$5 a Pop

In Sept'07,headed to US with Lufthansa/US Airways from Hyderabad,India.
Service and Food in Lufthansa were good.

I took the US Airways flight from Frankfurt to Cleveland,OH, the flight service was not too bad but what boggled me was the attendant handed me over the headset and said $5 with a BIG MOUTH, I seriously thought she was kidding until I was forced to pay her $5. Considering the 8 hour flight, I cared more for the in-flight entertainment. I got the headset only to realize the inferior quality of it and just before the wheels went down, the headset went down too.I watched two movies(Wild Hogs, Blades of Glory) and felt $5 was a great deal rather than boredom to death ( 6 footer cramped up in coach class) at an altitude of 40,000 feet.

Next time you guys have a ticket on US Airways, you might consider taking a good headset with you.

On my return flight to India( a month later), I got my broken headphones exchanged and watched two more "Live Free or Die Hard, Next" and enjoyed the movies and had to force eat the raw leaves and half baked potato, US Airways called "Special Asian Veg. Meal"

Later, when I googled I found it very explicitly mentioned on the US Airways website, thanks guys-you have the disclaimer clear there. "You may use your own headsets or purchase headsets for $5 USD that can be used on future US Airways flights".

AT&T Does it again !

AT&T acquired Interwise for $121 Million. ATT is adding technology companies to its stack to provide a an end-to-end, what I call," service" and "experience" management.

AT&T had and has fat pipes connecting the globe, the businesses used to use and provide the applications, now AT&T is directly getting in to the end points by acquiring the niche and domain players. This is, what I call, "Go to Market Directly", a strategic move to grow inorganically.

Adobe's move into enabling Flash-based Web conferencing, Microsoft's upcoming Office Communications Server, and Cisco's WebEx are strong indicators of where the world is headed, but AT&T could potentially outdo all three if it can leverage its existing customer base.

Do I need to say more, AT&T had the customer base now they want to do a winning "300" feat, and I strongly think the company is headed in the right direction.

Citi sends unrequested credit cards


Who: Affects 3.5 million Macy's customers who haven't used their credit card accounts for 24 to 48 months.

What: Macy's store credit card is being flipped to a general-purpose Citi MasterCard.
What to do if you receive an unwanted card:

• Call the bank to close the account; cut up the card. Confirm in writing.

Source:http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/banking/2007-09-27-credit-cards_N.htm

We live in the capitalist world, where Greed it not bad at all. I know of some instances where BofA sends checks that I can use as cash advance and Citi calls me and preapproves a personal loan that I never applied for, HSBC sends me a Platinum card with free offers !

They are dragging us to enter the complicated Matrix- where businesses want to feast on consumers !!

Do watch your bottom !