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Wednesday, April 06, 2011

Yeahh!! I won a prize!

Was at home in the afternoon when the Courier came to deliver my prize - a Sheafer Ballpoint pen. The contest was organised by Digit magazine in association with IBM some many months back. Don't quite recollect what had to be done to win the prize - questions had to be answered, I think.

But I do remember telling myself that the only prize that would be of any use to me would be the pen. The rest, if I'd won, I'd probably have passed them on to someone. Then again at that time I'd thought they would be giving away a pen set - a fountain pen and a ballpoint pen as I was looking forward to owning a decent fountain pen after the last half-expensive Parker fountain pen [had a plastic body - hence half expensive :)] I had bought lasted only a couple of months, thanks to my careless handling which resulted in the pen dropping on the ground and its nib going kaput. Turns out the prize is just a ballpoint pen; no fountain pen - KLPD. Will probably pass it on to someone anyway - have a whole bouquet of multi-colored pens of various kinds on my table.

Bouquet of pens - see, how studious I am!! [or at least would like you to believe]

The Sheaffer pen, as I learnt is the 3rd prize - the 1st prize being a Canon camera, 2nd an iPod Nano & the 4th a watch, none of which I was particularly looking forward to winning. Had my heart set on the third prize & I won it - happy I am anyway.

Having won a few such prizes online earlier, one thing I realised is that each time I won a prize, it has invariably been in a contest I forgot all about after entering. Wait myself silly each week to catch the latest episode of Cell Guru on NDTV and, once uploaded, scroll to the end of the episode first to see if they've announced my name as one of the winners in the giveaway they conduct at the end of almost each episode & after experiencing KLPD each time not seeing my name, go back to the start to begin viewing that episode. Never enter my name when they give away Micromax or one of the many Chinese rebranded Indian handsets though. Giving away a HTC Desire Z this week - actually last week, but they had not broadcast the episode last Saturday, due to the 2011 Cricket World Cup final match that India won.

Found out recently that Airtel has activated my free GPRS Internet that came with the Nokia C3-00 handset I purchased some months back. The moment I inserted my SIM card into the C3-00, I got an SMS saying that as an Airtel customer, I was entitled to free Internet surfing on my Nokia C3 handset, subject to a data transfer limit of 2 GB each month for the next 6 months [total data transfer of 12 GB]. Had bought the handset in November. But each time I tried surfing, it kept getting connected through the Airtel Live service and I kept getting charged for the surfing. Had spent a full morning then, talking to various operators at their call center trying to get my GPRS configuration in order so that I could make use of the free Internet, but to no avail. Then gave up all hope and forgot all about it as there was no real need, since Internet access is available on the desktop.

Was fiddling with the phone the other day, while waiting to pick up Mum, when without realising, went to the Internet section and clicked on a bookmark. Viola!! the site opened up and was not even being interrupted with a message every few minutes, informing me of the amount that had been deducted for the browsing as it would happen when connected through Airtel Live - my legitimate, free Internet through GPRS had been activated on my Nokia C3 :D.

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Update: Was catching up on watching an episode of Gadget Guru broadcast a few weeks backs in which they showed the proceedings of the Gadget Awards 2011 ceremony. Learnt that it has awarded the Nokia C3, the budget phone of the year award. Vindication of my purchase decision made a few months backs :). A good purchase, if you can get it for <= Rs. 5700 INR [~ $129 USD]. Got mine for Rs. 5600 INR [~ $127 USD].

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Having Internet access on the cellphone does have some advantages though. Waiting becomes a lot more tolerable. Also, when I feel like taking a quick peek at discussions going on different forums, without wanting to take part in any of them, doing it on the cellphone instead of the desktop means I can do it and be done with it & not keep on using the computer for long hours thereafter as it invariably happens when I use the computer, with the initial intention of doing a quick surf.

Thanks a lot to the wonderful people at Digit & IBM for giving me a prize - much appreciated. Thanks again!

Some pics of the pen that came today.

Click on the thumbnail to view larger-sized image

20110405-Prize-Sheafer-Ballpoint-Pen-02

20110405-Prize-Sheafer-Ballpoint-Pen-03 20110405-Prize-Sheafer-Ballpoint-Pen-01

Godspeed