kinshuk sunilit aint no, dessert if therez no caek

The first thing to do is to call back home and tell them I am hale and hearty in Bangalore. I do so. Next, I walk out of the airport. There is a line of EasyCabs and I take one. I need to go to the Indian Institute of Science. Which Indian Institute of Science? There are many in Bangalore! Thankfully, I had read the ICCBN guidelines for reaching the venue. See, I don’t know much about Bangalore. The place is called Indian Institute of Science and is also known as Tata Institute. Its near Yeshwanthpur. Oh That One! The taxi speeds away.

The journey was kinda comfortable. The driver is Prasanna, who is a friendly guy. He is a local, lives with his family, earns a salary of 8K as an EasyCabs driver, has no girlfriend and loves to hang out with friends.

By the way, Hills are called Betta in Kannada compared to Malaya in Tamil. You say Solpe Solpe Kannada Paratha for ‘I understand a little Kannada’ as opposed to Kunjum Kunjum Tamil Terio for the same about Tamil. The scripts are very different and yet the languages are claimed to be very similar having originated from the Dravidian family. For one: the word to show respect or to refer to as an elder brother in both languages is Anna.

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Okay! I know this is old news! stale news! But I just stumbled Upon it. And I am not referring to the social bookmarking service.

Command & Conquer Red Alert 3 is under production, and is supposed to be revealed in the April Issue of PC Gamer, in an exclusive. Now thats revelation! Find more details at theAngryPixel and some screen shots at PlanetCNC.

Why does the Tesla dude look like a Big Daddy? Or is that a custom-made tesla-protected Bathysphere??? looks like, I gotta wait until April to know. (Isn’t my humor getting sicker by the day?)

In the meanwhile, folks who are really wondering what is Command & Conquer (aka the un-initiated folks; in other words: folks living on a different planet) google a bit and dont forget to check IGN, GameSpy and of course, good ol’ Wikipedia ;)

I’ll help you though: Command & Conquer is the first true RTS Game, the one that spanned the genre (to be honest). Though this claim is a bit debatable (between Dune and C&C), yet it is the widely accepted fact. And Wikipedia Says:

“Command & Conquer (often abbreviated as C&C or CNC) is a video game franchise, mostly of the real-time strategy style as well two first-person shooter games based on the former. The Command & Conquer series was initially developed by Westwood Studios between 1995 and 2003, with development being taken over by Electronic Arts with the liquidation of Westwood Studios in 2003.

The first installment of the series was released world-wide on August 31, 1995 and was simply named Command & Conquer. The series is largely marketed for North American, European and Australasian audiences, though many of the games have been translated into other languages including German, French, Spanish, Korean and Chinese. The series is primarily developed for personal computers running Microsoft Windows, although some titles have been ported to various video game consoles and the Apple Macintosh. The latter games of the series starting with Tiberium Wars have also been developed in parallel for Xbox 360. The latest video game title of the franchise, Tiberium, is also being developed for PlayStation 3.” Read More.

Note: I am not a music critic. My understanding of music is fairly poor. In my dreams, though, I hold a mighty pen that scribbles to change the world. Take this review with a pinch of salt, impartial I try to be, since, the artist is a family friend.

Manu Rajeev releases ‘Aaliya’ his debut music album! Manu has done a feat that no Malayalee has done before, to release an all Hindi music album. Aaliya is a blend of sounds from across India and the world; taking its form from Hindustani and Carnatic, the songs transform themselves into a new Indian pop-rock extravaganza. The songs also have strong roots in traditional folk and Sufi music of India. Not sticking to the confines of traditional Indian music, Manu scales new horizons expertly blending Indian traditional music with that of the west. The New Indian Rock blend of this young maestro deserves a genre of its own.
The album has ten songs. Veteran lyricist Rakesh Nirala pens the literature for Manu’s music. Taking up the pen alongside the veteran is Mrityunjay Kumar and also the singer, Manu himself. All songs were composed, arranged and sung by Manu Rajeev. Parul Bhatnagar also lends her vocal talents to this album. The album was released on T-Series.

That was official. So I recently happened to listen to this album, Aaliya, which is the debut album of Manu Rajeev (My good friend The Kitty’s elder brother: the reason, why everything is so toned down). The album has ten songs. Quite a few IMHO for an album, but the blend is nice. The album has strong Rock/Sufi blends, not like what Rabbi did; but a unique-ty in itself.

The title track is ‘Aaliya’, which is a great dancing number and will have you dancing on the floor within minutes. Another wonderful song is ‘Achcha Hai’, which is my favourite number in the album. A soft, sad romantic song that touches to your heart. Another song I really like is ‘Deewarein Kyu’, a tragic romantic number. And then there is ‘Meri Taraf’ that announces to the whole world that ‘I have come, look at me’.

However, I should also mention what’s not done best in the album (obviously in my opinion, opinions will differ). Kill Him is a song the album would like to forget. Another number that doesn’t blend too well with the album is ‘Too Fast’ (despite its great Hip Hop music).

The lyrics are well written and touch the heart. Compositions are melodious and so is the singer. Languages and genres are wonderfully blended in the album and have a nice ring to them. All in all, an album I would certainly recommend to hear.

And, I have been deliberately harsh with the album, so as not to sound to praising (aka spamming) so go out, listen to this and make your own call.

Aaliya by Manu Rajeev
Rating: 7.5/10
Publisher: T Series
Plus Points: Nice Blend of Languages and Genres, Some Touchy Numbers
Negatives: Some Tracks are forgettable, Low Track count.

More info about the artist and the album is available at: www.manurajeev.com

Here I am sitting in the office, uploading PHP list on the localhost to do a custom install. The files are only 20% copied and so I have a lot of time to think and I was building on a software idea I had. Well, its out here in the open now… for I think, someone must ahve done something like it.

Ok, So here goes:

Software Design for ‘Friendly Windows Error Messages’

It happens so many times with us that we are working on our windows pc and suddenly, out of nowhere a ghoulish error message pops up in to our screen. The Software FWEM will hack a translate button on the message’s control box, that woud traslate the message into one of the following languages:

English, n00bish, Moronic, and Dummy-Bumble.

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More to come… keep watching ;)