ROCK ON ... and keep rocking

The Movie: Rock On

Producer: Ritesh Sidhwani, Farhan Akhtar |Writer, director: Abhishek Kapoor |

StarCast: Farhan Akhtar, Arjun Rampal, Purab Kolhi, Luke Kenny, Prachi Desai

Plot Preview:
The movie oscillates between the successful present and the happy past of 'MAGIK'.
Magik is a band formed by the four protagonists in their early twenties, when they escaped the quarter age crisis by doing the thing they wanted to do.
The band that rocked the crowd and set the stage ablaze moved apart for self centric reasons to give some of its members a successful and 'well settled life': the life without a calling.
The story takes you across the split and merger of MAGIK with the magic of meaningful music combined with a coherent sense of direction.


USP of Rock On:

• Emphasis on minute real life details:
  The viewer is an intelligent being. He will be impressed by fantasy if he is looking forward to it. So if a film maker shows a series of impossible acts, the viewer is bound to loathe it unless, the movie is called “The Miracle’ or ‘Mission Impossible”.
  
  With Rock On, we finally have a rare Indian production that shows a guy playing an electric guitar without a piano/keyboard/acoustic guitar playing in the background. It is every actor’s fantasy to be a rock-star and hold a Kramer; but then you can’t do hip hop numbers holding that electric guitar.
  Farhan Akhtar indeed has a sense of detailing, which he exhibited in 'Dil Chahta Hai', his directorial debut, by manifesting a no nonsense , no fantasy story of three young men on the crossroads of life. With Luke Kenny on board, Rock On had to strike the perfect chord with the subject technicalities.
• Something to take back home:
  Rock On is about the youth too. It talks about a crossroad of life too. Yet, it was a totally new and refreshing experience. The movie focuses on a popular dilemma that everybody faces in the younger 20's and 30’s. The one that gives us a choice of doing the thing that we want to do v/s the thing that we are expected to do. Life goes on either ways; success would come to you both ways too. The root of the dilemma is, was, and will always remain about happiness and satiation'.
  
  
  Rock On beautifully captures 'the quest of the calling with the pursuit of happiness' and puts it in front of you in a captivating manner.
  
  

• The Rock says:
  
  Rock on is a Bollywood flick and that too about a Rock Band. It is obvious that it would have several songs and, as per past trends, they would be wannabe rock tracks or rip offs.
  I am not a big music digger to guarantee their originality, but I can surely say the stuff was genuinely rock (formerly 'the blues') and in case my intuition counts they were far apart from the Indian rip-offs that we have been exposed to.
  
  The way this genre of music has been portrayed will do a lot of good to its image. It'll break the myth that equates Rock n Roll to sex and drugs, and limits its domain to sub-genres like Death Metal, Heavy Metal etc. which are perceived as a portrayal of sheer noise for the uninitiated. The movie will help the junta identify the Indian rock scene and respect the genre as a source of meaningful lyrics and passionate music instead of head-banging and mosh pits.
• Silence is blissful:
  
  The adage has a lot to teach, especially to the Indian film directors. A complete lack of human and other artificial sounds including a background score adds a huge impact on scenes that are heavy on the emotional/senti side.
  The scene that features Joe (Arjun Rampal) sitting alone in his balcony with the guitar on his lap had only the sound of crickets playing at the back.
  This style of direction has been depicted in Dil Chahta Hai too. A few other directors like Nagesh Kuknoor have also deployed this fundamental of film making in their movies and has always been the differentiating factor.

The Verdict:

Two Time watch.
Rating: * * * * 1/2

Producer: Ritesh Sidhwani, Farhan Akhtar |Writer, director: Abhishek Kapoor |

StarCast: Farhan Akhtar, Arjun Rampal, Purab Kolhi, Luke Kenny, Prachi Desai

Image courtesy: www.daijiworld.com

Virgin Mobile

"VIRGIN'S GOT MOBILE FOR IT'S NAMESAKE"

That would have been an apt headline if most of Indian youth were yet to have their tryst; but nevertheless theyll have their tryst with a VIRGIN now.

Sir Richard Branson, the man known for exhibhitting a brilliant combination of entrepreneurship with a taste for the adrenaline pumping adventures, once again suprises the masses with what seems to be the next big thing in consumer comunication.

Virgin Mobile was launched just a month ago and with what style! I heard that Branson did a bungee jump from aobove the Hilton Towers with a masisve Virgin logo as his backdrop. Thats how you welcome your guest- show them how happy you are to see them; by literally jumping (no sarcasm).

The more intriguing aspect about this uber cool brand targetted at the youth is the schemes it offers. One hplan that caught my eye is 'The Simple Plan'
Cost : Rs 99
Call Rate:
outgoing - Rs 1per min for the 1st 2 mins in a day. Rs 0.50 per min from the 3rd min onwards.
incoming- free + GET PAID to get calls at 10 paisa per minute!!

Now that's what a plan should be like and you call it a simple plan- too kewl!
(Technically if the cost of the plan is to be borne on a monthly basis, then the incoming profits get settled for; but nevertheless the outgoing is quite a bargain)

Surfing over their website I came across the Jobs link and one of the criteria for a prospective job seeker is :
'Drive them Crazy: The competition. We like driving them crazy. Can you do that? Can you play a part in creating offers so unique even we din’t hear of them earlier. We like setting trends and not following them. And that’s what we want - trendsetters."

The attitude, the branding, tv commercials and print ads look in pretty good shape,taste and place. I definitely see Virgin mobile taking over the young Indian market ahead of the other CDMA (and GSM too) operators.

DESI NEWS(read ABUSE) CHANNELS

Yesterday I was surfing through almost all the channels listed in the acceptable spectrum for my 20 year old Onida with a desire to get a glimpse of Robocon 2008 on Sahyadri (now you know why I had to surf hard). I happened to pause at three Hindi News Channels : News 24, Aaj Tak and India TV.

News 24 is the same channel that had Shah Rukh Khan spending almost an hour at their studio, trying to understand (read: raising his eyebrow),for a promotional channel-launch gig in its initial days. They were trying hard to show how different they would remain from the other Commercial News channels.

Aaj Tak, (I had an impression) was pretty decent until 'kal tak'
Oh and India TV, lets not get in there; they deserve and entire post.

The basis of classifying these channels into a common bracket is because of the type of news they were broadcasting at the same time (when I needed to locate Sahyadri urgently)

SO what was that intriguing piece of news?
Channel 1:
Irfan Pathan extends his stay in Australia because it seems he has found his soulmate over ther in a 19 year old engineerig student in Cannberra.
Next, they interviewed one of his friends to ask how he feels to know Irfn has found some one in Australia; the friend was a footage lover and he spoke as if he had just released a big budget bollywood flick
The backdrop video was mercilessly looped and made me feel hazy so i flipped the chaneln to land on another hindi news channel.

Channel 2:
BREAKING NEWS!!! Sreesanth has expressed his feelings of love to Priyana Chopra. We've got hold of a tape whose authenticity we are not sure of (but we'd still love to spend some freely available air time to boost our TRPs)
The tape was then played. I heard it for the fun of it; fliped the channel when they began analysing the tape

Channel 3:
Yuvraj Singhs heart has been broken. He has split from the new kid on block-Bollywood, Depika Padukone (her pic with Ranbir Kapur is flashed now). After his split from (another actress) Yuvraj seemed to settle down, his family also had approved of the girl, but now its all over.
In such a situation,Yuvraj would now sing the song "Oye Raju pyaar na kariyoo kariyo,dil toot jaata hai" the song played in the backdrop and I remembered something : I was hunting for Sahyadri!

Immidiately the Auto search option was selected more due to the fear of stumbling across another Desi News channel; lets do them some branding 'Abuse Channel'

PRATIBIMB ‘08

- FestBitch

If you heard the chants of “Aamchi aai tumchi aai, Veermata Jijabai” on the 1st and 2nd of Feb this year, then you probably were hanging around in Matunga, in the vicinity of VJTI. The sounds were getting ‘reflected’ from Pratibimb , the annual intercollegiate cult fest of VJTI, that saw over 15 colleges participating. The crowd was low in number but the VJTIans certainly knew how to dhamaal. This year, Pratibimb manifested a lot of creative events spread across various domains and they were all pretty smoothly managed.

Day 1 saw people running around the campus playing detective in the event called F.B.I. While the classroom events were buzzing on and off with participants, the quadrangle looked pretty empty (see pic). Mega events like The Apprentice (similar to the one by Trump and there was some CEO judging a round too!) and Press conference kept the participants busy for both the days. Press conference tested the journo-capability of the participant by means of tasks ranging from debating, attending a press conference and acting elite journos in a (M)UN session :shooting queries to the delegates in order to write a report. The quadrangle was catering to mega events like solo singing and blast of bands contest; however the lack of crowd in a decent number just made it look like an ordinary event during the afternoon. However, the few people were evacuated from the quadrangle to enable security check for the blast of bands in the evening. As usual, the quadrangle was arranged to divide the guys and girls into physically isolated regions, with the section behind occupied by the impulsive dancers. The contest saw a few amateur bands trying hard to rock the crowd, but the VJTIians ain’t that easy to please. ‘Ehsaas’ , a 3 day old band, bagged the trophy given to them by members of the band Talaash who were judging the contest. Later the MC introduce 64-bits as an ‘angrezi band’ for those left behind by the ‘angrez’ (did someone talk about globalisation?)However, the treat of the day was Talaash, they rocked the juntaa to the core.

Day2 marked the continuation of Press conference, The apprentice and the culmination of other events. The crowd wasn’t seen in the quadrangle until the evening, so participants of events like the personality contest missed the desired crowd encouragement .The MUN club of VJTI had organised the VJ MUN which saw the session of the security council on day 2.The event was brilliantly planned and executed ; in fact, at first sight, the conference room seemed like the actual UN council conference room( maybe because I haven’t seen the actual one for real )The delegate of USA from RJIT won the event bagging a crystal-glass trophy and some goodies. The evening was euphoric! The solo and group dances were won by some scintillating performances from VESIT. The catch of the event came in the end: NEON DANCE! You should have been there to see the awesomely unbelievable performances by BES College,Borivali and Tolani college who jointly won the event. BES’ performance was centred on FIDO DIDO and they live performed the ping-pong matrix video from Youtube in addition to the triple role dance by Fido. Tolani’s theme was based on the co-existence of aliens and humans , but the crowd was turned on the moment they performed the MARIO! An entire level of Mario , including the 1ups,kicking the mushrooms, speed ups, headers to the ?-bricks all synced with the original background sound of the game was performed live!

Overall Pratibimb ’08 was a fun place to be and has certainly come ahead from its previous versions. Known faces like Arzoo Govitrikar, members ofAasmaa , Ruslan(MP3 fame) etc were seen during the fest. However, there exists some scope to improve: Most events were judged and headed by second/third year students and VJTIians were allowed to participate; this obviously was the reason why external participants cribbed of biased results. The MCs can be given a crash course on anchoring a ‘mega’ event with due emphasis on learning newer action words other than variations of ‘rock’. The prize money concerned a few participants, as the amount seemed to be too low to accept (for some).With such a varied kitty of events, a couple of Crossover events can certainly be implemented with very little brainstorming. Given the capability of the VJTI students, with these factors taken care of , Pratibimb surely looks to grow faster and get even more impactful with time.

copyrights reserved by Pseudonormicks and boy luvarien.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed are solely the author's and are subjective.They are not intended to influence,offend or hurt anybody living or dead.The articles may have a tendency to be satirical and or sarcastic.

BarCamp Techfest 01

Its been long since I wanted to be at a BarCamp, and finally i got a chance this Sunday at Techfest '08 IITB .Before listing my notes Id like to share what fascinated me in this concept and a little insight about what a BarCamp is all about.

The barcamp has got nothing to do with the booze and the bar.This concept was started by Chris Messina and the name is inspired by FooCamp that has restricted membership. The BarCamp is an open platform to share and gain knowledge in an informal way. Its like one of those dream classrooms where you don't need permission to walk in or out and you could do that even mid way if you're not enjoying the discussion; just to walk into another classroom. As far as the discussions go, anybody can take up center stage for about 20-30 min max and present on any topic to an audience who're either wi-fied with their laptops or just glued to their notepads. In fact I just missed this little school kid present on an offbeat topic, and boy! The kid was all pepped up with his laptop as a member of the audience later.The BarCamp also exhibits tremendous potential in terms of a networking platform. The boards outside these classrooms had various chits stuck onto them offering job opportunities and collaboration invitations; I just happened to get a freelance opportunity because of this. Moreover, the BarCamp has no shape, you can mould it the way you want to. A couple of entrepreneurs exploited this fundaa to launch their companies at BarCamp Techfest.

Notes:
1) Mykavita.com launched. A webportal based on the wordpress platform supported by the creative commons liscencing that allows users to upload poems in various Indian languages.

2) Language translation is a highly sought after tool on the internet. Research on ease of translation from any given language to any other language and vice versa(not just english to langage x and vice versa).

3)Mobile devices going a long way with the open source platform. If there ain't Linux down ur mobile phone , you better shove it up or get one with it.

4) Nokia cellphones not to be addressed as 'cellphones'. They are refered to as 'computers' at their Finland base. Its akin to a crime for an employee to use the term 'phone'.

5)The ipod touch has everything that an iphone has except phone calls and smses. Atul chitnis recommends the pod ,as the phone has poor voice quality and can send only a single sms at the time(no group smses).

6)Open Moko, the ope souce phone has come up with an improved GUI and a rare 640x480 touchscreen.

7)The major cost of developing a cellphone lies in the software and not in its hardware.

8) BarCamp Rocks!


copyrights reserved by Pseudonormicks and boy luvarien.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed are solely the author's and are subjective.They are not intended to influence,offend or hurt anybody living or dead.The articles may have a tendency to be satirical and or sarcastic.

Mean Machines are passe now.

TOYOTA PRIUS

I really can't say whether it is Just in Time manufacturing or sheer brilliance that gets Toyota another hit : PRIUS .
Prius is a hybrid built from scratch unlike most other cars which have hybrids as evolved models.
NYT reports that Toyota has already recorded a sale of more than 400,000 in such a short span of time.
It is such a phenomenon that its brand value is metaphoric with the yellow, blue , white "Live Strong" rubber wrist bands.
Currently the PRIUS is priced at approximately $22k and is poised to give a mileage of approximately 50 gallons per litre.

THE iPOD OF CARS

The FIAT Cinquecento is coming back!
The Cinquecento was the Elvis of its times and if it FIAT has its way, the new version of this three-door car to be launched at its 50th birthday will be the ipod of cars (are you there Mr Ghosn? And yes Mr. Jobs, you can certainly stick the feather)
Cinquecento (earlier , the FIAT 500) was akin to MUL's 800 in terms of bringing about a market transition from two-wheelers to affordable 4-wheelers. If rumours have it, its going to be priced at approximately $ 13.5k
Well if its gotta be the ipod of cars the it needs to be presented atleast like a Yashraj flick and Fiat knows how to do this well and beyond.In addition to the exterior design of the Cinquicento ,they've come up with this uber cool portal that boasts not only of a chic and sexy look but is also loaded heavily with stuff that'll get the ooohs and aahs out of the first time clicker.
So heres me signing off quoting the website punch-header : "500 wants you"
(I want her too, 500 times :P)

copyrights reserved by Pseudonormicks and boy luvarien.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed are solely the author's and are subjective.They are not intended to influence,offend or hurt anybody living or dead.The articles may have a tendency to be satirical and or sarcastic.

DIE HARD 4.0 LIVE FREE

RATING : **

Every once in a while comes a Hollywood flick with almost pure (read: animation-free) action sequences to give the fussy critics a 'reality check', but Die Hard 4.0 goes a step ahead ; it revolves around the growing importance of digitizing the analog globe with minimalistic digital action sequences.

A stereotypical loner (like Raghavan from Main Hoon Na), who is also a code wizard ,gets thrown out of the US defense Systems department because he hacks his self designed computer network using just a laptop to prove that it is vulnerable. So whats the big deal? Well, this network governs the entire Nation and yet the government is not ready to fund this guy to build a better system.

So now Mr. Code wizard gets his ego up his head and lives with the motto of destroying the network (read: hacking in and controlling)

He starts off with the transport routes jamming all the routes surrounding the White House. Then comes the communication networks and radio frequencies. He gains access to all TV channels and displays his version of the news: The White House being blown apart-- more panic. Now he moves on to electricity and has his eyes on the gas pipelines. The world's superpower is declared to be under attack.
But wait, this movie is not all about the bad guys wining and winning till the end. John Mclean (Bruce Willis) bumps into this code kid who happens to be a competitor to these virtual terrorists .

The white hat hacker somehow manages to beat the system by configuring his PDA to establish a network via the satellite (thats until the terrorists cut that path and locate him).Now begins the action.

A typical boom-bang-thud-i stand up again movie DH4 lives up to the Die Hard series. Although the movie is technically sound, there are a few goof ups that make it look artificial ; like the scene where the fighter/bomber aircraft flies as low as the flyover to bombard the trailer, or the car-killed-the-chopper chopper scene. Had this been a Bollywood flick, critics would have blown its revenues apart, but thankfully it ain't. Finally it is not a bad watch if you are lazing at your electricity-ridden place with the city flooded and off cource a generator-run multiplex at a stone's throw.

copyrights reserved by Pseudonormicks and boy luvarien.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed are solely the author's and are subjective.They are not intended to influence,offend or hurt anybody living or dead.The articles may have a tendency to be satirical and or sarcastic.

PSYCHE: Teleseries Reviewed

VERDICT: ***
Mondays: 10:00 pm Saturday :4:30 pm (Star World)

Shawn Spencer (James Roday ) is very much like an average bloke in his twenties with a charismatic persona except from the fact that he possesses an innate ability of observing and successfully retaining the minutest detail in the surroundings. But for his father, Henry (Corbin Bernsen) , this feat is the result of the training imparted, than his genes .Thanks to his razor sharp senses, he is able to pin point the culprits from the corner of an over a news bulletin while his blonde girlfriend is over him.
Spencer kept on tipping the cops while he went hop-skip and jump through the 36 jobs he took after high school until this day when the cops suspect him of being an accomplice terming his tip as an inside information. The witty Shawn however tries to convince the cops that he is psychic and bags a kidnapping case from the still skeptical chief of police. He gets his childhood buddy Gus (Dulé Hill) who reluctantly joins him on the case and then in guarding the 'psychic' secret. Spencer solves the case in a weird (dramatic) style : asking impertinent questions, hitting on the victims sister and yes, cant miss the psychic pretence. All of this drives Gus crazy getting him the fits and the viewers the drama sufficient enough to draw the un-types in for a mystery series. Later on Spencer goes on to open his Investigation agency 'PSYCHE' forging Gus' signatures to make him a partner and thereby dragging the poor chap into what could be an adventurous ride for their careers.
The series is Star World's attempt to relinquish the many detective concepts being aired by giving it a fresh perspective through the 'comic-drama' genre. Although Spencer's antics might just remind some of you of one Detective Omkar Nath (I'm not suggesting things), yet this typical American kid and his chicken hearted partner have something for you to be glued to the IB for an hour and a half.


copyrights reserved by Pseudonormicks and boy luvarien.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed are solely the authors's and are subjective.They are not intended to influence,offend or hurt anybody living or dead.The articles may have a tendency to be satrical and or sarcastic.

Pseudonormicks Fab Phone Awards 2006

-- XeoN

2006 was a roller coaster ride in the cell phone arena as we saw better cameras getting built into handsets, fashion phones walking the ramp, GPS and Wi-Fi integration becoming more essential, and advancement in mobile networks exposing us to faster downloads for content. Scouring the latest mobile devices on the Mumbai market, special attention was paid to design, features, functions, as well as value.

Camera phones pushed into the 3-megapixel space with Sony Ericsson ™ and Nokia™ both launching 3G handsets that took best-quality snaps. The K800i edged in front of N73 in terms of ease-of-use, but what I appreciate is Nokia's integration with Flickr for uploading photos.
While LG™ introduced the innovative Chocolate KG800 phone, it's the company's clever marketing strategy -- to call a handset something that's instantly recognizable -- which is being imitated by others. Arguably though, Motorola™ got there first with the iconic MOTORAZR, which continues to be popular in all the iterations we've seen this year.

Windows Mobile devices tried their best to steal some of the enterprise market from RIM, with the introduction of push e-mail, but the Blackberry maker retaliated with the 3G-capbable 8707 and the Pearl, the first consumer-oriented Blackberry that features a built-in camera, expandable memory and multimedia playback.

Following the popular adage:” There is no right no wrong.” And of course” Beauty les in the eyes of the beholder” , we thought of giving out The Pseudonormicks Fab Phone Awards (PFPA) 2006 spanning across different categories chosen and analyzed by our brand new tech contributor XeoN.


Best camera phone of 2006 – Nokia N73

The hotly anticipated Nokia N73 camera phone has nearly every bell and whistle under the sun. With the Carl Zeiss 3.2 Mega Pixel lens, the N73 snaps superb hi-resolution stills with accurate colours and precise focus, letting users who want more control tweak a range of options to get pictures just the way they want them - including colour effects and red eye removal. Also, the large, high-resolution screen not only makes a great viewfinder but works a charm for browsing or viewing pictures you've already taken, which can also be shared and printed in all thinkable and unthinkable ways. Business users will also get a good companion in the N73 since it has Symbian OS 9.1 (S60 v3) & thanks to its many quality connectivity options as well as its ability to view documents in popular Office formats, decent scheduling capabilities, bundled mp3 player & FM radio & also 3D stereo speakers. It’s priced at Rs.23k in Mumbai.

Best Music phone - Sony Ericsson W810i

With the W810i, the act of navigating music has been vastly improved as the navigational pad now lets users easily skip forwards and backwards as well as play and pause music in a one-step process. As presented through the bright and crisp 1.8-inch medium resolution screen, the Walkman interface remains one of the best in existence for music management. Picking up where the W800i left off, the Sony Ericsson W810i offers improved music navigation in tandem with the same excellent music management capabilities and decent amount of bundled memory as its predecessor. Other musical tidbits worthy of mention include the ability to activate the well-performing stereo FM radio with RDS through a dedicated play/stop button on the left side of the phone is a handy feature. W810i is the phone that came closest to being an "iPod Killer". Priced at Rs.15.5k in Mumbai.


Most Ergonomic phone of the year - LG Chocolate KG800


Straight out of a Space Odyssey, LG's new KG800 (aka Chocolate) is a black monolith of a slider with an unusually stylish exterior. Joining a crowded space, the fashionable LG KG800 slim phone has its work cut out for it. At 95 x 48 x 15.2 mm and 83 g, it's slim, lightweight and undoubtedly one of the most stylish handsets I have ever seen. In fact, its front half is completely flush; flick the handset open, and 9 touch-sensitive navigational controls are lit up in bright red. While Motorola's RAZR still manages to trigger ultra-thin fashion clones, LG has moved in a different direction with the Chocolate KG800, an understated and stylish mobile phone with a beguiling design twist. Its priced at Rs.13.5k in Mumbai.






Chic phone of the year – Nokia 7370

Trendy colours and a faux leather exterior combine with a solid, compact spinner design to render the Nokia 7370 a stylish contender with classic touches. A crisp and colourful 2-inch QVGA screen ranks as its most impressive feature, contributing to hassle-free navigation throughout Nokia's Series 40 interface courtesy of its high resolution - the latter of which joins EDGE in making WAP browsing a similarly pleasant affair. Keypad and navigation buttons are, for once, first-rate with regard to both looks and usability, proving text input needs not be sacrificed on the altar of style. A fully adequate 1.3 Megapixel camera with an intuitive interface has also taken up residence within the 7370, adjacent to 10 MB of memory. Available in Mumbai at a price of Rs.13.5k.

Super slim phone - Samsung D900

Samsung released the Black Carbon with the claim that it is the world's thinnest slider, and I couldn’t find anything thinner than the D900's half-inch (12.9mm). The phone has a glossy, fingerprint prone front with rubberized sides and backing. As a stylish slider, the Samsung SGH-D900 "Black Carbon" is worth a look, if you can overlook some imperfections. The menu system is very convenient, and the interface in general was a pleasure to work with. The 3-megapixel camera puts the phone ahead of the mass of camera equipped handsets, but the slow interface resulted in many failed shots, and the lack of good software on the PC means this camera phone is not for novices. This may make a great companion for those who want a sidekick to their larger digital SLRs, but don't toss your mid-range digital for this phone.D900 is available in Mumbai at Rs. 20k


Best smart phone for executives – Palm Treo 700p

The Palm Treo 700p Smartphone delivers everything you need without compromise. The Smartphone combines a smarter phone with broadband-like speeds and rich-media capabilities, all in one. This Treo phone brings Palm's world-class ease of use to the Palm OS Mobile platform. Connect with people in multiple ways: voice, e-mail, SMS, or MMS3. Your contacts are always reachable from any application on the 700p. Palm sees the Treo 700p as a phone first, and it shows in their tweaks. The Today Screen has a speed dial plugin with shortcuts similar to the Treo 650, and there's even a photo dialer (thumbnails of any contacts you wish) on the home screen. Simply tap the photo to dial that person. As with the Treo 650, you can also assign any letter on the QWERTY thumb keyboard to a contact for speed dial. Its available in Mumbai markets at a price of around Rs. 28k.



Best phone for e-mail – Nokia E61

The E61 does what Nokia does best: connects people. Its all-encompassing connectivity setup is exploited in full by a broad line-up of quality messaging, office and browsing applications which run in tandem with a superb screen and more than decent thumb board. HSCSD, GPRS and EDGE bring up the rear for data across quad-band GSM support on the go, while Wi-Fi 802.11b/g takes care of high-speed local connectivity. Add Bluetooth for use as a modem, synchronization, connecting headsets and printing; USB for synchronization and data transfers. Also with good handy utilities, good battery life and a compact form factor, and you end up with a very solid business phone contender indeed. Its available in Mumbai at a price of Rs. 19k.



Best Touchscreen phone – Sony Ericsson M600i
A number of factors combine to render the M600i an ideal device for enterprise e-mail, the most prominent of which is the unusual yet surprisingly well-working thumbboard - complete with a near 90-degree learning curve. Hot on its heels follows Exchange ActiveSync support, which can be configured either for true push e-mail or scheduled retrievals, while a scroll wheel and the brilliant screen chime in for terrific, thumb-driven e-mail triage. Reading e-mail attachments is a breeze with the built-in viewers for Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Acrobat documents, and particularly so when the screen's landscape view is enabled. 3G and Bluetooth serve as a springboard for getting ones laptop online. It also delivers a solid impression in every other department, with the near-sole disappointment being its lack of a bundled USB cable and USB charging support. Add good battery life and nice touches such as a scroll wheel, stereo Bluetooth audio and a clever, agenda-style standby screen. Its priced at Rs.18.6k in Mumbai.


Most anticipated phone for 2007 – Nokia N95
While it was hard to stick to Nokia’s mantra that their new N-Series are not phones (they're "multimedia computers”), we can't argue with the raw power of the N95.The size of a small slider phone, the screen on the N95 is bright and clear, perfect for the incredibly smooth interface. GPS features are striking, especially the 3-D mapping. Based on the rendering of the 3-D map, the N95 looks to have some graphical prowess -- at last, a phone that seems capable of true 3-D. Movies are bright and clear on the QVGA (320x240) screen, though a wide-screen ratio would have prevented the letterbox bars on movies that made them look small. The N95 sports a 5-megapixel camera and a video recorder capable of VGA (640x480) recording, all of which can be stored on microSD cards, as well as a TV-out port and speedy HSDPA data support. Set for release in Indian markets in 1st quarter of 2007,the pricing is yet to be announced.

* Prices quoted are approximate, verification of the same is highly recommended.
** The views and opionions quoted are solely the author's and are subjective.
copyrights reserved by Pseudonormicks.

Glimpse of Modd Indigo '06

If you are a fest enthusiast and you walk into day 2 @ MI then there’s very little you can do on the participating front as most of the elims happen on day 1. But if you got there just to maaro lukkha then there’s more than just one thing to do.

MI just keeps on getting bigger and better every year and this year it brings to us the Indian Raaga. I heard of them bagging a huge sum in sponsorship and it got clarified on the face the moment I entered the main gate @ IITB. Everything at IIT seems to have a worth be it the trees, the lampposts, the walls , the main gate and even the urinals (see pic) as each of these flaunted at least one big commercial banner on their chest (Mr. Buffet,guess I have a tip for you)

The most brand draped venue is the Convo Hall where most of the informals happen .The comic strip exhibition by Shreyas was simply kickass and so was the rangoli exhibhition (see Sarkar rangoli pic) .

Makrand Deshpande’s play Sa Hi Besura was almost a house full at least at the beginning, but don’t know what happened after I walked out within five minutes . A Shabhaas India kinda stunt was seen where this man pulled a Tata Indica with his teeth.A gallery full of XBOXes was available for the junta to juggle with the joysticks.

A new event that’s come in is “The Reality Show” which asks the participants to organize an event on the final day of Mood Indigo. The folks, who get short listed by a 100 word synopsis of their event idea, have to stay on campus for all 4 days . Winners will be bagging Xboxes, iPods, Goa trips “and of course some cash’- as they put it. Overheard a few guys talking:” Yaar yeh to puri Roadies khila rahein hain , bus XBOX mil jaaye yaar”

JAM this year had an exhibition showing of the best JAMmers (IIT alumni) who like sticking to the campus every year.” We like hanging around IIT and we always ask them (MI organizers)to allow us in (JAM). So this year they decided to have a JAM exhibition finally”, said Zuzhe ,an alumus.

The ballroom dance finals @ LT was packed to the core! Couldn’t even get a glimpse of the dancers but the crowd said it all: I missed something great.

The queue outside the SAC kept on growing as the Popular Nite came close and so did KK’s performance.The crowd management wasn’t all that smooth , but the show made for it. It began with the hindi band finals “Mantra” which showcased a band from Delhi “Zingaro” (strangely they sung a track on their band name Zingaroo-o-o-o-o-o Zingaro –o-o-o-o-o the folks behind me went ‘ho ho ho’) and a few bands from Mumbai too. ‘Mukti’s fab vocalist became a cult figure thanks to his versatile voice spanning over tracks by Kailash Kher, KK and Atif.

Just before KK arrived, the crowd was exposed to an eccentric light show customized for Mood Indigo 05 & 06.
Then came the man himself and the OAT with approximately over 12K junta gave an uproar and the stage literally was set ablaze. It had a couple of goblets of fire and outlets for firecrackers and which shot rockets and confetti as the man rocked the junta to the core.

KK performed songs like Aap ki dua, Hum dum, Dus Bahane, Tu hai aasmaan mein , etc. But the crowd went crazy when he came with his version of Summer of 69 :”…Me and some guys fromVersova….. Nobody Quit and evone got married….. Those were the best days…” .
But when he came onto Pyaar ke Pal, the OAT was quite a scene. It went all dark with over 10K cell phones swaying with karaoke under the moonlight.

Sriram Emani, the very hospitable Overall Coordinator of MI ’06 was extremely glad when we expressed how much fun we had , after all it’s blissful when your efforts pay off well.Kudos!



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MOOD HIGH

“We IITians have been known for excellence in whatever we’ve done .”, righteously said Prof. Ashok Mishra ,Director IIT Bombay at the inauguration of the biggest cult fest in the country -MOOD INDIGO which arrived with the spirit of water, a cool bubbly blue mascot “SPLASH”, and a budget of around Rs 45 lks to rock the folks royally with its “AQUA” theme.

With around 30 events per day, divided into categories like LA, FA, Music and dance, dramatics, informals, talks+workshops and proshows , the fest seemed to put the average participant in quite a dilemma and left the spectators totally puzzled- which way to go.

Mood I manifested a myriad of effective workshops conducted by industry pros, some creamy ones being the Tango wrkshp by Anand Majumdar and the Grooming wrkshp by Raymond. ”Festivals like these give us great amount of exposure and let us learn a great deal of new things”, said the bubbly Prerna Narang from Cummins College,Pune.

The informals were a blast for the ‘window-shoppers’ ,who took away much more than their expectations –thanks to the benevolent sponsors. The food stalls , which comprised of a good range of branded and desi khaana , were strategically placed near the informals venue to ensure business and it did work out. Halla bol –street play and Hurricane-street dance ,the most popular PA events witnessed some ground-breaking performances .
The OC lived up to their word as a few of the major events were seen during the day this year. Hysteria: The battle of DJs saw some cool mixes being played which dragged the crowd on the floor right under the SUN !! Livewire elims also ran during the day much to the surprise of many a wannabe headbangers. Mantra-the Hindi band contest ,also a day event, just seemed to show the rising momentum in the Hindi/desi rock scenario.

Proshows by Shuffle Deamons (Canada),Indian Ocean, Shaan, Sceptre, Vayu, HFC had the crowd up there till late10 pm, the deadline being followed strictly. However, it was surprising to see a more than decent crowd turn over for the classical nite. The IISc attack had led to a tightened security on the last day forcing many to spend hours in the queue cursing the organizers (‘orgies’ as they call themselves () who took hours just to frisk people into the half empty OAT. As a result, many missed the Livewire finals which saw great performances by bands like ‘Access Denied’ and ‘Bhayanak Maut’ (the winners).Access Denied’s Ashish (IIT B) won the best guitarist prize: A Kramer worth 18K from Furtados.

“Pride is more important to me as money can be made up any time in ur life”, answered Rahul Dash(IITB) to a judge, minutes before he was declared MR. MOOD I –at the most sadistic event in the fest!! ”Hey if pride were more important to u, then what the hell are u doin here ?” , rightly asked the anchor Garry. The event was more of a puppet show , the crowd being controlled by totally by ex Mr Mood I :Swami Thakkar ,who’ll remind u of King Kong. He typed on the screen and commanded, the audience obeyed and paid respect. The fate of the candidates (who couldn’t see the screen) was in his hands. Well, this was seriously the wrong place if you were a non-IITian or a gal as the desperate IITians showered their vulgar side on both. Constant shrieks of ”Are u free tonite?” haunted the audi and the screen too; what more even the ex Mr Mood Is (all IITans) asked the hostess or the female judges the same damn thing when called upon (is it lack of vocab or a proof of their heavy-hornier sides?) The sweet li’ll Ateeya Khan, crowned Ms mood I had an experience that generally most cute gals face when a Virar fast halts by at the platform. ”Who cares a damn about his virginity!”, exclaimed Shweta Krishnan from Rochester university, after listening to a clichéd answer from Arvind Iyyer (IITB) the runner up. Krishnan, like many other non-IITians seemed to be pissed off with this ‘cheap’ attitude evolving out of the “cream students” in the nation..

Catharsis- the play adopted from PAF (performing art festival) dealt with a sensitive story of drug addicts and their rehab process, but failed miserably even after some excellent performances by Victor and Manav the protagonists and Prabhav the comedian thanks to the monotonous direction.

Hats off to the OC, who did one helluva job in making the fest :right from getting the Mega sponsors to managing the junta from over 300 colleges inclusive of their lodging. Apart from a good chunk of the 600acres land at their disposal, the key factors driving these chaps into success is their spirit full of confidence as quoted by their director and the mutual cooperation cum exclusive independence by the staff for the students which lacks big time in other colleges making their festivals look like more of a sham with poking profs and a shrieking staff. They roped in the industry biggies to sponsor them and I bet none of them would think twice to sponsor the event again. The marketing ,publicity and scheduling of the event was spot on as usual and that’s probably why folks from as far as Delhi ,Bangalore and Chennai turned up. The overall trophy was taken away by IITB followed by Rajhans college Delhi and KMC Delhi.

Certainly coming out of this eventful fest one would not deny exclaiming: MOOD HIGH !!

BOOK REVIEW

One Night @ The Call Center
-Chetan Bhagat

RATING : 4.0/5
Before starting let me ask you a few questions (as Bhagat does in his new book) :
1)Are you tired of reading self help (gyaan-gambhir ) books?
2) Is it that you feel that these self help authors have no right to manipulate our lives on their way to minting money?
3)Are you a die-hard fan of Yashraj Films/Harry Potter/Melodramatic fantasies ?
4) Are you a big time patriot/or have huge anti-American ideas?

[Before reading this li’ll piece ,which decides whether you read the book or not or otherwise, kindly take this exercise seriously and answer the questions ]

Well, hoping that you have answered the li’ll quiz, you are now ready to hit the book (or the author). ONACC is a book that righteously deals with majority of the issues the youth faces today or gets into. Right from entangled relationships within n outside the families to self awareness. It takes a look at workplace attitudes and friendship gratitude. The suppressing challenges faced against the rebellious revolutionary craze. The feel of doing something great contradicting to practically doing the very typical. All this might just sound a bit vague but will light up your day (probably night) if you try to empathize and that one essential pre-requirement for you to take on the book. The other one being : a majority (or at least equal no of ) “YES”s in your answers to the quiz above.

The story of 6 call-center employees who get screwed up one night @ their workplace due to reasons ranging from work/family pressure , career apprehension, dumped relationship, lack of relationship, dumb-ass boss and THE AMERICANS !!As the entire story twiddles around this one night, we come across the authors fantasy of GOD counseling the kids into a more meaningful life ahead, and it really works so (but again, only if you are able to empathize).

The book is a thorough entertainer until the call from GOD, from where it takes a rather BOLLYWOOD flick where everything worthwhile happens at the fag end of the story and the hero is more of a time-crux slogger (just like the MU engineers).The end is where the book takes the form of a self-help guide. But no my friend, this is not like the typical one’s . Bhagat has written a self-help book in the ‘fiction-style’ and hats off to him for that (save the drama in the book).

To sum it all , this book is a must-read fore everyone under 30 .The simplicity in the language makes it a cakewalk even for the novices in reading . Just the two pre-requirements : 1)Ability to empathize 2)Ability to ignore the irrational .
And you might extract loads out of this book.

CONMAN'S DAY OUT

MOVIE REVIEW>>BLUFFMASTER>>RATING: 2.5/5

Roy (Bachhan) ,an invincible conman dupes a raging producer who is currently a loser because of his director-son perpetually failing to make his artists work up a good movie. He proposes and gets Simi (Priyanka) into marrying just to break up on the day of their engagement thanks to his victim ,who turns out to be Simi’s uncle. On his way to get her back, he bumps into Dittu (Ritteish) and Dr.Bhaleram ( Boman Irani) and here begins the plot. Dittu , a small time thief tries to dupe in Roy and Bhaleram just to discover that Roy actually is a Guru in the game he’s trying to play, and so he starts taking lessons in ‘connery’ from Roy. The bondage grows as the events pass and finally they’re up against the big whale- Chandrakant Parekh (Nana Patekar). The hide n seek with Chandru within the last 90 days of Roys life, who’s apparently dyeing of brain tumor, packs up the second half with a punch which suddenly loosens up at the climax :which reveals the actual ‘BLUFFMASTER’ along with several complimentary questions.

Ritteish seems to have come up a lot but is some how going to be typecast with roles like this one. Bachhan has done an amazing job and seems to be making up for his earlier movies like Refugee with every coming performance. Nana Patekar and Boman Irani were at their usual best.

The story sailed smoothly and so was the background score although there were some misfit songs. The dialogue/script writer deserves a round of applause for his witty one-liners executed perfectly by the foursome (especially Nana Patekar)All said and done ,when I walked out of the theatre, I had One Last Question:“How the hell was ‘THE MOVIE’ made??????????” To get this question (and probably its answer) you’ll have to walk into the nearest cinema hall.