My arrfangroups account was crammed with messages, because I had neglected to open that account for about a month. And this being peak-Boys time, seems there was an average of 30 mails per day. Half of them saying “Boyz rockssss” or “Boyz is gonna change the face of TFM” and other such inanities. ( Every true fan seems to be referring to Boys as Boyz) The other half chipping in with random “waah-waah!”s and anguished pleas of “wen is Boyz cd coming out plzzzzzzzz????!?!??!!!!”. yeah, all this hoopla even before the album came out.
On the interesting side, there was this nice discussion that started here ( follow the thread) and subsequently here. This level-headed ( compared to the other acid-spitting exchanges that happen here, yes) argument started because some fans who are personally acquainted with ARR went ahead and got a number of Boys mp3 songs removed from different sites. This brought about a series of mails on why ARR’s music needs to be made more available, and whether mp3s are eating away at a lucrative TFM market.
In fact, I read a lot of these mails since morning ( work a little less, heh ), and instead of having lunch downstairs, I went over to Needs, bought some Alu parathas and a Frooti, and walked home. Switched on the computer and had a breezy lunch with Dating playing loudly. Very satisfying! I need to try that again sometime.
Tip of the day: Shun pirated DVDs. I tried renting a DVD yesterday ( Star Wars IV: A New Hope). The sound was pathetic. It was a laser disc print, and claimed to have 5.1 enhanced Dolby sound. The only sound I could hear was a constant hiss in the rear speakers, and some mumbling in the front, and the subwoofer would start rumbling everytime a spaceship came onscreen, or a lightsaber was turned on. By the time it ended, I felt like I was in an 80’s video game. Cheesy movie, really. The light-saber duel between Vader and Kenobi looks pathetic now…..both of them look so theatrical, waving their sabers, held tightly with both hands. I paid fifty rupees to watch this . Ugh! Never again!
And somehow I got this idea of sitting down and ripping the DVD to my hard disk. Seven test runs of 2 minutes each, to check for picture quality and finding the optimal compression settings for the audio. Decided on a 3 GB rip ( I could always compress it more later, using VirtualDub) Click. Save as AVI. Go back to Terry Pratchett/Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens, and watch the rip going by. An hour later, with the status report showing 42% over, the lights went out. Powercut! Gah!
Realization of the day: DivX movies are better borrowed than created.
Oh. I always thought of it as Boyz. What the heck. Am downloading the music and going to buy the cd too.
The dvds you rent form the stores are hardly original, right? And aren’t most of the vcds copied from dvds as well?
I used to think that pirated DVDs are better than VCDs. ( sound quality and all) Yesterday proved me wrong. the first DVD I rent and this is what happens!
Shun pirated DVDs
I’m stupefied by people who watch a scratched out, pirated, raped, version of the The Matrix (with Thai or Malaysian subtitles) on their PC with Rs. 100 headphones and then inform me, “it wasn’t a good movie…”. WTF?!
:-))
“Shun VCDs”- has been my motto in life for quite sometime. Though, with his fetish for original vcds, manages to make me watch one once in a while.
The Malaysian subtitles freak me out, man. half the time i am concentrating on them rather than the movie.