Pottered!

Saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire last night. For me, the book was the best of the six. It was the growing up book... which broke away from the kiddie magic. Apart from two jarring elements - the dragon fight & the elves, the book superbly dealt with how Harry & his friends ease into their teens. As real as a book about magic could get.

Seven best bits from the book:
1) Priori Incantatem
2) The Yule Ball
3) The Pensieve
4) The Curse Lesson
5) The Second Task
6) Harry's nightmare
7) The growing up & jealousy

The movie was amazing. It shed a lot of elements from the book, but still managed to induce goose-pimples.

Seven best bits from the movie:
1) The Pensieve
2) Priori Incantatem
3) Moaning Myrtle
4) The Second Task
5) The Yule Ball & the build up to it
6) Cedric Diggory - yum
7) Ralph Fiennes as Voldemort

**********

The evening was fun.

We had dinner at US Pizza. They have the worst pizzas in the world - even Chota makes better pizzas. But the salad bar, the soup & the brownie (& the Rs 115 deal) make up for it. Plus, the proximity to Wide Angle & FR.

Before that, we shopped for a couple of things at Big Bazaar - which is Pantaloon's most pathetically executed store concept. The shelves are stuffed with unrelated products (moisturizer with tissues, candles with detergent). There are mile-long queues at any given time of the day. But where Big Bazaar fails is customer service. There's no concept of customer service at all... the Ahmedabad store has terribly incompetent staff, who look grumpy all the time - pointedly ignoring customers. It's an uncomfortable shopping experience. Compare poorly with a Giant Hypermarket or a Shoprite. The Pantaloon group recruits at MICA. We could teach them a thing or two about managing a universally successful retail concept.

**********

131 days to graduation.