Widescreen in Mplayer
Vi – the immortal editior, read my previous posts. Here is one more tool which cannot be beaten.
MPlayer – a linux based player which can do what you want. Name the feature it has everything. Delay subtitles, delay audio, delay video what not?
There was one thing it lacked, atleast which i was not aware of. I recently purchased an LCD monitor widescreen, this player did not readjust the aspect ratio. I was getting two larget black patches on the sides. I had to use windows classic media player which was doing this. Yesterday when i was googling i came to know this is possible in mplayer too. Just edit the config file. Add the line “aspect=1.7778″. There you go, any video you open will be widescreen. One more thing about the player, it does not have a gui. S/w doesn’t load ur system.
Kick ass player is what one must call it. Open source rulzzzzzzzzzz and windows ‘wtf’ you dont even deserve a comment.
Bala
Arundathi, wonderful movie.
I am watching a telugu movie after years i must say, and this movie lived upto my expectections. The script writers have done a very good job. I recall a statement from a sidney sheldon book. (A famous directory puts this question forward “Who is the most important person during a movie making?” He goes on to say thats its the script writers and make sure you dont tell them that)… This statement if followed by all movie makers there is absolutely zero probability for the movie failing.
Anyway back to arundathi, the story is about a ghost wanting for retribution on an entire family. The family is saved by their ancestor who is infact reborn in the present time who is none other than Jejima our heroine. Apparently Jejima years ago had punished our villian for his misdemanour in a very brutal manner. Our vilian saved by a few priests learns black magic and returns for vengence. Jejima wins yet again and cremates our vilian. She attacks him in a very beautiful manner, during her dance she uses the clothes in an innovative way to attack the vilian. The idea enthralled me even though it had a lot of graphics involved. Because the soul of the vilan is still present in the same place, the whole village is cursed. Poverty reigns the place. Story ends with how our jejima emerges victorious. Visual effects were brilliant, hard work speaks for itself.
Bala
Button takes his customary poll
Monaco grand prix, that one circuit where you are definite of winning if you are on poll unless you mess it up some how. Button snatches the poll from kimi in the last moment and yet again makes his statement. Lets see what happens in tomorrows race.
Prison break signs off.
. Here are the characters
I have been watching this tv-series from the past four years, high time i wrote a blog on it. So here it goes.
The name suggests what the series is about. A bunch of cons breaking out of fox river prison, become fugitives. They get to know of their past and the reason why they are in such a fix. They get arrested again and a second break out is also successful. Finally it all boils down to retribution and life returning to normal. Thats a four year old story in four lines told as succinctly as possible.
Here are the characters in the series.
Michael scolfield, the protoganist of the series. A structural engineer by profession, an escape artist by nature. Well he is the master mind behind these guys breaking out of the prison. All his moves are logical, thats what makes his character so special. Faced with unimaginable predicaments all the time, our pal always made it out easily. His crisp voice, immaculate enunciation, calm face the reason why the character reached out to so many i am sure.
Lincoln Burrows, Michael’s brother. I think that one word describes this character pretty much. Not that he didnt perform well, his character generally revolves around Michael. The story started of with Lincoln in jail, and Michale willingly commits a crime to get into jail and break out Lincoln. Not many take their brothers so close to their heart, however this was one theme which was kept till the end. This character did riled me a few times, but bearable though.
Fernando sucre, Amigo is one word which describes him. I enjoyed this character to a big extent, especially the background score this guy got. He couldnt have asked for more. One thing he values the most in the series was his wife and kid.
Sarah, Michaels girl friend. Well just one girl in the all boy gang. Definitely some thing guys looked out for even if the scene made no sense. Still played a major role, but i am sure audience spared here for the reason i stated earlier.
Alex, Federal agent. Another significant character and justice done aptly. Gets introduced in the second season, works for the company chases down the fugitives. Becomes a fugitive in the process too. During the second season his main job was track down the fugitives, the way he traced them was outstanding. It was so immaculate that they do face off at one instant where Michael’s father is killed. Absolutely no sympathy on his face, all he had to do was track these guys. His apathetic behavior changed in the third season when he becomes a con and joins hand along with these guys. In the fourth season he become benevolent and helps these guys get a clean sheet. Even sucre bails out, but alex stayed. Hats off to this guy, just a marvelous performance.
Characters i loathed T-bag, Ballack. Absolutely worthless characters, but the necessary for the screen play for sure. Just dont concentrate on the if possible. T-bag literally drove me balmy in the 4th season, it was too much asking. I was so happy when they killed Ballack in the 3rd season, i regarded it as the best episode.
Well, i can go on and on like this for pages and pages. Let me do that, instead let me just talk about they finished the series.
Christina scolfield, Michael’s mom is reveled only in the last season. Kathleen Quinlan plays the characters role. I just loved this character for the eloquence, immaculate makeup, what not. I am sure many would have understood that dialogue delivery is something that an artist must possess. Irrespective of how good the script might be, no one can help the artist. She is one typical example proving the point. She is up against her sons and needs to get scila back (major stuff). Michael and christina face off in the end was just a killer, was waiting for that to happen. Unfortunately she dies in the end. Here is a pic of hers.
That pretty much wraps up the things i liked about this series. Its been a great one you guys, there was something sensible on tv for once.. There has not been one single episode of PB which i have hated and thought it was a waste of time, the show has been absolutely great.. Few glitches present here and there, some of the things repeated along like for instance Lincoln being surmised of being an assasin for the second time, but still it rocked.
All these characters have found their niche in the acting world for sure, they just assimilated so well to the characters. No wonder the show is a big hit.
Bala
Congress all set to rule for decades
Well the title says it all people, just get prepared for the ride.
If you feel that i have jumped into conclusion before making the above statement, just ask yourself this question.
Who is BJP’s next leader, the characters in the list are not promising at all. Look at congress list, rahul priyanka. Not because they are children of Rajiv, but they are youth. I am sure people have no idea about what they have done or so, but they look promising atleast.
I am sure they won this time around because people atleast thought “a known devil is better than an uknown friend”.
Bala
Vi – V immortal
Well, i am having a terrible headache. Nothing seems to interest me, not TV not cricket….
Hence this blog, the topic which i wanted to write from a long time.
V in linux stands for visual editor. Vi stands for V – Improved.
However, i will call it V-Immortal.
I work in linux environemnt in office, thanks a zillion god for making my life heaven.
I am totally unsure what people would have done if VI was not there. I am sure there cannot be a better editor
giving features what VI can give. The more i explore the more i love it. Your life as a coder becomes so easy, you feel typing is no longer a problem. Recently i explored this command “vi -d file1 file2″. This command shows you the difference between two files. Some of you might say, what the hell there are a zillion softwares which can do this. But i am sure nothing can beat VI’s algorithm. It groups common lines and shows you only the difference. Try it and you will love it.
V Immortal, the coolest thing ever built on earth
Bala
How does a credit card work???
In simple words if you can understand how the free credit period cocept, you can actually make a decent profit with your credit card. CNN ibn website is not all that junk. Here is the link where in things are explained clearly.
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/how-to-get-a-loan-without-interest/91919-7.html
Bala
Brawl in Ec12
EC 12 is the company bus i board everyday to reach home. We have pretty much a decent gang in our bus.
In the morning it’ll be myself, Santosh, sumitha and nithya. In the evening we have Kris and Hari for company usually.
We generally spend our one hour of travel laughing and laughing and laughing. This is the best way to kill time, alleviate your stress, i bet.
This trip is quite unusual, we had a debate which heated up to good heights.
Kris makes an audacious statement, “You are an Indian only if you know to speak in hindi”. This pissed me of as i am poor in hindi.
It freaked us out, just the three of us were there (nithya was busy preparing herself for a night out).
The claims from kris side were his own meandering experiences. He is an NRI who came down to india years ago, joined a school in Maharashtra.
Apparently when he joined, they told him that Hindi was a compulsory language and he could not get a waiver from it. He was only given a waver for
Marathi, our pal chose French. And then moving along he also mentioned that his cousin too faced a similar problem and was never given a waver for hindi.
His conclusion, Hindi was made compulsory as it was a national language. We do agree with him till this point.
Going forward how did he arrive at the equation Hindi -> Indian?????? is the biggest mystery. He went on to say that only south indians dont know to speak
in hindi and for him south india was just tamil nadu.
Our counter argument being “when you can survive in bangalore for the past how many ever number of years without knowing kannada at all, you can always
survive in india without knowing hindi and this has nothing to do with Indian and stuff”. Santo went on to talk about spastic shools (his mom runs one) where you
can get waver for any subject even if you are all fine mentally too. This is govt approved. The point being you can walk away from studying hindi at any point of time.
However the spastic schools do analyze you over a period of time and then give you the waver. Lets not get into that.
Alright then came a bigger subject, whether we guys are kannadigas or Tamilians. Kris claimed saying that you guys are all tamilians, and are just arguing for
the sake of saving Tamil nadu’s face. He did agree with us once i apprised him with the below info. I had to give him an FYI saying, during my counselling for my engineering i was able to excercise all rights given to kannadigas.
I was not treated as a non karnataka person, also i would be treated as a non-tamil if i went to tamilnadu. Santo went on to say that to change once mother tongue,
you need not do any legal procedure. You get to choose what has to be given during your birth/ or school certificate. As a matter of fact, his mother tongue
is kannada inspite of him speaking tamil at home.
However our pal still seems to be convinced with the equation, Hindi -> Indian or else your nobody. Things have still not settled down.
The argument never seemed to abate, just imagine every single soul in the bus and stared at us at one point of time or the other.
we are planning to continue on this debate during our next trips. Lets see how things turn out.
Musambi juice, how to prepare
I planned to do something new on a lackadaisical weekend. Hence decided to prepare musambi juice.
This decision came after me and my mom had a taste of the scortching sun during our visit to a nearby locality. I made it to the hopcoms near my house, brought musambi fruit and came home. Filled with alacrity, started peeling the fruit and grinded it in the mixer. I filtered the juice, here is a pic of the same. The most horrible thing i have ever seen frankly
We grinded the musambi a lot, the froth was humongous. To add to this was the bitter taste of the fruit.
Mission failed. hope i make a better one next time
Bala
