Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Googlers at Work. And Play.

Though I don't appreciate mass mails containing miscellanous images and graphics, and never consider them as the chief content for a Mr. GoodBytes post, but the desperate need for a new post on this blog and a set of highly interesting images made me change my views, for this once.

The images potray the beautiful office of Google in London, UK.

(The Structure Outside)

(At Play?)

(I wish I could get my hands on those The Simpsons figures)

(Lucky Guy)

Friday, November 18, 2005

Goblet of Fire. 1st Day, 1st Show.

This marks a special occasion in my life. For one, it is the first time I have ever watched any movie in its 1st Show. And for second, this is the best Harry Potter Movie ever made. There is not one word to describe its spectacularness. A joint of many words like "Great, Perfect, Fantastic, Wonderful" might perhaps be sufficient to describe the Goblet of Fire Movie Experience.

Snape swatting Harry and Ron on their heads; Confused and Comical Ron; Harry being bitten by and owl and Sirius's PS: The Owl Bites; are some of the funny moments in the movie. The Quidditch World Cup was also spectacular. Though only its starting was shown. The Stadium has been marvelously brought to life. The sequence of Ireland's and Bulgaria's entrance was mesmerizing. The sequence of Krum being projected in the stadium and the sound effects made that short Quidditch World Cup something to watch out for in the movie.

Next comes Hogwarts. The entrance of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, the two other wizarding schools. Beauxbatons's flying carriage and Durmstrangs's Submarine / Ship, were really cool. The CGI effects and sounds effects accompanying these sequences really made them worth watching. The girls from Beauxbatons wooed the Hogwarts-ians with their mesmerizing dance moves, and the Durmstrangs presented great fire and spark show. The music, as always, was great for these scenes.

The 1st Task of the Triwizard Tournament was: Dragons. The dragon Harry faced was really life-like. Crash here, Bang there, Fire here, Explosion there. Dragon chasing Harry here, Adrenaline rush there. Harry flying on his Firebolt, the Dragon right behind him, ready to dig into him. The Dragon looked livid. The Dragon - Harry chase didn't limit to the stadium but it continued around the whole castle, crashing the walls and bridges. Finally the chase ended when the Dragon was wounded enough and Harry returned to the stadium and scooped up the Golden Egg.

The 2nd Task was: Into the Dark Lake. It was funny when Neville panicked that he might have killed Harry when he ate the Gillyweed Neville had given him. But when Harry dicovered that he had developed fins, webbed feet and webbed hands (I had the urge to shout "FishMan to the rescue") he gracefully flipped out of the water and went back in. Krum's half-transfigured body (Shark + Human) was cool too. The Pensieve sequence was pretty distorted from the way it was presented in the book. But it was good the way it was shown anyway. The Yule Ball was nice and the Ron's disgustion over his "ancient" dress robes was funny.

The 3rd Task was: The Maze at whose center was the Triwizard Cup stored. The Task missed most of the dangerous things given in the book. But the tangling and self propagating veins, and the auto-shut hedges made up for the loss. Harry and Cedric make it to the Cup and decide to grab it at the same time. But as the cup was bewitched to act as a portkey, they get transferred to the Graveyard where Voldemort's resurrection was in progress. Voldemort is brought to life and he recruits all his death eaters. The ultimate battle between Harry and Voldemort was spectacular and the "Priori Incantum" was awesome. Cedric's death was saddening.


On the whole: This Movie was worth every buck I spent on purchasing the ticket. Though I resent not getting the Goblet of Fire Free Calender.

The Trailer:


Three Words: Go and Watch!

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Firefox. The browser, reloaded (with a new theme).

While (re) installing Firefox on my father's laptop, I got around wiki-fying "Firefox". Many interesting and important things (of which I was not aware of earlier) were unveiled before me. Interestingly, I found that Mozilla Firefox got its 100 millionth download just after 344 days of its release. Firefox, in its earlier stages of development, was named as "Phoenix", then "Firebird", and then finally Mozilla Firefox. Mozilla was forced to change the name everytime due to trademark issues. Anyhow, I got around knowing about this most popular Firefox theme, which has around 11,000 downloads, and goes by the name: Noia eXtreme theme (download here). I installed it, and it is really cool.

Nice User-interface