Ads, Adwares And Removing Malwares

Whenever I open my mailbox, I see these goofy and irritating ads on the side announcing "singles in your area". More than being irritated, I am amazed to see that such pretty faces with a successful profession (usually listed below the mugshot) are still single. So is it for real? I have never bothered to find out because I know for sure that its as untrue as it gets. The world sadly, is not as sad as they make it out to be. In my opinion, all good girls are taken, and taken for good. But then, nobody would even take a look at these ads if they didn't put such faces. And marketers have had to put pretty women to sell razors, after shaves, suits and even men's underwear (especially men's underwear). So I am not surprised. Well, the long and short of it, these ads don't work and they are mighty irritating. And the only way I suppose I can avoid such ads would be to change my relationship status in my email profile because I've read somewhere that they place these ads 'intelligently' after going through this piece of personal information in your profile. Let me try it out and see if it works.

On a side note, I came across this nice site called www.geekstogo.com which is a great resource for getting rid of malware and viruses from your PC (I wish they could come up with a software to get rid of these personals' ads too). The forums contain a vast wealth of information and the experts are really what they claim to be, experts. And I know this from my personal experience where I was able to nail a Trojan.TDSS through one such expert's help. While doing so, I got enough insights into what a Trojan was, what a hijack was, what a spyware was and so on. So now you know where to go in case your computer is infected.

My Frasier Moments

I was watching this old re-run of Frasier the other day where Dr. Frasier Crane makes an absolute fool of himself in front of his radio audience and later continues his bumbling ways at a conference. And each incident happens to be wilder than the other. Well then, that's Dr. Crane for you. Never a dull moment, thanks to his innate sense of bad humor. I have done enough silly things in my life to make me cringe with embarrassment whenever I remember them. At such times, the feeling of "Why me?" haunts me over and over again. In some extreme cases, these I-will-haunt-you-for-the-rest-of-my-life moments caused more harm than embarrassment and the aftershocks can be felt even today. Truth be told, some of them were totally my doing and the rest, well let's just say, they just happened. Or maybe I was in the wrong spot at the wrong time. And my friends are never the worse for causing me grief over those silly situations. So every day I try hard to avoid getting myself into such situations but eventually I do get into them. There is some sort of unknown gravity that pulls me into such blackholes. I call such incidents my Frasier moments because I have seen no one else excepting Frasier get into such spots and not able to get away with it. And me too. I'm not as snooty as Dr. Crane, but hey, embarrassment knows no boundaries, class or creed. And as I mentioned in one of my earlier posts that I've had several of these, and then some.

I remember about this incident, where I was in a conference and I was talking to this small, laconic gentleman about some topic I pretended I knew a lot about and this small, laconic gentleman was nodding in amazement as if to show how well I knew my stuff. Turns out that the small, laconic gentleman was actually a professor in that field. And I came to know about it well after I finished with, "you should read about it sometime, its an interesting subject." The rest of the evening I maintained the same space between him as Pluto maintains with the Sun in our Solar System. There was this other time when I turned up for a dinner unshaven in jeans and tees only to find that it was a formal gathering of black jackets (if not ties). Reason? I missed out on reading the fine print announcing the dress code. I walked out of the gathering before someone could pull me in to save myself from further trouble and in the course had to miss a great dinner. The one I remember most and I hate the most is the one where I once gave a present (don't remember what) to a girl on a Valentine's Day in front of all her friends while I was in college. She of course calmly rejected it (speaking of which, I would have been surprised if she hadn't). That was the last time she ever talked to me and that was the last time anyone ever took me seriously again in college. Juvenile, but remember, years later, Fred Savage still hates himself for doing such stuff in that wonderful TV series 'Wonder Years'. Even after all these years, someone from my college days remembered me from that incident. And we had a good laugh at it, at my expense. Sweet. All of these incidents are just the tip of a massive iceberg and there are worse ones lurking somewhere down in the murky bottom. I would never forgive myself if I take them out of my black book and put them here. Never a dull moment but enough miserable moments that caused some flutter, giggles and of course to me a lot of embarrassment. And the only reason I'm putting some of them (some as in, 3 in a million. OK let's round it to the nearest billion) here is because my friend today was talking about this embarrassing moment he recently had and was going on and on about it. And of course the Frasier episode too. So its no longer "Why me?" but "Why us?". Well, I'm feeling much better now.

Life in the Jogger's Trail and the Trojan Wars

Ahh.. The sweetness of doing nothing. Things had been busy out here and I did not have much time to do anything that was even remotely relaxing. But starting this week, all that has changed. Jogging, swimming (or at least trying to learn the art) and more jogging has helped. Every day, an hour of jogging after work is making me feel that I am on vacation already. And the lovely trail adds to the feeling. So I have now realized that pulling out an hour for yourself can be very good for you, or at least gives you the feeling that it does a whole lot of good for you. In addition the lazy and twisty jogging trail gives you a nice feeling of doing just nothing. Its another story whether in reality it helps or not.

But because such good blissful things don't last forever, and the laws of averages always tend to catch up with you, I got a rude alert when my computer was attacked by a Trojan. And so, for the past few days, after a good jog, I have been researching to find a good site that would help me get rid of this nasty stuff. Unfortunately, nothing seems to be working. The more I research the more frustrating it becomes. Ever since the attack happened, this hijack has also been directing me to a dead site with a Chinese domain name whenever I click on a Google search result. So, now I realize what happens when you start to browse sites you are not supposed to tread on. I've decided that I will stick to the ones that are familiar or in the web parlance 'trusted'. Lesson well learnt, but the hard way. Before the Trojan creates more damage than it must have done already, I need to win this battle first. And then follow it up with a well-deserved vacation. San Tropez has a nice weather at this time of the year. So I heard.

From Cars To Business To Cars

From a car magazine to a business fortnightly. There has been a gradual transition in my reading habits. And if it were someone else, I would surely call it a sign of aging. Why else would someone start reading business articles with increased interest (from cover to cover) rather than ogle at new automobiles’ pics (Motor porn as some seem to call it)? Is it a sudden realization about where all that moolah to buy good cars (cars I was dreaming about all these years but couldn’t have or rather covet) comes from? Or is it because I don’t understand the techno babble about these high-tech cars? Or..? Maybe, just maybe, just hypothetically, these cars no longer turn me on? All these questions seem to indicate that I am growing senile. Well, the evidence does overwhelmingly seem to suggest so, but its not entirely true.

I still have a thing for cars. Nice cars that is. The real reason for drastic change is the fact that I have come to the fag end of my one-year financial management course. The course has given me new insights into the way modern-day businesses are conducted or at least should be conducted in theory. The last few weeks have been quite stressful considering the fact that the final semester was coming to an end with a series of tests. And boy! Am I glad that they got over? I would definitely consider it a good learning experience and considering the fact that I now understand some hitherto unknown concepts makes me extremely happy. It will still take me sometime before I can completely understand a balance sheet, but I am getting there. And helping me in this process are these nice business articles about economic and trade policies, write-ups about companies, businesses, etc. Matching the theories from class notes to the real world scenarios in the magazine is a good exercise in understanding the nitty gritties of tradecraft. Which in turn has helped me in facing the exams with better confidence. Which is the reason why I had kept all those car mags in temporary cold storage and brought the business mags out. So I rest my case. It is not a sign of aging. It was out of pure necessity. But a useful necessity in the end. Its made me a bit wiser in terms of finances and present value of money and all other things that make a business business. But as you might have observed by now, it has done nothing to improve my horrendous writing skills. Maybe I will take up a writing course in the future. Back to my car mags now.

What an eventful week or two it has been! - II: Killing a Centaur

Moving onto the next one. Another white elephant of our society, Air India, is going bust. And just before the government was all set to come out with a disinvestment plan. Air India employees sure have a sense of timing. As is the story with other airlines, the management of the airlines sure is trying its best to land the jumbo on flat tires. But hey, wait! The brakes are burnt too! So who's gonna stop the crash? We the taxpayers, of course! I am really saddened by the way Air India has been continuously losing its sheen over the years. It has been a constant run downhill. And I think the problem started on the day government said, "Thanks J.R.D., we'll takeover the reins of the Centaur (Air India's then logo) now and don't worry, its in safe hands."

I happen to remember an incident when the then Civil Aviation Minister Mr. Madhavrao Scindia got the brilliant idea of changing the logo from the Centaur to a golden Sun on a red background. This act of his pushed Air India into the red because AI did not have enough cash on its balance sheet to repaint all the aircraft in its fleet. I cannot fathom why our ministers always focused on grandiose plans for AI but never focused on one area that helps an airline more than anything else. Customer service. With such a wide network and excellent pilots and technical ground staff, if there was anything AI lacked, it was the customer service. And it continues to do so. OK, the mascot is a Maharaja, to give you a feeling that you will be treated as a Maharaja once you are aboard the aircraft. But, unfortunately it is not the case. Almost every employee (barring a few) feels that he or she is a Maharaja or a Maharani (as the case maybe) and every passenger who gets on board is a peasant destined to the misery of air travel. Otherwise how can you explain the indifference that starts right from the ground staff who don't give a hoot about how to handle your baggage, or where it is supposed to go? This attitude of indifference stems from the fact that they know that their jobs are secure no matter what they do (or don't do). In case any action is taken against them, the employees' union will go on a strike. More about that later.

In these times, for the airlines to be successful, what matters is good customer service which I should say does not cost more than offering the same service with a little more care and of course, a smile. But the crew and staff of AI never seem to understand this. I have seen my friends fly AI (with pride because it was an Indian airline) come back dejected and frustrated with the kind of service they got. The two times I had to fly AI, it was an experience not worth remembering. One time, they almost stranded me in Changi’s transit lounge where a not so nice Indian born (un-aptly named Bhagat Singh) Singaporean accused me of traveling to Singapore without onward reservation because I was planning to slip into Singapore as an illegal (perhaps he or his forefathers must have done just that). AI had conveniently forgotten to update the online system with my reservation details. My baggage was dumped outside the transit area and I had no way of claiming it because I did not have a visa to go outside. Fortunately for me, a nice lady at the immigration desk granted me a 24-hour visa (after hearing my story) to go into the departures area, claim my baggage and check-in again. I had to spend the whole night in the terminal waiting for AI’s Singapore office to open up the next day and clear up the issue. Tom Hanks’ ‘Terminal’ still reminds me of that long night in Changi. Moral of the story: As much as I hate to say this, never fly AI again. Especially if you are an Indian.

As I mentioned before, the indifference could be because the AI employees think their jobs are safe since they have the loving protection of the State and no matter what they do (or don't do), they'll get their paycheck. If they don’t get a raise or get paid on time, they can go on a strike and hit the passenger where it hurts him/her the most. Cancel the flights and ground everyone. Not nice. I am sure that these employees make more money than an average Indian. They have their own housing colonies at prime locations and of course other perks which are unheard of in other professions. Great managers like Russi Mody and Y. Deveshwar were unable to manage AI and quit, thanks to an unrelenting and rigid employees' union, pilots' union, cabin crews' union, ground staff union, etc. You name a role, the employees have a union for it. And the Ministry of Civil Aviation never actually was effective against these unions. But, unfortunately, all of these unions and the Ministry were never unionized in trying to making a passenger feel less miserable while traveling with them. What more can I say? Yes, a word about the Centaur hotels managed by AI. The less said the better. Anybody who’s given this hotel chain a five star or a four star rating was not in his real senses or never knew what those ratings meant. Classic case of bad management. ‘Nuff said.

Despite having said all this, for me, AI had always been the connection with distant lands since my childhood. Those funny ads of the Maharaja flying to Oslo, Amsterdam, New York and other places are still fresh in my mind. I am sure it is the case with other people too. It would be safe to say, that for a long time, the Maharaja was the most recognized character after the Amul baby. Which is why it makes me sadder still that AI is going belly up. A fine example of bad management and rampant indifference. AI get your act together and get moving. Bigger airlines have faltered despite being good airlines. The government might bail you out despite your bad ass attitude but people won't stand you much longer.

What an eventful week or two it has been! - All Men Equal - But Some Women Are More Than Equal

Michael Jackson, R.I.P.

What a week or two it has been! The news channels just kept it rolling starting with the elephant statue controversy in Uttar Pradesh.

At the speed Mayawati's sculptors are churning out those elephants, Thailand should be worried considering that the country is going to lose its sobriquet of the Land of White Elephants. I am sure, that Uttar Pradesh now has more stone elephants than the real ones. OK, they look good (elephants are undoubtedly very graceful creatures), but, is it a coincidence that these animals are her Mayawati's political party’s symbols? Probably not. Because the statues of Her Mightiness are also standing at various 'chowks' and centers of her state/fiefdom. And all that money to fund those pachyderms comes from the taxpayer. I’d be happier if the money was spent to save some real lions and tigers or even given away in charity. Hope Her Mightiness spared some pocket change on them from her own millions that she has pocketed over the years. Proclaiming herself to be a leader of backward classes, she sure is bringing equality among the caste-ridden society in her own little way. And that is by making the entire state go backwards into decades and maybe centuries. So the moral of the story? if you can't chart any progress for your people, do the next best thing, hit the cruise control. In reverse. Result? Everyone's backward and everyone's exploited and everyone's happy because everyone is now backward and exploited. Mission Social Equality achieved. I had last heard of such excesses only during the times of Roman emperors and in the modern times, in some small African countries (some guy built a church with a dome larger than the Vatican in a famine ridden country, don’t remember who or don’t remember where). Wheels in retro do move faster than wheels in progress. Uttar Pradesh, you are headed south. Politically and socially, that is. And I just hope that the Supreme Court verdict puts brakes on this elephant rampage.