Woohoo…i am back !! Although, it took me one week to crack through the firewall! Thanks to the support team at WordPress for amazingly fast and useful reply to my SOS call. Also, i would like to thank the Gladder developer team for making such a nice plugin, easy to use and works behind the biggest firewall(costliest one ever built). i hope the government never finds a block for this one.

and, as the best practices should be shared for everyone’s welfare, here is the link where you can download a plugin for firefox and it ultimately opens all the banned webpages through proxies. it works …. i am posting this message through this plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2864

During this time, i have planned a series of Social topics that i have always wanted to write on and would like to hear the views from others. Once again, keep looking for this space.

here are some stunning recent pics by the photojournalists, showing the preparations for Olympics in China. Really amazing.  do read the comments for the posts on the link, pretty interesting debate going over there.

Photos of Olympics preparations

i am leaving for China on 29th July, excited to see the city in chaos (although i could not get a single ticket for Olympics games) but on the other hand, i am afraid that i cannot access my blog anymore (yea yea everyone knows that one cannot access many websites in China like wikipedia, blog sites, and all the sites that allow free speech).  will try from the office.  you guys will know it if my posts continue or all the pending posts will pour in at the time when i am out of China on business trips.

“The Dark Knight“, new movie from the Batman’s cave is just amazing, exceeds all expectations i had with this movie.

Why so serious?

watching in IMAX format, the movie starts with the aerial view on top of tall buildings in Gotham city, thats the first instance when spectators just ‘wow’ and it follows with every scene that director Christopher Nolan has imagined and Cinematographer Wally Pfister has created on screen.  The story, spellbindingly suspenseful, you wont even know that the movie is 152 minutes long.  I wouldn’t talk about the Batman (Christian Bale) or Harvey Dent/two-face (Aaron Eckhart) but i will surely tell you about The Joker (Heath Ledger).  a masterpiece performance, he gave his best for a Psychologically disturbed, scary, sarcastic character.  He makes you laugh in the movie but it is a laugh that ends with pain.  My favorite from his “Why so serious?”.  The Director never explained what or who Joker is, he explains it himself what he is by his act, he doesnt need an introduction because of his stunning performance.  I vote for the Oscar to Heath Ledger.

 

Tumbler

“Tumbler” Batmobile, made to look amazingly robust but somehow the mobile isn’t glorified as it was done in the previous movies.  No special gadgets of the batmobile were shown which i feel is the best because we all know what it does.  there was more to it by showing a “Batpod” (motorcycle) that is the eject mode of the Batmobile.

 

Some trivia and fun stuff :

• This is the first Batman film to not have “Batman” in the title
• To prepare for his role as the Joker, Heath Ledger lived alone in a hotel room for a month, formulating the character’s psychology, posture and voice (the last one he found most difficult to do). He started a diary, in which he wrote the Joker’s thoughts and feelings to guide himself during his performance. He was also given Alan Moore’s comic “Batman: The Killing Joke” and “Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth” to read. Ledger also took inspiration from A Clockwork Orange (1971)’s Alex and Sid Vicious.
• The Batman Comic Books “The Long Halloween”, “The Killing Joke”, “The Man Who Laughs” and the first two comics to feature the Joker character served as an influence on the film’s storyline
• Had the biggest three-day opening weekend of all time with $158 million beating Spider-Man 3 (2007).
• This is the first Batman film to not have “Batman” in the title.
• In US, the movie has one more title…”Batman Begins – Part II”

References :

www.imbd.com

www.thedarkknight.com

London sky is really amazing during dawn and dusk….some of the best cloud-play i have seen.  clean and clear sky with clouds in different shapes.  although, i have a full series of London sky photos with me, here is one image that i feel is the best of the lot.  check later for the link to the whole series.

  Another exhilarating Experience that i can add in my diary  …. Nigel Kennedy’s performance at the BBC Prom, at Royal Albert Hall.  I  am kind of a newbie to the world of   Jazz, i still prefer new age/fusion genre when i want to relax at home and not Jazz.  but the whole point  is, i still could appreciate Nigel’s music.  my favorite composition is the      ’Hills of Saturn’ …. it almost felt like Pink Floyd’s music with various sound effects, psychedelic experience.  even the special appearance of Jeff Beck was really a good addition to  the composition.

Nigel’s Quintent line up was from Poland :

•  Nigel Kennedy violin
•  Tomasz Grzegorski saxophone
• Piotr Wyleżol piano
• Adam Kowalewski double bass
• Paweł Dobrowolski percussion

for more details about Nigel Kennedy, visit his official website

for more details about the BBC Proms 2008 visit the official website ,  worth an experience.

check out the new N96 from Nokia NSeries.  If you are lucky, you can also win a limited edition, at FacetheTask or buy one for whopping price for a cause, donations going to WWF.  plus it comes in a special edition packaging, although a few of my friends tagged it as ‘wood coffin’

Hassle of buying the new iphone 3G is so big that i am now reluctant to even enquire about its price tag or availability.  first of all, why would Apple make its admirers disappoint with a binding contract and a locked cellphone…. i could not understand this marketing strategy.  it is made to feel like the sin fruit which you cannot have but desire badly to have it.  i believe there are much better phones in the market that have the real status of sin-fruit than iphone, for e.g., vertu collection.  why wouldn’t Apple understand that today’s world is mobile, and people have longer off-shore assignments, they do not want to change their phones in every place they go.  the whole idea of cellphone is to be mobile, not only in terms of roaming connection, but also the freedom of its usage.  if i have paid for the equipment, i hold the right to use it as i want otherwise why don’t we loan it from Apple ?  i know, Apple is not the only one with the locks, a lot of other European network providers have been doing the same for other cellphones.  my only question to them is if they are anyways taking the money from us for the cellphone at the end of contract, then why wouldn’t the consumer have the right to use the phone device as they like ?