Down and out in Dallas, Texas

Dallas. Shit. I'm still in Dallas.

Looks the same as it did before. Nothing ever changes out here.

Have been sleeping past 3am most days, what with one thing and the other. I'm right now at my friend Maneesh's house, on a wireless connection stolen from his neighbour. Just finished watching The Party, a Peter Sellers movie I hadn't seen. Slapstick, but fun. No, it did not have the 'Goodness Gracious Me!' song. That was from The Millionairess.

I have this evil plan to buy a Blackberry from T-Mobile here and use it in India only for GPRS stuff and as a PDA. Would that be cost effective? Hmm. Needs some more investigation, but it's definitely an idea.

In other news, I'm lonely. Good night, world.

Phone + PDA?

I am thinking of buying a smart phone (phone + PDA) next month when I visit San Jose. What are the options available? What should I look out for? What I want in the phone:
- GSM, tri-band
- Sync with my mail, address book, appointments, etc
- Camera
- Good display
- Small buttons are not a problem
- Wi-fi would be good
- Bluetooth would be good

And of course, the cheapest possible option. The Audiovox I read about sounded too good to be true, and it was. It doesn't have tri-band support. The Sony Ericsson P900 is a dream, but so is the price.

Suggestions?

New Year's Eve and Day

Spent the Eve shopping for a dvd player and a microwave. Finally wound up buying both from Vivek's, at what I believed was a good price. We picked up a base model Kenstar microwave and a Philips 625K dvd player. Tried out the latter successfully, but haven't yet experimented on the former.

The rest of the evening was uneventful. Stayed at home, watched tv and made several unsuccessful attempts to sms folks at midnight.

Rachu had a bad hangover on New Year's Day. Well, she was puking like crazy till late afternoon anyway. We have not yet found out the cause of the problem, but think its either the mushrooms that Sindha ate the previous day or the egg that we fed her in the morning. It was quite sad to see the poor thing collapse in my arms, dehydrated and exhausted. She is much better today, though not completely cured.

Saw my first ever DVD - Gangs of New York. The video store guy had a copy of Kill Bill too, but I didn't want to take it as I was pretty sure it was a pirated version. Might check it out later. Ebert's review of Gangs is good, the last paragraph pretty much sums up what I thought of the movie


[snip]...I do not think this film is in the first rank of his masterpieces. It is very good but not great. I wrote recently of "GoodFellas" that "the film has the headlong momentum of a storyteller who knows he has a good one to share." I didn't feel that here. Scorsese's films usually leap joyfully onto the screen, the work of a master in command of his craft. Here there seems more struggle, more weight to overcome, more darkness. It is a story that Scorsese has filmed without entirely internalizing. The gangsters in his earlier films are motivated by greed, ego and power; they like nice cars, shoes, suits, dinners, women. They murder as a cost of doing business. The characters in "Gangs of New York" kill because they like to and want to. They are bloodthirsty, and motivated by hate. I think Scorsese liked the heroes of "GoodFellas," "Casino" and "Mean Streets," but I'm not sure he likes this crowd.


Watching a movie on DVD is definitely a whole new experience ! I'm now looking forward to 's return. Heh, heh.

Two Questions

1. Should I buy an internal or an external modem ?


2. Whats a good price for a 56kbps modem ?

No, I do not get broadband through cable in my locality.

Customer Service at HP

My cd writer has been illiterate for some time. It used to spit out CDs as soon as they were inserted, no doubt disgusted with my pirated mp3s and divx rips. I took it to the HP service center (tucked away in Wind Tunnel Road, off Airport Road) to get it repaired. After a bumpy ride over a few craters, I navigated past a few tough looking security guys (TLSG) and a bunch of fancy cars to get to the main office.

I stopped at the reception when another TLSG called me back to the entrance where I had to enter my writer's serial number in a register. Walked back to the reception. The lady there asked me to sit down and helpfully added that my cartridge would be ready in a moment. I managed to convince her I didn't have a printer, didn't need a cartridge, all I wanted was to get my writer serviced and get the hell out of there.

Went back to work. Waited for a couple of days. Called them today.

The lady goes: "Sir, I spoke to you in the morning. This will need a Unit Level Replacement"
"No, you didn't speak to me in the morning. This is the first time you are speaking to me. And I called you, not the other way round"
"er..umm...ok"
"Whats a Unit Level Replacement ?"
"The entire part has to be replaced. Will cost you Rs 6100 sir"
"Let me get this straight. I need to pay Rs 6100 to get my writer repaired when I can buy a newer, faster, sleeker model for just Rs 2900 ?"
"Yes sir"
"Thank you very much"

Well, maybe its a good opportunity to buy a new, jazzy writer. Just hope I don't need to get it serviced after a few months

Powerless

No power at home, must be an unscheduled cut. Luckily the batteries on my laptop are good for some more time...