airtel saga

Still the airtel is behind me with their greedy tongue. Here is what happened before.

There was no response from the company inspite of 8 emails. Phone calls were answered without any conclusions. Their standard response was that someone from the concerned dept will be calling me. Needless to say, that never occured.

After consulting with a lawyer friend, I drafted a 'professional' letter. Sent it through courier. In two days I got an acknowledgement .. at last! However the message was the usual one. Seems like the concerned dept will contact me in two days; that was four days ago.

Anyway, let me wait for one more month to see if they are making any move.

Mahjongg

I had increased the phase of playing Mahjongg game from Moraff. Quite addictive one. The idea is simple. A collection of tiles are piled up in the screen. Each titles have colorful images and symbols. We have to click the titles having the same image. Few rules for clicking a tiles like - tiles have to in the corner and no other tile should be above this one. Aim of the game is to clear all the tiles from the board.

After repetitive playing, it occurred to me that I was able to get the images I was looking for and I am able to get only those I was looking. Thou few tiles might be in prominent position, which were clickabe, I seldom located them. I read this idea elsewhere in a management book saying, we will get what we look for and hence we ought to set our goals clearly.

Insurance policy benefitors

I do have this opinion about life insurance: why do I need it? If I die, why should I worry about the current kith and kin? (my wife also shares similar idea). Only when we think at the family level, it starts making sense. We feel uncomfortable to think about our family in a financial difficulty in the absence of the bread winner. That is exactly the emotional blackmailing weapon used by the insurance agents.

I used to think why the government, (atleast the Indian govt) is encouraging insurance. They give lots of tax rebate and other benefits. May be it will be a headache for govt when the income of a family is totally cut (ie, when a single person is the sole person earning in the family). If such insurances are not encouraged, govt will have to take the headache of providing plans for widows and kids.

Tool kit

My long time goal was met last weekend. I got a tool kit for house use. The kit has trivial things like screw drivers, pliers, hammer etc placed in a neat box. Quite handy set of instrument, got the power by holding it.

It is a magic tool kit box - just in a day, many of the nitty-griddy problems at home vanished. I was able to split the phone line into two, assemble a book shelf, fix the cot. May be I worked on them with initial enthu, let us see how things go.

Dodging airtel

Inspite of repeated request to cancel the number, airtel sent the monthly bill (for the month I didn't use the number and surrendered the same). I didnt want to waste time in going behind them to revert it. I have automatic payment of airtel bills through my bank account. I tried to stop that but the bank ppl insisted on getting a letter from airtel for closure.

I emptied the bank account and waited for the fun. During the monthly bill cycle, airtel tried to take money from my account. It was fun watching the disappointment in its face. However, the bank has placed a penalty of Rs 200 since the account was empty when the automatic service tried to retrieve money.

Now I am in the process of closing the bank account as I no longer need it. Let us see what airtel is upto.

Romance

This posting is continuation of the title Human Fantasies.

Olden
In all parts of the world, people had their local version of erotica and other pornographic materials. Based on movies, we get an impression that there were special villas for the big shots which had erotic paintings and statues. The Indian version of erotica or the sex guide, Kamasutra, rules till date. Most of the temples of India which are 1000+ years old have nude images and sculpture with sexual positions (hmmm .. are these possible to do? I dare not to try).

Modern
Do you know what drives the internet boom? Porno. Any new technology is put to test by applying on the porno sites. Even better, the porno sites drives the technology by demanding new features. World wide these sites have a good customer base. It would be interesting to find if there were any contribution by porno movies in improving the technology behind flim industry,vcr, dvd etc.

Dont assume that I am totally corrupt and hence I am stating the above. I rarely go to those sites.


If you could think any more fantasies, please place them in the comments.

Good service

The wireless mouse had some issue. It didnt function. I tried replacing the batteries. That didnt help, moreover the keyboard also stopped working. Different combinations of pressing those reset/sync up buttons failed to bring them live.

Monday morning I called up the person running Krishna Computer Care, the place where I bought the computer and accessories. He told he is busy today and he can send technician the next day. As it is not a pressing issue, I agreed for it.

The surprise came in by afternoon. Technicians arrived inspite of rain, and fixed the keyboard problem.

It was very nice of them and I felt happy.

Lousy airtel

Pathetic service from airtel - that is the simple way of summarizing their service.

4th June 7 is the date when I raised a request to close a mobile number. They acknowledged and after few days a lady called and suggested that I can retain the account by transferring to a new number in different city. She went on trying for that and each day I call she would promise at the end of the day things will be fixed.

As things didnt move any further, I gave up there. Now they had started sending bills for the time when I didnt use the connection.

Phone calls and mails to them are of no use. Planning to dump the bill and see what they come up with. Will keep sending them mails and keep them as evidence of correspondence from my side.

Most beautiful

This posting is continuation of the title Human Fantasies.

Olden
"Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who is the most beautiful, fairest girl in the world?" The quest to find beauty is time immemorial. Guys had different tastes. Girls tried everything possible to meet the requirement placed by the guys.
In ancient China composed a poem with a line describing the feet of a girl so small to a particular flower. For thousands of years, that became a standard. From childhood the feet of the girls are crushed to miniature size just to make sure that they are upto the beauty standard. The western world has a dynamic interest and quite seasonal. There are times when busty babes are the rage and so the girls enlarge their bosom with some kind of silicon stuff; something like the stress ball we keep at office to squeeze. At other times, flat chest, tom boyish girls are preferred. I dont know if there are operations for this. (my wife, dont ask me how I know these. You will be disappointed to know that these are not of practical knowledge, but stuff I had read).


Modern
If a garage is not suitable for any useful purpose, it is rented out for a beauty parlour. I always wanted to see what is inside. But the board with Aishwarya says only women and kids are allowed.


Alright, after meeting the most beautiful, what else but - romance!!

whizz kid

happened to interact with a smart kid, around 10 yr old. Thou he is visiting from gulf country, he didnt have those 'nri look'. He was quite casual and enjoyed his stay; and even liked the sambar, papad etc.

The kid was flaring with questions and they were quite thought provoking. The current country where he is, he is been placed in a school based on Indian syllabus. With such background, he is trying to understand the education system, why people need to study, which subject will be easy, how to find if a subject wil be easy for me or not ...

Hope our education system will not ruin the thinking of such kids.

sudoku in real life

Just came a thought in the early morning. That was about sudoku. Many times I had wondered if there is any utility out of playing this game. It strike at me about the usage. Yes, I feel that sudoku has resemblance of resource allocation algorithm.

For example, let us take a college department. There will be batches of students, courses and staff. We need to prepare a time table that would allot staff for different classes. Constraints like staff skill set to handle courses, or unavailability of staff/rooms for a specific time.

What is to do with sudoku? I see the same kind of allocation, conflict resolution, meeting criteria etc.

The same kind of problem is addressed at different places like industries, traffic regulation, loan sanction process, etc etc

getting into a schedule

What is running in my mind is to bit more organize my day to day activity. Wanted to do things on time, like monthly payments, project deadlines, etc.

I am doing a minuscule amount of exercise. That too not very regular. Wanted to improve the quality and quantity. Reading pattern is slightly ok, but can be done better.

Also thinking about social activities like study group, satsang, volunteer group etc. Will try to do in small manner, one at a time.

Job satisfaction

My wife is going through rough times at her work space. She is trying to balance different factors and get a suitable environment to strive.

If job satisfaction is the thing most of us look for, what is it made of? How do we get that stuff?

Had gone through couple of books in this subject and they talk about being independent, able to align what is expected out of you with what you like doing, and many other similar stuff.

This is quite interesting topic as when an employee feels positive about the env, it will boost the productivity.

sudoku without a pen

While coming in the train, the person in front of me was reading a newspaper. The last sheet facing me had sudoku. I started filling the squares .. mentally :-) Guess I need to increase my sudoku speed so that I can complete it before the person turns the page.

This seems to indicate my sudoku addiction is on the raise. The next one is still more interesting.

I stayed in a hotel and got a complimentary newspaper in the morning. Nothing more cruel than leaving a sudoku puzzle to a sudoku addict, who doesn't have a pen!! I didn't want to leave the room as some may raise objection for nudity in the corridor.

I turned my creativity switch. Went around the room to find something which can mark in the paper. I got the tv remote and tried to create impression of those numbers in the paper. Nope, that didn't work; they should make better remote buttons.

Then I was going through my wife's suitcase. Seriously I opened to look for a pen. Found her beauty enhancement/replacement kit. While digging thru it, got the cute little lipstick. At last got what I wanted. It was writing in an amazing manner. Necessity is the mother of invention.

This puzzle is the sexiest puzzle I had solved.

Murphy kicks in again

In my last post, I mentioned that I couldn't test the ups usage as power cut was not seen after installing it. Today there was a total power shutdown and I couldn't test the ups as usual. I thought of finding a internet cafe where I can work with my laptop. Murphy came in here. I couldn't find a cafe even riding for 20 mins. Spotted one in the other part of the city. Luckily this cafe had power and he allowed me to use the laptop with his network.

Let me get a generator and see what Murphy is up to.

Murphy's law on electricity

Last week there were many power shutdown. It was difficult to work and more important to play games. So, got a ups as a backup power.

After setting the ups, did not get a power failure so far. Didn't even test the functioning of ups!

wireless keyboard

May be I am in the pre-historic world and got this gadget just now. I bought this on a need basis; earlier I made the laptop usage easier by accessing it through a desktop.

Now that I am using only the laptop, I felt the need for a keyboard. Today I got it and getting the benefit. Lots of comfort compared to the laptop keyboard, mouse. Wish I got this earlier.

The new place

Settling in another city takes lots of effort. To get things done and almost at the same time is stressful. As basic necessesities are brought into the house, now I am able to relax and enjoy. This change is good.

Something interesting about the people here. Observed this with many customer service people, not sure if it is something generic to the city. These people dont know how to refuse something. Whatever demand you place, they will accept the work and timeline. Later they find it difficult to get it done. Also, they are surprised when I followup with them on time.

Being from the metro, I used to negotiate the timeline with the service people and come to a reasonable time and load. Here I need to understand the protocol of request/work.

Semi-farewell

Today friends took me to a restaurant. As I am leaving the city and going to work from remote, they were giving a remembrance farewell. Thou the food and service was not good in the hotel, still I enjoyed being there because it was something for me. Quite nice moments to be with them and talking to them. Will be missing their company.

To think about it, these blog postings started due to their company and conversation, as the name of the blog reflects. Let me dedicate today's blog to their friendship.

Thank you guys!! for pumping up my happiness level when I was in the worst part of my life. Thanks for all the support and guidance you folks gave with your knowledge or without knowing. Thanks for everything.

The Move

Last week I shifted my belongings to another city. Quite hectic. Had fever, headache. Then a night travel in a truck. Luckily had a break in my in-law's house. After the break, had some more travel in the day time. Since we were travelling towards south west in the morning, the sun didn't bother us.

My wife choose this house for rent. Lovely house. Quite spacious and well planned. Thou the garden space is not very wide, it had enough plants and trees to cool the environment.

With complete rest, I came back to normal.

Started doing required stuff like advance payment, gas connections etc. Network connection seems to be troublesome, hopefully we will get one in three days.

A different life style compared to the busy metro. Change is good.