Yada yada yada ...

Running a tad tight (weekdays on work and work on weekends) and hence no activity over the past 3 weeks. Have at last caught up reading my blog tracking list. Shunting a ramble post off, before I hibernate again.

Hail-Hail
The random summer evening showers are making our scorching days at Bengaluru a tad cooler. Two days back, it poured for around 45 minutes with hail. Señora was driving out, got stuck in the rain and she said she had never seen so much of a pounding rain and the hail/rain drops on the sheets of water on the road looked like a sea of pearl drops splashing on water. And interestingly, these cloudbursts were local and confined. In a place just 10 minutes away, there was only a mild rain and 2-3 kms away, no rain. Hope we get some more rain like this to keep the summer tolerable in Bengaluru and recharge our ground water. God save the Chennaiites, if it is so in Bengaluru. :-) The 'washed look' streets with puddles here and there after the rain is a coolant to the eyes.

Two violations in two weeks and counting ...
Got fined for traffic code violation, twice, one for entering a one-way in the wrong direction and the other for taking a wrong turn at a signal. The Bengaluru police are all BlackBerry savvy now and with an attached dock which has a micro-printer, bang went Rs.100 for each violation.

I think of myself being a relatively safe driver (not so, according to Señora), but these violations are making me re-think. At least I felt that both were traps for people who drive in areas alien to them. Whoever can think of a one-way in the reverse direction on a service road, of all things, on a 2+2 lane road? Well, I was foxed in one. I missed the No-Entry sign hidden amongst ten small ad boards at the same eye level. :-( The second one was at a right turn at a signaled intersection even when oncoming traffic is blocked by a signal. I do not remember seeing a sign prohibiting a right turn and argued with the policeman who gave me a lecture on the signal having no arrow marks for me to turn right and said that the 'No Right Turn' wording is on a bin in the road and not on a sign post. :-(

I was reminded of the 'Saar, As I am suffering from ...' episode from Vivek in the movie 'Parthiban Kanavu' where he is caught by a traffic cop. One policeman flagged me down and another (the inspector), standing near his vaahanam (a bike with cheetah spots) and a BlackBerry in hand charged me. :-)

BS (a)N(d) (yel)L
I am on an unlimited data plan on my home Internet connection from our national provider BSNL. I don't what quirk is there in their subscriber management system, but I get a redirected web page whenever I cross a total of 1GB of total download/uploads in a month. I've to confirm to a 'I Agree' button to accept charging beyond this free limit which then asks me to restart the browser session. This message is like a காலை சுத்தின பாம்பு (snake encircled on your legs). Once the message comes, there is no redemption until you agree.

I get into conference calls from home (using Skype) and landed this message one morning. There was no response on clicking the 'I Agree' button. Called up BSNL broadband customer service. I have no clue what their working times are (supposedly 8 AM to 8 PM) and nobody picked up the phone at the end of navigating the interactive voice response system. Went to the landline customer service and a lady asked me to click the 'I agree' button and then restart the PC. Tried reasoning with her that clicking the 'I agree' button itself was not working, but the she persisted on 'restart'ing the PC after clicking the button. Hung up (no way that she'll understand that the servlet at the BSNL server needs to be restarted) and another half an hour of trying to get the broadband helpline, called up the landline helpline again to be told the same 'restart PC' mantra and I had to yell prompting them to take a complaint. Another half and hour wasted in clicking the 'I agree' button at regular intervals to see if the page responds and then at last it worked. I got a call from their Customer Care after 5 hours(!) asking if my Internet is working fine. Thank goodness, for small mercies.

I don't know why there should be any bandwidth accounting in my case and next, why there couldn't there be a proper troubleshooting from their end. No wonder, people exposed to a better service, run away from BSNL to other private providers. (not to mention they also have their own problems. See zeno's travails)

Pull up your socks BSNL, before it gets too late!

(P.S. I have no issues with the phone/Net service that BSNL provides, they are more nimble now than from a decade ago, but they still have miles to go)