XBox 360 "Elite"

6 days ago...

After 2 weeks of consistent pestering, I have finally managed to convice amma to buy us an XBox 360 Elite. It took me more than a week to crawl through the Internet to find the cheapest deals, finally landing on a decent deal in Sams Club (A wholesale store). I am not able to control the excitement, and I might not even sleep tonight! Rock on GTA IV tomorrow!

5 days ago...

Woke up late (Having not slept at all the previous day) at around 10 A.M. We had to wait for nana's friend because Sams Club required a membership and we did not have one. So I had to wait for 8 more hours and then, I FINALLY GOT MY XBOX! However, I could not find the GTA combo deal (Game+OST CD+Photo Album+Metal Deposit Box+T-Shirt with GTA IV print on the front side) in any of the stores that day. And the games that I got with the XBox combo, namely Forza 2 and Marvel Ultimate Alliance were obviously going to suck (The main reason for bundling such games with consoles). I did not want to play Halo 3 having not completed Halo and not started Halo 2. Next on my list was Gears of War. I could not play it on my laptop because of lack of a solid graphics card and this game was pretty much available in all stores. So GoW for the next couple of days!

STRIP TEASE, g33k style, LOL...

STEP 1:



STEP 2:

STEP 3:

STEP 4:

STEP :5

STEP 6: Put my pinkie in my mouth and laugh at all my friends :D (Like Dr. Evil, for the ignorant ones)

Is it not simply beautiful! I had to buy the "Elite" version for the sexy black colour(100 GB more than the regular Pro model @ 1 GB costing $1 and a HD cable). The entire setup took about 30 minutes. Well who would want to hurt that baby?

The wireless controllers are terrific. Excellent battery life and range. It took me about 10 minutes to get used to the FPS shooter mode in GoW. Luckily GoW is not heavily dependant on "mouse", if you know what I mean. It is not as rigid as PoP III either.

Well I have started playing GoW. So far, it has been excellent. Awesome graphics, gameplay and the usual story. The notable feature in this game is the "taking cover" option given for a player under fire or in other situations like reconnaissance which is usually what the military/S.W.A.T teams rely on (As we see in Hollywood movies). There is heavy use of this option in the game. There is absolutely no jumping, except for over small blockades using the "taking" cover combo moves. Surprisingly, there is no recoil in the weapons. But then again, take a look at the suits those guys are wearing, nothing short of those things we saw in Matrix:Revolutions. I hope to finish the game soon!

4 days ago...

Completed 3/5 Acts in the game. Pretty short with the less than average looking villains. Some of the weapons are awesome though. The characters in Doom III were COOL.

3 days ago...

Woohooooooo! Just got my copy of the GTA with the bundle (minus the T-Shirt :(()! Now I HAVE to complete GoW ASAP.

2 days ago...

Complete GoW yesterday night. The ending was cool. However, the game was a short one. Not really worth $60.

And OMFG, GTA GTA GTA GTA is freaking AWESOME. Starting with the titles itself (Heroes style for every episode), the game looks so sexy! The city is HUGE, with a subway now! I am yet to try "driving" a subway, LOL. The bikes are easier to manuever. Dating, strip clubs, etc. added. And the game is not like GTA San Andreas which felt more like an RPG with all the minute details like working out after having eaten a slice of pizza and maybe gettting a haircut, etc. The sex (Staight, till now atleast. I am yet to play as a gay partner for a mission) part felt stupid because the controller would just vibrate for like 10 seconds with the girl screaming out my name (Well I am the hero right?). WTF is up with that? The plot has become a real twister. I cannot wait to see the end!

Yesterday...

25% of the game completed. Already 1/5th of the town is against me. The Russian mafia is behind me, lol. The plot is dark, funny with loads of sarcasm and lots of Shits, Fucks and other combinations that follow. The common bugs are still there, like the person you are supposed to take with you (Like your girlfriend on a date) stops following you after getting stuck (Like in a gutter, and yes - I did take her out for a walk in the gutter - dumb computer program did not know that :D) and some fences simply DO NOT fall down not matter how much you try ramming into them with a bus :P.

Today...

I have only 6 hours left to play the game because tomorrow, the packing starts :((. I will not be able to play it for another 2-3 months. CRAP! Some of the missions are hard, and I hate finishing a game using cheat codes. And I have to go now because as they say, "Make hay while the sun shines."

A Visit to an iStore

Few months back, the plastic covering over the AC charger that came with Revanth's MacBook melted (I believe the reason was overheating) and the wires inside went FUBAR. I felt sad (for him) every time I watched him set up a fragile arrangement by tweaking those tiny wires till the green light came on, only to be accidently disturbed by some random guy passing by, lost in his own thoughts. The incident made me lower my respect for Apple (Not that it was high before), because Apple, with such innovations, failed to see such a simple point!

A few weeks ago, Apple announced the opening of its largest iStore in USA, in New York City. I then checked if there was an iStore close to my place. And of course, I found one in Northpark Center Mall in Downtown Dallas, the largest and poshest mall I have been to till date.

So Revanth asked me to get a new charger for him ($85!). When I went online to place an order, I could not help but notice that not even a single comment/review under the product description was positive. The product itself was rated 1.5/5 stars. I thought Revanth's case was an extreme one, probably one in a ten thousand. However, the probability now seemed to be even more and guess what? Most of the customers complained about the meltdown.

Well this was my chance. A 30 minute drive and viola!

The tiny store stood out among all the shops in the mall, just like its products - simple, white, clean, angelic. There was so much of white in the store that it really made me sick. There were more sales executives than customers (Mind you, this is Downtown Dallas and is packed with high class customers). OK! So Apple is always prepared, nice. There were two arrays of tables with the latest products on display, including the MacBook Air and iPhone (Which by the way is out of stock) of course. WHITE and BORING! I went to a guy and asked for the charger, because I wanted to get to get out of that place ASAP (I guess I will be going to hell, I cannot take all the white in heaven, lol). He called up some other guy and asked me to wait for a couple of minutes. Now what was I supposed to do for those couple of minutes? Why not check out the iPhone? I touched the screen to open the browser and oops! My fingerprints were on the screen, and I noticed all those smudges made by customers before me. It really spoiled the look of the screen. I then remembered an argument Kirthi and I had about the iPhone's screen (I believe this was before the meltdown incident). Kirthi kept telling me that Mr. Jobs would have obviously considered the smudges issue and must have developed some way to counter it. And in fact he did, I saw some sales representatives occasionally cleaning the screens using some cloth.

And I think I pissed off one of the guys because the first and only thing I did on the iPhone and MacBook Air was browse through http://www.microsoft.com/ while he was looking. ROFL!

All in all, it was a very enjoyable trip to the mall. I ate an original SUBWAY sandwich (The details of which shall be posted later!), listened to a live musical performance, by an orchestra, of the latest Indiana Jones movie and had a good long walk in the mall, not the mention the visit to iStore!

Long Weekend - Day Three - Photos

1)

Star of the show "Believe", in fact "Shamu" is the star of the park!

2)

3)

4)

5)

Dancing in circles...

6)

"One way or another, I'm gonna find ya'

I'm gonna get ya', get ya', get ya', get ya' "

7)

A couple of detectives trying to solve a case on missing fish.

8)

A water-ski show, pretty good.

9)

Feeding time for sea lions.

10)

That fin reminds one of "Free Willy".

11)

:), no words to describe it!

12)

Feeding time for dolphins.

13)

"Viva!"

14)

Stars of the show "Viva!".

15)

Dolphins, Beluga whales, Syncronized swimming == "Viva!"

Amazing stunts they were...

Long Weekend - Day Three

After a good day at NASA, we left for San Antonio, to visit Sea World. Sea World is AWESOME. Just looking at those beautiful animals makes one go wild. All the shows arefantastic, starring different sea animals very well trained by their trainers. They also have a 4D theatre, showing some kid-pirate movie starring Leslie Nielsen (No wonder the movie rocked!).

The best moment of the day was me touching a dolphin. Well I got to touch its tail only, but so what! The major roller coaster ride, "Steel Eel", was closed due to some technical problems, so that was a bummer. The rest of the rides had a waiting time for atleast 2 hours, so lite.

The River Walk in San Antonio Downtown is quite famous. We found out why the moment we reached the place. It was magnificient, astounding. Think of Mall Road in Simla, except for a water channel instead of tar and countless restaurants, hawkers and a pavement on both sides of the channel along a stretch of 1500m. There are small boats which server dinner and a short trip for about $35 per person, which is good enough. I still kick myself (Yes, you can really do that) for not bringing the camera with me. Riverside dining with ducks floating close by for morsels, it was quite an experience.

Long Weekend - Day Two - Photos

1)

A beautiful morning to start the tram tour

2)

Apparently, even the "President of the United States of America" cannot override the "Flight Director" during a mission. Cool!

3)

Old Mission Control Center, monitoring ISS 24/7.

The plaques on the left wall are from successful missions, and the ones on the right wall near the door are from failed and yet-to-be-launched ones.

The three projections show, from left to right - some technical details of ISS - orbit and current position of ISS (Over the International Date Line at the time of our visit) - live video feed from ISS.

We got to watch the sunrise over the Pacific - big deal, the astronauts get to watch it 16 times in a day =))

4)

A replica of ISS in Building 9, training ground for astronauts.

5)

A replica of the Canadian Arm, used to perform heavy duty work in space aboard ISS.

6)

Wierd treadmill setup for the astronauts to get used to walking in zero gravity.

7)

Mars rover, and apparently that really is Au all over it.

8)

F1 engines (Primary Stage) of Saturn V rocket

9)

Another view of the same engine.

10)

Ashamed of myself, to be not able to cover it in one shot.

11)

Just cannot get enough of it!

12)

OK, one last time.

13)

A J-2 Engine (Second Stage)

14)

Just look at those horns! The cattle raised here are part of some project by students majoring in Animal Husbandry.

15)

Back to engines! I am not sure where this goes though.

16)

Complete model of the ISS

17)

Some Space Science Competition Award, looks pretty cool.

18)

More engines! This time it is a space shutte's engine.

19)

Some stuff designed for astronauts in space which reminds me of that joke where Americans designed a hi-tech anti-gravity pen - Russians used a pencil. ROFL!

20)

Replica of the camera used on the "Moon"

The End.

Long Weekend - Day Two

After a very tiring journey the day before, coupled with the awesome adventure at Moody Gardens and _cold_ breakfast (which also was _awesome_) in the morning, we started out to Houston. Nana and I in particular, were very keen on reaching this place as quickly as possible. It must be a guy thing, we are all gadget freaks right? Kirthi told me about his experience in NASA and we did some amount of research about the places we were to visit so as to "save" time.

The trip to NASA turned out to be neat. We were among the first ones to reach the place. We on the tram tour which took us around the Johnson Space Center. Mission Control Center, Building 9 - where the astronauts train, and Saturn V rocket display were the waypoints.

After that, we watched a couple of movies featuring "man landing on moon" and "America the Great" ("" for the obvious reasons ;)). The movies were good. There is a space gallery where some artifacts used by the "astronauts who landed on the moon" are displayed. Some "moon rocks" are on display too, with one in an open case for people to touch. I saw so many people going "Ooooh" and "Aaaah" when they touched it. I mean really! Come on! It reminded me of an episode from the TV Show Monk (an awesome detective series I got hooked on to here, thanks to amma) in which a thief steals the moon rock and replaces it with a replica. And guess what, nobody realizes it, lol! I agree that such a feat is quite not possible but it does make one think!

This place is a good place for kids, because they have lots of stuff to play with. A few space shuttle landing and docking at ISS simulators for everyone to try. Kirthi told me that he crashed his shuttle during landing. I played around with mine, tried to do a 360 degree turn and flip - stupid programmers did not let me. Instead some stupid voice kept telling me, "WARNING! You are approaching landing strip. Please align the circle on the square" or some crap like that. I finally landed it perfectly, poor Kirthi - it really is a piece of cake!

Having covered almost everything, we left NASA and started towards San Antonio, the home of Spurs! Pictures, good ones as always, coming in the next post...

Long Weekend - Day One - Photos

1)

See what I meant by "pyramids"? What would one expect?

2)

Inside the "Rain Forest Pyramid"

3)

OK. The reason I rarely, in fact never, appear in the photographs is because I cannot trust others to take reasonably good ones.

3)

A ray waiting for its prey

4)

Artificial Coral Reef

5)

I expected the whole pyramid to be constructed in this manner. This tunnel is just 5m long!

6)

Oooooh, Green Anaconda!

7)

I deserve a 10/10 for this!

8)

From the hotel room

9)

These sea gulls made my day

10)

Plenty of life in the rain forest

11)

Spent a lot of time watching these birds in action because we were too tired to visit the beach. Do we not have RK beach for that matter? LOL