Thursday, April 9, 2009
Dressed for success
What do you see? A man dressed in a tailored suit... tie and all... on a bicycle!
Monday, June 30, 2008
The case of the Ill-Fated Phone
It is not just humans, even mechanical devices have a bad life. Really, no kidding. Take our landline phone for instance. It has been jinxed from the beginning. Things started going bad from the moment we bought it. It's a Panasonic Caller ID model and we bought it when we first moved to Al Khobar. Hubby dear has a problem with anything 'Made in China' and he didn't want anything fancy, he had said. 'We'll either buy a fax phone or we will buy a simple not-too-many-functions phone'. Ofcourse, I, the meek wife, had all, readily, agreed.
We went Down Town hoping to find more choices. We got there and after driving around the area twice atlast found a parking slot and parked. We locked the car to hear that it was Isha'a and time for shops to shut down. We had to get a phone that day and so we decided to wait till after the prayers. 20 minutes later the shop opened and we went in to have a look. We found the one we wanted, but we realized that there wasn't any shop assistance around. Another 20 minutes for someone to come show us the model and then we realize the guy didn't speak English! Some how, we did manage to buy and bring it home. After we came home, we found that the box didn't contain the handset cord. And so again, Hubby dear, drove off to replace the model. Once we got it back, we assembled it and it worked out fine. A month from then, I lost my fuse and released my steam on to the poor device. It was banged against the wall and then thrown on the floor. (Yes, I have violent temper.) The speaker in the handset was broken then. It rocked, cracked and there was definitely something broken in there.
The next dose of ill-luck came when we moved to Jeddah. The movers stuffed it in with the junk and when it came to us it was in a more broken state than anything else. It stayed that way until Dyan was born. For four months it was kept safely out of baby's reach but then my son learnt to babble and he understood that his grandparents, aunt or sometimes even dad, mysteriously, hide inside the phone. So since then, he has been pulling the phone off the side table where it usually sits. Dyan learnt to walk in his walker at 5months and to crawl from 4months of age. After being pulled off the table atleast 20 times, it now has been moved to higher grounds but it looks like we have been too late in saving it. The phone is as broken as it can get. The ringer doesn't work. The loud speaker turns on and off at its own will and the voice cracks all the time. Two days ago, I decided to unscrew the set and have a look inside. If it is to be broken, atleast I can give it one last tinker. I found a screw stuck to the magnet on the ringer and removed it. I still don't know where it originally belonged. After my 'servicing' it, the phone rang... though very low but atleast, it did ring.
Last night Hubby dear decided to have a look at it. He opened up the dialing pad (?) and then the LCD panel (????) and then after scratching his head a couple of times, screwed it back as it was. After wiring it again, he announced that he had managed to completely silence the phone! Our phone is now on Vibration mode! Interesting, because it never came with that feature!
Sometime in the middle of last night, I woke up to a creaking sound. I wondered about where the frog was and then found it to be the phone. No, nobody was calling us at that hour… it was the handset making that noise, I think. At 4am, again it started to creak loudly, I had to get up and remove the cord and so now... it is dead. Long live the Phone!
We went Down Town hoping to find more choices. We got there and after driving around the area twice atlast found a parking slot and parked. We locked the car to hear that it was Isha'a and time for shops to shut down. We had to get a phone that day and so we decided to wait till after the prayers. 20 minutes later the shop opened and we went in to have a look. We found the one we wanted, but we realized that there wasn't any shop assistance around. Another 20 minutes for someone to come show us the model and then we realize the guy didn't speak English! Some how, we did manage to buy and bring it home. After we came home, we found that the box didn't contain the handset cord. And so again, Hubby dear, drove off to replace the model. Once we got it back, we assembled it and it worked out fine. A month from then, I lost my fuse and released my steam on to the poor device. It was banged against the wall and then thrown on the floor. (Yes, I have violent temper.) The speaker in the handset was broken then. It rocked, cracked and there was definitely something broken in there.
The next dose of ill-luck came when we moved to Jeddah. The movers stuffed it in with the junk and when it came to us it was in a more broken state than anything else. It stayed that way until Dyan was born. For four months it was kept safely out of baby's reach but then my son learnt to babble and he understood that his grandparents, aunt or sometimes even dad, mysteriously, hide inside the phone. So since then, he has been pulling the phone off the side table where it usually sits. Dyan learnt to walk in his walker at 5months and to crawl from 4months of age. After being pulled off the table atleast 20 times, it now has been moved to higher grounds but it looks like we have been too late in saving it. The phone is as broken as it can get. The ringer doesn't work. The loud speaker turns on and off at its own will and the voice cracks all the time. Two days ago, I decided to unscrew the set and have a look inside. If it is to be broken, atleast I can give it one last tinker. I found a screw stuck to the magnet on the ringer and removed it. I still don't know where it originally belonged. After my 'servicing' it, the phone rang... though very low but atleast, it did ring.
Last night Hubby dear decided to have a look at it. He opened up the dialing pad (?) and then the LCD panel (????) and then after scratching his head a couple of times, screwed it back as it was. After wiring it again, he announced that he had managed to completely silence the phone! Our phone is now on Vibration mode! Interesting, because it never came with that feature!
Sometime in the middle of last night, I woke up to a creaking sound. I wondered about where the frog was and then found it to be the phone. No, nobody was calling us at that hour… it was the handset making that noise, I think. At 4am, again it started to creak loudly, I had to get up and remove the cord and so now... it is dead. Long live the Phone!
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
dumb idea
The dumbest thing to do: Lock yourself out of the house... take the key... throw it out! Wait... better yet, eat it!
Friday, September 14, 2007
If you park your car...
After a full 24minutes of trying to upload the pics... I give up! The connection is too slow... slowpoke, crawly... snail-paced even. So now we wait till I get my DSL connection back or we find some alternative way to upload the photos.
For the sake of satisfying and finally pulling the curtains on the all the suspense generated on the other blog... here is an account of what happens if you park your car in front of the garbage bin:
Clearly the poor guy was having a bad day. He had come home too late ( my guess is that it was after midnight), let's assume he had had a bad day too, his wife was mad at him too and he couldn't find a parking space in the parking lot. He had no choice but to park in front of the garbage bin inspite of the fact that there were already a dozen cats eyeing his car as a perfect resting spot for the night. He parks, ... gets out and goes home. ( I am sure he unlocked the door himself). The day started at midnight and he was having ill-luck. It would continue the next morning and it did start out wrong when he got up late and did not move his car in time for the garbage truck to take the trash out. They honked and they honked hoping that the 'idiot' would move his car for them to get their job done but ten minutes of angry honking later all was quiet. The garbage truck drove off and left behind... this.
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