OXYMORONS – Crazy shit ….
January 28, 2010 by admin · Leave a Comment
Received this on email a few days ago
An oxymoron is usually defined as a phrase in which two words of contradictory meaning are brought together:-
1) Clearly misunderstood
2) Exact Estimate
3) Small Crowd
4) Act Naturally
5) Found Missing
6) Fully Empty
7) Pretty ugly
Seriously funny
9) Only choice
10) Original copies
One Oxymoron was used on Americans when they couldn’t find weapons of mass destruction
11) American intelligence
And the Mother of all……
12) Happily Married
‘Chance pe Dance’ review
January 17, 2010 by admin · Leave a Comment
This movie is not even worth talking about. You may enjoy it if your a Shahid fan – he dances well and has 8 pack abs – thats all there is in this movie. No storyline whatsoever. Genelia looks nice and the pair look cool together.
Statutory Warning: Cigarette Smoking is Injurious to Health and your MAC
November 24, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
Your cigarette packet could soon read – ‘Statutory Warning: Cigarette Smoking is Injurious to Health and your Apple Mac’ – hah.
It’s crazy but it is true – the warranty on your Apple Mac could get void if you or people around you are smokers. I was shocked to read this article on the Consumerist website but having read the same, I felt that these Americans can get away with anything – at the cost of consumers.
If Apple feels that what they have done is correct by refusing to repair macs sold to some smokers, then they should have created some sought of awareness regarding this. A major percentage of people buying macs are smokers and no one in their right frame of mind could have ever imagined that such small print exists in their warranties.
The full article can be seen here – Smoking Near Apple Computers Creates Biohazard, Voids Warranty
I wonder whether the same rule applies to the Ipods, Iphones and the rest of the Apple range – if yes, then I can foresee Apple losing a big chunk of their sales. If any of you have a clue, please do not forget to post in the comments section of this article.
Dengue – what you need to know
For the past couple of weeks, our house situated in New Delhi has seen 2 cases of Dengue and believe me, it is not a good situation.On investigating, we found out that almost 1/3rd of most private hospitals were full with dengue cases and rooms were unavailable. And the Government had recently stated Delhi dengue-free few days ago in the newspapers – a very sad situation.
Dengue is one of those diseases caused by a virus that has no treatment and requires rest alongwith optimal fluid intake.
Here is what you need to know :
a) Dengue is caused by mosquitoes that are carrying the virus. It is a chain reaction – mosquitoes bite infected humans to get the disease and then transmit it to other humans.
b) These mosquitoes bite only during the day.
c) They are mainly found in areas close to dirty water or where water storage is not regulated. Mainly spreads during the rainy season.
d) Normally takes 5-6 days after biting before it shows symptoms like high fever, headaches, joint/muscle pains, nausea etc etc.
e) Dengue fever can get fatal and therefore, needs immediate attention including regular supervision by doctors.
f) There are 4 types of dengue viruses (known as DEN1, DEN2, DEN3 and DEN4) and each can infect a human only once – therefore, each person can be infected by a particular type of dengue virus only once.
One of the reasons I am posting this article is to to highlight another problem we faced during the course of this treatment. The patient’s platelets had gone down under 25000 and the doctors advised that blood transfusion may be required (a process where they take platelets from a donor with the same blood group and transfuse it into the patient’s blood stream – not as simple as it sounds). Transfusion is normally done when platelets fall below 10,000 in adults and under 15000 in children – completely at the doctor’s discretion.
Typically, while the patient is in observation, doctors monitor mainly the Blood pressure and platelets level. When the platelet levels start rising and show some stagnancy is what doctors consider a positive sign of the virus getting under control.
Here is what needs to be known regarding blood transfusion during dengue :
a) Only male donors are preferred as platelet levels in females are low.
b) The nerves of the donor (in both arms) must be prominant as the needles are required to stay in the nerves for almost an hour or even more. They take blood from one arm, seperate the platelets and release the blood back in the other arm instantaneously. The prominance of the nerves was an issue for us and only one out of our 4 donors were acceptable by the hospital.
c) Finally, once the doctors establish that the nerves are prominant, they test the blood for diseases like HIV etc. Also, donors should not be taking regular medicines like for BP or heart or diabates etc. The donors should also make sure that they have not consumed alcohol in the 24 hrs prior to this.
In normal circumstances, transfusion is not required, but in cases where it is required, 1-2 units are normally sufficient. So it is best to make sure that donors should be ready immediately on detection of dengue – don’t leave it to the last minute to avoid panic.
Feel free to post your experiences as it may help others in understanding this disease better.
Do not forget to share this page on Facebook, DIGG, Twitter and other social networks.
Here is some online material for your ready reference.
Booklet – Protect yourself and your family from Dengue
(Booklet – English/ Chinese/ Malay/ Tamil)
This is it – An unbiased review – a Must Watch
Amidst much criticism and anticipation, I went and watched ‘This is it’ finally today making sure that I got the best seats on the house – I had booked my seats on the first day of booking over 3 weeks ago.
Even though it was a local cinema, the feeling was that I am in a concert right from the word ‘go’. A lot of negative feedback had been in circulation about the film’s producer ‘Kenny Ortega’ but towards the end, you feel like saying ‘Hats off’ to this guy – he has put up a great composition of the world’s biggest artist from the final rehearsals of his last few days. Unlike the speculation, the show was not a documentary about Michael’s last few days, about his illness or personal life, the movie is purely about the footage from the rehearsals for the shows ‘This is it’.
Michael, though not at his best, comes out to be a pure entertainer even from the rehearsals. He was a perfectionist and every minute from the movie proves the same. Every performance was well planned – so planned that he almost made a new video for each of his songs (like he would do for a music video) to be played before and during the performances at the planned concerts. His introduction video for the song ‘Smooth Criminal’ was outstanding. And of course, the making of the new ‘Thriller’ video for his concerts is also amazing. There were several others but let’s keep it a surprise.
There were several touching moments and several others, where you are kept gasping for more.
We assume so many things when we go and watch a concert, but seeing MJ perform and all the planning that went into making sure that this series of concerts should be a mega success, you will be gobsmacked. Unlike other concerts, Mj’s would have been most unique and most spectacular.
Where most artists put all their efforts in selling out one concert, MJ had 50 concerts fully sold out – such was his crazy fan following. And MJ knew that he cannot let them down which is why he took care of every detail, every chord, every other performer and every video associated with his performance. He knew his music in and out, and made sure that everyone else on the sets of his stage also knew them. There was no margin for error. The movie shows his involvement at every stage of planning and implementation.
Inspite of his medical issues, he seemed full of energy . He did seem tired at times but his voice was still at it’s best – I guess he was born to sing, dance and entertain others.
‘This is it’ is a must watch for all MJ fans. 5 stars is too less for this masterpiece.
Blue Movie Review
October 22, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
You’re probably wondering what this movie review is doing in a site that tries to find everyday solutions to problems. Here’s my problem, I wasted almost 3 hours watching this movie. The solution for others – Don’t watch it.
The first half of the movie is good and has some thrills and good sequences. Lara Dutta looks Hot, Akshay Kumar looks average, Sanjay Dutt (Lara’s boyfriend) looks too old to carry himself, Zayed Khan (Sanjay’s brother) doesn’t know acting – why do they take him, Katrina Kaif in a small role of Zayed’s girldfriend is wasted.
The underwater sequences are good but the story line and abrupt ending make this 100 crore movie do down the drain. What could have set the benchmark for the Indian movie industry was wasted tastefully in the second half.
The song ‘Jiggie Wiggie’ with Kylie Minogue, although not as catchy at first, was a good entertainer specially when Farah Khan decided to make Kylie dance to Punjabi and do bhangra – was hilarious.
The movie has a lot of style but lacked substance.
I don’t give stars in my reviews as I shall only be posting movies which are not worth your time watching. Watch this movie only if you are a big fan of Lara Dutta or else wait for the DVD.
Cameroon, Nigeria and Benin Fraud and Scams
October 21, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
I receive daily emails from several dubious people or companies from Cameroon, Nigeria and Benin regarding their huge requirements of one commodity or the other. Most of these emails are tender based requirements or Government sponsored requirements.
Since the 2010 South Africa FIFA World Cup is about to happen, most of their current requirements seem to be targeted towards this event.
It is amazing to see that these fraudsters are getting more and more professional everyday. They send detailed specifications of the required items including pictures etc (they probably get it from a genuine source) and make the manufacturers like us believe that they are serious in their business.
Once the manufacturer sends a quote, they (obviously) are awarded the tender and are first required to send samples and company details by courier. As soon as the samples are received by these fraudsters, they send professionally looking documents by email stating that the tender has been awarded alongwith contact details of the concerned people in the Ministry etc etc (these numbers never tend to work or are received by the fraudsters themselves).
Now here lies the trick – you cannot accept the tender without an intermediary such as a lawyer who will pretend to handle the transaction. These lawyers will charge you a professional fee which could be anything – $4000/$10000 or even more payable in 1 or 2 instalments.
As soon as the manufacturers are tricked into sending this professional fee to the so-called lawyers, everything comes to a standstill and you shall not hear from these fraudsters again no matter how much you chase them.
These fraudsters uses fake emails, fake addresses, fake documents. The only thing real is their bank account number of the lawyer which is where they receive the payment. The banks used by these fraudsters are small and this makes them untraceable.
The Governments in these countries have done nothing to prevent these scams and inspite of the efforts of several organisations worldwide, more and more people fall into their trap everyday.
A sincere request to eveyone who may have been pulled towards replying to these people – Just Stay Away. Don’t even bother. And, please do help us spread the word by distributing this article as much as you can (Use digg, stumble, facebook, whatever you think may be suitable to get attention).
News on one page – Newsmap
October 5, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
Just came accross a site that picks up news from the google news feeds and displays them in a really cool fashion in order of importance. All the news on one page and taking the mouse over the headline will show a summary of the news articles. Quite cool. I could even see news for individual countries or for a particular subject.
Newsmap
Click here to visit the site.
Free software for Cleaning unnecessary files and system optimization
September 27, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
I did quite a bit of research to find out the best free software for cleaning up unnecessary files, windows temporary files (you’ll be amazed how many there are), bad registry entries etc etc. I did try out a few of these and I finally had a chance to try CCleaner. Not only is it freeware, it has more or less all the features of the other alternatives that are considered professional and cost a lot. You also get the option of deleting IE/Firefox/other cookies and history.
It has no spyware/adware and is quite fast.
So there you have it, go to – ccleaner.com and try it. Do let me know when you are happy with the results.