Who Cares?

Crying Calf - hungry?

Blissful Kittens -satiated!

Parking - A Nightmare in KL

Recently, we went to Amoda building in KL to apply for Singapore visa. Though I was used to horizontal movable platforms, this parking lot had vertical double-decker lots. After circling 3 levels, I couldn't get even a single top level lot. Warily I pressed one of the shafts so that I could park in the lower level. Now, looking at the car that stood above and the dark slanting lower level, I was scared and wanted to chicken out. But, then after lot of hesitation, I did a reverse parking successfully after 15 minutes!

After filing for our visas, we didn't want to take our car from this building as we thought that it would be easier to go to the nearby Low Yat Plaza as well. After 3 and half hours, we realized our blunder of not checking the parking charges earlier. We had to pay RM21.50!!!

Flying Alone

At the London Heathrow, after completing the formalities, I entered the departure terminal which was not impressive. I was carrying a couple of books that I had bought at The Works in London to entertain myself for the three-legged journey, first to Abu Dhabi, then to Chennai and finally to Madurai.

The food and the service in the first leg of the journey were plausible, so I was quite comfortable. I was busy chatting up with the American sitting next to me or by watching the interactive TV in front of my seat. I watched Aa Dekhen Zara (Hindi movie) and I liked the concept, where an ancient camera captures the future picture of whatever is being shot! After the movie, I was fiddling with the menus available in the touch screen TV and ended up in Flight Specific Views screen...

From one of the screens I gathered that we were flying somewhere in Arabia and until then I had my shutters down to avoid glaring daylight. Now, I dared to open the shutter, just in the hope of capturing few good shots AND I was rewarded:)

 

I guess these could be a part of the desert.

Abu Dhabi Airport was too small and was filled with people filing to the Prayer rooms, as it was time to break the fast. As I was hungry I was looking for available choices, but I could get only plain croissant and so called Veg-puff.

Except coke, the other 2 items were too dry and tasted like wood pulp, but had no choice I had to pacify my growling tummy. I was sitting by myself in that airport cafe to kill 2 hours of transit time, so I was a bit self-conscious.

After a while, I felt that someone was staring behind my back and I immediately turned around and noticed that a middle aged Arabian was indeed staring at me and he too noticed that I was aware of his glance and he started moving. At first, I thought that he was going away, but to my dismay, he crossed my table, sat in a comfortable location facing me, and smiled at me! I panicked and lot of unwanted thoughts were swarming in my head and I looked around to see if I can find any familiar face in this strange land. Finally, I thought that the age-old trick of pretending to talk on the mobile would help me. I just punched a number, was listening to the mobile message and started answering cheerfully in sourashtra:) The trick did not work out. At that time an Indian family entered the cafe and sat in the next table. Normally, I wouldn't bother to talk, but I went out of the way and started to make small talk. After watching for a while, the arrogant watcher finally left the cafe and I sighed.

Shaken by this, I was too tired in the second leg of my journey. Though I was occupying a window seat I had two laborers as my co-passengers and the thought of spending another 5 hours in that cramped space was sickening. Moreover, when the flight was in the runway, it stopped, the overhead speaker crackled and the captain announced that there would be an hour's delay due to heavy air-traffic in Katar. Grr, I couldn't digest this delay, because at any cost I didn't want to miss my flight to Madurai. Just to unwind I got up from my seat and noticed that there were few empty rows at the tail end of the flight. Immediately, I requested the air-hostess to relocate me in one of those rows, so that I could at least lie down. They did oblige. Finally, I had a peaceful rest.

The third leg of the journey was ok, because I was already in a familiar turf. But, the security screening was maddening. This was compensated when I boarded the flight. To my pleasant surprise, we were welcomed with a choice of tender coconut or buttermilk:) I told my-self "welcome home".

Package of an MP...

A forwarded mail is the cause of this post, which claims Politics as a profession in India. After seeing the breakdown of their official income, am wondering who is the real cause of the economic slowdown? Here is an excerpt that shows where the tax payer's money goes:

Salary & Govt. Concessions for a Member of Indian Parliament
Monthly Salary: Rs. 12,000/-
Expense for Constitution per month: Rs. 10,000/-
Office expenditure per month: Rs. 14,000/-
Traveling concession (Rs. 8 per km): Rs. 48,000/-
(eg. For a visit from South India to Delhi & return: 6000 km)
Daily DA TA during parliament meets: Rs. 500/day
Charge for 1 class (A/C) in train: Free (For any number of times
All over India ) 
Charge for Business Class in flights: Free for 40 trips / year (With wife or P.A.)
Rent for MP hostel at Delhi: Free
Electricity   costs at home: Free up to 50,000 units
Local phone call charge: Free up to 1, 70,000 calls
TOTAL expense for a MP [having no qualification] per year:  Rs.32,00,000/-

This is equal to RM 2,31,300 or GBP 43,500.)

To my knowledge, the allowances are true, but not sure about the salary. However, the package is too high for many of the undeserving candidates. In addition, there are no performance standards, against which they can be gauged. And, there is no retrenchment either!

I wish their package can be reduced to half, and that amount can be spent to bring some of the basic needs like proper sanitation and drinking water to thousands of Indian villages.

Packing, Disposing, Recycling...

Despite the excitement of moving to a new country, the packing, disposing, sending stuff for recycling seems to be a daunting task. We had a paper plan which seemed to be simple. And, by then we never realized that it could be only at paper level, like some of those crazy project plans that I used to hate. Well, one small consolation is that no one is gonna force me to follow that, ever:)

When we were enquiring around to find best rates for sending cargo overseas, we came to know about surface mail or sea mail service from Pos Malaysia. Well, the deal is quite good, if you don't mind the long duration. For sending 20Kg cargo to UK (food, electrical and electronic items are not allowed) they charge only RM116.60 and it will reach the receiver in a month, depending on the ship's schedule.

Then, the next head ache is, trying to sell fridge, washing machine, car etc., In India, when referring to unusable items, they say that you can get only perichampalam (dates)...Here for stuff that are in good condition and with warranty, the buyers just ask for too low. Going to used goods dealers is even worse, they just want everything for almost free, that I might as well trade in for dates!

Juicy tool and user expectations

When we do research, we start searching for something online, then get diverted if we stumble upon something interesting. Sometimes we even forget what we were looking for originally! How nice it would be if we can track what we started to look up. You might think that History would show you the sites that we were surfing, even in that you need to do spring-cleaning to find out what we were looking for, right?

Today, I was looking up for something I can't recall what, but ended up in discovering Juice, a plug-in meant for Firefox browser! Here, they claim that searching and keeping track of research is very simplified. As usual, I didn't bother to watch their demo, straight away I installed. Then dragged my name from my profile and dropped it in Juice, see what it brought up^^

First I thought that this will sort of help me to keep track of the original research. Then realized that if I keep dragging what ever I fancy, I can't keep track of the original item that I started with. Well, they claim it is in BETA. Sounds familiar? You are right, first we get excited with something, then we realize that it is still after all, in theory only...what else can we expect? Are the users exceeding the expectations of the creators? or may be "usability" is the last thing under the sun???

Slangs - Ever Expanding Lexicon

Like fast food, even language has become "instant"! Whenever I come across new contractions in day-to-day communication, I mutter, here is another word/term that I need to catch up with, thanks to the advent of electronic mail/chat systems^^.

A couple of classic terms that defied my common sense, when I came across it for the first time are:

• wc: NOT toilet or water closet, it is WELCOME!

• r u t: definitely not a hole, it is are you there!  

At times, I doubt if am a cryptologist trying to decipher a set of classified secrets.

State of the art technology based on antiques?

How can you expect to run DVD on your old CD player?
Well, agreed that it is not a logical question at all.

But, is it logical to expect that the latest browser based applications should run on low RAM, 10 years old, next to dead machines?
I ask this to myself quite often and I feel its an unexplainable pain:(

Spammers Vs Junkies

Getting junk and spam mails are two different things. To an extent I can accept junk mails like marketing services or products to some extent.

But the spammers, who send, out of the world mails asking for identity and inviting to be a part of claiming unclaimed money is intolerable. Can't imagine how could they do send such offensive mails.