Spam - Mails, comments and now traffic

Have to admit I am a fan of spam. Spam mails are funny, I make it a point to read my spam box, It is always funny , the only key is that it assumes you are dumb. If you are not dumb it is funny.

There is this Nigerian group that puts as much 0's as they like and say you have won a lottery or the commander general/ prime minister or big estate owner of civil war torn country sending mails to you as they you knew him from childhood asking you to take care of his money.  How dumb can things get?

There are few people where greed for money covers their eyes, ears, brain etc and fall in to pits. One has to always remember whatever you get has to be earned, if it is free its not yours, maybe not going to stay.  There are legal lotteries people win but then they die protecting the money :) There are no free lunches int his world.

Coming back to the point , it is not so strange to find the motivation behind these people sending mails or putting links everywhere either they are cornering you to steal your money or they are paid for whatever they are doing. They do their job, google/yahoo etc they do a decent job in sending these directly to spam folder.
Sometimes good mails do land up here but it is a necessary evil.

What I fail to understand is the spam traffic that hits the blog. Sitemeter which to some extent I believe shows 10 visitors to the blog last week (of which 7 must be me :) ). However blogger stats shows traffic in thousands which come by using firebird. It is clear someone benefits by pumping fake traffic to blogs but who does it and what benefit they get beats me. Its nice to see some traffic even if it is fake.\

Spam is always funny unless you react to it!

19B: Lick me Lick me Not

If you can relate even remotely to the character played by Leonardo Di Caprio in the Movie "Aviator" then it is not advisable to travel on the city buses. We have come a long way from buses having people spit on the floor and all. Buses are relatively neat now a days. However the conductor has not changed much.

In olden days where bundle of tickets were used, the conductor used to lick his finger and touch the bundle just to make sure he issues only one ticket and not two. Then he would have to pay for this grave mistake by maybe paying from his pocket.

One can only imagine that he has to show the number of tickets he has dispatched and pay corresponding money, it is obvious that he had to be extra careful in ensuring he gives you exactly one ticket. If you are receiving the ticket better be careful to know where to touch the ticket and where not to :)

Things have modernized and so have the ticketing system (atleast in AC buses), now there is a machine that instantly prints one and only one ticket and there is no problem for the conductor to give this ticket, he no longer needs to lick his finger before tearing the ticket from the machine. All is safe and clean .

Well one can only hope so as still the money is in his hands, sometimes in the mouth too and the old bank notes sometimes make love to each other and refuse to separate and one has to be a bad parent to separate them. Now what comes handy, the finger and the tongue. They play a good role in making sure he gives you only one ten rupee note rather than two.

One has an advantage now, the 10 rupee and 100 rupee notes have bigger square area, so you have more options where to hold the note and avoid the watered areas :)

19B: The hallucinator

Well if you are lucky or unlucky to sit in the last row and your luck has sold you like match fixers in IPL you may well get to sit next to this hallucinator. 

Yes sometimes life is strange, it may not be as bad as it can but it does show you how bad it can get. This person travels on 19B and have seen him sit in the last corner seat of the bus. He usually keeps his bags to the side to keep some space for himself but would ultimately give up. Then he starts talking to himself or rather to the imaginary friend. It is not just a talk it is a fight and it seems to get physical at times.

He is very decently dressed and one can at first sight identify him as an IT professional. He has a smart phone, buys ticket for his destination and replies to conductor when asked to provide change and all that. He even reads tamil magazines.  One can mistake him to be talking on the phone if he plugs on his ear sets .

However as time progresses one would realize that he literally tries to beat or push the imaginary nearby person and he talks a bit louder mostly saying "no no dont" and sometimes "I need flow diagrams" and sometimes "then we will have to beg on the streets".

So far no one has really freaked out and have given him his space but when he physically moves its a bit of a challenge for person sitting in front and side. He does not harm anybody and no one really cares.
Well is that the problem - No one really cares?

What is his story? I she really employed in an IT firm? Does he undergo medication? Does he have a family? Why no friend accompanies him, if this is just a translational phase?

Well I get down most days with lot of questions but no answer. However he keeps reminding me that life can go anyway one has little he can do.

I sincerely hope he gets well.

Rooten eggs, Bad Apples , IPL and entertainment

Expectations bring Disappointment.

Not trying to be philosophical but just being practical. If someone thought that Cricket were a religion and IPL was a ritual that was being performed and it sanctity destroyed... ew!

Cricket is no longer the gentleman's game and all men involved are gentle enough to fill their pockets. The going under the hammer auction in itself was a start of the direction IPL was heading. It was clear that  when players were sold at millions that billions were at stake.

Cricket in itself is entertainment and just IPL redefined it and took it to the next level. If someone felt that it was to promote cricket , I pity them. If they feel they have been deceived by the spot fixing well I can only laugh at them.

IPL is nothing but a reality show with lots of twists and turns, when one can watch a movie knowing very well that the hero is the one who is going to ultimately triumph, is it not match fixing? Has there been a successful movie where the villan has won? No. Then it is scripted, all entertainments are scripted and so is IPL. When WWE/WWF can have scripted sports why can't cricket have its share? It is alleged that even all reality shows (like BigBoss etc) are scripted to some extent.

So treat IPL as though you treat a movie, laugh when the player hits a six, cry when he gets out, pray the hero wins. In this case sometimes the villian does win and well can any other entertainment top that.

If you treat cricket as a religion and think these people represent the country in a war with other nations like an army soldier. Well good luck and be prepared for more heart brakes, for its money that matters not the nation or the sport. Besides these people represent BCCI and not India.

Entertainment is best forgotten when the TV set is switched off.

2G, Coal, Rail, ... IPL

As usual there is a lot for meat for the media in the latest IPL scandal. It is a golden opportunity to earn some TRP ratings. It is time to grab some CCTV footage and let all Inidans know how they were cheated and deprived of ....well wait what are we deprived of.

"One billion people cheated" flashed the headlines and I started wondering do all the 1 billion watch Cricket and that too IPL. Of the 1 billion , many women do not watch or even like Cricket. Some many too do not watch or like Cricket , some are crazy for Man U that they don't give a damn even if Bradman is batting.

So that wipes out maybe a half of that 1 billion. How many follow IPL really, is it so popular in cities outside of where they are played? Anyway lets leave the statistics and come to the cheating part.

Did I loose money, No someone betted that some team will won , he lost, maybe he won so what is in it for me? Nothing

Did he take my tax money and paid for the bets? No

Did the exchequer loose money? No

Ok he paid money for people to underperform so that he can win money on bets.
Did someone force me or even ask me to watch the match? No
Did someone force me to follow a team/player like crazy thinking they are the Gods and Demi-Gods? No

Did I miss some work or lose my pay for watching Cricket? No

When I think of the other bigger scams where my dear earned money I paid as tax was looted, price of commodities increased as someone siphoned off with my tax money, when the exchequer lost lakhs of crores , it did hurt, it was a blow below the belt but this well this is just entertainment.
Media better stay focussed on issues that matter.

19B: Display of the Dog's collar

Earlier posts 19B

First of all no offense meant.

As far as I remember in my childhood only dogs used to have collars which would identify a dog to its owner. Then slowly the IT industry and now every corporate has enforced employees to wear one. Yes I am referring to the ID card that hangs around your neck.

For various reasons mainly related to security, this has been enforced. It makes corporates think that these tags ensure the physical security of their premises. Well there are many loopholes and myths surrounding this (thats for a later post) but anyway these tags provide necessary security.

The ensure the security guard that only authorized person is entering the premises and also doors are now a days access controlled. One is given access to a certain door one and only if he is eligible and needs to use it. Fair enough.

My point here is why should this be displayed in public and in public transport vehicles. This needs an analysis

1. To show off that one works in a reputed company, IT company and is to be respected. Well the conductor gives a damn about it and the autowallah ensures he asks you double when you display your tag.

2. Men may display this again to show off to woo women.

3. Women is where I don't understand why display ID card in public. You are giving more details to a stranger than necessary, One can easily find what company you work for, what is your name, in same cases blood group and why not even home phone number could be there. Why would someone display so much personal info in public.

Beats me!

DD Days - 2 : Johnny sokko and his flying robot

Saturday evening around 4:30 I think there used to be a scramble to watch the nearby TV wherever it was available. Not all houses had TV those days, and most were mere black & white ones. However this program called "Johnny sokko and his flying robot" was quite a popular one.

This program was one that showed larger than life pictures on television. It I guess introduced the concept of robots to many a common man and children. One can still remember Johnny soko controlling his robot from outside a perimeter kind of place (more like a boxing ring) and fighting other alien kind of things which as far as I remember had tentacles and all.

The Giant robot would follow instructions of Johnny and kill the enemy alien. Well the story was more or less the same every episode and Robot and Johnny would win all the time. There was a team behind Johnny helping him and the robot.

The people were mongoloid looking (Japanese) but they used to talk in Dubbed English but as I said the story did not matter the sheer larger than life and an entry in to an imaginative world was good enough to get us hooked for half an hour and wanting more.

Now I see Wiki Entry it has lot of information and also there is an online shop for the episodes (cannot vouch for the same).

Those days it did not matter much one was happy to have a window to something unique and refreshing, even if it lasted all but half an hour for 6 months. It has stayed for long in the heart.