Photobucket had recently changed their policy and now all the images from my 650+ blog posts are disabled. I am slowly editing them by moving my images to my own server at AWS, but it will take time. In case there is a particular old post you want to see the images of, kindly drop me a mail at mizohican@gmail.com and I'll keep that at a high priority. Thank you.

Saturday, July 24, 2021

Chp 865. Triple Vaccinated!

Vaccine Vaccine Vaccine! These days, everybody's talking about CoVid-19 vaccines.

From the demand of vaccines to the shortage of vaccines, from creating vaccine awareness to spreading anti-vax propaganda, from being simply vaccine hesitant to rigidly believing that Bill Gates had implanted a microchip in each vaccine to boost 5G cellular coverage for the arrival of the antichrist. The list is endless.

And on top of ALL those talks and debates on CoVid vaccines, I of course had to go one step further - I not only got my first dose of the vaccine but also got two other vaccines - Tetanus and Rabies. :D


Ahhh what a life I live. I always have to do something different or unique. :D

So what happened was, I got bitten by a dog!

Yeah, my first dog-bite actually.

Three weeks ago, my dear aunt was admitted at Greenwood Hospital for a surgery. She's discharged and fine now, thanks to the doctors and God. My cousin and his wife stayed with my aunt in the hospital during that entire time, and since there was nobody at their house, I took up the responsibility of taking care of their dog, Toby.

Meet Toby.


Yeah, don't let that cute smile and wagging tail fool you. Toby is one of the most timid and introvert dogs I've ever known, lolz. During the first 2 days I was taking care of him, he was hiding under the chair the entire time!


So my job was pretty simple. I would go down to their house at around 7 in the morning to switch off their balcony lights and unlock the door to let Toby out.


Toby would usually run around their yard, exercising his legs or sniffing the ground.



And sometimes he would poop too...


After that, I would lock him up inside the house again and then return around 10 AM to feed him his breakfast.


Around 6 PM when it's dark, I would go to their house again to switch on the balcony lights, unlock the door to let Toby out...


...feed him dinner...


...and then wait for him to pee and poo.


After that, I would wish him goodnight, lock up their house and head back home (we all live in the same colony). The next day, the same routine would repeat again.

Toby quickly recognized me and warmed up to me. He no longer barked at me when he heard me approaching their gate, and he would always greet me with his tails wagging from one end to the other the moment I unlocked the door.

On the 29th of last month, like every other day, I went and opened the door for him at around 7:45 AM.


He was so cheerful and friendly that I took a picture and even sent the image to my girlfriend.


Since my old phone had died and I didn't back-up any images, I asked my girlfriend to send me a screenshot of my message that day (hence the reason why I'm on the other side).

At around 10:15 AM, I went to their house again to feed him breakfast. Toby was excited to see me as usual, especially because I brought him delicious food - a bowl of rice and chicken.

As he scrumptiously munched his food, I suddenly had this urge to pet him because he was looking sooo adorable. And so I reached out my hand towards his head, when suddenly he turned around and bit my hand, growling at me as if I was his sworn nemesis!

WTF!

I was so shocked to see the sudden change in his behaviour that I almost didn't notice my fingers which were bleeding profusely. I ran to the kitchen sink immediately and washed my wounds.


Yeah I know, the above wounds don't look very serious or painful now. That's because I had already washed away all the blood.

This was the message I immediately sent to my girlfriend too. Notice the sudden change in my affection towards Toby. :D


Lalani told me to put my hand under running tap water and wash with soap for at least 10 minutes, so as to reduce the chance of getting an infection. Perks of having a super awesome Vet girlfriend. :D

Once the bleeding stopped, I called up my cousin at the hospital and told him what his dog did to me, and he was like, "Ah yes, don't disturb him while he's eating, he even growls at me if I try to take away his bowl before he's done!"

Great! Now he tells me! :D

I asked him when was the last time he got Toby vaccinated, and he was like, probably 2-3 years ago. Aaarrgghhh.

I looked at Toby, who was all well fed by then and playfully wagging his tails at me, as if nothing had just happened. I gave him a stern look and asked, "Do you NOT know the proverb, "Do not bite the hand that feeds you"? Huh huh? Do you?" To which he replied with a quick nod.

I called up my friend Dr. Mahminga, owner of Waggin' Tails Pet Clinic, and asked him if he had any rabies and tetanus vaccines, but he told me that only human hospitals sold them.

Lalani too was adamant about me taking the two vaccines as soon as possible, partly because she loved me so much, but mostly because I had earlier sent her a photo of a rat that Toby had killed. :D


But because of the ongoing lockdown, I didn't want to take the trouble of going to the LC office to ask for a permit to go to the hospital. My aunt's surgery was going to take place a few days later anyway, so I decided to wait for that moment.

On the day of my aunt's surgery, we got a permit to go to Greenwood Hospital. Security was very tight at the hospital, and anybody who had to enter the hospital for an appointment or check-up was thoroughly tested for CoVid-19.

It was a tad funny watching the nurses sit at the hospital entrance shout into a loudspeaker, asking the patient who was 50 meters away inside a testing booth all sorts of personal questions, like did he or she had any positive contacts, were they vaccinated, and so on.

The people inside the testing booth didn't have any loudspeaker so they would shout back their replies, "NEI LOOO... NEI TAWHHH... ZARKAWTTT... KUM SAWMTHUMM... OPDDD...." Lolzz.

Thanks to my cousin Dr. Mahruaii (in picture below), I was able to get my rabies and tetanus vaccines from a doctor inside without entering the hospital or going through those publicised private questions. :D


My aunt's surgery took place successfully and my cousin came outside to inform us about the news. There were around 10-15 of us cousins waiting at the parking lot. Once we heard the good news, we all went home relieved.

Back at home, I went to my neighbour U Lawmzuali's house and her daughter Tluangi, a nurse, injected me with the tetanus vaccine and first dose of rabies vaccine.



The three doses of rabies vaccine were to be injected on day 0, 3 and 7, and so Tluangi injected me on all three days. Thanks to her, I am now fully vaccinated against rabies and tetanus.

My right arm that took the tetanus shot was quite swollen for a few days, whereas my left arm that took all three rabies shots didn't even feel one tiny pinch.

Ever since I took those rabies shots, I no longer have the urge to bark at other dogs or howl at the moon, so I guess the vaccine was very effective. In fact, my face is now slowly returning to its human form too. Yayy.


And so that was it, my tryst with triple vaccines. If you're still reading till here, please do get vaccinated against CoVid-19, and also don't forget to get your tetanus shot once every 10 years. You never know where those next bites can come from. Stay safe everyone. God bless.

Monday, July 19, 2021

Chp 864. Hello OnePlus 9R

Last month, my OnePlus 6 phone suddenly stopped charging. No matter how many different OnePlus chargers I used, my phone absolutely refused to charge. Even with the phone kept on airplane mode and a charger continuously connected to it, the battery kept draining and draining...

20%... 10%... 5%... 3%.. 1%... Finally, dead.

And so that was it. The end of my 3 years old beloved OnePlus 6 phone.

I've been a OnePlus fan since its launch in 2014. I know I've mentioned this on my blog before, but I'll say it once again - I'm one of the first persons in India to own a OnePlus phone. :D

When OnePlus One phone was first launched globally in April 2014 through exclusive online invitation link only, the phone wasn't available for purchase in India yet, even if you're one of the very lucky individuals to get an invitation code.

My dear friend and boss Sidharth, CEO of Dentsu Webchutney, through his vast contacts and financial reach, managed to find a seller at eBay, somebody from USA who had just purchased it and was re-selling it at almost double the price! Sid was really curious to know what the big fuss was about the "flagship killer" phone that everybody was talking about, and since he was the leader of an IT industry with lots of money, he purchased it from that person.

Now remember, that was way back in mid 2014. The top phones of that time were the iPhone 5S, Blackberry Passport, Moto X, Nokia Lumia, Samsung Galaxy S4, HTC One and Google Nexus 5. And so it was very intriguing to read about an unknown and "unbranded" company called OnePlus entering the market.

Sidharth transferred the money to that eBay seller (while joking in his usual style, "Bh*nchod better not be ripping me off") and the much anticipated phone reached India within a week.

We toyed around with the phone for 2 days and finally Sid said "Cool", and then went back to his iPhone and Blackberry :D. Knowing how crazy I am about Androids, he sold the phone to me for the current market price, ignoring the extra amount he had paid to that eBay seller. Such an amazing guy Sid is! Best CEO and flatmate ever!

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was how I became the proud owner of a OnePlus One phone when it wasn't available for purchase in India yet.

By December 2014, people in India with invitation codes could purchase the phone online, and by then I was already using it for a couple of months. By early 2015, anybody in India could purchase the OP1 from Amazon and OnePlus website.

I remember how much I loved the OP1. It was way ahead of its competitors (of that time) in terms of processor speed, display, storage, camera, etc etc., while at the same time being sold at a much cheaper price, hence truly earning the tag "Flagship killer".

All the other top phones of that era were filled with bloatwares we couldn't remove, designed with clunky UI and prone to random crashes, whereas the OP1 was super clean and extremely easy to root and customize the way we wanted.

Ahhh... those golden years.

As time went by, I eventually bought the OP3 as my next phone, followed by the OP6, and now I have the OP9R. Here's my OnePlus family as of today. :)


Am I still a OnePlus fanboy today?

Actually, not anymore. I mean, I was crazy about the OP1 of course. But all other new OnePlus phones after that slowly started losing their charm over the years. It was no longer inexpensive, and in fact it became a "flagship" phone, rather than the rebellious "flagship killer" phone it once was. It had joined the dark side.

There wasn't much of any ground-breaking innovative feature or advanced technology in their new productions. Many new "features" were more gimmicky than serving actual purposes. And the most disappointing part was that, every new model was just slightly better than the previous. That was it. An utter anti-climax.

Plus, there are now many phones in today's market that are as good as the OnePlus phones, if not better. Even OnePlus' sister companies like Oppo, Realme, Vivo and iQOO (all owned by the same phone manufacturer, in cases you don't know) are as good as the OnePlus phones.

And so, I decided not to purchase a OnePlus for my next phone. It was finally time to divorce and explore other brands.

The ONLY reason why I bought the OP 9R was because of the sudden demise of my OP6. I panicked. I didn't have proper time to research on which new brand to buy, especially since Amazon had JUST opened its delivery to Mizoram again.

For my privileged Indian brothers, let me inform you that ALL online e-com portals in India had discontinued their services to Mizoram for many months since the pandemic started. Every single item on Amazon was marked with a cautionary text in red - "This item cannot be shipped to your selected delivery location. Please choose a different delivery location."

Every. Item.

And then on 29th June, just after my OP6 had died, our state government finally allowed online deliveries again! What timing! I went to Amazon immediately and clicked on the first random item on my screen. The message "This item cannot be shipped to your..." was no longer there!!!

Yes, we were finally allowed to place an order! I bought the phone immediately. My payments too were confirmed. Having worked in the IT industry for many years, a part of me was praying that it was not some bug or an oversight, like some regional sales manager of Amazon got drunk and forgot to toggle off the switch for delivery to Mizoram, lolz.

The next few days were unbearable. Will my phone be delivered or not, was all I could think about. It felt too good to be true, you know. I mean, it was such a coincidence, what are the chances of online shopping being disabled for months after months and then suddenly being activated again just when my phone had died? :D

Finally, on 5th July, my OnePlus 9R was delivered! Yayyy.

And yes, talk about luck and timing. Mizoram is now currently on a lockdown again with all online deliveries prohibited, so if you visit Amazon website now and select any item, you will see the same "This item cannot be shipped to your selected delivery location. Please choose a different delivery location." message once again! Phewww!


Yup, the same OnePlus 9R I had ordered just 2 weeks ago is no longer available for purchase today if Mizoram is the delivery location. I guess you can say, Lady Luck from Dehradun smiled on me. :D

Even though the OnePlus 9R isn't my ideal dream phone, I am happy with it so far. I really did like the specs of the new OnePlus 9 PRO, but no way am I going to spend freaking 70K on a phone, especially now that I am unemployed.

Hence, I'm content with my 9R. For the uninitiated, OP 9R is nothing but the OP 8T with a few firmware and hardware improvements (slightly upgraded processor and GPU but the same display, RAM, storage, battery, camera, dimension etc). Hence, an OP 8 or 8T user may not notice any difference.

However, for an OP6 user, it is a good upgrade. The features I like the most so far are the "wide angle" camera view option which my OP6 never had, and the on-screen fingerprint sensor. Initially, the rear fingerprint sensor of my OP6 was cool, until you realize you have to grab the phone or lift it every time to use it. I eventually disabled it because of that inconvenience. OP 9R's on-screen fingerprint scanner makes life so much easier.

So here's to the OnePlus 9R and hoping it will serve me many wonderful memories and take lots of wonderful photos for my future blog updates. :D

To end this post, here are a few photos of my OP 9R unboxing, taken with my spare OP3 phone.







[The last pic above was taken with my 9R]