ThePanda

Just as I was coming online, my damn phone decided to stop dialing numbers outside of my own local exchange, which meant me was stuck with a useless comm device. Strangely my other line, which I share with my parents seemed to be working perfectly. EVERYONE SEEMS TO BE CONSPIRING AGAINST ME. I called one of my friends on my (seemingly) lifeless phone, only to realize that the damn thing had sprung back to life. And despite cutting the connection as fast as I humanly cud, my friend & his parents seemed to have heard the phone, and that SICK WHINEY COMPLAINING EXCUSE OF A SERVICE, Caller ID, seems to have recorded my nightly escapades (11:20 PM, not a happy though specially if ur trying to get some sleep). Well even though I explained most of it away I have been told in no uncertain terms that I shudnt try nething similar again. BLAME THE DAMN PHONE COMPANY, ZE PANDA IS INOCENT, ME ONLY WANTED TO ENJOY MY NIGHTLY TOUR OF THE WORLD WILD WEB.

Well recent TV events have forced me to use a lot of other gadgets. Since net connections in my part of the world are billed by the hour and well phone aint exactly cheap, I am basically left with either having to
a) think weird ideas, which my friends have had more than their fill of
b) spend time beginning software projects which I’d never get down to finish (trust me on this I make more vapourware than all vapourwarehouses combined)
c) do photography, or atleast plan for my next trip
d) play on my GBA

A few weeks back, one of my relatives (OK maternal uncle, the only relative, other than my parents, whom I really know) donated Rs. 1500 (~ $30) to me (who else, CARE??????????) and well in the spirit of me (who else), I spent ~ $10 and bought Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (FFTA) for my GBA. Recent trips outside Delhi, have made me realise that extra GBA catridges are a necessity while travelling, and well no one seems to be opening GBA catridge libraries or exchange centers in airports (u know exchng one catridge for another, whoever runs the damn thing gets brokerages). Now FFTA is the first game I have played in the long list of Final Fantasy titles and well its good. Unfortunately even though the game allows u to name ur character nething u want, all characters u interact with generically call u Kupo (a term I guess used fo beginners, or confused characters or something). Now I really dont mind little game character callin’ me Kupo instead of Panda, or Marche or something but since they r calling me Kupo they might as well speak out the dialouges instead of forcing me to read them on my dimmly lit GBA screen (I don’t have GBA SP and well the old GBA’s screen wud probably look dim on the sun’s surface). Well the GBA’s have a 16.8 MhZ 32-bit processor and I guess pumping processor pwr up a bit wud allow them to have speech capabilities. Unfortunately Nintendo seems to have run up a loss this time ‘round so a new generation Game Boy appearing netime soon looks like a distant dream…....................

On another note, I just noticed that Panther’s missing KeyCaps, the nifty little utility which in Jaguar atleast used to give u a representation of all keys on ur keyboard, and modified chars, is missing. That is really sad ‘coz it was one heck of a nifty utility. ZE PANDA REGISTERS A TON OF PROTESTS WITH APPLE AND DEMANDS IT BE BROUGHT BACK ASAP.

Neways I am heading off to somewhere near Jalpaiguri, a national park somewhere in West Bengal, on the 25th (ya christmas, 2003 shall be spent in a natl park). Now Jalpaiguri is known to have rihnos and well I need photographs to send off as fine art supplement. Now after great deliberation I have finally decided not to carry my Pentax LX and MX, and instead rely on Dad’s Nikon F3 and FM2 for the trip. Now the F3 is a beautiful piece of machinery and well Nikon has a collection of lenses which Pentax can never really beat, however in terms of sheer usability, the LX is far ahead of the F3. The LX uses a nice string of bright LED’s, to represent the shutter speed which matches currently selected aperature, while the F3 relies on a tiny, dimmly lit LCD to do the same, making metering an imensly painful and labour intensive process. The LX also offers almost everything the F3 does(well atleast features that I have noticed in the F3 are almost always duplicated in the LX) in a much smaller form factor, making it easier to carry, hide and use. I know with the coming of the F5 a lot of ppl wud be wondering why am I going on abt the LX and the F3, but c the F5 is 2 damn expensive and well I’m learning how to photograph, something which u can do much better on one of the older cameras. Neways the FM2 and MX are practically identical, so I don’t really mind either.

Now this great friend of mine has mentioned me in his nice little Blog so it was essential that I return the favor and link up to his blog 2. Other than that, no one seems to be online right now, and well I am really missing all the chatter which goes on at this time usually.

Neways until later

Ze Panda

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 16th, 2003 at 1:30 pm and is filed under article. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.