Nothing better than a game of Unreal Tournament on the office network. I can cream ‘bots at Inhuman. And that without too much of effort. Heh Heh Heh.

Seems the NITwits over at my alma mater are setting up LANs in the hostels and going for all-out gaming contests. Most of them stick to NFS – the buggers! – but the Unreal craze is on. And now UT2003 has come out, which is supposed to be meaner, faster and you-know-what. But even though pirated copies abound on the streets of Abids, I can’t indulge myself – mah ancient celeron 366 at home just don’t have da juice, mama! So games are on the backburner for the time being. Q3 is still a strict no-no. The ‘bots in Q3 actually cheat, they really do.

One major regret – I haven’t EVER played Half-Life: Counterstrike. Seems it’s WAY better than Quake3 or UT….of course, am still waiting to find a copy of Half-Life:Opposing Force I can actually play. :-)

Playing Unreal just awhile ago made me yearn (AGAIN!) about going all-out. Taking a bank loan and getting a new PC, a killer Creative Soundblaster Live! Platinum mp3 soundcard, and a 5.1 Dolby surround system, AND a new keyboard. No dinky tone-bank this time. Either a Korg or a high-end Yamaha synth. But again, the more I look around, the more options I find. There is a guy I met thru ARRfangroups, Viren Patel. Stays in Canada, and a pretty knowledgeable chap as far as digital music and keyboards are concerned. He suggested I try for a Yamaha EX-5 or higher….but again, the prices here! Jeez, 33% import duty on Electronic goods! NO WAY i can go for it at this point of my life, anyway. Also, I can’t seem to find the time to actually sit in front of the system and tinker around….most likely I would end up watching movies on my 5.1 system if i get one. A very big if.

Why can’t I be satisfied with what I have in life?

Hey, been a long time since I listened to Nu-Metal. (hed)PE, Mushroomhead, Filter, Fenix TX – this new Kerrang cd really rocks!!!!!

There’s something about fight-scenes in Hindi movies.

Get this straight. It’s all about a guy beating up other guys. And not getting beaten up in return. The bloodier he beats them up, the better. That means he’s got moral values.( Of course he’s got moral values, dum-dum. How would he be there beating up sixty gali ka goondas without getting his butt kicked?) Lots of reverb-equipped punches. Kewl violins in the background. Or maybe a little avant-garde tabla. Better still, NO background music at all. Just bodies being mauled in slow motion. The “craaaash” as the poor goons land on piles of bottles or stacks of coconuts or get hot water poured on them – The standard “action sequence” would involve knives, tube-lights, hockey sticks, cricket bats…..you name it, we got it, pal. 101 Bollywood fight scene cliches…..you can even predict camera angles.

But what’s it with these fight scenes? You simply can’t take your eyes away from the screen once one starts. You know Sunny paaji or Sanju baba or apna Shah Rukh is going to win the day anyway ( ok, maybe if it’s a love story, the guy’s friends will come and save him. Or the guy will get his own back and flex his biceps in the climax scene) But no, you stop whatever you’re doing. Stare goggle-eyed at the screen. Maybe even wince and go “tch” when the hero gets beaten up a li’l too much. And slowly, your body attunes itself to whatever’s happening on screen. Your fist clenches, you grit your teeth. Maar saale ko, your brain screams. (Maybe if there aren’t any people around, you would actually scream the words out aloud.)

Kya hai?

I was on a bus to Pune. About to fall asleep. “Thiruda Thiruda” playing on my discman. The drone of the bus is soothing. And all of a sudden, I hear someone screaming. Open my eyes, and see that the conductor has put on a movie. it’s a video coach, you see. The screaming is not someone, it’s a something – the sound of forty-odd violins trying to imitate an orchestra.

The film is Ziddi. And Sunny praaji is screaming onscreen too. It’s his movie, you see. So no one, not even 40-odd violins, get to scream louder than him. And besides he’s getting paid by the decibel-level. I close my eyes and increase the volume-level on my discman. The occasional gunshot filters in, but that’s ok. I am about to fall asleep again.

Until the fight scene starts. I find myself staring intently at the screen, (which, since it is at the front of the bus and I am at the very back, is a tough job in itself) and going through all the aforementioned reactions….it’s unbelievable how FAKE the whole thing was – you could actually see punches not connecting, and the onlookers in the shoot grinning. But no, it was a FIGHT scene, for goshsakes!!! And suddenly I realise it’s not just me, it’s all the 36+ people inside the bus who are screaming “Maar Saale Ko!” in their heads and clenching their fists at the same time. it’s a collective response, not just my own.

Heh heh heh. I am not a freak after all.

I think this is the reason why everyone wants to become a Hero. You get to beat up lots of people without getting beaten up in return. I wonder how the people who play goondas in films feel. Don’t they lose it sometimes? Do they have psychological screenings for them? “Wanted! people who can take it without dishing it back.”

Life seems to be made up of alternating weekends. With a couple of weekdays thrown in just to keep the number of days per week at seven. :-)

What did I do this week? Apart from the depressing part of it, nothing too much. Quarrelled a lot. Won 1000 bucks at a corporate quiz. (Haven’t got the money yet, but I trust you, JK ) Cleaned the loo at my house. Finished TWO books, an Elmore Leonard (Freaky Deaky, hyper dialogues and characters) and Ursula K LeGuin’s Wizard of EarthSea. Watched Anita and Me. (Beautiful movie!) Got my code to run. A new coffee machine in our office, so we can now have cappuccino, mocha, espresso, hot chocolate…for free, of course. Our flat-owners kicked the resident bai out, so now we would have to do our own cleaning and washing-up. And yeah, the LoadBalancer is finally up and running….the basic framework, anyways. :-D

This is a nice site for free eBooks, especially old pulpy Doc Savage, The Shadow novels. This also has Johnston McCaulley’s Mark of Zorro. Yup, the original one. Thanks, Anil.

Something I have been searching for AGES – Prabuddha Das Gupta’s collection of photographs called “Women”. It came out when I was in school, and there was a lot of hoopla in the Telegraph, about how this was a milestone in India, because it featured nude photographs of Indian models, and extremely tasteful nudes at that.

I skimmed through the book once upon a time. Been searching for it ever since. And yesterday, it was there. A First Edition, at that. And it is really, truly breathtaking.

The catch – 1500 Rupees. Either this, or the Beatles Anthology. Eenie, meenie, mynie….