Indian genes would take care of their population explosion problem soon.

The Indian Killer Belly!

www.littleindia.com/news/139/ARTICLE/1390/2006-11-12.html

Indian men, no matter where they live, have one of the highest rates of heart disease in the world, even if they have low levels of traditional risk factors such as cholesterol. In fact, even non-smoking vegetarians under 40 who exercise regularly may be at high risk.

Under mainstream standards, a BMI of 25 is considered normal, 25-30 is considered overweight and more than 30 is considered obese. Says Enas: "Indians have a tendency to collect fat collectively in their abdomen. Women have a tendency before menopause to collect the fat in their thighs and buttocks, not in their bellies. But after menopause the fat distribution is different, and they have a tendency for abdominal obesity at earlier and lower weight. So the cut point for Indians is different. A BMI of 23-25, which is normal for Americans, is considered overweight for Indians and 25 becomes obese."

With population explosion taken care of, will the real estate prices drop?!?

Will it affect outsourcing to India?!! :D

A series of unfortunate events!

Ram, a colleague of mine, whose real name shall remain secret, made a 4 month trip to India. Before he left, his friend advised him to move his things to a storage place and save rent for 4 months. Ram thought that it is a good idea and told the apartment staff that he wanted to move out. But according to the lease, he had to give a 60 day notice or pay the equivalent rent. So he paid $1300 and an additional $600 for leaving the place in a mess. He did not have enough time to clean it up or move the furniture since this was a last minute plan.

After Ram left, as promised, his friend moved his things (single bedroom furniture) with the help of some movers ($700) to a storage place that charges $200. But he could not move Ram's car on the same day. So he left the car keys with the apartment staff and told them that another friend of his would come and take the car. Now the apartment staff knew that the car did not belong there. His friend did not show up for the next couple of days and they towed his car away to a far away yard. When his friend came to know about it, he tried to get it back but they would not let anyone other than the owner to retrieve it.



So Ram had to get it himself when he returned. He went multiple times to his old apartment office but after such a long time they had lost the keys. So he had to go to the car dealer to make a new set of keys for $50. He took the new key to the towing yard but the key did not work. So he went back to the dealer again. This time the dealer realized her mistake and made the correct one.The towing place charged $1100 for keeping the car for so long. After getting his car, he went to get his furniture. His friend had put his things in a far away storage even though there were many cheaper places within a mile. He negotiated with some movers to move his stuff for $200. Later, the movers called him from the storage place because his friend had not paid for the storage and the staff over there was furious! So he had to go to the storage place, settle his bill and get the stuff.

Rent for 2 months instead of the notice period - $1300

Cleaning and carpet replacement charges - $600

Movers and storage far away - $900

Towing yard charges - $1100

Duplicate car keys - $100

Hotel for 10 days while you find a new place - $800

Movers to move back your stuff - $200

Friends that help you with free advice and shoddy work - PRICELESS!

Awaiting my new Macbook

I just ordered a new Macbook with the new Core 2 Duo Intel chip, 2 GB RAM and 160GB HDD. I also ordered a wireless keyboard, mouse and photo printer.



It may sound foolish to spend more than $2000 on a small mac when there are so many "better" value-for-money laptops available. Its just that I wanted to buy a mac for a long time for their software. I use iMovies and iDVD a lot (at a friends place). The rest of the environment like Eclipse, Java, Ruby etc is all the same. I would also like to buy the Final Cut Express soon.

The 13 inch is just right for me because I like to move around with it and use an external monitor when at home. I dont need the video card because I dont play 3D games on it (thats what Xbox and Playstation is for ;) ). I am planning to connect my Macbook to my 37" HDTV and use it as a monitor while I sit back with the wireless keyboard and mouse. I also plan to load Windows on it with Parallels software.



I hope to post blogs more often (starting with my first impressions about the Macbook), once I get my new laptop (I gave away my old one and have only the office laptop). It should arrive early next week.



The specs are...



Macbook 13 inch White (Z0DT)

2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

2GB 667 DDR2 SDRAM

160GB Serial ATA @ 5400 rpm

Superdrive 6x Dual Layer DVD Read/Write

No Modem

Apple Mini-DVI to VGA Adapter



Canon PIXMA MP600 All-in-one photo printer

Bluetooth Mighty Mouse

Bluetooth Apple Keyboard