musings

I first came across this advertisement in the latest issue of TIME magazine - splashed across the inside front cover with the title “The World’s First $10.5M Cell Phone - an exciting limited-time offer for billionaires.”

The ad proceeds to claim this:

“Purchase this BlackBerry 8830 World Edition smartphone for just $10.5 and we’ll throw in a private island to develop as you see fit. It’s the one accessory that says “I control my own island. And I have a smartphone”

Owning an island!? How exciting!! .. so I checked their website for more details on the deal :

Notice the little “Select method of payment” button for instant funds transfer - gives “Swiss Bank Wire Transfer” as an option! Yeah… right.. that’s super convenient!

Even the disclaimer has a teaser in it:

There is no way we could sell a commodity as precious as an island on a site that just anyone could access.

If you are in fact a billionaire and you’re still interested in purchasing an island, our broker would be happy to help you find one.

The only thing that killed my hopes was this qualification condition:

“Island Offer ONLY available to the wealthiest 100 people on planet Earth.”

Could I qualify as a “subprime billionaire” or something, could I?

May be I am too dense in my head.. but what exactly is the purpose of this ad? It’s not even April 1st. Was this supposed to be funny or something? Should I be laughing after reading this ad… or what is it?

May be it was just a slanted remark on Americans who would really be willing to buy a phone BlackBerry for $10.5 million in hopes of getting something bigger for “free”.

Whatever.

Man.. I desperately wanted that island. Can I sue them for raising false hopes and making misleading marketing claims ?

We have been hearing about the recalls of “Made in China” toys, due to the presence of lead, for quite some time now. Each time this lead contamination issue is raised, fingers immediately start pointing towards the lack of quality controls on the Chinese end, and the blame falls squarely on the manufacturing facilities in China.

In light of this, I found the following statements by a contract manufacturer in China very interesting (source: BBC). According to the manufacturer, the root cause of substandard “Made in China” products lie in the cost cutting pressures imposed by western customers (companies who outsource manufacturing to Chinese contractors). Here are a few juicy excerpts from the article:

There are many contract manufacturers in China, just like my company, and they get all the blame for the low-quality of Chinese-made products. But that is not correct.

As an export director, I have personally experienced pressure to reduce costs by hook or by crook or lose big contracts that are vital for the survival of our company.

We, as contract manufacturers, get the material, apply the paint and prepare everything for mass production. But if the big brand comes back to us and asks us to cut costs, our only option is to compromise on materials.

We know that quality gets compromised. Our customers [the big brand companies] know it too.

We employ 5,000 people in our company. A contract ensures the survival of our business. If we don’t get a contract we lose our jobs and we can’t provide work for our workers.

Of course we’ll use cheaper paint if we have to.

Then when there’s a problem, the responsibility is passed down to the small guy. He speaks no English, he has no internet and no website - he has a workshop in a corner of a street, trying to make a living.

So now we know where it all begins.

Of course, after all the furore, laws will be passed and obvious dangers will be taken care of (where they are most easily visible) - but that’s not going to stop western companies from pressurizing for lowering the manufacturing costs. The lead contamination problem may stop soon (hopefully), but then, something else will take it’s place and the cycle will continue till the root causes are addressed.

Let’s see if a short “Why” analysis might point us in the right direction.

Why do Chinese manufacturing contractors use cheap lead-based paints?

• Because, they want to keep the costs as low as possible and still maintain certain degree of profitability.

Why do they want to keep costs down to the minimum?

• Because their western customers are threatening to rescind their contracts in the absence of heavy discounts.

Why are the western customers (our beloved corporations) putting so much pressure on the Chinese manufacturers for cost cutting?

• Hmm.. it becomes interesting here. Think about it.

Kids’ birthdays are meant to be celebrated for various reasons - sharing the kids’ and parents’ joy, creating memories that last forever, generally having a good time, etc. However, now-a-days, it appears that the term “celebrations” have somehow taken the meaning of “spending large amounts of money in trying to prove how our party is better than yours“.

Even before I put my thoughts and words together for this post, I have been thinking in terms of “herd mentality” - especially when it comes to consumerism. It probably applies well to kids’ birthday parties.

This is what happened at a lavish 1^st birthday party a couple of weeks ago (ah.. finally a chance to get this off my chest):

Imagine this scenario at the party: Things are happening in a rather expensive restaurant. There are around 80 people including about 30 kids. The adult males have scattered into small groups and are talking to each other about totally unrelated stuff (probably the same things that are generally discussed at any given workplace).

Slightly older kids are running all over the place and pretending that their parents do not exist. Some smaller kids are in their strollers (oblivious of everything around them) and the rest are hanging around their mothers talking to themselves (because the mothers are too busy bitching talking to each other about how their respective party was better than this one).

The parents of the birthday baby are really busy taking care of the arrangements (while keeping an eye on the baby) and they don’t really have much time to talk to all the guests they have invited. The birthday baby is sleeping peacefully. It’s time to cut the cake and the baby shows no signs of waking up. The parents are getting restless because the guests (especially the children) are wondering when this cake-cutting will be done so that they can proceed to hog on the (seemingly) delicious food. So, the parents try to wake up the baby and he starts crying like there’s no tomorrow. The baby is least interested in doing anything and just wants to go back to sleep. But, everybody else is not interested in what the baby wants and they just want to eat the cake and get back home - with their gift bags filled with expensive gifts.

So, what exactly was the purpose of the party?

A little birdie told us that it was a $1000+ affair. $1000+ for what!? gift bags for spoiled kids? for inviting *friends* who otherwise didn’t have the time to come visit you to share your joy? to hear them sing “happy birthday to you”? or to tell your kid 25 years down the line: “Look, we spent $1000 on your first birthday - now don’t expect us to pay for your tuition“? OR.. was it just to show friends and relatives that you can spend a large amount of money on birthday celebrations?

Now, 1^st birthdays are bit special and I can understand parents going a little overboard in planning that one; but, I have observed almost similar scenarios at birthday parties for 2, 3, and 4 year old kids [none of our acquaintances have kids older than that, so we will have to wait and see what happens as these kids get older]. Things will more likely get worse in terms of spending and outrageousness as the kids get older.

Birthday parties are probably never about the kids - they are always about the parents and their unreasonable tendency to compete with the lavish parties thrown by their neighbors or friends. It’s more about “what will people think of us if we don’t do _____ and _____ at the party?“. When the kids get older, it’s probably more about “will my kid complain to other kids (and their parents) in the neighborhood about us being stingy?“.

When a good chunk of people in a given community start thinking along these lines, some sort of unspoken social standards get created which define a “great” birthday party. After that, everyone gets suckered into following these standards, irrespective of whether such standards are within their resources (of money and mental stress) or not, and things quickly get out of control.

Here is an excellent example that says it all:

I’ve barely started, but am already done with throwing birthday parties for my kids (ages 2 and 4). I love to celebrate their birthdays, but do not want to have to throw a party for their friends with the stress and the cost that comes with it. Not to mention the competition to make the party as fun as the friends’ parties. I want to keep the celebration small, perhaps just a special outing with just the immediate family and then have the grandparents and cousins over for dinner and cake. BUT, my kids get invited to a lot of parties, and I feel guilty for not reciprocating, and the older one is SO excited about his birthday (which is coming up) and keeps telling everyone he sees that they can come to his birthday party. I hate to burst his bubble and tell him that there will be no party…. [source]

Another birthday example that I read on Dollar Stretcher ends with this:

We’re seriously thinking of moving out of this area because of the enormous social pressure to consume!

It appears that the evil cycle of people trying to prove that their party is better than (or at least as good as) their neighbors’ is going to continue till some parents start going against the norms and pull the plug on the showoff aspects of birthday parties.

Of course, feel free to celebrate, but please do it on your own terms and stop competing with others. Try cutting down on party expenses and engage the savings in some kind of an investment that will give your kid a helping hand when he/she really needs it the future. I think your kid will really appreciate that. If you hate to have that kind of a foresight, at least stop for a moment and ask yourself “how is this lavishness going to add value to my kid’s life?” - and act accordingly.

A few times, I have tried to explain this line of thought to some parents we know, and each time, I have been silenced by a single overbearing statement: “You will understand it when you have kids“. That scares me a bit, and makes me wonder if the social pressure will eventually make me an hypocrite when it comes to our kids in future. Time will tell.

Here are some interesting resources/articles to read on this subject:

• Birthdays Without Pressure
• $38,000 Kids’ Birthday Parties @ Time Magazine
  
• Overly Expensive Birthday Parties @ Dollar Stretcher
  
• How to Throw a Kid’s Birthday Party Without Spending a Fortune @ The Digerati Life

Yesterday, I was reading this article about a personal finance blogger’s conversation with a burglar, on where to hide money in the house. Although, the article probably written in a serious frame of mind, I couldn’t suppress a few chuckles (I don’t know why) before I finished reading it.

According to the article, basically, to make your house burglar-proof, you first need to make it burglar-friendly - not in the sense of encouraging burglars, but in the sense of making some things easy for them if they enter your house in the first place. Below are a few *priceless* excerpts from the article that were responsible for my chuckles.

Tip on letting the burglar “discover” some easy money if you care for your house.

Your best strategy, then, is to actually leave some money in obvious places for the burglar to quickly find (the same applies if you keep all your money in the bank). This can not only save your other stash of money, but may actually keep the burglar from destroying your place as he looks for where you have hidden your money. If they believe they may have found the cash that you have in the house, they are much less likely to keep looking (remember, they want to get out asap).

And here is one for making things user-friendly for the burglar:

When it comes to hiding valuables, his [the burglar's] suggestion is to mark an envelope in an easily accessible drawer or with files by your computer with “Bank Safe Deposit Box” on the outside and a list of items on the inside. This will tip off the burglar that your most valuable items are stored at the bank and will discourage him from tearing up your house looking for them.

How many of you think a burglar is going to take that bait seriously? Doesn’t that sound a little too “burglar-friendly”?

Here is another piece of advice on “token money” for burglar - as if to convince him to not tear apart the rest of the house.

If you leave some token money for the burglar to find in the places they normally look for money, then anyplace you wouldn’t normally consider a place to hide valuables will usually keep those valuables safe.

But, if one burglar thinks that way, wouldn’t there be others in his trade who know about this little trick all too well?

Now, if I were to change my profession and become a burglar (not a very likely proposition, but humor me for a while), wouldn’t some of the things above be a part of my basic training - I mean, if I find “token money” around the house, it’s going to tip me off about other valuables hidden elsewhere in the house at unlikely places. Also, if you leave an envelope prominently marked “Bank Safe Deposit Box”, I will instantly know that you are trying to fool me and I will tear up your house on reading such user-friendly *instructions*. Moreover, a burglar who comes prepared to tear your house to find valuables, will probably do it anyways - whether he finds the token money or not.

I don’t mean to ridicule the article - it does offer some valuable insight into the burglar psyche; it’s just that I found some of it rather amusing. It almost felt like hanging this sign on your window:

Sometimes I wonder about all the popular tips to trick burglars - wouldn’t most (competent) burglars be aware of them before you are? In that case, wouldn’t it make sense to do something random that does not appear on such lists? I am just thinking aloud here.

In our case, the burglars probably will have better houses/apartments than our apartment. Between our close friends, we often joke that if a burglar enters our house, he will probably leave some items for us in sympathy, instead of taking something from our house. If it’s a weekday, he will probably think we have already been burglarized a few hours ago. On a serious note, I have never thought along the lines suggested by the article (probably because we don’t really have anything valuable in our house ~ the most cash we ever have at home is probably a few quarters). I should probably do it sooner than later.

For those who have made their houses/apartments burglar-proof (or burglar-friendly), feel free to share your experiences. Experienced burglars are especially encouraged - although, we would only take your suggestions with a grain of salt.

… Then you probably have been through more than a dozen panic attacks and at least one major heart attack within the last 10 years.

Here is why. Look at how the S&P 500 index (SPY Exchange Traded Fund) has performed during the last 10 years:

It certainly doesn’t look like a place to be if you get nervous at every minor fall in share prices.

By the way, if you compare the latest market slide - that tiny drop at the rightmost end of the graph - against the major downturns that have occurred earlier, you can see that it’s really not that big of a deal (at least not yet).

So, take heart and this too shall pass.

On a more sobering note, it looks like the S&P 500 has not performed very well when averaged over the last 10 years… and 10 years is a pretty large span of time (or is it just my perception?).

Forget about the rapid ups and downs in the curve - if you invested at random from a period between 1998 ~ 2002, you probably haven’t made much more money than what you would have made in a high interest savings account. If you invested around the year 2000, you may have even *lost* money after taking inflation into consideration. May be these are the people (who invested a lot during 1998 - 2002) who are worrying more about the recent events (?).

Of course, this doesn’t have any bearing on 20-year or 30-year performances, or some other 10-year performances (different time-frames will result in different returns). It’s just that I am just wondering if it’s not a good idea to put most of your money in such an index fund (or probably the stock market as a whole) if you are intending to keep it there for less than 10 years. Especially if you have a weak heart.

Things have been a little crazy on the work/study front this week as I am trying to come to terms with my schedule for the fall semester. It looks like I might get more obsessed with saving minutes instead of saving dollars for the next few weeks.

Also, with each passing day in grad school, I have a better understanding of why “PhD” stands for “Permanent head Damage.”

Anyways, look what I got from our farmer’s market yesterday:

That’s a long squash in the picture. The tennis ball is just to give you a size reference.

At almost 3 feet, this is probably the longest squash I have ever seen. It weighed about 5 pounds and cost us about $6. The moment I saw it, I named it as “Barry Bonds Squash” because:

• well, it looked like a baseball bat (almost).

• it also looked pretty juiced up.

I was later relieved to find out that this variety of long squash can indeed grow naturally up to three feet. Sorry Barry Bonds, no stimulants involved.

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A Novel TV Idea

Here is an excerpt from a small piece of on BBC about the much touted $100 laptop:

“One of the things that has been developed in concert with the laptop is a device that can be used to power it,” said Mr Blizzard.

The OLPC [One Laptop Per Child] is fitted with a ripcord that owners can crank to power up the device.

“What we are hoping is you will be able to get a 10 to one ratio - that is for each minute you pull and crank on the laptop you can get 10 minutes use out of it.”

Here is a fancy idea - someone should apply that technology to TVs (and on the pretext of global warming, make such TVs mandatory). Instead of a ripcord, just design it with some treadmill or a cycling machine. Want to watch TV? .. here, run on that treadmill for about 30 minutes - that will power the TV up for the next hour.

The only worry about this idea is that dedicated couch potatoes will start hiring cheap labor (or perhaps dogs or other suitable animals) to run on treadmills to keep their TV running.

Who knows, may be it will work well for the kids.

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Read Letters From Credit Card Companies Carefully

In light of the ongoing mortgage mess, watch out for letters from credit card companies in your mailbox. They may probably be carrying important changes to your interest rates, credit limits, introductory offers, etc. Here is an excerpt from an article on Yahoo Finance that suggests that the subprime fallout may prompt credit card companies to change the terms and conditions on your account:

Credit card issuers, meanwhile, have begun to take steps to protect themselves. Curtis Arnold, CEO of CardRatings.com, has seen evidence of issuers boosting transfer fees and introductory rates, reducing the periods for which lower introductory rates are valid and even lowering credit limits on existing cardholders, including some prime customers.

People who are borrowing large amounts on 0% APR credit cards should be especially careful about this.

According to the results of a study conducted at Ohio State University’s Center for Human Resource Research, super-intelligent people are only as good as (or as bad as) people with average or below-average intelligence, when it comes to better management of finances.

The study concludes that, generally, income increases with IQ; but, the increased income does not necessarily translate into increased wealth (by “wealth” the study means “net worth”). It also says that people with high IQ are not consistently better than people with low IQ at staying away from financial distress - as measured by problems like maxed out credit cards, late bill payments, and bankruptcy.

The way I see it, the report serves as a note of caution for seemingly *intelligent* people with high IQ (who think that just being smart can make them rich) and a word of encouragement for seemingly *less intelligent* people (who may not be confident enough in their approach towards becoming rich).

If you think about it for a while, the findings don’t seem too surprising. Below are some of the essential characteristics of people who are on the path to financial prosperity. I don’t see any reason why a person with low IQ will possess these characteristics to a lesser extent than a person with very high IQ.

• Ambition: somewhere deep in you, there has to be this powerful drive to excel financially. Intelligence alone does not guarantee this drive.

• Energy, willpower, and discipline: you need to put your thoughts (and/or *intelligent* analysis) into action. There is a big difference (usually recognized as “results“) between just *knowing* about things and implementing them. Also, once you find the right direction, you need to keep pushing to make progress along that direction - that requires quite a bit of discipline.

• Emotional stability: from what I have observed, a whole lot of *intelligent* people lack this (by the way, although I don’t consider myself to be intelligent, I do have some issues in this area that need to be addressed). Recently, JD of Get Rich Slowly elaborated on this subject (incidentally, the post was a review of the book titled “Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes“).

A couple of other important factors that might keep super-intelligent people from becoming wealthy are: ego and overconfidence. It’s not too difficult to find intelligent people with this written all over their foreheads: “I am intelligent; hence, I must be right. Everyone else must be wrong“.

Of course, there is this other thing called common sense which cannot be judged by IQ tests. And, there is this whole bag of vices like procrastination, impulsive behavior, etc., which can become a burden for anyone - irrespective of his/her IQ. Personally, I still have a lot of things in my bag of vices, and I don’t foresee much financial progress before I empty it. My intelligence (or whatever is left of it) is immaterial in this situation.

Jay Zagorsky (the scientist who conducted the research), summarizes the study very well:

Your IQ has really no relationship to your wealth. And being very smart does not protect you from getting into financial difficulty.

Intelligence is not a factor for explaining wealth. Those with low intelligence should not believe they are handicapped, and those with high intelligence should not believe they have an advantage.

That gives me some hope.

Some Totally Tangent Discussion

Interestingly, for the sake of entertaining ourselves, this leads to two contradictory statements:

• It is dumb to be smart but not wealthy.

• It is smart to be dumb but wealthy.

On a cautionary note, attributing *smartness* to just being wealthy is a tricky business. I am sure there are smart people in this world for whom accumulating wealth is not a priority. This may sound absurd to a whole lot of people who are interested in personal finance - but after a few years in grad school, it sounds perfectly normal.

On a more fundamental level, the reason behind the results of the study coming out the way they did, could be our interpretation of the human intelligence as scaled by the conventional IQ tests. As far as my perception goes, such tests are pretty narrow in scope, and probably favor book-smarts over street-smarts, even though people in both categories may be almost equally “intelligent” [sort of .. the difference between Sherlock Holmes and Mycroft Holmes - for those you are familiar with these characters].

Image source: health.allrefer.com (original image has been edited)

It appears to me that this whole wedding thing has become a profit-loss business for some people. Just read this ungrateful rant on Yahoo! Answers:

I myself am planning a wedding. It’s costing me about $35,000 give or take. (And that’s not a big number for a wedding) Now I understand if you are traveling super long distances (I have a guest coming from France to my wedding in Canada) but people that live by me shouldn’t have a problem. Right? If you break it down, I think it will cost me about $230 per person. Now, whenever I go to a wedding, I try to find out how much it cost for a plate, add 15% or more. I thought that was what everyone did. I know that maybe not everyone has tonnes of money, but it’s a wedding! I plan on doing it once! Isn’t the point of weddings (other then getting married) to help start off a couple? When it was my fiance’s brother wedding we gave him $900 between us. He’s family! I see people asking “what is a cheap gift for a wedding?” … and I can’t help feel insulted for the wedding couple.

Tell me am I out of line with my thinking??? Should I expect only $20 gifts from people?

Forget about the ridiculous numbers in that text, just concentrate on the attitude.

Fortunately, the rant received some suitable chastising replies, and probably the lady who asked the question finally learned something at the end of all that. The best answer to that rant was this:

…and by the way, you are having a wedding, not a fund raiser!

Now, I have met a few people/couples who are not as ungrateful as the author of the above rant, but they do try to *estimate* the value of gifts received, so as to find comfort against the rising cost of their wedding. They are not blunt enough to say “I am expecting wedding gifts“, but somewhere at the back of their mind, their calculators are running, and they are hoping that guests will give them *reasonable* gifts.

I can understand the feelings of people/guests, who, with their own free will, genuinely wish to give something to the marrying couple to help them start a new household. Such noble feelings extend beyond the boundaries of culture and tradition, and are perfectly sensible from the point of view of the giver.

But, I haven’t fully understood the logic behind a couple or a person who expects (or for that matter, just accepts) gifts on their wedding? Are you expecting gifts because everyone else gets gifts for their weddings? or because of cultural and traditional obligations (like your parents want you to accept gifts)? or because you really need the help that the gifts will provide in setting up your new household? or are you just taking them because people are in the mood to give? I am not asking these questions in a fit of ranting mood - I would really like to know what goes on in the mind when it comes to expecting gifts.

People share this common, often quoted, philosophy - “it’s the thought that counts“. If it’s really the thought that counts, then why not just accept good wishes and blessings as wedding gifts instead of merchandise and/or cash? and if you are ready to accept just the thoughts, why not proactively ask people to not bring any gifts? “Proactively” is the key word here - without which, the line between “expecting” gifts and “accepting” gifts becomes blur.

Why not save hundreds of poor souls from situations like this, and advice like this on how to avoid overspending on wedding presents? Why not save yourselves (and/or some of your family members) the trouble of ridiculing people who give *cheap* gifts? Just politely ask everyone to not bring any gifts and a lot of problems will be solved.

If you think that would be an earth-shattering, revolutionary way of doing things, take heart; people have done this before. For example, here is a part of a wedding invitation I received last month (from an economically average, middle class gentleman):

We (me and my wife) had a similar wedding “policy”. It wasn’t within the norms of our cultural and/or traditional mindset, but we did it anyways. We had a lot of reasons why people shouldn’t spend money and time on buying gifts for us, but we never found a single one that convinced us to accept any gifts from anyone.

I would be glad to hear from people who have (or have not) accepted gifts at their weddings, and the reasons behind doing so. If you are planning on getting married in future, would you consider proactively asking your guests to not bring gifts (or even flowers)?

First, the big picture with a time frame:

Obviously, my relationship with television hasn’t been very rosy. Here is a brief description of how things have unfolded over the years.

The Prehistoric Days

It started long long ago with a 14″ Philips black and white television. It didn’t have any *buttons* or remote or any fancy stuff; just a couple of ear-like knobs, 8 channels (of which only two used to work) and some scary tube diodes.

It was probably the smallest (and most featureless) model in the market, but that’s all my parents could afford at the time.

With just two channels available, there was not much scope to waste time on watching anything. In fact, most of the TV watching occurred on Saturdays and Sundays when it was cartoon time for better part of the day.

The TV-free Zone

Then one day, the inevitable happened. The TV stopped working. I remember my dad taking it to a TV repair shop (in those times and in the place where we lived, repairing broken electronic items was the norm - as opposed to getting new ones as replacement). But, it didn’t get any better after the *repairs* - just refused to come back to life. My parent’s never bothered to look for a new one [I now thank them for doing that].

If my memory serves me right, the initial few weekends without the dose of my favorite cartoons were absolutely painful (I was probably already addicted to it). However, as I grew older, I started filling the void left by the broken TV with other activities (there is not enough space to mention all of them here). The TV addiction didn’t take much time to wear off and once it was gone, it was gone for good.

I have to admit that the TV-free zone was the most productive time in my life. Achievements flowed in - academic and athletic. My social presence was on the rise and generally life was pretty good (well, except the occasional taunt of a TV addict friend). Never ever felt the “want” for a TV. There was an information void, but that was quickly filled with newspapers, magazines, and radio.

The Evil Comes Back

I don’t know how the evil thing came back, but it did. It was probably because I became less busier than before - in spite of joining grad school. This time it came back in the form of a 24″ flat screen color TV. Shows like The Simpsons, Everybody Loves Raymond, That 70s Show, etc., became regular (almost daily) features and it didn’t take much for my TV-time to go from 0 to about 2.5 hours each day. Think about it ~ 2.5 hours a day! that’s like 912.5 hours a year! Productivity was certainly on a decline, but I was either blissfully unaware of it or the addiction side of my brain simply refused to accept the fact.

Blogging vs. TV

Fortunately, I recently got hooked on to blogging and the busy lifestyle started coming back to me. TV-time has been compromised in favor of blogging and things are getting better now. Every time I switch ON the TV, a nagging thought bothers me - “dude, you could probably be doing something constructive with your blogging instead of wasting your time watching TV“.

I start thinking of wasting 912.5 hours per year (that probably sounds like thousands of dollars in blogging income) and that quickly makes me very uncomfortable. Such nagging thoughts keep reminding me of the value of the unproductive time lost in watching television and have been largely responsible for the recent decrease of my attention towards the idiot box. I am hoping that the trend continues in future and eventually tends towards 0 hours per day.

Here is some more trivia about my relationship with TV.

• I have never watched a single episode of The Sopranos, The O.C., Lost, 24, Law & Order, Oprah, and many other popular TV shows. I don’t think my life has lost any value because I didn’t watch those.

• Part of the reason why I haven’t ever watched a lot of TV shows is because I have never had a cable connection ever. We have always used an indoor TV antenna and that catches a few channels with sufficient clarity (already enough reception to cause a 2.5 hours/day wastage). Plus, honestly, I have seen my friends who have cable - generally, they are simply wasting their time flipping channels and watching nothing.

• I have never owned a video game console. I have tried my hands on my friends’ XBox and PS 2 (played Halo and God of War, respectively), but the total time spent on playing those games till now must have been less than 4 hours.

So, that’s my TV story.

Before I end this post, here is just one tip (from my personal experience) for those who are looking to reduce their time spent on watching television - just get busy and keep yourself busy (with something other than watching television) !

For children who are too young to decide anything for themselves, the tip goes to their parents - just keep your children busy, distract them away from the television. Later in their life, they are going to thank you for doing that.