New nano and skins

So i finally bought myself into the overhyped, expensive, and restricted world of apple ipods, because i couldn’t resist the new nano anymore. It was a 4gb version which is being sold in several regions, and there was a small colour mix up and now im stuck with a colour which i never wanted. Since i can’t exchange it (don’t ask why, i won’t tell you.. but there is a pretty good reason).

As for the ipod nano itself, i think it looks pretty cool and comfy to hold and carry, although it does feel a little too fragile to me. The screen is the best part of the this nano. I’m  glad they went back to the old designs after the brief affair with the squarish shape which in my opinion was ugly. Also this generation has this pretty fun accelerometer(sp?) where, the ipod automatically switches over to the cover flow mode when you tilt it and changes songs when you shake it (although you kinda need to shake it pretty quickly or pretty hard for it to actually change the song, and i’m afraid that it would go flying out of my hand like what happened to a wiimote i was using at a display machine once)

Like every other ipod user, i have to agree that itunes is the weakest part of the package. I hate the song management process and the dreadful sync function. I had previous experiences with my friends ipods, where all the data was erased when they plugged into my pc, and therefore im still nervous about trying to connect it to my other notebook. So i’ve been trying out some alternatives like Yamipod and songbird, and i like songbird very much so far.

Also whats with my touchwheel. Its too fricking sensitive when i use it to navigate the menus, BUT when i need to increase the volume of a song, it refuses to even budge.. fuck that. The other thing i’m confused about is the fact that, i cant actually turn off the ipod, i can only put it to sleep. Its like, the ipod refuses to let me save its battery which i paid for.

Well other than that i have no more complaints about the player other than its god damned colour mixup.. i wanted the black one so badly. So to remedy the situation i searched for some ipod skins and i came across a site called UniqueSkins and i ordered two skins off it. One skin is made out of a wallpaper i was using which had a planet exploding and the other one had the Joker on the back saying “Why SO Serious ? “. The skins shipped out today and i also added a psp digital camo skin to it too. I’m excited about them.

Also we are having our holidays now and went to play paintball yesterday. So my arms and legs are still sore but HELL, IT WAS Worth any pain that comes afterwards. I wish i could do that everyday. Also i know, paintball has no right to be compared with real military action, but man, if playing paintball for an hour doesn’t make you really appreciate what our soldier bros are doing in Wanni, I don’t know what would. Thank you guys for enduring all that for our country !

Peace ? What the Hell is that ?

Do you know how it feels like to never know peace in one’s own country ? It feels fucking horrible and I’m living in Colombo, think of all the guys and girls in Northern and Eastern parts of the country, where the bloody fascist bastards (LTTE) are terrorizing the populace.

I’ve never lived in a period of peace in my own homeland. That means for the last 17 years (excluding the 2 years I was out of SL) of my life, I’ve never seen a time where one could just drive 300km up north and come back in one piece. I’ve never seen a country where a suicide bomber doesnt decide to blow him/herself up atleast once a month or so. I’ve never lived in a country where bomb blasts and massacres of children/women/clergy aren’t done regulary by a brutal terrorist organization, masquerading as liberators. I’ve never been able to tell anyone from a foreign country that I’m a Sri Lankan without them telling me that ‘Isn’t there like a war there ?’

Like I’ve said before, this is coming from someone living in Colombo. 100s of KM away from the acutal warzones. So just imagine how miserable one living in the warzones must feel.

The scariest thing is that I can’t imagine a time, when bomb blasts wouldn’t be a normal day to day occurance and when our countrymen die we actually would feel ’sad’.
And now that the army is finally closing on the terrorists, the bloody tamilnadu polticos decided that they would lose their livelihoods and votes if this war concludes and now are resigining their posts to protest the erradication of terrorism. I wish they would just fucking die….. Death of a few bastards to save many is not a crime…

Dark Knight

Why So Serious ?

My words cannot describe how awesome The Dark Knight was, but I’ll damn sure try.

It was the best film I’ve seen this year period. Nothing can come close to it this year, and its up there in my top films and will be there for a long long long time. The only thing that was bad about this movie was that having to acknowledge the fact that Heath Ledger was one of the best damn villians ever to grace the screen and he is dead. Needless to say, he was the main point of attraction in every scene he appeared in and even Bale’s performance looked pale compared to his.

Also Nolan’s Batman series have become a haven for the film fans who hates the bright cheery, and ‘romantic’ story lines of the other superhero movies. This is dark as… a really dark night.. without lights…… and monsters. Another great thing about this movie was that it didn’t have those sudden BANG BANG CRASH BOOOM KISS KISS ending that many movies seem to have these days. I felt that the ending was well fleshed out and I cant wait for the next installment of this great series. I just wish Joker could return…. why do great actors die and crapfests get to make tons and tons of green ?

Religion

Why the hell does people believe in an imaginary dude called god ? Is it because they feel so insecure and helpless in this world, that they want to believe that some guy has a grand plan and they are a part of it ? is it because they can not understand why they are here and wants to believe that some guy decided to put them here ? is it because they fear this imaginary dude so much that it warrants belief ?

As for me I cant believe people still think that some guy called god exists.. the very idea of god is hilarious and primitive to me. Now, of course no one ever proved that Zeus or Athena doesn’t exists, but I don’t see anyone worshiping them.. It’s just that a more ‘powerful god’ entered the picture and pushed them out. They are all the same if you take all their characteristics together and compare them, its just that people forgot the earlier gods and adopted a new single god. Like a corporate merger i guess.

Ok, i could atleast understand why people who lived in a world that was riddled with myths and legends believed in god, but these days it seems totally unacceptable considering the fact that we know almost every nook and cranny of the world (except the sea maybe), our solar system and to a certain extent the galaxy.

Anyway I was hoping to type some more, but our Susanthika ran in the 200m Heats (she was second, looked like the first three were running a marathon).

Hooray! Hooray! It’s A Holi-Holiday !

We finally got our long overdue school holidays and I’m suprisingly really bored and much less happier than I expected. Also we got the results of the exams and well… it didn’t do anything to elevate the mood, it actually did the opposite. Anyway, hopefully the plans for the paintball game and movies will work out and then I will have something to look forward to during these holidays.

Other than that I’ve watched Hellboy 2 and it sucks very much just like the first one. Also, Hancock sucks Han’s COCK ! Oh and There Will Be Blood is too awesome to describe. I haven’t seen acting like that in months.

Let me recap the movies I’ve watched recently for the benefit of myself -

Hancock – DO NOT WATCH AGAIN !

Hellboy II – WHAT THE HELL were they THINKING ?

There Will Be Blood – Too great to be described with my limited vocabulary.

Rocky Horror Picture Show – WTF ! But still great !

Persepolis – A fun ride.

Wanted – Seriously, how idiotic can hollywood get ?

Oldboy – A really fucked up film, in a very very good way. You will not believe the ending !

Anyway I think that sums up the movies I’ve watched for the last 3 weeks

PSP Fixed

Yay ! I finally got my PSP fixed.. The fucking shoulder button that was forever stuck in the pressed position was fixed thanks to my new screwdriver I got off ebay for 6 dollars…. It was a real pain in the ass finding that screwdriver (phillips #1). I went through every god damn hardware shop and every shop that sold PSPs in Colombo looking for that bastard and eBay was what came to my rescue.

The PSP was out of action for nearly a year due to this problem and it was another pain in the ass coming upto date with the PSP homebrew scene which had seemingly gone tits up since I’ve stopped paying attention to it about a year ago. Now there is this thing called custom firmwares instead of the old fimware emulation I’ve gotten used to (Devhook..). Also it seems that the much revered original firmware 1.50 was now a minor convenience in installing custom firmwares. Although it confused my tiny little brain into shutting it self down for few minutes, I finally managed to muddle through all the interesting crap that plagued all the forums and sites and get to the important bits. Now I have CFW 4.01 M33 installed in my PSP and i can play dled games (since buying originals is really out of the question here…).

So now I’m currently playing Crisis Core : Final Fantasy VII

Crisis Core Final Fantasy

Although I’m only about 1 hour and 45 mins into the game, I can’t possibly give a decent review of it (even if I played it fully, my review would only consist of either ‘This is a fucking great game !’ or ‘Fuck FUCK FUCK.. WHAT THE HELL ! WHY THE HELL DID I PLAY THIS CRAP !’. This would explain why I never became a game reviewer !? ) but I’ve found it to be pretty fun and engaging… Also, I have God of war chains of olympus in another memory card, but I haven’t played it yet.

In other news, Imesh, a guy I’ve known since grade 4 is leaving for fucking US on Saturday. He is going to enter Montgomery College in Conroe Texas.. So if by anychance a fellow student from that college happen to stumble upon this post, and also manage to find that guy (he is Sri Lankan, and is named Imesh Dias) please say “Whooo ! I know more people here that you do !’ to him for me.. please

Also in other news, we are getting holidays from 26th July to 5th August due to the SAARC summit. The stupid fuckass Indians are going to ruin my fucking school holidays now ! They are going to extend the school days into our August holidays to make up for that lost time… all because some idiot PM feels that Pakistanis and the LTTE are out to kill him…

My New Music Player

First of all sorry for my bad grammar. I’m too pissed off to care

I’ve owned only 2 mp3 players in my whole life and the combined storage capacity of those did not exceed  10% of the size of my music collection at any given time which is rather scary and sad at the same time Anyway since my 1st mp3 player which was a cheap Chinese player with 256mb (Yes ! 256mb you read it correct !) was not even remotely enough to contain enough music to entertain me in long trips, i finally managed to get me self a new player.

The old one. Notice how the screen is smashed in…

So I finally found a very cheap 2Gb ipod shuffle/nano knockoff for 1000 Rs. and bought it. I thought then that I could finally get a decent amount of songs that could last for awhile into this player. But then again, everything I think could happen never happens in that way and this was not an exception.

The New player.. Notice the ‘craftsmanship’.

See the 2gb label.

Today i tried to copy 1.45 gbs of songs into it. It copied perfectly until it hit the 1gb mark. From that point onwards any file copied into it wouldn’t play properly eventhough it showed in the computer that it had copied. Now after several fustrating minutes of research i found out that these fucking manufactureres use something called a memory hack to trick the computer into showing that the player had more memory than what is actually there. So actually in this 2gb player there was only 1gb available. It seems that this is a widespread problem and also a widespread practice (obviously).

So guys, when you are buying cheap knockoff music players beware. And here is a useful link if you too were duped.

http://www.mympxplayer.org/how-to-removing-memory-hack-vt2400.html

Holy SHIT !

Gears of War fucking rocks ! I just finished the god damn game and it blew me away like a ant on a fan. It was too fucking intense at times, which actually was a good thing. Also the amazing spectacular graphics to go with this great gameplay, an action movie style story along with some really cool camera work (in game and cut scenes) made this game one of the best I’ve ever played ! It even ran like a dream on my machine which was rather surprising since most people online were dissing on it for poor performance issues.

Only Gears of War screen I have.. It was on a moving train, in the last act.

Even though it was that awesome, there were still some annoying issues which …annoyed me but didn’t stop me from enjoying the game. First of all, my AI teammates were like thorns in my butt. They kept getting stuck around or trying to chainsaw every god damn enemy they see and get their asses handed back to them. So it was upto me to fight against overwhelming odds AND also running around helping those stupid AI Bots up, so they can atleast provide me some relief. Also, there were some annoying cliches used, such as blocking the most obvious and easy route, telling me that something I just did after several hours of trying did not work and I have to do the same fucking thing all over again at a different place.

Anyway, this was a great fucking game and I would recommend it to anyone with a pc that can handle it.

Crazy Shit- Hens, Notebooks and Cashiers

There is this fucking annoying hen at my neighbour’s house who incidentally also has several pigeons, some fucking annoying puppies and TURKEYS ! Even though I love dogs, I’ve grown to hate those fucking fucked up puppies. They don’t seem to have anything better to do that squeal with terror throughout the whole fucking day ! For fucks sake, we have one grown up dog and a puppy and I don’t see them running around squealing and whining like lunatic bastards.  See, even right now they are fucking screaming for no apparent reason. Also, there is this bitch hen who starts to scream her fucking guts out exactly at 10 am and doesn’t stop till noon. You really have to hear this noise to know what kind of a hell I’m going through here. I swear that if this continues, one day I’ll go fucking postal and kill all these fucking annoying bastards, and their cousins.

Also, there is this notebook I’m expecting and well, lets just say that this Notebook took more time to arrive from Kollupitiya to Dehiwala than what it took for a Game DVD to arrive all the way from Hong Kong. This goes to show how that fucking company sucks fucking goat balls.

And today I went in to this pharmacy to buy some medicinal cream and a hair cream. It took just 2 mins to get my hands on the reciepts, but then the surprises began. When I got the receipt, I instinctively gave the amount to the girl who printed the receipt. But instead of accepting like what any normal shop would do, she sent me all the way across the shop to the shady looking cashier booth. There the guy was moving slower than a slug on a knife. It went like this -

1. I gave the receipt to the guy.

2. Looks at it, then looks around his desk for several minutes, probably wondering why the hell this stranger handed him a fucking piece of paper.

3. Remembers that HE is the cashier.

4. Enters the amount and codes, at 1 letter per minute.

5. Again looks around his desk aimlessly. I was beginning to think that maybe this guy was on crack or pot.

6. Finally he sees what he is looking for and grabs it. It was the fucking ’seal’.

7. Again looks around for the ink box. Finds it and presses the ’seal’ on it atleast several hundred times.

8. Searches for the receipts he just reprinted.

9. Stamps them.

10. Wonders what the hell he should do with them

11. Realizes what he has to do and hands them over to me.

After this torturous 15 mins, I was actually beginning to think that maybe the pharmacy doesn’t want to take our money, but We were forcing our money on to them.

Yeah, I’m fucking angry over the fucking notebook.

Audiosurf

This is one hell of an awesome game.