Of Inconsiderate Drivers and… Crazy Ones?

There have always been cases of people complaining about inconsiderate drivers. Those that go too fast, those that cut out suddenly, those that sit in a yellow box in a jam and refuse to let you past, those that sound the horn at you for absolutely no reason… and the list goes on and on.
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Of course, there’s an equally long list on inconsiderate pedestrians too (“WHAT?! YOUR GRANDFATHER’S ROAD ARH?!!”), but today, we’re talking about drivers.
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Thankfully, my boyfriend is one of those good drivers. He doesn’t go too fast nor too slow, uses the signal often, and stuff like that. Sitting beside him when he drives isn’t scary at all. xP
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Unfortunately, on some days you can’t help but to get one of those crazy drivers.
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He did, yesterday.
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It was the last day of my extra holiday class, and so, it being Friday, my boyfriend came to pick me up so we go return to my house. It was a fine late afternoon, about 3pm, so there were no rush hour jams.
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Then, it began.
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This random car (a low-cost car that was modified to have a spoiler on the back, a loud “VROOM!” and tinted windows to imitate a racing car. Egoistic, much?) came up behind us and tailgated us, while we were 10 minutes away from my house (it takes 15 minutes from my university to my house).
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At first, we didn’t mind; after all, who cares about people tailgating you?
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The road we were on had two lanes, but at the time, we met lots of people who were slow, pausing to turn (and took one a whole lane), stopping at a one-lane traffic light, and stuff. My boyfriend switched lanes a lot, as to continue at our normal pace along the road.
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Then we began noticing it.
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Each time my boyfriend switched lanes, the joker behind would follow suit, and continue to tailgate us.
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We switched left.
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He switched left.
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We switched right.
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We switched right.
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What the heck? It’s terribly fishy.
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But fine. We ignored it.
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We turned from the main road and into the housing area, on the one-lane main road of the housing area.
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The joker followed suit.
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At the time, we still didn’t think much of it (except that we felt the guy was showing off), because it was normal for us to drive and meet cars that happen to go the same way. I met at least one when I drive.
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But when we turned into a road next to a field that led to where I live and he followed, we knew that the guy behind us was stalking us.
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Never mind. When we are stalked, we never show them where we live.
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And so we made one big round around the housing area, just to throw the guy off.
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He still followed us.
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Then, on a road wide enough for two cars to go past (two-way road, mind you), suddenly…
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“ZOOOM!!”
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There he goes, overtaking us.
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Silence.
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Then I started laughing.
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It felt so funny seeing the guy trying to imitate the “EAT MY DUST!!” fashion. It’s like, the guy’s ego is so blown up that he thinks he’s so cool doing that, but in reality, seeing that low cost car (the exact same brand and type my boyfriend uses) imitating a racing car… so funny. xP
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This is the exact image in my head:

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So funny. That joker would’ve felt so angry if he knew, huh?
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We thought it was over, so we just went on our merry way.
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Then we came across this Y junction. One of the roads, the one that joker took, was a dead end. So we took the one that wasn’t a dead end.
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And… round 2!
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“ZOOOOOOM!”
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There he goes again.
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Like earlier, I ended up laughing. He just tries so hard, he deserves marks for effort! You know, like when you failed in a school paper, where the teacher gives some “markah kesihan” (marks out of pity)?
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Man, it’s so funny.
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At least, this time, the guy took the turning out back to the housing area’s main road, out of the area we were at.
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Well, at least it was over.
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After all, in this day and age when crime rates are running high, who knows maybe that joker had criminal intent and followed us for that? But from the two “EAT MY DUST!!” sessions, most likely it’s some nobleman’s son that’s too rich and had nothing better to do.
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Still, it can’t hurt to be more careful.
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Throughout the day, we checked on my boyfriend’s car parked outside my house, just to see if anything happened to it. Nothing did, no worries.
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But you never know, right?
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Next time, if we were being tailgated and stalked, we have a retaliation plan.
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What the plan is, you ask?
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Just go round and round the roundabout, and see who gives up first.
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Yep, not unlike Mr. Bean.

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~Estrelita Farr, still laughing from the memory. xP

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The Woes of Having TMNut Screamyx

TMNut Screamyx. A wonderful nickname for one of the (still) dominant internet service providers (ISPs) in Malaysia, officially known as TMNet Streamyx.
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Why haven’t I been posting in this blog for a month? Because of wonderful TMNut Screamyx. Plus it was exam season in my university.
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Let me tell you my woes of having to deal TMNut Screamyx. T_T
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Note: I have no prejudice against all the ISP’s operators. If anything, most of them are nice and work well. The cheeky, stubborn ones? Well, we’ll hear about them later in this post.

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Part 1: The Slow Beginning…
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Over a month ago (I think it’s been pretty close to two months now), I started experiencing interruptions in my internet. That was when I begin calling the ISP’s helpdesk in hopes of resolving it.
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So each time my internet died, I rebooted my router, turning it off for some minutes, doing this repeatedly several times, and if my internet is still dead, I called the helpdesk. These people are nice, sure, and they often reseted my port for me.
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Normally port reseting works. For a while.
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Originally it worked for 2 weeks, then my internet would go down again. Call, reset port, and it’s fine.
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Soon, the interruptions got more and more frequent, to the point that I’d call every 4 – 5 days. What fun.

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Part 2: Hello, Technician Please?
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So at one time, about a month ago, my internet refused to come back after so many tries that the ISP’s helpdesk saved my predicament in their database for their technician to see. Apparently they had to do some testing on their side, and if not fixed, they’d come over to check on my side.
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Two days waiting time.
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Then, some fella from the call centre gave me a call on a Monday morning (not to mention during a class -_-) to arrange a time for the technician to come to my house to check the modem and stuff. Their technician could only visit people’s houses anytime in the 10am – 12am range, hence I told them to come on Saturday because I had classes on weekdays.
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The week went by, and Saturday came.
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There were two phone calls on Saturday morning (some 9 something am), one on my handphone and the other on my house phone, which I missed while I was in the washroom. Okay, so that was my fault to be in the washroom at the time.
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Since my handphone saved their number, I called the number.
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Only to find out it was a fax machine.
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ZOMG A FREAKING FAX MACHINE!! AND THEY DON’T EVEN BOTHER CALLING BACK!!1!!1!!1
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But since my internet came back some hours after that… well, moving on.

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Part 3: And Here Comes the Problematic Period
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My internet dying situation repeated every few days. Usually it came back after I called the ISP’s helpdesk to reset the port.
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Then came last week, when my internet died for a few days and refused to do anything.
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By now, I’d call the helpdesk so many times that I could memorise many of what they tell customers to do, which includes:
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• Turning off modem and router for a few minutes and turning it back on. Several times.
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• Bypassing the splitter (the thing that allows me to go online with the phone line and still lets me use the phone).
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• Establishing direct connection between modem and computer via cable.
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• Using manual connection instead of auto-connection.
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• Resetting the port (done on operator side).
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• And many more.
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So I did all of these (except what only the operators can do), and spammed the operators with calls. Days of diagnostics and no solution.
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The good news? None of them knows what’s wrong.

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Part 4: Polite or Rude Operators? Devious or Stupid Operators?
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I think I’m getting the hang of the helpdesk operators’ culture. When they do something, it always involves:
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1. Passing the baton to another operator, which always involves something like “I’m going to do so-and-so on our end, so please turn off your modem for a few minutes”, which doesn’t work, and making me call back to get another operator.
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2. Making up a story so that I’d hang up, wait and / or do something and call back if the method doesn’t work.
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An example?
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One helpdesk guy said it could be my browser. Right. The culprit, my browser, when all the computers in my house are unable to go online at the same time? Isn’t that too much of a coincidence? The operator even had the cheek to tell me to bring my computer to a local computer store to check the browser!!
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Yeesh.
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Okay, fine. My boyfriend (shameless advertisement: he’s a great guy! xP) and I decided to spend a bright, sunny afternoon doing everything we possibly could to see what went wrong on our side. Darn. Otherwise it would’ve been a nice day to rest after a (buffet) lunch, which was to celebrate my brother’s birthday.
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We poked the router. Reseted the router, reconfigured the router. No good, internet isn’t working.
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We poked the modem. We can access its configurations using a browser, so it’s working, right?
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Nope, can’t connect yet. It just said, “Remote computer not responding”.
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Oh, hey, it could be our internet password being wrong!
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Since we don’t know the internet password (my father’s the only one who knows it, and he forgot too), we called the helpdesk to get our password reseted.
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The fella said “It’ll be effective in half an hour.”
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We were like, whee! Let’s rest for half an hour!
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Then we tested the internet. Still failed. “Remote computer not responding.”
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Over an hour later, no progress. Okay, so let’s call the helpdesk again.
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And guess what the guy said?
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“Your internet password hasn’t been reseted.”
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ZOMGWTFBBQ!! The first fella lied to us?!
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“I’ll reset your password for you. It’ll be effective in 15 minutes.”
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Okay, so more waiting time.
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After 15 minutes, it still says the same message.
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One hour later, same message.
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ZOMGWTFBBQ ROUND 2!! THE SECOND GUY LIED TO US?!!
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Fine. We went to eat dinner (mind you, we started working in the afternoon), and came back.
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No good.
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So we called the next operator, who was certainly epic.

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Part 5: The Most Epic Helpdesk Operator Ever
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To show how much of an epic pro he was, the conversation lasted for half an hour. Usually a call with an operator lasted for 5 to 10 minutes.
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Knowledge we had before calling the guy: the modem is dead. Lights are on, but it won’t let us connect to the internet.
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And so, I called the helpdesk.
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It began like a usual call; I gave him my internet login ID, he confirms my phone number. Blah blah.
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But when I explained my predicament and what we’ve done on our end, guess what he says!
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“I’ll need you to turn off your modem, wait a few minutes, and turn it on.”
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Hello? Haven’t you been listening to my explanation?
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“I said I’ve already done it.”
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“But miss, you’ll need to do it, or we won’t know for sure.”
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“Didn’t you hear me? I’ve done that like 647283462873 times since a few days ago!”
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“I already said it, you have to turn off your modem for a few minutes and turn it back on!”
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“I said, I’ve already done that. In fact, don’t refer to your list and tell me what to do, I’ve already memorised them! We’ve already done (insert uber long list here) and concluded that the modem is not working!”
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“I tell you, miss, we know what we’re doing. (Insert long explanation here) But ultimately, we are the ones that make the decision on whether the modem is working or not.”
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Man! I know he’s an operator in a ISP company, so he must have some knowledge on IT, but wow, what a bigshot! Whatever happens to “customer is always right” in this competitive world? Especially when we have logical explanations to back our statements?
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Pro, man. Real pro.
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And so, the conversation continues.
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“Okay, miss, have you disabled auto-connection before you started using manual connection?”
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“What?”
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“Did you disable the auto-connection before you started manual connection?”
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ZOMGWTFBBQ!! YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO THAT, YOU NOOB!!
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Outbursts aside, we have logical explanations as well. When we disconnect from the internet manually, of course the auto-connection gets disabled. To connect, either enable it via Network Connections (auto-connection), or double-click that funky little icon named “Streamyx” on the desktop (manual connection).
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But…
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ZOMGWTFBBQ!! THAT MEANS I’VE DONE THAT ALREADY, YOU NOOB!!
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“Yes,” was my answer. “Of course it’s disabled.”
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“Who did?”
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“I did.”
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“How did you do it?”
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“Via Network Connections, of course.”
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“Well, if you don’t disable the auto-connection, the manual connection doesn’t work.”
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Makes you feel like murdering him on the spot, huh?
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“I already said I done it. Connecting now just gives me the ‘remote computer not responding’ error message.”
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“Ah, but you did ask for a password change earlier today, didn’t you?”
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“Yeah, twice. Your friends lied to me.”
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“Well, it takes 24 hours for the change to be reflected in our database. That’s why you’ve been getting that error message.”
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Oh man. ‘Remote computer not responding’ means it’s supper laggy or not working.
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But whatever. I’d rather talk to another operator, not this noob. So I decided to let it go.
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(Important note: The conversation didn’t exactly go like that. It was more complicated and lengthy, plus I don’t remember the exact words.)

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Part 6: My Mother: A Pro Negotiator!
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In my house, I’m not the only one who uses the internet everyday. Even my mother, who’s not so tech savvy compared to some of us, writes a blog. So, she’s been as frustrated as us on that day.
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And, she decides to take over the phone call!
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Guess what she said the first time?
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“Hello, I want to speak to your supervisor. I am very dissatisfied with your operator.”
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Scary. xP
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“My daughter has been calling in and doing all sorts of things to test the modem and router, and she’s confirmed the modem isn’t working. The last time, the technician called too early in the morning and when we tried to call back, it was a fax machine. So the fastest way to get a technician to come and replace the modem would be to talk to your supervisor, right?”
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An operator’s nightmare~
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“So like this. If I tell you exactly what to put in the report, that will make both your life and my life easier, won’t it? Ah, I’m glad you understand. You’re better than that other operator earlier. Why don’t you just write ‘Modem is dead. Must replace’ in the report?”
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Whoa. Not only she managed to get the operator to listen to her, but she’s also able to tell them exactly what to write in the report?!
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“Right. And make sure the technician calls tomorrow, all right? If not, I’ll call tomorrow. Thank you.”
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I’m in awe. Wonder if I’m able to do that in some years? o_o
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(Important note: The conversation didn’t exactly go like that. It was more complicated and lengthy, plus I don’t remember the exact words.)

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Part 7: A Surprising Revelation and a Happy Ending…
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The technician called on Monday morning (two days after the phone call), around 9am, and said he’d come. He did, and he turned up at around 9.40am.
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The good thing is, he’s a nice guy. We even had a pleasant conversation with him.
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He tested the modem, confirmed that it’s faulty, but said it still works. But nonetheless, he replaced the modem, saying it was “just about time”. After all, we’ve been using the modem for three years!
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After that, he revealed something that we didn’t expect.
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Helpdesk operators have no authority to change internet passwords. They’re just that; helpdesk operators. Of course our password wouldn’t be changed.
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ZOMGLOLBBQ?! STUPID OPERATORS!!
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Oh well.
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The technician then helped us to re-establish and confirm the internet works (with a bit of my help since he isn’t too familiar with my router).
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And, he gave us the phone number to the branch centre he works in, so in future internet downtime, I won’t have to go through the frustrating helpdesk anymore!
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Hurrah! It’s all over!!
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And so, that was the start of my first super long holiday in years.
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The end. o_o

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~Signed, Estrelita Farr, fired up with holiday mood!

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Incredible Cake Art! And they’re edible!

You know how among friends, forwarded mails circulate almost as well as rumours in a crowd do, right? Well, the first time I saw these was when a friend forwarded it to me!
What’s this all about, you ask?
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Well, I’m the sort of person who can’t really cook, and I’ve baked less than ten times all my life (though with no problems so far). All the stuff that I baked are not so nice looking (what’d you expect from homemade stuff, especially coming from someone who hardly bake? O_o), though at least they taste good, I’d think.
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And then, came along this forwarded email, with cake art so incredible that you can’t believe it’s cake!!
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I searched online for a possible source of this forwarded email, and I found a site where all the pictures are from! It’s a Russian cake art site, and I tell you, they’re really incredible!
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Don’t believe me? Take a look yourself. xD
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Notes:

• All the pictures are from this site, so I had no hand in making them. xP
• Click on the thumbnails to view the bigger picture!
• I won’t post all the pictures here, just some that I think are the best!

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Incredible Cake Art!

• Wedding Cakes:

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• Trades and Technologies:

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• Buildings/Travel:

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• Animals:

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• Miscellaneous:

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There are loads more, but I didn’t want to put them all here because otherwise loading would be a pain!
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But it’s amazing, isn’t it? I wonder how long does it take to make just one cake… xD

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~Estrelita Farr, signing off!

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