Music, Rant, Technology

My Worst Purchases-Bose QC 35 II

4 Comments

Continuing with my series, the next entry in the list is the Bose QC 35 II headphones, which I regretted buying.

Bose QC 35 II
The Bose QC 35 II, stellar headphones

Don’t get me wrong, the Bose QC 35 II are great headphones, with stellar sound quality and impressive noise cancellation. I just realised after buying them that I am not a “wearing huge headphones in public” kind of guy.

A bit of history, my earphones of choice used to be the Bose Soundsport Wireless, which I happily used for a few years, but lost during my last trip to Xiamen, China. I was quite devastated and for some time, considered buying the same earphones again, but couldn’t find them anywhere in Xiamen. I almost bought Apple Airpods from the Xiamen Apple store, but somehow controlled myself because of the poor audio quality.

After returning to India, I saw the Bose QC 35 II on sale at half price and I had wanted to dip my toes into Noise cancellation, so bought it.

The sound quality & the noise cancellation blew me away (Sony MX3 performs even better they say, but I was a Bose purist then). However, after the first few days of use, the novelty began to wear off. I would feel awkward walking in public with them around my ears, sitting at my desk in office. Having phone calls on them looked even more awkward so I started regretting my decision very soon.

On top of that, Apple soon launched the Airpods Pro, which had everything I wanted in the original Airpods and I was done with the QC 35 IIs.

I eventually sold them to a couple of illiterate Gym Bros via OLX at almost the same price I bought them for, so the regret didn’t last for long.

Adventure, Rant, Travel

Crazy Sofa at Bang Saen

2 Comments

During my last trip to Bangkok, I had a yearning to go visit a beach. Me and my Indian friend decided to head to Bang Saen, which is a beach in Chonburi province, a little more than an hour’s drive from Bangkok. He also brought along his Indian roommate. His name, translated to English literally means Snake 🐍, so that’s how we’ll refer to him for the rest of the story. 

Bang Saen Beach

The Snake is your typical Indian tourist who doesn’t want to part with any of his money & is always on his guard thinking that everyone is out to cheat him. He cribbed about paying 10 Baht to use the changing rooms (why can’t we just change behind that tree?), paying 50 Baht to use the beach chairs (we should have brought our own chairs). He cribbed about paying for food (so overpriced). When we decided to ride the crazy sofa, he immediately began to haggle with the operator. Note that, he paid for none of the above things; he is just a habitual haggler.

Unlike a Banana boat, which is streamlined and cuts through the water gracefully, a crazy sofa is inherently unstable and would bounce and flop around even in the most stable waters. So when the snake haggled with the operator and the operator agreed to reduce his rate, but with a nefarious smile slowly spreading across his face, I knew something was wrong.

So started our crazy sofa ride, with me and my friend on each edge and the snake in the middle. It soon became clear that the operator’s main agenda was to punish us for haggling like every other Indian that had crossed his path in the past. The ride was simultaneously the most thrilling and the scariest experience of my life. The operator was going much faster than usual, the sofa was bouncing like crazy and we were holding on to the plastic handles for dear life and screaming for the guy to stop (he conveniently forgot how to understand even the most basic English words).

A Crazy Sofa ride, not our Crazy Sofa Ride

Now would be a good time to mention that the snake easily weighed >100kg and was bobbing around both sides and hitting me and my friend (who were already bouncing hard) and only sheer terror made us hold on and prevented us from being thrown off the sofa. Multiple times, the sofa was airborne for more than 5 seconds at a time and more than a couple times, it almost overturned.

When the operator finally stopped the Jet ski and let us off, we literally toppled into the water from sheer exhaustion and took a long time to wade back to the beach.

Next day, woke up with soreness in unusual parts of the body, like the joints of fingers etc. This was one adventure, though, that I am unlikely to forget soon.

Gardening

Home Garden – Dwarf Umbrella Tree

2 Comments

The Dwarf Umbrella Tree, also called Schefflera Arboricola is an evergreen multi-stemmed shrub native to China. Here’s a good website with more information about this plant.

Dwarf Umbrella Tree
My Dwarf Umbrella Tree

Slowly, the leaves spread out and form a sort of canopy, which gives it the name.

I keep this plant in partial sunlight for 3/4 hours a day.

It requires very little maintenance except deadheading some branches.

I water it between once a week during peak winters and alternate days during peak summers.

I fertilise it every 2 months or when it shows signs of growth.

Here’re some good tools which will help you with your gardening.

Nostalgia, Rant

Sitabuldi

Leave a comment

Recently, I had a dream about Sitabuldi. For those who are not fortunate enough to have ever lived in Nagpur, Sitabuldi, also called Buldi (But pronounced “Birdie”) is a densely populated commercial neighbourhood of Nagpur.

Sitabuldi
Sitabuldi, PC: Wikipedia

The area is divided into “Modis”, which means “Lane” (loosely translated to English). I have a lot of memories of this place during my (extensive) stay at Nagpur. Some of the highlights are

  1. The second hand mobile phone market, where I was a regular, both to sell and buy cellphones.
  2. Hotel President, in Modi No. 3, where my parents often stayed, when they came to visit me in Nagpur.
  3. Pape Juice Corner, which squeezed the freshest and best fruit & vegetable juices and was open till the wee hours of the morning. Unfortunately, the last 2 times I visited Nagpur, I found it closed.
  4. Haldiram’s Thaat Baat restaurant, where we ate sometimes, when we had some money, but only enough to be able to afford vegetarian food.
  5. Some rooftop bar, whose name I cannot remember.
  6. Janki Talkies, a small cosy theatre, where we went only once to watch some movie at night. Our group was the only group to buy tickets that night, so the theatre operator had to begrudgingly turn on the projector & start the movie just for us.
  7. Sitabuldi Fort, which we passed many times, but never bothered to go inside, because engineering students don’t go see forts.
  8. Shukrawari lake, also called Gandhisagar lake, which we passed many times, but never bothered to go inside, because single engineering students don’t go boating on lakes.
  9. The street vendors whom we visited to buy cheap garments from.
  10. Some dhaba where we once ate cheap food and the utensils were coated with sand.
Sitabuldi Interchange Station, PC: The Metro Rail Guy

The place has recently changed somewhat, with a futuristic looking metro station now constructed as part of Nagpur Metro. I did make plans for a Nostalgic trip to Nagpur this year, but the Covid situation made it impossible.

Gardening

Home Garden – Chinese Windmill Palm

Leave a comment

The Chinese Windmill Palm, also called Hemp Palm is a short stemmed perennial plant of the Arecaceae family which originally came from the tropical and temperate mountain regions of China. Here’s a good website with more information about this plant.

Chinese windmill Palm
My Chinese Windmill Palm; winter 2019

The leaves of the plants grow in layers and resemble a traditional Chinese fan, hence the name. In fact, these leaves have been used to make hand-fans and manuscripts in ancient India and other South East Asian countries for centuries.

A traditional hand fan made from a dried palm leaf

I keep this plant in partial sunlight for 3/4 hours a day.

The Chinese Windmill Palm requires very little maintenance except deadheading the branches at the end of every winter season, when all the leaves fall off and new leaves start emerging from the inner layers; leaving the plant without any leaves for a few (scary) weeks. Eventually, the leaves do grow back, one at a time.

Summer 2020, notice the stubs left from the older branches/leaves

I water it between once a week during peak winters and alternate days during peak summers.

I fertilise it every 2 months or when it shows signs of growth.

Here’re some good tools which will help you with your gardening.

Gardening

Home Garden – Slender Goldshower

1 Comment

The Slender Goldshower, also called Thryallis is a long stemmed perennial plant which typically flowers all year round. Here’s a good website with more information about this plant.

Slender Goldshower
My Goldshower

The plant is lush & dense with green leaves which gradually turn yellow. The flowers are tiny, yellow in colour and grow in clumps. When they fall off, the floor is covered with yellow (golden) leaves and flowers, hence the name.

I keep the plant in direct sunlight for 3/4 hours a day.

The Slender Goldshower requires very little maintenance except deadheading the branches.

The Flowers

I water it between twice a week during peak winters and every day during peak summers.

I fertilise it every 2 months or when it shows signs of growth.

Here’re some good tools which will help you with your gardening.

Rant, Work

Obsession & Burnout-2

2 Comments

Obsession & Burnout are back to haunt me. I have blogged about it before, but this time, things are a bit worse.

So, the background is, that after months of doing very light-level work, I have been handed a challenging project. Not an impossible project, not an easy one, moderately challenging. Others would be excited for this opportunity (actually were). However, I have already started obsessing about it all the time. My free time everyday, weekends and sleep time has been taken over by obsessively thinking about this project.

Some of this thinking is productive; that is I do accomplish some positive outcome, but most of it is irrational fear. Haven’t slept much last few nights.

Pathetic!

I believe the reasons for this are

  1. Lack of useful distractions away from work because of the lockdown (more apparent during the weekend). Examples of this includes going out to spend time with family, friends & family friends. I have not much to look forward to, all week.
  2. Lack of physical boundaries between work and leisure. Earlier, work happened in the office (mostly) and leisure happened elsewhere. Now there’s only one place for both (home), so it has become difficult to switch off from work mode when the day or week is over.
  3. My usual hang ups about obsession, that were always a part of me.
  4. Uncertainty about future events, some of which are beyond my control.
  5. Fear of failure, which is more or less irrational.
  6. Hectic schedule with both parents working and trying to handle a kid.
  7. Guilt of not spending enough time with family, forcing that to happen and being absent emotionally even then and not doing work either.
  8. Thinking about all the above amplifies the condition.

I plan to follow the steps below to deal with this situation

  1. Practice mindfulness everyday, and make it a part of daily life and log mood daily.
  2. Use organisation hacks like making lists for everything, tracking all To Dos etc.
  3. Writing down things that cross my mind at the end of the work day and when not working and can be done later.
  4. Establish chronological boundaries when it comes to work.
  5. Establish physical boundaries within the house when it comes to work (This might prove a bit difficult)
  6. Finding an engaging hobby (TV generally doesn’t help) to take my mind off such thoughts during leisure time.
  7. Wait for this to blow over, as such phases don’t last more than a few weeks.

For now, I just want one night of good sleep, to recharge my health and sanity, for which I will use a friend’s help.

Gardening

Home Garden – Moss Rose

Leave a comment

The Moss Rose is a short stemmed perennial plant which typically flowers during late spring and early summer. Here’s a good website with more information about this plant.

Moss Rose
My Moss Roses

This pot has 2 different plants, one with orange bloom, the other with white bloom. At the peak of its bloom, it reached 15-20 flowers of both colours and the entire pot was covered with flowers, densely packed.

Moss Rose

This plant requires very little maintenance except pruning of dead branches. No fertilisation is necessary.

I water it between twice a week during peak winters and every day during peak summers.

Here’re some good tools which will help you with your gardening.

Gardening

Home Garden – My Philodendron

Leave a comment

I inherited a money plant (a type of philodendron) from my parents when they moved to to a different city. I re-potted it into a much bigger pot, mixed and matched it with a few different species which resulted in the below.

Philodendron
Philodendron Cluster

This pot is neatly tucked away between my bedroom window and the air conditioner, and has three different plants.

The big, dark green leaves belong to a species of Golden Pothos, which has only 4/5 leaves per plant right now, but are bigger than average money plant leaves, about the size of a ternager’s hand. One cut of this plant also lives in the middle pot of the bottom row of my plant wall.

The smaller, dark green leaves belong to another species of Golden Pothos, which most people can relate to as the common money plant.

The smaller, light green leaves belong to a species of Heartleaf Philodendron. Two cuts of this plant also live in the left and right pots of the bottom row of my plant wall.

View from bedroom

You can cut off branches and pot them and they grow into full-sized plants, as long as there’re some roots left.

These plants require little to no maintenance. The only thing I do occasionally is use cable ties to prop up its branches and attach them to the moss stick. Eventually, the cable ties can be removed once the plants roots burrow into the moss stick.

This pot is kept in partial shade and the plants get 2/3 hours of sunlight late afternoons during the summers and no direct sunlight during the winters.

I water them once a week during the winters and alternate days during the summers. Although they don’t require much fertiliser, I fertilise them every 2 months, which encourages leaf growth.

Here’re some good tools which will help you with your gardening.

Gardening

Home Garden – Lanceleaf BlanketFlower

Leave a comment

The Lanceleaf Blanketflower is a seasonal wildflower plant which lasts during the summer. Here’s a good website with more information about this plant.

Blanketflower
Lanceleaf Blanketflower

I keep this in direct sunlight. The flowers start out as fuzzy balls and then blossom into the beautiful firewheel shape you see below.

  • Fuzzball
  • Flower
Flowers

This plant requires almost no maintenance except occasional fertilizing.

I water it every day during peak summers. I fertilize it every 2 months or depending on when it shows signs of growth.

It will probably die off in a few months, but the beautiful flowers are worth it., while they last.

Here’re some good tools which will help you with your gardening.