Monthly Archives: September 2007

Sep 26 2007

Heroes – Season 2 premiere

 

Spoiler alert : do not read if you have not watched the episode yet. No whining will be entertained!This is written for those who are in a rush and did not catch the show but yet feel a need to keep up appearances around the coffee machine. For more background info go here.heroeschat.jpgThe shocker? Nobody is dead (although we have to wait for Micah, DL, Niki and Sylar to actually make an appearance to confirm this). At the start of the 1st episode in this new season we see a collage of scenes that are due to happen and everyone is in one piece.When Matt Parkman makes an appearance, my heart cheered. Taking 4 bullets in the chest certainly did him no harm. In fact he looks fleshier around the face compared to the last season. He is promoted to detective and we find out that he is now divorced. I guess a lot can happen in 4 months. We are not told why especially with a baby on the way but time will tell. He has shacked up with Suresh and Molly, the little girl who can spot ‘heroes’ miles away. 2 men and a baby?Nathan is now a bum and sporting an unruly beard. His mum is still on his case about giving up his presidential aspirations but not for long. She receives a death threat from the company. Hiro is still stuck in ancient Japan where he meets up with his childhood hero who turns out to be a disappointment. Ando and Hiro’s father pines for him in New York. The latter is killed off at the end of the episode. Goodbye Mr. Sulu.Claire, HornRimmedGlasses (HRG) and family have relocated and our indestructible cheer leader is finding it hard adjusting to her new high school environment. She meets up with a potential love interest who underneath the goofy kid facade hides a gravity defying talent. Possible link to Nathan? HRG is not doing any better trying to downplay his shadowy past in a dead-end job at a photo-copying outlet.The most heart-stopping scene has got to be finding Peter trapped in a cargo container in a port in Ireland. He appears deranged and possibly amnesiac. Thankfully someone has lopped off his irritating emo hair fringe. Suresh is gallivanting around the globe trying to rouse interest in his fight to bring down the company via lectures. At least that’s what he lets on. At the end we realize that it is all a ruse by HRG for them to infiltrate the dark ranks of the COMPANY……….

add to del.icio.us :: Add to Blinkslist :: add to furl :: Digg it :: add to ma.gnolia :: Stumble It! :: add to simpy :: seed the vine :: :: :: TailRank

Sep 22 2007

“The Hobbit” – 70th anniversary

Many may not know (I didn’t) that yesterday was the 70th anniversary of the publication of “The Hobbit” by one JRR Tolkien. For the crowd who howled in disbelief when Peter Jackson’s screen adaptation of “The Lord of the Ring : The Fellowship of the Ring” ended abruptly with Frodo and Sam embarking on a boat to the Gates of Mordor, this is the start of it all. The prequel to the greatest story of the century.

Sep 17 2007

PCLinuxOS 2007 – a personalized review

First off I have to admit that I am a Ubuntu loyalist. But that does not mean I am any less of a whore when it comes to other linux distros. During long lost weekends in the past I would purposely download a distro just to tinker around with it. These excursions usually end with me pulling at my hair at each distro’s distinct and elitist (read geeky) way of doing things as simple as enabling sound in the OS. I got the jones again this weekend and here I am with PCLinuxOS 2007.

normal_2k7logo.png

A cursory glance at the ranking list on distrowatch.com will tell you that PCLOS has overtaken Ubuntu as the top linux flavour. And Ubuntu has been there for a very long time. Installation took all of 15 minutes on my trusty desktop. Within the first few minutes in the desktop I realized that it has knocked out my wifi router and internet connection. Great going PCLOS, I cursed under my breathe.

Without net access is like being stranded Crusoe-style on a deserted island. Nevertheless after some body contortions reaching for the back of my computer, I plugged my adsl modem straight into the network card. I switched into WinXP and made a beeline for the PCLOS forums. Had to find out how to get online with PPPOE in PCLOS. Thankfully the forums are collectively a bottomless well of information.

Back in PCLOS I configured the necessary settings and a cruiser ship appeared on the horizon to whisk me back to civilization. The web was mine again. By this point I was fuming. Stupid OS!

However my wounds were partially soothed by the out-of-the-box multimedia capabilities of PCLOS. No tweaking involved. Its all just there including online flash content and java stuff. A refreshing gust of wind. With a click of button I was even able to switch Compiz on and before you can say ‘eye-candy’, my menus and windows were wobbling merrily away. No strange and impenetrable strings of text had to be cut and pasted into the terminal. Not one! Color me impressed.

Just then my sis tapped me over the shoulder and said she needed one of her CDs to be ripped into mp3s for her iPod. K3b took care of that in no time flat. I was glowing at this point, all my initial frustration ebbing away. Strangely though, PCLOS has problems unmounting the iPod. Try as I may, I still ended up unceremoniously unplugging the media device from the usb port despite the cautionary ‘Do not disconnect’ message. More poking around the forums will no doubt settle this, if I get around to it.

All in all, its been great barring some irritating quirks. I am beginning to see some of the reasons why it has peeped even the mighty Ubuntu at its game. If the programmers continue to work at it, it can only improve in leaps and bounds. Ubuntu? Thats so yesterday!

add to del.icio.us :: Add to Blinkslist :: add to furl :: Digg it :: add to ma.gnolia :: Stumble It! :: add to simpy :: seed the vine :: :: :: TailRank