Kiran Jonnalagadda’s Blog

Feels good to be alive and kicking in Bangalore again.

Back in Bangalore and with oodles to do.

Still in Hyderabad. Still with lousy Internet access. Somebody please twist brainz's arm until he gives me decent Internet access. And no Hyderabad LJ meet pictures until I get decent Internet access. I'm not uploading them on dial-up when there's a machine with a cable connection right behind me (and no way to connect to it).

In Hyderabad at brainz's place. Met sidcarter Sunday evening and the Hyderabad LJ junta Tuesday. Pictures coming as soon as I have decent Internet access. Back in bangalore this Sunday.

Hyderabad weather has certainly been treating me better than Bangalore's. I feel alive again.

bijoyv describes an event I have witnessed twice before and never walked away from with enough sense left to describe what I saw. I still can't pin down enough words now to make a comment.

Did I say I was going to write a rant on Apple customer service and on the experience of flying Baltimore to Bangalore? Maybe I still will, if someone prods me hard enough.

Yahoo! Messenger for MacOSX sucks big time. Yahoo! should be ashamed just putting it up for download. Even mmk's official Unix client is much better. If I wasn't trying so hard to not use X11, I would be using gaim right now.

This post comes to you via the Web client in Chimera on MacOSX from Bangalore.

The customs guy was the nicest person I've talked to at an airport anywhere in India. The next time someone tells you a customs horror story, don't assume that to be the general state of things.

This trip (Baltimore - Chicago - Frankfurt - Bangalore) has been an excellent educational experience too. More on that after I've gotten some sleep.

This post comes to you via the Web client on German Windows 2000, from the Frankfurt airport.

They didn't have a network cable that I could plug into the PowerBook and I don't know if they offer Wi-Fi. I couldn't order an AirPort card with the PowerBook because that would have exceeded the per-transaction limit on the card, and thanks to the resulting haggling with Apple Customer Service, I forgot to order it separately.

3 more hours for flight LH 754 to Bangalore.

This post comes to you via xjournal on MacOSX.

When emptying my pockets of loose change last evening, I noticed a dime with the number 5 on it.

And that was curious. I had never seen a 5-cent dime before. A dime is usually 10 cents.

I looked at this one again carefully and the tiny lettering around the circumference read "FIVE PENCE". On the reverse side was an engraving of Elizabeth II. Five British pennies? What was it doing in my pocket? The coin is the same size and shape as an American dime. It's only a wee bit thicker. Did someone accidentally/intentionally pass this off as a dime and put it into circulation?

At current exchange rates (courtesy xe.com), 5 British pennies equal 8.2 US cents (or 8 rounded off). What a scheme! Get a load of 5-pence coins from England and pass them off as dimes in the US and get everything for lesser!

Insomnia tops the list of things I detest right now.