The Art (Pain?) of Blogging.

After a listening to a lecture by a person who talking about the ways to use internet gainfully and happened to glance over a few points where he mentioned that he was making a lot of money by blogging, ideas started sparking at an awesome rate in my head, all of them screaming at me to make some moolah online. And soon enough, I started out on this blog quest, a mission with simple objectives, making money by publishing some articles. Only, soon enough, I found that it wasn’t really as easy as it seemed.

Besides getting bored of thinking of interesting articles to publish, the thought that not many people were reading them was just frustrating me even more. When I am in the middle of developing an article, I would suddenly pop up with an idea for some other item that would probably be better than the one I am working on... and I tear up the previous paragraphs and start off on a totally new adventure, with which, of course, I don’t persist with for too long.

Blogging isn’t all that easy, especially not when you are a student with nothing to post on. And apart from the usual matter to talk about, I get a feeling that I would need to have some theme in my blog that entice my readers to visit it day after day and read the things I post.

Especially when you really don’t have anything going on in the grey matter of yours... Blogging = Hard. And once you run out of interesting things to blab on with, finding some other topic and creating a piece on it would take an eternity.

Still twiddling my thumbs, I glance out of my window, looking for something that would plow my smarts and pull some ideas to the surface of my mind... but the sight of two crows murdering each other on the road while there is a truck heading right for them with a driver who doesn’t really care about the crows doesn’t exactly inspire me to invent anything...

Giving up hope, I waiting for yet another day to pass on peacefully and unfortunately, uneventfully... hoping that there would be something better to think about in the days to come...

Movies – Mission Impossible III





Mission Impossible 3, hmm, chalk one more up for the classic hero rescues the heroine scene! However, the movie certainly added some twist in it at some points and the usage of advanced gadgets in the movie heard a few Ahs and Ohs from bunch friends who watched the movie with me on the TV. Yeah, so it was a pirated DVD, and I have to say the print and the sounds were pretty miserable which wasn’t really enabling me to feel the true movie as such. However I did get a pretty good outline of the plot and the way the things were carried out.

The movie starts with a flash of the future where Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his wife, Julia (Michelle Monaghan) are captured by the villain, Owen Devian (Philips Seymour Hoffman). Their whole conversation of “Where is the Rabbit Foot? (Please do NOT ask me what rabbit foot is…)” and Devian’s prodding of Julia’s head with the nuzzle of his pistol doesn’t really give the movie a very good beginning….at least not something that squeezes some adrenalin in the viewer’s blood, but it kind of sets the whole movie up for the ending about 1 and a half hours later.

Flashing away from the hostage scenario and moving into the past, the movie shifts on to a more pleasant party scene at Ethan’s house. Soon, he gets drawn away to a mission with the objectives requiring him to rescue the surveillance agent, Lindsey (Keri Russell) who had been ambushed by the enemy who happened to be (Well surprise, surprise!) Devian’s men. After assembling his team which includes himself and four more people (counting hisold time buddy, Luther [Ving Rhames] ,too), there is a thrilling (Well, kinda…) rescue attempt and Ethan succeeds in taking Lindsey to his helicopter.

However, after a short talk with Lindsey, Ethan had to say goodbye to her forever, as the explosive device implanted in her head by Devian, explodes just before he could deliver a charge to her body which would have destroyed the device (Little did dear ol’ Ethan know that he would be having one up his grey matter eventually :P ).

The movie then gets heated up when he kidnaps Devian (and of course, the way they kidnap the bad guy is naturally fascinating  ) and sticks him out of the bottom of an aircraft (When it was airborne…). Devian then swears that he would have his revenge, which he was close to claiming at the end of the movie.

All in all, the movie was well directed and rolls over a variety of different situations where the hero is put through grueling circumstances. However, lady luck is by his side and helps him out at most instances (though the part where Julia tries to revive her Prince Charming by pounding on his chest doesn’t really spell out luck for poor Tom ).

Let me see, how can I describe this movie…hmm… well, as I have already mentioned, it is the classic hero saves the heroine scenario but then there are a few nice twists here and there but it isn’t anything very special that would stand out from the rest of the crowd. Though there might be a few people who would be awed by the turn of events and the gadgets they use, I would say that the movie was fairly good and would be a pretty good watch for people who want to see just another movie and I would rate it on par with Mission Impossible 2.

The last word? Any casual fewer of films would enjoy this movie and would probably have felt he did something worthwhile during the day :P.


Blog Publisher’s Rating – 3.5/5

Games - Trackmania Nations





Just a few weeks ago, I was watching the review of Trackmania Nations on a TV channel with the sounds on mute and it looked like a really terrible game. To be honest, the idea of a Formula 1 type car jumping through the air and crossing obstacles didn’t really appeal to me all that much. But I had a totally different view of the game once I installed it on my PC and had a taste of the game myself. Heh, I guess expression you can’t judge a book by its cover or a game by its shots is pretty much true.

With an option of 68 countries to choose from, this version of Trackmania has 90 tracks and encourages people to play for their country and improve the stand of their nation in the World Rankings.

It has three modes to choose from. The first being the usual "Beat the Game" where the players have to maneuver through the different tracks in their best time and can win medals in all the tracks depending on the time they take to finish the track. However, besides the gold medal, the ultimate satisfaction lies in defeating the company's record. But accomplishing the presented targets isn’t very easy at the first shot as the tracks have unexpected twists and turns (Literally!!) and would take you quite some practice to master the speeds required for getting past specific obstacles.

The obstacles that the players face range from a sharp hairpin turn to Loop-de-loops that are aimed at making you lose time.

If you think playing solo isn't really your style and that you would like a little more competition, then other two modes of play would certainly fascinate you. The "Hot Seat" mode of the game lets you play with a minimum of 2 people to a maximum of 8 players on the same pc. This lets you race with your homies on your favourite track and match your timings to see who really the King of the Asphalt is.

The game also lets your play on the LAN/Internet, the latter of which helps you raise the ranking of your country. People from all over the world clash with each other on different servers to emphasize on the domination of their country.

As you can see, Trackmania is a pleasant and yet competitive game which has a slightly different approach to the Car-racing genre of games. Also, Trackmania Nations had been officially declared as a game in the Electronic World Sports Tournament where gamers from across the oceans fight it out for the title of the World’s Best Gamer.

Ask for my opinion? Well, I feel that Trackmania Nations is an awesome game which probably doesn’t really have too many cons to its name. But there are a few strange things in the game that may raise your eyebrows like the fact that when you are airborne, you can limit your speed using brakes [Air brakes??? Pun Intended].

If you were really into the game when you first got it and all you thought of playing was Trackmania, then it wouldn’t be too much of a surprise if you lose interest pretty soon. But the game has a different factor of interest when you have your friends playing it along with you. The instinct of, "I am the racing demon over here and not the n00bs around me!" would really provide you with an adrenalin rush in every turning of the track, forcing you to perfect the way you skim the track.

All in all, this creation of Nadeo, the Trackmania Nations has surely not been a disappointment to the crowd by a far shot.

Blog Publisher's Rating - 4/5
License - Free
Download - Trackmania Nations

Games - Icy Tower





Reviewed by the Cnet Officials as "....a fun and short, yet addictive game....", Icy Tower is a small game with a simple objective of climbing the tower. Made by the Free Lunch Design programmers led by Johan Peitz, the game has attracted fans from all regions of the globe ranging from USA to the western end of Australia. It has engulfed the minds of people of different ages.

Besides just climbing floors, the Icy Tower World High Score List has various categories in which the players can contend such as NML (N00b Master's League), Combo, FML (F00l's Master's League), etc.

From just jumping from one floor to another to cartwheeling across 5 floors, players can play the game enjoying the sounds and sights of the different user made characters that can be found on the internet.

Harold the Homeboy is the lead character who happens to come across the tower in his area and decides to scale it. However, the poor dude has been tirelessly climbing for a couple of years now and yet has not reached the top. I guess he just needs more people to help him out. Do you think you could help him reach the zenith of the apparently neverending skyscraper? Well, there is only one way to find out! Go for it :)!

Blog Publisher's Rating - 4.5/5

[The Picture at the starting of the blog - Courtesy of Cnet Downloads]

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