Movie Review : Lost in Thailand (2012)

Lost in Thailand

Lost in Thailand is China's highest grossing movie for 2012. Three oddball characters face a series of misadventures in Thailand while learning some important lessons along the way. 

Xu Lang, a scientist, must convince his boss to grant him sufficient time to research and refine his latest invention - a chemical with the power to increase the volume of any liquid that it comes in contact with. 

Gao Bo, Xu Lang's colleague and professional rival, wants to convince their boss to sell this research to a French company instead. 

The boss is vacationing in Thailand and has agreed to go with the suggestion made by the colleague that finds him first. Xu Lang takes off for Thailand immediately, closely tailed by Gao Bo. Xu Lang is also in the midst of divorce proceedings initiated by his wife, who has grown frustrated with his workaholic nature and neglect of their daughter. She keeps calling up and reminding him to turn up in court in a couple of days, not quite believing him when he says that he really can't come this time.

While on the plane, he meets Wang Bao, who has brought along a list of activities he wants to undertake - plant a cactus, fight a Muay Thai boxer and visit a spa. He works as a pancake cook and is a bit of an earnest simpleton. Xu Lang tags along with Wang Bao to throw Gao Bo off his trail - but Gao keeps catching up with them. He only has a picture of a shrine where his boss is vacationing and drags along Wang Bao with him to find it, promising to help him achieve the tasks on his list. Along the way Xu Lang loses his money, phone, laptop and very nearly his sanity but he also learns the importance of relationships and re-calibrates his moral compass. 

The story is light weight and the movie relies on the chemistry between the characters to move forward. Although billed as a comedy, the only chuckles to be had are from the dazed expressions on the characters faces as they must come-to-terms with the helplessness of their situations.

Xu Zheng - who also the director - is adequate as the uptight scientist, Huang Bo is a decent nerdy, evil colleague and the charming, dimpled Wang Baoqiang fits the simpleton role to a T. 

For a debut directorial effort this is a really good movie and a pleasant enough experience although it doesn't quite live up to its 'blockbuster' tag. Be prepared to be assailed by thoughts such as  'is this supposed to be funny?", "was this really a $200 mn grosser?".

Android Wi-Fi Connect Error

I have had a tough time with getting my Android devices to connect to my wireless router. I cannot figure out if this is a router problem because laptops connect in a flash but I am inclined towards this explanation since I have had 3 devices – 2 Samsung phones and an Android tablet – struggle to connect with the network. I don’t have the energy to keep configuring and tweaking and testing the router settings – but it isn’t like one hasn’t tried.

A rudimentary Root-Cause Analysis brings up the following

1. There is an issue with the router settings
2. There is a problem with Samsung phones 
3. There is a flaw in Android 
4. Some/All of the above  

Now, one has better uses for one's time than deconstructing the mysteries of the wireless networks and hence has to come up with a quick-fix, 'dirty' solutions to nudge these devices into ‘talking’ to and connecting to the wireless. Needless to say, the router has been switched on and the network password has been punched in correctly on your device.

Samsung Galaxy Ace

There is a nifty, preloaded app called AllShare that helps Samsung devices wireless-ly connect and share media and is based on the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA). Simply create a shortcut to this app on your home screen and always use this to connect to the network of your choice.

Click the icon on the Home screen, OK to connect, Wi-Fi icon lights up after connecting

Do not switch on the Wi-Fi from the Main Screen and then attempt to use AllShare - it won’t work.

This irrational sequencing of rituals angers the elves that leap from the Ace to the Router dragging behind them the diaphanous strands of connectivity that link the Ace to the World Wide Web and they will curse your phone and cause it to bear that Mark of Horror – the Gray WiFi signal

Budget Android Tablet

Things get a little tricky with the tablet. AllShare doesn’t work with it, so a similar app needs to be found – one that allows various devices to connect to a common network (your wireless network!!) and start ‘speaking’ to each other.

Thankfully, the very first app that I tried – iMediaShare– did the job. This app allows media to be streamed across various connected devices and also very brilliantly allows for a seamless connection to be established with the router/WWW, all within a matter of seconds.

1. Connect to the Wireless network  
2. Switch on iMediaShare
3. Wait for the glorious Wi-Fi icon to light up and start flashing and the 'success screen' to show up.

iMediaShare Home Screen and 'Success' Screen on connecting to Wi-Fi

Sequencing is the key - if you don't follow my words of wisdom in the order as prescribed, then fully expect to be disappointed.

If you have faithfully adhered to what I have told you to, you can now partayy on the WWW with your Android device. WOOT! WOOT!!

Create a rotating banner / image header for Blogger

So I wanted to create my own jazzed up header after The Sibling said that the blog layout was boring. I tweaked around some websites, found a bunch of pictures and went overboard with Paint, Snipping Tool, Picasa and Picnik. I intend to keep creating new banner images and have a 'dynamic' header of sorts for a cheery, fresh look. But my troubles had only just begun.

I am no technology whizkid. My eyes glaze over when I come across HTML code. But what I wanted was a steady feed of pictures that would keep the banner refreshed and this endeavour demanded additional effort towards HTML/Javascript/CSS editing since Blogger has no straightforward solution. It took me the better part of a day to figure out how to do this and hopefully others will also benefit from it. I know it is long winded but this is what finally worked for me.

Challenge 1 : Content

I wanted a header/banner that was 1100 pix wide and 200 pix high. So I created my images according to these dimensions. By default, all Blogger images are stored on Picasa Googleweb in a folder named after the blog. I uploaded my images into this folder.

Challenge 2: Identifying the location of the image

I have a separate post on this.

Challenge 3 : Generating code for a rotating banner

Goto http://www.htmlbasix.com/banner.shtml

Banner Code Generator

Put in the required details. I have 3 images that I want to use, so I input those details into the generator. In case the image doesn’t load I should like the blog name to show up, hence the ‘alt text’.

You can play around with the other options. The settings here will produce a banner that is 1100 x 200 pix in size and that will refresh every 15 seconds with one of the 3 images provided.

Hit the ‘Generate’ button at the bottom of the form and copy the code that appears into Notepad.

Challenge 4: Where should this be uploaded on the Blogger page.

In Blogger-> Design->Page Elements, add an HTML/Javascript gadget under the Header.

Add HTML/Javascript Gadget to Blogger Layout

Click ‘Edit’ for the HTML Gadget and paste the code you just generated into the large box.

Paste the banner code into the gadget configuration box

Challenge 5 : Removing margin for HTML/Javascript

By default, the template will include a margin for all gadgets. This will make the HTML Gadget overflow the blog width and look wonky like so. Here, the red banner is the default Blogger Header and the box below it with the seven little girls is the HTML gadget.

HTML gadget overflowing the blog width due to margin

A simple CSS edit will fix this.
In the Advanced potion of the Template Designer, put in the following code in the box

#HTML1{
margin-left: 0px
}

This will align the HTML Gadget properly.

Properly aligned banner with no margin

Since I wanted just this banner on my blog, I removed the ‘Lithium Ribbon (Header)’ box from the Blogger Design.

The End

Now one would think that this could be achieved by using a Picasa feed for the header and playing around with code on the Blogger layout. There are some solutions for using RSS feeds from Picasa, Flickr, Photobucket etc. The Picasa one didnt work for me as all the images appeared horribly pixelated. This is because, the script was referencing the Thumbnail versions of the images and then scaling the Thumbnails.

The same happened when I tried the Slideshow Gadget and I lost patience when faced with the prospect of trawling through the HTML code of the Gadget and editing it. I couldn't figure out how to do that either.

Good Luck with whatever solution you choose to implement.