The Grudge
Starring: Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jason Behr, William Mapother, Clea DuVall, Kadee Strickland
Review by Gokhra
Scary movies usually aren't very scary. You know something is about to happen and when it does it isn't much of a surprise. One such example is The Village where in the end most viewers went 'oh that, dhooro!' But no, this movie is quite different in that it actually chills. It's a seriously frightening movie made very much like the cool early X-Files episodes where the power of suggestion was more important than actually showing something.
Hollywood has been busy remaking scary Japanese flicks and The Grudge is one such movie taken from the hugely cult followed Ju-on of Jap fame.
"The Grudge" is a ghost story in the truest sense. It has your typical scary white spook, a lot of people ending up dead and goose pimples for the taking. It's also directed by Takashi Shimizu who directed the original as well.
Takako Fuji and Yuya Ozeki play a dead mother and her equally dead son who terrorize anyone who enters the house in which they died. The remake still takes place in Japan unlike other remakes that end up going all the way top America. I mean, let's face it, an Italian Job in America? Of course this movie has a smattering of Americans who turn up, well, dead.
Sarah Michelle Gellar stars as Karen, a nursing student who joins her boyfriend (Jason Behr) in Tokyo while he pursues a fellowship. For some reason one of her co-workers doesn't show up at the care-giving program where she volunteers and Karen is asked to substitute. We find out what happened to her co-worker at the beginning of the movie.
The patient is a catatonic American woman who lives in a house which is a perpetual mess. Karen starts cleaning up and discovers a taped-up closet that contains the boy and a diary. A little later she notices the other ghost and becomes quite catatonic herself.
While Karen lies huddled in fear we see in flashback how the other American woman moved into this house with her son and daughter-in-law. While the son is out at work the wife 
looks after the mother and finds that someone is busy spilling over her food. She follows the obligatory thumps up the stairway to find something that leaves her catatonic too. Heck, this is a word you will hear often through out this review. People freeze on a regular basis such is the power of the ghosts. Frankly, you glimpse them and so will you.
The entire movie is laden with a foreboding haunted atmosphere. Of course, it goes a little overboard because everyone looks gloomy all the time even before they see a ghost. Maybe that's how people live in Japan though I doubt it.
The premise of the movie is that someone in the house died a horrible death.
It was so strong that it left an indelible curse that affects anyone who enters the building that means police, firefighters, medics and possibly roaches and rats.
And that means you get an ending not quite your typical average Hollywood ending.
The verdict: Frankly this was a heck of a scary movie. In the entire duration of the flick the ghosts were probably seen for a combined amount of around 5 minutes.
But that is enough to freak the viewers out. The movie employs a lot of shock tactics but hey, in movies ghosts don't creep up on you. They appear suddenly as the camera moves round.
For a murderous ghost movie this has very little blood and that too not grossly splattering about. People are tastefully killed off if you can call it that. Gore is kept to a minimum.
The only gripe is that the actors could have been a little bit more lively instead of ghostly shells but I suppose that keeps the haunted atmosphere flowing.
This is a very interesting flick that will spook everyone.
Tech News
Customise your iPod Shuffle
Heard of Shufflesticker? You'll be delighted to learn that you can now get skins for your iPod Shuffle as well as all your other iPod devices but not yet in Bangladesh. ShuffleArt is a company that is offering vinyl stickers for sale, which means you just need to lay the designs over your Shuffle's casing for immediate - and removable - customisation. Although a cheaper alternative would be to simply buy vinyl from the car shops in Bangla Motor and lay it on!. If you do get the originals form abroad it will cost you $12.
World's "smartest" iron
LaurastarironThat's smartest as in clever, not as in neat and tidy - although that's what your clothes should be after Laurastar's Magic i-S5 iron has had a go at them. This is apparently the world's most intelligent iron and, coupled with the Steamup iG5 ironing board, it should reduce ironing times by up to 50%. How does it do this? Using the age old magic of steam. As soon as it detects forward motion the iron sends out a blast of twice heated steam. But where it veers from the path of standard ironing is in its dry heat application. As soon as the iron stops or is moved backwards, dry heat is delivered, "setting" the fabric. And it's not just the iron that's got brains. The ironing board comes with a built in ventilation system, allowing the iron to "ride across fabrics on a wave of air" as the press release poetically puts it. Cambridge Consultants is the company to come up with the scheme and priced around £199 (€269) and £699 (€999). Sheesh! That's expensive ironing.
Turn your tape deck into an MP3 player
MobibluOK, so the idea isn't a novel one - there's numerous companies making casettes that let you plug your music players into your car stereo - but the Mobiblu is the one of the few tapes with its own memory storage facility. This means you can stick it into your car tape deck - or even your old Walkman if you're still using it - and play MP3s. The casette player has 256MB of memory, along with an MMC memory slot for adding extra storage, and tracks can be loaded onto it via the mini USB connection. The Mobiblu also comes with an FM radio and you can control the player using the tape deck's buttons, fast fowarding and rewinding through tracks - something that you don't get with normal casette adapters. Sadly, this too isn't found in Bangladesh but when you know someone who knows someone who is coming from abroad it isn't any problem.
Moto's Oakley Sunglasses
RazrwireAs if the excitement of all those skinny little phones wasn't enough, Motorola has also been making plans with Oakley - creators of the award winning Oakley Thump MP3 Sunglasses. The two companies have unveiled a new line of Bluetooth sunglasses. The RAZRWire high-tech specs are designed to allow wearers to take and place calls with the touch of a button. The Bluetooth glasses are available in three colours and have been designed for outdoors types - cyclists, skaters, rock climbers and golfers. And men who like to customise their car stereos.
By Abdullah Muhiuddin Tanim
Tiktiki It Is: They scuttle along our walls and hunt beside our lampshade. They are one of the most successful and common subfamily of lizards. We call them by the endearing nick of tiktiki, (also a slang of undercover agents or detectives). More superstitious (or supercilious?) folks say they are right when they hear the clucking Tiktik (Thik! Thik! -Okay! Okay!) sound from this acrobatic lizard. Rightly they are called “living fossils,” cause this breed is ticking since the age of dinosaurs.
Distribution and Habitat: Geckos are small lizards. Most grow to be only 4-6 inches long. Their tail is one half of their length. Their legs stick out of their sides, which keeps their bellies close to the ground. They have soft, granular skin that feels velvety to the touch. The coloration of a gecko is very important to its lifestyle. The skin is usually gray with several brownish-gray and flecks but it has the ability to lighten or darken the coloring of its skin. They usually do so in order to blend in or to be less noticeable to other animals.
Geckoes are found in all over the world. The gecko lives in tropical rainforests, on cliffs and trees, and as pets among human habitation. They can be arboreal and cliff-dwelling. They can travel on floating debris to colonize tropical islands. Geckos form mutual relationships with humans in tropical areas -- humans provide shelter and provide insect extermination.
Female geckos can lay two soft shell eggs every six weeks. It takes about 45-60 days for a gecko to hatch from its egg and a year to be fully grown.
Third Eye! They also have a pineal body or “third eye” on the top of their head, which is believed to coordinate their activity with light conditions. The ears can be seen on the outside of the gecko as small holes on both sides of the head. It is possible to see straight through the head of these geckoes through their ears.
Spiderman! Millions of microscopic hairs on their toes are what help some geckos run up walls, windows and even defy gravity by walking upside down on ceilings Scientists want to turn geckos amazing sticking powers into new materials for us. They may some day invent gecko-like shoes and gloves that will let people climb buildings like Spiderman!
Solitary Critters: Geckoes are solitary creatures. They defend their territory against intruders of the same species and of other species, ensuring less competition for food. The territory is generally guarded by males but is occasionally watched by the female. These geckoes can inflict severe bites if they are sufficiently threatened.
Nosing Around: The nose is used for breathing and also for detecting scents. Scents are detected by the large number of sensory cells on a membrane in the nostrils. They are also detected by using the Jacobson's organ. The tokay gecko uses its tongue to carry scent particles to Jacobson's organ and “taste” the air.
Tails Off! Befitting as any self respecting detective geckos can cast off its tail in defense and regenerate a new one. The part of the tail that has been cast off continues to move violently for several minutes until it slows down and stops, thus giving the gecko time to escape. The tail has several sections on it where it can break off. It takes about three weeks for these geckoes to completely regenerate a new tail although it is usually never as long as the original.
Fun Facts: The smaller Geckos live for about 15 20 years but a larger Duvaucel's Gecko has been recorded as surviving to 36 years in the wild.
Geckos have two transparent eyelids which are permanently fused together. They cannot blink but use their spoon like tongues to frequently clean their eyelids.
Geckos shed their skins (which are made of small scales) every six weeks or so in warmer weather.
Unlike other reptiles Geckos have a range of vocal sounds from chirping and chattering through to a loud croaking sound.
Pest Controllers: Geckos may be pintsized, but they earn their keeps by eating many household insects. Some geckos eat half of their body weight in insects in every 24 hours!
Sites Unseen
By, Niloy
Perfect Disaster
Super tornadoes. "Super cell" solar storms. Mega floods. They sound like the next effects-drenched blockbuster. But dip into this Discovery Channel companion site and scare yourself silly with how real -- and really nasty -- Mother Nature can be. The site offers a severe weather tracker, a hazard quiz ("Would you survive?"), an interactive explanation of how we measure a twister's strength, and spectacular videos. One clip traces the anatomy of a twister on a rampage. Another follows the formation of magnetic storms on the Sun's surface, coolly illustrating how "coronal mass ejections" can wipe out airplane radar, stir up radiation storms, and spark blackouts throughout power grids. How can they be so calm? And who needs sci-fi flicks when we've got all of this barrelling toward us? doiop.com/PerfectStorm
New BDcomics.net
My site BDcomics.net has gone through an overhaul recently. It now has a better layout, its own hosting and domain, and most importantly, more and more comics available for download. Check it out if you're into comics.
Gaming: Retro vs. Next Gen Comparison
In the last twenty years, gaming has come a long way. When you compare similar games from the mid-eighties with today's top notch video and computer games, the difference in graphics is quite amazing. Here's an interesting comparison of 9 games from the 80's with today's killer games. gadgets.fosfor.se/gaming-now-and-then/
Take it apart dot net
When I was a little kid, the best thing I knew was to dissect electronics and gadgets together with my grandpa - that is problably why I love this cool little site called 'Take it apart'. What they do? They publish short articles of dissected gadgets. Neat. takeitapart.net
Vintage computer ads
Funmansion.com has published a set of classic vintage computer ads. Most of them are really fun including the William Shatner ad for Vic 20 with the wonderful punchline: “The best computer value in the world today. The only computer you'll need for years to come“. doiop.com/VintagePCads
Cool photo site
Check out this really cool German site containing artwork from photographers and other creative persons. The navigation is really something extra - it's hard to describe so go check it out. Click on the globe in the upper right corner! designklicks.spiegel.de
HD vs DVD
If you've noticed the recent buzz about High Definition TVs and HD DVDs recently, and wondered “what's the big deal anyway,” check out this detailed comparison between the quality of the DVD and HD DVD versions of a movie. This site has published 12 different shots from Fellowship of the ring in both HD quality (1920×1080) and DVD quality. All shots feature a mouse-over switch between the two different images. The difference is bigger than you would expect.
cornbread.org/FOTRCompare/index.html
Fastest way of publishing text?
Check out this cool little Ajax application called 'ShortText.com'. Just write your message (under 7500 characters) and click a button, and you will get an URL containing your message. Nice! Shorttext.com
Fake Apple products - best of
This nice Flickr set contain some of the best fake Apple products ever created by fans (with Photoshop) - and some not so great products. It's worth a look. doiop.com/FakeApple
Streamload - free storage provider
Streamload is a new free online storage provider that let you store up to 25GB for free - you can only download 100Mb per month though. Their goal is of course that you shall like their service so much that you are willing to sign up for one of their paid accounts. Nice! streamload.com
Rescue a CD
Is your favourite CD scratched and unplayable? If that's the case this article over at Instructables.com might help you out. You only need some metal polish, a piece of soft paper and a polishing cloth.
That's all for this week. You can check out my photography at flickr.com/photos/Niloy or my site on downloadable comics at BDcomics.net. Send in all your mails, suggestions and complains at niloy@niloy.net
