RedDevil's Turf

Spain’s wait for a major success is finally over as they end the 44 years barren run with a 1-0 win over Germany in the Euro 2008 finals in Vienna. Fernando Torres provided the only goal after 33 minutes. They started out as favorites and justified their status as among the best in Europe. They played well, rose to the occasion and beat Germany convincingly in the finals to be the champions. I was disappointed by Germany as they failed to score a goal even with a bunch of good attacking players. They looked out of ideas and weren’t in high tempo. Spain were much better and played some good football and were the deserving winners.

With this the Euro 2008 also comes to and end, and which means I can now sleep on time, which wasn’t the case ever since the Euro had started, thanks to the late kick-off timings here in India. But it was worth it I guess. We saw some great football action, some new talented players rose to the limelight, some disappointed, but in the end the football fan enjoyed what was a memorable Euro Cup. I missed England a lot. The likes of Wayne Rooney, David Beckham, Steven Gerrard not present in a major tournament is a bit of a turn off, but Russia, who thumped England to reach the tournament, justified their qualification by plaing some outstand football, and beating the favorites Netherlands convincingly. Marvo Van Basten’s side played some good attacking football themselves before being outclassed and outplayed by Russia. France had a miserable time and they need to give a hard look down the line to see where they were wrong. Italy had a decent run until they lost out to Spain on penalties. Portugal too were favorites to win it but couldn’t get past Germany. Germany on the other hand were not really in good form in the tournament but still managed to get into the finals. Turkey were the kind of comebacks as they played some thrilling football and managed to get into the quarter-finals. Croatia were again very good, and they deserved to play in the quarter-finals, but couldn’t do so.

Players wise we saw some good crop of talented players. Russian duo of Roman Pavlyuchenko and Andrei Arshavin emerged as a great force for Russia’s success. David Villa was the top scorer in the tournament and was a player to watch for Spain. Ruud van Nistelrooy was still in best of form and played some good football. There were some big disappointments as well. The French team dissappointed big time. Much was expected from Karim Benzema but he couldn’t do much on the field. Theiry Henry too didn’t make a big impact for the French. Frank Ribéry was somewhat better for Les Blues. Fàbregas played outstanding for Spain, he was a player who deserved to play in the finals. There were still a lot of other players who played their part, like the Turks, the Croatians, they all played some superb football, and got some glory for their teams. But in the end there is only one winner and that was Spain.

So now no football for a while now, until August when the new season of English Premier League kicks off, which promises to be a even more action packed than the last season. Will write a preview for the season, so watch this space.

Sports euro 2008, football

The Mobile phone giant, Nokia today announced that it was going to buy Symbian. Nokia will purchase the stake of 264 million euros ($410 million) which it doesn’t own from Sony Ericsson, Ericsson, Panasonic, Siemens and Samsung Electronic. A new body called Symbian Foundation  will be formed which will comprise of Nokia and other top cellphone makers along with operators AT&T, NTT DoCoMo, Vodafone and chip makers Texas Instruments and STMicroelectronics to develop the software further. Nokia will also make Symbian open source.

Now for a normal mobile user it might not be a big deal, but for mobile application developers it should mean a lot, as Symbian is a pretty common mobile platform, more so in smartphones, and it going open source can only help the development of the platform. The other rivals to Symbian are Microsoft’s Windows Mobile and Apple’s iPhone and also the upcoming Google’s Android Mobile Platform.

Mobile nokia, open source, symbian

I was casually browsing Youtube when I found a video of the news report on the day when Ayrton Senna died. Everyone remembers that on May 1, 1994, the Formula One triple world champion Ayrton Senna died in a crash that occurred while he was leading the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix at Imola, but only a few know that another Formula One driver died in the same grand prix a day earlier on Saturday 30 April, 1994, during the qualifying. It was Roland Ratzenberger who died in the high speed crash he had which resulted in his death. But Senna’s death overshadowed Ratzenberger, and still today not many people know the fact that 2 Formula One drivers died in the same grand prix event making the darkest day in the history of Formula One racing.

Ayrton Senna died the following day. According to Wikipedia “When track officials examined the wreckage of Senna’s racing car, they found a furled Austrian flag. Senna had planned to raise it after winning the race, in honour of Ratzenberger.” Such a tragic incident really, makes you feel very sad about it.

Ratzenberger was doing 314.9 km/h when his car struck the wall. The cause of his death according to Wikipedia “Suffering front wing-damage on the previous lap, the high speed on the backstraight, and therefore high wind pressure, finally broke the wing off, sending it under Ratzenberger’s car. His car failed to turn into the Villeneuve Corner and struck the outside wall at 314.9 km/h. After the car carried on down the track, spinning around and stopping at the next corner, Ratzenberger’s lolling head was revealed; he had clearly broken his neck. The cause of death was a basal skull fracture.” On February 18, 2001 NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt also had a similar injury at the 2001 Daytona 500 when he had a high speed crash and died because of serious injuries.

The double tragedy was marked before the start of the next race in Monaco, with the front row of the grid left empty and the two slots painted with a Brazilian and Austrian flag. Although Formula One cars are a lot safer, thanks to the San Marino tragedy, and even after a high speed crash, the drivers survive the accident. But we still remember the drivers we have lost in motor racing. May their soul rest in peace…

Sports formula one

Directed by Louis Leterrier
Starring Edward Norton, Liv Tyler, Tim Roth, William Hurt
Music by Craig Armstrong
Distributed by Universal Studios

I know more about Hulk than I know about Iron Man, with this is mind I thought I can watch Hulk as well. I still don’t know much about Hulk, just that he is a green mean angry giant. About Iron Man, I didn’t know a thing, oh maybe just that he is a man with a Iron suit. I would also like to mention that I haven’t seen Eric Bana starring Hulk which was released in 2003.

The Incredible Hulk is about scientist Dr. Bruce Banner aka Hulk, who during a research project about a super solider, is turned into Hulk due to exposure to gamma radiation. So Bruce Banner is now a fugitive from the United States Army is on the run. He then is tracked by the Army and he eventually manages to escape them and return home where he meets his old colleague Betty (Liv Tyler). And then there is another man who is given the supersoldier serum, who eventually becomes an even bigger and meaner version of Hulk. So Hulk must now fight him and defeat him.

So that was the story, it might sound boring to you, but trust me its not, especially when you see it on the screen with all those superb visual effects. Acting wise Edward Norton did a fantastic job. His acting seems to be very natural and gave a good performance. Liv Tyler plays the love interest of Edward Norton and was pretty good. Tim Roth, who plays Russian-born British special operations expert Emil Blonsky did a great job too. The rest of the actors were good. The CGI work done for Hulk was very good and he looked very real without loosing any of the strong character that Hulk is. He looked mean, strong and big, and ofcourse green. The action scenes of him fighting Emil Blonsky were really good.

So overall, the sound effects were good, locales were great at times, action scenes were well done, visual effects were top notch. All in all a good summer action movie.

The Incredible Hulk Official site

Rating: 7/10

Movies hulk, movie review

So after much fanfare and anticipation, Firefox 3 was released at 22:30 Indian Standard Time, and thats when all hell broke loose as the Firefox Download Day arrived as they attempt a Guiness World Record .

11:42:06 PM IST: Servers are down, I can’t access www.firefox.com, www.getfirefox.com, www.spreadfirefox.com seems to work but the download button takes me to firefox 2′s download page.

12:12:48 AM IST: Still the same situation

1:12:01AM IST: Now its the opposite, I can access www.firefox.com and www.getfirefox.com, but now www.spreadfirefox.com is down. Anyways I’m downloading my copy of Firefox 3 now…finally

1:18:05 AM IST: Found this “Mozilla.com web traffic is pushing well over 2 Gigabits a second of just pure HTTP traffic. That is in addition to the 13 Gigabits a second or so of download traffic. We are still at around 14,000 download/minute and mozilla.com is responding well! Go Mozilla community and IT team!”
Source: http://developer.mozilla.org/devnews/index.php/2008/06/17/another-quick-update/
BTW Firefox downloaded and installed

1:42:54 AM IST: www.spreadfirefox.com is back online, and www.firefox.com and www.getfirefox.com are also online.

2:41:40 AM IST: All the sites are working fine. Its too late in the night, I’ll goto sleep now, and will download at my office as well.

10:28:04 AM IST: All the sites are still working fine. I downloaded one in my office and installed it.

So Firefox is installed and as expected a few of the Firefox 2 addons are not compatible. Their new versions should come out eventually in a few days. As for the mozilla servers, it seems like the servers are in much better shape now as all the sites are online.

Man its so fast! Its really a big improvement atleast in terms of browsing speeds. Sites load so fast in it, and things are working fine, no crashes or anything like that. I just love Firefox.

Internet browser, firefox

“WHAT!”, was my reaction when I read about the fourth movie in the series, “Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins” or “Terminator 4″ if you would like to call it, but the man who plays John Connor is no other than Christian Bale himself, and not only that, its slated for a May 22, 2009 release and the first trailer can be seen as early as The Dark Knight’s release!!! I mean this all came out of nowhere for me, as I didn’t read about it anywhere until now. I’m a Christian Bale fan ever since I saw Batman Begins and The Prestige, and I hope this movie does well as he is a very good actor and I would have high expectations from it.

Now as far as I remember the movie was going for a reboot and was supposed to have a different storyline and stuff. Ok so from what I managed to dig out from the internet, it does get a reboot, as its different from the time travel thing it had.

On May 23, 2008, Warner Bros. released the following plot summary for the film. The synopsis was modified on June 11, 2008:
“Set in post-apocalyptic 2018, John Connor (Christian Bale), the man fated to be the leader of the human resistance against Skynet and its army of Terminators, and the future he was raised to believe in is altered in part by the appearance of Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), a Terminator whose last memory is of being on death row. Connor must decide whether Marcus has been sent from the future, or rescued from the past. As Skynet prepares its final onslaught, Connor and Marcus both embark on an odyssey that takes them into the heart of Skynet’s operations, where they find out a terrible secret that may lead to the possible annihilation of mankind.”
Source: Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins page on Wikipedia

So there you have it, the plot of the movie, I don’t know more about it, but will surely post more as soon as I find out. Watch this space!

Official Site of Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins

Movies christian bale, movie preview, Movies, terminator

Stan Winston was a legend, his work was extraordinary, and for a movie crazy guy like me, he was the wizard of magic. For those who don’t know who the guy is, ladies and gentlemen let me present to you the guy who has been the pioneer in the special effects industry in Hollywood. Stan Winston is the guy responsible for the amazing, and unbelievable stuff we saw over the years. He has given his craft to some of the biggest blockbusters in the history of Hollywood. The Terminator series, the Jurassic Park series, Aliens, the Predator series, and Edward Scissorhands, and very recently Iron Man, all has been his work. His recent projects were Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins, GI Joe, Shutter Island and James Cameron’s Avatar. Winner of four Academy Awards, Stan Winston, aged 62,  died on June 15, 2008, at his home in Malibu, California after suffering for seven years with multiple myeloma.

Honors:
* 1982: Oscar Nomination For Best Makeup: Heartbeeps
* 1987: Won Oscar For Best Visual Effects: Aliens
* 1988: Oscar Nomination For Best Visual Effects: Predator
* 1991: Oscar Nomination For Best Makeup: Edward Scissorhands
* 1992: Won 2 Oscars – Best Visual Effects & Best Makeup: Terminator 2: Judgment Day
* 1993: Oscar Nomination For Best Makeup: Batman Returns
* 1994: Won Oscar For Best Visual Effects: Jurassic Park
* 1998: Oscar Nomination For Best Visual Effects: The Lost World: Jurassic Park
* 2002: Oscar Nomination For Best Visual Effects: A.I.

Thank you for all the moments of magic you gave us Stan, may his soul rest in peace.

Sources: Stan Winston’s page on Wikipedia

Movies Movies, special effects

A SportZForumZ exclusive Report, by Varun K R:-

So after a big wait of 4 years, the Euro is back! Something that always lives up to the hype it gets, it’s also one of the tournaments where amazing football is on display, probably because of the fact that one bad game could mean another 4 year wait! Read more…

Sports euro 2008, football, Sports

Directed by Steven Spielberg
Starring Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett, Karen Allen, Ray Winstone, John Hurt, Jim Broadbent, Shia LaBeouf
Music by John Williams
Distributed by Paramount Pictures

I’m a big Steven Spielberg fan, and surprisingly this was my first Harrison Ford film, and so that makes it obvious that I had not seen any of the previous Indiana Jones films in the franchisee. Expectations in a Steven Spielberg films are not expectations, its more of a certainty that its going to be a great time, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was no different. Its a great movie with a good plot, some great acting and fantastic locales with equally good visual effects.

Now the day I saw the first trailer of the movie I was in for a shock. That famous Indiana Jones tune which I have heard a lot of times belonged to this movie! I was really surprised and guessed that it was something pretty big, and a few references in Wikipedia confirmed it that it was pretty big indeed, so I was waiting for the movie. It released a week late here in India on 30th May 2008.

The plot of the movie “pits an older Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) against agents of the Soviet Union, led by Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett), in the search for a crystal skull.” as wikipedia mentions it. It may be about a crystal skull but the movie is all about Indiana Jones aka Harrison Ford. Hats off to this guy really, he pulls off a fantastic job by playing Indiana Jones again after such a long time, and he was really awesome in his action scenes considering that he is 65 years old, which doesn’t affect him at all! He delivers a superb film and he is the cream of the movie. Other than him Cate Blanchett did a wonderful job in her role. Her accent was very good and seemed natural, and throughout the movie she was good. Shia LaBeouf, pronounced as “SHY-uh luh-BUFF”, plays the role of Mutt Williams, Indiana Jones’s son. Shia LaBeouf impressed me in Transformers as well, and here he does an even better job. He is a good actor and does the action scenes well and also manages to do some comedy. Rest of them were ok. Karen Allen who plays the role of Marion Ravenwood, also did a great job in the movie.

The background music is very good. John Williams always manages to give a great score. And similarly like every Spielberg film, this one too had great locations and sets and some great visual effects by Industrial light & Magic. The movie never looses grip and always keeps you into it. It spreads some good humor in many parts of the movie.

All in all its a pretty good summer entertainer. Indiana Jones fans should love it.

Rating: 9/10

Movies Indiana Jones, movie review, Movies