Book buying in Madras...

used books are great, but they are also a very effective way to spread infections. they are the second dirtiest type of item after keyboards. both are far dirtier than toilet seats.

Statistics as proof?IMO, mobile phones are dirtier than books.
If I started thinking along those lines, I'd probably have to avoid public transportation in India (bus/train/airline seats, railings etc.), cutlery in hotels, staircase railings, library tables, door knobs in public toilets, faucets...What's worse, I'll have to quit taking a seat ANYWHERE. I consider chairs/seats/benches the dirtiest of all.
This would drive anyone up the wall and I've decided to just not think about any of this, since they don't really affect me adversely mostly :)

see, that's the point i was trying to make -- our intuitions about what is dirty and what is not are so wrong as to be worthless. knobs, toilet seats and benches are in fact not very dirty at all!

every once in a while someone writes a paper measuring germ counts on various things and everyone acts all surprised. but the numbers are well known by now.. cash is also one of the worst offenders, btw. anything that changes hands a lot.
mobile phones, possibly.

in general i'm pretty relaxed about germs, but these are the kind of things that can make you seriously sick. i wipe my keyboard and mobile phone with bleach-wipes once in a while, try not to handle cash and so on.

it amuses me that the things our ancestors were worried about, such as sharing a plate, are the things that matter the least. in fact, the mild germ concentration probably helps build immunity. stupid ancestors.

Yeah, yeah.
I'm just not paranoid about handling things and have quit thinking along "dirtiness-quotient" lines! Guess my immunity (psychological and physical) is sufficiently good :)

Possibly the ancestors also had a lot to worry about, a lot more diseases were incurable back then. There wasn't a nuanced understanding of bacteria either, so just maybe they were being extra cautious.

yeah, that's possible, i'm just anti-ancestors in general, and sometimes i wear it on my sleeve :)

I'm curious about the reasons behind the "ancestor" hatred. :-)

oh, my family are weirdos.. very long story. sorry!

*gasp* This was supposed to be a comment here, but it has metastasized into a very long blog post at http://sriniram.livejournal.com/25808.html

Real nice post.
*Warning* This might just trigger a post (more likely, a dozen) along the same lines. Hope I don't start on it anytime early!
I'll take that as a nudge :)
Hey, as for your friends list problem, Deponti had a similar one a few years ago - you could ask her how she had it rectified... I don't quite recollect :(

Rightly classified.

Wodehouse is a class apart