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Showing posts from March, 2008

DELL Support...A Misnomer

Two guys from the support team came to my place today to fix the laptop. They were absolute amateurs and remained clueless about the problem. Yet again the guesswork began to blame a component and this time they chose the graphics card. They also wanted to target the motherboard but I protested saying that it was already held culprit the last time...and changed. They weren't convinced. If they said it was the motherboard, it HAD to be the motherboard, come what may! After fidgeting with Andromeda for almost 2 hours, they professed helplessness...and left! You can teach catwalking to a donkey, but you can't teach common sense to tech support originating in India. It's time for me to turn spiritual and drown the agony.

Andromeda has a brainwash...aggravates problem

The motherboard was changed last time. When the problem persisted, I got in touch with DELL India...& that's how I landed up with an excruciating series of email exchanges with Lalitha. It was like trying to explain Dark Matter to a retard. Anyway, I finally convinced them to send me a systems engineer (who turned out to be the previous one). This time they reinstalled the OS.   The problem has only been aggravated. DELL India now intends to change the hard disk and RAM. They'll hopefully show up on Saturday. What have I done to deserve this? It's like marrying a hottie with schizophrenia.

Hindsight is 20/20

My blog will never be as it was 2 years ago. Let's face it, I've run out of substance and the future couldn't possibly be as juicy as the past. My interest is seriously on the wane. Expect a lot of irrelevance and irreverence.

Holi

Well into the day, I was blissfully slumbering beside Andromeda under the illusion that I was safe in the hideout that my cosy room had been elevated to. Mani barged in and smeared colour all over me while I m anaged to escape into the open just in time to avoid Andromeda being stained. Had I failed, history would have remembered today as the day when an innocuous little thing triggered the 3rd World War. Posterity came close to almost never happening. People took turns in ganging up against each other for all out colour assaults. I was twice at the receiving end. Though the most passive 'rioter', I had  fun. Here's a lesson I learnt this time: semi-nudity is a great virtue during Holi (women shouldn't try this). It saves your clothes.

Nostalgia doesn't get bigger than this

I used to be crazy about Boney M . Long before I developed a taste for jazz or classical, Boney M was my religion.

Taslima Nasreen's email about treatment in India

I used to call this the torture chamber. I gradually came to realise that it was the chamber of death instead. I was not even allowed to stay in hospital for long though the doctors felt it was necessary in order to stabilise my blood pressure. But orders are orders and the government did not want to be inconvenienced by me in any way whatsoever. The government did not want the media to know I had been hospitalised. I did not have my mobile phone with me and the doctors at the government hospital - AIIMS (All India Institute of Medical Sciences) - were instructed to discharge me after a certain period of time. Curiously though, the decision was not left to the doctors as to what this certain period of time was to be. The last time I was admitted to this hospital a few weeks ago I was suddenly discharged as a result of governmental pressure. I am sure this was linked to a report in the Times of India, which stated I had been hospitalised. At this undisclosed location I am neither al

Does this happen to everyone?

I don't know how long this has been going on, but I've really lost my afflatus. When was the last time I had something genuine to write? When did my writing last ring a bell? When was the last time I could shut off the internal wrangling and concentrate on a coherent idea? When was the last time I really felt like writing? Things have really gone from bad to worse. Maybe I need a break and concentrate on something else before returning to blogging. I hope this is only evanescent and I can write something meaningful in the not too distant future.

I want this job!

Did you know the SETI Institute has a Director of Interstellar Message Composition?! Amazing job profile!!!!

Even a clock that's broken is right twice a day

I just saw this Woody Allen movie where the great atheist recalls the adage of even a broken clock being right twice a day.   We were taught how to tell the time in first grade. Before the face of the clock could be deciphered, however, I was already smitten by the timekeeper to our dwelling - a vintage, English-made, pendulum clock. Dad would wind it every Sunday at 9pm without fail. And since the object of my affection was so stunningly beautiful and untouched by time, I decided to draw the face with the arms pointing to any direction that caught my fancy.   I remember how agog I was when it was over. I showed by artwork to Dad and asked what the time was, which I obviously don't remember now. What if the smaller arm pointed to somewhere between 8 and 9 and the longer North? Was it 8, 8:30 or 9?   And this is where the adage is potentially defeated. Some out-of-sync clocks can be synchronized by manually rotating the arms. Anyone with an iota of common sense would do

It felt good while it lasted!

USB connections only compound the problem. Andromeda survived a good 30 minutes before succumbing to the post-revival syndrome ! The only way to prevent the anomaly lies in never letting my beloved companion to sleep. Though this shouldn't be a serious impediment, I'm annoyed nevertheless.

Sleep

The vagaries of Andromeda post revival from the sleep mode are yet to surface as I type this post. Here's what I did different this time: I removed all devices attached to the USB port (thumb drive and mouse) before revival. If the machine doesn't hang this time, it'll be a first and I'll have certainly unearthed a very vexing pattern. Here's my advice to anyone buying peripherals for a Vista machine: be certain that the device is certified for your OS. I've come across innumerable accounts of device incompatibility with Vista, and slighted them away...only to realize my folly. Hey, my machine is indeed yet to hang!

Truth Revisited

Remember a certain guy who had dared to incur the wrath of the Vatican in the 17th century by advocating heliocentrism ? He paid the price by being forced to recant and spending the last years of his life under house arrest. Biblical inaccuracy was reluctantly acknowledged in the late 20th century when Pope John Paul 2 expressed regret for how the Galileo affair was handled, and officially conceded that the Earth was not stationary (source: Wikipedia ). It was a victory too late for solace to Galileo Galilei. The Vatican is now set to complete its rehabilitation of the scientist by erecting a statue of him inside Vatican walls. The planned statue is to stand in the Vatican gardens near the apartment in which Galileo was incarcerated (source: Slashdot ). While I'm not sure what to make of this, I take heart in the fact that whatever be your belief system, mankind is gradually defeating flawed indoctrination and marching steadily towards unravelling the truth.

The answer

Sameer is back in Pune. He asked me if I thought he had changed (since our BIT days). Well, my perception of him is more prone to change than his own self changing. Consequently, I would be a really skewed arbiter. What about my opinion of him anyway? Well, I'm not showing my cards!

WHAT A MOVIE!

Movies move people (is that how the term was coined?), but this one could move mankind. Crash now ranks as my 2nd favorite movie of all time (preceded by War and Love and followed by Zelly & Me and Titanic ). It shook me up.

BITians meet

From left: Sittu (partially out-of-frame), Sameer, Deepanjan and Rakesh. Photo Credit: Vivek. Sameer's lodging at my place during his brief visit to Bangalore offered us an alibi for a rendezvous on Friday evening. It was nice exchanging office anecdotes and catching up with old times. Sameer remains as vociferous and opinionated as ever. While I'm tempted to offer some insights, I'll refrain from doing so. Goodbye, Sam!