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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Continue reading Bloopers from Call Centers

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.

Continue reading Solving the Rubik’s Cube

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

Stay Protected; Kill Bill’s Browser

Firefox Ad

Better be safe than sorry. It is always imperative to stay safe. This is a wild world. It’s always a jungle out there.

So everytime you open your gates to the world wide web, be safe, stay protected, use firefox. On top of that, there are a variety of addons/plugins available you can customize your firefox browser with to help you with a better browsing experience.

Kill Bill’s Browser

Bill Gates owns Microsoft, Microsoft owns the Internet Explorer browser. Read the 13 good reasons to switch from internet explorer to firefox. For me, though, the internet explorer being non-compliant with the latest web standards (especially as regards CSS) is one good enough reason to switch.

Anand Reclaims the World Title

Vishwanathan Anand is the World Chess Champion after the World Championship 2007 in Mexico City. He is the fourth grandmaster to have reclaimed the crown, after Alexander Alekhine, Mikhail Botvinnik and Anatoly Karpov. That is, however, granting that Garry Kasparov split from FIDE in 1993 and retired from active chess in 2005. Anand first won the FIDE crown in 2000.

The list of world champions according to FIDE’s is now updated with this development as follows:

Name Years Country
Wilhelm Steinitz 1886-1894 Austria / United States
Emanuel Lasker 1894–1921 Prussia/Germany
José Raúl Capablanca   1921–1927 Cuba
Alexander Alekhine 1927–1935 Soviet Union (Russia) / France
Max Euwe 1935–1937 Netherlands
Alexander Alekhine 1937–1946 France
Mikhail Botvinnik 1948–1957 Soviet Union (Russia)
Vasily Smyslov 1957–1958 Soviet Union (Russia)
Mikhail Botvinnik 1958–1960 Soviet Union (Russia)
Mikhail Tal 1960–1961 Soviet Union (Latvia)
Mikhail Botvinnik 1961–1963 Soviet Union (Russia)
Tigran Petrosian 1963–1969 Soviet Union (Armenia)
Boris Spassky 1969–1972 Soviet Union (Russia)
Robert J. Fischer 1972–1975 United States
Anatoly Karpov 1975–1985 Soviet Union (Russia)
Garry Kasparov 1985–1993 Soviet Union / Russia
Anatoly Karpov 1993–1999 Russia
Alexander Khalifman 1999–2000 Russia
Viswanathan Anand 2000–2002 India
Ruslan Ponomariov 2002–2004 Ukraine
Rustam Kasimdzhanov 2004–2005 Uzbekistan
Veselin Topalov 2005–2006 Bulgaria
Vladimir Kramnik 2006–2007 Russia
Viswanathan Anand 2007–present   India

Rows in italics represent the grey areas in the world chess history.

Viswanathan Anand became, for the first time, the undisputed World Chess Champion on September 29, 2007, after finishing the tournament with a score of 9/14, not losing a single game and a full point ahead of the second placer, Vladimir Kramnik.

To download the games in pgn and to view some pictures, visit chessbase.com.

Anand’s title, though, it appears, will be challenged again(!) next year sometime between May and September 2008 by no less than…. Vladimir Kramnik, in a best of 12 games one-on-one match. Why, read the wikipedia article.

For Kramnik’s part, I guess he’s better off playing a one-on-one match rather than playing in a round robin tournament. Just look at his 2000 match win agains Kasparov and the 2006 match against Topalov. Clear victories!

Dear Kuya

Here is the song that OFW’s could especially relate to, Dear Kuya by Sugarfree in their latest album Tala-Arawan.

Dear kuya, kumusta ka na dyan?
Anong balita, malamig ba dyan?
Dito mainit pero kung bumagyo,
Para bang lahat ng tubig sa mundo ay nandito

Matagal na rin, mula nang ika’y magpasyang subukan
ang swerte, at abutin ang yong mga pangarap
Sa ibang bansa kung saan ikaw ay laging mag-isa
kami tuloy dito, nag-aalala

Nasan ka man ngayon, ano mang oras na
ika’y may kailangan, tawag ka lang sa amin
at parang nandito ka na rin

Oo nga pala, kung nasayo pa ang checkered na polo ko,
sa yo na yan.
Hanap kana rin ng maraming mapapaglibangan dahil balita ko
mahal daw ang sine dyan
Dambuhala raw mga pinapakain dyan
tataba ka malamang.
Miss mo bang magtagalog?
Kuya pag may kumausap sayo
galingan mong mag-ingles, galingan mo kuya

Nasan ka man ngayon, ano mang oras na
ika’y may kailangan, tawag ka lang sa amin
at parang nandito ka na rin

Dear kuya, hinahanap ka ni mama at daddy
sulat ka palagi.
Miss ka namin, pati nga kapitbahay nagtatanong
san ka raw nagpunta? san ka raw nagpunta?
Nasan ka na…
Kuyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

This song I dedicate to all my OFW friends and to all Filipinos abroad. My favorite lines:

Dito mainit pero kung bumagyo,
Para bang lahat ng tubig sa mundo ay nandito

and especially:

Kuya pag may kumausap sayo
galingan mong mag-ingles, galingan mo kuya

they just simply make me smile.

For those who have not yet heard of the song, check it out from this link: Dear Kuya – By Sugarfree.