Bleep

The other day, I was watching this song Chikni Chameli on TV. Call me a prude but I really don't think that song belongs on day-time television. It is very disconcerting to see a woman, a top-tier heroine at that, dancing so suggestively and yeah, I will say it, vulgarly. The post is not about that though.

So the song was going on and I was lifting up my jaw which had hit the ground after seeing Katrina's on screen antics. Then I realized that there were blurs on sections of the TV screen periodically and started wondering what that was about.  Then I realized that these blurs were actually cigarettes/beedis in the mouths of the extra dancers in the song.

Apparently, our censor board thought that watching these cigarattes will corrupt me majorly and make me take up smoking pronto while watching Katrina's heaving bosom right next to it is will not at all give me the idea that objectifying women so blatantly is normal. Because, you know, while we never, ever see people smoking on the streets, women dance provocatively in itty-bitty costumes on the corner of practically every single Indian road. The ways of the censor board are mysterious - I have never quite managed to figure out what constitutes 'censorable'.

I then watched some more songs on TV and realized quite a few Indian movie songs do have such suggestive moves and no one has any qualms about playing them at all times on TV on channels meant for audiences of all age-groups.

I think I am going to stick to watching Star World and Zee Cafe from now on. At least I know what I can expect on which show and besides, the channels very *helpfully* bleep out all kinds of 'explicit' words both on the audio as well as visually on the subtitles.

Come on, when you know you are watching a sitcom which also talks about relationships, is hearing the word 'sex' going to make you keel over in shock and have you reaching out for the smelling salts? It is sometimes hard to understand sitcoms like Scrubs when dialogs have four or more words bleeped out in a sentence (they once bleeped out the word 'broad' when it was not even being used in the derogatory sense - really) - good thing I have watched each episode about 3 times or so :-D.

Indane

Indane is a great Indian company which sells LPG cylinders. Indane considers itself to be God's gift to Indians and makes sure you treat it with respect. After you register for a new connection with them, you wait, wait, wait and continue waiting till it generously decides to bestow a new connection to your name. Oh, the connection is not free or anything, of course, you have to pay for it. That way you can pay and feel extremely grateful for getting something you paid for too. Win-win all the way.

Among the other rules for getting a gas connection, is the rule that you should not have any other gas cylinder in house when procuring a connection. So essentially, when you wait, wait, wait, wait and continue to wait, you are expected to subsist with either wood-stoves or induction stoves or just keep buying your food from hotels. Since most people are not insane (wood stoves are too smoky, induction-stoves - haha, with the highly reliable electricity available here, you are kidding, right?, hotels would be too expensive and unhealthy), they borrow gas cylinders from kindhearted friends or relatives while they wait for the new connection to appear.

We applied for our LPG connection in August last year. After months of telling us they were processing our application, we finally got approval in the first week of February this year. Yaay, we got it in just 7 months - aren't we extra blessed or what? Right during the application process, S told the gas agency folks that we had a borrowed connection with a borrowed regulator due to the long drawn-out process of getting a new connection. Shouldn't be a problem, S was told.

Two days ago, a gas inspector came over to our place. Not for inspecting that the kitchen is well-ventilated or that the gas cylinder would be kept in a safe place. No siree - that would actually make the inspection useful.Turns out, his only job was to make sure that there was no other gas connection in the house.

Since I had no intention of dragging the borrowed cylinder and hiding it under the bed as soon as I saw the gas-inspector at the door, the inspector saw the borrowed cylinder in all its glory. The inspector then magnanimously told me that he would not report the existence of the other cylinder so we could get our own connection. I could not believe how he could shamelessly declare that while Indane took its own sweet time to grant us a connection, we are not supposed to have any alternatives. However, I did not say anything. In retrospect, this was apparently a mistake*.

Today I call up the Indane gas-agency asking what happened to our first cylinder which was supposed to have been delivered hours after the gas-inspection took place. Then we got the news.

After seven months of making us wait, the Indane Gods had gotten angry with us. Since we had a gas cylinder in the house, they had decided to cancel our application.

But I totally get it - how dare we mere mortals use borrowed LPG till the Indane Gods decided our time to use a LPG cylinder had come? Stupid, stupid mortals! When you are registered with Indane, till Indane says so, you don't get to use LPG. And hear ye mortal, Indane shalt make you repent your presumptuous folly. No LPG connection for you!

Thus, as of today, we are no longer in line for receiving our own LPG connection from Indane.

All this is happening in a the country which is aiming to become a future superpower. Bless its little heart.

p.s. BTW, the name of the gas-agency is Kalarani and it is located in Mylapore. Just letting you know so you know upfront what you are facing in case you get cursed and get assigned to them!

* When S went to the gas agency, he said the employees there actually hinted something like we had not grovelled enough for the connection. I guess I should have shed copious tears of gratitude and kissed the gas-inspector's feet when he magnanimously said he would not report the borrowed cylinder. Totally my fault.

The shameless fraudsters a.k.a 24 Hour Fitness

A couple of months ago, I was forced to join a gym in spite of not liking gyms much because one of the classes at my beloved community recreation center got canceled and I could not find a suitable replacement for it.

In spite of some initial disputes with them(never ignore warning signs), I wound up signing a month-to-month contract at 24 Hour Fitness as it is conveniently located. Now, being the ever vigilant exerciser, I had read plenty of reviews online for 24 hour Fitness. Almost all of them sounded upset about 24 hour Fitness's cancellation policy. Apparently you would invariable be charged for one extra month after cancellation.

I decided to be extra careful and asked about the cancellation policy during sign up and was told that it would be no problem at all, I would simply have to cancel before my credit card got charged and I would have terminated the membership from then on. That sounded reasonable.

While signing up, I was charged the last month's fee too along with the first month's. I made a reminder for myself to call up to cancel my membership in May first week since I did not want to go to the gym from June and since the last month was already paid for, I would not have to pay for May. So far so good.

So today I called up the 24 Hour Fitness people and the operator there coolly informed me that I would be charged for one more month and since I had already paid for the last month, my membership would be active till July! I explained that since I had already paid the last month's dues, there was no reason to charge me for the month of May - they could use for my last month's paid fees for the month of May.

Then this idiot tells me "Oh, we have a 30 day cancellation policy". Well, if that was the case, I did want to cancel in June only but was giving him a 30 day advance notice by informing him in May! But apparently the prepaid last month's dues were some kind of Gandhi-kanakku* which was in some limbo-world where it could not be included as fees for the 30 day notice period.

I asked him why and he said that the payment request would have already been sent to my credit card company though the billing date is 8 days from now. I found this explanation ridiculous as any idiot knows that credit company's will *very* easily stop payment requests even two days before the due date.

So I asked him if it is was okay that I called up my credit card company to stop the payment if they found it so difficult to do it themselves. He said okay. Now this sounded too easy but since I did not have an option, I just got a cancellation confirmation number and hung up.

Then I called up my credit card company and they tell me that they cannot stop a payment request unless it comes from the requester, in this case, 24 Hour Fitness, itself - however I could dispute the charge once it was processed. Okaaaaaaaaaaay.

Since I wasn't sure what would happen in case of a disputed charge, I did a quick google search for other user cancellation experiences with 24-hour Fitness and was stunned by the number of complaint stories which showed up. The crux of the matter was 24 hour Fitness is well known for ripping off cancelling customers and has also been involved in a resultant class action suit which resulted in settlement with the plaintiffs.

Quite a few people had faced the exact same scenario that I have. And here is the rub, if users disputed the charge, in some case, 24 Hour Fitness came after them with collection agencies!!!! WTH!! Obviously, I don't want that to happen and now I am being initmidated into ponying up for a service I am not going to use. Aarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!

I am so irritated right now. Their cancellation policy is extortionist in the first place - fine! At least, shouldn't they take the time to explain it to new members especially when they specifically ask for it? Or is this the way that 24 Hour Fitness makes money - by duping people? What kind of horrible corporate ethical business practice standards do they have?

I know one thing for sure, from June, I am never going to go back there again. I am also going to actively persuade people I know to consider other gymming options before they choose this big fraud dump.

Now I am seriously worried since there were quite a few people on the web who had stories where 24 Hour Fitness continued to charge them for months after they had cancelled their membership and had collection agencies come after them when they refused to pay it! I really hope I am not one of them and my relationship with this fraud-house ends permanently in June. Good riddance.

*Gandhi kanakku literally translates to Gandhi's account. Essentially it is equivalent to throwing money down a drain.

Ugh

Life can never get so bad that it can't get worse. I have been working so sincerely the past few days. Coming in early. Going back beyond my usual work timings. Working really hard in between. Hardly doing any surfing or blog-hopping or news-reading or anything non-work related.

So how do I get rewarded? By a hard disk crash. I came in early yet again this morning - all set to finish my tasks. And pressed ctrl+alt+del to log on. The machine rebooted by itself and then died. I am now resetting everything from scratch on a temporary machine. And will later have to transfer all that work to a permanent machine. There goes one whole work day at the very least.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Why do I even bother trying to be a worker-bee in the first place?

Aaaaaargh!

I admit - I love chewing gum. Whenever I feel the urge to chew on something because my mouth is feeling bored, it is usually chewing gum I reach for.

But, when I chew gum, it is with my mouth closed and making little noise. I don't go CHOMP, CHOMP, CHOMP, CHOMP with my mouth open as though I am a particularly bad-mannered Godzilla eating the human contents of a major city. Neither do most other people I know.

Then, why, oh why, do I land the misfortune of being seated right across a Godzilla like person? I can hear the CHOMP, CHOMP, CHOMP even as I type. If I lift my head a little, I can get the visual aspect of the scene too. Lord, can't people even be able to choose a seat in a library in peace without running a background check on the people sitting across?

I knew it, the Gods simply cannot take me trying to put in some amount of work on a Saturday afternoon. Grrr!

Now, if you will excuse me, I will go and hunt for another spot to sit :-(.

Grumpy

Last Sunday night, after a long time, I was feeling extremely non-thrilled about returning to work on Monday. I guess four days of major chilling out where the maximum exertion at any point involved getting out of the house to meet friends or go shopping can do that to you. Anyways, I was chatting with my mom on Yahoo voice chat (it is pretty good, btw) on Sunday night and I whined "I SO don't want to work tomorrow. I want some more vacation. Sob!" "Tomorrow is Monday and I have to work. Not fair." and on and on I went. Mom tried putting in some cheering up words. But I drowned it all out with my incessant whining. Finally, mom said "Go to work like a good girl and I will ping you over chat tomorrow morning after you reach work".

All at once I burst into laughter. It threw me back to my childhood, when I first started going to school. I was one of those clingy last-born kids and back then, going to school was the ultimate tragedy for me every morning. So when leaving in the morning, through my tearful farewell, mom would sometimes say "Go to school like a good girl and I will come and meet you during lunch time."

Some things never change, do they?

*************

After the ultrashort pre-thanksgiving work-week which went past, this work-week has been insufferably long. And for some strange reason, I have been extremely lacking in sleep too.

So last night, I decided to force myself to go to bed early. I think I finally went to sleep at 11.40p (my original plan had been for me to go to sleep at 9.00p sharp). I was happy in slumberland and was having a dream involving an argument with my sister. Suddenly an annoying sound got added as background music to the scene.

Even in my sleep, I was wondering how come such horrible music had been added. Then, it struck me that the the "music" was kind of familiar to me. I woke up with a start as I realized that it was the fire alarm of my apartment. I checked my cell phone clock - what the heck, it was 4.34a in the morning :-(!

Mechanically I pulled on my shoes, jacket, thrust cellphone into my handbag and went outside the apt. A neighbor outside kindly said that it was probably just a false alarm and I should just wait inside. But even my groggy head though of self-preservation. What if I went back inside and fell asleep and by some chance this alarm actually turned out to be real - the scenario did not sound good.

Apparently, only seven other ppl in the entire apt had thoughts similar to mine. Everybody else stayed put in their apts (or did not wake up to the sound, don't know). The bunch of the seven of us stood outside the building, watching the fire-truck arrive. After spending another ten minutes in the chilly November air, we were given the all-clear to go back home.

Of course, nothing works as good as bracing 33 degree Farenheit (close to 0 degree centigrade) air in clearing your head off sleep. As I reset my alarm to make up for the lost time, the last vestiges of sleep were deserting me.

Needless to say, I had horrible trouble getting back to sleep. First, my fingers felt cold, then my toes followed suit and finally my head felt cold too. This scenario repeated itself for a long time. Then my fingers started feeling too warm, followed by too warm toes and then by too warm head. Ugh, ugh, ugh! I don't know when I fell asleep but when my reset alarm rang at 7.45a, I felt like I hadn't slept the whole night.

If it is possible, I am even sleepier today than I was in the past two days. Best laid plans - hmph! I don't think I can really be blamed for being irritable, grumpy, moody and cross today. I have been trying my best to needle anyone unfortunate enough to communicate with me :-(.

This week has gone on forever. I want my weekend right now!

When I whine, I whine in style.

Of the 1,685,188 people who stay in my city...

...the one person who becomes my upstairs neighbor is the person

* who thinks talking loudly on his phone at 1.00a in the night is entertainment.
* who thinks jumping up and down on his bed as he talks so that his bed squeaks is fun.
* who does not think that the above two activities will wake up his poor neighbor (me :-( ) sleeping in the room below in the apartment downstairs.

Aaaaaargh! I really wanted to stand on my bed and and poke a hole in the ceiling just so I could hit this moron on the head with something. Fortunately I moved to the futon in the hall before my baser instincts prevailed. If I fall asleep at work today, I know who to blame! Some people...grr X-(!