Noulakaz

The blog of Avinash, Christina, Anya and Kyan Meetoo.

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Avatar in Mauritius: 2D, French and no Na’vi sex

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[This is an article reposted from one of my other blogs which is now dormant.]

Avatar, released in December, is causing ripples all over the world: the storyline and acting are excellent and the science is plausible. But the big talking point is the fact that the movie is in 3D. Eddy, a good friend, watched the film in the UK and loved it.

 

Unfortunately, we, Mauritians, will not be able to watch the film in 3D because no cinema in the island is properly equipped. Even though this saddens me, I can understand the reasoning behind not to invest in 3D: it is still a technology in its infancy (i.e. things will change a lot over the next few years) and Mauritians cannot really pay Rs 500 to watch a movie (which is the price people will have to pay tickets for the cinemas to recoup the investment.)

Personally, I am hesitating a lot about whether I should go to the cinema to watch Avatar. I love watching movies in their original version and, as far as I know, we’ll be getting Avatar in French here.

So that’s why I think that I’ll wait for the Blu-Ray release in order to be able to watch the movie at home in HD and in English. And, I don’t know if you heard, James Cameron revealed the Avatar Blu-ray will feature a deleted Na’vi sex scene…

My own DJ at home: Genius Mix

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I own an Apple iPod Nano and I use it mostly everyday to listen to music in the car. I add that I also use iTunes to manage my music collection and I like it a lot.

A few months ago, I stumbled upon a new feature of iTunes called Genius Mix which essentially “explores your library and finds songs that go great together.” The major issue was that Genius Mix requires an iTunes store account which, well, we, Mauritians, can’t have… except that Mauritius Telecom has been nice enough to explain how to get one, ahem, obliquely.

 

I am happy to say that Genius Mix works fantastically well. It works by analysing the numerous playlists being created by real human beings all other the planet and being submitted to the iTunes store. Then Genius Mix builds similar playlists locally using songs found in your library only (of course.)

When I launch iTunes now, I am greeted with the selection shown above and I can easily choose whether to indulge into some Electronica, Brit-Pop/Rock, Synth-Pop, Pop, Techno/House, New Wave, Post Punk, Hip-Hop/Rap, Dance Pop, Classic Rock, Punk or Europop.

Life is cool. I have my own DJ. And she knows what I like.

Happy 10th wedding anniversary, Christina

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I met Christina at university in 1994 and it was love at first sight.

We were both scholarship holders doing our Diplôme d’études universitaires générales (DEUG) in Réunion Island. We had truly excellent times in Réunion Island and then France where we went for our Masters level studies. We came back to Mauritius in 1998 (PS: we don’t regret coming back) and started working in January 1999.

We worked for one whole year and saved some money. We decided to marry in 2000 and I am proud to say that most of the expenses was born by us. Interestingly, and even if both of us are atheists, we did choose to wed religiously. Our Catholic and Hindu priests were aware of that but both told us “we agree to celebrate your wedding because you both are nice people.” We couldn’t agree more.

On 8 January 2000, we married:

The general consensus is that the wedding ceremony was very interesting because it involved two priests. In fact, the Catholic priest and the Hindu pandit were alternating and explaining everything they were doing to the audience.

A few minutes after the wedding, we swapped our clothes for the party:

Believe it or not but the two above photos are only 1h apart. The party which followed would remain in every guest’s memory. We had an excellent DJ and we had a great time eating, drinking and dancing. We have Hindu, Muslim, Créole and Chinese relatives and we were so happy to see all of them having fun while dancing together the séga, Bhojpuri and Bollywood songs as well as the latest Occidental hits.

This was ten years ago.

Today, 8 January 2010 marks our 10th wedding anniversary. And I have to say that a few things have changed. Two little things in fact:

Happy 10th wedding anniversary, Christina. I love you.