What's In A Number?

As I logged into my blog today, I noticed my hit counter had just hit 800. Wow, this site has been viewed 800 times in a little under 6 months! That's about as cool as my apparent Australian following.

This brought to mind a Calvin and Hobbes strip that I had read a long time ago. It's taken from the 1996 collection titled "It's A Magical World", and talks about Calvin's obsession with chewing gum.

Calvin (while chewing gum): I need to get a heart rate monitor.

Hobbes: What for?

Calvin: To make sure I'm chewing at my aerobic threshold! Everyday I want to see that I'm chewing more gum faster, harder and longer!

Hobbes: What's the point of attaching a number to everything you do?

Calvin: If your numbers go up, it means you're having more fun.

Hobbes: .... Science to the spirit's rescue once again.

How true.

Ooh I wonder when I'll hit 1000!

"Silently dying as the pain and the misery wash over the pieces of my broken heart"

Breakups. Breakups are one of the most common sources of angst, depression and self-loathing in the universe. The heartiest and most cheerful of men have been known to turn into raving suicidal maniacs after a breakup. Women shed tears of anger, then tears of sorrow, then tears of self-pity, followed by more tears of sorrow once she sees her credit card bill from her "drown-my-sorrows-in-a-shoe-store" shopping spree. Breakups suck.

My first breakup occured at the tender age of 14, though I admit it wasn't much of a relationship per say. We met during a 4 day youth camp. Day 1 was a talent show. I got up on stage and sang; she got off her seat and fell in love apparently. The next days were filled with weird teenage flirting, and we parted ways, her with my phone number and me with a somewhat confused look on my face. Soon the parents figured something was up when I started receiving calls from some new friend in Colombo. Naturally, the mother told me to end it, and the next time she called I did. Unfortunately, she had just broken up with her boyfriend, and was calling me to tell me the good news (now all I had to do was 'elope' to Colombo apparently!). There was screaming and crying and then the harsh slam of the phone.

It was the first breakup, and so I remember it with special 'fondness'. But that isn't the reason for this post.

I've been through some rough times in my life; a couple of messy breakups, the occasional bout of depression, the whole 'identity crisis' phase - basically the usual crap that normal people go through in their lives. Yes, life sucks, its works you over, it breaks you, yada yada yada.

What I've noticed especially over that last couple of weeks is that much of the blogosphere is filled with excruciatingly detailed accounts of people's misery. I mean, hardcore 'this-is-what-I-felt-first-and-then-I-felt-this-and-then-I-took-a-deep-breath-and....' type accounts. It makes for painful reading to the unbiased reader, and I can only imagine how traumatising it must be for the author to read his/her post once it's published! Most of these posts spawn from some heart-wrenching and ball-crushing break-up, and honestly after a while you run out of sympathy. Then there are those that come out with extremely artistic prose and/or reflections when faced with difficulties in their lives.

Now this is my problem - why is that we only expose our inner artist when we're faced with a brick wall in our lives? Let's face it, if you can write great prose when you're depressed, you can do the same when you're not, surely! Yet it's almost impossible (almost) to find someone writing a blog post about a GOOD day, or expressing joy or optimism through song!

People that can write songs or poetry are gifted individuals, and I have loads of respect for them. I just wish that they would choose to use their gifts both ways instead of feeding the blogosphere with more stories of heartbreak, betrayal and psycho babble. Make no mistake, I don't expect people to put on a happy face all the time, but at least ONCE in a while, it couldnt't hurt to try and say 'hey, the world hasn't tried to kill me today, my girlfriend still loves me, I just got a raise, my friends are cool, slashing my wrists may not be such a good idea, and my parents aren't the worst people in the world'.

This may seem rather heartless on my part, but I assure you it's not. Contrary to popular belief, the 'dark one' HAS a heart. But I also have a brain, and a generally sunny disposition; besides, I'm not exactly vying for a job on the 'suicide hotline'. I just wish all the great writers out there would lighten up a bit.

Global Gassing

If you've been reading this blog for a while (not that it's been around long - probably 6 months at most) then you'll know that it isn't uncommon to read a rant of mine about some accepted social or global issue such as dress codes, terrorism, movies and marriage.

Another topic that fits the above list is global warming, which in my opinion is one of the most bizarre and least understood "potential apocalyptic disasters" that are out in the world today. When I was in school back in the good ol' 90's, the Maldives was supposed go underwater in ten years. Well it did - briefly - during the tsunami, for about five minutes; but last time I checked it was still there. And the last time I checked was this February (ok I put that part in just so I could attach this picture I took - sue me!).

Yes, global warming does exist, but global warming is bizarre. And so it's only natural that we come up with bizarre ways to counter it.

According to an interesting article I came across, "The belching and farting of millions of farm animals is a major contributor to Australia's greenhouse gas emissions".

Their solution?

Eat kangaroos instead of cows and sheep. Why? Because they don't fart as much.

I swear I'm not making this up. You can't make this kind of stuff up anyways. Click the link to read it for yourself.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - the whole world has gone stark raving mad!

Redefining Pay-Phones

My first cell phone was a blue Motorola Talkabout T180. I emphasise the 'blue' because that was by far the only redeeming quality about the phone. It was bulky, ugly, devoid of basic cell phone features save for calls and messages, had horrible ringtones and was just downright daft. But I was young, and I had just started college; the sole purpose of the phone was to stay in touch with the family back home anyway.

I had bought a SIM, and soon I was in business. I'm no techno-dinosaur, but even if I was, the simplicity of my phone meant that even one that was completely fossilised could still text and make calls with ease. However, there was one little bit of information that I wasn't quite sure about, and that was the tariff plan for my connection. I was brutally reminded of it when I made my first call back home. I spoke for about 2 minutes when the call got cut. I checked my balance and found that the small fortune that had existed on my prepaid connection (thanks to Dad) had been vapourised!

After that mortifying incident, I was much more cautious with regards to my cell phone usage. No more international calls, thank you very much! I also realised that the package I had at that time was extremely forgiving when it came to messaging - it was free! Yes, no strings attached, free messaging anywhere inside of India! Even calls between numbers of the same network were free between midnight and 6am, needless to say this spawned many late night conversations that ended only when someones battery gave up.

However, just when I was convinced I would never have to put credit in my phone again, the service providers suddenly decided to change their scheme to one that didn't have 'happy hours' for calls and which charged for messages! Within days, every single one of my friends that had this connection were broke. Since messaging had always been free, people were unable to suddenly break their 200 messages/day habits, and as a result ended up paying for it - literally.

Which brings me to the point of this post - what is up with telecom providers? Today's call rates are about as predictable as a game of Russian Roulette. Every country has different tariffs and plans, every provider has different packages, every segment of the day has a specific rate - it's enough to drive a man into resorting to smoke signals! In India, all incoming calls to mobiles are free. In Dubai, all local land line calls are free. In Australia, sending an international text message is only a fraction cheaper than making an international call. In China if you speak too long, the police arrest you for noise pollution.

I can understand the need for different providers to promote different packages compared to their competitors, so as to attract the market. But surely there should be some form of sense here! Instead, while one telecom provider boasts great coverage and crystal clear voice clarity, the other promises to pay you when you receive a call. No, that is not a typo.

But what bothers me the most is the almost random IDD call rates. For some reason, calls to the US and to the UK are ridiculously cheap when compared to other countries. Not that I have anyone to call in either country (though I'm working on it!) but the point still stands!

Allow me to demonstrate - let's assume I have a certain special someone in India. For the sake of argument, let's also assume that I feel the burning need to call her as often as possible. It would cost me Rs.15 per minute with my current connection. Now, let's assume she visits her parents in, say, Kuwait. Once again, because of my burning need (to call her, to CALL her!) I pick up my phone and dial. But wait, according to my tariff plan, the call will cost me exactly twice the amount it did when she was in India! But what's even more interesting is that if she decided to vacation in the Bahamas, travel half way across the world to the States or accidentally end up on a plane to Iceland, that call would be a lot cheaper than if she travelled to the Gulf! Calling Iceland is cheaper than calling the Gulf! In fact, calling Iceland is cheaper than calling India!

I'm sure there's a perfectly technical and acceptable reason for all this, involving satellites and economics and exchange rates - and then they'll tell me calls to certain mobile carriers in Uganda entitle me to free pedicures. That makes total sense.

Shout Out To The Aussie's!

I was just going through the monthly stats of my hit counter, when I was surprised to find that the country from which I received the most number of hits (after Sri Lanka) was Australia!

I find that somewhat surprising, considering the amount of effort I have made to promote my blog through my Indian circle of friends. India however lies in a distant 6th, behind Bahrain (you know who you are), UK and the US.

Just goes to show you how strange the workings of this magical thing we call the 'internet' are.

So to you mysterious readers from down under - many thanks, and keep reading!