Yashventures

There are very few movies that entice me to write a review about it. Lage Raho Munnabhai is just one of them. Watched it today. It’s a marvellous movie! Clean, refreshing, family comedy. And its much better than the previous avatar Munnabhai MBBS.

The story is good and moves flawlessly. There are emotional scenes, there is humor and there’s Bapu. The movie does a good job of paying tribute to Mahatma Gandhi. It shows some good examples of how Bapu’s principles are worth following even in this age. Although it might not be as easy as it has been shown in the movie. After all it’s movie and there’s got to be a happy ending.

Munnabhai and circuit are just too good! And Vidya Balan…oh she looks beautiful!!!! I am converted. I’ve replaced my Amisha Patel wallpapers with that of Vidya Balan! Bomman Irani’s performance as Lucky Singh is fantastic. There are tiny roles for Jimmy Shergill and Dia Mirza and surprise, surprise there’s a cameo by AB’s baby Abhishek Bachchan as well!

I would recommend the movie to everybody. It’s a must watch.

I am getting more and more interested in photography these days. After capturing a lot of snaps with my excellent 2 MegaPixel Sony Ericsson K750 camera phone I’ve bought myself a real digital camera – the Nikon Coolpix L1.

Everything is superlative about this amazing camera! It’s a 6.2 MegaPixel, 5x optical zoom camera with 16 preset scene modes. It’s a compact camera with ample manual options for those who understand them and point and shoot functionality for noobs like me.

I bought the camera from eBay along with 1 GB SD card for INR 14000. I am still exploring it’s features, will post a few images in coming days on the photo gallery.

Just finished playing the campaign of AOE3. Man it’s wonderful! Age of Empires III – the third installment in the Age of Empires series by Ensemble Studios and Microsoft is one step ahead of its predecessors. The basic gameplay is history based like the previous two games and most of the things are the same. AOE 3 boasts of an improved 3D graphics engine which is used for the first time in this series. It also uses Havoc physics engine to render the animations and stuff.

A lot of things are new – especially the concept of Home city. The game is set in the era of colonization of the Americas so while you play to setup your colony in the new world, your home city sends you shipments of resources from time to time although you have to earn them through XP(Experience Points). Most of the units (even villagers who are called settlers) now use guns instead of bows and arrows. There are cannons and even rockets. The best part is the Railways! Yes you do have a railway although only for trade!

AOE3 is a lot like Age of Mythology. It has a single campaign with an interesting story line and cinematics at the beginning of each scenario. In AOM when you advance thorough ages you have to select a god, here you select a politician. There are lots of native American tribes in the game like the Inca, Maya and Aztec with whom you can ally and trade and there are eight European civilizations which you can choose to play with. The exhilarating campaign tells the story of three different generations of the Black family in three different Acts and a mysterious Circle of Ossus and their pursuit of the fountain of youth. The unique part is the single player Skirmish games which are like random map games in other versions. You can carry over the experience points earned from one game to the other. Experience points enhance the level of your home city and make cards of resources available for you.

Age of Empires III is very demanding on the computer resources – minimum 1.4 Ghz processor, 64 MB graphics card and Windows XP. So before you buy this game make sure to upgrade your hardware to enjoy the game to the max. Age of Empires III is a must play for any RTS (Real Time Strategy) game fan.

I spent my Sunday evening at Chaupati - the famous Mumbai beach! I found it to be smaller than Juhu or even Marve – a local Malad beach! I had some good time out there away from computers and Internet. I captured some of the moments in my camera which can be found here.

I recently bought a new mobile – Sony Ericsson k750i.

Here are the key features -

• 2 MegaPixel Camera with auto focus (Takes really amazing pictures – see the photo gallery on this site)
• Media player (Superb sound quality)
• FM Radio
• Bluetooth
• Infrared
• USB
• Extendable external memory. Comes with a 64 MB Memory Stick Duo Pro card, can be extended up to 2 GB!

Other features -

• 4X Digital zoom – Not of much use. It’s like resizing the image isn’t it?
• 2,62,000 colour screen
• Themes
• Animated wallpaper
• MP3 ringtones! (Yes I can now set my favourite song as ringtone…the full MP3!)
• Camera shutter (No one will list this as a feature but I really find this a useful feature)
• Java Midlets (For games and applications)
• Modem – so you can browse Internet using the phone as a modem
• GPRS, MMS, Web browser, Email
• Loud speaker..don’t need hadsfree to listen all the great music
• Software for video, sound and image editing – right on the phone. There’s also a very good music composer software.
• Brilliant games with amazing graphics!
• Organizer – contacts, meetings, tasks, world clock, timer etc usual features.
• Quicshare – I can now synchronize my Outlook with my mobile. Very useful.

Accessories -

• Wired handsfree
• Flash – this is a fantastic thing. The books photo that you see in another post is taken at night with the help of the Flash.
• Memory Stick to SD converter
• Charger
• Sony Ericsson PC suit

This phone is exactly similar in features as the w800 Walkman phone – the only difference being the Memory card. w800 comes with a 512 MB card. K750i is the best possible combination of features one could ask in the mobile. The best thing I like about this phone is its camera! I just love it!!!

At Rs. 15,800/= (with bill) this is a steal!!! There are a few downsides as well – this isn’t a smartphone, doesn’t run on Symbian and lacks 3G. But overall a great phone! A perfect blend of fun and productivity.

I can’t describe how great is the media player..you’ve got to listen to it yourself. This is really a Walkman phone! I am going buy a new memory card soon cause I’ve already filled the existing card with my favourite songs.

More photos of the phone and some pics taken with the phone camera

Here’s my little collection of books. This pic is taken with my new Sony Ericsson K750i 2MP camera! This pic was taken at night with the help of the add-on Flash!

I have always liked reading. I don’t sit for lunch, dinner without something to read. Nirav Mehta of Magnet got me interested into business books with the autobiography of legendary GE CEO Jack Welch. Since then autobiographies and biographies of businessmen has become my prime interest.

My collection includes -

• Jack straight from the gut by Jack Welch of GE
• Loosing My Virginity by Richard Branson of Virgin group
• Made in America by Sam Walton of Walmart
• Direct from Dell by Michael Dell of Dell Computers
• Who says Elephants Can’s Dance? by Louis Gerstner of IBM

And

• Dare to Dream – a biography of Rai Bahadur Mohansingh Oberoi – Founder of the esteemed Oberoi group of hotels

Then some others like

• Business at the speed of thought by Bill Gates
• Seven Habits….oh what a boring book!!! I haven’t read it fully..such kind of books just don’t interest me.
• The Google Story – marvelous! Fantastic book! A great look into the amazing world of Google.
• One minute manager – good short book. Gifted to me by my ex boss Nirav Mehta.