Things I did between Wednesday and Thursday:

*Completed The Great Indian Novel by Shashi Tharoor.
*Fought, made up, fought again, made up again.
*Successfully oversaw a Server Build that had broken because of the LB configuration.
*Successfully managed to evade work throughout the rest of the day.
*Watched The Hero: Love Story of a Spy.
*Post-movie Unreal session.
*Post Unreal pseudo-debate here.

I just realised it’s already Friday, and I am not sleepy at all.

There’s a music shop near Sangeet theatre that’s selling off most of its cds at reduced prices. BAsically I stumbled upon it one day – just when I had moved to Hyderabad, and was browsing through the collection there and suddenly found a cd of Sepultura’s CHAOS AD. And the original cd, at that. It was slightly battered, the cover was open and the a little faded, but the cd inside looked fine. Asked the guy how much he would sell it for. 300 rupees, he said. Cd prices at that point of time were coming down drastically, and I told him so – and pointed out that 300 rupees is a ridiculous price for something that has obviously been used.

My powers of persuasion worked! He gave it to me for 225 bucks.

Slowly, I started buying the stuff there. Everytime I was there, i would see some stuff I hadn’t noticed before. Started telling my friends/colleagues about the place, and one of them found Floyd’s Dark Side of The Moon for 200 Rs. Rishi bought his first Judas Priest album from there, too.

Among the good stuff I got in the beginning were Chemical Brothers’ Dig Your Own Hole, Prodigy’s Fat of the Land and Music For the Jilted Generation. Alanis Morrisette – Jagged Little Pill, three Blur Albums, Oasis – Be Here Now
Kula Shaker – Peasants, Pigs and Astronauts, the Kabhi na Kabhi OST……

But unfortunately, I missed out on something real good – a two cd-set of The Best of The Doors that was going for 400 bucks ( i know I could have got the price down to 350 bucks, but I didn’t even try, coz I had all the mp3s.) And now, one fine day, I go there and see that the cd has been sold. Pah!

Panic mode ON!

Last Saturday, I went there and told Naveen (that’s the guy’s name, we are on a first name basis now ) that I am buying 14 cds, and he said, ok, flat rate, 2200 bucks. YO! So these were the cds I got –

Neil Diamond – Tennessee Moon – Neil Diamond has one of the most amazing voices I know, and with Chandru’s help, I have almost all his albums. (copied, of course) Am planning to buy “The Essential Neil Diamond” just to HAVE it. “Tennessee Moon” isn’t his finest album, but it sure has some great tunes. Featues Waylon Jennings and Chet Atkins as guest stars among others. Gave it a listen.

Connie Francis – The Best of I heard Connie Francis singing “Stupid Cupid” on the Mementoes album, and …need I say anything more? Chandru tells me this is a pretty rare album. Most of the songs on it are in Mono.

Enigma – E3
Enigma – The Screen Behind the Mirror – The only Enigma album I had heard so far was MCMX ( the first album) and random tracks. I heard TSBTM once so far, and it uses snatches of Carmina Burana. BEautiful music to listen to in a darkened room at night.

Dean Martin – The Best of I bought this primarily for the fact that this has “Baby it’s Cold Outside”, one of my favourite songs. And also I have but one Heart, which featured on the Godfather soundtrack. Other songs here include a version of Volare, and La Bamba. I found out that the versions of Baby It’s Cold Outside and I have but one heart were radically different frm the original versions, they were more voice-centric.

Bruce Springsteen – 18 Greatest Hits. The Boss is one artiste I haven’t listened to properly, except for the ever-present Born In The USA, and Streets of Philadelphia, and The Ghost of Tom Joad. Haven’t started on it yet.

Luciano Pavorotti and Friends – Live for Guatemala and Kosovo – Beautiful live album. I love Pavorotti’s voice, complements that of artistes like Mariah Carey, and BOyzone who sing along on this album. It also features legends like BB King and Zucchero. One of my favourite tracks on this album is a Spanish number by Gloria Estefan. Pure Latino!

Elvis Presley – debut album. – Since I bought the video of the Making of this album, it’s only fair that I should buy the original. Elvis is GOD!

AR Rahman – Bombay OST – At last count, this is the 9th time I have possessed this album in any form. The cassette in Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu, then a Tamil cassette my father bought for me just because he saw a different cover saying “AR Rahman” and didn’t realise it was Bombay. (My parents used to indulge and encourage my ARR fixation a lot when I was a dorky kid) Then a version of the Tamil album with additional songs. The mp3s. Then a Bombay/Kaadhalan combo cd, that I got as a gift. Then another Bombay/Iruvar combo that I got as a gift (and later gave away). And now this. The original Hindi cd.

Hey Raam OST – Under-rated album by many. Over-rated by some. I love Shruti Haasan’s vocals on the title track. In love with Rani Mukherjee’s recitation of the Bangla poem. Love the piano on “Nee Partha Paarven”.

Pro-Pain – Contents Under Pressure. Highly recommended by the biggest Metal-freak I know. The other Metal-freak I know, the guy from Bangladesh, hasn’t even heard of it.

Offspring – Americana. – Give it to me, bay-bee. (Aha Aha)
Give it to me, bay-bee. (Aha Aha)

Simon and Garfunkel – Best of All the best songs in one cd. Sometimes it’s nice to have a cd just for the heck of possessing it. :-)

Spice Girls – Spice. Aaaaaaaaah! Nostalgia time. Many nights have I spent with the Spicy five’s ditties, and well, it’s back to basics again. You can’t imagine the trouble I had to go through in the pre-Internet era to get just one nude Geri Halliwell pic….

And that is the psychology behind an excessive cd-buying spree.

Aaah! Metallica after a long time….

A friend of mine gave me a divX rip of “Night of The Living Dead” – not the original George Romero version, but a 90’s remake by Romero’s assistant, Tom Savini. Also a very disturbing video of Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer”.

It’s getting hotter in Hyderabad day by day. I find it hard to believe that a year ago, in fact, for the past four years, I had been staying in a hostel room bereft of Air Conditioners and all. And not just stayed – attended Labs, Exams , Mids, in the horrid midday heat! And now I find it tough to go out in the evening, even after the sun has set.

I just realised that one thing I liked about Daredevil was the music. Really good semi-orchestral stuff by Graeme Ravell – the same guy who scored for the Crow, and also some Killer heavy metal tracks. Elektra’s Theme, the soft female vocals that play as Elektra’s father’s funeral gets over – and then the guitar takes over as she prepares herself with the sais – is really good. I am tempted to go out and buy the cd, but no, a couple of days and the thing will sound worn out, so I will control myself.

AR Rahman’s Parasuram has come out; I hope it’s good.

Have a ton of mails to respond to….

Suki, an old pal from the bygone Trivium-2k1 days, is in town. He’s in IIM-Indore now, and has come over for a summer-training here at Hyderabad. We met up yesterday, and straightaway went off for the evening show of The Two Towers. So, psasidhar, the score’s now 3-3.

Anyways, I found out to my chagrin that Suki was much much more well-versed in the nitpicking details of Middle Earth. In fact, yesterday’s viewing was a nice revelation – I haven’t been in touch with Tolkien for quite sometime – remember reading The Hobbit and The Trilogy once upon a time in the Third year, and that was it. Even after seeing the movie twice, I wasn’t “moved” enough to go and revisit Tolkien’s world. Maybe that’s because I have too much to read right now, and it somehow seemed too much of a bother to go back and do some serious research before seeing the movie….guess I am just lazy.

But with Suki yesterday, the experience took on a whole new meaning. The guy was close to explaining Elvish terms to me – It was startling to realise that I had to really think to figure out who the Nazgul were (“Ring-wraiths” is the term I generally use) ; or who Isildur was, or Elendil, or that Saruman uses the Palantir (those glowing stones) to communicate with Sauron. Hmmm.

So a new resolution for now. To try and get a little more involved with the world of Tolkien’s characters. After all, it’s the book and the story that matters, and not the film, which, as Jackson himself said, is just an interpretation, his interpretation. Will read the trilogy again, and maybe go into the prehistory a bit. Haven’t read The Silmarillion yet, so will do that too.

I decided to start with the basics and read the Faq. Went to a couple of interesting sites that had stuff on the movie – sadly, though, the official site is a mess. Too much hype and too less information. There’s a pretty nifty “module” which shows how the war scenes were contrived and executed. The fan-sites were better, though a little outdated. And at the end of it all, I discovered some interesting facts:

* Christopher Lee was a major fan-favourite for the role of Saruman AND Gandalf. Peter Jackson denied pretty early that Lee was being used in any of the roles. Another fan-favourite for the role of Gandalf was Sean Connery.

* Jonathan Rhys-Davies, who plays Gimli, provided the voice of Treebeard, the Ent.

* This one’s interesting. The “hero” Chain mail armour was manufactured in India. And this is what Jackson says about this – There is a company there (in India) that can make square-section mail very quickly and cheaply (Amnesty International have assured us they are not using child labour). ” Goes on to show how much regard people have for Indian labour laws.

* There was a software called MASSIVE that has been developed over 2000-01 expressly to achieve huge battle scenes for THE LORD OF THE RINGS. In Jackson’s words, “MASSIVE allows us to have 200,000 CG extras that we don’t animate, but they use a complex form of Artificial Intelligence to fight each other. You basically press a button, sit back and watch these huge battles unfold before your eyes. It’s amazing and a little frightening as it ushers in a new era in CG effects.” COOOOOOOOOOOL!!!!!!

* The original idea pitched was for two movies. Jackson prepared a 36-minute documentary as a “pitch” for the movie – why it should be made, and why he should be the guy to make it. Jackson: “Cool stuff included on the tape: An Uruk-Hai in full armour and prosthetics, and Orc make-up test, models of Helm’s Deep and Rivendell, marquettes of Elven armour and weapons, Gollum marquettes, a Cave Troll and a Balrog concept. CG tests included a CG Troll and a couple of huge Helm’s Deep battle shots using MASSIVE. Bob Shaye watched the tape in total silence and then declared that he wanted to make 3 movies. Bob deserves the credit for making a trilogy … it was his idea.”

Finding out behind-the-scenes stuff like this gives me a real high. That was kind of thing I used to do once upon a time, but that charm seems to be wearing off nowadays. Careful, beatzo!

OK, this sounds real bad, but I have never seen a movie on DVD in my life. Have seen DivX rips galore, half of them with sound/action out-of-sync and equally bad as the neighbourhood pirated vcds.

That’s because I don’t have a DVD player, OR a DVD drive for my computer. And try as I might, I can’t prioritise my needs to accomodate a souped-up system at this point of time. The chain of flow is kind of this way –
I buy a DVD drive for my computer. Then to enjoy the DVD experience to the fullest, I would need a better set of speakers. Preferably a 5.1 speaker set. Preferably Creative Cambridge Soundworks. Better speakers won’t necessarily sound better on my primitive soundcard, so I need to upgrade that too….the Processor and Motherboard comes next…and so on and on and on.

Ok, I get a new computer. A souped-up mindblowin monsta of a computer at that.That takes care of my Music/Movie/Gaming needs, right? WRONG!!! What about THE FREAKING KEYBOARD???? My Yamaha’s still busted. The moron at the repair centre kept it for three months and now he says that two transistors have blown and he can’t get them in Hyderabad. So I can listen to music, but I can’t MAKE any music. (The thought counts! ) Not one without the other. Both or none. See how greedy I am?

(I don’t understand how all my materialistic yearnings at this point of time boil down to just a Computer and a High-range keyboard. Just wait till I somehow manage to get both, my needs are going to increase. Increase dramatically at that. )

Hmm, so no seeing DVDs at this point of time. But wait, that shouldn’t stop me from collecting DVDs right? Ta-DA! That’s what I seem to be doing – my first DVD – free at that – came with the Audio cd of Chicago that I just bought. Contains three videos from the movie, a Behind-the-scenes section, and some of the demoes from the original Musical. The cd cover says so, and I guess I would have to take that. No way I can confirm it, for now.

Methinks this is an Omen. Please God, give me strength to control that overwhelming desire to go to Chenoy Trade Centre and ….

No. No. NO.

(Yes. Yes. Yesssssss. )

Hmmm. Was I thinking of Gollum or Singing in The Rain just now?