The Perfect Place on Earth

This Earth, we are told, is 70% water and 30% land. Out of this 30% land, I guess 70% of it is uninhabitable, what with it being a desert or a forest or a mountain range. That makes this Earth only 9% habitable. In this 9% habitat, I guess 70% of the people live in countries with more than half a year in the cold. Which means, in this Earth, only 2% - 3% are "perfect" places to stay.

What a blessing it must be to stay in places where one doesn't have to think about "weather.com" (or equivalent) and then choose the attire - just to grab something from the neighboring store or to throw the garbage out. What a blessing it must be to open the windows everyday all year round to let the fresh air in. However, this 'blessing' is so easily taken for granted that it's true significance comes only when staying in the extreme climate for month after month.

To be fair to the climate, the 'cold' isn't as cold as it was back in 1800s. Thanks to Man (and Global Warming), the average cold temperature during winters are reducing. True that it will melt more and more ice and hence water occupancy on Earth will perhaps increase and a big bane to those near the shore but this is a true boon for those situated in extreme cold climate areas.

If water occupancy increases, then going by the same percentages theory, the "perfect places to stay" percentage will reduce even further. Considering its "perfect", the population density (especially at the rate at which we are going) is more and this automatically leads to several negative points for the non-climatic attributes (such as lack of cleanliness, unemployment, traffic, politics, Governmental apathy, etc) which makes it "Imperfect".

Hence, Man is left to choose between {Weather and Population Density} and compromise on the derivative benefits or drawbacks to make the chosen "place to stay" as perfect to Him as possible. So, in effect, there is no real 100% perfect place on this Earth. And there will never be one either.

:-(

Consumerism

Ok. So it was a Friday and we wanted to ensure the grocery shopping was all done on Friday so that the weekend can be kept free. We did our shopping and came home only to realize that we had missed to get diapers.

So I went out again to get the diaper. It just so happened to have a deal. $18 for 2 and $10 for 1. So I took 2. It also said purchase of $30 of specially marked items would lead to a $10 gift card. Since I had come as far as $18, I shopped even more to reach $30 just to get the gift card!

Finally, I came home after almost an hour although all I needed was just a diaper. Next day morning, we realized there is no banana. So off we went again to the market. There we spent even more time and got even more stuff than just banana.

Realized that if diaper and banana was not missed in the first round itself on Friday, then the 'extra consumerism' would not have ensued...

:-)

A Pokey Day

From the morning today, I felt I was being poked.

Got a call early in the morning regarding a 'High Impact' issue but it turned out few hours later that it was not an issue at all. Even before this got resolved, another issue cropped up. Few more hours of investigation and it too turned out to be a non issue. Meanwhile another guy mailed about something not being right, and while I was trying to break my head on it, someone else thankfully responded that I wasn't the right person to be contacted. Then, another person sent a big mail to all senior management that my install had broken some other project whereas my install had not yet taken place!

I felt like being poked at from all sides. As if some guy Up There wanted sadistic pleasure out my discomfort.

Anyways, in the end, it was a zero-issue and a successful install. Hopefully, the last one for 2011.