Sid Meier's Railroads

Got the game today night ... and now it is 6 am when I am stopping for a little rest and maybe sleep :-)
Yes people, it is one addictive game !
I have never played any in the railroad series before - simply cos it never use to run on my old comp while I was at college : so the latest version is my first exposure to this set of games.

I am a sucker for two things - awesome beaches, and trains : both of which have been my obsession since childhood. There are games which I play just so that I can watch the beach simulated in the game ! (And if you are wondering, it is NOT easy to simulate a good beach - atleast I never got the hang of it). (To clarify: I like the beach - waves crashing into the sand : that sort of thing, I was not refering to who is on the beach in my statement above :-P)

This is the first game which fully satisfies my love for trains. The graphics, to put it subjectively, is fabulous : yep, there are bugs here and there (which you can exploit actually in your gameplay ;-) ) but this is one phenominally piece of work ! Best of all, it really does give a 'feel' of real trains and railroads. The AI is irritating and a bit too unpredictable (even things it MUST do, it wont if it is winning !), but the challenge is interesting.
Not sure how it compares to the predecessors : but this is one MUST play game !

It is really strange - I was mentioning to Vipin a few months back that we got to do a Railroad engine with terrain, engine/bogie, signalling type, infrastructure, etc pluggable so that the core could get adapted for any railroad age/location ... and Vipin's response was : we will think more after playing Sid Meier's Railroads (it had not been released then). As things stand, my plans to attempt an engine are scrapped :-)

"Lone Wolf and Cub"

I mentioned about Shogun Assasin a while back.
Noufal "mentioned" (I use the word lightly here - he sort of drilled it into my head until I screamed for mercy and accepted his infinite wisdom :-D) that this was an adaptation of the old manga called 'Lone Wold and Cub'.

Shogun Assasin is a slight adaptation (the visuals remain same, story slight modified) of the first two movies in a six part epic by the name 'Lone wolf and cub'.
Since watching Shogun Assasin, I have wanted to pick up the original movies : and when I got back to office today - there it was, dvd collectors collectors edition box :-) thanks to amazon !

Just finished the first two parts - and man, I am pumped ! Good thing I dont have a samurai sword, or this monitor would be split in two :-P The movie is absolutely brilliant - and fills in a lot of blanks which I noticed in the earlier movie. Too late now, cant wait for tomorrow evening to watch the rest of the 4 dvd's !!

Once I am done with these, will need to get all the manga versions of this epic :-)

Irony of the century

I am in Bombay and Vishwanathan Anand is visiting my office - even play a few rapid games ! :-(

Next I guess RMS will visit my house and I will be trying to fight my way out of the locked bathroom !

Wondering why ...

... there are no security products getting ported to Windows Vista and Win XP 64 ? Here is a possible explanation !
Microsoft and DRM mafia ... and in the process closes down a whole bunch of products.

Windows is one of the most insecure operating systems ever (worse than even some college hacks) - and yet remains immensely popular inspite of the millions of dollars lost on productivity and lost work.

RIAA is a plague and scourge on this world with their asinine ideas and brain dead stupidity.