Bring on the Pakoras~!

Its been raining cats and dogs (including, i suspect, a large portion of all other animals) here in karachi since yesterday. And i’ve loved every bit of it! Even went out for a stroll yesterday with my mother around where we live.

It was beautiful! My mother very appropriately commented “Its like being at a hill station”. Now, my community is very green, much greener than a lot of other places in karachi, and the rain, washing away all the dirt everywhere, made the trees and the grass seem all the more fresh!

Plus, China Creek runs just behind where we live… so we have our own little sea side, and it was lovely there with the rain n all.

When we got home, my mom made Pakora’s and we celebrated in the evening with them, chilli garlic sauce and Mirinda! The rain was amazing, the pakora’s were delicious! and me? I was one happy bacha!

The early bird gets the worm

In this case.. my business!

I went out this morning to retrieve some documents from my fathers friend, on the way back.. decided to shop for a new TV. It wasnt something that sudden.. rather it was on the back of my mind for quite sometime. The time when i decided this was about 10:30 AM. I decided to head off to Saddar, specifically Regal Chowrangi, to atleast get some quotes.

What i saw appalled me! Even at 10:30.. almost every shop was closed! I almost turned back to go home, when i saw this one shop open… and thought to atleast have one quote. So i went upto the shop and started asking for the pricing. I was interested in getting a 29 inch Flatscreen tv for my home. Initially, i thought i’d go with Philips, since my last was a philips too.. however, my mother was seriously against it. I asked the shop keeper about it, and his remarks kind of mirrored that of my mother

“Dont go for philips, they’re made out of cheap chineese parts, just think that if comparable tv’s from other companies are 5 to 7 thousand more expensive, then they must be cutting corners somewhere”

Oh well, so much for keeping going for philips. I asked him what sets he had on hand and he showed me a samsung one, a sony one, and a nobel one. Tried them out one by one…. and what really took my fancy was the Samsung model.

It has really good sound quality, and sharp picture! But what really won me over was the 6+2 year warranty (6 year picture tube, 2 year parts) that came with it. The other models except nobel, which had a 9+3 year warranty, had lower durations, with philips at 3+1 and sony as 4+1.

Why didnt i go for a nobel one, if warranty was such an issue? Simple.. after seeing the results of samsung and sony… it just didnt compete Its very good in the affordable category, and in itself, has a very good picture quality. Where it lagged behind was sound.

So anyway, coming back to the topic! That shop was open early in the morning… the salesman was polite and very helpful, exchanged my previous TV for a very good price, and after a little haggling, gave me a good price on it, and threw in a trolley at a discounted price, which resulted in me buying it from him *on the spot*. Now im a happy owner of a new 29″ Samsung Plano TV.

There! that should be a lesson to all other shopowners! Open up early and you’ll get a impulse buyer.

Have i finally lost it?

Three days and counting… i’ve been head-deep in depression! Why?! even i dont know!

I think it has something to do with the fact that my cousin is getting engaged… It got me into thinking about my own ‘plans’ for the future… which are basically nonexistent. You see, till now, all of us were single or dating, and the whole marriage concept was pretty much alien!

Then he goes and falls in love, gets the parents involved, and presto! they agree! Thats the ’second’ time that has happened in my family… but even thats not the case. Its the fact that he was actually able to do it!

Since yesterday, i’ve gone out and put comments on no less than 2 blogs asking them if they would marry me! LoL! for the first time in my life… i think i’ve fallen as low as i could go!

I think i’ll go crawl in a hole now…… All of you are hereby welcome to dump shit on me….

And guess what! EVEN JOHN GOT A GIRL!!!! Now i think i’ll go dig my whole a little deeper

Happy Day!

Yesterday, for me, was a very happy day! On three counts actually!

Count 1:
I got my first raise! Yayyyy! I know its against the culture to discuss pay, so i’ll just say it was a cool 33% increment! Also had my annual review done. Company policy is that the boss discusses our progresses with us before finalizing the report. This is what was said on my report.

Best Qualities
Techinical Ability
Learning Ability
Communication Skills

Points to work on
Personal Organization (i can live with that )

General Comments
Asset to the company

Overall Result w.r.t Expectations
Above Expectations

The best part was the verbal compliments i got from my boss. You see, when i started this job, i was put in as a test subject. Im working as a consultant, and entered it straight after graduation. Now, generally, being a consultant means you have relevant experience and knowledge. Knowledge i had (having completed six years worth of degrees in Software Engineering) and the rest i learned (hence loved the learning ability in ‘best quality’). Now 8 months afterwards, i think the boss is seeing he made a good choice. My employment here was also very sudden, i came to him looking for advice as to where should i apply. He was my teacher (and is also my research supervisor)… and somehow, during our talks, he hinted that there might be an opening here.. and i immediately took it up! Next thing i knew.. i was sitting here two weeks later as an employee. Yippee!

When the complete report was discussed, i was asked “are you okay with this report?”, my reply:”……. you kidding! im FLATTERED!!” LoL!!! (i actually said dat)

Now onto count 2:
My cousin is getting engaged this weekend! This is the same one i spent the cousins day with. The bugger didnt even tell me anything about it! Yesterday, his sister comes upto me and says “I have good news”.. im go..”what?” and she breaks it to me! I swear i was much more in shock than anything else. The poor girl thought i was dissapointed to hear it or something. LoL! I had to explain that the way i was acting was me being ‘esctatic‘ !! LoL!

Count 3:
My dad came to karachi for two days! Yaay!! I love it when he’s around.. i can then get away from the ‘holding down the fort’ responsibilities for the while when he’s around.

Somehow, i maybe knew the day was going to be good. I was up at 7:30 without the alarms, ready by 8, and out of the house by 8:40!! After a long time i was at the office before 9:30! and most importantly, before the boss! Oh, also took dada for a checkup and went to a daawat in the night thrown for my other cousin who had recently got married.

Calling card woes

I’ve heard frequent calling card horror stories from people around me, and therefore decided to keep my sanity and start using my mobile phone for all calls. Atleast they connect easily (unless ofcourse, if you have Mobilink).

So anyway, today, i got a call from a colleague to see if i could work the fax machine to send out an international fax. We dont have international dialing on that line, so had to use a calling card. I was given an ARY Telecom international dialing card of Rs. 100 from which to send a 1 page fax. Pretty simple i thought, afterall, being a techie at heart, i just couldnt refuse working with tech stuff.

So there i was, sitting in front of the machine, calling card in hand, thinking that it would just be a 5 minute thing… i dialed the number “1254″…… and got a busy tone. No matter, maybe its just a temp thing (the optimistic voice inside my head told me). Dialed again….. still busy.. hmm.. maybe the horror stories did hold some truth after all. After repeatedly hitting the redial key for around 15 times, i finally got through!! yaay! or so i thought :S I was so much into “hang-up / redial” routine, that when i finally realized i had their system on the other line… i had hung up already! aarrghh!

Once again, i started the routine… waiting to get through, and finally did after the 10th or 12th try. This time keeping my senses about, not wanting a repeat of the previous event. A pleasant(?) voice answered on the other end, asking me to dial in the card number… being restless after so much dialing… i started entering the number even before the voice was finished….. when i finally pressed ‘#’…. it said “incorrect card number”! Now i was sure i had entered the right number…. but what the hey… we all make mistakes.. so tried again. Again the voice said “Incorrect card number”…. and hung up~! WTF !!!!!

Again dialed, waiting to get through…. got through (took another couple of tries..) and waited for the recording to finish, before punching in the card number… pressed ‘#’ very sure that i had entered the correct card number… after a brief (10 second:S) delay (during which i feared that my call was disconnected) i got a playback that i had rs 100 in the card balance! yayy! phase one complete! Then i was to enter the destination number… somehow missed the double zero in the front of the number…. and entered only one zero. The voice informed me i had 2 hours for this call, and i was pretty surprised as i wasnt expecting more than 15 minutes. Infact very surprised at how cheap international calls were now.

Then it happened… I heard “your number is being dialed” and finally “aap ka milaya hua number durst nahi” in such a rude tone i almost sat up with a start.. and the line got disconnected..WTF!!!

since then, i’ve tried about 5 times to send the fax.. each time a new error popping up… “Connection Error”, “Paper Jammed”, “Connection Timeout” and what not!!!

The rs 100 card is down to rs. 44, and i STILL havent sent the fax! I dont think ARY service supports sending faxes! So there u have it folks…. Now i have one of my own calling card horror(humor?) story!

On a side note…. ARY is powered by Wateen Telecom… if this is the level of service they’re providing…. i shudder at how the WiMax network they’re bringing up all over the country will run

blogwordoftheweek: Believe

I’ve joined this new exercise in creativity run by Jammie where she send outs a word every wednesday, to a group called Wednesday Wanderers, and we write something about it.. its fun and makes you think a little as well. Also offeres different perceptions on what a word means to different people…. So here i go with my first blogword entry…. Believe

I keep telling my best friend, N, to believe in herself. She’s the kind of person who for whom nothing is impossible and everything can be achieved by a flick of her wrist. Yet, for some reason, she can not…. does not.. want to believe she is capable of that. Sometimes it just gets so irritating… something i *know* she can do, yet shes always asking for advice on how to go about it, and following whatever someone else tells her…..

After 3 years of continously trying to get her to believe in herself, i changed my strategy a little… this time, i wanted her to have little visible successes in her own life by doing things the way she wants… and to know she acheived them cuz she believed in herself!

5 years ago… she was afraid of even *thinking* she could do anything on her own… today, she’s taking major life-altering decisions on her own! Now thats the power of believing!

You rock N!!

Not the only ones

It seems that Pakistan is not the only country to have a car-import industry. Other countries such as Vietnam and Ethiopia also face the same problem. However, here are some interesting reactions to it.

Vietnam: Most automobile manufacturers have sharply reduced the prices of
their sedan models as a result of competition from imported second-hand
vehicles, according to the Viet Nam Automobile Manufacturers’
Association

Could our govt. or car manufacturers learn something from them? The merc decreased its price by SIX THOUSAND USD!! Even in vietnam’s currency thats a big hunk of change!

Ethiopia: [On how fuel price increases affect imports] “I think this increment in the demand of the consumers will not deteriorate even if the price of fuel increases through time. Most of the consumers that come to me don’t have the capacity to drive the cars daily but they simply want the car for a show. It is hard to find such customers driving around the city every day, since they will not afford the fuel price.”

This hits so much more at home! Lets see where all this takes us. On a side note… Porshe (PORSH-uh) has opened up a new dealership in Karachi! Another international car name comes to Pakistan after BMW and Mercedes-Benz

And once again…

… we find ourselves in a rut full of trouble for being a nuclear power. Forbes USA has just reported a german magazine saying that Saudia is working on their own Nuclear program with Pakistani help!

It [Cicero, the german magazine publishing the story] says that during the Haj pilgrimages to Mecca in 2003 through 2005, Pakistani scientists posed as pilgrims to come to Saudi Arabia.

Between October 2004 and January 2005, some of them slipped off from pilgrimages, sometimes for up to three weeks, the report quoted German security expert Udo Ulfkotte as saying.

According to Western security services, the magazine added, Saudi scientists have been working since the mid-1990s in Pakistan, a nuclear power since 1998.

Last time, Dr. A. Q. Khan was fired… i wonder who’ll be hung out to dry this time…? Its a shame really. Instead of honouring people who actually make a difference in our lives… we tend to send them up the river without a paddle!

Look into my eyes..

I took “yet another” test, this time about what my eyes say about me. And i must say….. its true

You scored as Passion. You are very passionate whether that passion is good or evil has yet to be determined. You have great power over others and they seem to flock to your service. You are very competative almost to a fault. Perhaps you should let someone else win for a change?

Passion 75% Mysterious 75% Diamond Eyes 50% Eyes full of Pain 42% What do your eyes reveal about you?(PICS!) created with QuizFarm.com

The X in me…

Seems like everyone is taking the X-men quiz, so i thought i’d give it a try too.. The result? Im Ice-man! Cool! i like being in the cold anyway. Also like what it says about me

You scored as Iceman. Iceman is a very powerful but volitile X-man. His ego and reluctance to follow orders means that he often clashes with Cyclops. Despite being immature sometimes, he’s very popular with the ladies and is an extremely powerful X-Man. Powers: Can lower the temperature in areas around him. Basically, he has a near limitless ability to freeze things and make massive amounts of ice. Iceman 85% Colossus 80% Beast 80% Rogue 70% Emma Frost 55% Gambit 55% Cyclops 50% Jean Grey 50% Storm 50% Wolverine 45% Nightcrawler 35% Most Comprehensive X-Men Personality Quiz 2.0 created with QuizFarm.com