Breaking up is a hard thing to do

It is never easy to break off a relationship, and the longer it goes on the harder it gets. I am sure all of us have been there; trying to end a once-sweet-but-now-traumatic attachment but not being able to hit the delete button for some reason - fear, insecurity, inertia. Whatever.

But today, I have mustered the courage to say goodbye to a mutual love that has been in my life since 2003 - Apple.

I first experienced the Apple Wonder when some guy in my lab introduced the Mac. Lovely colours, fonts and of course, the ultimate promise for every engineering student -- that it would never crash. Never hang and shut down, taking your hard work down with it, never crash swallowing all of your life (work, projects and most importantly, music). The lovely K then bought her pretty white Mac, and we finally had one in the family. A while later I mustered the finances to buy one too. For what it's worth, that Macbook still works like a charm (two battery replacements later, both free thanks to Apple Care). No complaints.

But the Apple B.O.O.M came afterward; starting with the Brick iPod. That was followed by the Nano, the Shuffle, the Touch, the everything, culminating in the Ultimate Wonder That I Own Three Of And Still Don't Understand - the iPad. Yes its beautiful and small and everything, but functional it is not. Economical it most certainly is not. And why do I own three of it, you ask. The good 3G bought one to test whether he could reduce the paper burn at work. Then my team gifted us one for the wedding and soon after (for the first time ever in my life, I should add) - I won another in an office raffle. But I don't understand why anyone would pay 2,000 dollars to browse the net. Especially with no Flash. You cannot work on it like the laptop, the keyboard just doesn't feel the same. You could buy an external keyboard, I suppose but it isn't quite the same thing? You can't really read books that comfortably, the back-lighting is a little too bright. And you can't completely understand it, because people who shelled out between 600 and 2,000 bucks for an iPad last year are willing to flip it for the newer version (slimmer, with two cameras). I don't get it.

But I digress - this post is about my iPhone - truly revolutionary, got us to change the way we look at mobile phones. The iPhone is not a phone right, it is so much more than that. It is a music-store-book-shop-net-cafe-game-store brick that also just happens to be a phone. I find it a tad heavy but I own it and love it. I have owned it for a year and 52 days.

So it happened on Day 365 + 53, that my iPhone refused to charge. I didn't think much of it in the morning, but when I went to office and it still refused to work on the work charger, it began to bother me a wee bit. Since this was an iPhone on the operating table (and everyone is an expert on Apple), I had some useful suggestions from some (rather sweet) colleagues. I totally hit the panic button when none of the suggestions worked, and my phone finally flat-lined.

So I called up the Apple helpline, which told me that the phone was purchased through Starhub, could I call them up? OK. Reasonable. I went down to the Apple shop anyway to get it checked, just in case, and they informed me that Starhub would only look at models under warranty, and since my phone was 52 days over that, I should probably go to RandomShopNearUpperThomson. I get the number of the shop, only to be informed by an electronic voice that all iPhone queries were to be directed to the Apple Hotline. Back to Square One.

So I call up the hotline again, only to be told that Starhub would look at all problems, please go there. OK (slightly foaming in the mouth). I call up Starhub from where the advice was, as the ad goes, rather priceless. Here's what it is - Starhub does not repair iPhones. It only replaces them. Cost of replacement the exact model that I own (the old 3GS) - $350! Balking, I ask them whether I could re-contract then? Sure, but recontract eligibility comes up only in November, so that would cost me - $300. Either way, be prepared to fork out some fancy amount because your fancy phone stopped charging. One day, just like that.

So there were my options with this supposedly fantastic technology that has swept the world. Underneath the pretty colours and fantastic fonts, I always believed that we were paying for a solid technology - not an internal battery that would conk off in a year's time and which (by virtue of it being internal) could not be replaced. It amazes, irritates and flabbergasts me at the same time. I remember a certain company in this sector that got a lot of flak for abusing its monopolistic position by packaging too many applications within its PCs. If sub-standard technology that just assumes you'll pay some ridiculous amount of money to replace it as and when it conks off is not both abuse of power AND plain downright arrogant, I do not know what is.

So here you go. Apple, it was nice knowing you. But I will not be singing your praises anymore.

What happened to the iPhone, you may ask. I got it repaired from a box shop in Raffles Place. The I/O port had to be replaced. $80. It just occurred to me that my iPhone died and resurrected on Easter week. How's that for coincidences?

Meet D'Souza

I have a friend who I'd like to call D'Souza. D'Souza is, well, cool. Cool enough to quit his job so he could travel the world and do nothing for a bit. He's now back from his travels, after way too much vodka and what seems like a steady resolution to not share anything that happened on the trip. He is considering taking up a job soon. In the meantime, he plays tennis and golf, both with unbelievable style, and also dabbles in some music every now and then.

Among all my friends, he is probably the one who has changed the most since I first met him, and all for the better. DS is also a bartender, BTW, so every time we have a party, he is around the bar, mixing drinks for all (and a fair few for himself as well). He is the quintessential king of all good times. The good 3G sagely notes as to how only DS can liven up a party by just hanging (lurking?) around. No yabber, no oozing charm, he just takes life so easy, it really gets kinda contagious. I am a D'Souza fangirl.

But this post is not an Ode To Everything We Like About DS -- it focuses on the one weakness the man has (coz no one is perfect, not even tennis-playing, bartending, travel-smitten friends). Which is that he loves his gambling. Poker, random bets on Ladbrokes or focused trips to Macau, gambling gets him going. So every now and then, I ask for odds on grand slams, IPL and other sporting events that we both follow.

So it was that I messaged him last week from India:

Me: Yo, what odds on the Indo-Pak match? I'll go long Pak
DS (super-quick reply): How much?
Me: 20?
DS (Vodafone 3G-fast reply): On. 2:1. So I pay you 40 if Pak wins
Me: Ok
DS: Who is this, btw?
Me: !!

Yes our boy likes his gambling a LOT.

De Ghumake!

Heading back to SG after two amazing, eventful weeks in India. I think everyone needs a week in Bombay during a World Cup - the city transforms from its usual grunge and frustration to this magical, cohesive unit. Offices project the home team's matches on big screens, work effectively stops about 20 minutes before the toss. Colleagues magically re-emerge from restrooms dressed in the India Blue. Everyone in the vicinity - employees, security personnel, chai-wallahs and general-passersby, join in to watch the match. Oohs and aaahs follow every move on the field, starting from the toss. And of course, the classic chants of Sacheeeen - SaCHIN! And Indeeeaaa-InDIA!

Chai wallahs bring you Maggi and tea throughout the match. Nail salons ditch the reds and browns to electric blue. And if you want to take your car for a drive but could never go beyond 20kmph due to the infamous Bombay traffic, here's your best chance - the streets are DESOLATED. And I'm talking Nariman Point to Lower Parel in 15 minutes flat. Also desolated are the CST station and the domestic airport. Condominiums and housing societies project the match on the big screen and the party in the chawl below our home goes on until morning. In other words, its love, love, love. All around.

This is my first WC victory - I vaguely remember hearing a ruckus from the last time, but there was no TV and I was - well - a few months from being born. So I say yay to Dhoni, yay to Yuvraj, super-Yay to the younger lot who saw us through. A gazillion yays to Sachin, boy genius and master of consistency.

Tomorrow we go back to the grunge and whiz-business of our lives, but thanks to these boys, we will ALWAYS have today.