Chp 540. My new Oneplue One so far

So it's been 1 and a half week since I got my new phone - the Oneplus One. I haven't had much time to fiddle around with it, but so far it had been an awesome experience.

Being a Samsung phone user for more than four years now, with my previous two phones being the Galaxy S1 and the Galaxy S4, I still need some more time to get used to the User Interface of my new phone.

As you can see from my two blog posts above, I bought the S1 for 29K and the S4 for 41K.

I bought the Oneplus One for 22K.

:)

So yeah, when it comes to price and value for money, Samsung is no match for this phone.

Secondly, I love Android, but I was starting to get really sick and tired of Samsung's bloatwares. There were a lot of installed apps that I didn't want but was not able to get rid of, unless I root my phone. I once ended up soft-bricking my S1 so I decided not to root my S4 since I wasn't such an expert at it and 41K was a lot to lose in case I screwed it up again. Not being able to customize your phones really defeat the very purpose of Android, imho.

And those bloatwares just sit their occupying precious internal storage space. When I bought the 16 GB Galaxy S4, it freaking had just 8 GB free space! I felt utterly cheated when I discovered that after purchasing the phone. Here's a nonsensical explanation by Samsung, explaining why they're just giving you half an apple when you bought a complete one (oooohhhh I just used an apple reference on Samsung, oh no I didn't! :P ).

I ended up buying a 32 GB micro SD card, and that really didn't make things better because installing apps to an SD card is not an easy task. Hence I could only have one or two heavy HD games (the ones that are around 1GB in size) at any given time :(

To make things worse, my micro SD card crashed one fine day. It just went kaput. Dead. Dieded. I ended up losing two entire months of precious photos and videos (December 2013 and January 2014) so I cursed Samsung even more for that (even though that might not be their fault). Storage had always been an issue for me when it comes to Samsung.

With my OnePlus One, haha, when I bought the 64 GB version and looked at my internal storage space, guess what? It had 62 GB free space! :)

Likewise, there had been many other reasons why this phone is absolutely rocking. But for now, I'll just quickly point out some of the negative things I have experienced so far with the OPO.

First and foremost, the in-call volume on my phone is very low compared to my previous Samsungs. I looked up online and realized quite a number of OPO users are experiencing this too. That really sucks because it's almost impossible to hear somebody on the other line if we're in a noisy area like traffic or football stadium.

Secondly, one of my favorite paid apps which I bought for 435 bucks, is NOT COMPATIBLE with the Oneplus One! :'(

I love Automatic Call Recorder Pro. It records every single conversation I have on my phone and saves it immediately to my Dropbox account. Very useful if you want to go through important call conference you had with clients again and take notes, or for security reasons like somebody made a threat call or somebody backed off from their bet or promise by denying they never said anything, or getting drunk and calling up somebody the previous night and listening to what you mumbled in the morning to see how much damage had been done, hahaha...

Unfortunately, this awesome app conflicts with the OPO. All my calls automatically get disconnected or inaudible after 2-3 minutes of talktime. It became alright only after I deactivated the Call Recorder settings. Dayymm.

Camera quality is also not that great compared to my S4. Like I said, I still need time to fiddle around with it and try out all the different settings, but my observation so far is that the OPO's night mode shot (without flash) is better than the S4, but with flash, the S4 camera output quality is much better. I will post a couple of photos I have taken in my next few updates. For now I'll just post these photos -

One of the first photos I took with my new phone - A duplicate sim card from Vodafone. And thank God we no longer need to file an FIR or police report after losing our phones. That was such a pain. And I really like how sim cards now automatically come in two formats.

And then that same day, I decided to treat myself at Dunkin' Donuts on Linking road. Their new burger called "The Naughty Lucy" was awesome, with creamy cheese oozing out from the center of the chicken patty!

So that's it for now. Other than what I've just mentioned, I don't seem to find anything negative about the Oneplus One so far. Will post a lot of photos taken with my new phone in the next few updates. And tonight being our anniversary, brace yourself for a mushy post update :D

Cheers.

Chp 539. The Best and Worst of times

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,

it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,

it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.

            - Charles Dickens. A Tale of Two Cities.

Even though this famous introduction from the classical novel was describing the contrasting era and lifestyle between London and Paris during the French Revolution, I just couldn’t help but think of these famous lines after what happened to me last week. Last Sunday was definitely my “best of times worst of times” moment this year. Something awesome happened, only to be followed by something awful!

The MSYM (Mizo Student and Youth of Mumbai) which is a part of our Mumbai Mizo Association (MMA) conducted its annual story writing and poetry competition open to all MMA members.

For months, many people wrote and submitted their original articles. I too decided to participate, keeping my fingers crossed. The article I decided to submit was a story I had written earlier, entitled - “Chemtatrawta, according to Ludlum”.

The story revolved around Chemtatrawta, a very popular Mizo folktale character. However, the twist was that the story was written in the style of Ludlum :) I used to be a HUGE fan of Robert Ludlum (RIP). I had read all his novels way back in school, and was crazy about Jason Bourne (and puleeeze, the movies starring Matt Damon came NOWHERE close to the awesomeness of the actual fictitious character).

All submissions were sent to Mizoram where selected University scholars and PhDs reviewed each and every single entry vigorously. The names were blotted out so as to keep everything anonymous. Once they all agreed on the result, they sent back their ratings to the MSYM.

And so, on the day of the prize distribution, I attended the Mizo Church service where the winners were going to be announced.

I was sweaty and fidgety, hoping to clinch at least third place. The MC came up to the mike and announced the winners, starting with third place. 

It wasn’t me. Round of applause.

Second place, my heart skipped a beat as the MC announced again.

It wasn’t me. Another round of applause.

And just when I was about to give up on everything, the grand winner was announced. *drum roll* Chemtatrawta did it! It felt so amazing winning the coveted award (with a prize money of 2000 bucks). It definitely made me feel really proud as I went to collect my award.

Here are the winners of the coveted contest - the three winners of the poetry writing competition on the left and the three winners of the story writing competition on the right.

Didika, one of the best Mizo football players today currently playing for Mumbai City FC at the ongoing Indian Super League was our guest of honor, and he distributed the coveted prizes of Best Male sportsperson, Best female sportsperson and Best football player at our recently concluded Mumbai Mizo Association Annual Sports Day that I blogged about earlier.

And then of course some of us wanted to take a few more photos with the legendary Didika :)

That continued even outside the Church…

By the way, our Mizo Church service does not get over that late, as you can see from the darkness behind us. It’s just that our service on that particular day took longer than usual due to the award ceremonies, and also because my dear friend Benjamin who’s also the MSYM Secretary, delivered what was supposed to be a quick 5 minutes sermon and stretched it out to 45 minutes :D

Anyway, yeah, that was my “best of times” moment right there, having won the coveted award.

A few of us then decided to go and celebrate…

And that was when the “worst of times” happened to me!

On my way home, I somehow lost my precious Samsung S4! :(

By the time I reached home, the phone was no longer in my pocket. The auto driver and I searched the whole auto thoroughly, but it looked like it fell out from my pocket and then out of the moving vehicle!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

So many blog posts I have written dedicated to my S4. In fact, most of the photos and videos I have posted on my blog the past one year were taken from my S4. And it’s only recently that I finally finished paying off the EMI (I bought it for a whooping 41,000 on the first week of its launch itself!). Reading through this old post of mine only made me feel worse - Mizohican: My new S4.

And now it’s goneeeee! :'(

Well, at least one concession was that since it fell off from my pocket at moving traffic and not stolen, the chance of another moving vehicle running over it and smashing it into smithereens was high, so I don’t have to worry about any of my personal data falling into wrong hands, not that I’m saying any of them were scandalous… :P

And so, after days of regret and self-pity, I brushed myself up and went and bought the Oneplus One, currently considered to be one of the most powerful smartphones in the market in terms of physical specs today. It is still not available to the general public and one needs a special invitation code to buy this limited batch. I’m still trying to get the hang of it, and will post a review on my next blog update.

So that was my best of times worst of times moment. What a rollercoaster ride indeed!

:-(

Chp 538. Mumbai Mizo Association Sports 2014

His palms are sweaty, 

knees weak, arms are heavy

He's nervous,

but on the surface he looks calm and ready to drop bombs…

Finally, the D-Day happened. Mumbai Mizo Association annual Sports Day, 2014. The last time I attended our Sports event was back in 2011 - MMA Sports 2011

Unlike Mizo Associations of other metros like Delhi, B’lore etc, there aren’t that many Mizos residing here in Mumbai. And so we usually divide ourselves into just two houses for Sports Day - Red and Blue. The strengths of both houses are equally divided, and siblings, couples and family members are usually placed in separate houses.

This year, days before the actual Sports Day, members of both houses were already pitting against each other on social media, cheering their respective houses and jeering the opposition. Rants and slogans with photoshop images flew across here and there, which was a great way to build up momentum for the main event. Everything became a RED versus BLUE banter.

Click on all photos to enlarge on a new tab. Below photos taken from my mobile, Fela’s FB album, Bee’s FB album and MMA FB album.

BLUE versus RED, with leaders of the two houses Pu Zaithanmawia and Pu Lalmalsawma Pachuau.

On off banters between Red and Blue house...

They have motivation. We have Photoshop :D

And so on 22nd November, I woke up at 10 AM (which was a huge feat for me because I got back from work at 4 AM the very same morning) and quickly got ready. I reached the venue - Bombay Veterinary College, Parel, a good half an hour early.

MMA had hired the entire grounds for the day, and it was a truly a peaceful and beautiful place. Here’s a panoramic view of the football field, scaled down to a height of 600 pixels (contact me if you want the high resolution version).

Blue House immediately got to work, trapping the Reds :D

There was this other banner hanging above from a previous function, which was kinda ruining our MMA banner.

We Mizos have a disadvantage of being short, so none of us could reach the banner. But we have the advantage of being athletic (you know, from all those activities of climbing trees and swinging from branches to branches as we travel from one tree house to the other… haha just kidding, but yeah sadly, that was one of the stereotype people had about us back in school and college).

It didn’t take long to find a volunteer to remove the banner.

Those who arrived early immediately got to work setting up the place. Here are some of the volunteers arduously marking the boundary line of the football field.

Meanwhile, at the other end other early arrivals were setting up the banners and sound arrangements.

Soon it was time to start the function…

The coveted trophies, donated by Maria and Andrew.

After the opening ceremony, people got down to hair sprays and war paints, showing their support for the respective houses.

We started off easy, with a water filling contest between the two houses. The aim of the game was to see who could fill up a plastic cup with water the fastest, using just their hands.

And as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, but a video is worth a million :D

Blue won naturally :)

The next event after that was Tug-of-war, with 5 male and female participants each from both houses. As you can see from the photos below, Blue was clearly the much stronger team.

And then guess what happened? The rope broke! Conspiracy theorists believed Red team sabotaged the rope so that it would result in a draw, hence awarding points to both houses instead of just Blue house. Below is a candid AV recording obtained by our Blue sleuth team the next day…

The next event after that was Penalty shoot-outs. Blue house won at the women’s section, and so the organizers (Red house members) announced it was a “best of 3” competition! And so our Blue women sportingly played the made-up second round and won that too :)

When it was the Men’s turn, we lost the first round by one goal to Red, and suddenly that was it. No second round of "Best of three". Red won! :D

Other events were held after this, like Poison ball, 100m race, walking race etc.

(In the above video, I don’t have the part when it was Blue’s turn to be inside the circle because I received a call while I was filming that and ended up losing everything, grrrrr)

Soon, we all moved to the basketball and volleyball court area. The kids too had a great time, competing with each other. Red house won a bulk of their points from the children’s division.

Women’s volleyball too was exciting to watch. While this was going on, the free throw competition was simultaneously conducted. Watch the two combined videos below.

Other games like Men’s volleyball and basketball were held in quick succession…

The women too competed against each other for this game called “inkawibah” which is a Mizo traditional game. For my non-Mizo visitors, watch the video to know how it’s played.

Here are some of the more awesome shots captured during this game :)

A little bit of Photoshop on the above pics and one can have a set of really funny pics… but then, I am not that evil. I don’t edit other people’s photographs. That is so mean :)

Lunch was provided by Pi Maliani and Pi Zoni Margaret, and though I couldn’t eat due to exhaustion (after participating in basketball and volleyball), people said it was awesome. Much thanks to them for their selfless donation.

My body not only took a heavy beating, my shoe also suffered. The front sole of my right shoe and back sole of my left show came off. Bye bye shoes. Those were some great years we spent together.

Soon after everybody relaxed, we headed back to the football ground for the main event - Men's football. We cheered and shouted for our respective houses, and it was a highly contested match.

Even though Red team scored a goal that looked pretty much like an offside, the match ended with a 2-2 draw and it went to penalty.

After the football match that Blue house won, Red house was still trailing, so the organizers again conducted on-the-spot events like 100m race, 2x100m race, 4x100m race, 50+50m race etc just because they had some fast runners.

Here is Maria giving it her best shot and then falling to the ground during her race. Sportingly, she got up and finished the race.

More races were conducted…

Overall, Blue House seemed to dominate in most of the main events. It was like Goliath pummeling David to the ground. This photo pretty much sums up the difference in strengths between the two houses.

And all Red could do was react to our victories…

But the overall championship went to Red house in spite of Blue winning most of the main events…

Yeah, like I said, too many kids events :P

Overall, everybody had a great time. The main purpose of such an event was not to compete or win, but rather to come together and catch up with friends that we otherwise hardly get to meet (because of our respective busy Mumbai life) and have fun. And Sports Day achieved just that. Kudos to the organizers and hoping to see you all next year too!

Ps. Here’s a secret. One week before the Sports Day, I started exercising on our treadmill (that had been lying unused for many months and covered with cobwebs) and that made things a bit easier for me :)

Cheers! :)