“Con" is the opposite of "pro," so "congress" must be the opposite of "progress."
I came across this in one of the websites and I laughed out loud after reading it. If you have been following the proceedings in congress for the last few years, you'll agree with the above statement - Immigration bill, social security reform, Health care reform etc..
Today while driving I had to make a sudden stop to make sure that I didn’t run over a possum. The person driving behind me totally did not expect it and somehow he also managed to apply the brakes. But he was so furious at me for braking suddenly. He actually came out of the car to yell at me (Here in US people usually don't get out of the car unless it's really necessary. I guess it's mainly because of loose gun control laws). I then explained to him that I was trying to save the possum. For some reason he got even more furious when I told the reason. I guess he had the right to be. He would have been hurt if he hadn’t braked at the right time. Thankfully nobody was hurt.
I always used to wonder about a Michigan law that states that you’ll be ticketed if you actually brake and don’t run over a deer. I guess it’s to avoid situations like this.
Now that IPhone is the current hype, I have been reading a lot about it. While doing so I came across these 4 interesting future cell phone concepts. Check it out.
GrandCentral
This is the best I guess. One number for everything. Here is the review about it in New York Times.
Read this and you’ll be amazed at all the options it offers
EQO
This is a cheap way to make international calls through cell phones. But you have to download some software. I am not sure how compatible it’ll be with all the cell phones
Spinvox
Voice to text. Text to voice conversion.
Simulscribe
Voice to text. Get your voice mail as email. May be useful for high profile people who are very busy to check their voice mails.
Iphones Future
I got this interesting/disturbing piece of news from NPR.
Did you know that 20% of the drugs prescribed by doctors are not approved by FDA for the treatment they are prescribed for? As an example, a doctor may prescribe a drug that is FDA approved for heart disease, but for an eye disease. They probably do it because it is a common practice among other doctors. The news anchor said that we should question the doctor every time they prescribe a drug to make sure that it is FDA approved for our specific medical condition.
My question to you is – How many of us are comfortable questioning a doctor about the drug they prescribe? We always assume that the doctor knows what he/she is doing and accept it as such. May be one thing we can do is Google it and make sure that it is FDA approved for our condition (i.e. if our condition is a simple one and we know the medical term for it). But I am not sure how practical this is. But this really was a shocking thing to know.
The most irritating thing that can happen to you is waiting to get a customer service representative over a phone. Most companies have too many menu options and it almost feels like they are discouraging you to call them. I was waiting for almost 15 minutes on the phone today calling Comcast. They encourage you to email them or chat with them online. But personally for the problem I had, I had to talk to them. I went through so many menus and submenu’s before I could get in touch with a rep. On top of that, the call got dropped in the middle and I had to go through the whole process again. In some companies they note down the number to call you in case the call gets dropped. That’s nice customer service. Many don’t do that.
I am sure many would have gone through with this at least once. I guess it’s justified if people here complain about calls going abroad.
1. They have spend eternity reaching the customer assistance
2. Once they get a customer rep, they have to put up with a different accent trying to figure out what he/she is talking.
Why should people go through this especially if they are paying boatloads of money every month to that company?
What do you think?
My toddler just moved from toddler room to Pre school room in his child care. This basically means that he is with a different set of children whom he has never been with before. As expected he was very scared and concerned. I guess the biggest challenge in a young one’s life is how soon one can adapt to varying circumstances that befall them.
I and my wife often talk about how good it would be to become a baby again just out of the mere frustrations and tensions in work and life. But looking at my toddler, I feel that it is even scarier to be one. They still have heaps of challenges that they have to face and deal with, that we as an adult have already dealt with. Of course we have our own sets of challenges in life. But I am happy that I am done with some of them already.
What about you?
There is always an uncomfortable feeling inside me whenever I think about investing in companies like Philip Morris, Diageo etc. These are all companies that make their earnings by selling tobacco, alcohol etc. I have wanted to buy those 2 company stocks for quite sometime now. But every time I wanted to pull the trigger, something stops me. I just feel bad that I have to make profit at the expense of other people’s health and life.So I have been avoiding it for quite sometime now. But every now and then when I see the stock price soar, I get this feeling as to whether I am being stupid to not buy it.
What do you think?
There is this cost saving initiative to conserve power at work. So the employees are very diligent in switching off the restroom lights before they leave when there is no one else in the restrooms. But every now and then some careless team members just switch off the light and leave, not minding to see whether there is someone else in the restrooms. This really puts you off if you are the one sitting in a dark rest room. This happened to me once today and I realized how irritating it is.I think they should install those automatic sensors. That is the best way to deal with these careless people.
First the good news - We are expecting a second baby!
Now here is the part where I vent my frustrations.
There is this rather annoying tendency with some people in a way they reacted when I shared the news with them. Most people congratulated me when I shared the news with them and wished me luck with a broad smile on their faces. This is the kind of response you would expect.
Here are some annoying responses I got from people
‘Your life will totally change. Don’t think you can be like how you are right now’
‘Your stress level is going to shoot up like you cannot imagine’
‘You are not going to have any personal time.’
‘You are going to get more annoyed and frustrated’
In fact this is exactly the same kind of response I got from these same set of people when I told them that I was going to have my first baby.
Come on guys - I am sharing a good news with you. Shouldn't you all at least try to feign some happiness instead of responding like this?
The funny aspect of it is that most of these people already have 2 kids. So my question to such people is – ‘Is this what you feel about your second kid? – Annoyed and irritated’.
I downloaded the safari browser from Apple yesterday to check it out.
Here are the nice features
1. Looks cool. Has the same feel as IPOD
2. It is definitely faster than IE or Mozilla.
3. I like their bookmark page which has the same look as Itunes.
4. The default font is a bit different and looks cool.
The bad feature
1. The only bad facture is its security. I tried to access a financial institution site (T. Rowe Price) using it and the site recognized the browser as a Netscape Navigator and asked me to upgrade to its latest version. It said that the current browser did not have all the security in place. I don’t have any problems accessing the same site with IE or Mozilla.
Other than this everything else looks the same as IE and Mozilla. Now that their browser is open in Windows, I think they could potentially gain a decent market share. Just like me others might download it just out of curiosity. Here is the link to download safari on Windows
http://www.apple.com/safari/download/
This weekend we took our toddler to a local Zoo. He was very excited to see all the animals and birds there. He was particularly impressed with the monkeys.
While casually chatting with him near the monkey cage, I asked him
Me : ‘Do you have a tail like Monkey on your back?’
Varun : 'No Silly. We don’t have tail in our back. We have it in front'.
We laughed and laughed thinking about what he said.
It’s always embarrassing when you have to tip someone but you don’t have any spare change. I usually don’t carry too much money in my purse and has encountered this situation so many times.
Few weeks back we had to get to a car rental company from airport using a shuttle bus. We were the only ones in the bus and the driver was rendering all possible help he could to us. His body language very much suggested that he was doing it for tips since he was going very much out of the way to help us out. I realized as soon as the bus stopped that I didn’t have even a single dime to spare. So I apologized to the driver and felt bad that I did not have any spare change.
People here in US are crazy about going in an open car. I was going out with my friend here the other day and he rolled down all the windows of his car while traveling in a freeway. Not only did it make a lot of noise, but it felt like the dust was blowing all over my face. After the ride, I kind of felt dirty.
That reminded me of my days in India, when I would travel in a motorcycle with my friend to work. If I don’t wear a helmet, I can be assured that I can take a layer of carbon out of my face. Humidity and Smoke is a bad combination. In India you have no other choice but to take a shower every time you go out and come back home. That’s why I have always hated traveling in open. Here in US, even though the pollution is well controlled, I guess I just couldn't redeem myself from my past experiences.
Lately I have been using ‘characters’ to scare my kid off to get things done during crunch situations (like getting to do some stuff when we are running out of time to go to work). Every time he refuses to do something, I say that the ‘cops’ are going to get him and he immediately agrees to do it. It’s been working pretty good so far.
Once in a while, I feel bad about doing it. But looking back, I was raised like that. I was scared of some fictitious character my parents used to come up with and they used it to get things done. But you eventually grow out of it. So I don’t think it’s a bad tactic. It definitely works in crunch situations.
Any advice / suggestions?
When I first came to US, one thing I really found it difficult to follow is the directions that people give. In India people usually direct by asking to ‘go right, take left’ etc. But here in US when I first stopped in a gas station to ask for directions, he told me something like ‘go south, take east and then go west’. I had no idea which way was east or west. But now after 7+ years I am getting comfortable with this east, west, north, south directions. But it certainly was quite confusing for me initially. Even now sometimes I have to map in my mind that ‘Facing North, east is my Right Hand Side and west in my Left Hand Side’.
Indians are earning more and spending less. Average Indian is now saving and investing more rather than spending. This is in direct contrast to Americans. Here in US, people are earning less and spending more. Check this out
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070601/consumer_income_spending.html?.v=4
I guess I didn’t need a financial expert to say this. It’s a very obvious fact that we Indians are big savers. But it’s nice to see the proof in numbers.
Other interesting numbers
1. US GDP this quarter is 0.4%. Indian GDP is 9%
2. Indian key Inflation is 5.5% vs US 2.57%
Indian market is roaring right now. But it'll be interesting to see whether this kind of growth is sustainable in the long run. That's what is going to define whether Indian economy will transform from developing economy to developed.
If you ask me, what the best value stocks are in this heated market, I would say Finance/Bank stocks.
Banking stocks are good buy now I think. Look at Bank of America, JP Morgan, and Citigroup ( the 3 big banks).Their P/E is very low and I think the stocks will go up when Fed begins to cut rates, which is most likely to happen in the next 6 months. Also take a look at their dividends. If you want to minimize risk, buy XLF – Financial ETF which comprises of a good percent of all bank Stocks. Overall I think Finance stocks are cheap right now.Also the housing and related stocks are cheap. But I am not sure whether it's the right time to buy them now.
What do you think?
P.S. I am not a financial adviser.
