I was just thinking of a Moody Blues song called Your Wildest Dreams, and I found, to my surprise, that it reminded me quite strongly of last year.

It reminded me of a lonely autorickshaw journey to IIIT Hyderabad. Very evocative memory it was, too, I got the exact degree of how bright the sunlight was, on that particular day ( it was a Saturday, I don’t remember which Saturday, though), I can almost remember what I did the entire morning and what I had for lunch that day.

Funny. I do associate some songs with certain memories but this is the first time just thinking about a song has made a particular day so vivid in my mind. The song is not even one of my favourites. I just happened to be listening to it on that particular day.

I will just try thinking of other songs and see if they bring back any memories. Let’s see…..

Well, Anil is in studying in IIM-Kolkata now, and he messaged me last week saying that there is a pile of DivX movies on his network, and would I like some of them written on cds, so that he could pass them on during the Landmark quiz. Thus it came – a pile of movies with titles like Fellowship of the RIng, The Two Towers, What Dreams May Come, The Animatrix, Fight Club and Citizen Kane. And the LotR movies were 2-cd rips ,so the quality was awesome.

Slight Hitch: Animatrix and The Two Towers didn’t play. Windows Media Player, helpful as usual, said “Unable to download appropriate decomressor”. This, inspite of having the latest DivX Pro bundle (version 5.0.5). The Playa just hung. No message, nothing. And I lay frustrated, because Anil had not gone back to IIM yet, and so I could not find out which codec he had used to see it. I desperately wanted to see the Animatrix, not just hear it….

So last night, after a lot of soul-searching, I decided to be done with it. All or nothing. Installed VirtualDub, in order to re-encode the movie if needed. Tchah! Even VirtualDub failed to open the movie, but it gave one helpful message. This is what it said –

Hmm.
It was 10 in the night when I discovered this. Got dressed, took up Mons’ bunch of floppies, and went over to the office. Discovered that XVID was a different codec altogether, and you indeed need new codecs to run XVid movies. Made backup copies in 3 different floppies. (Grrr! Floppies are a menace to free society ) and headed home.

11 when I got back. Suddenly remembered that my computer does not have a floppy drive. ( see above “Grr” statement for reasons), and also remembered that I had the drive from my old system lying around somewhere. Provided it worked. Half an hour of hasty cable-work ( where do all the screws go when you need them? why is it so hot when you are trying to fix something? Why do I always forget to wear chappals before touching the CPU? ) and two botched reboots later, it was done. I lay back in my comfortable armchair, Maggi bowl in hand ( no dinner until then) and …..er….watched the screen with jaws open as the opening action sequence of The Final Flight of The Osiris played.

Whooof. Me and my “urges”.

Question: Which Organisation’s headquarters are located at 12 Grimmauld Place?
Answer: The Order of The Phoenix.

Question: What do you call a self-proclaimed Potter-fan and Quizzer who has no clue about the answer to the above question?
Answer: A Moron of the First Order?

Close, but not quite.

Anyways, didn’t make it. The cut-off in the prelims was 21, and we made 20, which was the same thing that happened in the Odyssey quiz last January, so things are constant, and it’s ok, I don’t mind.

The good things:
1) Four of us had gone together. Three of us were a team, the fourth guy, Bhargava was supposed to meet Anil and Dhaaji there. Well, Anil got late and Dhaaji being Dhaaji was M.I.A. Leaving Bhargava to search for a team. he found one, and made it to the finals, and won the Third Prize. Cool, eh?

2) Aaaah. The Quiz. Brilliant questions in the finals. Really interesting, no obscure fundae and no chestnuts either. A healthy mixture. ( Or maybe I say so because I knew most of the answers. No, really.)

3) Landmark. The bookshops. “Ooooooooooh” and “Aaaaaaaaaah” are some of the words that come to mind. Man, the comics collection was amazing!!! I found 15 Spawn comics !!! Spawn comics!!! Wheee! Old Spiderman comics, the McFarlane/Larsen ones. Some X-Force, X-Men, Youngblood issues – dating back to those times when free Trading cards and double gatefold covers were “hot” items.

To think, once upon a time, I lusted after those stuff like crazy. Never thought I would get them in India. Especially Spawn. Once I paid a friend 800 rupees to get me 5 copies through his uncle in the States. And now I got 15 issues, including issue#2, 12, 16, 21-30 for twenty rupees each. Am I lucky or what?

Also got the O Brother Where Art Thou OST cd in the same place. And a rarity ( IMHO) called Music For an Arabian Night by Ron Goodwin and his Orchestra. This was one of the earliest examples of “world music” I had heard once upon a time, as a kid, on my uncle’s Gramaphone player, and later, borrowed the cassette from some friend. I remember being awestruck by the music then, it seemed so Oriental, so ethnic and mysterious. Right now, the same appeal isn’t there, but some of the tunes had stuck in my head, and it was nice reliving them, in a way.

4) Bought two ARR cds Keezhaku Cheemaiyile/Karuthamma and Vandicholai Chinrasu. The Aaraaro song from Karuthamma was included in the first cd. Thus, my ARR collection edges closer to completion.

The Bad stuff:
1) Chennai was hot! And I got the runs and a headache and a bad cold immediately after I reached that place. Aargh! Thank God the Music Academy had a nice, clean Men’s Room….
Er, I am pretty sure I didn’t screw up the quiz because of that.
Somebody suggested it might be dehydration. Oh! This is what dehydration is all about, eh?

2) Didn’t meet rulinian or madhuri567. Crowded hall and upset tummy were two contributing factors.

3) Times like this, I feel like I must apply for a credit card. The number of Trade Paperbacks I saw in Landmark was just awesome!!! They had everything from The Dark Knight Returns to all the Elseworlds Graphic novels and even hard to find books like James O’Barr’s The Crow ( the original black and white series), and I ran out of money. Aargh! There was a cool Crime Fiction section in Landmark which had all the Vachss titles. I was floored, really.

All in all, a good trip. Had loads of fun. Couple of more trips to Chennai are definitely on my agenda. I need to buy that luscious Green Arrow:Quiver hardcover I saw. And a couple of hundred more TPBS. :-P

I am going to Chennai for the weekend. Landmark Quiz on Friday. I dunno whether I will get tickets for a Boys show, but I can always hope. :-D See you there, rulinian and madhuri567. Also, fingers crossed about the Landmark comic-book sale.

My personal Gods for the week happen to be Vasu and contentedbloke. The former, for passing me 30 cds filled with goodies. ( Satriani videos, Metallica videos, BB King videos, Grateful Dead mp3s galore, Oh what oh what oh what oh what, Can beatzo ask for more? That’s the highest level of poetic intricacies my mind can handle, thank you. )

And just when I thought my cup had filleth for the week, contentedbloke‘s post for today brimmeth it over.

Deep bows go out to both of you. And of course, 23 free cds for Vasu.

Off to see KMG, and buy Wolverine:Origin. Life’s SO cool!

A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away….