wont be complete without mentioning the cinematography of the movie. It is hauntingly beautiful movie, which is shot in the best way possible.

Both of these are must watchs. If for nothing else, then for Casey affleck's and Brad pitt's brilliant performances. 

My marriage in 2011....search for the bride is on

Quite a heavy hitter, isn't it? Let me make things a bit clear.

A well respect astrologer, who has said quite many true things in the past, has said that my marriage is in 2011, and that my wife is going to be mighty beautiful. The part of my wife being beautiful goes perfectly fine by me, but what I just can't see is me getting married so soon. I am still a teenager by heart, and by face too. I just can't think that its gonna be true. But we will see how true it comes out.

On the other hand, the search for the bride is on. Not by me, but by my mom and relatives. They do get proposals sometimes (although it is weird cause proposals should exchange between the boy and girl), but as of now none has progressed  anywhere, other than one. 

My mausi, whom I like to think as one woman martrimony, wants me to get married somewhere near her relatives (who will be my relatives too, in turn). And she did actually find one girl suitable for me (in her view anyway), whose name I wont unveil. With trick and luck, she did arrange a meeting between us, with both us not knowing that we were actually supposed to find if we were suitable for each other! At least I know I didnt know, and am quite sure she didnt too. We became good friends, instead of becoming anything else. When we finally came to know, we made it clear that we just didnt, and couldnt, think of each other as being.....well.....husband-wife!

What amazes me is that how the hell I am going through all this? I mean...I am only 20, good for nothing and having a EQ (Emotional Quotient) lower than a mean nerd ( probably I mean). It will take a long time before I get just a little bit ready for such a thing. And if you think this, 2011 seems just around the corner, right?

Where is Radhika Gupta? Lost in...translation?

Honestly, where is she? She did only one scrap on 22nd Feb, and said she would reply if I did reply. I did reply, but she didn't.
I must tell the back story before some of you claim that I am a despo (which I am a bit, I would agree). On 22nd Feb, I got a scrap from a certain Radhika Gupta, saying that she read what I wrote on my my blog and that I do write good and whether what I wrote was real or was just another story (I guess she was referring the entry I wrote about Bhumika, which can be found here). This is perfectly fine as far as someone reading my entry goes and is not the reason why I am wondering why she didn't reply back.
What intrigued me was that she said, in the same scrap, that if she is not wrong, she knows me and why isn't it possible that the girl (Bhumika that is) still thinks of me as a friend? And also that she wanted to say a lot but will only do so after I reply. So reply I did, but she never replied back. Her profile didn't give me much of a clue. So now I think, that who was she? And if she really knew me, why didn't she reply back?

God knows where she is and who she was, but it will intrigue me for a long time, everything she wrote.

P.S.- The title is just a reference to Lost in translation and not actually reflects anything about Radhika being lost.

Jyoti came to Udaipur, and less are somethings I can ask

Surprise.....though not a genuine one, a surprise nonetheless it was. She had told me about it when I went to Chhoti Sadri a while ago (entry about that here). She called yesterday that she might come and voila!, she was here today. One low point of this trip was that she didn't tell her parents before coming. But that was an essential low point, otherwise who would have let her come here anyway? The reason of here coming here is unimportant, what is important is that she came and how did it all go. It was mighty fine in my opinion, and hers too. She said she didn't want to go (3 hours isn't a long enough time I am sure) and neither did I want to let her go. But she had to go nevertheless and so she did. I left her at bus stand, we talked for a while and then she went back. A nice little loving trip.
In other news, I finally got broadband connection at my home. After yelling at BSNL guys for about three times, it was finally worth it. it might be 256kbps, it is still nothing compared to IITs 2800kbps (2.8mbps-3mbps). But then again, sites open fine fast and I am patient about downloads (Mass effect and Race Driver: Grid, here I come). Probably I will post regularly after this now. Oh and one of you asked me in the mail what was my system config, so here it is-

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (2 processors, 2.4GHz- effective 5.2GHz, 4MB Cache)
2GB Transcend 667MHz RAM
750GB SATAII Hard disk
Nvidia Geforce 8800GTS 640MB Graphics card
Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 sound card
Altec Lancing 4.1 surround sound system
LG 19" LCD
Samsung 18x Writemaster DVD writer

A trip to Chhoti Sadri- long, tiring and lonely.

Long- Udaipur is nowhere as near to C.S. (though it might remind of Computer Science, it is Chhoti Sadri, as you might have guessed already) as was Pratapgarh. Reaching there takes more than three hours and requires a bus change most of the times. Needless to say, it doesn’t make one happy about traveling there.

Tiring- As it is with me, I was awake till 4AM in night, playing Assassin’s creed. When I finally slept, I knew I had to wake up again at 5:30, and so I did. Went to Bus station, got a bus at 7. Initially, time flew fast, thanks to my PSP. But as siesta took over me, it became harder and harder to pass every single minute. A RSRTC bus doesn’t make a very good sleeping environment, until and unless it is a Sleeper one, or at least a Silver or Gold line. So time crawled and I yawned. But as Shrimadbhagwatgita(and ‘The Matrix’, just kidding) says- ‘Everything that has a beginning and has an end’, it ended and I finally reached CS.

Lonely- Damn Sandeep for this. When I reached his home, surprisingly the so whinny, so sick and ‘oh so can’t come’ guy was gone on a trip to Saawariyaji. Needless to tell, I was furious. There was no one other than her mom at his home. And the funnier argument was that the mistake was all mine since I didn’t call before coming. How was I supposed to know that guy having Ulcer will be running Olympic marathon the very next day?

I went to Jyoti’s home then, unfortunately she too wasn’t there, gone for some computer course class. Then I went to Mahesh’s shop, which now is filled to brim. The cabin is gone and a computer has taken its place. It seems his new venture into all mobile related things is successful. I had to wait till 12 and so I did at his shop. We didn’t talk a lot as his shop was almost getting mobbed by customers.

Then I went to Jyoti’s home and luckily, this time she was there. After the usual barter of greetings, we didn’t know what to talk about. She had to bath so she went. Then I talked to her mom and it turns out that their financial and social condition is dilapidating by each passing day. The truth as it stands, and is heart- wrenching, is that a woman who doesn’t have any job or any other source of money, finds it hard to save her youngest daughter and to feed her children, when her husband declines to give money for family and rather drinks it with liquor. I did help as much as I could and will do in future, but until I start earning, it will be miniscule of what they really need.

Jyoti’s father came after a while, and as usual, he didn’t mind my presence and was amiable to me, just like last time when I met him.

After he was gone and Jyoti’s mom was gone to Neemach, Jyoti and I again started talking. I told her about Rebbecca (I don’t know if she had some trouble remembering the name, but she opted to call Rebbecca Miss Sweden instead) and all about how Rebbecca was slowly and steadily becoming more and more important for me, she also asked how I was doing these days, as far as my health is considered. By the way, it was the general consensus that I had improved a bit on my health. But then again, that might have been a hallucination because I was wearing an open shirt over my T-shirt, which made me quite an attraction for people there, making me nervous more than once. Jyoti told me I was looking good in that dress and I was feeling good, then Sandeep’s mom asked why I was wearing another half-sleeved shirt when I already wore a full-sleeved T-shirt? I told her that it was a kind of fashion and I didn’t device it either. It was probably the first time when I came out my usual dumbo style of wearing normal T-shirt and trousers (thanks to Gudia, she was who suggested that I come out of the eternal style of mine, if it was at all any style) and generally it went positive, apart from the fact that I didn’t know if many other people in CS were thinking along the same lines as Sandeep’s mom. Let’s hope that wasn’t the case.

I took a one hour nap, waiting for Sandeep. They all returned at about 4:30PM. Me and Sandeep went to have round around Chhoti Sadri and to have some nice chat (doing this is my favorite thing to do in CS with a good friend, 14^th January 2005 being one of the most beautiful days of my life, when I was lucky enough to have about 4 complete rounds around CS, with another best friend from past). We talked about a lot of things, ranging from things not related to us to things close to our hearts.

It was about 6PM before we realized time going by and soon I was in a bus towards Nimbahera, going home.