Friday, November 26, 2004

Watched the movie "The Incredibles"

This movie was indeed incredible..The movie introduces to a incredible family...worth payin the buck!! Pixar animations always end up producing a movie that makes your jaws drop all the time..No wonder it made 51 million dollars the first week it got released...not to mention that Halo 2 made 125 million (close) on the first day !!! Incredible isnt it ??

Thanksgiving Shopping - Window shopping

Dudessssssssss...my thanksgiving shopping spree this year became a window shopping event...Past one year, i had bought so much electronic gadgets that I was left with nothing to buy. I left Fry's empty handed :)) LOL..I am working on getting together all my gadgets and clickin a photograph of all of them together ....

Thursday, November 25, 2004

Dallas Morning News

Its Thanksgiving Holidays ..and people are in the mood to feast and shop and save for gifts for Xmas...Usually all stores are closed on the day of the Thanksgiving (usually 25th Nov) and all stores will have tonnes of specials for the next day (26th). Stores will open by 6 am in the morning and the specials will last for 5-6 hours..You get to know what specials are available only through newspapers in your local area on the 25th.

I woke up at 11.30 this morning and was frantic to get ready to go out and check out Dallas Morning Newspaper (costs 0.50 cents). I had noticed that my apartment complex has 3 boxes which has atleast 10-15 newspapers on each box every day. I was running to get the papers, but was disappointed to see all the papers were gone....i guess i was snoring too late in the morning..

I had to drive 3 miles to finally get hold of a copy of Dallas morning news...At 10.00 pm tonight after coming back from a Thanksgiving feast at my colleagues house, me and Vani are busy isolating which stores to hunt at 6.am in the morning..I hope tomorrow morning wont be a cold day like yesterday!!! I guess I will be able to make good use of my new leather jacket I bought from Wilson's...

Happy shopping guys!!! (oh yes...ladies tooo)

Thanksgiving Feast

I was glad when I got the invitation for Thanksgiving dinner from Tim (my colleague) and Susan (Tim's wife's aunt). Both of them work with me at my office. This will be my first thanksgiving dinner with an American family. The feast was great. 3 big old turkeys, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pies, pecan pies, banana puddings, lots of 'Spirits' - to tell you the truth, I was totally full and unable to move myself...This dinner will one that I will always remember!! Thanks Tim, Jessica (his wife) and Susan for inviting us for the dinner!!

Wednesday, November 24, 2004

Wednesday - Nappy time

I hate Wednesdays too, because I have to wake up at 5.30 am in the morning to get ready to attend a 7.00 am weekly meeting at office. My Boss got ill starting this week with Flu and he has been out of office. He mailed us at 6.58 am this morning, saying that there will be no meeting today. I could have slept at home for another 2 hours, rather than snoring at the office!!

Tuesday, November 23, 2004

Move against Intel

I have officially started my war against Intel...Finally I decided to trash my P4 motherboard and processor. Today, I bought my first AMD Athlon 64 processor. I also bought an expensive Gigabyte motherboard ...costed me an extra 150 dollars compared to my last investment on a motherboard. .Intel Sucks!!!...AMD Rocks!!! I am gonna build this new PC tomorrow!!

Monday, November 22, 2004

What a waste of a Monday

I usually hate Mondays..coz I hate to wake up early mornin to go to office after a nice weekend...But today was a day when I didnt have much to do at the office!! Lazing around, having to do nothing, no projects on my head..having fun browsing websites and of course blogging some blogs....Did a bit of shopping for groceries in the evening...and ya of course did see a Mallu movie "Nadodikaatu" - I bought a bunch of Lal movies from Beema Palli when I was in India - July 2004.

Not but least..had a small word of disagreement with Wifee...so she has now sealed her mouth with duct tape...i am glad i dont have to sleep in the sofa...

My benchmates 26th birthday

Nov 21st was my benchmates 26th birthday (oops..i dont want her to know that she is getting old)...Benchmate..hmm...what are you talkin about..?? Coz she keeps telling me that she used to sit with me in the same bench in 1st grade...wow that was a long time ago...in 1984 ???
I sent her a birthday card at 11.53 pm CST on Nov 20th and I also noticed that she saw it at 11.55 pm CST on the same day...I realised that she might be eagerly checking all her birthday cards...but the next day she told me that mine was the first card she received...am I glad...?? She insists that her name be kept under the table..

Sunday, November 21, 2004

Two Movies this weekend

Cant believe we saw two movies this weekend and both of them were fun to watch and worth the money we paid...After the Sunset - excellent performance from Pierce Brosnan and Salma Hayek..and National Treasure - Nicholas Cage - I am a great fan of his...its been a long time I havent seen him in any movies..(except for Face Off, Conair - that I never stop watchin)..

I would recommend to efinitely watch these 2 movies - worth the buck!!

Saturday, November 20, 2004

Built a new PC

Caution: You dont need to read this post if you are not a techie !!
Half-Life 2 was out Nov 16. I still have not started playin HL2 "properly" - thats a whole another story. I will pen that down later sometime. Here is some interesting events that happened today.

My old pc's motherboard had konked off a month ago..one of the capacitors blew out...I was stuck without a bad*** PC to finish Doom 3. After HL2 released I started playin it via Steam (www.steampowered.com) ....(hehe..I got a free copy of the game, because last year I bought anATI display card and they bestowed me with the boon to play HL2 when it gets released..)

I started playin half-life2 on this crap laptop that i use atwork...which crashes every time a new level loads..i finally got fedup of it..and wanted to do somethin real quick to fix my pc. I knew I could probably buy a new MB and swap the old MB on my broken PC. That was my plan. I also knew that I would have to get new RAM, as my old PC had RDRAM andRD's are so expensive...I went to a local Fry's electronics and checked out the motherboards. Asus MB's were like 120 + dollars ...i did not want to spend that muchon it...so I thought..let me test a cheap motherboard and got one for49 bucks...i know these might not run for long..but i guess its goodfor the time being..i will sell this on ebay some time later...the MB had 800 Mhz FSB, 2 DDR memory slots (this is the downside,memory can be upgraded only to 2Gig..(but whats the point in having 4gigs of memory?) It has 2 SATA with RAID built in, AGP 8x slot, can support Processorsupto 4Ghz + and also supports HT technology. I also bought 2 DDR2 (theduals which runs at twice the speed - if you get a 400 Mhz DDR2memory, it will essentially run at 800 Mhz). I went back home and tookmy P4 processor out of my old PC...and found out that P4 was a 1.7Ghzbut will not fit a socket 478..It only fits in a Socket 423 MB.Shucksssss...........Ran back to the shop again..while the rain is pouring cats andcats..now I had to buy a processor..otherwise there is no gooduse...a new processor means...need addons like a CPU cooler +heatsink..Now what good use is it to keep a brand new motherboard,processor, memory in the OPEN...(without a case, unlike my oldPC)...So I went ahead and bought a ATX case also...Thank god I could shell out my 250 GB hdd, dvd rw drives, sound cards,ATI display cards out of my old PC..In effect this is what I spent yesterday night..

a. PC Chips MB - 49 dollars
b. P4 3.0Ghz with HT - 179 dollarsc. 1 GB PC 3200 DDR2 memory - 159 dollars (with 30 dollars
c. 1 GB PC 3200 DDR2 memory - 159 dollars (with 30 dollars mail in rebate)
d. Vantec Aerocool CPU Cooler with fan - 25 dollars
e. Thermal compound - 3 dollars
f. ATX Case with two extra fans - 79 dollars



Took two hours to assemble the entire thing..HT technology is\great..it fools the PC to think there are dual processors in the\system. Windows XP thinks that there are two...I tried overclocking\the processor today and saw that I could go upto 3.3 Ghz (Infact if I\use a FSB of 232 with a multiplier of 15 i can go upto 3.5 ghz - but\my PC was not booting with that speed)...I ran a 3DMarks benchmark\(remember i used 2001SE, havent used 2005 version yet)..and got a\score of 6503..not too bad..thought some overclocked AMD machines have\gone till 16000+ in score... I am trying to overclock the display card\and see what happens next...

Pretty interesting Day!!!!!! Spent Close to 500 dollars...All that for just playing Half-Life 2 ??

Tuesday, November 16, 2004

Half-Life 2 releases today

Much awaited sequel to the GOTY Half-Life finally is hitting the shelves on Nov 16, 2004. I got a free copy of the game, coz I bought ATI's display card in Nov 2003 and the game came free with it...Have been waiting for this game for almost a year since Valve's network was hacked and the source code was stolen.

Some goodies about this game,

a. Valve software has done a splendid job as far as building emotions in the face of characters in the game. No two characters in the game are the same. And with Valve's proprietary Source (TM) engine every characters face has about 40 muscle movements which help bring most of the human emotions to the face.

b. Physics - Every single object that you see inside the game follows the laws of Physics - Gravity, Mass, Bouyancy..

c. Audio - Every object makes a distinct noise when you hit it...Firing a bullet at wood is the best sound so far I like in the game..

d. Story line and Gameplay - 10 out of 10..

Just go get this game ....

Monday, November 15, 2004

Finished playin Halo 2

Finally I finished playing Halo 2 on Nov 16. The same day Half-Life 2 is releasing. What a timing.
Took me 7 days to finish it considering 2-3 hours put into it every day. I started the game in Legendary mode and they whipped my a** like anythin..So I had to finish it in normal first. Halo 2 legendary mode is way 2 hard unlike Halo 1 legendary mode.

PS: Am I not talkin too much about Halo 2 and Half-Life 2 ?? If you do not know what these are check out (www.halo2.com and www.half-life2.com)

3k miles on my Z

Nov 15 cast the first servicing date for my 350 z. 3k miles on it, after my trip to Austin which added about 500 miles to the Odo. Bankston Nissan did an excellent job in servicing my car. Recommend trying Bankston if you own a Nissan..

Friday, November 12, 2004

Yanni show tickets

Just bought 2 tickets (for me and Vani - ofcourse) for Yanni's concert in Dallas. Cost me 200 bucks!!! Freak...

Want to see Cirque De Soleil some time in November or December...Do you enjoy seeing circus ??

Tuesday, November 09, 2004

Halo 2 releases today

The much anticipated Halo 2 releases Nov 9th. 7000 stores across the US will be opening their stores till 3.00 am in morning selling Halo 2. I preordered the game from a local GameStop and will be going to get this game tonight. Two of my other friends are also getting the same game tonite...Cant wait to get it in my hands...

Monday, November 01, 2004

Haloween Frenzy

This turned out to be one of the best haloween parties (I aint braggin)...2 days worth of hard work and about 500 bucks spend out of my pocket to arrange my small mansion look spooky...The mansion was filled with cobwebs, spiders, fog effects, scary surprises, spooky haunted music...The party lasted for 6 hours. We played a few haloween games, until all the zombies started bored of it..and then all Z's decided to watch a scary movie ...and we saw Evil Dead...the original 1980s version...bah...it sucked...

Midnight - all the Zombies were in mood to play Halo tournament on a big screen projector and we played till 5.00 am in the morning fraggin each other...What a Midnight madness!!!! Btw I am the dracula in the pic below: