Life's a comic book

Back after a year!

2011-10-26T19:07:00.000+05:30

So I'm back after a year....here....I didn't really know what to write about, but wow, time sure has passed by! I can't believe my last article was a year back!

Btw, I'd like to say that there is this freeware paint tool called MyPaint (which is awesome btw). It's available for Windows, Mac and Linux, and it's a small download so go grab it now and try experimenting in it. It's real fun!

It seems that Blogger's new interface does not like Opera or Firefox, and recommends Google Chrome. Humph!

Anyway, I'm signing out for now. Oh, and check out my Deviantart profile and gallery! ;)

(Also, thanks PSDDude for the cool Deviantart widget. )

See you guys later!

PSDDude Photoshop Tutorials

The blogger has returned...

2010-09-29T17:19:00.029+05:30

Hi folks! Wow, its been a long time since I last posted here...the reason...? I didn't know what to write about...

So today I decided to log in and write about today's events and tell you what I've been up to lately.

Sigh...college is over...I miss those days...it got over before I knew it...c'mon it had to happen! I'm a graduate now, and I'm currently looking for a job.

During college days, the only things one has to worry about are assignments and submissions. Once college life is over, what does one do? Get a job, start earning?

See, during my last holidays, i.e. before I got my final year's final exam result, I was relaxed and enjoying my vacation. I was also able to practice a bit. You can check out some new stuff I made at www.rtfs1.deviantart.com. So, whatever I've worked on so far, I've been doing it to improve my work to help me in my career and also as a hobby.

The last couple of days proved tiring for me, so Karan and I decided to go to Crosswords at Sohrab Hall. Would be a nice break.

What caught our attention were the PC games, at affordable prices! Assassin's Creed, Sonic Heroes, Rayman Raving Rabbids and many other titles priced at just Rs 299/-. Wow, that's very convenient to buy then! Remember how original games used to be freaking expensive earlier?

There were other titles as well, with prices ranging from 499 to 799. There was also a shelf dedicated to console games- PSP, Wii, PS2, Ps3 and Xbox360. I quickly browsed through a few titles. The 360 and Ps3 ones were some of the recent titles; I can't recall the Psp titles, but I must say I'm disappointed in the Wii titles you've kept, Crosswords! There were 4 titles and none of them were hardcore ones! I mean, if you put Metroid, Smash Bros Brawl, Mario Kart Wii or Twilight Princess, those would get my attention and bring a smile to my face! But, instead, they had these boring dumb titles! I recall two of them; one having to do with some fairy tale adventure game and another one being a puzzle game....with simple graphics...seriously! I could play a puzzle game...(which I won't!)....with simple graphics......... on my computer....... for free! Anyway, moving on....ooh what's this? A steering wheel...nice...it's a steering wheel for the PS3, and a copy of Burnout Paradise along with it. It seemed like a nice deal!

Ok...so I moved onto the PS2 section. Smackdown vs Raw 2010, God of War 1 and 2, Jak and Daxter,....Jak and Daxter? Oh, Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier! I sure would like to try that game...but what's this? It's bundled with another game? Hanuman? So it's Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier and Hanuman 2 in 1 PS2 combo pack....er...nice....for Rs 699/- And now, for the best titles I have ever come across! Ladies and Gentlemen, presenting: THIS........and THIS!

Spoiler: WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, we then moved on to the comics section. Where are DC comics and Marvel comics? Where's Batman? Where's Spidey? What happened to Gotham comics? Did they discontinue distribution of these awesome comics or what? There were some pokemon manga, but I didn't bother much with those. And hey Tinkle fans, Suppandi now has his own comic book series. :)

Enough of window shopping! It was time to leave. Sure was freaking hot outside today!

But it was a nice day and it made me write about it here. I'm glad it got me back into the mood for blogging!

Later!

23 years old

2009-11-28T21:35:00.004+05:30

Hey guys I'm 23 now. I had a great day! But first I wanna tell you guys something. Remember that argument Kunal and I had. Well things were cleared the very next day and well it was just a silly misunderstanding.

So Kunal and I are buds again. He got me a mini usb hub for my bday. That was a surprise as I wanted one.

I am not really much of a party animal, but I like having fun and a great time with friends - no matter how simple things are. Simple but sweet.

We watched the movie Turtles Forever. A must watch if you're a fan of TMNT.

We had a lot of fun and lots of laughs. It was a great day!

Also got some cash to spend. Let's see. ;)

Back from Baroda....

2009-10-14T21:06:00.025+05:30

Long time no see Blogger. I just didn't know what to write, but here's a memorable event I'd like to write down....

The last time I had posted about my meet with my good friend Mimo when he had come over to Pune. He insisted that I visit him next and so I did. This was the first time I travelled to a really far away place...alone...Thus began a memorable adventure for me!

The title should be back from Vadodara but I think it sounds catchy with Baroda.

I managed to convince my folks at home that I wanted and had to go to Mimo's place (I needed a break). A date was then decided, where I'd stay at Mimo's for 3 days and then return, leaving Suparna and mom to babysit Benji (rascal!). Thus began my first adventure to an unknown place. I was determined to do it. So my ticket for Baroda was booked. Left at around 10:30 PM. The bus stopped at a restaurant for dinner. I asked the conductor where I should get down at Baroda. Turns out the bus wasn't going to Baroda....whaaat???!! It was going to Ahmedabad. The travel agent had said that Baroda would be the last stop - Liar! I asked the conductor what I should do. He said I would have to get down at some bypass. I asked him to tell me where to get down. I was nervous, but I decided to stay calm and think of a solution. I tried asking other passengers whether they were going to Baroda- gulp! Most of them were heading to Ahmedabad. The guy sitting next to me was going to Baroda, but he was in the same position as I was...first time...felt like a newbie lol! The next morning at about 9:30 Am I got down at the bypass. Looked like a really random place to land in. Reminded me of the Hinjewadi bridge area. Crap...I called Mimo and asked him what I should do next. There was an auto rickshaw wala nearby. After talking to him and Mimo, the auto guy dropped at a particular point. I was relieved when I reached Baroda city. Then finally Mimo shows up- hurray! After reaching his home, I gave a huge (albeit silent) sigh of relief.

After freshening up and having a nice breakfast, we booted up his PS2 and tried 3 games that I had brought for him- Dragon Quest 8, Okami and Dark Cloud 2. Mimo was happy with the package. We played for a while, and in the evening went to this place called Sinduth. It reminded me of a mini Lonawala. It was a nice place. Mimo had brought 2 of his friends along and they swam and enjoyed. I hadn't brought any swimming stuff and thought it wasn't a good idea to get wet. Get wet I did. I slipped on the moss and fell in. Ouch! It was funny but real slippery. It was fun. I think I'll go take a swim there next time. We spent the night watching Superman Batman: Public Enemies and playing Burnout Revenge. We also played Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks in Versus mode which was cool and real funny (listening to Liu Kang's screams).

The next day, we watched the movie Up at Inox. The movie was nice though it seemed random. Everything was close to this guy's place. Baroda seemed a cool place. Did I mention I enjoyed Auntie's khana? Rajma, palak rajma, paneer masala, milk shake with ice cream, chole, sherbets...wow it was awesome...!

We also went to Crosswords and Landmark. Read some stuff there. We also played Burnout Revenge multiplayer at Landmark just for the heck of it. NFS Most Wanted and Carbon suck on the PS2. Couldn't bear to play those.

We got Tenchu Fatal Shadows, Gungrave, Swords of Destiny and Ratchet: Deadlocked. We enjoyed playing those games.

I got some books from Crossword that I could take home with me. One of those books was Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident; the graphic novel. I felt like getting it because of the artwork. Boy, graphic novels rule! There was also this comic series created by Goscinny called "Iznogoud" (is no good?). The drawing style was similar to Asterix and Obelix and that's what made me curious. It seemed funny but not as classic as Asterix. It seemed to be the story about a court magician of Baghdad called Iznogoud who wanted "to become Caliph and not the Caliph". That left me scratching my head, but kinda reminded me of Tantri the Mantri series from Tinkle comics. I was tempted to buy another gamepad (became a hobby, sort of) but decided not to. We also watched Aliens in the Attic, Green Lantern: First Flight and The Tale of Despearaux.

I really enjoyed staying at Mimo's place. It was like we were realllly realllly old but very good friends; we are. Im glad I met him though. I wish I could have stayed longer. I really enjoyed this trip! It felt sad when it was time to say goodbye. We were enjoying so much. The time passed quickly and slowly at the same time.

This adventure certainly is one of my most memorable ones.

RTFS now at PC!

2009-07-01T08:38:00.003+05:30

I have a new blog at PC, the Pirate-Community. Pirate-Community is probably the biggest unofficial Rayman fan community.

Special thanks to Hunchman and rest of the PC crew.

I'm still new to Wordpress, but heh, I'll get the hang of it.

RTFS Adventure chapter one: The Bog of Murk

2009-06-14T19:37:00.006+05:30

RTFS Adventure2(Rayman The Fan Series) is a fan series interactive adventure game of Rayman. This is the second game in the series which will be divided in chapters, and the chapters will be separate. RTFS Adventure 2 takes off after the prequel.

Here is Chapter One: The Bog of Murk. The story continues as Rayman defeats Jano and as a reward for passing Jano's test, he receives a magic sphere. They are then deliberately teleported to the Bog of Murk. Rayman and Murfy are surprised to be there. There, Rayman meets an old friend and runs into the newly appointed "Mistress of Magic"- Begoniax. Begoniax is not pleased to see Rayman at all, and brings a new pet to play with him.

Chapter one

Play online on Deviantart.

Download link:

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=d94ab4b1eb8081c0aaca48175a79d1c37afb2521e3347763c95965eaa7bc68bc

Hope you have a nice time playing chapter one. :)

Vacation time

2009-06-07T19:29:00.030+05:30

Long time no see bloggy. I was busy with exams and a lot of stuff happened that I really don't want to write about. So what is this blogpost about?

I don't know. I guess I'm just gonna write whatever I feel like here. Now that my holidays have started I've been busy checking out E3 2009 videos from Gametrailers and watching "The All new Batman Adventures" (TANBA), a show that took place after Batman: The Animated Series and I doubt, was ever shown in India. I remember watching the Gamespot review of Batman Vengeance. I remember enjoying the PC version. I was curious about it when I had seen it on Ubisoft's website before it was released. Then I had watched the trailer, and was like, man I gotta play this game! And now while watching TANBA, it brings back memories of Batman Vengeance. The artwork, character styles, voice acting, everything is just like the series.

I plan to watch The Batman after that. I did watch a couple of episodes, read a few issues, etc, but the character design felt weird at first. The characters were redesigned. Take a look at Joker:

Creepy no?

I heard that the Wolverine movie would be released on the 19th here. Man, there's probably gonna be a lot of crowd. (Yash, remember when we had gone to watch Dark Knight on the first day?) I hope they're still showing the Watchmen movie here. Friends here talking more about Angels and Demons but for me, Watchmen movie gets a higher priority than Angels and Demons. I do wanna watch it. Indian Express's Pune Newsline isn't of much help showing movie lists.

Ah, now that the holidays are here, I better start working on RTFS Adventure 2 and better get that tablet fixed. Stupid loose connection problem. Delayed thanks to Kunal. Bah!

Finding Mimo

2009-05-19T10:43:00.025+05:30

Mimo:- I first met him online via orkut. He seemed like a really excited dude online (you know how scary that can be!), but he turned out to be a very nice guy with a good sense of humour, and we turned out to be good friends. Been 2 years since we know each other now. I remember last year when he had decided to drop by in Pune to have a meet up. He came all the way from Baroda (all by himself and he's 16; What a bindaas guy!) and randomly landed at Chaphekar Chowk. He called me to pick him up. Luckily Chaphekar Chowk wasn't that far so I could pick him up. It was really nice meeting him. It was like we really knew each other (even though we had met for the first time.)

That was a year ago. It was time for a second meet. This was last week. He was free at the moment so decided to come to Pune. I asked him to stay for a week but he could only stay for 4 days. Good enough. "You have to pick me up wherever I land." OMG! No! Told him to get down at Chinchwad or somewhere nearer; or else i'd have to go all the way to Pune and bring him back home. He got down at Wakad. I asked him to come till Danghe Chowk, while I'd take my kinetic and reach there. It was hot, dusty and windy outside. So we met up. I brought him back home. Benji was happy to see him and guess what? As soon as we got home, the first thing I heard was "Take Benji for a walk". Oh well...

Mimo had brought many PS2 games with him, which was a good thing as I could test them on PCSX2. He also showed me his work. He is currently working on a RPG using engine 001. For more info on the tool, visit www.engine001.com. I also showed him how much I've worked on RTFS Adventure 2 so far. Gee, I need to complete it soon.

Those 4 days passed quickly, but we had a lot of fun. We enjoyed Super Smash Bros Brawl a lot, me whooping his butt. Muhahaha! Yash, gonna hafta wait yer turn fer a-whoopin' ya hear? We also watched movies like Highlander: The Search for Vengeance. Kickass movie and smooth as butter animation. Imagi rocks!

Finally it was time for us to leave. Mimo's folks had a bus from Pune so they were coming back from their Mahabaleshwar trip. There were like 2 hours left, so we headed to Crosswords at Sohrab Hall. The content felt less that day. But there was some interesting stuff to read no doubt. We took out issues of Forge and sat reading. Time passed by. Mimo got a call from his dad and then it was time for us to leave. The bus stop was close by. Met Mimo's folks for the first time. I was kinda nervous. What would they be like? They turned out to be very nice people. Mimo's mother gave me a box of fresh strawberries and some jelly sweets to take home. Gee, that was very sweet. Time to catch the 7 o clock local. Wow it was like everything had been planned systematically, for when I reached the station the local had just arrived. Talk about timing!

Bye Mimo, it was really fun having you here. I wanna come to Baroda soon, but after my exams get over. See you pal.

Watchmen demo impressions

2009-05-08T07:14:00.035+05:30

[Click on the screenshots for a bigger view.]Firstly I am new to Watchmen. I haven't read the graphic novel, but I will someday; I'm not familiar with the characters, but the game lets you play as Rorschach and Nite owl. I haven't watched the movie either and nor have I read the motion comic yet but I intend to check them out soon. So here are my impressions on the Watchmen: The End is nigh demo.

The game uses the "Kapow" engine. I mistook it for the Unreal 3 engine. Hehe. When you get something dark, cinematic with plenty of eye candy, one thinks its Unreal 3 engine. Remember when the Doom 3 engine used to be the talk of the day? Anyway back to topic...

The story in the demo has Rorschach and Nite Owl visiting some prison where the prisoners are wreaking havoc and having a party inside. The cops are fools as always and refuse to cooperate with the vigilantes. Dumbasses...so anyway, the vigilantes land there to help tame the crazy criminals inside. The cops threaten to shoot the vigilantes instead of taking care of the criminals. Man why are cops so stupid? They hardly thank superheroes for helping them bust crime. Instead of thanking them they decide to shoot them down. Wow! What a bunch of incorrigible stupid bums! So the criminals are set free while the cops chicken out, leaving Rorschach and Nite Owl to do the dirty work for them. So you beat up thugs using various combos, move ahead to a new part of an area, more thugs show up, you kick their butt and so on. I played as Rorschach and pretty much had a good time doing so. Didn't feel like trying out Nite Owl.

So the game has you punch, kick, throw enemies (the wiser option). Its fun when the thug you throw falls on the other idiots. Its pretty satisfying. Its also fun when you fling them off and they fall to their deaths. The game has plenty of eye candy and some good physics, but seriously...does a dirty prison actually shine that much? The floor seems to be so shiny that no matter how dirty things get, you can always see the reflections. Shiny floor with reflections lol. That's what eye candy often boasts about. There's also a lock picking mini game in the demo for Rorschach to do which seems pretty easy. Rorschach has a rage meter which increases as he fights enemies and by pressing RT or R1, makes him charge at enemies. Sweet. After you clear out one phase of crazy whackos, you can
wait a bit while you regain your lost health. As a beat em up game, it gets pretty repetitive but hey its fun. I've enjoyed beat em ups since school days. Remember TMNT?

The plot in the demo gets more interesting as you go on and then bang! End of demo. Damn. I look forward to playing the full game.

If you enjoy playing beat em ups, get the Watchmen. Its available for PC, Xbox360 and PS3. Also make sure you have a friend to join you. That makes it more fun. Later.

Susan eats Veg Chopsuey!

2009-04-19T06:27:00.039+05:30

Ok this has nothing to do with Susan eating chopsuey hehe. This blog is about a nice time I had yesterday. I was planning to go watch Monsters vs Aliens with Tejas. I also asked Supa to come along. The movie's title is kinda misleading ain't it? Monsters vs Aliens...sounds like some horror "bhoot" movie for those who are not familiar with Dreamworks' title. Well, anyway, our plan was to head for E-square. We were planning to start from here at 12 noon, get the 12:38 train, reach Shivajinagar by around 1:45, book tickets, do some shopping and then watch the movie at 3. Heh. But with the scorching heat outside, was it a good idea? 12-3 outside in the heat travelling like crazy? This is when Kunal comes to the rescue. He showed up at 11 Am. He told me "Why not go to Adlabs Chinchwad? Its nearer. Check the schedule online." Damn, why didn't I think of that? I had only checked E-square's schedule online. So check I did at the last minute. Monsters vs Aliens at 1:05 PM showing at Adlabs. Good to go. Kunal offered to drop 'monkey Tejas' in the forest (part of our evil plan muhahaha!) while Supa and I headed to Adlabs to book our tickets. It was so freakin' hot outside! I wondered if we'd be able to get the tickets but Kunal was like "Don't worry. Aaram se mil jayega. Zyada koi nahi deknewala." (Don't worry, you'll easily get it. Hardly anyone is going to watch it.) And he was right. Stupid Indian public. Haha. There wasn't even a big poster of Monsters vs Aliens. Only ones of Hindi and Marathi movies. Boooring! So we booked the tickets and waited for Tejas to come so we could go inside and relax under the A.c. Finally we went inside. Ah that felt so good. Tejas really looks forward to watching Dragonball: Evolution, but I'm like "its gonna flop, its gonna suck; its gonna make the real db\z\gt fan suffer from embarassment and regret!"

Tejas: You don't like Dragonball?

Me: Wtf!? The movie hardly has anything to do related to the Db universe? There's no Krillin! Piccolo looks like shit.

Tejas: Yeah there's no Chichi, but I wanna watch it.

Me: Fine. Enjoy watching it in theatre and let me know of your wonderful experience.

So back to Monsters vs Aliens, the movie was fun to watch. Some parts were funny, some were pretty cliche, Susan was hot and Derek was a selfish jerk. I loved B.o.b. The cockroach mad scientist did his evil laugh too many times. Can't say much about the missing link but he had his funny parts too-"A convenient truth".... Overall, it was a fun movie, though the trailer had given me a more interesting impression than the movie actually did. But it was fun watching.

After the movie, we went to Crosswords. We bought plenty of comics. Here's a pic showing some of them.Yes, WTF! (You'll find out soon why.) I love the "Six issues for just Rs. 99/-" offers at crosswords. Problem is, you won't find out which random issues you've got, until you open and see. Tejas bought Archies, Nights into Dreams (cool series) and World Almanac for kids. Okay. Supa got some more Archies. I went for the "10 comics for just Rs 99/-". Couldn't resist. I hoped I wouldn't get crap in it though. Last time I had got Archies and ended up with 2 of the comics being fucking Scooby Doo.

I was getting very hungry. Supa decided to go home. Tejas decided to hang around with me. He was getting hungry too. McD was crowded, so we went to Yo China and had Veg Chopsuey (where were the pineapple slices the menu had promised?) with Pepsi. It was fun. Stomachs being filled (somewhat), the feeling of relief and satisfaction from hunger and some interesting conversations were what made the eating part worth it. After that, we took a six seater to Nigdi bus stop and an auto home. We reached home at around 4:30. Time for load shedding. MSEDCL morons...

So let's see what we got in this 10 in 1. Spider-man. Check. Thundercats. Check. Dexter's Lab. Okay. Comic version of an episode from the show. Been there done that. Jonny Bravo. Wtf! No! Avengers. Check. Jonny Bravo. WTF! Again?? SH**! Ultimate Spider-man. Check. Batman. Check. Santa and Banta with Trendy First edition. This is pretty cool stuff. You can see the cover in the pic. Its cool and funny. And now, ladies and gentlemen, time for the crappiest of them all for which the number one WTF is reserved for. You can see it in the pic (left side). "Bollywood: The Ultimate Chase". W........T........F....... seriously. Why would I want to read a stupid Bollywood comic? The artwork is good though; But its Bollywood, so for me its crap. So we read comics until it was time for the MSEDCL morons to restore the power. Then we played some Mario Kart Wii, Super Smash Bros Brawl, Devil May Cry 3. It was fun as always. :) Then at around 8 PM I got a call from Kunal saying he didn't have his class, so he was in Nigdi near Vasu wada pav. I met him there. Tejas was busy playing Devil May Cry 3, so I told him to continue playing till I returned with Kunal. We ate some wada pav and took some thick shakes home, which we all enjoyed along with some Smash Bros. After a few matches it was time for Kunal to leave so I dropped him off at the bus stop.

Bahut mazaa aaya.

An old friend arrives...

2009-04-12T09:29:00.029+05:30

Tejas, the little kid who used to live next door. The kid who used to love watching cartoons, playing games and showing off his action figures; its been 7 years since I last saw him. He had moved to Mangalore and has come here recently for a brief visit, say 15 days. Its surprising and amusing. You see a little kid and after those many years; you see a grown, or rather, growing-up version of him. Its an amusing experience - "Aww, the little kid has grown up". Goodbye kiddy days, hello Warcraft.

He has just given his 10th std board exams. Wishes to continue his studies there. Fine by me. Though his other childhood friends wish he'd stay. Can't blame him though. Life's changed for him. A different friend circle, a different phase in life, one must move on. He says it feels like it was yesterday that he lived here. Agreed. I remember the dreamy experience. I always feel that when I go to Mumbai, Tardeo, where we used to live earlier. It feels strange - that world you used to live in moves on and so do the people there. Things change. Its obvious, but it feels strange.

Enough of pondering lol. Tejas is a gamer which is a good thing for me. He has a Logitech Cordless Rumblepad2. Whoa. Doesn't that thing cost around Rs. 3k? Nice toy.

A next door neighbour of mine - a gamer? Too good to be true, but I intend to have fun while it lasts. We play Smash Bros, Soul Calibur 2 and many other games. He loves Warcraft 3, which tends to make me sleepy whenever he starts playing. Ha ha oh well. You can't win em all. Yet I'll beat you in Smash Bros, Mr Ike. Ha ha ha!

Friends and fun

2009-03-07T22:11:00.029+05:30

This blog post is going to be about today.

I had a lot of fun today. The last week was a tiring one for me. Wake up early in the morning (4 AM to be precise), keep an eye on the pups, do some stuff on PC, get ready for college, fall asleep during the journey and keep yawning during the lectures. This daily routine made me feel dull and sleepy all the time. I hadn't watched a movie in a long time. As a result, I was getting bored and felt down, eventually looking forward to the weekend.

Thursday: We have been given assignments and must submit them within the next week. I groaned; I had forgotten about the fun in working together. Falling asleep almost everyday while travelling from home to college and vice versa, lack of sleep, noisy and messy pups and load shedding had really made me grouchy. But this time I thought it would be fun to hang out with friends for a change. Besides, there wouldn't be electricity at home anyway. And add the 'back to normal' slow net again. So I decided to hang out with friends after college; went to their room, booted up Smash bros Melee and had a blast! I also watched the movie 'One missed call'. That got me back in the mood for watching movies again. Lost count of time. But it was really fun. Multiplayer gaming, eating snacks, sipping sugar cane juice, fooling around. Wow, I need to do this more often and ligthen up.

Friday: Was planning to get together and work on assignments but I needed sleep so was in sleep mode for almost the whole day. Slept like a log! "Screw the world, I wanna sleep!" kinda sleep.

Saturday: I was quite fresh today. Normally, I'd grumble about going to a place near college on a holiday but today felt different. So anyway, I went to the friends' room. I really had no clue about Maya so I asked them to teach me a bit. We are supposed to make a robot in Maya using basic shapes, so I drew a sketch of a robot, while my friends made it in Maya and showed me how it was done. I kinda find Maya's interface and shortcuts confusing, because of 3Ds Max, but I'll adjust.

After that was done, we played some Super Smash Bros Melee. Awesome as always. An hour later, MSEB played spoilsport. We were getting hungry and I hadn't eaten lunch , so we went to this place near Meghdoot hotel and had chocolate toast! It was delicious! I had no idea how it was meant to be eaten (haha just like normal toast right? but with chocolate sauce) and got my fingers all sticky with chocolate sauce, while Gaurav's hands were clean and he sucked his fingers. That's something I don't do hehe. ^^; Well anyway, I was reluctant to wash my hands here for fear of static shock. I had a feeling I'd get one. And yes I did get one as soon as I was going to pick up the tissue paper. Damn, I hate static shock!

I was still hungry so Gaurav and I went and had some pizza at a nearby restaurant along with some cold sugarcane juice. Ah, that was awesome! The power got restored by then, so we got to work. Our assignment was almost done and so I wondered if I should spend the night there or take the 8 o clock train. It was 7:15 PM, and I got a call from Karan. The poor guy was waiting at my house. I told him if he would wait some more I'd take the 8 o clock local and get there. He okayed it. It was 7:24. I was beginning to doubt if I'd reach the station and get the train on time. Then I thought "Let me think positive. I will get the local! I will get the local!" Had to do some running but got to sit in the local. Relieved, I smsed Karan that I'd be there. The poor guy had been waiting there for one and a half hour. He sat for a while at my place, browsed through Gamespot and then left. Poor fellow...

Well that's for this blog post. I think I'm gonna go to bed soon. Good night y'all!

Dog is really man's best friend!

2009-02-06T06:50:00.046+05:30

I never doubted that, but I just realised how very true the saying is. The dog is such a sweet and faithful companion. It loves you more than you love yourself! If you're reading this blog post and have a dog at home, do give it a pat, scratch its chin and rub its stomach.

Say hello to Cookie and Benji, our new family members.

They're now 3 months old. These little bundles of joy/mischief taught me something new in life; that dogs are really precious. I'll explain what happened.

Earlier I used to get annoyed with their excretory habits, having to take them out whenever they wanted (and leave everything else behind) regardless of whether they "wanted" to answer nature's call or not. Also with Golu around, it can be difficult to keep an eye on all 3 at the same time to make sure noone gets hurt, including me.

It was getting difficult to handle both pups. I mean, when we're not around, the only ones at home are my grandparents, and it wouldn't be fair for them as they are in their 80s. So we asked the vet and a trainer about it. We were advised to separate the pups as soon as possible, so they'll be able to adjust. We were advised to give away Cookie (female) and keep Benji, as Cookie was aggressive while Benji submissive. If we gave Cookie away, she needed to be in a home of dog lovers only! Someone who will love her, take good care of her. So after making enquiries, a Christian family happily agreed to keep Cookie. As soon as they heard Cookie would be theirs, they went and brought toys for her. Cookie would now have toys, good food, a better place to stay and roam around, a terrace and so on (paradise for any pup if you ask me).

The night before that day, mom and Supa cried a lot. So did Ammama (grandma). I was sad too though I didn't shed any tears. That night it was like Cookie realised what was happening. Before going to bed I patted her. She saw the sadness in my eyes and gave a little bark. She was sad too. Those gentle marble eyes were sad. All that mischief and loud barking had disappeared and all that was left was a sense of loneliness, sadness.

The next day,we visited their home. Cookie seemed happy there. She sat comfortably near the coconut tree they had planted. She rolled into some muck. She even pooped there. Guess she liked the place. If Cookie would be happy there, then I'm happy. With a heavy heart, we parted and went home. Benji seemed to search for Cookie but was cool about it. That night I wondered if Cookie was happy there. Guess what happened the next day.

We got a call from them saying Cookie was really very very unhappy that we left her there. She didn't eat any food. She didn't even sleep that night. She cried the whole night-she literally had tears in her eyes! After hearing this, mom and Supa rushed to bring her back. I didn't feel like going. Cookie was so excited and happy and super relieved to be back home. Wow. She gave up all that just to be back with us. Talk about devotion.

It certainly was a touching reunion. Welcome back, Cookie!

Dost itne kamine hote hain!

2009-01-18T08:16:00.019+05:30

That means "Friends can be such idiots!" in Hindi (Hinglish rather). This post is gonna be about how you make plans to meet up with friends, and they probably don't show up and waste your time, effort, money, patience, tolerance, etc.

If one of your friend's a heavy sleeper, he's probably snoring. Ok that was off topic. But the point is, your friend is probably a night owl. Never rely on night owls to wake up in the morning. Never! Never! Never! It would do you so good to follow my advice. The only way to wake up your lazy night owl friend would be to blow him with dynamite. Seriously! Or how about pouring some boiling oil? Muhahaha!

Has this ever happened to you :- You plan to meet up with a friend. I don't care how long the plan was made, but you better be prepared to get a last minute "sorry its not possible". Oh I understand, "FRIEND"! Now how would you like a present from me? Yes, do open it. BOOOOMMMM!!!! Oh yeah that was so worth it. NO, I'm not saying you should kill your friends. A punch to the nuts would suffice. That would be so satisfying.

I guess that does seem to happen at times; plans being cancelled and stuff, when your preparations and planning get ruined. But do they feel guilty about it? Depends. If a meet up plan got cancelled because of me, I'd feel guilty. But if someone does it, feel free to give gaalis (rude remarks). Giving gaalis in real life is something I rarely do. But yes, if by chance I cancel a meet up plan, feel free to give me gaalis. And if its you who does it, then be ready to get some from me.

I was actually gonna make this post even bigger with examples that really puzzled me about the stupidity of so called friends (human beings). But let's leave it at that. That is one reason why I have stopped expecting things from friends. I don't expect every meet to be cancelled lol. However, I won't be disappointed.

This post was because my 2nd meet up plan with Huzaifa got cancelled, thanks to him again. If there will be a meet in future, I'll be ready...with dynamite in my pockets.

Game Set and Match!

2009-01-15T08:19:00.044+05:30

The Vishals are back (after a long time and hence this blog post!), but I think I'll also mention what happened yesterday.

I got a call at around 9:30 AM from Kunal saying that if I was free he would come along. I wondered if Kunal would ever come if he didn't have work on the internet. Its always been that way lol. "Hello Abhinav, if you're at home, I'll be coming to your place." In other words it meant: "Hello Abhinav, if you're at home, then I have some work on the internet. My money for the cyber cafe will be saved and after my work's done, let's download some stuff I want. And maybe while that's happening we could watch some WWE videos on youtube? Or let's play Dynasty Warriors 6." How convenient is that!!?!

So in a couple of hours, Halo-man showed up. I was watching some DBZ when he showed up. Wow, he actually watched a bit with me? Knowing him, he's never had the patience to watch anything! I'm talking about dialogues! Skip the dialogues, skip...skip...skip; with the exceptions being love scenes and fighting scenes. Seriously, Kunal! You need to be tied up in a theatre and watch some 'pakao'(boring movie with lots of speech) movie!

My online bud Hoodcom was online, so I asked him to show us his gaming accessories on MSN. I had seen them before. He has a lot of awesome stuff there. But I wanted it to impress Kunal so I asked him to show how he connected his Dreamcast, Gamecube, N64 and PS2 controllers to his PC. Hoodcom happily agreed. Kunals' face was a sight to see!

Then it was time to get to work (yeah, right!). Kunal had brought Ghajini over. He was asking me if I could find a tool that could convert it into DVD format. It was in codec format and wouldn't run on his DVD player. So while searching around, I installed the latest version of DivX. Holy s***! DivX rocks! The video quality you get is so good! Impressive. Its like an HD player. :D

So anyway, while the stuff he wanted was being downloaded, we played Dynasty Warriors 6. Here's an update, Kunal returned Twin Shock back to me. He said he had only wanted to try it for a few days. He also felt that the keyboard owns controllers. N00b!! Well, anyway, good thing I got Twin Shock back. :P He had also cleaned it for me. That was nice of him. Muhahahahaha!

So in DW6, there is this annoying mission where you have to save the refugees from being killed. But how? Its easy to do it for perhaps, during the first half of the mission, but later on, you have to run across the entire map since there will be refugee camps in places all over the map. We just couldn't complete this mission. If its hard in 2p mode, its hell doing it alone. We decided to skip that particular story mode and play a new one. That's how we spent our time.

Coming back to Ghajini, I used this tool called A-one converter (the full name's actually pretty big!). I converted it to DVD format for Kunal. While it was converting, I felt it would be better to watch something rather than playing. "Open Youtube! Watch WWE!" Oh boy, here we go! Hey, I actually enjoyed a few matches, especially since most of the matches had old wrestlers and that took me back to childhood days. Lex Luger, Bret hart, Ultimate Warrior, Yokozuna, Papa Shango, Kamala...lol.

After the file conversion was done (I admire Kunal's patience!), I opened the output folder to check the video. There were 2 DVD video files. Weird. Shouldn't it have been only 1 file? Here, this was part 1 and part 2, and both wouldn't fit on a normal DVD. "Convert it to VCD format now Abhinav". You're killing me!

The Vishals came to the rescue. I was happy and relieved to see them. Now we could actually have some multiplayer fun. Another friend was gonna show up too. While all this happened, I got a call from my sister saying there was this limited scheme offer of getting Rs 900 talktime for only 25 bucks, and valid upto 6 months if you got a Reliance GSM card. The offer was upto 6 PM only and it was 5:30 PM. I was annoyed at first. I mean, my friends are showing up and I have to go out and do this. -_- So I reluctantly left and registered for a new Reliance GSM card.

By the time I got back, Kunal was ready to leave. After he left, I was told he had a nasty virus in his pen drive and the Vishals didn't let him access my PC. Wow good going guys. Lol. We had some bhel and we watched a bit of the third Mummy movie. After that I showed them the Dolphin emulator and showed them Twilight Princess and the Windwaker on it. They were impressed. We played some Mario Tennis. I recorded a match while playing. I'm playing as Mario with the computer partner Pattapatta while Vishal 2 is Wario and Vishal 1 is Waluigi.

Part 1:

Part 2:

That's it for this blog post now. See ya!

Let's rumble!

2009-01-06T06:19:00.029+05:30

"If Kunal can fix my gamepad, he can keep it!" Oops! Did I actually say that? Me and my big mouth! Seriously, what was I thinking?

Anyway, here's what had happened. I had taken my Twin Shock controller to a friend's room for some smash bros multiplayer. One of my friends got careless and pulled the wire real hard. Darn it! My controller had this annoying loose connection problem since then. Move the wire a bit, accidently or deliberately and the gamepad would stop responding for 1 second. Finally, Windows stopped detecting it no matter how much I shook the wire! Frustrated, I took Twin Shock to an electrician. I thought he would fix the problem. Hmm not quite...Windows still wouldn't detect it. I had given up hope. Then came Kunal. Kunal told me he had the right equipment that could fix my Twin Shock. I had given up so I told him that if he could fix it he could keep it. He grinned. Uh oh.

A couple of days later I went to his place. Kunal took out his soldering rod and other stuff. I watched in awe as he tinkered around. He is a genius! His parents are very experienced in electrical stuff so I was impressed. Kunal's dad also offered some advice during the post mortem and resurrection period. There was a ray of hope. After plugging the gamepad to his PC, Windows detected it. Alright! Way to go buddy! Uh...now Im supposed to give him my Twin Shock. -_-'

I decided that Kunal could keep Twin Shock as soon as I get another controller. He agreed. He also asked me to keep it reserved for him at my place. (We usually play multiplayer at my place.)

Right, now the hunting would begin. I opened Justdial.com. The site rocks. Search for something and select a city (India only). I got the contact details for Compuciti. I called em up. I had been to the one at MG road so I know they didn't have it. I called up the one at JM road (at least that's what Justdial had said.) The controller was available but they had shifted to a place that seemed pretty far away. So I called the Aundh branch. The one at Aundh had it available. I was about to leave. Oh, what's this? The pups were causing havoc. Some Archie comics were torn apart, 'slaughtered' I'd say! Thanks to my sister for leaving them around carelessly! They had pooped too. Sigh. After cleaning stuff up I quickly left. Had to wait at the bus stop for about half an hour. Finally I was on my way. I felt like listening to some music in the bus so I put on my earphones. No sound was coming from the left earphone. I opened to see that there was no wire there! It was broken. I remember my sister had last used it. Grrr! Well at least the right earphone works, but that still had me grumbling.

Reached Compuciti, Aundh. Went in. Got the controller for 400 bucks. A Dualshock USB clone from SVB. Mission accomplished, I headed home.

I tried Okami, Devil May Cry 4, Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters, Dead or Alive 2 and DBZ Budokai Tenkaichi 3 on it. Rocks. Now I look forward to beating Kunal to a pulp in multiplayer. Keyboard owns eh? Now let's see you sing a different tune!

While I was typing this blog post, my very good online friend Hoodcom (we've been buds since 2001) showed me his awesome Sega collection on MSN. Sega Genesis, Sega Saturn, Sega 32X, Sega CD, Sega Dreamcast. Man, I think the Dreamcast controller's sweet! I would like to try it out someday.

And now to conclude this wonderful blog post, "Kunal, I vil own j00 in Budokai yoooooooooo!"

Game point!

2008-12-14T08:14:00.051+05:30

Yesterday was a very enjoyable day. One of those days I looked forward to. I got a call from one of my friends saying that their exams were over and we could meet up and have some multiplayer fun. I agreed to the notion and was looking forward to it. The plan was that they head to my place by 1 PM. They did. Met 2 good friends after a very long time. Time to have a blast.

When they came over I was busy playing Onimusha 3. One of them was like "Dude! Give me this game!". (Both their names are Vishal; let's call them Vishal 1 and Vishal 2; so here Vishal 2 asked me for the game.)

I hadn't configured project64 so started doing that. I couldn't find the proper plugin for Mario Tennis, since it was on my old computer and I was lazy to connect the hard drive here. I thought it would be easy to get it on the net, but nope. So we decided to play some Mario party first.

Booted up Mario Party. I chose Mario, Vishal 1 chose Wario and Vishal 2 chose Luigi. If you're looking for a fun party game, Mario Party's the name; Trust me. Loads of fun and laughs. One of the plus points of offline multiplayer is that you can laugh out hard at friends when they are screwed and vice versa. And we sure had a lot of laughs. A lot! Laughter is the best medicine. (There you go lol; I always wonder why people use proverbs in statements; Is it to show how smart they are? Or just showing off?) So were busy for around 1 hour trying to collect coins, stars, steal some and overthrow the other fellows. I was going to win, but Peach (computer opponent) got lucky and won.

After that, Vishal2 revealed his 8 GB pen drive (virus included) and plugged it in. He took some stuff from me. While the data was being copied, we watched a bit of Bruce Lee and Shaolin Kung Fu and a bit of Dark Knight as well. We also had some nice hot tea while we watched.

4 PM. Time for a power cut. MSEB didn't forget. We expected the power to be restored in about an hour, but it came back in 15 minutes. We decided to go out to get a snack. We met up with another friend, Sameer, who also joined us as we headed to Foodland. Burgers? Rolls? So close to my place? Wow. Had no idea and hadn't bothered earlier until now. So went inside and ordered 3 veg rolls and a chicken roll. Sameer and the Vishals got into a discussion about CS and LAN. I told Sameer to bring his laptop after my exams and we could have some LAN gaming. Ah, our rolls were ready! Yum!

Next, the plan was to have burgers. 3 veg burgers and a chicken burger that would be. I went to collect my burger. ~Static~ Ack! The moment I touched the plate I got a static shock and I let go of the plate. Damn. The burger fell with cutlet and stuff on my jeans. Damn what a mess! I lost a burger there. :( But the owner was kind enough to get a me a roll in place of the burger. Lol this time I was a bit hesitant to take the roll from him. "Don't be scared. Take it." I was bit embarassed about the incident though. Might have been the plastic chair I was sitting on. He was kind not to charge for the wasted burger. Next time I want a burger or a roll Im gonna get it from Foodland. Its so close by. Anyways...our tummies filled, we went back to my place. I again looked for the plugin for Mario Tennis but in vain. After browsing through my CD wallets, I finally found a backup CD. Ah good! We finally enjoyed a few matches. It was real fun. Lots of laughs, solid gameplay, multiplayer fun, funny comments and 100% enjoyability; everything that Mario Tennis offered. Awesome game. Vishal 2 wanted Populous: The Beginning badly so I torrented it and found it. 308 MB. Downloaded in about about one and a half hour. Wow. My net's speedy nowadays. We played some Smash Bros rounds while it downloaded. Vishal 2 played as Kirby while I played as Mario and then later, Link. Vishal 1 chose to watch. After the download completed, we gave Populous a try. Pretty cool game. At first I found the sounds and voices funny but its a pretty good game. Mission accomplished for Team Vishal. 8 PM. Planning to have more multiplayer fun and LAN gaming after my exams. After they left I had dinner. Aamti, rice, fried papad and batata bhaji with onions and garam masala. I was happy. I look forward to more multiplayer mayhem after my exams.

Childhood fantasies

2008-11-13T10:40:00.037+05:30

Nostalgia feels good. Takes you back to those innocent childhood days, where even the stupidest jokes seemed funny, where 'action' in your favorite shows did not necessarily mean 'killing'. Remember the old TV shows? Remember the cool action figures? Gone are those days but they will always hold a place in one's heart.

Childhood, puberty, adulthood...one's way of thinking and tastes change in time. Still, the classics remain classics and you could always go back to enjoying them. Makes you feel glad that you had enjoyed it back then.

Yes, I regret giving my toys away to the neighbour kid. That was considered a part of being 'grown up'. If it was not your decision, it would be your parents. True, if I still had my favorite action figures around, I certainly wouldn't play around with them, but instead, I'd probably stare at them, recall the fantasy stories that we used to come up with when we were kids and smile at the nostalgic goodness, no matter how embarassing it might be. I could have used them for stop motion animation too. Its actually similar to the childhood stories; the hero beats up the villain; even if he didn't do it in the cartoon (censorship issues), except that here it has more of a professional feel.

Last night I was browsing Wikipedia and checked out the classic He-man and the Masters of the Universe (MOTU) article. There was a picture of He-man sitting on Battlecat. Back then that was pure awesomeness! Remember the cool He-man comics that used to come free with your favorite character? You wouldn't throw the box away. You'd just stare at the cool artwork and drool over the 'Collect them all' range of characters shown on the backside that you didn't have and wanted to buy.

Back then the He-man line of action figures were being distributed in India by the collaboration of Leo toys and Mattel. So if you purchased your favorite He-man episodes on video cassette, you'd also get to see those cool He-man toy commercials (epic back then) as well Leo toy's cool range of indoor games. You can watch the cool toy commercials on Youtube. A friend and I were watching those the other day. It was just awesome.

Do you recall how awesome it felt when Prince Adam raised his sword and said "By the Power of Grayskull" and the music and the cool effects that followed? And when he went "I have the POWER!!" and turned Cringer into Battlecat?

Not just He-man but Gi-Joe, TMNT and others too. The cool accessories that you'd get and the vehicles that the hero would drive to stop the villains? Didn't that just make your day?

I sure wish they continued the new He-man animated series. It feels good when you get to see cool remakes of your favorite shows. The TMNT animated series follows the story of the comics, so I welcome it in my collection. However, you can't keep everyone happy. Case in point; Check youtube comments, forums or even ask your friends. You'd probably get to hear "The new show is not so good. The old show is the best" etc. Now don't get me wrong. I enjoyed the classic shows back then but I also enjoy watching the remade shows. Tastes and interests change and we move on. I do watch a couple of classic He-man or TMNT episodes from time to time, just for old time's sake. But...some of the shows feel kinda corny. Last night I was browsing youtube and I saw this video clip; "He-man vs Skeletor" from the episode the Arena. The video description said "The best action moment in the episode" or something like that. Curious, I got that video loaded. Now, I can't help but laugh at it. I don't know and I don't mean any offence, but since violence was restricted back then, I guess that was how it was. Not a single fist fight. All Skeletor did was use his magic and create some stuff that He-man just jumped out of the way to avoid. Now I know older people would consider this awesome or would complain about the level of violence in TV shows and games these days but that's how it is. We move on. I would watch the classic He-man shows just for old time's sakes and recall those days. But it just won't satisfy one's adrenaline rush. Know what I'm saying? That's why in terms of action I'd prefer the newer shows, but I'd also like to go and watch the classic shows. Think about it. Old may be gold, but "new can be silver". And silver is valuable too.

IAD '08

2008-11-05T10:41:00.000+05:30

OK this is like, my first time at blogspot. I never really bothered writing stuff on my life but now, I feel, why not? Oh well, better late than never...

This is gonna be a very long post.

I was checking my mail the other day and received an invitation to IAD '08 (International Animation Day 2008) which was on the 4th of November. I intended to preregister for the event. Last year was too tiring. So I got me and my buddy Kunal preregistered. I was looking forward to the event. I got us registered for the noon session. Evening would be too crowded and it would get late and would be double tiring. I remember last year having to stand in queue for like 2 hours! (3:00 PM to 5:00 PM) So better safe than sorry!

Yesterday (4th Nov), I played some Project Justice aka Rival Schools 2 before leaving. Awesome Dreamcast Fighting game that's got me hooked. Then I headed to the station to get my train pass renewed. The so called IAD ticket printouts were ready. Very small font and even the 'print ticket' option got printed? WTF. I was thinking of cutting the printout to make it look like a ticket! But screw that I decided to just tear it using my scale. Didn't tear well...wtf. Oh well...so I wrote the details on another piece of paper and kept my torn printout with me in any case. Kunal's printout was intact.

I was beginning to feel a bit down while I stood at the station waiting for the local to take me to Shivajinagar. I called up the Samsung center and my mobile is finally ready. I'll be collecting it soon. We were planning to take the kinetic to the mobile repair center and then head for IAD at Senapati Bapat Road, but Suparna had her classes. It can get annoying that she always uses the kinetic for college, classes; I mean, I rarely get to use it. And she doesn't even maintain it well. So we stuck to the previous plan; to meet up at Shivajinagar station. I smsed Kunal informing him that we'd meet up at Shivajinagar as planned, but he didn't get my sms, and was confused. The stupid local was late. I was beginning to feel sleepy as I sat in the local. Received an angry call from Kunal. Sigh...

So I got down at Shivajinagar. No sign of Kunal. Ah, there he was, on the other platform. I didn't feel like waving at him, so I just quietly walked across the bridge to the other platform. Kunal didn't seem as annoyed as I expected. Phew.

We couldn't find a bus and eventually took an auto to take us there. I handed over Kunal's ticket. He read the ticket instructions. Along with the ticket, some ID proof was needed. Gave him another reason to get angry with me lol. I always carry my ID card along so it didn't occur to me to tell him to bring his. Damn...

We got to the International Convention Center. We went in. The A.C felt good. Yeah it was pretty hot that afternoon. We waited for the elevator. It was crowded. We waited for it to come back. Going up , up, up.......coming down. Elevator doors opened. WTF? The same people again? The doors closed and the elevator headed up again. Ridiculous. We decided to take the stairs. Fifth floor. My legs were feeling heavy that day. We finally got there. I was worried that they might not let Kunal in because he had no ID proof. Fortunately, they didn't bother about asking for some ID. We just got our ticket numbers confirmed, and received some brochures from various animation institues. The DSK one was pretty cool. The campus looks awesome.

Last year, things were badly organised during IAD 07. Thankfully, we had preregistered for the afternoon session. Huh? The ones who hadn't registered were being let in first. WTF is going on? Took us about half an hour to wait until they let us in. Finally we were inside! Just like last year, nowhere to sit. No fucking chairs! We went inside the projector hall and sat there comfortably as we watched short films made my students, some game trailers, movie trailers, and Pixar short films. It was great. The projection was being showed via a MAC. I wish Yash was here. The mac reminded me of him. This was the best part of the event. Even Kunal enjoyed it. I'm glad he did. We were then told about a workshop on acting was about to start. Acting shmacting! We left the hall to take a break. A lady called us and asked me if I was interested in taking part in their competition. This was very interesting! We just had to draw a human with an animal showing friendship, and the winning entry would become the masot for IAD '09. Pretty cool. Took me a while to think about what to draw for my entry. Kunal suggested I draw a face with half man half leopard. I wasn't keen on drawing a leopard's face though. So it was decided to draw half man half ape. (Gorilla; ooga booga give me banana!) This part was awesomely fun. I was given pencils, an eraser and a sharpner, but no place to sit. My legs were paining but it was fun so I didn't mind. Kunal was getting impatient but I wanted to give it all I got. He helped me make improvements. Lost count of time as I got immersed in making it. Wish I had taken a picture of it. Oh well...I submitted it with my name, address and stuff. I was happy with my entry. Half negro, half ape man. It was cool and fun. After that,we checked out some other stuff. There was this guy working on a cyborg ape with his tablet in Photoshop. It was pretty badass. The gaming section sucked this time. No Xbox360, no PS3, and certainly no Wii [:(]..but two stupid Bollywood rip offs to Dance Dance Revolution. Graphics were good though. Kunal was interested in trying it out, but I was like "screw that dude, my legs are already killing me!" Then there was the stop motion section. It was interesting but like I said, tired to try stuff out. I checked out some books in the books section. They were gems, but not in my budget. Time was running out. We decided to leave.

We checked out Crosswords which was in the same building. Boy, the Crosswords here rocked. Ah, there was place to sit! The collection here was amazing. I was planning to get Batman Bane of the Demon and Spider-man Wolverine specials, but I decided to go only for the latter. I also got six Archie issues for just Rs 99/- for my sister. I checked out some other stuff. Manga Shakespeare? Oh wow. That was tempting. There was also Bone! The 2nd coloured volume of Bone. Lots of cool stuff. I'd like to visit Senapati Bapat Road's Crosswords again sometime. :)

It was nearly 5 PM. I hadn't had lunch so my stomach had begun sending me notifications. We took an auto to Shivajinagar stn. I ate some Kacchi Dabheli. Ah, happiness is made by the stomach. So true so true! Kunal had some 'famous Bhel' there. I had no idea about it until he told me. It was very tasty. Then we waited for the local. I was getting thirsty so I had some Frooti (feels like a waste now!). We talked stuff till the local arrived. We then said our goodbyes and took the local home. A very tiring but undoubtedly great day!