The Urbаn Prophet™ 5.0

Anyway, I can't wait too see if my video makes it to be the first 50. Seriously, I can't stand waiting for any news at all from Australia and I hate, hate, hate al this waiting! Lol! Last I checked my video was the most popular one from Malaysia so I hope that counts for something. Well I guess I just need to be patient then...

Anyway, I've already booked my tickets for my flight back home to Malaysia. It's a bit of a shock to be going back so soon but it kinda works out in my favour, well in a way kinda. I think I'll be transferring all my credit over to the UK and well, if I nd up there, life will much, much easier...

Anyway, that's all for now.. Over n Out!

Nik

To say the pain was intense would have been an understatement. Usually, I'm quite good at putting up a brave front in the face of adversity and when push comes to shove, I've always thought of myself as somebody who could keep it together when it became necessary to do so but how wrong I was. I was close to screaming like a baby!

Anyway, after I managed to gather enough of my wits together, I got dressed and dragged myself over to my door to see if I could get one of my housemates to help me out. By this time it was already 9 a.m. , I had waited one and a half hours because, initially, I wanted to head over to the convenience store and buy some antacid as I thought it was simply heart-burn. However, the pain grew more and more stronger as time went by that by the time it was 9 a.m. , I could hardly move.

Anyway, I grabbed a random housemate from the kitchen and told him in no uncertain terms that I needed to go to a hospital. He looked at me funny, and then proceeded to hand me 20 bucks and told me that's all he has and that i should use it to call a cab. I kind of just blinked at him for a few seconds then at the wadded up 20 dollar bill he had just shoved into my hand, then I more or less went no no no, its not your money i want, i want you to follow me to the hospital so that the cabbie won't just shove me out of his cab in front of the emergency room after I pass out, or worse yet, throw my body into a disused dumpster. So no I want you yo come with me. Maybe he would have responded to me better if I had called him by his first name, instead of by my other house mates name, the one that he doesn't like that is, but hey I was delirious, and both their names start with "R".

So he calls a cab, and I roll up into a ball on the sofa, the pain had progressed from a constant pain to a throbbing, traveling one, as it slowly started climbing up the pain scale. The wait felt like it took forever, as I kind of over-acted on the coach I noticed little things which I hadn't before, like how our carpet in the living room really needs cleaning and how their just too much cobwebs next to the heater. To be honest it was all very surreal, it felt like I was watching something horrible happen to myself but not actually feeling any of it until I started thinking about it. It's strange that in adversity your brain can just tune out, or detach itself and make everything seem like its a dream. Eventually the cab did arrive and shuttled me and my kidnapped housemate to Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston.

When we reached to hospital, to be honest, I don't really remember much, i was in a daze when I was getting myself registered and had a preliminary chat with the attending doctor. After the necessary signing of names, I was shuffled back to the waiting room, just so that I'd achieve the necessary quota of time spent waiting waiting before the y finally shuffled me back into the ward and a nurse gave me a cup to pee in and jabbed my arm repeatedly trying to find a vein. While the nurse was doing that a doctor came in and began asking a few more probing questions about where it hurt what kind of pain it was. For some reason she was fairly insistent on how much I had to drink the week before, I dunno, I guess she thought I looked like an alcoholic or something. After I told her, no I'm not an alcoholic, she felt around my stomach and then told me that since the pain is in my pancreas, I must have pancreatitis. I was like "what? what the hell is that? How serious is that?" and all she said was, "Hmm, well let's discuss that when we get back the test results. I'm sure it's nothing that serious god-forbid." All I said then was stifled, tiny, little "....eek...".

After they had collected all the bodily fluids they wanted from me and we're done scaring the shit out of me, they then left me on a hospital bed in Room 37, which was actually just curtained up space and not really a room. While I was lying there waiting for the Doctor to come back to me with my test results something even more surreal happened. I'm lying there on my cot, very obviously trying to control my tendency to writhe in pain when a pretty face attached to a fairly attractive young lady peeked through the curtains. She smiled at me and said, "Hi there, I'm -whateverhernamewasiwasintoomuchpainthatiforget-, from bla-bla pharmaceuticals and I was wondering if you'd like to take part in a survey study we're doing on HIV awareness. If you do, we'll give you a free HIV test!" I was perplexed, I felt like I was going to literally die on that cot then and there, there I was, grunting like a stuck pig, practically rolling of the bed in pain, convulsing with pain, and here comes this chick wanting me to participate in marketing survey? It was at that point that I truly began to believe in karma, considering what I used to do for a living before this that is.

Anyway, since I couldn't run away and even though I could have easily told the girl, "Well I'm truly sorry miss but I'm a bit too busy right now writhing in pain to answer your questions, but maybe if you come see me later when i'm all doped up, then maybe we might be able to talk." but seeing that I was delirious I just said ya why not. in a way, I guessed that anything that could take my mind of the pain would be good. So the first few questions were relatively easy, and it had to do about how you could get AIDS and my a few on my personal life. 30 questions in total and I only got stumped on one question, "Which is safer to use, a latex condom or a natural skin condom?". I was like, what, natural skin condom, what's that? Turns out, as what I understand from what she explained to me, it's a condom made from the intestines of a sheep. I was like really, you guys use condoms like that here? I mean, that's like, you know, ugh, gross. I can't even imagine putting it on, much less a woman letting me go anywhere near her with it on. Anyway, she then shook my hand and made me sign a certificate of participation and then tried to get me to take that HIV test. It was around this point that my pain level rose from 8 to 10, meaning the worst pain I've ever felt in my life. So I kindly declined her offer. To be honest I don't even know if she was real, I mean the nurses and the doctor seemed to just ignore her like she wasn't there, for all I know in my delusional state, I hallucinated the whole thing. Seriously, I never thought I'd be in a situation where I'd be incapacitated with pain and have to explain in detail my sex-life to a complete though strangely attractive stranger.

When the nurse finally came back with my medication I was practically insane with pain. First, she gave me 4 units of morphine to control the pain and 1 unit of erm, wolfram, wolvram, walphreim, wal-what-ever to control the nausea. To be honest, the morphine did sod-all for the pain. Nothing, not one bit of relief what so ever. So now, not only was still in pain, I was stoned to boot! My friend who had come with me, asked me how the pain was and I managed to tell him that it was getting worse. He ran off to get the nurse. To be honest I don't remember him coming into the room, it was like all of a sudden there's Ryan. For all I know, he was the pretty girl with the questionnaire I talked to earlier.

Anyway, the doctor came back and gave me another 4 units of morphine, which somewhat controlled the pain. Now at least I was wincing in pain, and not writhing, and best of all it put me in a happy, laughy mood. It was around then that I just started to talk nonsense, I mean I was just talking around in circles and my friend Ryan just well, encouraged me. I remember I was talking about the show House and how every week, the usual first diagnosis was for a disease called what was it again? Sounds like a dog's name, u know? Rufus? Dufus? You know, like, woof-woof? It was at that point that the guy in the next cot said, I'm sorry to cut in but I can't take it anymore, its lupus, lupus!

The doctor came back again and stopped our little bantering and asked me if I was still in pain. I told her yeah i was, she then asked me if I wanted more pain meds? I said no I shouldn't I don't want to be too out of it, as it was, I was grasping for straws at keeping my head together. Anyway, she said that the test results came back inconclusive, but it was definitely not pancreatitis because it would have shown in my blood-work. She squeezed my tummy a few more times at which point I winced as she hit different places. That's odd she said, hold on let me try something. The Doctor puttered off to get something and left me in a daze as the morphine started to really hit me. Ryan was like, wow, your eyes are just all pupil and I was like, yeah, its pretty isn't it, butterflies.

The Doctor then came back and shoved a little cup of strangely pink liquid. What's this? I asked. It's Maalox mixed with a bit of novacaine so drink it quickly like your taking a tequila shot or else your mouth will go all numb. Like the good little school boy I listened to my doctor and proceeded pump my system full of yet another narcotic (the novocaine) to my already addled system and lo! Within less then a minute the madman with a knife trying to cut his way out of my stomach withered and died! It was like instant relief, like if you were wearing a shoe thats way too tight and then someone quickly pulled it off your foot.

With that, the doctor then told me that he was changing my diagnosis from pancreatitis to GERD, or Gastro-somethingoranother-disorder, in other words acid reflux. With that she patted me on the back, took of the needles in my arms let me of on my merry little way. Now, at this point, in hind-sight, I'm really glad my house-mte stayed with me through out it all. I mean, there I was, all morphined out with a sprinkle of novocaine let loose on Boston. I mean there I was, stoned immaculate with a bad slur from the novocaine. If I was alone, I'd have given myself 10 minutes on the train before something unnecessarily unpleasant would have happened to me one way or another. For that I have to thank Ryan for sticking it out with me and making sure I got there and back again through all the different states of incapacity I went through yesterday. Kudos to you!

I have no idea how much the bills going to be, or if my insurance will suck all that up or what. The hospital just kind of gently showed me the wya to the door and let me of on my merry little way. I guess they'll send it to me in the mail or something. My housemate said it shouldn't have to fork out that much, he had to have a cat scan the last time he went to the hospital and it only cost him $400 without insurance and I'm insured so well, we'll see. Anyway, the whole experience was quite amazing I think, I've not had to go to a hospital in well... ever. Though I have to say, as fun as it was, it's something I wouldn't wanna have to go through again.

Sincerely,
Nik

To be honest, I've technically not had an internet connection for almost two months now as my housemate, who handled the cable contract decided to cancel it... He's off to France soon, so he had to terminate the contract.. Unfortunately no one else in the house wants to take up the new contract for various reasons, thus leaving us without a connection... All this while I have been'poaching' my neighbours connection, as he well, didn't bother to put on the encryption on his router (sorry dude! :-p).. Everything was going ok unti earlier this week when his housemate moved out and cancelled the electricity contract without informing him... Thus the guys over at NSTAR came over and cut their power thus leaving me internet-less... I mean all this just as I'm trying to submit that video, I had to run off to a cybercafe to send my file.... Well I suppose, it sucked worse for my neighbour, I only didn't have the 'net, he didn't even have power in the middle of winter n it took NSTAR like a whole week to sort out... I mean the poor guy was more or less camped out in the basement until they reconnectd the power....

Anyway, I've already uploaded my video to the Queensland Tourism Board for that Island Reef Job thingy.. It took me the whole week to do and I have to say I'm pretty happy with the result... I'm only upset at my attempts lip-sync-ing. After like two million attempts at trying to record myself giving my 1 minute monologue, I finally reached a point where I like the video of one clip, but the audio of the other... So I decided to go just with what I got n tried to combine the two... Well, there was much left to be desired with the results but hopefully its not too noticeable... Aside from that, I was really happy with my "Zoom-Out to the Upper Atmosphere" effect I did... I'm a bit gob-smacked though at how long it took me to do... I mean it took me like 1 whole day, working on only something which only gave me 4 seconds of footage.... Well, at the very least I saved the effect as a preset so i'll get to recycle it for something else later...

Well as I said I submitted my video last thursday, two days before the submission date.. I'm still waiting for the confirmation e-mail saying tht my video has been approved n I hope I get it soon...  I can't take the suspense, it killing me!! Lol! Anyway, here's the end result, enjoy, n pls do comment....

Regards,

Nik

An interesting thing happened to me when i was there though, something which I feel I should bring up. This happened to me while I was boading the plane, flying back to Boston and I would have to say was one of the more embarassing moments in my life, somehting I wouldn't want to experience again and ordinarily would like to allocate the memory to some distant area in my brain, far away from where my regular thoughts usually flow. If it wasn't for the obvious ha-ha factor, I would never have brought it up in my blog. My opinion is that if you can look at a bad experience and find the humour in it, then it means that you've learned something and have grown as an individual, thus me wanting to share this experience with you, my dear blog-ee...

The story is like this, after just about an hour of waiting to board my flight, my seating section was finally called for boarding, as usual my seat was right at the back of the plane. I have no idea why, but whenever I fly, they usually place me there. Maybe there is some ariline regulation governing single male travellers, but that's usually where i get placed. Anyway, i joined the queue and proceeded to slowly plod the way onto the plane. Prior to this, I had a very interesting conversation with a mom and her son. Aparently her kid was flying to Boston to study in some expensive high school. Why anyone would want to go through high school in Boston when they're from L.A. is beyond me. I would have done High School in Cali THEN go for college n Boston... Makes more sense, the chicks are hotter in L.A. Actually, I never really understood how that kid's mom could have gotten past customs into the waiting area, I mean ya its a local flight but you still need a ticket to get into the area and his mom wasn't flying anywhere, anyway I digress.

So I'm in this line see, and finally i get to go onto the plane. I was pure joy for me to finally get onto the plane. It meant I didn't need to wait anymore, I was just so much more closer to getting into the air and flying off into the sunset straight back home. Yes, I had a wonderful holiday but I was more than ready to go back and sleep in my own bed and not have to share it with my brother, two weeks I was with the folks, two weeks I was sleeping in the same bed as my little bro. Little is an understatement, he outweighs me and is at least 4 inches taller, but I love the big lug all the same. Anyway, so I'm in this line, eager to get home, looking forward to the fact that I don't have to worry about acidentally cuddling my sibling in my sleep and I finally board the plane.

When I got on board, there was the usual "good afternoon sir", "Thank you for flying with us today" et cetera crap from the flight attendants. One even helpfully told me that my seat which was D-28 was just behind the 27th row, next to seat C, which I'm sure I wouldn't have been able to work it out for myself seeing that the plane is more a less cylinder with a linear seating arrangement. Anyway, I had just gotten into the plane, got greeted at, told 'useful information' and turned the right corner that you always have to do boarding a plane and enter that little corridor, just before the seats, in between the toilet and what i guess was a utility cupboard. This small little space, was about 3 feet across so just enough space for one individual to go through, after this space it led straight into the first class section of the plane and into the business class then yours truly's ecnmoy class. As I entered it one of the 1st class passengers got up from his seat which was right infront of the passage an stood smack infront of me. 

This bloke was just a bit taller then my 5 foot 9 but sure as hell, he outweighed me by at least 100 lbs. I mean, the guy was a ball, he wore suspender because it'd be too uncomfortable for him to wear a belt. Rotund, didn't even begin to explain his body shape. If he was any larger, he'd have his own satelites, hell Earth would be his twin planet. Anyway, Lumpy here wanted to go north when everyone was going south, meaning that  as I entered that very tight space I just mentioned to you, he decided to try and squeeze past me. Ordinarily, I would think I would have just been pushed to the side by his bulk and gotten slightly flattened and he would have been able to squirm past me. Unbeknown to him and unfortunately for me, the bag I was carrying was one of those travellers back-packs, meaning it was on my back and had a hell of a lot of clothing in it. As he attempted to squeeze past me I tried to tell him, "Excuse me sir, but there's just not enough room for you, me and my bag so please let me get past first." but all I got to say was, "Er no sir hold on, please let met errkkkk -uunnnff*" as he tried to squirm his massively massive bulk past me, he just flipped me to one side facing him and jammed my back-pack into the wall. When he felt resistance he pushed even harder, thus wedging us completely into that 3 foot space and pushed all the air out of my lungs in the process.

So, we were stuck. He was confused, I was dazed from lack of oxygen, the flight attendants were shocked. There we stood, jammed at the entrance, no way for me to move as he tried with all his might to wedge us even more firmly into the plane. I was flabergasted, confused, I did not know what to do. Never in all my years of flying have I ever had to figure out how to unsquish myself from between a toilet and a hippopotamus. It took the flight attendants 10 minutes to figure out how to seperate me from the toilet and the ox. Take-off was actually delayed because of what was happening in the cabin, I mean the co-pilot came out to see what was going on. I never felt more helpless in my life. Honest to god, I though they were going to rub us in butter and try to seperate us, we were really, really jammed together.

It took the co-pilot and three flight attendants to seperate us. Mr Co-pilot and madame head flight attendant pulling my back-pack which was attached to me, and another two flight attendants pulling on godzilla's left arm. When we were seperated, everyone in the first class section broke out in applause. All i could do was smile, and go well, life can suck at times and quitely and quickly went to my seat. Moral of the story is this, don't be a dick, wait for everyone else to be seated then get up and go do whatever it is you wanted to do. I mean come on, you can't even use the toilet when the planes on the ground, where the hell else did you want to go?

The other day, my housemate rapped on my door the quick but quite stuccato knock of a person who really wants to get your attention but in a way that's both urgent but polite. When I opened the door he had a bewildered look of a person, who thinks something really bad is happening, somewhere and maybe if he just panicked just a wee bit, it might help. 

"Niklas, do you smell that?"

Seeing that I just got up and it was rather early in the morning and my brain is the type that takes two cups of coffee and something short of a mild heart-attack before it really kicks into the higher gears, I kind of just mumbled a "huh what? I dunnowatutalkinbout.."

"Serious, Niklas, do you smell that? I think I smell chlorine." at this point he more or less dragged me out of my room a proceeded to physically point my nose in various directions to see if I could ascertain the scent that was causing him to worry so. Now seeing that he's a rather big man who out-weighs me by a hundred pounds and that I had only just woken up, I kind of just acquiesed and allowed him to waive me around like some sort of rag-doll living gas detector. 

Eventually, enough brain cells got into gear to allow me some command of my olfactory senses, and I thought, "Why yes, I do smell chlorine." This thought triggered a memory of a history class a attended years ago concerning World War I and how chlorine gas was sometimes used in the bombs meant to seriously screw up soldiers. This was enough to kick start some more brain cells to recognise that maybe this situation was pretty urgent and required more than morning-zombie-me to resolve.

This was when things really kicked into gear, suddenly me and my house mate began to scoure the house looking for the source of this ominous pong. We checked in the kitchen, up the stairs, all over the place. We even went into the basement with flash light. All the while I couldn't help wonder, why chlorine? What on earth is in our house leaking chlorine gas?

After much searching and panicked stumbling about, we ascertained the scent was strongest just outside my bedroom in front of the bathroom door, which coincidentally was right above the furnace. So we thought, oh my god, maybe its the furnace? If so, then why didn't we smell the chlorine in the basement where the furnace was? So my house-mate Mike whipped out his cell-phone with the idea of calling our land-lord to ask his advice. As the dial tone on Mike's cell ringed, my other house-mate Robyn came out his bedroom, all groggy-eyed and pissed off the all the commotion we were making as he had just came back from working the night shift at post office and was trying to get some much needed sleep.

"Hey guys can you please pipe down a little, I'm trying to sleep!" he grunted at us in his own special pissed off way.

"Robyn, can't you smell that? We got a gas leak!" Both me and Mike chimed at Robyn.

"Gas leak, are you serious? I can't smell anything?" Robyn replied.

A bit take n aback by his non-chalance I responded angrily, "What do you mean you can't smell anything? Can you smell all that chlorine?".

Robyn first looked puzzled, then slowly he started to laugh. His laugh built up from a slow giggle to an out-right, all out, breathless guffaw.

Confused I asked him what's so funny? He then finally answered my question, hiccuping  between laughs, that he had cleaned the toilet earlier that morning with bleach. Without saying a word I went back to my room and went back to sleep....

P.S. Furnaces don't run on chlorine...

Whoah... 2009... Another year, another life, another wrinkle... Time really does fly by doesn't it? It feels like just yesterday that I hailed a cab at Logan Airport in Boston wondering if i'd be able to survive in New World and lo! It's been 6 months and I'm still alive n I'm still here...  Looking at my last post i can't help but wonder how it was that i was so depressed? Lol! Well I suppose time does heal a heart that is hurting and I do feel considerably better than i did before.  Well, aside from being a dead-broke student that is!

Either way, new year's call for new things, new thoughts and new beginnings and of course new endings... I vowed to end my smoking ways yet again (yes i did start smoking again, but i've stopped now),  I vowed to start hitting the gym, and i vowed to get a job sometime between now and december, preferably somewhere else from where i have been before this... I want a new focus in my life though, seriously i don't think i can cut it working the corporate treadmill... It's just too mind-numbingly not me... I may be institutionalized for saying this but i really don't care how much money i make as long as I'm comfortable and can pay the bills. What's more important to me is that I can feel proud about what I'm doing and that what I'm doing is something positive and good... So I've decided after finishing my MBA I'm going to look for a job in either a charity or a conservation group... At least then, when i wake up in the morning and look at myself in the mirror, I can feel proud about what I'm doing...

Anyway, enough rambling.. I gotta get off line n catch my plane...

Cheers all n Happy New Year!!!

The trip from KL to Taipei was relatively painless even though my seat wasn't an aisle seat, I had like loads of room as both the seats on either sides of me was not taken... The true horror that was my flight only raised its ugly head on route to LA from Taipei. My new chairmates was a very friendly if large Guatemalan and a very, very, very old Indian lady who couldn't move without a wheel chair. That meant 12 hours of almost no way to get to the toilet (I did manage to go once when the old lady pestered one of the stewardesses to help her), move my legs or even arm rest room...

Anyway once I reached LAX I was ready for the worst. Everyone I knew who had been there, told me I'd definitely get lost as the airport according to their description was the size of 100 football fields and whose corridors rivaled King Mimos's catacombs complete with Customs Agent Minotaurs who'd eat my head at the drop of a hat and then proceed defecate down my throat if i but answer any of their 20,000 doctoral thesis-type questions wrongly... Evidently these people, have never been to LAX, because that wasn't the experience that i had (or actually currently having, as I'm still here). When I got here, there was a bit of a wait at the CBP(I'll define the acronym in a wee bit) counters then i took a 10min walk to my terminal after asking one of the ground crew where the United Airlines terminal was. Anyway, my interview with customs official consisted of just 5 questions. 

What's my name? .....Niklas 

What am I doing in the US? ...... Doing my masters. 

What School am I going to? .... Hult Business School

Who's paying for it? .... My dad.

Am I carrying more than 10 grand us in cash or whatever? ..... No

What is CBP? .....Customs & Border Protection Service

What is DHS? .....Department of Homeland Security

Actually I don't know why the customs official asked me those last two questions or what it had to do with me entering the US but I acquiesced and answered all her questions like a good boy, even her lst two bonus questions after which she stamped my passport and welcomed me into the US. It took me longer to wait for my luggage... Anyway, King Minos's Catacomb Airport, luckily for me a play a lot of video games (or used to anyway) so after 5 minutes of walking around the airport I quickly realized that the airport in GTA San Andreas was a more or less exact replica of LAX! Thank god for me wasting most of my early adulthood snatching cars and doing illegal street racing round the airport (digitally anyhoo)!  So finding my way round LAX was a piece of cake... Now as I wait sipping my Americano at Gate 73... I eagerly await my flight to Chicago, my only worry is that my luggage will still be following me once I reach Boston...

Anyway, take care true believers, over and out...

Exactly 2 months to this date has passed sinced my semi-intentional forced hiatus from my blog... don't ask me for any specific reasons why I haven't updated or why I chose the 28th of April to cease posting and the 28th of this month, June, to start a new. It could be that this was the date (28th April) that the Italian Wold War II dictator, Mussolini, was hung in 1945 or that this was the the date of the first FA cup final in Wembley way back in 1910. Well actually, I'm not a Mussolini fan and neither do i watch football but it is interesting to now that Botany Bay was discovered by Captain Cook way back in 1770 thus he discovered Australia (if I'm not mistaken)....

Why reposting on this date 28th June, well one good reason was that the Treaty of Versailles was signed in Paris (huh?) thus officially ending World War I in 1919 or that in 1682 Champagne was invented by the Benedictine Monk Dom Perignon in Hautevilliers Abbey. Aside from that, in 1956 the Hit Musical The King and I, wet on general release i the states and jumping forward 30 years ad back to Wembley, Wham plays their final concert in 1986. I wonder if there last number was, Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go...

This and much more would be great reasons to stop posting and start up again, but well, the real reason was that wayback in April on the 29th, the connection was laggy so I couldn't post, then the next day i forgot and, well here I am... Anyway, I promise to post at least 3 times week now, promise.... Aside from that, this past few months have truly been eventful. My house got invaded by termites (a well deserving tale to tell of which I will), I got engaged (yay for me! or should I say, "Yay for WE!"), and I finally, finally, fially, QUIT SMOKING!

Today was my first day in what i hope to be many... To be frank i did cheat a little bit, had 3 sticks the whole day. I realise I shouldn't smoke while wearing them darn patches but hey, was a moment or two of weakness... I don't consider it to be a failure though, 3 sticks is nothing compared to my previous 25+ a day... Tomorrow i'll aim for 3 again....

I gotta keep this short n sweet, wanna hit the sack before the clock tolls two...

I've decided yet again to try quittig smoking... As always, I wanna use this 'space' i got as a sounding board...

I know I've tried many times to quit, but a I always say theres no harm in trying, again, and again, and again.... Eitherway's i got nothing to lose accept money i'd be wasting on patches if i don't quit. So wish me luck as I head off once again, down vey familiar territory. Only this time I hope I make the right turn, instead of the wrong one.

Night2 all....

The other day I called up tech support over at the office. I usually try not to as most of the time it's an aggravating experience. You see over at the bank we have to types of offices who usually man the phones; 1) The Irratating Chirpy Junior, or 2) The Gnarlled Caustic Senior.

Subject 1 usually just started adis still new on the job. she's been through the highly intensive introductory course, she's revved up, highly positive, happy and probably still uses the cd-rom tray to hold her coffee cup with. You usually get hold of her when you have something urgent peding and your machies insists on cocking-up on you. You're angry, aggravated and need a good solution fast ad the last thing you want to hear on the other end of the horn is a chirpy, bubbly voice going,

"Hello, good morning, you've reached xxxx tech support. Our goal is to give you a solution on demand! Bla bla bla speaking, how can I help you?"

at which point you grunt out you problem. "

Yeah hi, I've got this error message on Lotus Notes. It says xxxxx and told me to call tech support. I was in of e-mailing a client and it popped up. I can't open anything else up"

Her great solution usually involves:

a) Rebooting your comp, or
b) Reinstalling the offending program

Answer 1) usually doesn't remedy the problem, whereas answer 2) usually takes anything from 3 weeks to the end of time (whichever comes later) being that in a behemoth of a corporation, getting tech people to go any where else in the building aside from their floor usually requires 5 documents signed in triplicate, a mandate from the department head and a heart attack. Notice though that half the time she will not have any idea what your problem is and won't have a decent solution readily at hand.

The altenative tech-sup you get though (the Gnarlled Veteran) usually answers the phone when you have a simple, mundane question to ask. One that the Chirpy Junior should have been able to answer. This salty old dog mostly grunts at you at makes you feel like you caused him a great discomfort by calling. The other day I got the Gnarlled Vet. I wanted to find out what the status was on my recent application for a new computer. A completely legitimate question to call up Tech Sup about. The conversation went like this:

beep-beep, beep-beep, beep-beep....click!

Hello.
Hi, is that Tech Support?
Yes, what is it?
This is U.P. from xxxxx. I recently applied for a new computer, i was wondering what the status was on it?
What?!?
Erm, I said I applied for a new comp. My ID is xxxxxxx, just wanted to know if you've received my application.
Application? No, you need to come to the xxth Floor an pick up the form yourself.
No, no I already sent in the form. I was just wondering what the status is?
You sent in the form already? Well wait la, we'll get to you when we can!
But when I passed you all the form i was told to call this number if I wanted to know the status?
Well the status is pending la! I don't have all day you know. We'll call you when we're ready! thank you for calling, good bye!
But-er-a...

-click-

Out of sheer boedom I googled my name t see what would come up beig that it was quite unorthodox in the way it was spelt (well, at least in the english speakingworld). What I found was that it is a rather common name in Scandinavia (well d'uh!) and it had a very fitting meaning attached to it, very fitting indeed in my opinion. Well I'm about to do the unbelievable and actually admit my name, real name that is. Well, it's not like I have that many frequent visitors to my blog so what the hell... My first name is Niklas...What's interesting though is that my name means "Victory of the People" and I find that's quite an apt meaning looking at my socio-political stand point (heheh). To be honest I'm quite happy with the meaning and quite relieved that it didn't have a dull meaning or somethig that went against the way that I think...

My handphone got stolen, so I bought a new one.

What can I say, the little techno-junkie that I am, I went and got one of the more expensive models in the market. It's sleek, it's slim, it's tiny, it's stylish, and hell, it's got a sliding keyboard! Drool...

Seriously though, the whole reason I bought the damn thing was for the sliding keyboard. The Dopod 838 does its big brother, the Dopod P900, proud having all it's features minus the 3G stuff, in a much smaller format.

It doesn't have the fastest processor around, what with it packing a OMAP 850 chip with a measly 195MHz of err, horses? It makes up for this deficiency by having 128MB's of Flash Ram on board plus a further 64MB's of RAM. If you were a car aficionado you'd say that what it lacks in horsepower, it makes up for in power to weight ratio. The downside though is that the OS is windows based, Windows Mobile 5, so I'm expecting it to hang and crash a lot. To give it credit though, this is Microsoft's latest Mobile OS so maybe they managed to iron out all the bugs the last version had. The upside is that since it is a Windows based OS, synching with my PC was dead easy, I just plugged it in and voila. Aside from that it came with both Bluetooth and WiFi connectivity. Also, it's got a 1.3 Megapixel camera, both for stills and video which it records in 3GP format, whatever that is.

Further more, with a deal that I got from my dealer, I got a 1 GB Mini SD-Card to boot! So right now as I'm typing out this wee little report I'm listening to the smooth, Cuban tunes of Ibrahim Ferrer which I uploaded from my Windows Media Player right o to the phone. Playback is excellent as the little headphone set has excellent sound. You can't, unfortunately, listen to your MP3's over a Bluetooth headset, but if you believe Dopod's web-site, they're working on it.

And yes, last but not least, the slidy keyboard. I don't know what it is, but a slidy keyboard adds that little je ne sais qua to a phone. O2 first embarked with a slidy keyboard with their highly successful O2 IIi, and it was then that I fell in love with the idea of a phone with a Qwerty keyboard. So far most incarnations of the Qwerty on phones has been a bulky affair, if it wasn't bulky it was ungainly. Dopod nailed it though with the 838, the phone's dimensions is barely larger than a standard Nokia, though a wee bit thick. The slidy keyboard does increase the phones Star Trek factor, that playing with makes you feel like you should be waving it around over stuff saying pseudo-scientific statements like, "there is a distinct increase in the gamma-photon fields sir, though if we use a double pulsed plasma binary manifold we should be able to decrease it." Ah yes, the phone makes me feel like Mr Spock every time I use it, so what more could you ask for?

Beam me up Scotty, and Nanu-Nanu.

About a week ago, someone walked into my yard, got int my car and stole everything worth stealing from it; including my ashtray.

I guess they would've tried for my steeo as well but luckily the one I have is one of those inbuilt stereo's so that you have to take my entire dashboard off in order to get at it. The bastard even took the time to check what I had in the boot but unfortunately he didn't steal my laundry which if youve been eading my posts, you know Ive been driving aroud with it for the past few weeks). All this, while I was watching TV in the living room with my signifigant other, barely 20ft away from the car. If my windows wee open, we definitely would've seen the bugger.

Yes I did find it distubing that I lost some stuff (including a very, very expensive handphone) but more so that the arse was brave enough to do it full well knowing that we were so close to him. I was under the impression that my neighbourhood was a safe one, apparently I was quite wrong. Yes, I did leave my car unlocked, and my brother-in-law was quite vocal about the fact. I understand that doing so was just inviting trouble, but my car was parked in my porch and my garden is walled off. This bugger climbed the wall and wandered around my yard! I just have to ask how often do I have weirdos wandering around my yard in the middle of the night? Hell it wasn't that late even, barely 10pm.

It's a frightening thought that we have thieves in the neighberhood so brazen as to eter a persons property while the person is still there. What next, am I to expect being mugged on my way to work in the morning?

You know the sad thing is, that i never did manage to get around to doing my laundry. I've got a basket-full of wet clothing that's been just sitting there for the past few days and i've been driving around with a big black plastic bag full of laundry in my boot for the past 3 weeks. Shit, it looks like i gotta buy new under-wear tomorrow....