:: SPEAK THY MIND ::

:: SPEAK THY MIND ::

This weekend was good..it was oscar weekend.. managed to finally watch the two movies (actually 2 out of the 3) I had borrowed from my colleague and friend Leena..I watched "The Accused" and "Rain man". The Accused was good..starring one of my favourite onscreen hotties Kelly Mcgillis (she joined my "favorite hotties" list after Top gun)..and Jodie Foster in a stunning potrayal as a young carefree teenager who is gang raped in a bar.. and who wants to desperately put not only the guys who raped her but also the ones who cheered and clapped behind bars.. I then watched Rain man..after a long time..this is one classic I would love to watch over and over for one man.. Dustin Hoffman.. well in the movie hes termed as autistic..the english dictionary defines a person affected by autism as

"A psychiatric disorder of childhood characterized by marked deficits in communication and social interaction, preoccupation with fantasy, language impairment, and abnormal behavior, such as repetitive acts and excessive attachment to certain objects."

But I would say he does not seem like a person who has a disorder, you cannot call a guy "autistic" when he can count the toothpicks falling out of a box in a matter of seconds :-) 246 is the number he says as soon as it falls.. but what is nice to watch is the relationship that slowly changes from hate, gradually to love and caring to a brotherly bonding (they both are brothers) that develops between Hoffman and Tom Cruise. Cruise as an aggressive car dealer who is on the verge of loosing his business and whos initial intention of taking care of Hoffman is to get his share of the property that his father has not bequeathed a pie of has done a great job as well..hes probably a bit loud in a few scenes where he wants to show his frustration because of Hoffman's behaviour..

I have one more movie to watch, "Serpico" which I will watch during the course of this week..it features another one of my all time favourites, Al Pacino..will write more on that in my next..

Till then adios and have a great week ahead..

Cheers
~N~

Just to give you a quick update, the cable finally came on Tuesday evening..well I did give the technical head of hathway a piece of my mind..(of the little I had)..and he apologized profusely though Iam really not sure of what action he actually took.. on Monday it showed me glimpses of coming by showing me the program listing but actually nothing coming..

Finally, the picture showed up on Tuesday evening after I had to show a little more of how desperate I was and how much I really missed my favourite programs on Discovery, History Channel and CNBC.

It felt good to watch some cable on Tuesday night :-) after all that waste of energy finally..phew !

Cheers
Naarayan

cable wars

Well well..this weekend had my tempers soaring..all because I was what everybody would call the fooling uninformed customer who had been taken for a ride..well this is got to do with the cable wars..am sure everybody who is in chennai must have gone through this at sometime or the other.. the eternal fight between SCV better known as Sumangali Cable Vision and Hathway..the two providers..I have subscribed to hathway as they were willing to provide the set top box on a rental basis instead of a outright purchase..I agreed to that..but all the trouble started when I wanted to shift the box to the house I have currently moved into..

The house was in an area which came under the SCV belt.. I spoke to the operators who were the providers and told them that I wanted to shift the set top box..I was surprised that they had an agreement between themselves (Hathway and SCV) that it was ok to intrude into one anothers boundaries..but lo! as I was thinking it was all over..and I had paid the money came the surprise..the hathway office staff told me that all arrangements had been made and once the SCV technicians have connected the set top box the service would be activated within one hour..

Finally after everything was fixed, I called up the Hathway office and surprise surprise, nobody was left in the office but for the most bad mouthed, foul mannered hathway technicican who said that activation is usually done from Mumbai, their head office. I repeatedly told him that I was told it would be activated in 1 hour but he said it was not possible and it is not possible to do anything about it now..he also rudely said that as public, I can do anything I want and hung up the phone.. I tried accessing the hathway website..the contact numbers and the contact email addresses do not work on this website..

More than not getting the connection, what pained me was the way the technician spoke to me. Rather, it is the customer who has to bear the brunt of these illogical wars..more so the painstaking fact is these operators do not understand how important customer satisfaction is..

Iam sure there are hundreds more like me who are facing similar problems..there should be a common forum where the "public" can speak to the concerned officials of these organizations and operators who do not behave amicably or know to behave with the customers should be strictly dealt with and their agency should be closed down..

To reconcile to the fact that I wont be having cable for the weekend, I went and got home a couple of movies to watch.."Narnia" and "Underworld Evolution"..Narnia was fantasy..just felt like getting back to watching a movie like Lord of the Rings :-) and Underworld was all battle between the vampires and werewolves..pretty well shot movie..

But come Monday..Hathway..here I come

Till then

Cheers
Naarayan