Monday, December 31, 2007

Neighboring menace

How many well educated people wanted to get a flat in a high priced area without a car park? Well, i know around 19 of the families who opted for it long back! My neighboring apartment doesn't have a proper car park(it does have one which can accommodate just 2 cars). And around 5 to 6 families in that very apartment owns a car.

So where will the remaining cars be parked? Of-course, on the street! The remaining cars are parked on our street in the first-come-first-park basis. And on the weekends, the cars will be parked permanently on the street, making it difficult for our (as well as their) guests to park their vehicles. There surely isn't any concrete rules about parking in domestic areas(as far as i know), but i believe one must use his/her common sense while parking!

Car park being one of the major issues with our neighbors, the other is our boisterous neighbor, who almost always bikers with his wife and children(even on petty). They have been successful in disturbing our peaceful sleep for quite sometime now. This did not stop even after my dad warned him that we are really not interested in knowing their family disputes!!

Having such neighbors can be fun for quite a few days, but is really torture-some when they start to get in to your nerves quite often. I really don't want to take these things legally. As my dad wants to sell our house and go somewhere else all because of our neighboring menace, i am having second thoughts...

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Online Shopping woes...

I was in need of a cordless headphone and was lazy enough to get it directly from a shop. I decided to get it online and searched in some credible online stores. I stumbled upon indiaplaza.in where i thought i found a perfect headphone.

I asked my friend to order it for me as my giftmate account was rejected couple of times. Two days later, i received my order. It was excellently packed. In fact, the packing was superior than the product itself!!. With lots of expectations, i patiently removed their neatly (double)packed parcel and had a look at the headphone. It looked exactly the same as in the site, but with one major difference that its not 100% cordless!

I wanted a cordless headphone for voice chat(as my room is already a mess of wires). But the stuff i got is not capable of doing voice chat in wireless mode!. They have a set of wires that i have to plug-in, if i had to do voice chat. The headset was shipped with a warranty card with no vendors signature or seal. It had a useless manual. It needs 5 AAA batteries for the headset to work in wireless mode(a detail that is missing online). I was not able to switch on the FM receiver. There is no single phone number to which i can ask queries about the product.

Had i been to a shop directly to get it, i wouldn't have selected this headset, rather got a better one, and of-course at a cheaper rate.

The problem in India being, the Online trader fails to build trust in his customers. I would never think of getting stuffs online again after this incident. Even though the sound quality is really good compared to my previous headphone, the new one fails to fulfill the basic need(which of-course is cordless voice chat).

Thursday, December 13, 2007

My take on Maverick(Annanagar)

Having been to most of the gyms near my place, i think i am eligible to blog about Maverick. Previously we(me and my friends) had been working out in Abinaya. We actually thought we have found a perfect gym till my friend picked up a fight with the unfriendly manager!.

We had to look for an alternate gym and had a look in to most of the gyms in and around our place and finally found Maverick. At first glance, we had a feeling that Maverick was costly(compared to Abinaya and its likes). One can get a life time membership in Abinaya for the amount he had to pay Maverick for an year subscription. Since we had no good options, we had to zero down to Maverick.

After joining Maverick, within first few days we were satisfied that the money spent is really worth. Early days in Maverick were fun filled. We had a real good time with our coaches(esp. Zakeer and Murali). After few months, almost all of the old coaches were replaced. We weren't happy about this move, but the new coaches got accustomed with us quite soon.

Few things that keeps Maverick ahead of other gyms(i have been to) are quality of service, its ambiance, friendly/caring coaches and more importantly its less crowded. Coaches never mourn about lending a helping hand even in peak hours. Management and managers are extremely friendly and always helpful.

Only thing that bothers more about Maverick is, in peak hours, we had to wait for quite some time to get a thread-mill. Apart from that, Maverick is a perfect choice for all age groups.

As per my current experience with Maverick, its worth the time and money spent. We really appreciate their effort in keeping us fit!

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

How to screw up a perfect weekend...

"Weekend without movies is weekend in HELL"

The above saying is by me and for me :). Being a heavy movie watcher(mostly in my PC), its really like in hell, if my PC turns a pale face on me!. Last weekend got totally screwed up...well the reason for that is partly me and mostly my computer guy.

My system wasn't working on Saturday. Didn't know what was wrong. When i booted it, it was beeping. So i thought i would better call a guy i know. He told he will be coming on Sunday. So i thought i would let go Saturday. I called him up at 10 a.m on Sunday. He said he will be there in 30 mins. From then on it was a real bad day for me. He did not turn up till 11.30, so i called him up again. He said he is on the bus. but did not turn up till 12.30. called him up again at 1pm. He said he was having lunch in vadapalani and will be coming in 15 mins. It was a sigh of a relief...but he din turn up till 2.30. I got really frustrated. But it wasn't all that. That moron didn't even pick my call after that. I tried calling him for 1 hr without any success. I wanted to call him and say "never think about touching my PC again" but he didn't give that chance either.

It finally made me think, lets fix this! it ain't a big deal. I opened it up. Removed the whole SMPS(coz i thought it was what screwing up my day) and fixed my old SMPS. As i expected..it did not work even now...and better it din even boot properly!! and beeped more vigorously.

I now had to put my new SNMP back. Then i noticed one thing...2 weeks back i thought of fixing my Writer, and tried connecting it. But the thing is the cabinet fan wire was being tied to the remaining set of power sockets. I had to untie them..in the process i forgot to connect the fan back. The more worse part is, i did not take the writer to the service guy too...

Since i figured that out...i connected the fan back and fixed all the stuffs back...and booted the system....

viola....it booted after being dumb for more than a day! it was already 4pm...my weekend was almost over.....and it had booted few times in the past (after it got hung and i rung the guy) and may hang again in 10 mins or so...

So i thought "rather stare at the PC, see a movie"... i saw sicko and nanny diaries back to back and my PC was stable as a ROCK...in the end, i saved 200 bucks...

If i had done this on Saturday itself...weekend would have been lot better....but i wouldn't have watched Yuvraj, Ganguly and Pathan bashing :)