*Yawn*

We bought the cricket package and have been watching the match as much as I can .(11:45p to 7:00 am)and that made me a lot more tired during the day. And that is my excuse for this week for not updating the blog.

I recorded the matches and since I do not have a DVD recorder/TV Card I cannot transfer the video to my computer. So I actually shot the video on my video camera and then did some editing. It was fun.

Also, received this and found this interesting enough to share.

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New Law!

With the high rate of attacks on women in secluded parking lots,
especially during evening hours, the Minneapolis City Council has
established a "Women Only" parking lot at the Mall of America. Even the
parking lot attendants are exclusively female so that a comfortable and
safe environment is created for patrons.

Click for the first picture available of this world-first women-only
parking lot in Minnesota.

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Blu-Ray and HD-DVD update

(These are the competing formats that will let you watch movies in High Definition at home. Currently you are limited to high def broadcasts and cable.)

Apparently, we could not reach any agreement and the consumers are going to be losers with both format players coming to market in 2006.

Toshiba has announced two HD-DVD players priced at $499 and $799. Samsung has announced a Blu-Ray player for $999. All three players are expected to release in the first half of 2006. Only time will tell if any format shuts out the other one otherwise you can find yourself in situation where your favourite movie is not available in the Hi-Def format of your player. To make it worse, all of these players look like they were made in 1970. Of course, you do not want to buy the first pricey lot that can have some problems.
Toshiba HD-DVD player
Samsung Blu-Ray

Lets move on to the silver lining.

PS3 will support Blu-Ray so we will have at least one Blu-Ray player that looks good.

Xbox-360 will support an *external* HD-DVD drive. So people can buy one separately if they want to watch HD-DVD movies through your xbox360. More modular structure here that could be a price advantage critical given HDTVs have not penetrated so much in the market so far.


Now the best news about Blu-Ray :)

They have reshuffled the existing region system. The new system puts all countries in North and South America, Japan, Thailand, Malayasia, Korea, and India in region 1.

Americans will be able to import movies/players from Japan and More Blu-Ray players (and more importantly discs)will be exported to India from US and you will not have to worry about unlocking the region system before doing so.

We do not know about the HD-DVD region coding system yet, but don't be surprised if it is very similar to this, otherwise there will be no end to confusion.

You can read some more details at:
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6141826.html

Srilanka, their Sanath and his Shoulder

Update: After my original post, this is the latest.

This has to be one of the funniest reasons for an injury.

I had to search a bit to find an article with Jayasuriya's picture. Jayasuriya has been having problems with his shoulder and now this happens.

Freak Accident

Take a look at his picture. Does he really need a shampoo?
Shampoo aur Sanath.... kabhi nahi!

Yet Another Weekender that is a Weekstarter.

If Weekender can have an antonym like Weekstarter, I can also have antonyms for movies. Can you guess the original movies from these antonyms? Keep in mind that the words are not perfect antonyms, they can be in some cases though. e.g. DevilMother is clue for Godfather but "Blue Nose" could be a clue for "Red Eye".

o Grandfather's Girl
o What stands above
o The Prince Groom
o Front Door
o The Silver Linger
o Straight
o The Pebble
o Fragile
o College Criminal
o Life Stinks(This is actually a Mel Gibson movie and the antonym has more words than this)

I know that this could be very easy but I promise to think of some tougher ones sometime in future.

And something that is a little too simple but getting it right the first time is what is expected.

If two days ago Laloo Prasad was 13 years old, how old will he be next year? (And I am not going to answer any follow-up questions on this one. )

And to end it: How long do you think is the solution to this question?
(Note: This one has multiple answers.)



[BTW, I found the other solution for the second puzzle on http://www.chriscoyne.com/puzzle/ I have added a comment to the "No Weekender Again??" post.]

Some Space for this year

First of all, wish you all a very Happy New Year!

Not the "personal space" that people keep talking about but some space on my home desktop. I bought a Hitachi 160G HDD for $40(after rebate), that is a gig for 25 cents, we have come a loooong way! I remember how I used to try hard to save some space on my home computer that I thought had good amount of disk space. I had 1 Gig. I told this to a friend that I have almost used up my 1Gig and a friend told me that he had used *3Gig*, something that was unthinkable then.

I have 200Gig in my desktop now (in 7 partitions). I still do not have a DVD writer in my home computer though. So all that miniDV->DVD conversion will have to wait.

Played a lot of Fifa 2006 this weekend. It was quite enjoyable. The player that I created is called "Laloo Prasad" and the manager that I have created is "Pappu Pager". I currently manage Columbus Crew team and they topped the league this year. I will post a few pics shortly.