Ads at Pharmacy

Recently I visited a Pharmacy in Bangalore and noticed a monitor with advertisements. I enquired about it and came to know that it is a new kind of promotion/business model. This is being implemented in 100 pharmacies in Bangalore. The advertising company provides the 20 inch Viewsonic monitor (with in built memory) on a refundable deposit of Rs 10,000 paid by the pharmacy. In return, the pharmacy get Rs 500 per month from the advertising company. The advertising company updates the ads every month. The advertising company makes money from the advertisers which are usually pharmaceutical companies. The monitors currently were showing some health facts. I am guessing that this is an effective means as people do spend few minutes at the Pharmacy purchasing their medicines.

Throwing into Dustbin

I was returning home and a couple of people walking before me were having some flyers in their hands. After reading they dropped it onto road and footpath while the dustbin was just a few steps away. What was strange was that they were not the only people doing so and the road & footpath looked like a mess.

Flyers are a way of advertisement for any business establishment - big or small. The only best thing I like about flyers is that they are made of Recycled papers. Any shop, market, clinic, restaurant and even individuals use these flyers for advertisements. They are distributed on the roads, infront of ones house, masjids, churches, markets etc...

I remember another incident on Brigade road Bangalore quite a while ago. I was walking with my friend Silv3rStag and we had just finished eating a sandwitch. We have a habit of dropping the sandwitch wraps or any kind of paper into a dustbin but in this case couldn't find one. We had to walk upto a restaurant and drop it into a dustbin available there. Recently when I dropped by on Brigade road, I found that dustbins were placed at every few meters. The logo on the dustbin was of McDonald's. So finally when McDonald's recently opened its Brigade branch, it was the only one which thought of putting dustbins throughout the Brigade road compared to the old and existing brand names. Also Brigade road has a shopping association which make major decisions with regard to lighting and decorations on that road and hadn't thought about it.

People need to put a little more effort to keep their own surroundings and environment clean. People need to think of how they pay so much attention to their homes as compared to the surroundings.

Launch of a new sister blog

I have launched a new sister blog which talks about my view of Kuwait and its happenings. I will be talking about the malls and upcoming skyscrapers and other things with regard to Kuwait. I thought of it to be more better to keep everything with relation to Kuwait in one blogs separately. This blog will still continue on with all of the happening in general and my views. I am planning for other views but let's see how things shape up. So here is the link Fraz's View on Kuwait.

People with money

Couple of weeks ago, Forbes magazine took out the latest list of billionaries. This time people did look at list as the top position had someone other than Bill Gates (held the top position for 13 years). Anyways all the people on the list have most of their money in form of Shares in the stock markets, so the position keeps moving according to the rise and fall of markets. This time Indian businessmen have taken the 4,5,6 and 8th position on the list. Anyways here is the list for the top 20 richest people in the world.

Name: Net Worth (in billion USD) Source of Wealth

1. Warren Buffett (US): 62 Berkshire Hathaway
2. Carlos Slim (Mexico): 60 Telecoms
3. Bill Gates (US): 58 Microsoft
4. Lakshmi Mittal (India): 45 Steel
5. Mukesh Ambani (India): 43 Petrochemicals
6. Anil Ambani (India): 42 Diversified
7. Ingvar Kamprad (Sweden): 31 Ikea
8. KP Singh (India): 30 Real estate
9. Oleg Deripaska (Russia): 28 Russian Aluminum
10. Karl Albrecht (Germany): 27 Aldi
11. Li Ka-Shing (Hong Kong): 26.5 Diversified
12. Sheldon Adelson (US): 26 Casinos, hotels
13. Bernard Arnault (France): 25.5 LVMH
14. Lawrence Ellison (US): 25 Oracle
15. Roman Abramovich (Russia): 23.5 Oil
16. Theo Albrecht (Germany): 23 Aldi, Trader Joe s
17. Liliane Bettencourt (France): 22.9 L Oreal
18. Alexei Mordashov (Russia): 21.2 Severstal
19. Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Al Saud (Saudi Arabia): 21 Investments
20. Mikhail Fridman (Russia): 20.8 Oil, banking

Frozen Grand Central NYC

I came across this video when I was watching one of the shows (Listening Post) on Al Jazeera News Channel. Then ofcourse I went on the internet and found it on Youtube. The group responsible for the event in the video is called 'Improv Everywhere'. I also visited their official website. Anyways the video which really impressed me was one of their mission called 'Frozen Time at Grand Central'. This took place in New York City at the Grand Central Station by the Improv Everywhere group based in New York where 207 agents participated. At exactly 2:30 pm all the agents froze in the main concourse (Lobby area) of the Station. All the agents stopped exactly at the same time, doing whatever they were doing. Example, one lady was eating, one guy was tying his shoe lace, even one person dropped his papers from a briefcase and was in the process of collecting them when he froze, one couple froze kissing each other. This lasted for exactly 5 minutes after which everyone went their way. This caused normal people passing through the concourse to stop and think what was happening. They could not understand the reason for so many people being frozen at the same time and then unfreezing and going on their own way as if nothing ever happened. This is a must see video which lasts for 2 min and 15 seconds. You can also check for the video on the main site by clicking HERE which also contains some of the still photos of the event and a high resolution video. Based on this particular frozen time, other Improv Everywhere groups based in London and Toronto have executed the Frozen time. On 16th February 2008, more than 1000 people participated in London's Frozen Trafalgar Square.

The Go Air experience

I was travelling from Bangalore to Mumbai by Go Air as its flight timings are in the evening and suite my needs. Their boarding and processing of passengers were done as per schedule but ofcourse being Bangalore HAL airport, the flight took off 30 minutes late due to traffic congestion. We reached Mumbai airspace on time as the pilot had increase the speed of the flight to 810km/hr, which he announced before reaching Mumbai on time. But as one has it, we circled around Mumbai for 20 minutes till we got clearance to land. I dozed off in the flight as nothing much was their to do, but enjoyed my leg space as I was seated at the emergency exit doors. Ofcourse I was given instructions by the cabin crew twice in English and Hindi, that in case of emergency I may have to open that door which by the way weighs 15 kgs which also brought the next question whether I could lift that much. The cabin crew were so thoughtful ;) that they woke me up for refreshments and snacks. The first thing I came up was with the answer a bottle of water. After I had a sip of it, they asked me for Rs 10 for the bottle. I was slightly shocked but thankful that it was 500 ml not a 200 ml bottle otherwise it would have been baffling (fyi --> Rs 50 is charged for a bottle of 1 litre drinking/mineral water at 4-Star hotels in India).

An encounter

The other day when I was at Mumbai Domestic Arrival terminal, I got to see Rahul Gandhi passing by. Not much security except for 2 cops which were part of the airport security force and were keeping their distance from him (around 15 metres). Also 2 bodyguards were with him, who were dressed like businessmen, but I guess the give away was the ear pieces they had in their left ears. Though Rahul Gandhi sat for 10 minutes at the baggage collection area, not many people realised his presence in the area. In one such case, two youth most probably some MNC professionals with their laptops hanging on their sides sat next to Rahul Gandhi and his friend. They didnot realise until Rahul got up and left with his baggages which were brought to him by his bodyguards. I guess people are generally busy collecting their baggages and making their way to the arrival terminal. I am told that if someone spends couple of hours at the Mumbai arrival terminal, you will get to see many celebs, politicians and businessmen. That could be really true, but I am not sure whether these stats are hard proof.

Hitman (2007)

I got to see this movie on the day it was released here in India. It was around the start of December 2007. I was excited to see how this Hollywood movie which is based on a game does on the silver screen. By the way, the theatre was only two-third filled, I guess many people didnot know much about this movie and its stars. The actors who played in this movie are Timothy Olyphant (Agent 47; he has also acted in movies like Die Hard 4.0, Gone in Sixty Seconds, Girl next door), Dougray Scott (Mike Whittier; he played the villain in MI-2) and Olga Kurylenko (Nika Boronina). When the movie got over, I was shocked as the action lasted only for 100 minutes. I think I was expecting more, but still it was satisfactory. I give appreciation to Timothy Olyphant for really getting into the shoes of Agent 47. He was able to really move and hold the weapons like Agent 47 from the game series.

Hitman series of games come from the creators working for EIDOS. The Hitman series so far consist of 4 games starting in order with:

1. Hitman: Codename 47
2. Hitman 2: Silent Assassin
3. Hitman Contracts
4. Hitman: Blood Money

I haven't been able to play the last game as my system doesnot support enough graphics to run the game. But still am waiting for that day when I get to play it. I have really enjoyed playing Hitman 2: Silent Assassin and Hitman Contracts as the graphics and music were pretty cool.

National Treasure BOS (2007)

Watching this movie (National Treasure: Book of Secrets) in a theatre makes sense due to the amount of action and dark passageways. The main stars are Nicolas Cage (Ben Gates), Diane Kruger (Abigail Chase), Justin Bartha (Riley Poole), Jon Voight (Patrick Gates), Helen Mirren (Emily Appleton) and Ed Harris (Mitch Wilkinson). The new addition to the adventurous team is Ben Gates' mother. The action, thrill and mystery keeps you glued to the seat for 2 hours. The National Treasure movie series reminds me of the Indiana Jones' adventurous movies. At the end of the movie, the way they leave a clue suggesting that a sequel of this movie can be in the pipeline. Let hope they can keep the standard of the sequels also.

New year's frenzy

It's been a week since we entered the year of 2008. New year's eve has always been a time for people to revel so major amounts of celebrations like partying, fireworks, drinks and many more are on people's mind. Preparations are made many days in advance for that one night were everyone shows up as the next day is a holiday throughout the world. People actually need no reason for revelling, but new year's eve provides one such moment.

Since the start of this new year, the newspapers have been filled with news of the eve night problems like molestation and harassment cases in various cities. The status of law and order in any of the cities and metros is something everyone is aware of. Also the amount of alcohol consumption during the eve night is enough for people to have absence of inhibition which leads to many problems. Even narcotic drugs are been used in a lot of party circuits.

This trend of new year bash will only be increasing over the years. A lot of improvement is required towards law and order, party handling, crowd control/management ad many more. Then only things might turn out better for the party animals. Anyway, I still donot understand the need for a new years eve party. When my friends want to have a get together, then we just have it. We don't need a particular date at the end of the year to have one, we just have it at any given weekend or so.