Blog-A-Rhythm: September 2005

Prince of Persia : The Sands of Time

I'm almost 50% done with the game... It's amazingly good - should have played it 2 years back when my gamer friends were raving about it.

My favorite part of the game is the Fountain which increases the Prince's life bar. I spend way too much time looking for "the secret places" which will lead the Prince to the Fountain. In one of the levels - there's a ladder which the Prince can't jump to - cos' he's in water and being in water affects his ability to run up walls. However, I was convinced there *is* a way to get on the blasted ladder cos' it will lead to THE FOUNTAIN. So I spent an hour trying every possible stunt to get onto it. I gave up in the end and moved on.. turns out you revisit this place a little while later with a block (from ahead in the game which aids you to get onto the ladder) and there is NO FOUNTAIN at the top of that ladder.. GAH!

The great thing is once you find the pathway to the Fountains - it's a guaranteed safe place - no monsters of any kind lurking about and you can spend as much as time as you want here with ethereal sounds playing in the background. Once the Prince is done powering up he just "wakes up" - Fountains of power - all in his head...

Since I love these Fountains *so* much I've taken a few screenshots of them off the TV (therefore, the quality isn't very good) and put them up here.. Now I'm free to visit them any time (as long as I have a net connection).. :)

I hope there isn't a stairway to heaven.. there should be bridges like this.. they're way hipper.. :)

Me Prince. You Bridge.

Bridge Across Whatever

All bridges lead to...

le fountain magnifique

The Prince and the Fountain

What is this? X-?

If somebody ever asks you that question never answer him with Box because he punches you on your shoulder. I learnt this from Dnyanesh.

This update is for you Mr. Sam.. Enjoy the 3 photos.. And in case you can't read the names of the games.. I'll post it in a comment. Or just e-mail ya :)

These are a few of my favorite games

Come over to my pad and we'll dance

Mera Xbox Mahaan

Wide awake at 4:30 a.m.

I can't believe I'm updating my BLOG of all things because I can't sleep...

For people who know me well would probably say.. "4:30 a.m. huh? So what? It's like late afternoon for you right now..."

But the problem is that for the past couple of days I've been sleeping at 5a.m. and waking up early - no not 12:00.. but insane times like 11 a.m., 10:00 and 9:30 yesterday. The reason was for this odd behaviour was because I had to let a few workers who were fixing the bathroom into the house every morning. After waking up.. I couldn't sleep again.. just lie about in bed..

Now because I woke up so EARLY yesterday and my sleep had averaged 5 hours for the last three days I fell asleep at 21:30 (9:30 p.m. for those challenged by Army time or have failed Maths in their eighth standard). And woke up at midnight. Tried sleeping but couldn't.. So at 1 a.m. I decided to wake up and watch an Episode of Hercules : The Legendary Journeys - Season 2 - The Enforcer. The Episode is an homage to Terminator 2 and certain scenes are quite funny...

I signed into MSN after ages yesterday and chatted with quite a few people. People sometimes ask me where I learnt to type - online chat is the answer. Conversing with more than one person at the same time automatically leads to the development of a faster WPM.

One of the things I talked to one of my online buddies - Kim (who is already laying down plans for a Halloween party) was parties can be fun to attend (although personally, I don't like going to them) they're not fun for the people actually working to make the party happen. And that was pretty much what Iolas said to Hercules in the beginning of "The Enforcer". Of all the dialogues, of all the TV Shows it took place in *this* episode which I decide to watch randomly cos' I can't sleep! Weird?

I've heard that song a hundred times...

Now I can say that quite truthfully about "Just Tonight" by Jimmy Eat World..

It started at 9:45 p.m. while reading a friend's long mail (detailing the events from his very, very, very eventful last 12 days) - it took me atleast 45 minutes to read that.. anyway.. replying to mails.. surfing.. stuff.. It's 3:30 a.m.

And the same song is on...

Length of song = 3 minute 26 seconds = 206 seconds
Duration it has played = 5 hrs 45 min = 345 mins = 20700 seconds
Number of times song played = 20700/206 = 100.48 make that 101.

I think I know the musical accompaniment to my dream tonight...

Before Sunset

Lights, Camera, Still Frame!

Winnie the Flew

Blue Sky Butterfly

Dream Control

Dream #1
I was having a really nice dream Friday morning. I was in an udipi restaurant at lunch time and had ordered Idli, Dosa and... Upma. Almost every udipi I've been to in real life does not serve Upma for lunch as they make it only for breakfast. In this particular Udipi the guy was kind enough to check with the kitchen and told me "milega" (you will get it). I was ecstatic. Upma for lunch! Unbelievable... I was about to take a seat, already savouring the upma in my mind when.. "ANSHUL".. I was woken up.. at 11:20 a.m. - couldn't they have let me sleep for like 10 minutes more then I'd have had my upma and eaten it too!

Just shows how much I'm missing my desh ka khaana.. can't wait to get back and go on a vada pav, paav bhaaji, dosa, delhi durbar eat-fest. Of course, home cooked food too.. (in case mom is reading this :))

Dream #2
While I've been listening to Queensryche's "Silent Lucidity" since the 7th grade ('91) I never really knew what lucid meant in the context of the song. A year ago I was looking it up and found out what lucid dreaming is. For those who don't know - it's basically a dream in which you're aware that you're dreaming. "What good does that do?" you say... Well, knowing that you're dreaming allows you to change the dream according to how you see fit.

My chachi had been complaining I was growing too thin and needed to put on weight. I took this challenge to heart and stuffed myself till I felt sick - both at home and a birthday party in the evening. Returning home I finished putting together the Grasketball / grassketball commercial (right-click save target as.. it's around 10 MB) and went off to sleep at around 5 a.m. - maybe heavy eating and sleeping early in the morning promotes lucidity :)

This is what I remember...

In the first dream I was living in a rundown house with friends from school. We're attacked by a rival gang.. they're shooting at us from outside.. bullets tearing up the place. Someone apparently is trying to enter via the first floor.. all my friends look at me and ask me to go to the first floor and check it out... I'm shit scared.. Anyway, I go upstairs and the first floor starts resembling a videogame interior.. I realise I'm dreaming and try changing the environment into a beach - The scene starts splitting up (center split transition from final cut pro :)) and starts revealing a sandy + pebbly shore below... just when this started happening I woke up.. and I was like "DAMN!" It was 7 a.m. Obviously, too early to wake up..

So I tried sleeping again.. I don't remember the exact details from the second set of dreams (I couldn't recall them even when I had just woken up) but this is the best approximation..

I'm in the front five ROWS of students waiting to get into an unknown institution to collect admission forms. We've been made to stand, facing away from the door. Someone tells us to turn around and we're allowed to enter into this grand institution. Enter is a mild world - everyone rushes in like mad... I find a shorter route to the library than everyone else.. and when I enter the tables are filled with admission forms which I grab 5 of.. (should have grabbed more and sold them on ebay).. now i'm not sure when the next part happens - i think it happened when I stepped out of the institution..

There are tigers (presence can be explained because I watched "Kaal" two days before) loose on the campus who are not causing a great deal of joy... People running helter skelter.. Anyway, something causes me to recognise that this is a dream.. So with the power of my mind (ahem) I start changing the environment.. the entire scene transforms into a field of green with flowers.. you know like a field with the wind blowing.. all the people around me start cheering and start throwing small glowing orbs into the air.. apparently, the more I collect - the number of lucid dreams I have increases.. I'm collecting, flying around the place.. but don't manage to collect too many..

Now I'm in a lecture room. The lecturer is speaking in French and the rest of the students can understand (apparently) - I can't understand a thing. The way the lecturer is speaking seems familiar and I remember identifying the voice as Kenny from South Park (of course, on waking up I realised that Kenny doesn't speak - he just mumbles). I raise my hand and ask "Does anyone in the class speak English?" The lecturer looks around and questions "Can anyone answer his question?" And around five-six people raise their hands. This was such an absurd response to my question that I asked, "I'm dreaming, aren't I?" The professor said "Yes." Then he proceeded to explain on his whiteboard how to identify that one is dreaming - he even used an impressive quote by someone (yes, very helpful, I know - I WISH I could remember) to start his discussion.. I can't remember any of that..

Next I wake up in the house from Dream #1 again - no firing happening this time.. Just people lying / sleeping about the house.. Then I'm standing in a line outside an institution (very similar to the one in the beginning of this dream sequence)... I strike up a conversation with the dude in front of me.. I was telling him something like "I've been dreaming for almost a year now - is it still 2004 or is it 2005?" He's confused.. Nobody there seems to know the year.. And the dude points out something to the effect of "Time is unimportant in dreams - I use dreams for time travelling".. I think this was the point where I woke up.. It was 10 a.m. - just 3 hours.. but it felt like a LONG time had passed..

I've had lucid dreams before but never for such a long period and definitely nothing as bizarre as this.. A French dream university into which students are desperate to get admission into - and advanced students are time travelling in their dreams!

Anyway, if you want to read more on lucid dreams check out: lucidity.com, ld4all.com, film wise you can probably check out Linklater's Waking Life (my lecture dream is definitely influenced by it) and musicwise - Silent Lucidity.

I was pretty excited at this episode.. Hope I can lucid dream more often now.. :)

Random photo of a train so I don't scare people away with my happy face... Today was a big post of photos.. things I've taken over the past two months but was too busy or too lazy to post... enjoy...

I used to be a happy man until...

After the Haircut : What did I do to deserve this?

Leaving the Isle of Wight for the EA Job Interview - what a lovely day.. tum de dum..

Duckies - Part Deux (This is out of sequence - should come after Duckies - can't be bothered to correct it now)

I arrived almost an hour and a half early for my interview at EA, Chertsey (on Aug 11).. So went off for an hour long walk in the sylvan surroundings...