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Mahabharat 07 – 26 July 2010 – 2 Lessons + This serial should really be PG-rated

bhoot — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 14:46:56 +0000

It’s so absurd to see more impulsive and extreme decisions today. The princess Gandhari prefers to blindfold herself for life instead of supporting his blind prince husband Dhristarashtra… Bhishma blesses her with 100 sons… Ayaya, this blessing will come true. Traces of cloning are speculated to have been the solution to this. I wonder if that will be pictured this way, or as usual to this serial: eye contact + smoke = new baby!I must say there is one good lesson to learn from Gandhari’s words: “one must learn to accept one’s fate.” This means that there are certain things that you cannot change e.g. past decisions. People must learn to live with those errors, must essentially correct them, or adapt to them. So stop complaining if you feel that you are too poor, or not good looking enough etc. Look at what you have, not at what you don’t!

Another lesson comes from Kunti, the upcoming queen: there is no need to go to temples or church to pray and give offerings. You can do it from your bedroom’s window. How am I going to convince my Mom about this?!

Science really was advanced that time. Women could conceive without having intercourse and undergoing pregancy. That’s what we call in-vitro nowadays… Read that somewhere… Like this there are many mysteries from myths (or history?) like Mahabharat and Ramayan that might be explained by an advanced ancient science.

What goes around, come around. Kunti abandoned her baby, who will rise as the mighty Karan and eventually know that Kunti is her mother…

Gold Remains One of the Safest High Yield Investments – Mauritius Dodo Coins

bhoot — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 20:39:16 +0000

Mauritians have access to investing in gold since over 20 years with the introduction of The Dodo coin in Rs 100, Rs 250, Rs 500 and Rs 1000 face values. It must have been in 1990′s, while a kid reading MCB Rupys magazine that I came to learn about it. The Dodo coins were a symbol of patriotism. A few years later, their prices has grown from Rs 1000 to Rs 8000… It came to my mind that hmm, gold prices have increased… Little did I guess that they’d keep on increasing. The Dodo gold coin prices grew an amazing 25%+ per annum* compound over the last five years! Or 14.5% p.a. for the last 10 years.That might not exactly sound high yield to you, if you are a pro investor getting over 50% p.a. but it’s consistent. I read earlier that Gold prices rise about 20% p.a. while real estate gets 15% p.a. in USA (pre-crisis).

*Get the latest and past prices of The Dodo gold coin from the Bank of Mauritius website: http://bom.intnet.mu

Rs 100 face value – 3.41g of gold - Rs 5155 to Rs 1000 face value (34.05g) at Rs 49,120.

BTW, the BOM site is really BOM!

Tulsi Tue 20 July – The 4 Lessons of this Episode That Your Mom Will Not Learn

bhoot — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 15:43:25 +0000

1. Realise that some people won’t change early, not after being kicked 10 times

Tulsi made the gravest mistake by trusting Mandira after being well aware of her character for over 40 years. Agreed that the first time you can forgive, come on even 2-3 times. But not after so many times. Even a dog would have known not to trust Mandira’s word.

2. Running with Sari is Hard

Shobha could not run after Mandira, who wore a knee-high skirt (or dress). Shobha must have work a heavy sari.

3. Know to whom you are donating

Didn’t Tulsi know that Nirmala has earned millions by blackmailing Mandira? Why does she give her peanuts then…

4. Check your alibi

Karan is no fool, he knows the moment you stutter in your words that you might be lying.

New 1200hp Veyron Super Sport Sets World Record Again 431kph!

bhoot — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 15:12:46 +0000

A few years ago, the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 broke the world record for the fastest production car at 407 kph. The Americans Ford wanted to take the record from the VW owned French manufacturer. They made the Shelby SuperCars (SSC) Aero Ultimate, which set the record at a mere 412 kph.

This time Bugatti is back with the same engine boosted to 1200hp and over 1400Nm torque complemented with a more aerodynamic kit. That’s less than the SSC but they set the record to… 431kph now! Unbelievable…

Original article from Autozine:
http://www.autozine.org/0_News/Archive/2010_07/News_frame.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugatti_Veyron

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSC_Aero

Tulsi Tue 13 July – Too lazy to run Ganga, too careless typical villain Trupti

bhoot — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 14:59:23 +0000

I finally decided to write more often about each bit the series that I can. No, I don’t enjoy watching, it’s because I’m fed up of complaining to my family that it ‘s bad.

So this episode showed a silly Ganga, who is supposed to be over 40 and seen all the ways of Trupti. It’s good that she guessed a trap in the old cottage, but she went right into the trap without any weapon, despite doubting the evil intention of Trupti (a hero to me )…

Pa fini, when Trupti was about to fire the house, she remained still. No she is not afraid of fire, but she can’t risk jumping over 1 foot of fire to pursue Trupti (aren’t they the same age? technically, Trupti is much heavier because of fat and jewels so Ganga should be able to run faster!)

Helpless, helpless me, not her to have to endure all that. Why don’t MBC put Sarabhai everyday!

Mahabharat MBC1 Monday 12 July – The lesson from Bhishma’s impulsive vow

bhoot — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 14:52:57 +0000

It was with great pleasure that I sat down to watch Mahabharat last Monday. I had spent my childhood enjoying the actions (flaming arrows etc) of this serial. I said to myself, let’s see if I still see it the same, convinced that I’d find new wisdom… Alas, I was not only disappointed, I was enraged by the picturing of the characters… So this episode must be No 2 or 4, telling about a king under whom India was united. He had a son Bhishma (who will later grow to become one of the best masters of war of his time), who was promised the crown. The king fell in love with a girl, whose father wanted her child to rule instead of Bhishma. The king, rightly bound by his vow, refused his love-at-first-sight. Bhishma came to know about it and negociated with the girl’s father that he would refuse the throne.

And the greedy father went on, seeing that he was at the advantage, asked how Bhishma can stop his own sons from claiming the throne. A most impulsive decision that Bhishma vowed that he would never marry, never beget children. The best part is that instead of everyone blaiming him, or telling him to stop, you are shown videos of demi-gods bowing to him for his great sacrifice…

Sacrifice of the throne for his father’s happiness is virtuous, but vowing not to beget children just for the ‘chance’ that his sons will claim the throne… That simply wasn’t in the agreement, not is it ethical. In a sense, it’s good that he didn’t become king, cause such an impulsive decision might possibly lead to the demise of his kingdom. As an aspiring leader of the great India, if only he had the calmness not to make such grave mistakes…

Now if I had to make this serial… I’d be different.

The Beauty of Tulsi KSBKBT – The real heroes are the villains

bhoot — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 14:55:53 +0000

After try so hard to make my family stop watching Tulsi every night, I came to realise one thing with the recent turn of events on MBC TV. Let me sum up, in the serial, a big climax and story just ended. Another one just started. A few points will show how the writers/directors are intelligent (yeah, may be you didn’t doubt that):

Trupti (a villain) pointed out that for a whole year nobody realised that the fake Tulsi (a.k.a. Juhi) was actually much shorter than the old real one. Really true – it means that the director knew about it!
If you take the information given recently, Tulsi should be aged 63 instead of 70 as on her hospital paper. Makes sense cause when she lost her memory, she had to estimate her age. Similarly, taking that Tulsi is married for 45 years aged the age of 18 gives 63 years old.
Following the above information, and assuming that Mihir is the first child of the first child of Ba, the latter should be aged… 126 years. Ba is 126 years old and is really very very fit to able to make conversations like she does…

It so happens that every villain, during his/her peak, makes sensible decisions, be it Eklavya or now Trupti. The supposedly models, be it Tulsi and bahus, are never learn from their own mistakes. The biggest flagrant is Krishna Tulsi who didn’t make the difference between Laksh’s hand and Eklavya’s hands, implying that she’s either very silly or wanted to get married to Eklavya to get beaten… and not taking the initiative to live her life, out of fear from Tulsi’s feelings that destructive relations are better than a free young widow in love with the right man…

Finally, Tulsi made the same old mistake of trusting a villain, Mandira in court. She’s a hard nut who never learns. Then that would mean that does have a character. A nuthead written by the writers, geniuses who want ordinary people to know by watching, that they should follow the villains to a certain extent, not the inhabitants of Shanti Niketan.

PS. I know I’ve already blogged about it before. Yes, I keep watching it’s dinner time, and I’m polite to accompany family:

http://lallmatie.com/blog/2009/05/16/kyunki-saas-bhi-kabhi-bahu-thi-to-be-banned-with-kavyanjali-lack-of-realistic-storyline/

Silent Cold Nights: Sound and Image

bhoot — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 18:16:16 +0000

Living at the outskirts of Lallmatie has one advantage: it’s quiet at night. No thumbing of the ground when big lorries pass by the royal road. Less dogs that bark any time at night (except mine and the neighbour’s).

When I feel the need to have some sounds, I’ll put on my HiFi set with some loud music or movie. It is quite a peaceful neighbourhood. We did hear about theft last year 1 street across, but it’s calm now. My dad worries that it is possible that the recently escaped convicts might make a tour at night. “fermer ress endan!” he said in the afternoon. Well, better be safe than sorry… Everything’s locked…

Just me, my laptop (that’s my media storage), netbook (that’s my remote) and 32″ LCD TV connected to my desktop (you guessed it’s my HTPC). Yeah, there’s world cup but so many movies to watch…

The seriousness of pen-drive viruses and their ignorance: Simple steps to protect yourself

bhoot — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 08:20:40 +0000

I have seen to many people ignorant of the fact that their pen-drives (usb key, usb disk) have been contaminated by viruses that have been copied by them unknowingly! How? And why didn’t their antivirus detect them? Some do not even know until their computers start becoming slow and more… Let me explain easy ways to detect and protect yourself…

The first thing you will notice if you have such usb-spreading-viruses (they come in different flavours e.g. ckvo, amvo…) is that when you double-click on a drive in My Computer (yes, Linux and MacOS users are safe.. so far). If the drive opens in a new window, it means you have the virus! So rule number 1: Always use the folder tree view to select a drive in My Computer. Why, because when you double click on a drive, it executes a windows file called autorun.inf on that drive. That file can execute any file specified in that drive. It’s like you’re literally opening the door to anyone knocking! Or you might want to turn off Autorun on your computer.

Next thing is to prevent that virus from spreading if ever the above happened by accident. To do this, rule number 2, you need a proper Firewall. I use Comodo Personal Firewall and it’s really efficient – doesn’t slow down your computer, and tells you every time suspicious programs attempt to write to disk or to use the internet (you’d even catch key-loggers).

Your antivirus might not necessarily be able to detect these issues, e.g. I have used Norton/Symantec and McAfee Viruscan. They gave me such a headache, especially by using 200MB+ memory, deleting my whole mailbox and preventing me from running Thinstall applications… Rule number 3 have a good anvirus: the bests I have found are Avast Home and AVG Free. Free and efficient and fast.

Common sources for this virus in Mauritius are the many schools, some universities and some offices where adequate measures have not been taken. Also the internet, when you browse underground sites especially using Internet Explorer. So rule number 4, do not use Internet Explorer 6.

Now what if you already have these viruses, how to remove them? That’s the big hurdle. There are steps that you can find many sites, if you search ’removing ckvo.’ I’ll write another post for that soon…

Great Wall Voleex C10/Phenom i7 – A Vitz/Yaris Clone that Looks Better than the Original

bhoot — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 17:50:03 +0000

You might already know about the GWM Florid in sale in Mauritius since last year. At first look it’s a copied Toyota Vitz 1st Gen (front) mingled with the Toyota IST (rear and interior). These two are basically built on the same platform by Toyota. I was always thinking what it’d be if they had made a car inspired by the new Vitz/Yaris. Great Wall Motors finally did it – it was code named CH031. It’s on sale now as the Voleex C10 and Voleex C30 (saloon between the Belta/Yaris and the Corolla).

I have to say that I am presently surprised to find otherwise expensive options present in this compact hatch particularly electronic stability control, sunroof, projector headlights, heated seats to name just some. It boasts having a good crumple zone for crash security… but it’s a claim.

The best thing is the look. It is aggressive – finally appealing to the men (well the Vitz RS was appealing to a certain extent but not like the C10). it’s aggressive grill reminds you of the supercar Maybach Exelero and a decent taillights. The doors look very similar to the Vitz. The next best is the interior. The dashboard has a pleasant look and arrangement unlike the Vitz/Yaris (which I hate). The engine also seems to be inspired by the NZ series of Toyota. Mind you it won a Chinese engine award! Coupled with a CVT with 6-speed manual mode or 5-speed manual…

Well, it remains to be seen how good it is on the road and in crash test! I know only of the GWM Hover that has been tested for 4-star. Until it become available in Mauritius, I’ll dream a bit with these pics:

http://www.gwm.com.cn/eng/html/models/ch031_intro.asp