The complete Terry Pratchett novels. Rich Text Format. Both in English and Czech.

A short review of OotP:

Great Font. Bad binding. Loads of back-story. Neat story. Read it. if you don’t, I will tell you who dies.

Yesterday was good, really. We were the fourth to get to Odyssey and buy it. Had a nice breakfast at Chutney’s, where I had my first taste of the Chiranjeevi Special Dosa….actually I liked the chutney better than the dosa. Both me and Sasi were slightly on tenterhooks. As soon as we got in, there was this gang of girls who had finished their food and were leaving and I thought -‘Oh great! They are going to get the book before us.” Yeah, it was that way. A hasty breakfast later, we were finally there, and whoa! Big Surprise. No crowd, nothing. The salesmen seemed almost relieved to see us there. They had ordered a stack of 350 books, plus around 100 books that were preordered, and they were pretty confident the stock would get over by evening. The Potter magic!

A crazy thing happened as soon as I opened the book. Sasi had left me at the Sowmajiguda circle, and I had boarded an auto. Just thought I would open it and gaze at the preface, or the acknowledgements, maybe even start reading it…..And WHAM! I got bowled over and nearly hit my head on the meter. The front wheel of the auto had lodged itself inside a manhole. So the auto looked like a paper plane with its nose sticking out of the mud. Something like that. When I got out of it, clutching the brick-sized edition with both hands, (It looks like a brick, really) I realized that for the first time in a year, I was not worrying about whether my discman was working fine or not.

Came home. Locked door (not before gloating a little – did quite a war-dance around Rishi ), and yes, eight straight hours, and it was done. An hour’s break in between. No lunch. Lots of salted peanuts and papads ( No, Sasi, there are no smudges on the book)

Halfway through, Mons calls up, and informed me that she had bought the book already. I informed her that if she didn’t want too many rude surprises in life, like what happens on Page 403, she could come over with some chewable stuff. So, with lots of cakes, chocolate chip cookies, and loud giggles, we read it. Of course, I finished pretty early. ( She crowed over that – “I can finish it as slowly as I want to, it’s my book, after all…”) And the rest of the time, I was doing irritating things like – “Oh, you really can’t guess what Dumbledore says.” or “You know who dies? It’s a guy, no, actually, it’s a girl, no, it’s a guy, oops, sorry, it’s a girl.”

Finishing a book before others does have its advantages. Eh heh heh heh.

In the evening, Vasu turned up with packets of Real Mango juice. (Real, as in the brand, not the taste.) “What the hell!”, He said, when I told him of Sasi’s graciousness. “He’s gone partial these days, eh? Why you and not me?” One botched book-nap attempt later, the three of us agreed to go watch Supari together.

After all that good stuff happening during the day, this was bound to happen. I wish I had gone to see Supari like it was a comedy movie, I guess I would have enjoyed it a little. Padam Kumar has the nerve to say he made the movie, because he wanted to. Somebody put a Supari on him!! We walked out midway. Vasu didn’t like it at all – he was enjoying his sleep, right below the cooler.

There is a quiz today at St Francis, so I get to gloat and irritate loads of other people – “If you don’t give me ten points right NOW, I will tell everyone who dies in the book.”

Eh heh heh heh. Too many amusing thoughts. Die, puny non-Harry-Potter-Order-of-The-Phoenix readers!!!!!

I am really excited now, ok? Didn’t really think I would be this excited about a book-release. Am hyper, am actually counting down the hours to figure out when I can get my hands on it.

I am going to owe psasidhar big. After all, he’s the guy who’s going to buy it, and he’s agreed to hand it over until evening. Really, Sasi, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this. And don’t even ask why I am not buying it. It’s that insane, anti-capitalistic, anti-hype part of me, who refuses to spend money on something untested, something entirely unreviewed. (Ha! This from a guy who thinks reviewers are fullashite.) What if it’s all wrong? What if the story isn’t as good as it is made out to be? I love JK Rowling for keeping the faith – the secrecy bit is working,really – for having the courage to stick to her guns about no-excerpts-no-previews…..part of me hates her for not giving me a choice. Seven Hundred and Ninety Five Rupees. The end of the month. Tchah!

But no, like the Matrix Reloaded hammered over and over again into our brains – This isn’t about choice, and this is about choice…

Warning: beatzo nearly took a trip into cliche-land again….

That reminds me, I just saw the double-cd Matrix Reloaded OST cd in Music World, Lifestyle. It’s on sale for 690 rupees, so I will have to think a lot and read a lot of reviews before I decide to buy it. (Actually, I have already made a choice, I now need to figure out why I made the choice. The reviews and the thinking should help me out. )

Me and Sasi are meeting early tomorrow morning, having breakfast together, and then heading to Odyssey. Only Odyssey, and not any other bookshop, because (a) Sasi gets a 10 percent discount there. (b) I get two copies of the poster of Order of The Phoenix, through (ahem) acquaintances at Odyssey.

This feeling, of waiting and hoping things turn out right, and squirming at the thought of something unexpected that might happen and spoil the fun – this reminds me of the Ramayan-days on DD. Single channel on TV, and every Saturday night would be pure agony. I can’t go to sleep, and also I desperately want to fall asleep and not wake up until 9:00 o’clock the next morning, just in time for Appu Aur Pappu, and then ….aaaaah….Ramayan. Also, myriad thoughts would float through my brain all night ( at least before I fell asleep) – What if there is a powercut? What if some Leader dies on Sunday morning and they declare a three-day mourning on DD and show only Bhajans throughout? What if (oh horror!) there is the live telecast of a cricket match, instead of the serials? *shudder*

And then when I drifted off to sleep, I would end up having weird dreams, like – I am stuck at the barber’s, who is sloooooowly chopping away at my hair, and the clock shows 9:17 AM and I can’t move from the chair……

Yeah, I was that desperate for entertainment. And those were desperate times, all right.

One major event of note – I finally finished watching Four Weddings and a Funeral and Rain Man, the former over a span of eight(or was it nine?) months and the latter, three months. Thank you, Sasi for all the motivation. You get your CDs back now. And I have also watched reruns of Singin’ in the Rain and Monsters Inc., both dear to my heart.

Recent reads include Neuromancer, which I ended up comparing to the Matrix , trying to find similar themes and ideas ( let’s face it, that movie screwed up my thought-processes for good ), also a Gordon Dickson book called Straw Dogs, on which the gruesome Sam Peckinpah movie was made. The book contains none of tha graphic rape scene which caused a furore when the movie was released…just goes on to show more about a director’s “creative interpretation”. Faugh! Finished Gaiman’s Smoke and Mirrors, which was weird, really weird, and so very entertaining at the same time. I think I got a little too obsessed with Gaiman the past week.

And so, for myself, and for all those who care, here’s a short story Gaiman wrote, a reinterpretation of a familiar story – titled Snow, Glass, Apples.
I am not legally entitled to post this story, it’s already there in Smoke and Mirrors, but has been posted onto this site with permission. It’s creepy, and brilliant.

More Gaiman works here.

Eleven and a half hours to go!

Yesterday, like I said, I went and bought a hardcover edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. I did not pay too much attention to it, because, hey, there’s no way Iit can be a first edition – I just bought it because the copy I have is a pirated one, and Hardcovers look better on a shelf. Plus, this one did not have a book jacket.

Now I just decided to check up on prices of Harry Potter books on eBay. Nothing too hoity, just a cursory glance to find out how much the hardcovers are really worth. I generally do that quite a lot. To boost the collector in me.

And that’s when I came across this. The book I bought. The exact same condition. It was put on sale on 12th June, for a starting price of $1. And today, right now, with eight hours to go before the bid ends, the price of the book has risen to $286. 29 people have bid for it so far.

Two hundred and eighty-six dollars for a book that I bought for 125 Rupees. Whooof! I am almost tempted to stay for eight more hours and watch how it ends.

I think I need to play a little Unreal and massacre some ‘bots. Maybe it will calm me down a little.

I get excited at the darnedest things, non?

The worst kind of scenario:-
Indian Ocean has come out with their latest album Jhini. I thought the name of the album would be Bhor, but no, that’s just a song. Now I came to know of this information two weeks ago, at Music World, when I happened to see the poster. Went and asked the dumbasses at the counter where it was on display. As usual, half of them didn’t know what Jhini was. Finally, a bright chap, incidentally the same guy who put the poster up, says – “It’s sold out.”

Hello! Sold out even before I got to SEE the freakin cover. Nice. Some hasty explanations later, he adds – “The cd hasn’t come yet, only the cassette.”

Great! I rant and curse inwardly and that day onwards, I frequent the Lifestyle Music World daily, inquiring about the Indian Ocean album. And needless to say, they still don’t have it!!!

Another moronic thing that only the Music World dumbos could think of – I was hanging around on Monday looking at (and drooling over) random vcds, when they started playing the opening strains of Nahin Saamne. “Great”, I thought. “Another DJ Suketu 420 volts remix of a Rahman song.” And then the tune merged into that of The Journey Home. A female voice. “Has to be Sarah Brightman”, I thought, because that was what I had heard, la Brightman covering Rahman on her latest album Harem. Shweta Shetty on the “Aaja Saanwariya bit. Just to confirm whether it was Brightman, or the cover of a cover ( there were some nasty Eurobeats towards the middle of the song which ruined the mood), I went and asked the guy at the console. Yep, SB it was. And guess what – it was a sample tape.

Now look at this. These guys don’t play anything good in Music World anyway. They don’t even have a half-decent collection. The latest Nirvana album arrived something like six months after I saw it in Planet M, Bangalore. And now, when they have a sample tape of something good, they have the nerve to say – “Oh no, this is not for sale AND we don’t have any copies yet. And some more good news, we don’t know when it’s going to come in stock, either.”

I don’t know what kind of business sense these guys have.

Anyway, the Jhini cd is still not available.

Gave in to temptation and visited Best Book stall the other day. New goodies include:-

a) Lata Mangeshkar – a biography, hardcover, UBSPD – Raju Bharatan. A pretty nice buy for 150 rupees, I must say. Choc-a-bloc with interesting anecdotes and facts.

b) Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Bloomsbury, Hardcover, 1999 edition – I bought this because my (pirated) HP books are with someone whom I don’t expect to meet again in the near future, and also because of the beautiful binding. 125 bucks.

c) Srimad Bhagavatam. Bhavan’s Book House. – Kamala Subramanium – Like Sasi had predicted, it was less than half of what he had paid for his copy. ;-) This is not the Bhagavad Gita, it’s the translation of the Bhagavat Purana. Just to point out that, no, no spirituality in my life.

d) Filth – Irvine Welsh. I used to suspect that Ahmedsir prices his books depending on how much my eyes glitter when I take the book to him. Yesterday my suspicions were proved right.

And the tragedy of the week – this dwarfs even the Jhini-fiasco(though by a narrow margin) – Inspite of having gone to Abids on two consecutive days, I did not, or rather, could not – have any panipuri. Sigh!! The inhumanity!