Sunday, April 7, 2013

Dad and his Android escapades

Growing up, one of the tasks my sister and I had was to uninstall all those programs that came on free CDs with those computer magazines.  You see, our dad thought it was a great idea to learn new things.  Unfortunately, for me and my sister, it was too much of a headache, considering those were the days of Windows 95.

My father, who works at a nationalised bank, thinks he is the computer expert there.  And I'm sure he knows more than his peers, and he can "Google" things up, but that's about it.  His Twitter account has only two messages.  One to me and one to my sister.  Both say "Hi". (no, I'm not giving you his Twitter handle)

Last month, for his birthday, sister got him an Android phone.  Samsung Galaxy Ace.  His first smart phone.  He had the biggest grin for days.  The phone model was decided by me, because the responsibility of 'teaching' him would fall on him, and though I am an excellent teacher, my dad can be a really, really, annoying student.

So for a few days he played with the phone and these are the things that made the sister and me want to go bang out head on the nearest tree and/or laugh till tears rolled down our cheeks.

1.  "The screen runs" - my dad on trying to go through his phonebook, which had 700 contacts and which he had accidentally copied twice and he is too proud to accept his mistake - so I'm still waiting for him to own up and ask me how to get rid of the extra contacts.  He was last seen manually trying to delete the contacts which appeared twice.

2.  Google Play account.  The only mails he gets are forwarded mails (which he sometimes forwards to the sister and me, which we choose to ignore - I think sister has even blocked him or something) and he has over 3000 unread mails in his inbox.  Despite that, he has 2-step verification password thing going for his account.  Now, this wouldn't be an issue while setting up Google Play account, right? WRONG. Because, he forgot his password.  Just like his netbanking password and his verified by visa password and every other password.  He just assumes I would be able to remember and recollect his passwords at will.  Despite zillions of reminders to write down the passwords in a paper somewhere, he refuses to do that, and he could not recollect his google account password.  This was so frustrating and funny at the same time because sister and I still laugh like crazy people when we go, 'heheheh, pappa forgot his gmail password' - yes, it is that funny.

He created another gmail account to access his phone now.  He does not remember the password. Again.

3.  Apps

He makes whatsapp even more frustrating for us.  He feels bad and sulks if we don't respond to his forwarded messages.  He felt bad even when he would send them as mails and we would not respond.  It's even worse because he just expects us to acknowledge even the talking cat video singing rang barse he sent us on Holi.  Now seriously, Talking Cat is one of the stupidest things ever.  The other day, sister suggested we all block him on whatsapp and he wouldn't even know if we do it together.  We'll tell him how something is wrong with our whatsapp.  I told her to calm down and told her I'll talk to him.  I still have to find a good time to bring up the topic.  Yes, yes, dad is a difficult person to handle, just like my sister, and such things are a big deal for him.  Maybe the next time he sends us a forwarded message.

4.  Internet

Have I told you about the scary spots in our house? Well, they are the places where neither the 3G nor the WiFi will work.  Well, we just discovered few more spots in the house, thanks to dad's new smart phone - their bedroom. WiFi goes out of range in their room and the phone internet goes for a toss too and that frustrates him to no end.  For some reason, sister, mom, brother in law and me find this absolutely hilarious.

There are few other thinsg too, but I can't recollect them right now.  Anyhoo, dad and his adventures with his new phone have added few more laughs to our lives.

But it is a delight to see him get all excited like a child about his new phone. :-)

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