Status Updates

Phew!..what a hectic week and its only tuesday! Anyways things would change from tomorrow..I had a major release today. I was just back ..cold..wet and hungry! The weather is changing really quickly. Its 16 degrees outside and its been raining for 2 days now. But the rains here are soo different. Its kinda like a very fast drizzle...like gentle sprays of water droplets..like when one is near a fountain or when one is getting a haircut. Apart from all the weather news..Sumit and Jain are finally here! Damn..I was sooo looking forward for them. The three of us are gonna rip Tokyo apart. Loads of plans are on the cards..hopefully things would work out that way.
I was roaming around in Kawasaki when I saw a music shop. I entered and bumped into a HUGE metallica poster..and that was it..I came out with a Death Magnetic CD. I soo wanted to buy the T-Shirt but I was short of cash! F*ck just the day to forget reloading my wallet! Anyways hopefully I would go there again this weekend. I am hooked to the album. Its all I listen. I cud go on and on about this one!
Hmm..wat else? ..back at home..my bro and mom are going to Kerala day after tomorrow. My dad would be alone at home. I wonder how he would spend the day? They would be gone for 10 days or so. Anyways thats it for now..gatta get some sleep.

Randomizing

Its been raining the entire day! I had to spend the entire day indoors. With nothing much to do, I slept for almost 3 hours in the afternoon. Damn I would be up the entire night! And tomorrow's Monday! :( . Anyways but Tuesday is a holiday.. yaaay! (*dancing like a little girl!*).
I opened up my Lone Wolf and Cub series and read the entire 2nd volume. Its so damn cool! But the sad part is that there's not a single Manga here which is in English. And in the trains you find everyone reading one! Its like you are being mocked. Maybe they would have some in Tokyo..like in the main city or something. Anyways I have the entire Lone wolf series to finish before I need anything else.
I plan to join a gym soon. Its pretty near to my place and its really cool. Its open till like 11pm in the night so I can go there after my office. Hopefully by the time I am back in India, I would be muscular (again). The only sad part is that I would have a difficult time maintaining it..but I guess I should worry more about losing all the fat for the time being!
Hmm..what else..I've got Death Magnetic blaring on my headphones. My laptop speakers aint good enough to cover its "awesomeness". Its such a kick-ass album. I've been listening to it for a long time now. I can hear the riffs at the back of my head all the time. Anyways I can go on and on about it..but its almost time for me to make dinner..so towards the kitchen I shall walk.

DisneySea!

My childhood dream of going to Disneyland was finally fulfilled yesterday when I went to....DisneySea! :D. Actually there are two Disney resorts in Tokyo..the DisneyLand and the DisneySea (just next to it). DisneySea was opened around 7 years back and everyone who had gone to both of these places suggested to go to DisneySea. I intend to visit both because I dont really care what they say! Anyways so first up was DisneySea. I woke up at 6:30 am after sleeping at 3:30 am (a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do..to meet Mickey Mouse!). I woke up Pranay at 7 and screamed at him for not getting up early. Anyways we reached the station to find the other guys missing. Vikram showed up at 8:10 and there was no bloddy sign of Tilak. We waited for 10 minutes before deciding to go to his apartment. I was in a mood to leave him and go. But we went to his house instead to find him brushing his teeth and wearing his shoes simultaneously. I screamed at him a bit more and threatened him that if I missed out on a single ride..he's gonna pay (literally...for dinner...and I would eat!!). We reached a station called Maihama from where we had to take the Disney train. It was a cute li'l train with the windows shaped like Mickey Ears. We reached DisneySea at around 9:50. We entered to find this H-U-G-E globe with fountains. It was awesome. The fountains around it sprayed water on it and created small ripples on the globe which were like the tides of the oceans. Well the entire resort is a collection of such kind of creative ideas, artistic excellence and supreme eye for detail. I could spend months describing about all of them.
Anyways the entire resort is divided into 7 li'l theme parks. Each one different from the other. To go to each one of them in a single day is very difficult task. I missed out going to "Mermaid Lagoon"..based on the Li'l Mermaid. Although I wasn't too keen going there too cuz it was for li'l kids..but I would have surely loved to take a look at the theme. If you want to go only for the rides..then its actually of no use. I am saying this because there is a lotta rush and a lot of wait (100 minutes minimum) and the rides get over really quick. They are not that scary too (tho some of them are)..but the experience on these rides is something you would never get anywhere else. Every ride (the major ones) has a theme associated with it. There's a story of which you are a part off. I loved the experience.
We reached the first park after clicking the globe at the entrance a gazillion times! It was called the Mediterranean Harbour.

Mediterraneon Harbour:
It has this huge lake kinda thingie where there are boat rides and streamers. There are performers performing on the side. There are huge buildings which are absolutely lovely to look at. The exterior is painted to give the old school look. Absolutely stunning. However, the focus is stolen by a huge artificial volcanic mountain called Mount Prometheus. Damn!..that was a mean mountain. Smoke keeps coming through it from time to time. Its not a part of the Harbour tho. Its actually a part of another theme park "Mysterious Island". However, it gives a monstrous appeal to the park. Mediterranean Harbour doesn't have much rides. It is more of an exploration kinda theme park. There are huge ships with canons. You can pull the trigger to hear a blast and see the smoke coming out of the barrels. Apart from these there was an exploration attraction in this park. There were clues given to people to search for treasures and stuff..and I dont know for sure..but I think the clues were in Japanese..atleast the explanation was!..and hence we backed off. There was this entrance to "Leonardo's Challenge" which was a depiction of Leonardo da Vinci's design and other scientific stuff. But f*ck science..we saw a huge cave nearby which immediately caught our fancy. Who cares about science if we have caves! We went inside to find it was an entrance of the next park "Mysterious Island".

Mysterious Island
It was here we saw our first ride. "Journey to the centre of the Earth" is a ride inside to the earth's core with amazing animatronix, ultra cool lighting and high speed steep curves through rocky terrain. There is this AWESOME drop which gets the adrenaline splurging up your f*ckin brains! It lasts for about a second. Its a curved drop. Its not a conventional steep drop. It curves and then follows it up with a steep fall. Because of the curve, we feel we are thrown up into the air. The location of the drop is really cool and makes it real fun. We are inside this mountain going down, when suddenly, we jump out of the mountain (and see the entire island for a li'l more than a fraction of a second) and fall right into the mountain again. When we are about to enter the mountain, the curved shape of the drop throws us upwards, so we feel that we are gonna crash on the mountain's entrance. Phew!..it was phenomenal! I get goose-bumps even thinking about it. This drop is the only scary part of the ride, the rest is the visual part of the ride. We see animatronix at its best. Creatures inside the mountain and the entire ambiance is really cool. There's this monster "bug" which shakes its head wildly and roars at us. It was H-U-G-E! That was awesome.
Anyways the other major attraction "20,000 leagues under the sea" was closed. It goes inside the ocean and stuff. Sadly we missed it. Next up was "The lost river delta".

Lost river delta
As the name suggests its a jungle theme. There are some really huge statues, temples and waterfalls. It reminded me of a video game I used to play when I was a kid - Pitfall 2 - The Mayan Adventure.
There are two major attractions here. The first one was "Indiana Jones - The Secret of the Gray Skull". This was a very popular one among the crowd. The waiting was like 3 hours! We took a fast pass ticket for this one. It is like an advance booking. We get a time slot and do not have to wait in the line. We reach the place at the designated time and head for the ride. The waiting time is hence cut to a few minutes. Anyways we got the 9pm slot! So we went to a roller coaster called the "Raging Spirit". It was a conventional roller coaster with a 360 degree loop. It was a bit disappointing..cuz it was too short! And the only exciting part was the loop itself. I think the disappointment was largely due to the waiting time. We waited for nearly 2 hours to get into the ride and it barely lasted for a minute! Anyways it was then we learned another "term" which was very useful in parks like these - Single Riders. In case you are a couple and want to ride together, there's a separate line. In case you want to ride Single i.e. it doesn't matter whom you sit with, it cuts the waiting time to more than a half. We dint know that..and hence sufferred. I think if we had gone as single riders, the opinion would have differed. But the ride is not that scary. I think "The Bandit" at Yomiuri Land was much more fun. It was longer had a huge drop and reached speeds upto 90 km-hr.
Anyways it was almost time for lunch and we headed towards "Arabian Coast"..the home of Aladdin.

Arabian Coast
Arabian Coast is modelled on the lines of Agrabah. As per me, this was the best looking theme in the entire park. Whenever I used to see Aladdin on TV, I wanted to live in Agrabah. (Same with Mowgli). This theme park was stunningly similar to the cartoon. The bazaars..the music..the stony pavements..the buildings..you were immediately transformed to that era of mystery and magic.
We first went to this tour of Sindbad's Storybook voyage. Its a li'l boatride which takes you around an awesome set with Animatronic figures narrating the tale of Sindbad. It was visually spectacular. The robot figures were soo real. You look at them and you felt they are looking back. The movements were soo smooth..it hardly felt it was a puppet. Hell..there were robots belly-dancing and the transitions were soo smooth. The artwork on the robots were awesome too. They were really cute..with their big eyes and smiles. The story begins when you set sail with Sindbad and you reach a mountain with a huge bird which lays huge eggs. Some bandits steal the eggs and Sindbad and the crew saves them. Moving along..there' s a cave in which these bandits trap a giant and steal his treasures. Sindbad helps rescue the giant and we reach back to the palace with some of the gold - a gift from the giant.
After the ride..we realized we are really hungry and hence we went to the restaurant to have some lunch. It was an expensive one with Chicken curry, a Naan and some Rice. The quantity wasn't much..but japanese rice is heavy on the stomach..thus, you feel full after eating a little..but then you are hungry soon (atleast I am). After strolling along and clicking loads of pix, we went to Port Discovery.

Port Discovery
Port Discovery has a theme based on science. It has one interesting attraction called the Storm Rider. Its a simulation based attraction in which you are placed in a ship called the "Storm Rider". The story is like there's a huge storm and you gotta ride into the storm and fire a "Storm diffuser"..which would stop the storm (fighting the turbulence on the way ofcourse). After a long wait in the line..it was finally our turn. We were briefed about the mission (in Japanese ofcourse) and we were led to this theater. The engine begins to roar and we soon take off..the windscreen show us the view on the outside. Immediately we enter the turbulent storms...and are thrown around. We fire the diffuser but it turns around and hits our ship. Thats when things get interesting...the roof of the theater gives way and half a rocket enters the roof with sparks flying all around. So you actually feel as if the rocket has hit your ship. Then there are rains..both inside and outside the ship..you get drenched a bit and I dont know what they say .. but the storm kinda clears up! :D .. we land soon and thats about it. Its not a scary ride but a fun-filled one. We dint see any other interesting attraction here and thus, we head for American Waterfront.

American Waterfront
American Waterfront..well..its a waterfront..with huge ships and stuff. The only thing which attracted me was the pubs..they were really cool..they had the old look..like the 70s or something. The other thing which completely blew my mind was the "Tower of Terror". It was a H-U-G-E building..spectacular to look at and it was a free-fall ride!! Just the presence of the tower made us want to go inside. After an hour of waiting in the line we reached inside. It was dark by then and the building lit up to look even more sinister than it did during the daylight. While in the line all we could hear was a lightning crash and a deafening scream. We thought it might be a recorded one but to our horror..it was not. It was actual screams of the people in the rides. They took them to the top of the tower and for a second opened the window. Then they let u them fall!!!..and we saw them fall for just a sec. before they dissapeared. f*ck we were scared shit! Anyways I was overflowing with adrenaline as soon as it was our turn. We went inside a room..where there was this mean looking statue. A window had a picture of a collector named Harrison Hightower standing proud with his stick in his hands. Anyways soon our escort says "All the best" and leaves the room. The door closes and the entire room is filled with darkness. The picture of the guy (who was smiling initially) turns into a guy who's scared sh*t with the statue in his hands instead of the stick! The statue then overpowers him and sends him flying towards an elevator. It waves its wand and the entire elevator crashes down..free fall baby!!!! And the next thing we see is the mean statue in front of us dissapear!!! At this point I was like what the hell!!..how did that happen??..I have never seen anything dissapear in front of my eyes before!! It was the coolest thing!! At this time I literally lost it..I was actually clapping and laughing my head off!!! Phew!..we were then accompanied to an elevator. The lady (who was really cute btw) made sure we were fastened safely on our seats. So the ride begins..we move upwards in absolute darkness at a very cool speed. We stop midway..the door opens!!! We see a holographic movie..which was soo damn real!! There was this guy again fighting with the statue. The statue waves his wand and sends this guy flying. Then he turns at us and waves his wand on us. The entire elevator shakes and the door closes. The door opens and there's this mirror with all of us. We wave our hands and stuff..and suddenly the reflection turns green!!! Hell!!!..the doors close and we are pushed upwards. The doors open again..and this time we can see the entire resort!!..it was soooo damn high!! Then the familiar green lightning crashes..and the door closes. The next thing I know is the girl sitting right in front of me...her hair stands up straight!!! and its like we are tumbling down!...no ground beneath our seats F*ck..the most exhilirating feeling ever! We stop midway and then go down again! The ride ended with me buying the photo of all of us scared shit as a souvenier for a 1000 Yen. Phew!..they took it jst as we were about to fall. I have to upload it but I need a scanner. Anyways..it was the best ride of the park. The entire experience was something that I would remember forever. Anyways tired as hell and an hour still left for the "Indiana Jones" ride we sat down on a bench. Thats when there were spotlights in the sky inviting us to the Mediterranean Harbour once again. I remember myself running soo fast that I left Pranay (who is 1/4th of my weight) waaaaaay behind.

25th Anniversary Celebrations
We reached the lake that was just near the entrance to find a mystical ship...full of colour and fountains, roaming around. Suddenly four huge fountains shoot up and start dancing with music! What an awesome display of colour..it was actually magical. I tried really hard to capture it on my camera..but in vain..the pix that I clicked aren't even half as cool! Anyways after a few formations..they stop. Just when we thought it was over..a huge dragon rises over the water. Man..what a sight! And the next thing we see is fire!..on water!! The volcano I was talking about comes alive and starts shooting fireworks! Phew! The dragon lights up with fire. There are fireballs going away like crazy and in perfect synchronization with the music. Thats when I decided to shoot the entire thing. It lasted about 20 minutes..both fire and water coming together in carefully choreographed symphony. It completely left me speechless..the video has me screaming "awesome" like a hundred times! And after all the fire and water show is over...there's an announcement that since its the 25th Anniversary of the Disney resort..there's gonna be fireworks!! We dint waste a moment and ran to the front. Many ppl had moved from their positions ..so it was easy for us to grab really cool seats. Anyways..the fireworks began with the Disney Theme in the background. It was magical! ..it lasted around 10 minutes. I captured the entire thing on the camera. Whew!.what a night I must say. With the fireworks out of the way..we had a few minutes more till the park was open. We still had one ride left..the "Indiana Jones" adventure. It consisted of a high speed drive across caves and jungles. It ended with a huge boulder coming straight for us. The car reverses into a nice li'l drop. That was it..the last bit of excitement I would experience for the day. We struggled to walk... all of us.. tired as hell..legs aching..body stiff as ever. We made our way to the station and reached Kawasaki at around midnight. We grabbed a couple of beers..some burgers and went to a bridge near to our apartments and spent the night eating and reminiscing about the day over and over again. Phew!..what a day!

Happy Onam

Well..its actually belated Happy Onam..but nevertheless..its a happy onam! (or belated..watever!..I could go on forever). Anyways. It was my first onam without my family and I dint miss them a bit (:D) .. well I did miss the lunch..and the booze with dad and bro. Thats why we (me and Syam) decided to make sambar and cabbage. I reached back at my apartment at around 8. We went to the local grocery shop to buy cabbage (and the mandatory beer). But we thought, its onam right..we should really get high! So we went to the daaru section. While we were at the daaru section..trying to solve the most difficult question on this universe - What to drink? ; a lady came by and in a flash selected a whisky by the name of Nikka Whisky. Its a japanese whisky..expensive and with a really cool bottle. She just came by and took it right off the shelf without even thinking for a second. We put the Suntory VSOP brandy back..and thinking that this might better, took the Nikka Whisky. Back at home before making dinner..we opened it up and damn!..it was a hard one! And we dint get high at all after a few pegs! But gradually things started to change..by the time we finished making dinner..I was sufficiently "happy". Its gotta be one of those which gets to you after a while! Anyways we had our rice with the sambar and the cabbage..really tasty..but nothing like home. I called up back home to tell my mom that I made sambar. And she made plans to make me do all the cooking once I get back! Anyways with the dinner out of the way..I just dropped off to sleep. I woke up today at 9:30..Syam still is snoring away like hell! Nikka Whisky - not bad eh? Hmm..now I got to figure out what to do for breakfast.

Sungha Jung

Sungha Jung is from South Korea and he is 11 years old. He wants to become a professional finger guitarist when he grows up! I think he has already become one!!

Sucky Day

I opened the door of my apartment to find the best weather ever..blue skies..sunny..and a nice cool breeze. I happily walked to the station.boarded the train and reached my office..well before time. Thats when the dark clouds started to loom over my head. My client reported 8 bugs in a single day in a span of a few minutes!!! It was mayhem!..As soon as I logged a bug on our bug-server, there it was.. another one. Well I have to say..it was kinda expected..they have an enormous test suite. Its soo huge..they cant run them on a single machine. The scripts fire a test randomly over a series of machines. Anyways I have to freeze the code by Monday..a near-impossible task. Lets see what happens. And if things weren't going for me at work..I had more bad news on the enjoyment front. I was planning to go to Osaka over this weekend. Its a long weekend..we have monday off! But that aint gonna happen cuz there are no tickets available! Damn..I soo wanted to go to Osaka and meet up Viral and Shruti. We had planned to go to Universal Studios and visit Kyoto or Kobe or any other place :C .. a really bad day!...I hope things get lively during dinner.

I had gone to Odaiba last to last weekend. Odaiba is an artificial Island near to Tokyo. Anyways there was this really cool demo of this robot which can play musical instruments. The toyota guys have made it. We went to this Toyota Design Studio in Odaiba and saw this absolutely fantastic piece of technology. Its hands can model the subtleties of an actual human and hence can play music. Pretty cool eh? I hope they make one which can play the guitar.

Happy Anniversary

It was Syam's anniversary today. Even he dint knew it. There was a mail from the office wishing him a happy anniversary. Anyways on the way home I was in a mood to give a surprise. I got a cake for him and a pack of cigarettes!! I was doubtful whether he would eat the cake but I was sure of the cigarettes! Anyways he was happy..the poor guy is all the way in Japan and his wife and kid are back in India. Not that he's not enjoying my company or anything. I mean cmon..all ppl who love to drink love my company..and he's not an exception. Anyways we cut the cake..called the guys from downstairs and had a li'l daaru party. It was cool..I took some pix and I guess that was it. Nuthing much left to do other than sleep..so here I am finishing up my blog..and going to sleep..zzzz.

Death Magnetic

There are only a few days left before the release of the album..but the songs are already available on the internet. I just cudnt resist listening to all the songs. And damn ..they are awesome!!! I just love their sound on this album!! It blew me away just like they did the first time I heard them. The album opens with a very "dark" slow intro and simply takes off after that. The first song is titled "That was just your life"..and whew!..what a f*cking amazing song! The intro builds up slowly setting the mood and it suddenly rips everything apart! One of the best track openers I must say! The next song is called "The end of the line". It was temporarily called "The new song" during their live shows. It sounds much cooler and very different from what they performed live (for the better). Awesome track..one of the best tracks off the album. The riffs just keep ringing at the back of my head!! Its the perfect 2nd song of an album. The first one just has to be good..but the second one has to take it up a notch! This song does exactly that. "Broken, Beat and Scarred" .. I feel it has the most catchiest riffs ever! and its like a continuation of the previous track. Next up is "The day that never comes". It takes things a bit slower. I have to say its one of those ultra-cool ballads like Fade to Black. I love the lyrics on this one. The video does justice to the song! I totally get the video. "All Nightmare Long" is the best track on the album as per me! Its really heavy and really faast!! Brilliant is all I can say. The next song is "Cyanide". I had heard Cyanide loads of time. Its a really cool track..well I am getting repetitive saying that! but I cannot help it..I just loved every song on this album..and as it turned out..I have ended up citing every song to be "amazing". So I dont really think I should blabber on about every song on this album. All in all a must-have! I just cant wait for the release..I just HAVE to buy it! In short if you guys have money to spare..stop spending it on your girlfriends/boyfriends...get this album! I wish I had 10 thumbs so that I could give it like a 10 thumbs up!! \mm/

The day that never comes

The new music video of Metallica from their album Death Magnetic.

Haleem

Ok..so..as I mentioned a few blogs ago that I am currently involved in loads of homely activities..and cooking is my favourite among all of them. My roomie Syam is a really cool cook..and he made "chhole" on sunday. However, we forgot to put it in the fridge yesterday and after coming back from Odaiba..we simply fell onto to our beds and went straight to sleep. Syam reminded me to put the thing in the fridge when I go to the office as he was getting late. And being the kind of person I am...I forgot! When I came back I saw the thing all spoiled and fungy!/mouldy With a heavy heart I had to throw the entire thing out. However, I was feeling soo guilty about the entire thing..I wanted to make up for my carelessness. So I started making egg curry (the only thing I know). Midway through the thing...just when I had put the onions on the grill..Syam came back with chicken. As if we had a grudge against the chicken...we decided to eat the egg and the chicken (and thus killing both the mother and the baby - philosophically speaking. Yeah we were high on a few beers). Anyways I kinda put some extra water in the entire thing, since I was afraid the chicken wont cook...and viola the result was Haleem! (thats what when my other friend Anwarul called it when he saw it). Anyways it was fantastic...and it was not just me who felt this way (for a change). Syam was happy the chhole went bad! The best part of the entire thing is that...we have got some leftover for tomorrow..yaay!