New Year's Eve a little early in my house

This morning my dad went out to visit the printer who looks after his magazine and was supposed to go out for lunch with him like they often do around the holidays. The printer had a couple other buddies over and I guess they were just chilling out and having a good time so the 4 of them got into the drink. It was quite amusing cause when my dad got home, he was clearly a little loopy. He seemed to be coherent of everything but was just acting very funny. He dropped his glasses a couple of times. While I was driving with him, he thought his seatbelt wasn't on even though it was. He was giggling and laughing a lot. He is now taking a nap (has been sleeping for a few hours). We've got some company coming over tonight for new years and he has to be in "entertaining" mode... I must say - that was a funny afternoon and something that was totally unexpected.

On an unrelated note - congrats must go out to Nitin and Manju who had a baby girl named Ellora on Boxing Day. I can't wait to head out to Calgary to meet her.

Happy New Years everyone. Stay safe and have fun!

Urban Legends Online

I was talking with my friend Cris a while ago and just remembered that she mentioned this site. I just went to look for it today and found it. It's quite an interesting read so the next time you get an e-mail forward about "Little Sick Johnny", "Attacks in Mall Parking Lots" or "Hotel Room Keys with all your credit card info", go and check out the Urban Legend Library

Have a good one...

A Couple Days full of Memories

Boxing Day evening was a good time. A family friend of ours - Leena - got married in the summer. Her wedding reception was at Bombay Palace on Friday night and most of the Toronto Marathi posse (those that are in town) were in attendence. It was a lot of fun to see all of my old friends...a lot of whom I hadn't seen in a long time. There were so many kids there that I used to play with when I was younger and some that I used to babysit. They are all 19, 20 or 21 now and in first or second year university. Very funny to see them after so long. A couple of them said they recognized me right away (as if I haven't changed). I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing cause I used to be a scrawny little indian boy who always turned black in the summer. Come to think of it...methinks it's a bad that that I allegedly haven't changed. I hung out a lot with G and we had some good conversations so that was great. The food was pretty good too - often at these Indian banquets, the food is crappy and oily but it actually wasn't so bad.

After the reception, I visited Kris' for his birthday. Just chilled there for a little while...cause it was late. More about Kris' birthday in a second.

On Saturday morning, my dad and I went to MDG Computers to buy a new computer for the family. We got a P4 with a boatload of RAM, some other cool stuff and a 17" LCD. All of that for $2000. Damn, prices have really come down. 5 years ago we bought basically half that system for $2800. We pick up the new computer tomorrow and I'll have to learn how to do homenetworking in order to set up our network properly. I'm sure I'm going to fail miserably...

I then went to Mondo Shoe Outlet and they had a sale on all old Aldo, Pegabo, Transit, etc. shoes. The shoes were all cheaper (probably last season's stock, etc). They had this one promtion where you could buy 1 shoe and get the second pair for $0.01. I got two pairs of shoes and I'm quite happy with my purchases.

Saturday was a wonderful day. I saw so many people (new and old) and everyone was in the holiday spirit so it was fantastic. In the afternoon, I met up with K, Ing, Chooey and A-Diddy for lunch at Swiss Chalet. They have this annual girls meeting where they go shopping, etc and this year some boys were invited. Turns out that I was the only one who came so I got to chill with all the ladies for the afternoon (which was absolutely no problem). It was great to see all you guys. K and Ing, I can't believe the last time was graduation... We all had some great conversations and enjoyed the company of Sherlock.

I then went over to NS' house and we chilled out before going for a run on the boardwalk at the beaches. It was really nice to go for a run since I've been SO lazy for the past 2 weeks (that was actually my first ounce of physical activity in a LONG time). Running along the boardwalk is really nice...it definitely beats my Warden, Steeles, Birchmount, Finch run here in Scarborough. Once we got ready, we went to Dave's dinner at Golden Thai. The food was yummy and it was great as always to see the UW posse and share old stories and memories. We got a lot of chuckles as Etch, Tai and I recounted our Camping Trip from November. Cantos stories were wonderful as well. Dave - congrats on the new job buddy...it sounds like it's gonna be intense.

After Thai food, I went to Kris' birthday party in Sauga at the Snug Harboour Restaurant. It's located right on the water in Mississauga (Hwy 10 and Lakeshore). Really nice location. But really, what do I want to talk about? None other than Mr. Khan - he was on fire last night and I must say the line of the night was:

"Hey baby...don't judge a book by the cover, read the pages inside first (as he starts peeling off his shirt). Kris - you were pure jokes last night and all that placebo alcohol we were feeding you at the end of the night was definitely working. Hope you had a good time buddy...I certainly did.

Etch - nice wristband by the way.

Boxing Day 2003

It's 9:50 am and I am at home after visiting some stores this morning. I was out of the house by 7:45 today and on my way to Future Shop for my first stop. I got to the store at Warden and McCowan and it was literally a scene out of some crazy mob movie. There were people everywhere. Sales Associates in their powder blue shirts were running around like Gladiators. I was on a mission to find my digital camera. The Canon SD100. There was no way in hell that I was gonna get it cause the store opened at 6:00 or 7:00 am today and I was just WAY TOO LATE. My smarts then took over and I thought...let me go to Henry's at Kennedy Commons cause they don't open till 9:00 am. I got there. Was first in line (waited in my car till they opened). Once the door opened, I made my purchase. Got the SD100 and the S230 (last year's model). Only difference I can see is in the memory (SD vs. CF) so now I am going to try and find out which to keep. If you have any suggestions, let me know.

I have to go to Scarborough Town Centre now with my mom for some more shopping but I want to chronicle this all later. I'm sure it'll be an adventure.

World - meet Telula
Telula - meet the world.

You might be asking who Telula is and let me tell ya. She is my new snowboard. Sleek and black...carving like nobody's business. She treated me very well this weekend when I was up at Blue Mountain with Etch and all of our high school buddies. It was a fantastic weekend with 16 people staying in a chalet. We had about 15 cm of FRESH powder on Saturday morning which made the whole experience even better.

Had a stealing secret santa and the irony of it all was undeniably hilarious. Then we had the fear factor challenge and YES - I was a bit wimp but dog food, raw pickled pork, sushi with only wasabi, egg nog/feta combo juice and oozing, nasty smelling, gravity defying shrimp guts sauce just weren't gonna do it for me.

Can't wait to get out on the mountain again...

Sunday night - went to K&R's place for a holiday party - Marathi posse style. We had yummy mussels and salmon. The food was GREAT. the company was fantastic and again we had had a secret santa (that's my 4th of the season).

Yesterday, I babysat (not really a baby though so more like kidsat) my niece. It was great to play with her all day (while I was doing work everytime my cell phone rang. We watched Finding Nemo - a great movie. I definitely wanna see it again and catch all the funny "big kid" jokes...cause there are a few.

Karen - Welcome home buddy. It must be weird to be in Toronto after a whole year has passed by. It'll be good to see ya this weekend. Talk to you soon...

Luen - methinks that camels will be hard to find in India buddy...possibly in some parts of the dessert but you might have better luck asking for a stray dog or something. Nice new site by the way.

It's wet out there today. Stay dry and have fun everyone.

Guess what I did on Tuesday night? I went to the office around 12:30 that afternoon, parked the car, got my stuff and started walking to the office. As I was walking, I touched the button on my keychain and locked the doors (heard the horn sound). Went to the office, went to the caf and got a fork for my lunch, then went to my desk and set up shop. Was working there till about 5:30 and was getting ready to pack up and go to the Drake and Firkin for dinner and drinks with office peeps. I packed up everything, put on my coat and started walking to the door. I reached in my jacket pocket for my phone and keys. Found my phone. Didn't find my keys. Damn, that was annoying. So I retraced all my steps...checked everywhere (including the garbage) in my cube area, the caf, outside in the parking lot too. But, I couldn't find them anywhere. I checked with security - no one had turned them in.

So I called my Ford Dealership but they couldn't give me my key code since I didn't have the serial number of the vehicle. I was going to have to call the 1-800 Ford Service number. They would call the dealership and give them my serial number so they could cut and reprogram me new keys. That would have cost me $80 and then I would have also had to pay the towing charge to get the car to the dealership (another $50 or so). Luckily, one of my buddies at work had a great idea. I drove her car home and got my spare keys, went back to the office and gave her back her car. So the only problem was that I had to drive to/from Scarborough/Mississauga one extra time on Tuesday (but I did take the 407 so it was a little quicker). And now, I've gotta go to my dealership and get an extra key cut for my car.

So a mental note for you all...keep the serial number and a copy of your vehicle ownership with you at all times (in your wallet or something) in case you need to call your dealership and need some vital information. Speaking of which - I still need to put a copy of that stuff in my wallet...

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen. What a beautiful and glorious Tuesday morning. I just got off the phone with Bell Canada. I had sent the following letter about 10 days ago... Why don't you peruse it?

_____________

President and CEO
Bell Canada Enterprises (BCE Inc.)
1000, rue de La Gauchetière ouest, Bureau 3700
Montréal, QC H3B 4Y7

November 26, 2003

RE: Bell Canada Account Number: xxxxxx
Bell ExpressVu Account Number: xxxxxx
Bell Sympatico Account Number: xxxxxx

Dear Mr. Sabia,

My family has been a happy customer of Bell Canada’s for the past 33 years. We have also been with Bell ExpressVu for 2 years and Bell Sympatico for just under 1 year. During this time, we have been generally pleased. I was recently excited to see your promotions for the new Bell Bundles and was looking forward to taking advantage of the cost savings. Little did I know that on Monday November 24, 2003, I would be disappointed beyond belief with the lack of integrity and commitment to customer service demonstrated by your company.

My frustrations peaked on Monday but to tell you the entire story, we must travel back to the week of November 10, 2003. That week, my father and I decided that we would like to take advantage of the Bell Bundles promotion that you are currently offering. We called thinking that it would be easy since we are existing ExpressVu and Sympatico subscribers. While on the phone with a CSR, we were told that in order to take advantage of the Bundle, we would have to have all the billing information under one name. At present, the phone service is under my father’s name while ExpressVu and Sympatico are under my name. We wanted everything to be billed to my credit card and we wanted to maintain my father’s name on the directory. The CSR instructed us that we would have to visit a Bell World store to get this taken care of. We got busy and couldn’t go right away but figured that when we had 30 minutes, we would go together to the nearest Bell World store.

On Monday morning, my father and I made our way (in the rain) to the Bell World Store in Bridlewood Mall. After explaining our situation to the Sales Associate, we were told that they could not make the change in-store and we would have to call the call centre (contradicting the information from 2 weeks ago). She connected us on the customer phone in the store. We explained the situation to another CSR (Patricia) and she indicated that she was not the correct person to speak with and we needed to speak with someone in the “One Bill” Department. She put us through to another CSR who promptly put us on hold for 9 minutes, until we were finally connected. She explained all of our options, took my credit card number 3 times and started to explain our future billing process. As she did this, she disconnected the line and we were stuck with dead air. We waited in the store hoping they would call us back (since we said we were at the Bell World Bridlewood Mall store). No one called back. I spoke with the in-store Sales Associate and she connected me to another number (the Bundles hotline this time). I spoke with a woman named Ruby who was not very pleasant and glossed over my problems and frustrations. She had no regard for the time I had already spent and the frustration level I was already at. Needless to say, I was becoming more agitated because she was asking me all the same questions I had just been through with the previous CSR. I was put on hold again and then told that I was going to be transferred to the Billing Department to get my credit card information (which was already completed). I was on hold for 11 minutes and could not wait any longer since I had to get back to work so I hung up the phone.

After we got home, my father decided to call 310-BELL to see if anyone could help him out. Once he got through with a CSR (Erin), she went through the same process that we had already been through twice this morning. After all that, she told him that Bell wouldn’t be able to separate the billing name and the directory name (contradicting the information we were told in the morning). My father told her what we were told in the morning but she said her supervisor would say the same thing as she and they couldn’t help us at this time. She asked for our name and number and said that a representative would call us back within 48 hours.

On Monday evening, we decided to call one more time. Our patience wasn’t very high and by this point we were quite irritable. We spoke with a CSR named Amanda (ID# F439) who was very helpful and took the time to listen to our problem and work through a solution with us. She identified exactly what we needed to speak about and saw that the CSR that we dealt with in the morning (who accidentally hung up on us) actually did what she was supposed to and had started the process of setting us up on a “One-Bill” account. Amanda did everything she needed to and then told us that we would have to be transferred to the Billing department to take care of the “One-Bill” setup. At that time, I spoke with another CSR (Crystanne) and she helped me set up the pre-authorization of my credit card for my “One-Bill” account. I asked her about finalizing the “One-Bill account” and she said she couldn’t do that. She transferred me back to Sales and Service where I spoke with another CSR (Linda) who told me that my “One-Bill” account was already set up. That is just another example of Bell’s systems and people not communicating and sharing the same information.

I was looking on the Canadian Business Review (http://www.cbr.ca) and found this information about one of your corporate initiatives:

Customers first
BCE is refocusing and simplifying its business, placing the customer at the centre of all its operations. To do this, the company is strengthening its culture of productivity; simplifying operations, particularly in how services are accessed by customers; and leveraging its own skills and those of its partners, to deliver the world’s most advanced, value-added services to Canadians. This new commitment was formalized in May 2003.

It is now November, 2003 and the long winded story that I just shared with you identifies that your “Customers first” strategy which has been implemented for 6 months is not working. The operations and processes that I have dealt with are not simple. Your services cannot be accessed easily by the consumer. I also don’t think you are delivering the most advanced service to Canadians today because it took 3 hours and approximately 8 different people to “help me”.

I realize that we may simply be one customer but I believe that the strength of a company depends on its relationships with all their customers, regardless of who they are. I trust you feel the same way as well. At this time, I am convinced I have made the wrong decision to choose the Bell Bundles because of the level of service and commitment I have received thus far. I am an Account Executive for a major corporation and know that if I treated my customers this way, I wouldn’t be able to keep them much longer. I don’t think that I was helped very much today. In fact, spending close to 3 hours on the phone and at your Bell World store is not my idea of a very productive day. All this for something that should have taken no more than 30 minutes.

Mr. Sabia, you can imagine how angry and frustrated I am with your company for me to take a further hour out of my day to document this situation and bring it to your attention. At the very least I expect an apology and some sort of compensation for my family's frustration. However as a successful business professional I am more interested in an explanation as to why it is so complicated to get anything done with the Customer Service Representatives in your company. I expect to hear from you shortly, and in particular with an explanation why myself and my family should continue being customers of Bell Canada, especially with the current competitive telecommunications landscape as it is today.

Yours truly,


Mr. AG

cc: David, Vice President, Consumer Marketing, Bell Canada
cc: Charles, Chairman, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission

__________________

The Senior Executive Consultant to the Vice President (not sure what that is) called me this morning and we had a nice conversation. He explained their side, answered all of my questions and at the end - I was offered the next 2 months of my billing free. So, in the end - I spoke up, they heard and presumably made changes and also took the time to answer me. He was a nice guy and had some excellent points. I like the way he handled my questions and concerns. Definitely had a very professional demeanor and style.

Thanks for the inspiration Kevin...
:o)

Weekend came and went. It's now Monday night - the 15th of December and in about 6 days, I'll have my first of about 2 straight weeks of holidays. I can't wait for that. It's gonna be great and I am totally gonna chill out. Lots has happened over the past while in my life as well as in the lives of the peeps all over the rest of the world. Let's start with some world news...

Canada has a new PM. And his initials are the same. The name is Paul Martin. From what I've read and heard so far - he will be a good man for the job. Has some excellent ideas and defintely knows a thing or two about finance so that should help out the whole budget thing. I think from a country standpoint, Chretien was just getting to the point where he didn't really seem to care anymore. He was making decisions and doing things "just for the sake of doing them" I think. It's a welcome refresher to have Martin. Let's see how things go.

"We Got Him" is the headline on every major newspaper today referring to the Sadam Hussein story. The thing I am hearing consistently on radio call-in shows and reading in the paper is how shocked people are that he didn't put up a fight when he was found. He was just lying in that hole with a small pistol...essentially waiting to be found. Seems a little strange to me. Then again - people are saying that he was just a bully and when it comes down to it, most bullies are chicken and only pick on people smaller than them. Eventually - the psche of a bully is all about themselves. It's interesting cause there are all these people who follow his words and will kill themselves for the cause that he preaches. They are so determined to help his movement against Western culture, etc. At the same time (yesterday), this strong, defiant man was found hiding in some hole and didn't put up any kind of fight when he was caught. I was quite astonished to see that so many people were so ecstatic that he was caught. Especially in Iraq and surrounding countries - people were so joyous, they were shooting rifles in the air and celebrating. At the same time - the media only shows us what they want us to see so you can't totally believe that. Overall, it's good they caught him - perhaps they can get him to talk and tell them more evil stuff. At the same time, this kind of validates President Bush's "War on Terrorism" in the first place so I don't like that. I'm sure he's sleeping a lot better these days...

Christmas is around the corner and with that comes shopping and gifts. I've never been a huge Christmas gift guy so I don't need to get too many this year although I am taking part in 4 Secret Santas (2 have already happened and the other 2 are this weekend). They've all been different too - we've had the ones that are straight up - I have "Jacque Strap" and he has "Poca-Hotass and" it continues like that. Or there is the stealing version where you can trade your gift with someone who has already picked. Speaking of shopping - I was at Scarborough Town Centre on Saturday and damn - that was madness. I was there for close to 5 hours and that was about 4.5 hours too long. I got a couple decent deals but I am still looking for a new winter coat as well as some black dress shoes.

I'm playing basketball in less than an hour so I've gotta leave soon. It's the last game of the year and we're gonna start up again in January on the 5th. Hopefully I go out with a decent game tonight and I drain some jumpers. It all starts with strong D though so as long as I do that...it'll be fine. The Raptors are looking a little vulnerable in the front court sizewise. They'll be eaten alive by any of the big Western Conference teams so let's see what they do to strengthen the roster. Rebounding and defence down low are killin them They have the offence (there is no question about that ) but to be a great team - you need to pull some stops on the defensive floor to minimize the amount of points the other guys are scoring. They're playing Mr. Nash tonight. He can light it up for 65 points but the Raptors have to win 66-65.

Did you guys hear about this story from Tuesday night? It's absolutely hilarious and totally cool. Since that game, this UBC kid has been battling media attention left right and center. He even had an exam the next morning that he had been studying for all day long. He was signed to a 1 day Amateur contract by the Canucks in order to make it work with all the injuries. He wasn't paid at all but I think the Canucks should have given him something - even a thousand bucks would be cool. The League minimum is like $100,000/year or something. Divide that by 82 games and you pay him about $1000 for his fun. Or you give him tickets and stuff for the future. I'm sure he got all the autographs he needed. The best part was that Johan Hedburg (the starting goalie for Vancouver) was in a collision with 63 seconds left in the first period. The crowd started chanting "Le-Vesque", "Le-Vesque" hoping that he would come in for the end of the first period. How cool would that have been? Hedburg should have said - "Coach, I just need to rest up for the end of this period and the intermission - I'll start the second". It would have been a magical story...

Company Christmas party tonight. Should be fun. There are some amazing door prizes...hope I get one of them. A Trip, TV, Digi Cam, etc

Went for Sushi and chilling with Kris last night. It was good to catch up.

WEEKEND IS HERE!!! YEAH!!!

Did you guys hear about the building collapse in Toronto yesterday? The old Uptown Theatre was being demolished and there were some problems and one of the walls went crashing/crumbling down and actually fell on an ESL school. 1 student died which was very unfortunate and several other people were injured. The student who died was from Costa Rica and was heading home next week for Christmas and then this happend. My how quickly time can change...

who said that white men can't jump? check out this guy. pretty sweet, eh? although none of it is that original. it's still pretty fierce...

One down. One to go.

I got my snowboard this weekend. Bought a Lamar Mission board with Lamar bindings. Also got a padded bag, installation of bindings and a crappy coupon booklet of lift tickets. All of that came to approx $350 so I think I did pretty well.

Now, it's the Digital Camera. It's between the Canon SD100 and Canon S400. If you have an suggestions - please let me know as I am having a tough time making my decision.

Weekend was good overall. Battled some traffic in the shopping malls. Still have the little Christmas Shopping that I have to do. Went for some YUMMY Thai food on Friday night to a place called Thai House on the Beaches. Went to Bombay Bhel for YUMMY Indian food yesterday night. We went to the Yonge/Eglinton location for the first time yesterday and it was just as good as the Richmond Hill location. Saw my niece Ankita tonight - she is so awesome. We played and coloured and hung out. I can't wait to see her again. It sucks that her and her mom will be moving to New Jersey this summer once she finished grade 1.

Time for bed now. I have to get some rest. Got some big stuff on the go with work for this week...

Two games with this new lineup and two fun-filled wins. This Raptors team is definitely more fun to watch and puts a lot more points on the board. Defence and rebounding is still a concern but it'll come along. Should be an interesting ride and cause the Eastern conference is so crap...they could actually finish quite high in the division. The Leafs are kicking butt right now too. They've won 6 in a row and are 1 point behind 1st overall in the league. Can you believe that?

My buddy T sent me this funny link today...check out the new architecture in London.

Tonight I made dinner for ma and pa. I pan seared Salmon and I also pan seared Tuna. The salmon was marinated in dill, lemon juice, salt and pepper. The tuna was marinated in orange, basil and garlic. I breaded the tuna as well and it tasted quite good although it was losing it's crunchiness by the time I ate it. I also made a mushroom and pepper risotto and grilled veggies. I learned some important lessons tonight with respect to the cooking process. Mistakes I won't make next time - that is for sure. I recently found this recipe for a Malaysian Chicken Curry. Maybe I'll try that this weekend.

Time to fly...

i am testing a new blogger tool from the google toolbar. it's call blogthis. kinda neat.

i still have to make my webpage better though. i don't have any links, pictures or anything.

Today was the first real snow fall of the year and once again (without fail it seems), the bad drivers were out in full force. It's funny how people just forget how to drive in the winter and automatically go slower once the white stuff appears for the first time. My normal 40 minute drive took about 65 today but I thought it was going to take close to 90 so I wasn't that upset. What did piss me off though was those idiots who are so important that they feel they have to drive on the shoulder to overtake stop and go traffic. I was on the 427 Southbound when I noticed some cars doing this. I was annoyed so I decided to move over so I was blocking the shoulder and thus, no one could pass me. It was great cause I did it just as this fool in a small white Toyota was trying to get past me. I could see him getting upset behind the wheel and cursing but really, what's he gonna say to me? Absolutely nothing cause he knows he's wrong and I called him out on it. It felt good to do that...put that guy in his place (for about 10 minutes anyway)

Raptors game and Leafs game were crazy tonight. The new Raptors played well and it's nice to see less double teams on Vince. With the new scoring presence of Marshall and Rose now...Vince and Alvin will have higher FG% and more good looks at the bucket. Tonight after work I came home and had dinner. Then, I went to the basement and watched the games all night long. I haven't done nothing and watched sports/tv on a weeknight in months. If felt good to just do nothing tonight. And now, I'm yawning like a mofo so it's time to hit the sack.

Chooey...great site - I have to link to it too cause it's funny: Teen Lingo Site.