Month: October 2007

India’s Great Chess Hope

Chess Set

Viswanathan Anand, the Indian current world champion in chess, wonders why Indians do not usually excel in sports. I think I know why.

Despite their population, which I think is already next to China, India may not have really excelled in Sports. Well, that’s based on the notion that the bigger the population, the more talents (in terms of numbers). That has been the case even in Philippines setting wherein the NCR always excel because of the abudance of talents in a large population.

Even in the 15th Asian Games in Doha in December last year, India placed 7th, next to China, Korea, Japan, Kazakhstan, Thailand and Iran. Well, Philippines is a different issue, out of the context of this article.

Bloopers from Call Centers

It’s joke time.

Found this one in my inbox this morning. I’m not sure whether they are based on actual events. Nevertheless, they’re worth a laugh or two.

Telesales agent getting the customer’s credit card info:
Agent: Can I have your expiration date, sir?
Customer: My what?!!
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Telesales agent giving promo spiels:
Agent: You called at the right time, ma’am. We have a lot of freebies to give away, such as free installation, free equipment, and free DVD player. That’s a great offer, di ba?
Customer: huh?!
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Solving the Rubik’s Cube

Rubik’s Cube (commonly misspelled rubix, rubick’s or rubics cube) is a mechanical puzzle invented in 1974 by the Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik. Originally called the “Magic Cube” by its inventor, this puzzle was renamed “Rubik’s Cube” by Ideal Toys in 1980 and also won the 1980 German “Game of the Year” (Spiel des Jahres) special award for Best Puzzle. It is said to be the world’s best-selling toy, with some 300,000,000 Rubik’s Cubes and imitations sold worldwide. – Wikipedia.

Rubik’s Cube

The Rubik’s Cube world championship was held in Budapest, Hungary last October 5 to 7, 2007. The overall winner was a 16-year old who averaged 12.46 seconds to solve the cube in five tries. Read the news.

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Pacquiao Fever

Manny Pacquiao of the Philippines did it once again in his fight against Marco Antonio Barrera of Mexico yesterday.

The fight was decided, though, in a unanimous decision after 12 rounds of boxing action, against speculations or projections of a four to six rounds knock-out in favor of Pacquiao.

Everytime there’s a Pacquiao match, the world of every Filipino appears to stop from revolving, just in order to catch the developments in the match. Commentators and politicians alike talk about the fate of the Filipino people are on his (Pacquiao’s) shoulders.

I wonder, it could really be so burdensome for him to be assigned with such task. What if Pacquiao failed, or if he fails in the future? Does that mean the Philippines will crumble as well?

Anyone up for the challenge to play the devil’s advocate? 🙂

The Desperate Episode

Here is the Desperate Housewives episode that made controversial headlines especially in the Philippines:

Desperate Housewives – Philippine Med Schools

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb4thLBKkm4]

This is an issue of racial descrimination. But what’s my take on this issue?

There are a very few movies or tv series (if there is any, indeed) related to accounting or the lives of professional accountants, very rare is the opportunity to demonstrate the descrimination against Filipino CPA’s or accounting professionals in movies or tv series.

What do you think? hehe

October: Free Wallpaper

The month is still quite young, so I hope this isn’t yet too late. For our free wallpaper for the month of October featuring deuts.net photography, we have:

Wallpaper for October 2007

I particularly liked this photo I took during the Closing Ceremonies of the Doha 2006 Asian Games. I liked how the different colors effects produced by the lights swarming around the fields during the presentation.

I created three different wallpapers for different aspect ratios to suit your monitor’s aspect ratio. The download links below lead to flickr.

Resolution Aspect Ratio Download Link
1600×1200 4:3 Download
1280×1024 5:4 Download
1280×800 8:5 Download