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This is a really cool video I saw on a friend’s blog. I’m not huge into watching videos, but given who the friend is, I did. And I was surprised. Very surprised. :D

It’s so well worth watching. I’d actually rate it as one of my most favourite things I’ve watching in a long time, and it’s not just cuz the actor is one of my favourite guys from Bones. It’s just… *sigh* Watch it, will you? :)

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Random Events on 2009-07-16

  • RT @DebIFF: RT @casinadirosa: RT @DianaBaur Please RT! 1st Italian Bloggers' Strike http://is.gd/1ycWH #
  • Two cows (1 brown, 1 white with brown spots) and 1 calf (brown) munching on the vegetation in the lot next door. Explains the "Mooo!"s. #fb #
  • I've taken 5413 photos with my current digital camera. Need a new one! #fb #
  • I'm seriously thinking I need to write a blog post tomorrow about poverty in Sri Lanka. #fb #

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Customer Service in Sri Lanka

airtel Customer Service in Sri LankaAbout four or five months ago, we signed up for a new high-speed Internet service in Sri Lanka – AirTel. AirTel is an Indian company that had just moved into the Sri Lankan market and provided wireless Internet through their towers. They promised much higher speeds than we were getting through SLT (Sri Lanka Telecom) for a much cheaper price.

Problem was, we weren’t getting those speeds. In fact, we were getting about 1/10th, sometimes 1/20th or less, of the promised download speeds. Supposed to be 320 kbps. Supposed to be.

AirTel, it would seem, has removed the details of their Internet package off their site. Good to know it’s not just my imagination that it used to be there. Oh, and yeah, I’m not providing links to Airtel.lk. I’m not giving these idiots anything.

And read this guy’s account. It’s quite similar to ours.

So. Fahim called AirTel Sri Lanka to complain about the slow speeds. The AirTel employee would open a ticket and tell Fahim that it would be resolved by a certain date, which was usually in 2 business days. The day after the date provided, we’d still have the same slow speeds and the same connectivity issues, so Fahim would call them to find out what was going on, only to find that the ticket was closed and the problem supposedly resolved. Only, how, exactly, would their technical support staff know if a problem was actually resolved if they didn’t talk to us? And that’s the thing – they never did. Technical support never called to find out if anything was resolved.

Our connectivity issues, by the way, was that we were conintuously disconnected and reconnected. Continuously meaning that we would be disconnected while the previous reconnection was still trying to resolve the connection. That sometimes happened hundreds of times a day. Sometimes, we’d be connected for as long as ten minutes. Whoo hooo. Sometimes we’d be connected for longer.

So Fahim would tell them the problem wasn’t resolved, so AirTel would open a new ticket. Because the old one was closed, they could only open a new ticket. Hmm, gaming the system to make it look like they’re resolving something? So a new ticket is opened, a new date is provided when the issues will be resolved, and another two day wait with lousy speeds and major connectivity problems.

Over and over that scenario happened. Technical support never called us to find out if anything was resolved. They just continued to close tickets while calling it resolved.

Then, one day, we got a phone call from their collections deparment asking for payment on a bill. Except that we hadn’t even received the bill yet and it wasn’t due for another couple more weeks. And the person who called kept asking, “Yes, but can you pay it today itself?” Uh, no. It’s not due, we haven’t received, and no. And he just. Could. Not. Understand.

And we got a phone call from someone in complaints because Fahim complained to the guy who called us. And then another collections call a day or so later trying to collect on the same bill that wasn’t yet due. And another call…

Finally, due to the song and dance of “We’re installing equipment. It’ll be improved soon,” Fahim called them and cancelled our service. Sort of.

The customer service person convinced Fahim that service would improve, that new equipment was being installed that would make things better, faster, more powerful… In a few months, it will all be resolved. We’re not willing to pay for service that’s not even 1/10th of what was promised, so we compromised on a temporary shut-down of the service. Meaning our account was suspended, we received no service, but we can open it later and continue again. This seems to be a somewhat common practice here since Dialog also offers that with their satellite connection.

Fine and dandy.

Then two days ago, Fahim receives a phone call from someone at AirTel asking us if we’d like to resume our service. Are the speed & connectivity issues resolved? No, they said. Then why would we want to pay for a service that doesn’t work? The person who called seemed to have a bit of a hard time understanding tht concept. Fahim nearly burst a blood vessel…

Then yesterday, we got another phone call from AirTel. Turns out they’ve been billing us this whole time and they think we owe them nearly Rs.6,000. For a service we haven’t received and wasn’t delivered as promised anyway. Pay up, please, they say.

Fahim lights into them, telling them there’s no way we’re paying. Person on the other end says, oh, would you like to speak to our complaints department? I can transfer you to them. NO. Why should we spend our time talking to these idiots when they’ve clearly got an internal problem to solve? They can sort out their own accounting nightmares on their own time and not involve us, thank you very much.

And now, even though we were willing to consider giving them another try when they finally got their equipment up to spec, we’ve changed our minds. They can go jump off a tall cliff.

The sad part of this story? This is fairly typical for Sri Lanka.

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Random Events on 2009-07-15

  • Anyone in Sri Lanka/coming to Sri Lanka with access to Stevia rebaudiana seeds, cutting, or plants they could spare? #fb #
  • Made embarkadieros, er, brigadieros, cuz the hubby whined enough for them. Mmm, chocolately goodness, mmmm! #fb #
  • Dagnabbit. People next door are having a party tonight. Chafing dishes, tables, whatnot are being unloaded from catering company truck. #fb #

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Random Events on 2009-07-15

  • Anyone in Sri Lanka/coming to Sri Lanka with access to Stevia rebaudiana seeds, cutting, or plants they could spare? #fb #
  • Made embarkadieros, er, brigadieros, cuz the hubby whined enough for them. Mmm, chocolately goodness, mmmm! #fb #
  • Dagnabbit. People next door are having a party tonight. Chafing dishes, tables, whatnot are being unloaded from catering company truck. #fb #

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Random Events on 2009-07-14

  • Got some beets with nice looking leaves today. Going to make them into a mallung (lightly cooked with coconut, onions, seasoning.) #camc #fb #
  • Celery has roots attached. Will it grow if I stick it in dirt? #
  • Bibbikan – Sri Lankan cake with cashews, raisins, treacle very good. Have two recipes, one yeasted. Will try with sourdough instead. #fb #
  • Off to make lunch, including beet leaf mallung for an experiment. Life, it is fun. :D #camc #fb #
  • The 1/2" thick bok choi stem slices that I planted have sent out little shootlets. Or, um, boy choy baby stem thingies. It be growing! #fb #
  • I get so excited/entertained by the smallest and silliest of things. As if that wasn't absolutely apparent to everyone already. #fb #
  • Got a buttload of celery today. Any suggestions on using it? #camc #fb #

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Random Events on 2009-07-13

  • I stuck bok choi stems in a pot of soil, wondering what would happen. Oh, lookie here – it seems to be growing! Whaddya know? #fb #
  • The cabbage leaf stems I "planted" aren't doing so well. Not dead yet, but no signs of life, either. #fb #
  • Websites that have no margin for text, so text shows up touching the browser window=bad design. Please fix. It's difficult to read. #fb #
  • Just installed Chris Pirillo iPhone app. Wow, what a dog. Unresponsive & asks me over and over to enable location services. Use settings! #
  • Wow, so much of the Chris Pirillo iPhone app is so incredibly broken. Then the ugly factor. Better than it used to be, but still… #
  • …and it crashed. Gotta love iPhone apps that work so well they crash while performing what should be a simple function. #
  • A green bird, orange rings around its eyes?, bigger than parrot, visited our jumbu fruit tree. Lots of birds visiting – ripe fruit. #fb #
  • I think I'll make the cinnamon raisin walnut bread tomorrow with cashews instead of walnuts. #bba #

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Random Events on 2009-07-12

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Random Events on 2009-07-11

  • #followfriday @EmperorNorton because he's always interesting, a good conversationalist, has a great sense of humour, and is fun. Great guy. #
  • I have to give up Blog, a program Fahim wrote that was the whole reason we met. End of an era. Need a new desktop blogging client. #fb #
  • Made the challah again today, just cuz and for no other reason, and it was just as good as the first time with same fluffy results. #bba #fb #

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Sri Lankan Bats and Bat Houses

flying batI know, I know, I’m strange. I’m considering bats and bat houses. :D

Here’s the thing – bats eat a lot of insects like mosquitoes. We have a lot of mosquitoes. This country has a lot of mosquitoes, so many that dengue fever is an epidemic right now. That tends to alternate with other mosquito-born illnesses, like chikungunya, malaria, and others.

Fahim and I had chikungunya last year – it wasn’t fun. Very painful. An aunt of Fahim’s had dengue a couple of years ago and a cousin had it so recently he’s still recovering. Not fun, either.

We also have a lot of other pesky insects. Cockroaches, flies, and all sorts of other things that I have no idea what they’re called. :D And no, I don’t know if the varieties of bats here in Sri Lanka will eat them, or if they do, which varieties of bats, and which bats are found where in this country. Yeah, total dearth of useful information. :)

Bats, from what I read, are declining in population because their natural habitat is being taken over by industrialization. You know, humans. :) But providing shelter for them in the form of bat houses can mean the difference between bats staying in an area or not.

hanging batWhile in other parts of the world, you can buy bat houses, I sincerely doubt that’ll be the case here. Most likely, we’ll have to make it. And by we, I actually mean Fahim. The guys at the lumbar yard aren’t likely to speak any English, so really, it’s pretty much all up to Fahim. Poor boy. :(

So now it’s on to Operation Convince Fahim. :D

If you’re looking for more info on bats and bat houses, try this PDF. It has some really good general information on attracting bats.

If you want to build your own, there are plenty of free bat house plans on the Internet – do a search and no doubt you’ll find at least dozens to hundreds.

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