Power Weekend

Ohh man!..what a weekend. I did everything! I mean just every damn thing! I saw 2 movies, drank beer, partied till late night, played charades, practiced guitar and lazed around with a 4 hour siesta! It was insane!

It all started Friday afternoon when bhabhi called to watch Kung-fu Panda II with her, bro and some of his friends. I was game instantly! I started from the office at 7:30 or so. The show started at 8:20. There was a massive jam at the Sec. 18 underpass which made me a bit nervous. But thankfully, the traffic was smooth after that. I reached there at 8:00. As usual the others were running late, but somehow managed to reach in time for the show.

Kung fu Panda II is awesome! Although ppl dont buy my word when it comes to animated movies (because I love 'em all), but this one truly was! The animation, the dialogues, the coolness..it was all there. It was a laugh riot from the very first scene. Its a lovely made sequel. I loved how they showed the flashback scenes in awesome manga style 2D. And the climax! ... ohh what a climax ... its simply breathtaking!

Anyways, after an hour and a half of Kung fu awesomeness, we had dinner at Pizza Hut. It was ok..somehow I dint find it as good as it used to be. I remember I used to simply adore it when I was kid.

I decided to crash at my bro's place for the night. One of his friends Vikram also stayed. It was midnight by the time we reached his place. Tired, we went to sleep right away. I woke up at 6:40 or so with the bright sun misleading me. I thought it was 11 am but the relentless summer sun showed up its evil head early (ohh how I hate the sun). After an awesome breakfast, I lazed around watching TV before it was time for Beer. Me and bro bought us some Carlsberg and had a nice time finishing it. Lunch was spent watching Stanley ka Dabba..another awesome movie.

We had bhabhi's cousins come over for a small get together in the evening. It was really cool. We had a nice time drinking, laughing and watching the one sided IPL finals. We played charades and I ended up staying till 2:30 a.m..before I started to feel really sleepy. I retired for the night but all the others stayed up till like 4 a.m (thats what they said!) Man!

Anyways, Sunday morning, everyone was groggy and wanted to go back. After tea, they all went back. Me, bro and bhabhi had brunch and went to sleep at 2:00 pm only to get up in the evening at 6!! I dint realize I slept soo much. Soon it was time to leave. They dropped me back in Mayur Vihar in the evening. Sunday evening was spent relaxing, catching up with the guitar and the Xbox. I went to sleep after an early dinner after sulking a bit for Monday morning :(. But anyways, one of the best weekends ever!

Mortal Kombat

Mortal Kombat was the first 16 bit game that I played waay back when I was a li'l kid. Thanks to my friend Rohit who was a total video game addict at that time, me and Harman were sucked into the vortex along with him. Mortal Kombat was really fun to play. It was pretty realistic for the time. The game used digitized sprites for actors and consequently looked a lot real than their animated counterparts. The blood and violence made it even more fun. I remember Mileena's fatality in which she ate the person and puked out all the bones. Classic!

Over the years, MK had lost its touch. MK2 was the best. MK3 was also good but it was downhill after that. Their 9th installment named Mortal Kombat was showcased at E3 2010 and it left everyone dumbfounded (including me). Their latest offering looked awesome and was gory as hell. I was desperately waiting for it to release. The release was due in April 2011. I had made up my mind to buy it as soon as I reach India. And I did just that. It was shipped last Monday...but I got to play it only yesterday. 

Needless to say, it has delivered its promise. MK fans would be really happy with the latest MK game. It  looks awesome, gameplay is really fast and the controls are pretty cool to work with. It has a story mode, the conventional arcade mode and a challenge mode.

The story mode is pretty interesting. I am playing the story mode for 2 days straight now. It retells the story of the MK trilogy with the player getting to play with all the main characters in the plot. Its truly awesome and really fun to play. You start with being Johnny Cage, move on to Sonya, Scorpion, Cyrax, Liu Kang, Jax, Smoke, Sub-zero, Kitana, Jade, Kung Lao, Stryker, Kabal, Cyber Subzero, Nightwolf and finally Raiden. So you kinda get to play all the characters. The gameplay is pretty fast and you are as good playing with the fists and kicks as with all the super powers. It has this brand new X-Ray move which lets you see the damage on the internal organs and ohh man! its brutal. When you see knives and swords going into the eye sockets, knees and loads of "creative" places, you are bound to cringe. I think the MK guys are a bunch of sadists. I mean the creativity that they have shown to think of such brutal assaults, is a bit shocking. But thats what every MK fan looks for in Mortal Kombat. 

The cut scenes are of the in-game engine itself and hence the story and the fight blends in seamlessly. Although the backgrounds are spectacular, the players look a bit funny at some places...esp the bare chested ones like Liu Kang and Johnny Cage. Other than that, its flawless. Some of the character models like Subzero, Scorpion, Nightwolf and Smoke are brilliantly done. Even Jax looks really cool. The backgrounds are interactive and you will have something or the other moving. 

The sound in the game is mind blowing. When you get hit, you really feel the hit. The character themes also make the atmosphere around pretty cool for fighting. 

This beats all the other MK versions both in all respects, be it story, graphics or gameplay. It is surely gonna win some awards this year.

Randomizing

We had a lovely rainy morning today. It was a relief R-E-L-I-E-F from the dreaded Delhi summer which has been pure evil this time! Its 30-32 degrees at 7 am in the morning! I know this because I run in the mornings these days \m/. Anyways, but it was a nice to wake up to such an awesome weather. I wish it continues for a few more days.

I went for a small trip to Amritsar and Gurdaspur with my bro and bhabhi. My uncle who is a commandant in the BSF, is posted there. He would be getting transferred to Kolkata soon. And he has an awesome campus in Gurdaspur. We go there frequently, but it was the first time for bhabhi. We get such a VIP treatment there..its awesome. I just go there to get spoilt from all the luxuries. Since he would be moving to Kolkata soon, we had an impromptu trip for one last time. Anyways, although it was the peak of summer there too but we found ways to "cool" off. I came back Monday morning amidst huge drama. The bus in which we had come was an AC Volvo bus. But the AC stopped working just after a few kilometers. Ppl started screaming and demanding their money back. The guys yielded and promised to give the money when we reach Delhi. However, when we reached Delhi, the guy only gave money to those who had booked the tickets from him. Two families (including ours) had booked it online. For those, he said he would take us to the vendor who would give us money. As soon as we reached the vendor's shop, it was closed. This guy said he would park the bus and come. but he took off! We got hold of some assistant who was sleeping there and called the cops! We finally managed to get the money, which was a big relief.

Other than that, I am hooked to Mortal Kombat these days. I had just bought the latest one for the Xbox last week and its sooo much fun. I spent all morning playing. Bashing ppl up is a nice way to release stress esp if it can be this violent and brutal!

These days, I am toying with the idea of buying an electric guitar. I am looking for it online. I plan to visit Noida tomorrow to check if the stores have anything good. I would also most probably hang out with the guys for beer tomorrow too. And I also hope to get up early for my run. Phew! big day tomorrow huh!? Lets see how it goes.

Fighting the jetlag

Ohh man..its the worst feeling ever. I feel sleepy all through the day and stay up till odd hours. Somehow, I feel the jet lag is worse here than when I was in the US. I get up at like 8:30 as if its dawn. I wonder how long it would last. Its been a week today but I'm still fighting with it..and loosing.

Weekend

Well, this was my first weekend back in India and it was just what I had hoped for. I joined the office on Friday. It was really cool to meet up with the gang again. We had made plans to party after work..but the entire day was sooo unbearably long for me. I was stuck in meetings for 5 hours..and the rest 3, I spent catching up with everyone. The day was a total waste..but the night sooo wasn't! We reached Superstars at 6:00 pm and partied till 12:00 am. It was insane! I reached home at about 1:00 am after dropping off Subhash and Amaresh.

Saturday began with a lazy morning. I spent my afternoon watching The Big 4 DVD that I had bought. Man!..its literally insane jaw-dropping stuff. It has 5 hours of concert of Anthrax, Megadeth, Slayer and Metallica (in that order) and whoosh..its one helluva ride. After a much needed siesta, all of us went to my bro's place. We opened a couple of beers and saw the Delhi Daredevils sink to Mumbai Indians. I planned to stay with them for the night. When Mom and Dad left, me, bro, bhabhi and Karan (my cousin who was with us for a while now) played cards till 2:00 am. It was soo damn fun. Although am not a good player and I usually dont participate, but it was real fun yesterday.

We had huge plans for Sunday as well. Mom and Dad were going to come for lunch. They reached at my bro's place with a bottle of Singleton. Needless to say, we totally enjoyed lunch and man I was sooo full after that, I dint even have room for dessert (and I always have room for dessert!). I slept through the afternoon again, thanks to my jet lag. Mom and Dad left for home after lunch. The rest of us decided to go to GIP in the evening for some bowling action and subsequently for dinner. I had loads of unused coupons from my office which we decided to utilize. We could only play one frame because we were getting a bit late and Karan had to leave to Gurdaspur early morning on Monday. We headed towards Desi Vibes and had an amazing dinner. I was having Indian food after soo long and boy I could not stop eating. We ended up things with a nice ice cream at this new place in Sec. 18 called New Zealand Naturals or something. There, we saw two policemen harrassing the store guy for a free ice cream! They left when the guy said, "Let me tend to the customers", pointing towards us. But when we left, we saw those guys coming in again.

Anyways, I just reached home now and boy! I'm soo full and I'm soo tired and..I'm sooo happy :)

Touchdown!

What an eventful return journey! It was 10:00 pm Sunday night. We were partying for the last 2 weeks and hence thought of keeping Sunday as a "rest" day. Me, George, Saurabh and Akash had an early dinner and called it a day. After they left, I was randomly surfing the net when someone tweeted Osama is dead! I frantically opened CNN's website where they just said Osama bin Laden is dead as per confirmed sources. I switched on the TV and there it was confirmed that he was indeed dead. There was jubilation all over. It was an awesome piece of news .. really heroic. Almost the entire night was spent in front of the news. When they mentioned words like "extra security for flights" and "All forces on high alert"; I was a bit tensed since I had to fly the next day. I really hoped it would not affect the flights. Anyways, next day, I had breakfast for one last time with the guys and waited in the hotel room. I had already finished packing and had nothing much to do really. Soon it was 2:30. I had booked the shuttle for 2:45. I grabbed all the luggage, and went to the front desk waiting for the shuttle to come. Soon 2:30 become 2:45 and 2:45 became 3:00, but there was no sign of the shuttle. I called them up, to which they said, the guy will be there in 15 minutes. But soon, it was 3:15 and still no sign of him. Thats when Paul, the engineer at the hotel, was on his rounds. He asked me when was my flight. I told him it was at 6:05 and suddenly he goes like "Dude you should have been at the airport by now!" I swear that was when my heart sank! He went on an on about the traffic and how it could take more than an hour to reach the airport! I called the shuttle guys again and they said, he would be there in 2 minutes! I was losing my patience and gave them a piece of my mind. Anyways, it was 3:30 by now and I was about to call some other taxi guy. Just then, an SUV comes up and asks me whether I had booked the shuttle. I dint even waste my time answering his question, I just took all my bags and opened the trunk. I asked him to rush to the airport! Thankfully, there wasnt much of traffic and I was there at 4:15 pm with plenty of time. Anyways, everything was pretty smooth after that. I reached Amsterdam on time. Had a very rough 3 hours at the stopover because I was sooo damn sleepy. Anyways, soon it was time to board. I slept throughout the way from Amsterdam to Delhi. Man I was soo exhausted. By the time I claimed my baggage and the custom clearance, it was 12:45 a.m. My li'l cousin Karan and Dad were there to receive me. I reached home at 1:30..chatted with everyone till 2:15 or so. Everyone had office the next day, so we retired for the night. I woke up at 9 (after a very sleepless night) and lazed around the entire day. Thanks to the jetlag, my afternoon siesta lasted 5 whole hours. My bro and bhabhi came in the evening and we spent some time with beer and some awesome egg curry. Ohh it feels soo good to be home. 

Coming Home

The last week never seemed to end. Each and every day of the week was painfully long. But now when the week did end eventually, it feels just like yesterday I had come here. I cant believe its May already! 3 whole months have gone by. 

Looking back, the trip was really fun. I dint imagine it would end this way, considering the start I got. I was mostly alone for the first 2 weeks and had deemed the trip a disappointment. But I ended up with soo many friends by the end. Its amazing. There's Akash whom I hang out with the most. George and Saurabh are the others whom I party with. Then there was Rama - the "beer" guy. He owns a liquor store here and is an expert on everything! Thanks to him, I got to taste close to 32 varieties of beer and enjoyed every drop! Then, there was Dave - our shuttle guy. A fun loving person to the core. He has the happiest dog in the world - Marley. There's Rachael who gave an awesome BBQ farewell today in the evening. And the hotel guys who have been soo cool to take us around when we needed groceries. It was awesome. Last two weeks have all been farewell parties. By the end of it, I really began to think, these ppl are soo happy that I'm leaving! 

Anyways, but I am really looking forward to be back in India. Ohh man..just the thought of landing in Delhi tomorrow makes me smile. I am really looking forward to party with my family, play the guitar - ohh man!..its been sooo long. I am afraid just how much would I have to practice to get back where I used to be. I am dying to party with my gang @ Superstars! But most of all, I am looking forward to mom's food.