Below are some articles I could find online -

Piracy funds terrorism | http://www.window2india.com/cms/admin/article.jsp?aid=3810

Check piracy to defeat terrorism | http://www.samaylive.com/news/check-piracy-to-defeat-terrorism-says-nasheed/602463.html

Interpol Links Piracy To Terrorism Funding | http://www.allbusiness.com/retail-trade/miscellaneous-retail-retail-stores-not/4368051-1.html

This is seriously shocking stuff and I think we need to raise awareness of this and have enough self discipline to avoid going the cheap way, which could prove costly later.

After reading these articles I thought of doing a little myself and avoid buying or renting out pirated movies and got myself registered at seventymm.com – a one stop hangout for renting movies online. 

They carry this disclaimer about the legality of renting movies from them -

We carry all the movies which are legally released in India with a certification from the Censor Board of India. If a movie is not released by the studio or distributor for rental purposes, we won’t be able to provide it for rent to you. So if a movie is not legally available in India, we will also not have it.

I now rent out all my movies from seventymm and I must say the service is great. I’ve been a member for under a month now and have rented out 4 movies so far. I got some membership offer of Rs. 750 valid for 4 months and 24 movies (DVD or VCD). This roughly works out to around Rs. 31 per movie, which is great! My package lets me borrow one movie at a time, which is home delivered and picked up. They have other plans with different rates, where you can borrow unlimited movies at a time and keep them for as long as you wish.

Once you register on their site you can set up a movie queue. They have tons of movies to select from and you can add them and change the order around in your personal movie queue. You can request for a delivery, upon which the first available movie from your list is delivered to you and any previous movie that you might have borrowed is picked up (depending on your plan); you can also request for a pickup only, wherein the movie queue is not processed and only the previous movies are picked up.

The DVDs so far have all been of great quality and I haven’t faced any issues with the entire service. I’ve built up quite a nice movie list with lots of Tamil and some Malayalam movies as well to watch with the family. So now we even have regular movie sessions! :)

Delivery time wise I haven’t had an issue so far and usually within a day or maximum two after requesting for delivery the movie is delivered. One can even provide an alternate address (such as the office address) and request for them to come to the alternate address if unavailable at the home address.

The only drawback as such with Seventymm and my one-dvd-at-a-time rate plan is that if I don’t rent out 24 movies in 3 months, then I’d still end up paying Rs. 750/-, although they do have an option of ‘pausing’ your subscription, which can be done by calling the help-desk.

Some other alternates to Seventymm

- Big Flix | http://rental.bigflix.com/bigflix/Home

- CatchFlix | http://catchflix.com/index.php

Here’s hoping more people stop buying and renting out pirated movies.

Saw the movie Hostel last friday night. It was another dark, freaky, horror movie. Not the ghost kind of horror…but real chilling, gory, violent, shocking kinda stuff. The movie comes with the tagline - ”Welcome To Your Worst Nightmare” and sure has some hellish scenes in them.

Went out with project team mates last Saturday after some training at work and had nice fun! After a long time went to the Microsoft office for a meeting regarding the student community. Met a lot of old friends and enjoyed pizza and later I took my friends out to Coffee Day.

I’ve been attending some training on advanced oracle and sql tuning since Thursday at work and by Friday it got too much and I just had to go out and have some fun. Met Anshu and a friend of his and had dinner at Desmond’s on Lavelle Road. We had lots of fun talking about life at college (PUC) and spent a lot of time laughing the night away!

After a long time I went to office on a Saturday, to attend day 3 of the training and as usual most of it went over the head and so as to not fall asleep and also getting into football fever, Kiran and I spent the afternoon playing book-football (dont even ask how it is played!!). The matches were exciting and close, but finally I won the series 3-1!! ;)

Went out with mom in the evening and I got home in time to finally see Saw. The movie comes under the genre of dark/psychopath killer/horror/crime and was one of the best movies I’ve seen in this genre apart from Se7en. The movie revolves around this psychopath killer, ‘Jigsaw’ – (but you can’t really call him a killer, because he doesn’t kill anybody. He just gives his victims a reason and the means to kill themselves) – who abducts people whom he accuses of not being grateful of being alive and puts them in a ’game’ as he calls the sick situations wherein they end up pretty much killing themselves or others just to stay alive. Lots of gruesome stuff and definitely not a movie for the faint hearted. But overall a great chilling thriller. The ending is a blood curling unexpected twist and just leaves you wanting to see Saw II.

I followed Saw with Mission: Impossible III. It was an okay movie. Nothing new. We’ve seen this kind of action before. Similar hero, hero’s babe, villains, babe gets kidnapped by villain, fights, gadgets, plot etc… similar to any number of movies in the past.

Hmmm thats about all I can remember about my lost post. A nice Sunday afternoon now and about one and a half hours to go for the British Grand Prix. I hope Schumi wins!

Well i’ve had quite an interesting couple of weekends, these past couple of weeks. The first of those weekends I saw Fanaa (ok movie – nothing great) and X-Men 3 (awesome movie) and met up with a few old friends and made a new friend! On Sunday I saw a rather controversy filled Monaco Grand Prix and am not sure what to say about Michael Schumacher’s qualifying event. Anyway bottom line – controversies apart Schumi is the best driver by far and he proved this by coming a decent 5th after starting last in the race.

The second of those weekends I made two more new friends and went to Sudhanva’s farm house and had a great time there and on the way back met with (no, not another friend) but with a small accident. It all happened very quickly and all I remember is me saying “bye” to Sudhan and Anu whom we passed at some 50-60 kmph and then approaching a blind 90 degree turn and then turn – brake – skid – fall – “Oh F*ck!” – slide – fly – and landing in a ditch. Though I got away pretty much ok (except for some scratches and a sprained wrist and a major PITA!) – Rangan (who was riding) needed some stitches and seemed to be hurt rather bad – his bike being a bullet didn’t look like it had just been through a crash. Anyway he was rushed to a clinic and later to a hospital for stitches and dressing and I got some painkillers from the doc after a brief check up.

The weekdays weren’t half as exciting and were pretty much the same old routine — to office and back home and then the evening spent on my comp, surfing the net, chatting with friends, reading up on some blogs, and later reading some book till I doze off.

This weekend is not going to be a lot of fun, as I will be spending Saturday at office for some training that starts on Thursday. Although Sunday should be great as I will be meeting a very close friend of mine after nearly 8 – 9 years! I better go to bed now, as the training starts in approximately 7 hours and 45 minutes time (from now), else my snores in class might drain out the trainer’s voice!

On Saturday met up with some of my friends from college to celebrate Sashi’s birthday. We originally planned to go for Da Vinci Code, but thanks to the protests it wasn’t released this weekend, so we ended up going for Pink Panther at Inox. The movie was hilarious and though not in the league of some other comedies (like the Naked Gun series), it was good fun! We later had a nice long lunch at Cosmo Village near Garuda Mall.

I had to leave after lunch and join parents in visiting my sister’s new place near South End circle and after that to visit granma (mom’s mom) who was my at my aunts (mom’s sister) place in Jayanagar. Returned home to watch India lose a good match.

On Sunday had to wake up really early to go to Dad’s brother’s place for a family get-together and puja. Met lots of cousins and relatives!

Had to leave the function after lunch and head to Rohan’s birthday treat. Rohan is probably one of my oldest friends – i’ve known him since standard 1, when we were classmates in Bishop Cottons! Deepak Pillai and Sandeep Rao also came and we spent some time at Crosswords looking for a gift for Rohan and later went to Mojo’s for lunch and to Corner House for dessert!

Spent the rest of the Sunday at home reading a novel I bought at Crosswords – Holy Cow by Sarah MacDonald. Also read many friends’ blogs and uploaded more chapters of Ashok Banker’s King of Ayodhya at epicindia.com.

The movie was ok – with a nice twist at the end. The pace was kinda slow and the movie wasn’t as good as Basic Instinct 1, and as is done in India with any movie of this sort – a whole lot of scenes were cut. Sharon Stone was as ice cold as ever and does a great job of “mind-f*cking” everyone! I’d say its a watchable movie – but would probably be better on DVD!

Anyway after a long time I finally went for a haircut (much to the delight of many people, especially mom!). I was supposed to meet a friend after the haircut, but unfortunately this got cancelled, so I decided to go for a movie (Taxi 9211) with Sunil, Sharath and Ranga. The movie was at 7.40 PM at PVR Cinemas, and this meant I had about 3 hours to kill before the movie. I ended up shopping (all alone) at Lifestyle. Got myself some clothes and then proceeded to the multiplex.

Taxi 9211 was a nice and different movie, although the ending kinda became cliched and predictable. Great acting, nonetheless, by both the lead actors.

On Sunday went out with parents for more shopping and later I took them out for dinner at Tandoor.

Back to work on Monday after a long break and had some pending work to finish up and got some new tasks to work on. Tuesday and Wednesday was spent in the training hall for the Business Communication Skills training session, taken by a Ms. Lata. The session was great and all the participants enjoyed the two days and I learnt a whole lot of stuff and discovered a lot of common communication mistakes and how to be more assertive and communicate better. On the second day we had to give two presentations and I chose Photography as my first topic (and so did Chandru) and Blogging as my second topic.

Also bought a few books from Crosswords on Tuesday and hope to finish some of them this weekend!

3. X-Men: The Last Stand. Release Date: May 26, 2006. Loved the first two parts and am hoping the third part is even better.

2. Spider-Man 3. Release Date: May 4, 2007. The new spidey costume looks great and surely this movie should be a great watch!

and finally the big one -

1. Superman Returns. Release Date: June 30, 2006. Finally a new Superman movie after nearly 20 years. R.I.P Christopher Reeves.

Lets hope the movies are all worth the ‘wait and watch’!

Ranga, Sunil, Sharath and Ghana

The day started late as usual for me. Sunil called and tried to wake me up at 7 AM, but failed to do so, as I went back to sleep! Finally (after many phone calls and scoldings) I left home at some 11 AM and picked up Ghana, on the way, at MG road. We went to Sunil’s house and picked him up and went to Sharath’s house. Ranga joined us at Sharath’s house and then we all proceeded to this Go-Karting place on Mysore Road, about 5 kms after RV College.

We had good fun karting. The track and karts were awesome. The rate was also reasonable – Rs. 100 for 6 laps. We paid 200 bucks and went for 12 laps.

Me karting!

Sharath and Sunil had booked tickets for Rang De Basanti 4 PM show at Innovative Multiplex in Marathahalli. It was almost 2 PM and we decided it was time to move on to lunch from the karting place, if we wanted to reach the theatre (which was some 40 odd kms away) in time.

At a rajasthani dhaba

Thanks to Ghana’s recommendation, we went to some Rajasthani hotel in Rajarajeshwari Nagar, and had nice parathas. Time was running out and it was well past 3:00 when we left the hotel and we still had a long way to go!

Drove back to Sharath’s house, from where Sharath and Ranga got their bikes. We lost hopes of reaching the mulitplex in time as we only had about 35 minutes for the show to start. After some frustratingly long traffic signals and maniacal driving by me, and touching 120+ kmph in my car, we finally reached the multiplex at around 4:05 PM.

We (Ghana and myself) literally ran from the car park to the theatre, where Ranga, Sunil and Sharath had reached on the bikes. Luckily the show hadn’t started as yet! We bought our cool drinks and settled down for Rang De Basanti.

And, what a movie it was! I really enjoyed the movie. Although the first half was kinda vague and was going too many places at the same time the second half was awesome and what a dramatic climax it had! A great movie, with awesome cinematography and good performances by everyone. Check out two contrasting reviews of the movie here and here.

Ghana, Sunil, me and Ranga

We returned home after the movie around 8 PM. But it was not the end of my evening. My apartment association was celebrating their annual day and so they had arranged a musical night followed by dinner.

Tomorrow we are planning on going for some concert at Palace grounds, for which Sunil has got the passes!

We decided to go for a movie (Bluffmaster). The movie was good fun and decent time pass. After the movie we went to the Pit Stop at Garuda Mall for lunch, after which we decided to check out the Scary House attraction. It is this house that we have to walk through and though it was supposed to be very scary, we felt it was more funny than scary. Infact it wasn’t scary at all and was a total waste of money! Next we decided to have some ice-creams and so were back at the Pit Stop! We then checked out Garuda Mall itself and walked about with no purpose apart from just killing time. Soon it was evening and was getting late for some, so we all departed, although we wanted to spend more time together.

It was nice meeting my friends after a long time and we all had a nice time! We will be meeting up again, next weekend, for Rang De Basanti!!