This week has been quite productive. My Economic Analysis test went on great and it was one of the several positive points of the week. I took photos of a few matches for the University newsletter for next week’s issue, and in last week’s issue, they had the photo I took of ‘The Twang’ and also gave me full credit for it. I did a presentation about France in my Politics class and I thought that it was pretty good, seeing that nobody else has bothered to make a Powerpoint except for me.

I finished reading ‘Bravo Two Zero‘ by Andy McNab, its a book about a SAS mission into Iraq to disable some Scud launchers, and how they caught before they could do anything, and the torture and pain they went through before finally getting back, minus 3 dead comrades. It’s a fast paced book, and hard to believe that its a true story. Reading it is quite an experience, and gives you the feeling of what it is like to be in a battlefield. It makes you realize what soldiers go through for our safety. A definite must read by fans of action books.

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I watched ‘Scarface’ last night. I’d say the movie was good but I personally didnt like Tony Montana too much, he is bad-ass, agreed, but probably a bit too bad-ass for my liking. It probably was also a letdown because I expected better of Montana, to be a better human being than he actually is. I took down the poster of Scarface in my room, I dont think Montana deserved the spot. The wall looks a bit empty now, but I have another poster in mind.

I’ve added the LibraryThing widget on the left side, it displays random books covers from the library of books that I’ve read. And thats it for now, I hope that the coming week will be good too.

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My passion for photography is something that everyone who is around me will know about, but how did it start in the first place? Few people know that I was encouraged by my father to take up photography as a hobby but how did my father get interested in photography?

I found the answer to this question a few days ago when I found an old Russian Camera and two books on photography. All of them were around 25 - 30 years old, and they belonged to my father.

Upon further research, I found out that the camera was a 35mm rangefinder called Zorki manufactured at the Krasnogorsk Mechanical Factory in the Soviet Union between 1948 and 1978. The particular model which I had was the Zorki 4 which was first released in 1956 and over 2 million units were produced. The Zorki 4 was the most successful Zorki and has a reputation as one of the best Russian cameras although the self-timer and slow shutter speeds were unreliable.

The camera isn’t functioning perfectly right now. When I press the shutter button, the shutter plane moves halfway through and stops and the moves slowly. The self-timer works perfectly, and the camera is entirely mechanical, it doesn’t require batteries to function. The lens is quite remarkable too, with a focal length of 50mm and fast aperture of f/2.

I hoped that the camera might be worth something given its antique status but I was disappointed to find out that it’s not worth more than 75$ because there are around 1.7 Million pieces in existence even today. Well, maybe after a few more years, it might be worth something more.

The books are the best photography books I’ve ever read. The Digital Photography Books you get in the shops today don’t even give a quarter of the information in these books. And since these books were written with Film Cameras in mind, its interesting to know the real origin of some of the principles of digital photography today. The books have certainly taught be a great deal of the technical details and basics of photography.

 The first book is The Focalguide to Cameras and the second one is The Focalguide to Photographing People.

Click the thumbnails for fullsize images.

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I know I told everyone yesterday that I would read the book at my own leisure yesterday since I’d already known the ending but once I started reading, I thought I might as well finish it.

The book is completely action except for a few small lulls here and there. The only other book which was so jam packed would probably be the 3rd book. The book wasn’t too big either unlike the 6th book which was unnecessarily long and boring. The whole book was to the point and brisk which made it a lot more interesting. And since there weren’t any major pauses in the book, there wasn’t much of a chance for me to put the book down.

J.K.Rowling’s gone on a killing spree on this book killing more than 10 major characters in the book. Most of the deaths are not portrayed very clearly which leads the reader to think its not very important until after sometime. Personally, I didn’t feel much remorse at any of the deaths except for the death of a certain creature. The death of that particular creature really moved me more than the others because there was a small pause after the death allowing the readers to feel for it.

All the occurrences throughout the book, have some kind of importance at the event towards the end. All of them are well scripted and described with detail. Together with the search for the remaining horcruxes, Rowling has inserted another plot thereby minimising the chance for the reader to get bored. Both the plots remain unsolved until the very end of the book which ensures suspense and twists for the reader.

The final showdown is a slight letdown though. Not much details are revealed about the others during the battle and concentrates on Harry only. The much anticipated fight between Harry and Voldemort is finished quite quickly. The results of the fight would be slightly confusing to the common reader at first but will become clear soon. I expected more out of it but I guess Rowling decided to end it differently.

Any Harry Potter Fan will definately read the book to know the ending, regardless of the fact whether it is good or bad. I liked it too, it was certainly the best of all the books but not extraordinarily good. I suppose it is a good ending to the Harry Potter saga. It gets 8.5/10

Read about my experience of buying the book here. A detailed story of the book can be found here.

And here is a hilarious video of the book being spoiled for several eager fans right before the release.

Post about your experience with the book in the comments.

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I got up at 5:30 in the morning to get the 7th and final Harry Potter Book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. A few of us had decided to go to the store at 6:30 AM, since thats when the store opens. Bear in mind that we did not go there because we are die hard Harry Potter fans but rather because we had nothing else to do.

Fatik, Dushyant and I decided to go to Walden while Isha, Krutika and Sambhav went to Odyssey. The crowd at Walden was much more than we expected, we stood at the end of the line. While waiting for the store to open, Fatik spotted the boxes being unloaded at the back of the shop. Security was quite lax, infact we could’ve picked one up and ran away without being caught. Anyways, the shop opened soon and cheers could be heard from the front of the line. The line moved quite fast, in my opinion and within 15 minutes, we were able to get the books in our hands. TV Channels were doing interviews of the eager buyers, we wanted to shout the spoilers out loud but refrained from it although we kept saying ‘Snape dies’ whenever we could. We got free Mint-O s with the books and also managed to get a free Red Bull each from the lady who was promoting it. The entire line finished quite quickly and once we got our books, we drove over to Odyssey.

At Odyssey, we saw a huge line which was more than twice the size of the one a Walden. The line was moving quite slowly and we took immense pleasure in waving our books at the people in the line. We met the others soon, and we spent some time talking with each other and the people in the lines. Fatik, Dushyant and I were quite glad that we had made the smart decision of going to Walden where the crowd was lesser and therefore, we were able to get our hands on the books sooner than others.

After that, we went for a nice breakfast and spent some time at a friend’s house reading the book together. Some of my friends should be able to finish the book by today, but I, on the other hand, am not too eager to read it, so I’ll take my own time and read it and a slow pace.

You can view all the pictures of today over here.

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Today is 20/07/2007, the 18th birthday of a friend of 9 years, Fatik Khan. Its quite hard to realise that I’ve known him for half his life. We’ve had lots of good times together, in school and outside. Life would’ve been different without him, school wouldn’t have been the same…And today, he turns 18. I hope that we continue to remain friends in the future and that our friendship will withstand the test of time……

You can read an online PDF of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows here.

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I finally finished the Hannibal Lecter Tetralogy today after more than a week of continuous reading. I finished ‘Hannibal’ in 2 days and ‘Hannibal Rising’ in a day. Special thanks to Fatik for getting me ‘Hannibal Rising’ for my birthday.

‘Hannibal’ was more fast paced than the previous two books. The story was concentrated mostly on Hannibal and how he eludes death successfully. We also learn more ‘Clarice Starling’ who appeared in the previous book and the relationship she shares with Hannibal. The story is filled with lots of tense moments and many twists right upto the ending. I felt that it was the best among all of the books, it gets 9.25/10

‘Hannibal Rising’ depicts the childhood life of Hannibal Lecter and how he evolved into the most evil literary character of all time. Its quite an interesting book as it gives the readers an insight into Hannibal’s mind and his upbringing. It describes his first murder and also the reasons for his consequent crimes. Definitely a must read for any Hannibal fan. It gets 8.5/10

I hope Thomas Harris writes a couple of more Hannibal books which will connect the time period between ‘Hannibal Rising’ and ‘Red Dragon’. So far we’ve only read about his early life and his life during prison and after that but nothing in between.

And to all those die-hard Harry Potter fans, here is the ending to the 7th book with all the spoliers. The above link sends you directly to a page where a person claims that he has managed to get a copy of the 7th book and has even included photographs of the book as evidence. Its upto to you to decide whether its real or not. As for my opinion, I didn’t even visit the page, just to be on the safe side.

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I’ve been reading some novels latetly.  I finished ‘Red Dragon’ in about 2 days and ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ in 2 -3 days. Both of them were spectacular books. The whole business about murders and the FBI/Police investigating them is something that has always been a favourite. Both the books started off slow at first but once they picked up pace, I couldnt put them down. They both get 9/10. I’ve started reading ‘Hannibal’ and once I finish all the books, I plan on watching the movies.

And to everyone who came to play Wii today, thanks a lot, I had a great time!

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New Pictures added in the ‘Hyderabad Public School‘ sub-category and in the ‘Sky & Landscapes‘ sub-category. Take a look and comment on them.

I finished reading Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince for the second time. It was much better than the first time I’d read it and I finished it pretty quickly too, in about one and a half days. It gets 7.5/10.

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‘Shantaram‘ by “Gregory David Roberts” has to be the longest book I’ve ever read at 936 pages. And I loved every single page of it. Its a true story about how Roberts escaped from the Australian prison a fleed to Bombay. His life there, in the slums, with the underworld, at war in Afghanistan and even in Bollywood is enthralling and spectacular. Its hard to believe that an outsider has explored more of Bombay than most of us. The book itself is extremly well written and while reading it, I felt as if I was a part of his life. I shared his joys and sorrows and felt saddened when one of his friends died. Each moment of his life has been carefully described in this spectacular book. It took a long time to read though, around a fortnight or so. It gets 9/10. There are plans to make it into a movie too.

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‘Satisfaction: The Science of Finding True Fulfillment’ by Gregory Berns. Finished reading it a few days ago. It was a very interesting book delving into economics, science and psychology. It described a lot about life and its characteristics and I enjoyed reading it. It wasn’t fast paced as had to be expected but rather a slow moving and calm book. It gets 8/10

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