One important event happened yesterday, and that is the Nescafé vending machine opening near our hostel.

At the beginning of this term, when I came to Manipal after the summer, I was surprised to see a new Nescafé vending machine just near our hostel.  The problem was that it remained closed until the 26th of this month!  But fortunately it's open now, and not only that, you get a larger helping of coffee (I think about 100 ml.) with each cup (for Rs. 5).

Guru and myself just finished watching The Usual Suspects now.  I think it's my third or fourth time watching this superb film, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  It is a terrific mystery, starting off with an explosion (and bloodbath) on a boat in a pier in San Pedro, California...  The police pick up one of the survivors — a crippled conman named Roger "Verbal" Kint (Kevin Spacey), who later narrates to Customs Agent Dave Kujan (Chazz Palminteri) the story of how he, and a group of hardened criminals came to be on that boat.

Verbal's story — a part told to the District Attorney and the remaining told to Agent Kujan — serves as narration to the film.  It starts six weeks earlier, with him and the other criminals — McManus (Stephen Baldwin), Fenster (Benicio del Toro), Hockney (Kevin Pollak) and Dean Keaton (Gabriel Byrne) — the "Usual Suspects" of the title, being assembled together in a police line-up on the charge of hijacking a truck containing gun parts.  They get out of prison, but not before planning a job that would serve as revenge to the cops for dragging them to the station under suspicion.  That one job leads to another, and before they know it, they get involved with the feared and legendary mastermind/crime lord Keyser Soze.

This Oscar winning movie is directed by Bryan Singer and written by Christopher McQuarrie.  It's got amazing performances, stylish direction and a brilliant story.  This ranks among the best movies I have ever seen!

I looked at another one of Varun's drawings last night.  It is a slightly modified version of the album cover of Linkin Park's Meteora.  The drawing is simply great!  To add to the effect, Varun has colourised his drawing to the same brown shade as that of the original album cover.  He has also written "Linkin Park" in the same font as that on the cover, and that's come out really well too.  The Spiderman drawing of his (which I mentioned earlier) is also really great.  Apparently he drew the Spiderman face from one of the comic books, but he has given it a 3D look, like in the movies.  It has also come out very well.

I asked Varun if I could link the drawings here and he said I could.  So here they are:

• The Spiderman drawing
• The Meteora drawing

Tomorrow Varun and my parents are going to watch Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid (which as I mentioned before, was released in India on the same day as it's U.S. release!).  I am thinking of watching Hellboy on CD tomorrow.