Oh no! I am not talking about the stock markets. I am not that boring.

It’s just that I am back in Delhi and I’ve been out shopping. I have finally bought some belts and my denims and trousers have gone even lower. My parents think this new “lower” is dangerously low and I risk those trousers coming off while I walk/bend. But they don’t know, it’s the belt! All my brethren with the low waist denims are actually helping create employment for the belt-makers! Now, isn’t that sweet ?

Finally, after more than 3 months, I post something on here. This is a fresh wordpress installation just like my completely changed life here in SIU, Pune. The old blog had posts covering technology, politics etc. and was filled to the brim with spam comments.

This new blog will be purely about me. Period.

…

And it’ll be updated more frequently :-p

I turn 17 today (and if you consider the time of the blogpost, then I turn 17 right now!).

The broadband scene is changing rapidly in India. The two big cos namely BSNL/MTNL & Airtel are at loggerheads to get the biggest share of the broadband market. I used MTNL 256KBPS before switching to Airtel 2MBpS looking for the so-called ‘perfect service’ a private company is expected to provide.

Yesterday, my internet was down. I called up Customer Care only to be told it’ll take at least 24 hours to rectify the problem as the problem was with the backend & it was a Sunday. A couple of calls later, I managed to get an ‘engineer’ to visit my place.

The ‘engineer’ turned out to be nothing better than MTNL’s babus. It looked like he was working for the first time on Vista. All he knew was to keep clicking Next>>Next>>Next>>Finish in the router’s control panel (~192.168.1.1). Any problem & he promptly called up his seniors to ask what he should do next. The seniors, on their part, never answered or returned any of his calls. His last resort were the vague guidance given by his co-engineers. He told me to switch off the router, unplug all the wires, plug them again & switch it on to make the DSL work. I was simply disgusted. All the while, he was pinging his DNS server in another window.

At 16, I know much more than these engineers. I wondered if these are really engineers or just mechanics (I couldn’t find a more insulting word) who have crammed up the Next>>……>>Finish process of the router, & I still wonder!

This is a historical achievement for me. Today, for the first time, I shaved my beard myself. All these years, I had been getting it trimmed at the local saloon till I realized that “Maneel, it’s time to grow up!”. This is was my first time, so the shave has not been a perfect one, it is uneven. I also have two cuts, one each on my chin & right under my nose. I hope they get healed damn quickly, but this sweat won’t let them heal that quickly, so I just hope! And yes, I didn’t use shaving creme or razors, I used a Philips electric shaver & I am sorry to say, electric shavers is a front where technology will have to improve itself quite drastically. You listening Mr Gillette ?

Though not so noticeable, this problem has been haunting me for months now. My media center PC (HP a6030in) requires 5 power sockets to operate full fledgedly (one each for the CPU, monitor, DSL router, speakers & MFD). Now, the problem is my UPS has got just 3 of them. On top of that, the socket in my room is not connected to the Power Backup due to a wiring glitch realized after my house was built & we had been living for 4 months.

Now each time there is a power-cut (this is India), two of my devices have to crash for no fault of mine. The temporary solution (well kind of) I’ve found is that I’ve connected only the essential devices, i.e. the CPU, display & the router to the UPS (well I want uninterrupted Internet) while the MFD & the speakers are at the mercy of the awful direct power supply.

As for the time I am offline, I am hunting for a UPS with at least 6 sockets for all my present & future needs.

Hope I find one soon!