Nov 22
Overkill
We are the masters of overkill. Where subtlety is required we paint the whole town. Where a little will do, too much is the norm. Look at the BMTC Volvo buses. Chances are you might have seen some of these buses using their body as an ad platform.
(pic courtesy : enidhi.net - http://www.enidhi.net/2007/03/bmtc-volvo-city-buses.html)
During the initial days when the Volvo was introduced these ads just covered the glass windows. Nowadays the whole bus is covered with it except for the display boards and the front. Like a weed that has grown out of control.
I understand BMTCs efforts to gain revenue from these ads but have they seen how ugly the buses look with these ads pasted all over? The default red paintjob is a distinct colour of these Volvos and looks classy. A little bit of ad pasted on the side doesn't take away its beauty (though I would prefer not a single ad). But no, somebody decided they need more revenue (as if the high priced tickets and fully packed buses were not enough) and made buses that look more like Manipal hospital on wheels or a Flipkart delivery van. Not only the aesthetics take a hit but also its difficult to see if there are any empty seats in the bus from outside during the daytime. And I prefer a seat on paying for an A/C ride.
These ad-infested buses are very less in number now. But I expect them to rise as businesses see others doing it. How long for all the buses to follow suit?
PS: I read this report published last year on how ads on Volvo buses are illegal and BMTC fixes back the ads after RTO approval. Here is the TOI article mentioned in the previous link. Is the law still valid?
Oct 27
War of Words
I waved to the cheering crowd. 'Thank You, I LOVE YOU ALL'. Pretty young things were screaming my name wildly. I blew kisses to them. The kids elbowed each other for an autograph. I signed them all.
'Don't be so dramatic', said the wife. Poof went the PTYs and kids. 'Its just 13- all', she continued. 'Have a good lead and then you act like a star'. Of course I was exaggerating. But what to do when you have a winning streak of 9 consecutive game in scrabble. I am vain like that.
We play scrabble with each other on our phone a lot. I introduced her to this app Words with friends (WWF) and later Wordfeud. Initially, I had the advantage but had to let her win few games to build her confidence. If you ask her she would whack my head and tell a different story but my version is better so don't ask her. Anyway, the point is that a winning tally came into the picture. We played on. Pretty soon it was clear who is the boss. I played. She won. I strategised. She won. I referred dictionaries. She won. I cheated. She won. It is quite evident that I was the better player but somehow the tally came to 13 - 5 in her favor. That's when I decided to unlock my hidden potential and dare to dream beyond words. What I did after that, well, is what they call a mystery. I will post the details when I remember my mysterious ways but the most important thing is that we managed to reach 13 - all pretty soon. A straight win of 9 consecutive games. And I am hungry for more. I don't need to tell you whom you should cheer but in case its not clear I am sending a white Sumo full of goons with swords to teach you all a lesson. Learn well, they know how to Dappankoothu.
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[*] My Wordfeud nick is yldguy.
[**] Wordfeud > Words with Friends app.
[***] Dappankoothu - Refer Wikipedia
Oct 26
Cycling to office
Last sunday, as an experiment, I rode my cycle to office. A total of 12 kms to and fro. Just to check out how much I have to exert myself. Being completely out of shape and stamina to cycle long distance. Besides the traffic was almost nil on a sunday.
The ultimate aim is to go to office on a daily basis. But before that I need to build up a little stamina. Also I have to get these accessories. LED blinkers and a decent helmet is the priority. I will be heading back home from office often late in the night and the shortcut that leads to railway tracks is often dark.
That website is of GGI. Go Green Initiator. My friend @Deepakao is a member and goes on regular cycling trip organized by them. They have a lot of useful tips on their site for a cycling enthusiast. I am pretty much starting out but do hope to get in on one of their cycling trips in future.
Oct 22
Android
Take a look at this post. This sums up my irritations with Android. I have the Galaxy S1 device. Comparable to iPhone 4 in terms of raw power but it doesn't offer a fluid experience. Apps sometimes take a moment longer to open. Apps occupy memory and eat bandwidth when they should not. I have to kill apps regularly throughout the day to keep the battery at reasonable limits. I have never heard of any iPhone user speaking of these annoyances. The software doesn't do any justice to the hardware.
A smartphone is a dumbphone without internet. Being on the Vodafone network means I can't use it in bus while moving. Here, purpose is not defeated but defeat is purposed. The perfect solution is iPhone. But the bloody thing is expensive. The 3rd generation iPhone 3GS is still on the market at Rs. 19,999 with their latest OS iOS5. And the phone is smooth as butter! That would still be a better device than Galaxy S1.
Carrying two device is foolhardy so I tried to sell this off first at 20k, then brought it down to 18k and then finally to 15k! but most of the people who call up are confused between Galaxy S1 and Galaxy SL (same as S1 but with an LCD screen, no scratchproof gorilla glass). To complicate matters further, Samsung discontinued this model. Even after 46% discount nobody is ready to buy this :(.
I would probably have gone further south from 15k but that would be a colossal loss. So I am gonna do what can be done best with this. Mod like crazy.
Oct 21
Blogger → Posterous
Why did I move from Blogger to Posterous? Simplicity. Yep.
Of late, blogger feels bloated and unfriendly. Their unified theme (all Google products) looks clean but I feel a bit lost while navigating in blogger. Their measly template collection has always been a sore point. And the templates have far moved from the classic html to something monstrous. I can still use the classic template but then I had my unused photo blog here at posterous which I wanted to combine for quite a while. Cross posting at too many places is a hassle. Posterous is what I wanted ever since I saw their theme collection. Beautiful and simple. Their template is also much easier to read and edit. Autopost to different services was a plus.
Importing a blog to Posterous is simple but not easy in some cases. My blog name was all Posterous asked for here. What posterous doesn't mention is that the blogpost blog should be in plain classic html format and not the latest template. And the comments are not imported. Not at all failproof but I don't care much about the comments. There are couple of duplicated posts which I will weed out in due time. What messed up royally was my FB notes which was linked to the old feed. The feed changed (I use feedburner) and took away the likes & comments on posts (huge loss!!) and splashed few posts from the feed on the timeline. Fortunately, people were busy watching videos and tagging themselves so nobody took offense (I hope :p). And thanks for the latest comments and likes. Much appreciate it :).
update: Apparently, my old notes are still there on FB along with the new ones :)
