At the movies

I wanted to go see “Skyfall” despite the bad reviews I have seen. There is nothing like a Saturday afternoon spent watching a bit of ‘007’ action. Come to think of it, I have never heard of a bond movie spy with a number greater than ‘009’. Why is the prefix ‘00’ then I wonder?

Anyway, I called up the dialog movie ticketing line for some hassle free ticket purchase. Alas, they only cover ‘EAP cinemas’ I was told by the slightly irritated female voice on the other side. What was I thinking? Surely I should have known that? My bad.

I don’t have 3G on my outdated mobile phone and going to the internet on that is a nightmare. Didn’t feel like booting up my computer – I would have to get up from this comfy position on the couch to do that – why am I even considering that?

I’ll take the plunge and go to the cinema. Even if the movie is in 3 hours that will give me some time to browse through at the bookstore or at the computer/tech crazy joints next door to the cinema. Yes, as you can tell, I am a pretty brave sorta’ guy.

I reached the ‘city that is majestic’, and took the elevator to the top floor. I was pleasantly surprised, large brand-new white tiled air conditioned space just for the ticketing counters and snack-bars on the opposite side. I blinked hard as I stepped out of the elevator in disbelief. This is indeed a far cry from the cinema I came to a few months back to watch Spidy in 3D. Where was the BO? Where were the snaking queues engulfing every pillar going down the staircase? This is certainly a refreshing change.

I walked up to the ticket counter. There were 3 guys behind the 3 counters but none of them were even remotely interested in me. After much hand waving (y’see the glass between us seem to muffle my voice as none of my repeated ‘excuse-me’s reached their ears), finally I got one of them asking me ‘Yes? Can I help?’. You certainly can my boy, “What time is the next screening of sky-fall?” I asked. “It’s at 1.30 and 1.45” he said. Wow, I only have to wait another 30 minutes – what timing! The show must have been playing for a while, no one else is here.

But then the guy tells me “But sir, you have to stay in the queue till we issue tickets at 1.15”. Hello? What queue? The place is empty! “What do you mean queue?” I asked. Then I was directed at a door which led to a staircase going downstairs. When I opened the door, it hit me like the heat that hits you when you step out of an airplane at Katunayake Tarmac. There is a freaking queue after all – complete with BO!

No remote? You must be kidding…

My pay TV provider’s customer service levels have gone from bad to worse. In addition to multiple incidents of breakdowns and delays in bringing the service back online, recently they had to gall to tell me to pay for a replacement of the remote control. Y’see the remote control is 5+ years old and died a natural death. I didn’t drop it on the floor nor did I hit my neighbor’s cat with it. Surely if the set-top box stopped functioning, they would have to replace it free of charge? So what is so special about the remote control? Isn’t that a part of the package?

I hear DialogTV’s customer service is pretty good. Perhaps I will seriously look at switching providers after this latest incident.

Cable Business

I've been with the same cable-TV provider for several years now. Despite others coming up (and also dying off) like mushrooms, I decided to stick with my provider through thick and thin. The reason being their superior customer support - in other words, they attended to any phone call within a couple of hours.

Unfortunately, during the last year, this has deteriorated like a new layer of asphalt on Galle Road. Now it takes a good 5 attempts to get through to their "hotline". And when you eventually do, you can guarantee that the first complaint never even get's through to their "technical staff". Infact, this is exactly what happened last week. When I didn't hear back from them 2 days into the complaint, I called back to remind them. Guess what, they could not even locate my previous complaint in their "system".

There is one silver lining though. Due to not having TV facilities, I missed out on the SL-AUS T20 on Friday. Biss!

[Learning to] Play the guitar

I’ve always been a sucker for guitar music and have always wanted to learn how to play the guitar. But the problem is that I am sooooo not ambidextrous. I once read somewhere that you can ‘train’ your left hand (or your right hand if you are left handed) to do things better by using it to write a paragraph a day. Must try that one out.

I tried to self-learn how to play the guitar once but that didn’t go very far. I guess self-learning (unless held at gunpoint) is not really my thing. Now I am looking to go for some classes – if I don’t do it now I never will.

Bowled out!

I had a horrible time at ten-pin bowling the other night. Ended up with a miserable score of 89. Six months ago I was consistently scoring 180s and even touching on 200 on some occasions. What happened? Yes, I've not been visiting the bowling alley as frequently as I used to, but 89? I even scored more than that the very first time I picked up a bowling ball.