My Music

I have always been big time into music, but my phone has now made my access to music even easier. I can listen to my favorite songs anytime, anywhere. I don't have to switch on my laptop anymore every time I want to listen to music.

I believe all of us go through phases when it comes to our Music-listening habits. At least I have been going through phases. When I was in second or third year of my graduation, I went through the "English Phase" as I like to call it! :-P During that time, I mainly listened to only English songs and most of them were Pop. Now I believe I am going through the "Hindi Phase" where I mostly listen to Hindi songs with a couple of English songs here and there.

Here are some of the songs I absolutely love these days:

• Kahan Ho Tum - Bombay Vikings: This is my most favorite song these days. I have never exactly been a fan of Bombay Vikings songs. But this song, without a doubt, is pretty different from their trademark, popular songs. What I love the most about this song is its lyrics. Simply amazing. The music is also really good, very much in tune with the lyrics.
  
• Jhonka Hawa Ka - Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam: This song is absolutely brilliant. The music by Ismail Darbar is beyond words. And the lyrics is just wonderful. This song sort of takes me to a different world every time I hear it.
• Tum Bin - Tum Bin: This song has been my favorite ever since the movie released. Though the movie was hardly noticed by anyone, I am sure that many people loved this song for its music and lyrics. I even like the video of the song to an extent.
• Luka Chhupi - Rang De Basanti: A. R. Rehman at his best. This song has absolutely awesome music. Rehman has composed this song brilliantly and the music, on its own, can give you an idea about the mood of the song. Of course, hats off to Prasoon Joshi for the lyrics which is equally superb. One of those songs which can actually make you feel the emotions that the song depicts.
• Kitni Baatein - Lakshya: This I feel is one of the most melodious sad (though ironic at times) songs that you can come across. Music and lyrics is good. And if you have its video, its like an added advantage. The video is also well taken to suit the mood of the song.
• The Hardest Thing - 98 Degrees: I don't think that I need to say much about this song as I am sure there must be so many who love this song. Great lyrics and good music.
• Tum Yaad Aaye - Alka Yagnik: I don't know how many of you actually know this song. It is from the album "Tum Yaad Aaye" sung by Alka Yagnik and lyrics by Javed Akhtar. I think the names are enough to give you an idea of how beautifully the songs have been composed and sung. This song has beautiful lyrics and Alka Yagnik has done justice to the same. If you haven't heard this song, I would strongly urge you to listen to not just this song, but all the songs from the album. Assuming that not many people know about this album, I am adding a link for the same.

"Tum Yaad Aaye - Alka Yagnik"

• Against All Odds - Mariah Carey and Westlife: I have always been a fan of Westlife. I love many of their songs. I especially love their take of the Phil Collins' classic 'Against All Odds' and I prefer it over the original, simply because I can associate with this version better than the classic.
• Kuch Kum - Dostana: By now you must have guessed that I usually tend to like those songs which have good lyrics. This song is one such example. The lyrics is wonderful, the music is good... but nothing out of the ordinary. But yet, the beautiful lyrics pretty much makes up for it.
• Aaoge Jab Tum - Jab We Met: Another one of my all-time favorites. Lyrics is a perfect 10. The music is simply marvelous and has been sung just perfect.

Well, the list of my favorites could go on and on, but I have kept it limited to the songs that I listen to most these days. Another post about my other favorites some other time. I don't want to bore you right now! ;-)

Sony Ericsson F305 - Review

So... after months of hard-work and persuasion, I finally compelled my brother-in -law to buy me a new phone. In these many months that I spent trying to persuade him to buy me a new cell, I was constantly researching various phones on the sites of Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and even Samsung. I even visited a number of shops to shortlist a few handsets. One of the most important requirements I had was a clamshell phone, other than of course MP3, Camera and Bluetooth. So after an extensive research, I narrowed down three handsets.

1. Sony Ericsson's W380i - The main reason I liked this phone was simply because it is a clamshell phone! :-) But I read a lot of bad reviews about this one and even many shopkeepers told me not to go for this one. So it was finally eliminated from my list.
   
2. Sony Ericsson's W350i - Again... the flap was the biggest selling point for me. Though the guy in the shop told me that the flap is often too delicate and breaks, I was still ready to go for this one.
   
3. Samsung J700 - The only reason I liked this phone was because it had everything I wanted, minus the flap and looked decent enough. But I was never too keen on Samsung. And I especially wanted to go for a Sony because of its awesome sound quality.
   

So with these three in mind I went out to buy a new phone. While I was busy checking out W350i, my sister and brother-in-law were looking at some other phone as they were not very happy with Sony W350i. And that other phone was Sony's F305. I was impressed the moment I saw the phone. After carefully analyzing the phone, I finally decided on this one, made my brother-in-law buy it right away and came out of the shop all happy. :-)

Features:

• Dual Speaker: My main intention of getting a new phone was to listen to music. So the guy in the shop suggested this phone as it has dual speakers. The quality of the speakers is simply amazing. So listening to songs on loud speaker whenever I am home has become my favorite past time. I am completely satisfied with the dual speakers and so I would give it 9/10
• Motion Gaming: The USP of this phone is the motion gaming. It has a built-in motion sensor. It takes mobile gaming to a whole new level. Its fun to swing your arm as if you are actually bowling. However if you are not very keen on motion gaming, the phone also has a number of other games where you don't need to swing your cell phone, so you have a choice. I have always been a big fan of games, be it on computer or cellphone. But it was never the main thing I was looking for in my cell. It was like an added bonus none the less. 8.5/10
• 2 MP Camera: The phone has a 2 MP camera. It also supports video recording. However, there's no flash in the camera. It supports digital zoom of upto 2.5x however you can only use this feature if you reduce the picture quality to VGA. All in all, as far as the camera goes, I would say 6.5/10
  
• FM Radio: The phone also has a built-in FM Radio. A standard feature in almost all the phones nowadays. But the one good thing is you can store 20 different FM Channels. But nothing negative about it so I would give it 8/10
• Screen Resolution: It has a 2-inch large TFT display with resolution of 176x220 pixels. Maybe it is made for 3D games. or something like that. I don't really know as I am not too aware about the technicalities that go behind it. However when you view camera pictures on the screen you can somewhat see pixels. But when you transfer those pictures to a PC, they look just fine. So (maybe due to lack of technical knowledge) I have assumed that the screen resolution is not that great. 5.5/10
• Size and weight: The dimensions of the phone are 96 x 47 x 14.6 mm which doesn't make it very sleek. It isn't as light as you would like it to be with a weight of 97.5 grams. But still, no complaints! :-) 7/10
• Battery: This is my first Sony Ericsson phone so I am not sure how well they fare in this particular area. But the battery Life isn't as good as my earlier phones. I would suggest a 7/10
  

All-in-all, I am more than satisfied with my 2-month long experience with the phone and I am glad that I decided to go for this one instead of the W350i. And as far as the overall rating of the phone goes, I would say 8.5/10. I could have given it 9/10 but I had to reduce 0.5 for not having a flap ;-).

Russell Peters... Just when I needed to laugh :-)

Till a couple of months back I had no idea who Russell Peters was! I had seen him in an advertisement on Facebook on more than one occasions and on each of them, I couldn't help but wonder who the clown was showing his index finger and giving the weirdest expression you could ever imagine. I googled him out of curiosity and read some stuff about him on Wikipedia. But never really thought about going any further in the research.

And then I heard his name again from two of my friends who have this freaky habit of mouthing dialogues from movies (not always keeping in tune with the situation :-P). So anyways, they would utter some dialogues every now and then and laugh out loud. I heard 2-3 such dialogues quite often but since I had no idea what they were, there wouldn't be any reaction from me. After some time I got sorta tired of sitting without an expression on my face while the two laughed their hearts out. So I finally asked them from where were they reciting these. And so, I was introduced to the Stand-Up Comedian Russell Peters. And one thing I can say after having watched only 4 of his shows is that; may god bless those two friends of mine for having that habit of dialogue-repeating (even though at times I just wish to beat them up for that very habit! :-P)

As I mentioned earlier, I have seen four of Russell Peters' shows and have already become an admirer. One important reason could be that I watched him just when I really needed to laugh. And boy, did I laugh!!!

Now some of the things I really like about him:
1. I love the way he mocks any accent. Amazing Talent!
2. He really has a global reach. Since he cracks jokes about all the races (evenly, as he says! :-P), it attracts people from all races!
3. The Dude has an amazing presence of mind. Imagine cracking an actually-funny joke about a woman heading towards the restroom in the middle of the show!
4. I especially love his jokes about Indians and Asians. They are always so funny without being offensive!
5. Oh... how can I forget to mention his world-famous "Somebody gonna get a hurt real bad" joke. Simply hilarious!
6. And last but not the least, now I can finally sit and laugh with my friends about Russell Peters' jokes rather than sitting with a plain face! :-P

Back again!

And so, there has been another gap in my blogging. A rather short one... but the most painful one indeed.

I have been going through the toughest phase of my life so far. For over a month, I didn't feel like doing anything. During this period, Internet had become an alien to me. I stopped coming online, which was like water to me earlier. I stopped chatting with my friends which was air to me. The only reason I used internet was to download movies. Movies became my only source of entertainment. In spite of numerous attempts on my friends' part to bring me out of this condition, I just wasn't ready. I only realized that until and unless I felt like it from inside, I won't be able to.

Now, I have decided to at least make a conscious effort. Because I have realized that all those who care/cared about me want to see me happy. And so, going back to blogging is just one of the things to come back to life as I knew it.

So I will soon be returning with a few more posts. I have so much to write about so many movies that I have watched in the past one and a half month! :-)