Holy Freeze! A four frame Zeal!!

To most, the title won't make any sense, but to whom it does, they would be really interested in knowing much more. But my purpose is to bore everyone, so this post will explain the title in detail.

It is related to the game Diablo II: Lord of Destruction Expansion, patch version 1.10. More specifically, to the "Frost Zealot" build of the Paladin. Now before the uninformed ask, I will explain. The Frost Zealot uses the Holy Freeze aura as his primary aura, and Zeal as his main attack. However, I threw in some more interesting things to make the game more enjoyable. To some(who understood the title in the first place), the word "Beast" will suffice. For others, lemee explain. "Beast" is a Runeword that provides an active Fanaticism aura, and this really helps attain the four frame zeal. What, u still didn't understand what a four frame zeal is? Too Bad, looks like I'm cursed to bore you some more. Each attack in the game has multiple speeds, and increased attack speed items help attack faster, i.e. take more weapon swings at enemies in a given time. But, the game being restricted to 25 frames per second, the real benefit comes when an attack speed is increased to such an extent that the number of frames needed to render a particular attack swing is reduced. And a four frame zeal swing is the best that can be achieved.

Other things like Holy Freeze boosted to collosal skill levels and synergised to insane cold damage per attack hit are insignificant details.

For those who are frustated by now, please hit the reset button on your computer. For those, who are interested to know more, I'd suggest you spend some time on The Arreat Summit and the Diablo II Strategy Compendium.

Music to the ears

"Music. A magic beyond all what we do here" - Prof. Albus Dumbledore

From heavy metal, industrial, alternative, rock, nu-metal, punk, fusion, pop, hip-hop to rhythm, ballads, reggae, soft, classical and certain things that we cannot even classify. Music is a part of everyone's life, however small the part may be. And to some it is everything.

For me, music is not an obsession, but life would not be the same without the music. I do not have any particular preference of a genre, but listen to whatever I like, and it can be anything. Sometimes, the way my playlist goes from heavy rock to boy-band pop is enough to throw others off their tracks. I really wish they never listen to my playlist switch from "Parental Advisory - Explicit Lyrics" hip-hop to Simon and Garfunkel.

I do not play any musical instrument, but sometimes I do try. Have tinkered around with mouth organs, keyboards (not of the computer variety), and even spent a few moments with acoustic guitars. But never could devote enough time to really learn to play one of these even half decently. Maybe someday...

However, till then, let the music play...

Rebooting KGP

KGP gets into a kind of suspended sleep state in the summer months. The summer vacations to be more precise. However, now the time has come when KGP wakes up from its slumber to its usual hustle and bustle. The Autumn semester is approaching.

Come 19th July and the all the senior KGPians will get back to their usual lives. And on 20th we will welcome the new members of the KGP family. And its back to the classrooms immediately. For most of us atleast. Some of us can wait a few more days before the classes actually begin.

The signs of activity are already trickling. Familiar names are reappearing on muTTer and DC mainchat. The omnipresent demands for CS and AOE servers are ever more persistent. And yeah, people are also returning to their hostel rooms.

Now, lets see what this new year (and my last) at KGP holds for me...

Of Restaurants

So when you stay the summer in KGP, the first and foremost thing you do is to plan for the restaurants you are going to visit for meals. The "Mess" in the hall of residence is shut down for the summer, the official "Mess" supposed to run for the summer closes before opening. The unofficial "Mess" closes down a fortnight before the end of the summer vacations, and you are at the mercy of the hopeless restaurants.

There are four (and a half) restaurants on-campus, perhaps tolerable for a meal a fortnight. However, when you have to plan for two a day, you seriously run out of options.

Two of them are pretty far away to be a feasible option for daily visits, once a week might be fine. The other two and a half are more accessible, but the "Under Construction" signs on the road force you to take a path to the "half" one about three times longer than usual. And then there are the restaurants themselves.

When you go for meals in a group, there are personal preferences and hate factors. It's pretty hard to come up with a unanimous choice, but you gotta do what you gotta do. So everytime, we do reach somewhere. And this is exactly when the reality hits us. There is simply no choice of what to eat (when attempting to keep the summer budget under check), so you fall back to the same thing you ate last time you visited this particular restaurant. And life goes on...

And yeah, if a waiter tries to slip u an unclean wet plate, and glares at you when u ask him to clean it, glare back. Works for me.

A flood of movies

Over the last few weeks, I have watched a lot of movies. Some OK, some real good and some beyond comparison. Here is a list of as many as I can remember, with a small description.

Charlie's Angles 2: Full Throttle - Three tough babes battling against someone trying to steal details of the "witness protection program", while the past catches up with one of them.

Garden State - The Directorial debut of the multitalented Zach Braff, more famous as Dr. Jack "JD" Dorian on the TV sitcom Scrubs. Movie inspired by real events of his life. A wonderful Drama.

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines - Arnold's back. Decent movie with well explained reason of the actual takeover by the machines.

Seven Years in Tibet - An Austrian mountaineer ends up in Lhasa, Tibet after a series of events at the peak of the second world war. There he befriends His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who is a young person at that time, and rediscovers himself.

What Dreams May Come - You gotta see this movie to even begin to comprehend it. Really great movie about how love can even overcome death.

Wild Things 3: Diamonds in the Rough - A typical wild things sequel, with inherited diamonds and all the usual twists and turns. But I seriously didn't see the last one coming.

Pulp Fiction - A Tarantino masterpiece, about two hitmen, their boss, a boxer and some more people. Non-chronological presentation and extreme violence make it a must watch.

Reservoir Dogs - Another Tarantino Masterpiece. A Diamond store robbery gone wrong, an undercover cop, an empty warehouse and tempers running high.

From Dusk to Dawn - Tarantino Screenplay, Rodriguez Direction. George Clooney and Tarantino himself as performers. There is nothing more to say.

Sleepless in Seattle
You've Got Mail
Two romantic comedies, both featuring Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. Both deal with finding true love and are really watchable. The internet "connections" make the second one more enjoyable for us geeks.

xXx
xXx2: State of the Nation
Two non-stop action movies, the first one featuring Vin Diesel, the second one Ice Cube, as a part of the xXx Extreme Special Agent program.

Elektra - A spinoff from Daredevil, and based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name, the movie shows her fighting a group of supernatural ninjas to save a father and her daughter, whom she was initially ordered to kill.

Strange Days - A futuristic movie set at the turn of the century, with a police ruled LA (or was it NY), where "Playback" is an illegal black market hot commodity and one particular playback can make things go really wrong for others.

K-Pax - A man in a psychiatric institution claims to be an alien for the planet K-Pax. When his psychiatrist tries to counsel him, he shows certain traits which really make the doctor wonder.

Osmosis Jones - A white blood cell and a cold pill take on a deadly virus that has entered Frank's body. Light hearted comedy with a good mix of live action and animation.

The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring Extended Edition
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Extended Edition
The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
Need I say anything about these??

Some of these movies deserve much more than the two lines I have written here, and that's what's up next.

Modifying the Template

As usual, I have to do something or the other to be different. Standard things just don't appeal to me. So i go ahead and try modifying the predefined template of the blog. However, I am only partially successful. The lower part of the page does not render properly. In firefox atleast. So here I am, still trying to figure out a way to clean it up. Perhaps i will change the whole code of the blog, writing it my way and making it easier to modify - but that'll take time. So as of now, trying to tweak it is what i do.

EDIT: Looks like fixed for the time being. As long as the content part is longer than the sidebar, the page is rendered fine. Otherwise, well try to find a page where the content is shorter and u'll know.

EDIT2: Well, seems like in all pages, the content is longer than the sidebar, so I am done for the time being. As for writing my own code, i'll do that if this minor edit doesn't hold well due to some reason or the other.

And so it begins

And so it begins. This was also the title and begining lines of the previous blog that I had hosted on my own computer on the LAN. Never got to add much to that one, and don't really know how much will I ever add to this one. But even then, a start is a start and an attempt is an attempt. And because i had to manually edit HTML for my previous one, this will be easier to manage. :hails: blogspot.

So now, lets decide on what all am I going to put here. We can start with movie reviews/rants. There can be video/computer game related posts. Computer hardware. Exams, studies and projects. Music. And perhaps most importantly, friends. This kinda sums up my life as I know it.

So, let it begin