CREDIT CARDS - [VIEW FULL POST]

Just like any other day, around three o clock in a corporate office.

I drop my hand in to my pocket to answer a call in my cell phone.

I see a number flashing on my screen, I hesitate to take the call (read on and you ll know why)

I : HALO

The other side : HALO! I m calling from ICICI… Are you interest in credit card sir?
(Oh wow! What a wonder! Despite the wonderful construction of the sentence, I interpret it to be some generous bank giving me a free credit card )

I: NO! thanks

The stupid lady : sir it is a lifetime free credit card sir and the interest rate is.. (they assume these words are magic words which will make us reconsider the offer..)

I : SORRY! I m not interested

The stupid lady : thank you sir! Have a nice day!

Its five o clock now! And again the phone vibrates… Same thing again

I : HALO

Another stupid lady : Sir I m calling from ICICI Lombard Insurance.

Blah Blah Blah…

This happens literally everyday. Sometimes another as$h*le from another bank joins the party. (read more pain in the A$$)

Now with the banking industry flying high, and many foreign banks pitching tents in India, its an ordinary sight to see banks fighting among themselves and give customers a huge list of offers with the usage of the credit card. Welcome to the corporate world and u ll find that you ll get three calls per day. (either from ICICI or ICICI.. ya every time the call is from ICICI! ).I actually know hoe to get a ONLINE CREDIT CARD.

One another pissing thing is that you will end up carrying pamphlets (read minimum two) on your journey to the nearest restaurant (sorry! I actually meant MESS) for having LUNCH. A battery of men assemble on the road, maintaining a three meter distance between them, and a bunch of pamphlets in hand. As you pass them by, you get a feel like being escorted, and when you are very near, u hear a faint voice say : sir! . Everybody (yours truly included) walks with the pamphlet another two meters and throws it to the ground.

Oh I forgot!!! A good percentage (read 95%) of the credit card vendors from the bank are LIARS. They tell you flowery interest rates and offers. But none of them are true.

Key features of as$h*les (sorry I actually intended to type ICICI call center fellas)

1. They all speak horrible English. Example :
Sir! I m calling from ICICI (this sentence is always good coz it’s the same)
Are you interest in ICICI credit card? (as a corporate, you are supposed to interpret the sentence)

2. Most of the time, they don’t know to whom they are talking to. They jus address themselves and never ask who you are or what your name is.

3. The call usually doesn last any time longer than twenty seconds. (don be too happy. Read the remaining part of the sentence too) Still you ll get three calls per day

4. they all greet you a good bye message which also says “have a nice day!”

5. They are all war dialers. They keep dialing number after number. Whenever I get a call in my office extension phone from a land line, I usually don’t pick up. Coz in most offices, the extensions are numbered quite serially in adjacent seats, you ll be able to trace this out.

6. They are highly optimistic. They call me around three ‘o clock in the afternoon and again at five ‘o clock. They assume you get a hike of one lakh rupees in that two hour gap and suddenly I have grown big plans of expenditure and I m badly in need of a credit card.

One another fella whos spoke to me last month wasa really optimistic. I picked up the call.
I: halo
He : sir , I need one Xerox of latest month salary slip and residential address proof
I : who s dis?
He: sir, I m calling from ICICI..

And the same sequence of dialogues was exchanged.

I almost assume it is our mobile service provider who gives off the numbers to them. I got a call, the day my SIM got activated.

I wish I had a day off my mobile. At least without these ICICI calls!

Phew! I should have stayed off the corporate world. I should have become a sailor.

Hacking windows SEND TO MENU [VIEW FULL POST]

Hacking windows SEND TO MENU

How often do you copy songs from a CD? Or some photos from a CD?
What do you do? You select the required files and do a CTRL –C. Open the destination folder and do a CTRL-V. Here is something you can benefit time from. Customize your SEND TO MENU. This sounds simple and you can do it in less than sixty seconds.
You can create your own BASKET.



First you’ll need access to hidden files. So change your view settings to make all hidden files visible.

1. Tools -> folder options -> view (tab) and select the show hidden files and folders.
2. go to parent drive:/documents and settings/(user name)/send to
3. Open up my computer and locate your most used folders.
4. Create a shortcut of the most used folders in SEND TO FOLDER.You can do this in a number of ways.

• Right click -> send to desktop(create shortcut) and move the shortcut from the desktop to the SEND TO FOLDER
• Copy the most used folder and go to SEND TO FOLDER and right click -> paste shortcut.
• Also remember to rename the shortcuts to send to videos or send to potos. We don’t need confusion when we use the same later.

5. DONE

I know this is a very simple thing but the problem, as like many other issues, is the ignorance about it.

You can also create your own basket.
Create a folder and name it basket or my_basket.And have a short cut of the basket pasted in the send to folder.

Other windows hacks: RENAMING THE START BUTTON. And the stupid caption “click here to start”. Heh is it possible? Find out in ramanujam's blog.

DISABLE SHUTDOWN ^COOL
disabling RECENTLY OPENED DOCUMENTS

tag: windows hacking sendto basket

RICKY PONTING Vs. SHARAD PAWAR [VIEW FULL POST]

The Aussies, often hailed the best cricket team in the world, splashed up sauce on their own during the presentation ceremony of the ICC Champions trophy. Just like any winning side would like to lay their hands on the trophy, the Aussies were too excited to pose with the ICC Champions trophy. They weren’t the most disciplined team in the world though. And they seconded the statement themselves by pushing Sharad Pawar off the stage to pose to the media. Ricky Ponting pushed Sharad Powar off the stage, and his batting partner Damien Matryn soon did the same. Were the media to leave in a minute? Heh man you had enough time to pose man and you could have treated any man on stage with better respect.

The so called gentleman’s game is far lost. It doesn’t exist any more. Even in the field the spirit of the game is lost. We have many a times witnessed aussies fast bowlers and their captain getting hot under the collar and showing arrogant signs on the ground. Even young bowlers of India have been accused of getting rough in the field. Harbhajan Singh has been fined twice for being an as$h*ole on the ground. He hit the ball on the ground after taking a return catch. He seemed like if he had a sword in his hand, he would have sent Ricky Ponting’s head rolling on the floor.

If you had ever watched a test match involving England, it is tough to let this incident pass your eyes without notice. When the batting side is bowled out, the English men do not leave the ground before the batsmen leave the field. They wait (yes wait) near the ropes. And also during the ceremony, a young player raises his cap in respect to a veteran player on stage. These veterans do not expect respect but they certainly do not deserve to be humiliated.

Once a wise man said “eleven fools are playing and eleven thousand fools are watching”
Sometimes when incidents of such indiscipline happen, the thought gazes in my mind to analyze if the statement is true.

UPDATES :
1. Sachin Tendulkar says "i have not seen the incident , but wat the aussies did was a wrong thing!"
2. Sharad Pawar dismisses pressmen saying he did not think he was insulted.
3 . On the next day Sharad pawar speaks bad of aussies in front of the media.
4. Ricky ponting and Damien martyn offer to apologize to sharad pawar and the indian press.
5. Sharad pawar refuses to speak to the media , the next day.
6. The australian cricket board arranges a voice conference involving ponting and sharad powar


Related Articles :
The Ashes - whats inside the urn?
warney 700
Swing Bowling, an art..

tag: ICC CHAMPIONS TROPHY RICKY PONTING SHARAD PAWAR CRICKET

SWING BOWLING... [VIEW FULL POST]

CRICKET, CRICKET , its more than a game in INDIA. Boys in schools and colleges play crazy like anything and tennis ball is the preferred one. They never used to play with the cricket ball. The fault is not theirs. More than half of the time the match was played on the road and theres always an old lady shouting nearby. It must be true fate that the ball very often lands up in her premises. Even if the match was played in a ground, the boys are afraid of getting hit. And the fact is exaggerated with a funny say about getting hit with the genitals. Sorry we play safe!!!

But if only you had played with a cricket ball from the beginning, you would appreciate swing bowling. Early in childhood, say when we were just introduced to cricket, we didn’t know the difference about spin and swing bowling. Later did we understand that the ball moved or changed its direction in the air, it was called swing bowling. But we had seen all cricketers licking their fingers and wetting the ball with their saliva. Why did they do it? What was the physics behind it?

When a side comes on to bowl, a fresh ball with both sides shiny is given. As the ball is played about on the field, it gets a little “galaeej”. The ball loses its shine. The onus is on the fielding side to keep one side of the ball constantly shiny by rubbing it with saliva, sweat or somethimg. The usage of a towel is also witnessed many a times. I particularly remember an incident. My grandfather, who is a bit orthodox, says “abishtu, yethcha panran balla. Cha! ” for somebody who is not able to decipher the above line. It is analogous to “as$h*le, why the f*ck does he lick his fingers? shit” with little aggression.

Moving on to the physics behind it, it necessitates to keep one side of the cricket ball shiny. When the ball is positioned on the seam with the shiny side outside, it naturally follows a trajectory of a out-swinger. Bowling a in-swinger is comparatively difficult than the other one. It involves keeping the seam in an angle with the fingers. In a nut shell the ball curves in the direction of the shiny side.

A pity of a thing about Indian cricket is that it has never produced a great and a genuine swinger of the ball who has played on for a while. The last resource (sorry people are addressed so in the software industry) that India produced was kapil dev. Many fast bowlers like manoj prabhakar, javagal srinath, zaheer khan, irfan pathan, munaf patel, venkatesh prasad , anil kumble (:-)) came around. They all were capable of moving the ball in the air but were never considered deadly. When a fast bowler term is yelled out , what pings in my mind is wasim akram, shaun Pollock, glenn mcgrath, bret lee, chaminda vaas, shane bond and waqar younis. This list of bowlers will be remembered for ever.

Even in case of slow bowlers, shane warne and muthiah muralidaran , saqlian mushtaq, and the like have overwhelmed the slow bowling department in the country. The list includes harbhajan singh, sunil joshi, anil kumble , venkatesh Prasad. Sorry anil kumble is a fast bowler.

What is reverse swing in that case? Naturally the shining side has to move outside but as the ball gets old and weary, it misbehaves. The movement now happens in the other side. But the ball needs to be about 70-80 overs old in a test match and 40 overs in a LOI for the reverse swing to happen. When it starts misbehaving before that, we are most likely to see the umpires on the ground misbehaving. A few players are found using nails, soft drink caps (aka soda moodi) , grease to bring in reverse swing earlier than normal. Look what an appeal shahid afridi has for the ICC..

Related Articles :
warney 700
ashes. whats inside the urn?
RICKY PONTING pushing sharad pawar

tag: cricket swing bowling waqar younis reverse swing

Barcelona vs. Chelsea – the clash of titans [VIEW FULL POST]

Barcelona vs. Chelsea – the clash of titans

Disclaimer: this article is about football!!! So if you don’t follow UEFA or u don’t like football, this one is not for you babeY! So get back to www.readbarbi.blogspot.com

Champions in their respective leagues last year, this clash was indeed termed as the CLASH OF THE TITANS. But when the play was on, I would have rather called it a TUG OF WAR. With Didier drogba pulling off a 1-0 win for the blues in their previous encounter, it was an important game for both the teams and a win was there on everybody’s mind. But did it mean you had to get rough on the field?

In just moments after the kickoff, Deco netted the ball much to the delight of the home fans, giving BARCA an early lead. The first half was a horrible show with five yellow cards. The referee was a real as$h*le. He was making ridiculous and insane decisions on the pitch. He knew he was the boss, and his word was the judgment and nobody could help any thing about it. There was too much heat in the body language of the players and the referee had to blow the whistle too often. But there were many incidents which called for the as$h*le (oh sorry ) the referee, to pin somebody with an yellow card. Not only did he fail to do that, he also had to answer José Mourinho, for giving off a yellow card. Many a fellow would have thought that the yellow card was for Ashley Cole, but Frank Lampard standing nearby went the victim. He was making himself a git. For all anybody knows , he never did have to answer a manager.

A sudden and a sharp change was visible on the as$h*le (oops sorry again, the referee) during the second half. It seemed like someone had said to him during the break “heh what the f*ck are you doing on the field man? There’s already a man who has started calling you an as$h*le.” Somebody had given a reveille to the as$h*le. And what soon followed was a thing that Lampard fans would speak for years. A brilliant goal curling in to the net from in a position a goal has never been scored. Truly he was worth the dollars he was spent on.


A very fitting reply came from the opposite camp with the magic man ronaldinho sending a cross and Gudjohnson touching it home. The next thirty or more minutes that followed reviled the heat and six more yellow cards followed, raising the total count to 11 YELLOW CARDS IN THE MATCH. All the six decisions by the referee were fair this time.

Barca was delighted to have almost won the match when Didier Drogba sent down the equalizer in the extra time (93). Victory denied at the doorstep. It sent José Mourinho on his knees. It was almost like he had scored it himself. On a contrary, his rival Frank Rijkaard had a final say with the referee seconds after the final whistle. Finally the permeated heat seemed to melt.

Cast your votes now. How will lift the UEFA champion’s trophy this time?

who ll lift the champions trophy this time?
	CHELSEA
	BARCA
	ARSENAL
	MAN U
	SOME OTHER...

tag: BARCELONA CHELSEAUEFA DROGBA LAMPARD DECO

DON game released – mobile and online [VIEW FULL POST]

King SHAH RUKH KHAN’S latest movie DON has left a thrill in the spine among fans. But it seems even game designers have a part a play in the party. Adding to the gaming evolution, a new game has been released inspired by the film DON. Mobile freaks can download the game on to their mobile. For others who prefer more realistic challenge, it is available online as a multiplayer game at www.gaminghungama.com

Two versions of the game
• Race and chase game at Kuala Lumpur
• Player helps SHAH RUKH to find the disc.

Read DON REVIEW HERE

ALSO READ THE REVIEW AND SHAH RUKH KHAN'S INTERVIEW ON THE DON GAME..
tag: DON MOBILE GAMESdon mobile game