Blogger Mathai

I made a quick visit to Marina Crescent this weekend to see this year’s entries at the Concours. I was hoping to see the Aston Martin Zagato but it wasn’t there but I did get to see the awesome Alpha Romeo TZ3 and the Bentley Zagato. I’ve never seen a Zagato bodied car up close before and pictures don’t do justice to how beautiful these cars are.

In one quite corner there was the Porsche 959. If you’ve played Need For Speed Porsche Edition back in the day, you’ll recognize this amazing machine. 2.8L flat six with twin turbos and a computer controlled torque split for rally conditions… all this in the 80s!

Among other famous cars were Ayrton Senna’s Formula 1 car, A Le Man Bentley racer and the main characters from Pixar Studio’s ‘Cars’.

I shot a crappy video of the cars while I was there, was juggling my camera and handy-cam at the same time so didn’t turn out as smooth as I had hoped.

Youtube [link]

I think this asshole can defend his crown for this year. See how perfectly he’s parked it across both slots.

Here’s an awesome time-lapse video of Kochi at night,  made using 2300 images. The photographer is a Flickr friend of mine, Prashanth Gulfu or Gulfu as he is called by all his fans and friends. This video really shows how busy Kochi is at night and you’d think it was just another Metro city in India.

I can’t wait to go to Trivandrum on my next vacation and do a similar video on my hometown. Btw here’s a similar one I did from inside a car [link]

Here’s the HD link to the video [link]

Gulfu Photography on Facebook [link]

Gulfu Photography on Flickr [link]

I just noticed that it’s been more than a week since I’ve updated the blog. My photography and blogging have taken a backseat for now but I’m hoping to bang out a couple of posts in the next few days or so.

This year I’ve decided to take a photo a day for the whole year using only my HTC Desire. All the photos will be processed in Lightbox and uploaded to my Lightbox collection [link] Next month onwards I’ll be posting all my pictures in square format.

Get Lightbox from Android market [link]

Here’s some of my favorites from the month of January.

I think I’ve said this before but Kuwait really needs toy shops that are meant for the older collector or comic book fans. The past couple of weeks I’d been visiting some of the toys shops in town buying gifts for my friend’s kids when I realized that there’s nothing here that’s even half decent. The last time I bought anything for myself locally was the 8″ figure of Iron Man from Toys R Us

I mainly buy stuff thats based on movies, video games or comic books and would love to see local shops stocking items from NECA, like this Terminator or from Play Arts like this Kratos. I found some DC classics in Fantasy World Al Rai but they weren’t interesting. I wish we had Kids R Us like the good old days. This last picture is just depressing.

I don’t understand it, do they really need to open the engine hatch if there’s a cooling issue? Why not repair the bus if it doesn’t operate optimally.

I had to change lanes coz I didn’t want this guy to brake suddenly and run into this mobile guillotine. 

A couple of months ago I has posted about ordering from Flipkart.com and since then I had placed quite a few orders. All the items were non essential so I wasn’t too worried about the shipping time. My orders were for some music Cds, movie DVDs, a video camera bag and books.All the items arrived in exactly the time frame mentioned on the website and I’m very happy with the service. Here’s the breakdown;

Shipping:
I think Flipkart has a shipping method similar to Amazon coz just like my Amazon purchases the items are shipped from different places and through different couriers. I got my packages delivered by both Blue Dart and Aramex and both parties called up my family in Trivandrum to confirm the time and date of the package’s arrival.Unfortunately at this time they don’t have international shipping but I don’t mind since we have family members flying in frequently from India although I think shipping all these items from India would decrease my cost benefits.

Packaging:
All the items including the book came wrapped in bubble wrapping and there was a thick cardboard layer on the outside. My delivery address and details were clearly printed on the wrapper along with the cost of the item since it was a COD (Cash on delivery) In my previous experience with Rediff Shopping I had a couple of jewel cases cracked by the time they arrived in Trivandrum but in this case all my DVDs arrived without a scratch

Payment:
Now this is one area with was a little frustrating for me since I seem to have some problem with my ICICI card. So as of now the COD is the only option I’ve used. I’ve written to Flipkart requesting them to allow for international credit cards or PayPal and Moneybookers since thats how I do most of my online shopping. I hope they implement it in the near future so I can pay with my Kuwait credit cards and get the benefit of the exchange rates.

I would recommend Flipkart to all my friends since its been great so far.
Flipkart [website]
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No access to Wikipedia feels weird since I use it daily for stuff such as looking up technology acronyms and articles for both work and leisure.

Read more about SOPA [here]

Its a fact that you can stick a ‘Ben10′ label on just about anything and kids will grab it off the shelves. I’ve seen a lot of Ben10 stuff but this auto-rickshaw takes the prize! And just to make things clear, I did NOT buy this toy.