The Rain Machine

Hello again. Welcome to the new monthly edition of The Rain Machine. *keeeelaping*

The last month I've been with friends helping them out with stuff. Last week we performed 3 short plays of Anton Chekhov at Alhamra (Mall Road). Most of you guys might remember Tughral Turab who did "The Bear" at GIK's drama festival. He directed the three plays - namely: "The Proposal", "The Dangers of Tobacco Smoking" and "The Festivities"... Cast included polly, amin hussain, sidra, aleem.. 2 months of work finally paid off. The show was a success. Though all three days we never got the hall more than 80% full (approximately 350 people.. not sure.. oh and it was during the weekdays) the audience remained glued to their seats for one and half hour and left the hall with smiles on their faces. The sense of accomplishment was overwhelming. We had quite a media presence there. We got interviewed by some youth magazine (dont know what the name was) and also by PTV (yay!!.. but they said it'll be aired around 8 in the morning... eh). I'll be getting the photos and probably the video too and I'll host them here. Right now it only has the sounds used for 2 of the plays and the hall music :P

I've started using last.fm. Its good for tracking your music listening and helps you find bands you might like. Its a social networking site but unlike orkut, it revolves around the idea of networking people based on their music listening habits.

Holiday season is reaching its peak and there are so many things to buy. The most interesting of all is the new nintendo wii ... This console isnt for couch potatoes and button mashers! The controllers pick your arm movements and sends them to the wii's sensor bar wirelessly. Nintendo wanted to bring something new to the gaming industry and something that would be fun. For just $250 compared to the other next generation consoles, the wii is worth it ... Most people who play video games, dont play for the realistic graphics or storyline alone. Its the fun factor. The gameplay. And the gameplay depends alot on the storyline, the graphics, the sounds, the controls and the camera view...

There's a wrist band in case you lose grip of the wii controller. However, there have been cases of gamers over exerting themselves and breaking their TV sets ... *ouch* !! Wii have a problem is a site with stories of unfortunate circumstances when playing the new nintendo wii :P ... (mostly broken TV sets)

Here's a funny Wii vs PS3 G4's commercial that shows "how a Wii can be cheap and fun, and how a PS3 can be big and well... not fun." A fat nerdy ps3 girl vs a jolly playful hot wii chick.. :P

Now Sony with its expensive Playstation3 is going to be a huge flop. This is highly inevitable. Given that its really really powerful and has a BluRay disc drive. But do I see anything on BluRay yet?? BluRay is mostly to blame if the PS3 sinks. Supply not meeting its demand on the day the $600 PS3 was launched which resulted in a few people getting mugged. A guy waited for 7 hours in line till he got his PS3, then just minutes later 5 people come up to him, beat him up and run away with his PS3. And if thats not enough, a group of people bought a console just for the sake of gaining attention (*coughs* whoops! :P ...) by smashing the PS3 into pieces. *double ouch* !! here's the video. After the huge publicity that followed, they started smashing other consoles :P ... its funny and at the same time stupid..
Videos: Smashing a Wii (lol @ mario sounds), Smashing a PSP ...

On the other hand, Microsoft seems to have won the console war. Something which seemed impossible 3 years ago. The xbox360, its online community and a number of great games coming on that title says it all. I want an xbox360!!! In case your wondering there have been cases of hacking the xbox360 to play pirated games, but Microsoft has been swift in banning machine IDs of hacked xbox360s so beware. By banning the ID you cannot make it to the online xbox live community. I heard Gears of War on the xbox360 is just awesome!!

Microsoft entered the video games market with its xbox. The xbox360 is its second console and in my opinion it has successfully beaten Sony and its Playstation3. Recently, Microsoft also entered the mp3 player market where Apple's ipod has 85% of the market share. A review of Microsoft's "iPod Killer" named the Zune has shed light on some interesting features.

Its got a big screen. Its got a radio tuner. Its got a wifi thingie too. Its User Interface is awesome! Supports xbox360. Allows you to transfer songs to your friend's Zune via wifi. BUT its tightly wrapped in DRM. Though the iPod is also, but the Zune's makes it scare people like me from buying it..

Transferring songs via wifi comes with a condition. Your friend cannot listen to the song more than thrice and the song remains on his Zune for not more than 3 days. Even if the song you sent is copyright or not. Which sort of kills the idea. But since its wifi, there'll be a hack to get that thing right. Oh and you can't use the Zune as a hard drive like the iPod. But there's a hack to fix it. The hack applies to the computer you hook it up with, not the Zune, which means you'd need to apply the hack to other computers whenever you want to access the Zune Hard Drive... Its bigger and heavier than the iPod video. And the Zune has 30 GB of space whereas the iPod video comes in 60 and 80 GB.... Read the review if you're thinking of getting a Zune. I think I'll stick to my iPod for now.

check this video out!! its david blaine!!! o_O !! its like OMFGWTFROFLKOPTERSTFU1337 !!!! a_@ !!! yikesalicious!!!!

And those of you who own an iPod or download podcasts: Which podcasts do you listen to?
Here's what I've subscribed to:



Well its not much. I only have time to listen to these. TWiT is the best. I used to watch Tech TV alot and I loved it. Too bad it got shut down. The people that were in Tech TV now come on this podcast. Write a comment if you have an interesting podcast to share. :D