DSL & Verizon

If you wanted to know, my Lamb Biryani showed up about 1 hr and 15 mins after I ordered it. Which I guess wasn't too bad from the www.orderit.ca folks. However the lamb itself was a little chewy, perhaps India Hut was not the best place for biryani.

Anyway, its been a couple of days since my last post. Mainly due to the fact that I was in Canada for a couple days and super busy with work. But before I left on my trip my DSL connection went out and I am still without DSL at home. My DSL modem(s) loose sync after a few minutes.

To fix the situation, Trini-wife called Verizon to get the process started. and it is a process let me tell you. First she spent a couple minutes going thru the automated prompts 'Windows', 'Agent' and 'Connection Problem' like she was talking to an ESL speaker. Finally she got thru to 'Kati' who sounded very much like 'Khyati'. Not that we have anything against out sourcing of the tech support. We just wish the tech support in India was better than in the US. Kati had my wife go thru all the power off modem, computer, recable, reboot, configure IE, recheck cables, before concluding that the problem MUST be that we had Opera and IE installed on the same computer. Never mind they've been working together just fine for the last 2 years. Thanks for calling Verizon.

So I called last night and got thru to 'Matt' who I think was really a Matt. Anyway I explained the situation to him and he had me try some cabling to a different jack and finally ran a diagnostic on his end that showed the DSL link was losing sync. He said that a Verizon guy would be by the next day to take a look at the phone lines in my area and setup a time to visit our home. He did come around noon, took a look at things poked around, thought a wet connection was to blame, rewired it and reset the phone line. The main office would then turn on our phone again later in the day and he would call back. Both Matt and Dave the local Verizon guy had great customer relationship skills AND more importantly sounded like they'd seen this before.

Well Dave never called back, our phone line came back on, but the DSL sync is still out of sync. Called Verizon again and got Sushil, who sounded like a Sushil and was able to determine that the Verizon guy will be back out to see me tonight. 2 hours after talking to Sushil, we get an automated call that says our DSL line was looked at and the problem was resolved. A hopeful check of the DSL light shows that was wishful thinking on Verizon's part.

So here we are without a fast Internet connection (I'm using dial-up.... they still have that). Its amazing how much you take for granted a fast internet connection, the minute its gone you feel cut off and unable to interact with the rest of the world. I'm used to this on vacation, just not when I'm trying to send a document to my boss thats due today. Such are life's little frustrations.

Toronto

Well I'm in Toronto this week and the weather is not at its best. I was out here about a month ago and it was also very rainy and cloudy at that time. This morning I couldn't see the top of the CN Tower, however by the afternoon the top was again visible.
I also tried an order from www.orderit.ca, a Toronto company that delivers food from about 100 restaurants in the Toronto area. They claim an hour turn around. I've got 30 minutes to go until my Lamb Biryani shows up.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

At 846 pages, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susana Clarke is an investment in time and dedication. The book is very highly reviewed at Amazon.com and by newspapers and book reviewers around the world. I picked it trying to take a break from my usual diet of business and non-fiction books. I was hesitant because of the size, I looked at it, put it down, wandered around the book store, came back to it, picked it up, put it down again, wandered around some more, finally my wife said BUY IT already! Its good! So I bought it. This was late Sept 2006.

Yup, it took 3 months to read this tome. At times I would get bored with it, then the pace would pick up and I couldn't put it down and then the pace would slow down again. The book is structured into 3 volumes and traces the rebirth of magic in 19th century England. As first Mr. Norrell brings magic back and then his apprentice Jonathan Strange helps him to further magic in public perception as a worthwhile profession.

The book is a mix of Harry Potter, Lord of Rings and adventure. HP because it puts magic as part of everyday life although visible to all, not everyone is able to practice it. The names and art are Potter-esque too. Lord of the Rings because of the sheer amount of information in the book. There are footnotes that provide additional insight and historical information to the story. Sometimes, I found this did little to add to the value of the reading. And adventure? Well magic is coming back, Norrell and Strange are the new Lewis & Clark though they take different paths to discover the world according to magic, both are explorers in a new land. Along the way friendships, marriages and national politics are tested to the limits.

So would I recommend this book? Eh its ok. Its not great, but the world that the author has created is certainly detailed and complex. At times I felt I would get lost in the prose and not the story. I certainly enjoyed the magic that was used, the relationship between the everyday world, magic and the natural world was believable. Strange and Norrell are supported by a host of other characters, each developed with their own eccentricities and motivations. The story is intriguing and had it been edited down a bit would have been a superb experience.

Snow

Well I posted last about rain, which wasn't as bad as was expected (in Cambridge anyway). But this morning we got our first snow of the season! However it was very short lived, the two pics are 4 hours apart.

Borat

If you haven't seen Borat as yet then you need to go see it. It is one of the funniest movies ever. I couldn't stop laughing the entire time I was in the theater. While I've seen some of Da Ali G show, I hadn't seen Borat before and I was never impressed with Da Ali G show. It came across as slow and boring and I never understood why anyone would go on the show. However, the movie version of Borat is funny in ways that may hit a little to close to home. There is a lot of potential lawsuits out there (valid or not) since the movie has now made close to $100 million. Salon did some research into which charaters in the movie were "in on it". But all the hoopla and ethics around the movie would not exist if the movie bombed at the box office. Go see it and judge for yourself.

Rain

Seems that Boston is supposed to get whats left of that storm that dumped snow in Seattle, Chicago and parts of Oklahoma and Texas. Thankfully we'll only be getting rain as temps are in the 60s. Usually we would have had our first snow fall around Thanksgiving time, however this year we're still waiting. Not that I'm complaining its not very often you get to enjoy a mild winter in Boston.

You do have to wonder though if its at all related to Global Warming or is it Climate Change? It seems that after last year's terrible hurricane season with Katrina we were all bracing for another wild weather season. However it seems that this year has been very quiet, despite predictions by NOAA. In 2006 there were no named hurricanes that made landfall and it seems El Nino is to blame or thank? Of course blaming a mild start to winter on Global Warming while it may make for fun (or dire) predictions on the planet's future, is probably not very accurate.

Thanksgiving + Wedding Planning

Its been a while since I posted, I was away from my computer due to Thanksgiving activities and travel for work. My wife and I went to see her parents and sister in Chicago over the holiday weekend. Despite the usual media storm of travel horrors this time of year our travel was uneventful. The trip was a fun time, but discussions on my sister-in-law's upcoming wedding were a little heavy at times.

Why is it that wedding planning seems to bring out the worst in families be they Hindu, Christian or Muslim? A lot of our friends have gotten married in the past year or two and it seems that there was always conflict when it came to the details of the wedding. And there is plenty of blame to go around, from the bride and the groom, parents of the bride, parents of the groom to aunts, uncles, and friends. Everyone seems to have an opinion on what the event should look like, the menu, the location, the date. Its crazy. Can't we all just get along and have a good time? As a wedding attendee I only ask for two things, 1) Feed me, and ensure its good, nothing ruins a wedding like bad food and 2) Keep it short and relatively on time. No one wants to wait 3 hours sitting on a rented folding chair.

As for Thanksgiving, it gets more and more out of control every year. Must every national holiday be associated with shopping? Now I think capitalism is a good thing. But as a nation we seem to take each holiday as an excuse to star in our own versions of 'Shopping Gone Wild'. Honestly, standing in line at an ungodly hour of 5am to save $20 on some electronic gizmo that's outdated the minute you cross the store's threshold on your way out, seems a tad overboard. Scenes of Black Friday shoppers trampling, punching, shoving and yelling at each other to save a buck seem out of place for a nation at war and while the rest of the world languishes in perpetual poverty. Now we also have Cyber Monday, when everyone goes back to work on Monday after Thanksgiving to shop online. I wonder if corporate IT staffs see a significant increase in traffic on their networks from all of the bargain shopping.

Is it the bargains that drives people to extreme shopping? Is it some sort of shared experience that we all seek and find only in shopping, football or the weather? Is it that there is a story behind the object they seek? "Honey, you won't imagine the hordes of people I had to fight through, to get you the new PS3." Sometimes, telling the story is more interesting to the gift giver than the actual act of giving. Whatever it is, I hope all those shoppers found what their loved ones wanted.

Casino Royale

So I went to see the new James Bond movie over the weekend. The 'blond' bond as he is referred too, Daniel Craig does a good job of rebooting the 007 franchise. The pace of the movie lags in certain places but overall its an excellent movie. Similar to the recent Bourne movies starring Matt Damon. Dame Judi Dench (how does one get anointed a dame I wonder) puts Bond in his place from time to time in an effort to get him to be more stealth than brute. The opening sequence highlights this stealth vs brute method. A Bond opening sequence is always action packed and this time its a frenetic chase featuring the running style called free running. To watch Sebastien Foucan jump from wall to wall, thru objects like he's Super Mario is truly the most interesting 'special effect' in the movie, as its all effort and camera work. If you get a chance you should go see the movie purely for this opening sequence. Though you won't be disappointed if you stick around for the 2.5 hours.

 

Email Posting

So not only is there the option to post normally via
the blogger interface but also via an email client. I
hope this post works.

Gian...

First Post

This is my first foray into the blogging world. I plan to post on a regular basis on topics from politics to books to movies to comics to random thoughts that pop into my head.