I have had a long relationship with alcohol, full of ups and downs. When I was young, the “ups” far outweighed the “downs”. Nearing 40, that is unfortunately not true anymore. It fucks up my sleep pretty badly and the after effects get worse every year. Notably, 2 very bad recent experiences recently led me to take steps.
Many times, I have tried to drink in moderation, which is all well and good before one starts, but after a few, everything goes out the window. After wondering why I do something that causes so much grief, I decided to give up on alcohol altogether.
What Next?
The most difficult part was, I had been conditioned to hold a bottle or can while doing certain things – watching TV, sitting on my balcony. And it felt weird to do these things empty handed. So I decided to swap alcohol with non-alcoholic drinks.
Drinks, but without alcohol
So now I have stocked my refrigerator with non-alcoholic drinks. Eventually, I would wean off these, too, as they have lots of sugar. One particular drink I really like is Bundaberg Root beer. Everyone around me seems to hate them, but I can’t get over how tasty they are.
I had assumed that the hardest part would be social events, but it is much easier to tell people you don’t drink (No one tries to coerce you) than to say you want to stop drinking after a few (Come on, just one more). For pure booze events, I decline them altogether now.
As of today, 1 month sober and counting, I notice these changes in my life:
I am spending less time in bed on weekends, but still waking up more refreshed and have more energy throughout the day.
I am not waking up to pee in the middle of the night anymore.
I have more energy while running. Especially, my weekend runs now feel much easier.
I think at this point in my life, I can safely call myself well travelled. Although I have never been to the quintessential western cities (Like New York, London or Paris), I have been to some pretty off-beat places.
I have a job where it is quite easy to shift my base to different places. I had a few offers to move again recently, and I was conflicted about it. So recently I started making a list of ratings for various cities I have been to, based on different parameters. These parameters are only based on things that are important to me.
Below are the cities, I have been to, rated on various parameters between 1 to 10.
Some things to remember
I am only including major or metropolitan cities
These ratings are purely based on my preferences and observations. Does not take into account other metrics I don’ deem important to me
I do not take into account finances like income or cost of living. I assume proportional income everywhere
This is probably the first thing one notices about a city, when you enter the airport and then when you leave it.
No doubt, Melbourne is the best city in this regard I have been to. Everything is clean and perfect. The roads, buildings etc. are all as should be in a utopian society.
Although I didn’t spend too much time in Helsinki, I found its infrastructure to be top-notch, too. The heated pavements were something I had never seen or imagined.
Budapest/Vienna/Prague all rank pretty high in this regard, too and São Paulo feels just like a quintessential European city.
San Francisco is beautiful, too, but I couldn’t un-see the mounds of human feces on every street corner and the sheer amount of homeless people.
Indian cities rank lowest. Although Delhi has a pretty good metro system, that is it. Everything is filthy and unkempt. Kolkata is even worse. Bengaluru, which has a huge potential has horrible roads and no water.
Food
Food is subjective, so the ratings are purely based on my own personal preferences.
Truly, I have never had food as good as Istanbul, ever.
Bangkok comes second, because of the sheer variety of the food available here. You have cheap (but hygienic) street food vendors as well as many Michelin starred restaurants within a block of each other.
Delhi and Kolkata come next, followed by São Paulo & Bengaluru.
Weather is subjective and since I prefer warmer weather, I have rated Bangkok the highest.
Delhi and Kolkata are lowest because of the filthy air quality year round. Delhi is even lower than Kolkata because of the extreme heat during summers and unbearable (because there’s no heating anywhere) winters.
Walkability
I love walking (and street running), so walkability is important to me in a city. Perhaps it is not too surprising that these ratings mirror the ones for infrastructure as both these things are closely related.
Most cities in my list are extremely walkable, except the Indian cities, where walking on the streets is like gambling with your life. Maybe a few important ares in the cities have proper pavements, but certainly not throughout the city. To top it off, most motorcycle drivers feel free to ride on the pavements and cars try to run you down even at zebra crossings.
Historical Artifacts
Istanbul again wins hands down in this regard, being one of the oldest cities in the list and having been shaped by multiple empires.
European cities rank next, I love the thousands of years old architecture.
European colonised cities rank lowest, simply because they are not old enough to have significant historical artefacts, especially with the propensity of these colonisers to erase ethnic history.
These ratings are purely about how the locals treat foreigners and expats.
Bangkok rates pretty high, because Thais, with some exceptions are very friendly and welcoming people. Although, if your appearance is very different from what they’re used to seeing, expect stares. Brazilians in São Paulo are also very friendly and welcoming. Because of their multi-cultural make up, there’s no one in the world who looks “weird” enough not to fit in there.
I found most Europeans if not outright racist, at least pretty cold towards outsiders.
Australians are the worst. Although I did meet a few friendly Australians, most of them are racist pricks.
Dog Friendliness
I admit, some of the cities in the list above I visited before I had a dog and didn’t really notice how dog friendly they were, so the rating for those cities is from internet research.
Most cities in developed countries and São Paulo are as dog friendly as can be. Dogs are allowed almost everywhere – in malls, restaurants, cafés, bars, public transport, hotels. There are very little restrictions on what the dogs can do and where they can go, because their parents have enough common sense. These cities also have public dog parks.
India is not at all dog friendly. While pets are tolerated in Bengaluru and Kolkata, there are very few places where pets can go, limited to designated pet-specific businesses. Taxis won’t agree to take you if you have a pet. The public transport is not even human friendly, so I won’t even talk about dogs.
Delhi is the worst of all. People there actually hate dogs. There are severe restrictions on having dogs even in your own homes. Dogs need to take a separate lift when going out and they can’t be walked within the society grounds.
Bangkok is somewhere in the middle. Most people love dogs. Dogs are allowed in taxis and Tuktuks , but not in metros and buses. Most restaurants/cafes and malls allow dogs in the outdoor areas on leash and indoors in a pet buggy. Some malls and restaurants allow pets freely.
At one point, I was a rabid proponent of Microsoft. Deeply entrenched in the Microsoft ecosystem and recommending Microsoft products and services to my friends too. But even after switching to Apple, I am being constantly reminded of how Microsoft sucks balls, thanks to my work ecosystem.
I have realised foremost that Microsoft has no idea what users want, adding/removing/changing things randomly as they see fit. Secondly, even after possessing vast resources, they are clueless on how to solve the most basic problems.
Below is a list showcasing how Microsoft sucks balls:
Windows
Microsoft x86-64 Integration
Windows has been running on x86-64 hardware for decades. You would think that is enough time to refine things and have them working in a seamless way, but, no. This is what happens when I wake up my work laptop from sleep, while connected to an external display:
13 seconds from sleep to usable
Show signs of life : 1 second
Flicker once : 4 seconds
Flickr second time : 4 seconds
Screen sort of pulsates, zooms in and out : 4 seconds
I have some questions
Who, in Microsoft decided that waking a laptop from sleep to usable state requiring 13 seconds is acceptable in 2024? Macs take less than 1 second for the entire process.
Why does the main display need to blink and be unusable every time I connect or disconnect an extended display?
Security/Group Policies
I understand that organisations need to have tight control on what happens on their machines. But the way Microsoft does it is completely bollocks.
So, in our org, the Microsoft Store app is blocked by policy. Good enough. But then, if I go to the app’s Microsoft Store web page and click on install, the app installs just fine. What is even the point of blocking it then? Just to make things more inconvenient for users?
Our organisation policy forbids one from saving/adding usernames/passwords to Edge. But there’s no policy to prevent importing of passwords via a csv file. So that’s what I do. Again, why block something half-heartedly just to make things more difficult for the user?
Bluetooth
Most platforms (Including Windows) can display the battery level of Bluetooth devices based on a standard. Other devices can also show you if the device is charging, which sadly Windows cannot do. What Windows does is, it gets confused and shows the battery level flapping like crazy.
Bluetooth battery level doing the St Vitus’ Dance
It’s 2024 and Microsoft still doesn’t allow you to reverse your mouse scroll direction easily. You need to dive into device manager to see the mouse’s HID and then mess around with the registry to toggle a value, reboot the OS to reverse the scroll. The alternative is to use an app the OEM provides and do it from there, but that is buggy too, as every time the computer wakes up from sleep, the scroll goes back to the default for a few seconds before reverting back.
Windows Hello
Ok, this one is more on OEMs than Microsoft, but why does Microsoft certify shoddy level sensors as Windows Hello certified? Approx half the time I try unlocking my laptop using my face, it fails. Even though I have “trained” Windows Hello multiple times under different lighting conditions. 10-20% times, even fingerprint recognition fails.
Even worse, some times, Windows Hello authentication succeeds, but windows still shows an error message “unable to recognise you” while at the same time logging me in. Make up your mind, asshole.
Wireless LAN
Many times, when my Laptop wakes up or boots up, it just doesn’t connect to my home WLAN even though the network is remembered and “Connect Automatically” is selected. Happened on my old Dell work Laptop and even on a newer HP work laptop, so can’t really blame the OEM for a consistent bug across different hardware.
Widgets & Shit
Microsoft introduced the new social area in Windows 11. It has a handful of supposedly helpful widgets but in reality, it is bullshit
The news articles are of such low quality and full of click bait and propaganda pieces. And there are so many of the news widgets that it is impractical to remove them all one by one.
The trafic widget is not configurable. Our company uses ZScaler, so the traffic widget always shows traffic conditions in Malaysia or Singapore.
There’s no widget for Outlook calendar if you use the “new” Outlook.
Thankfully, they do allow you to disable this feature altogether.
Microsoft Windows does indeed suck balls.
Microsoft 365
Sharepoint/OneDrive for business
Some time last year, Microsoft pushed out an update that if you share a link for some Sharepoint file/folder via email, it would automatically give read permissions for that file to everyone in your To/cc list. While, this may sound useful, it makes your Sharepoint site into a horrible/fragmented mess of user permissions, something that a user cannot easily fix/reset via the GUI.
Microsoft Teams
Sometime around June last year, I discovered a bug that if you share an HDR display in a teams call, teams crashes within a few minutes. Via my IT team, I raised a bug with MS. Almost a year later, Microsoft still has not been able to fix this bug. Even worse, the “New” Teams, which is supposedly built from the ground up, has the same bug.
If you have a wireless audio headset with a mute button, the mute button does not sync with the Teams mute button. So many times I have been speaking thinking I have unmuted myself, but I forgot to unmute myself in 2 different places. Both hardware and software mute work independently of each other. The kicker? This feature works perfectly with Microsoft Teams on iOS and macOS.
If someone updates their photo on Teams, the new photo appears on the mobile app almost immediately, but takes weeks/months to update on the desktop client, even the “new” client.
Out of Office notifications between Teams and Outlook don’t sync well. If you set OOO on Teams, it ruins the format of the actual message
Microsoft teams sucks balls.
Outlook
Outlook was such a bloated mess, I was kind of relieved when they replaced it completely with a new app which is nothing more than a web wrapper. However, months later, it still has bugs. One annoying one is, if I select an appearance theme, it only loads 1/5 times I launch outlook. All other times, it loads with a plain GUI.
Not to mention that the new Outlook doesn’t even launch without an internet connection (Which is often because of the Wireless bug above).
Office Apps
While office apps have gotten better over the years, I don’t understand why there are 3 ways to open a Word/Excel/Powerpoint file
On the web
Inside Teams
Using the desktop app
Bing Webmaster Tools
Bing Webmaster tools is the only Microsoft product I now use personally, to manage my blogs. While Bing perfectly recognises my vitriolic blog (This one), it refuses to index pages from my other, much nicer photography blog. All it says is that my domain is blocked. Customer service cannot provide a reason and they cannot talk to you more frequently than once in 6 months.
Although Microsoft Bing sucks balls, I cannot migrate to Google as a user (As a WebMaster, I find Google’s Search Console vastly superior).
I read news everyday. At least some of the news articles are about bullshit studies telling you what is good or bad for your health. Over time, I started seeing a pattern. Most of these bullshit studies contradicted each other clearly. Below are some examples I found very recently.
There was a fad a couple of years ago where all pet parents started feeding their pets grain free food. The logic was, the ancestors of these animals lived in the jungle and hunted for food, so never had access to grain.
Remember all the studies that told you that blue light in the evenings and at night is bad for you and your sleep? How every OS there is actually baked in a feature to turn your screen warm after sunset? Remember that they even sell lasses that block blue light?
This study linked from this article states all that is bullshit, it is now yellow light which is bad for you and your sleep.
I wonder what is the reason for such contradictory studies. I can think of the following cases
Both studies are in fact correct, people are different and everyone reacts to things differently.
Some of these studies are bullshit/unscientific.
The entire mechanism of studies is inherently wrong.
Recently I started reading the newspaper again, which includes comics. As I read them over the months, I realised how toxic and negative most of these comics are. Below are some examples
Andy Capp
Andy Capp is a job-less alcoholic whose main hobbies are drinking at the pub and getting into fights there. The town counsellor keeps lining up interviews for him, but he keeps sabotaging them. And all of this is played out for laughs.
Andy Capp looking for free boozeWhat a loser, Andy Capp!Toxic Andy CappToxic Andy CappAndy Capp, the real loserAndy Capp beating up Buddhists
The Born Loser
As the name says, the protagonist is sort of a loser and this is played out for laughs. His boss, his wife and even his own children insult him all the time.
Brutus being insulted at work (Again)Brutus being insulted at workGladys insulting BrutusGladys insulting Brutus (again)
Blondie
Perhaps the most toxic boss of all time is in Blondie. The boss Julius keeps insulting Bumstead, threatening to fire him, fires him a few times. But he doesn’t even stop at that. Many times, he has physically assaulted Bumstead. I am just surprised he hasn’t asked to have sex with his wife. Despite all this, the Bumstead and Blondie go to his house for barbecues. Absolutely no self respect.
Dagwood kicking
Julius insulting DagwoodDithers insulting Bumstead againBastard Julius insulting Dagwood (again)Dithers insulting Bumstead againJulius insulting Dagwood (again)Bastard Julius insulting Dagwood (Agan)Julius invading Dagwood’s privacy at home
Pickles
Opal and Earl are a retired couple who sometimes take care of their grandson. Opal stops at nothing to insult day and night. I would like to see an alternate universe version where Opal is married to Sherif Roy Tillman, instead.
I have been blogging regularly about my TV viewing and streaming services over the last few months. In short, I stopped pirating and switched over completely to streaming services. Till last month, I was subscribed to Apple TV+, Prime Video, Disney+Hotstar & Netflix. All combined, I was paying approximately ₹20000 ($250) a year on them. I was subscribed to all English TV streaming services possible in Thailand. Why, then, was I still not able to watch my favourite shows? These:
As yo can see, most of the services are US-only. Also, FX is a separate service, Hulu is a separate service and FX on Hulu is also a thing? What bullshit. Even if I was in the US, I would be paying 10x the cost of basic cable to watch all these shows. On top of this, all of these services have a separate selection depending on the country, a Prime exclusive show like Aspirants is not available on Prime Thailand. A Hotstar exclusive show like The Office (Indian version) is not available in Thailand.
Watching movies on these services is not great either. If I want to watch some specific movie, I have to open each app one by one and search for that movie till I find one which has said movie. More often that not, no service has that movie that I want to see and I have to end up renting or buying anyways.
So I say, fuck these services. If they are actively trying to keep from from buying their services, I would rather pirate. So this is what I switched to
ShowRSS : I get the RSS feeds of my shows from here
Put.io : I import these RSS feeds (One time) in this boutique cloud storage service. It also provides helpful APIs, ftp and WebDAV access to access the storage using other means.
Infuse Pro : I connect this app to my Put.Io account on all my devices to access my Library of TV shows. This is optional, you can use Put.io’s own app to do the same, but I really like the Infuse user experience. It also syncs your shows to Trakt
I moved to Bangkok 3 years ago. After living here all this time, it is time to do a report card of things I like and things I don’t like.
Things I like (love) about living in Bangkok
The weather is awesome.
In summers it never crosses above 35C and in winters it never goes below 25C. I simply love the weather.
I love the sudden & heavy nature of the rains especially that it almost never happens during commute times.
There’s ample sunshine all year round, something I really need and appreciate. UV is quite high but can be managed with sunscreen.
There are many beautiful places to visit and stay at, within a few hours drive. Hotels and AirBnBs are cheaper than in India. The nearest beach is 70 minutes drive from my place.
Bangkok (And even Thailand) is multi-cultural. People from all over the world live here, with Europeans and Japanese being most common.
Salaries are higher than India for the same level of work.
Tax rates are lower than India. It makes me feel sick to think how much I paid as taxes in India and how little we all got back.
Gadgets are cheaper not only in absolute value but also accompanied with higher purchasing power because of higher salaries.
Healthcare is cheaper than India and insurance plans cover yearly tests and OPD visits.
Fuel is cheaper than India. Consequently,
Taxis are cheaper than India and better, too
Airfare for travelling within Thailand is much cheaper than airfare for travelling within India.
Electricity is cheaper than India.
The rivers are well maintained and have great river-view dining and entertainment options. I also love the Khlongs that branch off the rivers into the cities. I love travelling the city by boats.
Much better air quality than North India.
People are very considerate & conscious of passing infectious diseases to others and self-isolate even for minor things like colds and wear masks.
Food and beverages are abundant, varied and cheap.
Thai food in Thailand is better and cheaper than Indian food in India. No one (except Indian expats) brings food from home to office. Everyone eats outside.
International food in Thailand is about the same price as in India, but the quality of food and restaurants is much better. Even the high-end restaurants here are not more expensive than mid-range restaurants in India.
Indian food is more expensive than in India, but that is to be expected.
As of 2024, there are 35 Michelin starred restaurants in Bangkok alone. Many of them in the vicinity of where we stay.
Rents are about the same as Delhi for comparable locations, but places are much better. But income is higher, so we can afford to stay at a much better location compared to what we did in India.
Better infrastructure, any day.
Thais are religiously tolerant. Keep their religious views private and don’t force it on others.
Relatively safe at night. Relatively safe for women.
More pet friendly, although not the same level as the west.
Most restaurants allow you to bring pets. Most of them also serve the dog water and are kind to them.
Most malls allow you to bring pets if they are in a pram. Some allow them on the floor on a leash even.
Most AirBnBs and many hotel chains are dog friendly.
Pet-friendly transportation exists, although at a slightly higher cost.
Most Thais are very polite and friendly.
Things I dislike about living in Bangkok
Very few microbreweries, because of laws designed to maintain the duopoly of ThaiBev and Singha.
No hill-stations that compare to Indian hill-stations.
Thais are obsessed with ice. Most drinks and even water served at restaurants are 80-90% ice unless you beg them not to.
Metros are more expensive than India. In most cases, cabs are cheaper than metros if 2 or more people are travelling, but traffic is horrible, so people prefer paying extra for the convenience.
International schooling is much more expensive than India. It is because International schools here hire only native English speaking teachers and they don’t come cheap. Even at higher rates, school infrastructure are not as expansive.
Thais, especially Thai women are extremely vain. They care too much about how they look. Although, this doesn’t affect me directly.
It is common for them to body-shame each other for putting on a single kg of weight. Plus sized shops are named Fatty-Fatgirl plus size, Fat girls and Chubbers. Consequently, cloth sizes are different, too. I wear M sized shirts and pants in India. In Thailand, same shirts are L or XL and pants are XXL.
Cosmetic procedures are incredibly common here. Many malls have entire floors with “clinics” dedicated to such procedures. Most women above 30 take monthly Botox injections.
Obsessed with fairness, much like India.
Obsessed with social media. Are always on their phones even when out for meals with others and even dates. I saw the same thing in China.
Have a strange relationship with ambient temperature.
Like to keep indoor temperature very chilly. But then wear jackets and coats. What a waste of energy unnecessarily cooling a place.
Cannot handle temperatures above 30C.
Cannot handle temperatures below 20C.
Treat pets very strangely, is irritating.
Don’t sterilise their pet.
Many Thais keep part-time pets. Basically this means that the pet stays on the streets, but comes home to feed. Such people won’t let the “pets” be taken away and sheltered, neither will take responsibility when the “pet” harms someone.
Don’t let their dogs meet other dogs on the street even though the dog is begging for it.
They also try to project their desire to have a baby on the dog. Come on just let them be dogs
Keep wiping the saliva from their dog’s mouths.
Scold their dog if it sniffs another dog’s butt.
Don’t do anything when their unsterilised horny dog mounts another one at the dog park.
Too non-confrontational. Will take abuse and insults without any retaliation.
Overall, the positives outweigh the negatives not only in quantity but also in intensity. Looking forward to many more years staying here.
The world’s first public electricity supply was a water wheel driven system constructed in the small English town of Godalming in 1881. I was born more than a 100 years later and this article documents my woes around electricity growing up.
Asansol is a shitty town in West Bengal where one of my uncles lived. It was also the first stop where I went every year with my mother, during my summer vacations. My uncle and his family lived in the Sen Raleigh township at Kanyapur and it is the closest I have ever been to living in a village. I did not live in big cities during those years either (Gwalior, Indore etc), but this place gave new meaning to the term “backward”.
In summers, on average, there was electricity only for a few hours each day. At their house, even a fan was a luxury. I remember lying in bed for hours at night, not being able to sleep because it was too hot. When things were not too bad, the family used an inverter for the hours of the blackout. Eventually, over the years, even that became impractical because you could only charge it for a few hours every few days. Eventually, they switched their lights & fans to DC and hired pre-charged batteries on a per-night basis.
I also remember that they used their refrigerator as a wardrobe, because that’s all it was good for.
Still, I was a kid and resilient, so it didn’t bother me too much.
Kolkata (Late 80s & 90s)
Kolkata was the second stop in our summer holiday itenary & slightly better than Asansol. Electricity was more or less available, but there were sudden un-announced blackouts which the locals called “load-shedding”. Again, these would last for hours and I would lie in bed not being able to sleep. In bed, I would count down from 10 and pretend that at 0, the power would be back. When it didn’t, I would start again. Many nights, my mother would stay up fanning me with one of those Chinese fans till I fell asleep. Eventually, things became better after the power distribution in the city was privatised and today, such things are rare.
Karishma Apartments, East Delhi (1993)
Karishma Apartments (Now called Kirpal apartments) were shitty apartments, I lived in for (thankfully) 1 year around 1993. The story was, the apartment used some illegal way to apply for its electricity connection, which was eventually discovered and the electricity was disconnected for the entire complex. Most of the year I lived there, there was 0 electricity. Most people had their own generators putting away on their balconies. If I remember correctly, we shared a generator with another family and there were often disputes. Because of no electricity, there was hardly any water in the overhead tanks and there was a water tanker mafia selling water to everyone at exorbitant prices.
We lived on rent, we could have easily moved somewhere less shitty, no idea why we didn’t.
Gurgaon (2008-2015)
DLF Phase 3, U Block
There were daily power cuts during the summers. For others, it was no big deal because the power cuts were mostly in the daytime when they were all in their air-conditioned offices. I worked nights and these power cuts put a real damper on my sleep schedule.
DLF Phase 2, K Block
DLF Phase 2 being more posh than DLF Phase 3 had less power cuts, but they were still there. Still, it was not that bad.
Sector 22
We lived on one floor of a 3 floor house on rent for a few years. This was probably the shittiest house we have ever lived in. The landlords were kindly, but what they call “leechad“. They had 3 electricity connections for 3 floors, but chose to use 2 connections for one (their own) floor and the third connection was shared among the other 2 floors. Consequently, when we used the Air Conditioning, it would frequently overload and blow something on the electricity pole outside. The electricity people refused to resolve such issues at night and we spent many nights waiting for the fan to stop working when the inverter battery ran out. Eventually, we had enough and we gave notice at 2:00 AM one night after another incident.
Thankfully, this was the last of my electricity woes and since then, I have managed to elevate my life above such worries.
A few weeks ago, I had an epic sleep deprivation experience that I felt worth logging. Owing to a combination of some personal issues and the iPad conundrum, I just couldn’t fall asleep. I have been sleep deprived many times, but this is perhaps the first time I didn’t sleep a minute all night.
Here’s an hour-by-hour log of what happened
The Experience
Time Range
Log
22:00-00:00
Tossing and turning without being able to fall asleep.
00:00-01:00
Walked around, did some laundry folding.
01:00-03:00
Tossing and turning without being able to fall asleep.
Gave up trying to sleep, got up and had the first coffee of the day.
05:30-06:30
Had the most amazing run ever. It felt as if the kms were flying by in a blur and my pace throughout was the best it has ever been in recent years.
06:30-07:00
Cool down and shower
07:00-08:00
Second coffee of the day
08:00-09:30
No recollection of what I did. Completely wiped from memory
09:30-10:30
Went grocery shopping with the wife, had my third coffee of the day.
10:30-11:00
Came back home and had lunch. Around this time, I started feeling the shakes in my hands. From too much caffeine, rather than from sleep deprivation, I reckon. Also started feeling bouts of irritability.
11:00-14:30
Watched Munich. Again, I only remember this part in bits and pieces. Not sure why it took so long to finish the movie or what I did in between.
14:30-15:30
No recollection of what I did. Completely wiped from memory
15:30-16:30
Sudden feeling of euphoria. Became very happy and wanted to enjoy life. Started writing this post.
16:30-19:00
Went out with my family to an open mall for dinner. Had a beer, but didn’t feel anything. Was unusually happy throughout. My memory from this trip has lapses.
19:00-20:00
No recollection of what I did. Completely wiped from memory
20:00-09:00
Slept for 13 hours, took 2 coffees to get rid of the grogginess. Still felt sleepy all day.
Sleep Deprivation Log
Overall, the experience was quite similar to one of my marijuana benders, which is to say, not pleasant. Next time I can’t sleep, I will bite the bullet and swallow a pill.
I couldn’t end 2023 without another iPad debacle. I already went through how I bought an iPad Pro 12.9 and iPad Pro 11 back in 2022. After the 2022 debacle, I ended up without an iPad, but reasonably satisfied. Then 2023 came around and things went wrong.
As part of my New Years’ resolution, I started reading again. The only problem was, English books are very expensive in Thailand. On top of that, English Indian books are very hard to find. To solve this problem, I bought a Kindle. All was good for a few months, till I felt like I wanted to read comic books & magazines. Of course you cannot do that on a kindle. So what does one do?
One day while walking through the mall, I saw a good deal on an iPad Air (5th Gen) & bought it. Things were OK for a while, I read both books and magazines on it, no problem. However, the poorly storage space (64Gb) and the 60Hz screen started nagging me. Especially when I switched from using my iPhone to the iPad, it felt really bad. I decided that it won’t do. My daughter’s 4 year old iPad was acting up, so I gave her my Air and started looking around.
iPad Pro 11 (4th Gen) 512Gb
The iPad Pro 11 was seemingly perfect. It addressed the storage and display refresh rate limitations of the Air. Weeks went by, with me oblivious to what’s coming next. And then I made a mistake of checking out iPads at the mall. Once I compared the iPad Pro 11 and iPad Pro 12.9 displays, it was game over for this iPad, too.
I hadn’t done my homework before buying this iPad. If I had, I would know that the iPad Pro 11 had a regular LCD screen which goes up to 600 nits. The iPad Pro 12.9 on the other hand, has a Mini LED display and the difference is mind blowing. The contrast and brightness were incomparable. And once I saw this, I couldn’t go back to the iPad Pro 11. It was outside the return window, so I sold it on Facebook Marketplace at a slight loss. I was lucky I got such a good deal.
iPad Pro 12.9 (6th Gen) 512Gb
The next logical step was to buy the iPad Pro 12.9. I chose to forget what happened last time and bought one from the Apple Store. The good news was, I couldn’t find anything wrong with it. I even went a long way towards getting used to its huge size and weight. Then I saw a deal on Studio 7 and I returned the iPad to Apple (The process took less than 10 mins).
iPad Pro 12.9 (5th Gen) 512Gb
The deal I saw was for an iPad Pro 12.9 (5th Gen) for less than what I paid for the last one. The kicker is, this was a 2Tb model. I couldn’t ever use the 2Tb, but the 1Tb/2Tb models do come with 16Gb RAM, too and appealed to me no end. I ended up saving money with the last transition, but didn’t lose much because the 5th Gen to 6th Gen upgrade was minor at best. I had second thoughts after buying this one, too and even contacted customer care to return it, but eventually slapped myself hard twice and stopped it. But after the holidays came and went and it didn’t even ship, I cancelled the order.
iPad Pro 12.9 (6th Gen) 512Gb
Eventually, I gave up and went back to the Apple Store and bought the same iPad I bought before the last one, but this time in Silver colour.
Analysis
After the dust settled, I tried to think about why this happens to me and why specifically only with iPads. Why did I go through 7 iPads in a span of 10 months? My iPhone is more than a year old and I felt no yearning to upgrade when the iPhone 15 Pro came out. My AirPods Pro lasted 4 years before I had to change them because they died. My Apple Watch is 2 generations old and the last one lasted 4 generations. I have never wanted a Mac or a MacBook. This literally doesn’t happen to me for anything except the iPad.
Eventually, I realised it is because I am looking for a single device to do all of the below
