The Parking Slip Fraud

Hey!

You in Delhi? You drive? You park your car? You pay for the parking?

Well, the chances are, you may have, at some point, paid more than what you needed to. There is this new fraud happening in Delhi; and it's being done by the parking wallas.

Now let me explain.

Let's first look at the slip that we are handed (below). This is the most common format of parking slips in Delhi... only the name of the place changes and the rest usually remains same.

Now... if one were to give a cursory look at the slip to find out the 'price' for car, he/she would probably identify it to be Rs 30. Remember, it's a cursory look I am talking about.

And why 30? Of course, because we read from left to right and the number probably comes after the item it represents.

But but but! That's not the case!

This 30 here is for tempo (if you notice, there is no number next to tempo and 30 belongs to tempo). Moreover, that 10 is for car (as opposed to what it looks like at the moment being next to sct or scooter).

And what are these parking wallas doing? Well, they say that 30 is the rate for parking a car for full day... and 20 is the charge for any thing less than full day. So, eventually, they end up charging us 20 bucks... for something that is only 10.

That's plain cheating!

And you know why I say that? Because every damn slip is cut in a manner that shows 10 next to Sct and 30 next to Car. Trust me, it's a neat cut they have been making.

In reality, just before that Sct, there is a 5, which represents the charge for parking a scooter/bike. However, these guys take it off the slip while cutting.

And trust me again when I say that this is happening at a LOT of places in Delhi. It's like the parking mafia in operation.

I caught the thing in first go and asked the particular attendant to show me the whole slip... he smiled, and said 'aap dus hi de do' (you give me 10 only).

I am sure many of us did not/do not realize this thing's been happening and are actually paying more to these frauds.

Read your slip carefully the next time, please!

Ess A Mess

Mind blowing!

Happy new year bodies. Good to see you. This is my first post for 2011 and what better to do than crib. Yeah yeah, c.r.i.b, it is!

I think it will be my phone today. Let me take you through a couple of uncanny features it offers. For starters, it's a Sony phone.

And in the SMS section, there are two particular features:

• Next Word Suggestion - It means what it should mean. While typing an SMS, the phone suggests 'next' word(s) and it is on my discretion whether or not I want to take it (the suggestion of course).
• Full Word Suggestion - Here, while typing an SMS, if I start writing a word, the phone tries to complete it. I think it searches its memory and tries to guess what I may have written. I hear that my previously written SMSes contribute a lot to its memory base.

Sound good? Please don't say stuff like 'ah, it's a common feature', because I don't know other phones. And mind you, the above features don't concern the T9 thing. That's a separate thing all together.

Now then, as cool or comfortable the features sound, they often end up irritating me.

To elaborate... If I write any sentence and end it with a period (full stop), the phone automatically and probably conveniently adds a com after the full stop.

Which basically means my messages look like this:
a. Hey, am leaving for office.com
b. Please reach on time.com
c. blah blah blah.com

Got my point? Many a times, I am in a hurry and click the send button only to realize the presence of that .com in the message that I just sent. Irritating!

Let me think of more.... oh, yeah!

The name of my manager is Gurpreet... and, the moment I type Gur, this bloody phone changes it to... Gurkha.

wtf.

I must have changed this gurkha into gurpreet so many times but the phone does not remember. Dumb ass, I say.

Then, there are occasions when this thing throws up such weird weird sentences as suggestions. Gosh, they dont even mean a shit. Example - If I am typing am going... the phone changes it to am going hm.woh

Ya ya, that is it! What would that mean? Ghanta!

You know something... I can't possibly list all that this phone does. But am sure you get the point.

I know I have been harsh with the lovely features... and so I take this opportunity to tell you about the best thing about the two features - you can turn em off.