Saturday, October 25, 2008

Post before Paris Hilton

I'll let auntie write a few lines:



ok, she refused.

Anyway, waiting for time to pass before leaving the house for terminal 3.
Gonna attend this Euronaval 2008 exhibition in Paris le Bourget. It's not actually Paris. But Paris le Bourget. What does "le bourget" mean? I don't know. What does

auntie says if she has to type, she's gonna type something like this: "He says that he is going to get some air stewardess' number and have a fling."

anyway....

I will check out if the Hilton in Paris (Paris Hilton)

  1. is easy to get into
  2. has a wide entrance
  3. allow entry from the rear door for VIPs
  4. allow double or triple occupancy
  5. charge by the hour
What else do you wanna know?

Don't think I'll put up many pictures after this trip.
Oh yes, the gifts, plaques and books weigh 8kgs. These don't belong to me. I hope I can leave them all in Paris.

But oh fuck. If these gifts go out, some are definitely gonna come back in.
It's like chinese new year but in a bad way.

Friday, October 24, 2008

catching up

it was a nice evening out with pin and yf. met at mackenzie rex.
zichar dinner with chicken rice. without the chicken. mackenzie is famous for their chicken rice. voted top 10 by tnp fastads readers. way back in 1998.

a short drive to raffles city for starbucks. did plenty of catching up.

hmm, didn't realise that i've know yf for 16 years and pin, 14 years. ys leh? how long?

there is not much time left to prepare for the trip. gah!

Monday, October 20, 2008

Express your interest

I logged onto Facebook to see this on my notification feed:

Today

Last week you were viewed for dating 2 times and no people expressed interest in you. 5:30am




I like the real world better. People lie more and sugar coat their words.
On Facebook, I'm mediocre.

Paris, Hilton

J: "I'm staying at the Hilton and I was looking at the website, it's so funny. Remember the Hollywood cliche where every Parisian window has a view of the Eiffel Tower? The pictures on the website show exactly that! There's a picture of a balcony with a view of the Eiffel Tower."

V: "You are staying in Hilton while in Paris?"

D: "Haha, that's really Paris Hilton."

Guffaws.

*not verbatim

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Bollywood

Watched Namastey London while on duty. (shhh..)

Nice stuff.

Baa!

Why do we trust? How is it that a nation can have wool pulled over their eyes again and again?

I mean, Bush said the reason for going to war in Iraq and ___________ (fill in name of oil rich country) was because of WMD. Wow. Obviously the reason why there wasn't any to be found was because we were fooled. Not by Bush Administration. But by Saddam.
Al-Qaeda is the threat and the reason why we are back in the gulf. But let's divert resources away from finding bin Laden to destroying Saddam.
By the way, 9-11? That's the first attack on American soil. Ok, let's forget about Pearl Harbour. Oh, mainland? Yeah...ok....why not first attack on American mainland, New York, New York, Lower Manhattan, modern building....*blah blah more descriptors*.
He said that FEMA was doing a heckuva job when the levees broke. Yup. And before that, he probably said the levees wouldn't break. They were "caught by surprise". Right! So was Saddam when Bush said he had WMD. A bigger surprise when Iraq was invaded.
They were gonna turn around the huge deficit.
Iraqis will see Americans as liberators. Wowee Zowee. Count the body bags.
The surge is working! Iraq is on its way to becoming a democracy.
He found Vladimir Putin a "consistent, transparent, honest and is an easy man to discuss our opportunities and problems with". And Vladimir returns the kindness by treating "President Bush better than some Americans would".
The bailout package will save the economy. The fundamentals are strong. Cut taxes!

Saturday, October 18, 2008

In response to....

Vulnerable toes asked,
why another tumble? u saved up a warchest full of cash ready for the stike [sic]?

i wish.....
my warchest needs replenishment.

anyway, my take when I read about the rally following consolidated efforts by governments around the world was that the rally was a reflection of the expected volatility.

What are the governments using to guarantee anyway? Borrowing public monies and making future generations pay? Moreover it's never easy regaining trust and confidence, in this irrational market, you're more likely to predict movement by flipping a coin. The technical analysts see STI potentially going down to 1660s and we're already hovering below 1900 at the moment. Not shocking cause looking at the charts, STI was above the 2000 mark just before the 1997 Asian financial crisis. It dropped by 60% and was around 800 when all the dust settled and the body count tabulated in 3rd qtr of 1998. Took 2 years to recover before the dot.com bubble burst/post 9-11 but quickly recovered again. Recovery was followed by a fantastic run until the sub-prime crap hits the fan.

Initially, there was still rationality. People held onto things that had value. Oil was the priciest just 4 months ago and now it's the lowest in a 12 months. Even the prices of precious metals are going down. Maybe it's good to buy limited edition watches and art pieces as a better way of retaining value. But even auction houses are complaining of weary bidders. Policy makers tell us that this impending crisis is gonna be long drawn. Yet we get conflicting information from them who tell us that they have "policies" in place to ensure this and that. So what we know is that this crisis is different from other crises. The way it will recover will be different from how others recovered. That's not exactly rocket science. More like social science.

I like the saying "a rising tide lifts all boats". A corollary would be that an ebbing tide will sweep boats out to sea - the old-grey widow-maker, as described by Kipling. Unless we've storm sails, otherwise best to trim our sails and ride out this storm. Venturing further would be crazy.

Good thing we have time horizon, relatively. But I do fear a little about the KL property. But at least as of May 08, it's still pretty much good news. Hope our 8-characters (haha!) don't clash and we should make visits to Waterloo Temple for the Lunar New Year.

Hopefully by 2011 and beyond, after we receive the notice of delivery of vacant possession, we do a successful sub-sale...hiak hiak hiak....but in the mean(est)time, cross our fingers that the risk factors don't kill us. By the way, at the end of it all, with a successful sale (if and only if), I would like to think it was a good choice, given the prevailing conditions. Money was not kept as cash and not subjected to crazy fluctuations or suffering as investments in low-yield bonds. But the risk we are exposed to is much higher. But KL is KL and will remain as KL for a long long time. It's not like the Iskandar Development Region.

Of course it could have been invested elsewhere (dollar-cost averaging etc etc), but we're still ok I think. Even without a sale. the yield of 7% means that your principal is doubled in 10 years. Just use the Rule of 72 : 72/i = y where i = yearly interest rate and y = number of years to double your principal.

Some links to calm our nerves.....here and here.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Man of the Financial Moment

Watching the dead cat bounce, catching a falling knife, timing the (false) bottom....whatever what you might call it....

Who benefitted the most through this period of global finance upheavel? All hail Mr Brown. Gordon Brown.

The man is in his element. Fish in the water. Don't expect an economist to save a crumbling party but trust him to lead the EU (potentially the entire western hemisphere) how to save us from financial ruin.

It takes a man (without any smidgen of charisma) like Gordon Brown to re-instill confidence and trust.

But I am hoping that this rally will take another tumble actually.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Not looking back in anger

I treasure the memories of the decommissioning ceremony of the missile gunboats.

But there is not enough of it.

Maybe it's because throughout the (distinguished) service history of the boats there was only 1 female (a Commanding Officer no less), it was not a tear-filled affair.

Not macho. Not manly. Not allowed.

The ceremony was solemn, dignified but with the hustle and bustle of everyday life, the memories of which are rapidly fading. Not a matter of choice, mind you. The "mind-numbing, spirit-crushing" pace at which weekdays fade into weekends and.....modern life is rubbish.

What is intangible - the memories and feelings of a place, if it is possible to be made tangible, might have a better chance of being vividly remembered.

And this is where photos come in.

P.S. Thanks for the shot glass you bought for me when you holidayed in Hong Kong. It serves as a tangible reminder that despite all my faults, I must have done something right in my life.

Thursday, October 09, 2008

click me

˙looɔ uɯɐp sʞool ʇı ʞuıɥʇ ı ʇnq ˙ǝɯıʇ ʇsɹıɟ ǝɥʇ ʇou sı sıɥʇ

¡ - the sarcasm point

Please read this first. (read this first)

Then see this:


So maybe what meanie actually wanted to say was "So Kind[.]

I'm only guessing.

Definition of "A Bad Day At Work"

definition of "A Bad Day At Work" - Refer to 9 Oct 2008.

"When someone hurts us, we should write it down in sand where winds of forgiveness can erase it away. But, when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone where no wind can ever erase it."

I have another take on the above saying I lifted off the net.

People whose names get written on sand goes to hell. Those whose names are engraved in stone will get to choose where they wanna go.

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

We interrupt our normal programme....

You know what's scary?

It's scary when you choose your deputy for the reason that politically she is advantageous. And not because she is worthy. I have no problem with women in politics.

But....I have a problem with incompetence in office. I hope more Americans read newspapers.



No....I am not f78king Matt Damon.

But she is.......


Phuk3t

Back not long from Phuket.

Plenty of sun....plenty of good food (not cheap though) and plenty of fun!

Some experimental pics before uploading more of the usual (ie. pics of sunny beaches, muay thai, vegetarian festival).

The first two were taken while on the way from Kata to Patong. Just a simple play on exposure while seated on a tuktuk. Almost reminds me of some paintings by baoling.


There are probably a couple more but I liked the two above most. The streaks of light at the bottom reminds me of the anime Akira.

The next set is playing with exposure, aperture and movement. The basic scene is the setting sun. So I set a small aperture with longer exposure and just turned the lens around it's axis.

original scene

1/2 turn

3/4 turn

full turn


It's starting to look like pictures of some cosmos taken by the hubble space telescope.

ok maybe not.

Sunday, October 05, 2008

A song a day 90

And your arm felt nice wrapped round my shoulder,
And I, I had a feelin' that I belonged,
And I, I had a feelin' I could be someone,
Be someone, be someone.

=)

Saturday, October 04, 2008

Brand new Puma

I wanted these:
but auntie says these were nicer....
i can't argue with that.

Has integrated drainage system. wow.

I got these just in time for the Volvo Ocean Race 2008 this weekend.

but i still liked the colour blue on shoes....so found these:

but the !@#$%^& shop assistant wanted to sell me old ones, saying they ain't got new pair. lousy service.

i am liking these:
Puma is getting a new lease of life. There was no pun about a cat having 9 lives in that sentence.
What with the recent Usain Bolt and Jamaica's sprinting dominance and also the F1 in Singapore. Puma has tie ups with Ferrari and Redbull Racing. But I am not liking racing shoes.

Friday, October 03, 2008

TINAS-phile - The TIAS effect

Thursday, October 02, 2008

Taken care of

I have made a couple of posts for the days while I am away in Phuket. Enjoy.

TINAS effect

auntie got a digital camera free from AMEX cause of her successful application of a credit card.
as with all free stuff, it wasn't fantastic. Saps battery power like nobody's business.

since I rewarded sis with a camera (she doesn't know I am prepared to foot the bill, until she sees this post of course), I decided to get one for auntie to replace her olympus too.

just in time for the phuket trip of course.

i was rushing around in funan and couldn't really find any nice wrapping paper. decided to get "fail proof" brown paper. it wasn't cheap. because it's not really brown paper. it's brown wrapping paper.

this was how it was wrapped........


Besides the tagline, you should notice the tiny writing at the bottom......here it is, magnified.

How appropriate right? Sex toys invariably are delivered in "discrete brown paper packaging".

And often, batteries are not included.


Nobody trust MIC (made in china) stuff anymore. Although I am quite sure some toys are made of melamine. I thought that this being made in La La Land has a nicer ring to it. Especially when paired with this tagline on the side:


Puts the ooh la la back in your life. Notice that it is about bringing it back in your life. Meaning you must have had it once and somehow lost it...

I like this line....although I am not sure why Latin lovers are such a premium.

I put the package into a Starbucks brown paper bag and gave it to auntie when we were about halfway through a chocolate banana cake in Secret Recipe at Vivo. And it was crowded.

She was all coy when I asked her what she thought it was. She just smiled and asked why was I giving her a gift. (Children's Day).

I tell you, when her eyes picked up the words on the box, the dilation of her pupils was obvious. And she quickly snuck the package back into the bag.

"What is it!"

I tell you, that was a classic look of surprise.

We now call it the "This is not a sextoy" (TINAS) effect.

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Bloglines is down. Temporarily.

As above.


Nice!

Kata Beach Resort review

4/5 Posted by MR. SOZTUTAR, FADIL, Turkey in November 2007 "HOTEL IS VERY GOOD , I STAYED GRAND DELUX OCEAN ROOM THE WIEV IS FANTASTIC MOSTLY EVENINGS ROOM IS VERY LARGE AND CONFORTABLE THERE IS SOME CONTRACTIONS NEXT TO HOTEL THEY ARE GROWING HOTEL WE DIDNT HEARD ANY NOISE STAFF IS ALSO VERY NICE THERE IS NO HOTEL SEAT AT THE BEACH THERE ARE MANY CHAIRS TO RENT 200BAHT THERE ARE GOOD EATINGS AT THE BEACH WE DIDNT USE THE POOL BECAUSE SEA IS MAGNIFICENT THE BAD THINGS IS VERY FAR AWAY FROM THE PATONG SHOPPING ARE 300 BAHT BY TUK TUK WE ARE ON HONEYMOON COUPLE WE ARE VERY LUCY TO PREFER THIS PLACE "

Got the above review from Asiarooms.com