As I've always said...

...the safest jobs in the world are the ones whereby you are actually making something.

Well, no, not really, because the safest professions are doctors and farmers. Regardless, people will still fall sick and people still need to eat. But besides that, I have long espoused the importance and usefulness of a practical job, that actually delivers something that one can touch and see and feel and smell etc.

That is why I have never had much respect for professions that dabble in the virtual and intangible, though quantifiable (even the quantifiability is suspect, as virtual figures that can't be physically verified can be manipulated and massaged to reflect something other than what is is). Key examples of such jobs are those in finance and banking, professional services, etc. As is expected, in an economic downturn, those are the first to go. When push comes to shove and people want to tighten their belts, the first jobs to go are those that aren't necessary and don't add value to the economy in any real sense. I am wholly unsurprised by such a turn of events, and the recent news and headlines about massive layouts have just confirmed my sentiments.

Being from the manufacturing industry, I am of course somewhat biased. But people still needs goods and products, albeit necessities and not luxuries, unless your product is something that is addictive. Highly debatable, in my case. Anyway, it is lamentable and a pity that some of the best people (yep, those in manufacturing) are the next in line to get the axe, if they haven't already gotten it. A key culprit is of course the lessening demand for luxury goods and products, given the harsh economic clime, but a strong and undeniable factor is definitely the rise of developing countries with an educated and cheap workforce (both skilled and mass unskilled) that can offer a cheaper cost base from where to operate, hence providing a competitive advantage that would be hard pressed to overcome in a developed country with much higher costs of living and where the rights/laws add additional costs of operating. It is sad that those in manufacturing, who really produce with their hands and whose work efforts can be tangibly seen, have to be laid off.

A side effect of the current economic crisis, and mind you, from all the figures I've seen and definitely from the very real impact that it has on my company, we are in a crisis, is the affirmation that the end is nigh for the out of control and insufficiently regulated finance and banking sector, putting a much overdue end to a period first started 20 years ago and defined by the jet settling and lavish lifestyle of the privileged top few which hardly translated into real earnings for the average mum and dad. Those who have put their money, hard earned savings, retirement funds, because they trusted the slick talking and smooth talking financial product salesmen, many of who have little understanding of their product except the commissions they stand to gain, and have their hopes so cruelly dashed, will have little to show after decades of slogging, and most likely will have to go through their retirement years much les gloriously than imagined. Of course, many of these people were betting, were ignorant, ill informed, or were greedy, and for these, there is not much to say. But to those who were ignorant, but who trusted the banking and financial institutions, because they had government backing or were too big to fail, this must have been a bitter lesson. Not to mention a blatant breach of trust.

To the many thousands around the world, the financial workers, the bankers, professional services people, who were riding the wave for the last 2o years, the bubble has come to an end. To everyone who dreamt of getting rich quick, of doing work that cannot be seen or touched, who thought that they could take a shortcut and bypass the factory workers, who could get by by manipulating numbers, taking advantage of people's desires/greed/ignorance/insecurities to fund their own lavish lifestyles, who thought they were cleverer than the rest, who stifled their own conscience to push financial products they barely understood, who flaunted their wealthy and lavish lifestyle, this is a time for reckoning. There really is no short cut to getting rich. Analyzing stuff, preventing risks, all that fancy shmancy stuff, has proven to be truly ineffective. What is the point of having analysts, ratings, risk managers, product managers, investment bankers, blah blah blah, when almost every such instrument has failed to prevent the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression? You'd expect, with the technologies at our disposal, we would have been able to spot/prevent/rectify this a mile off, instead of waiting til we are drowning in it. Had someone had more brains, more foresight, more balls, perhaps the damage would have been less. I do not have much sympathy for those who have greedily fed the vicious machine, encouraging and feeding it, thinking they'd be happy doing a 9 to 5, saying they work in a 'firm', wearing their sharp snazzy suits, marching around with their heels and briefcases, talking about clinching multimillion dollar deals, arrogantly describing themselves as traders/bankers/whatevers, who are addicted to the glamour of the corporate world, and who reject the honest work-with-their-hands types as lowr class denizens. Looking at the gazillions of commerce graduates, and especially with an eye towards the cocky and arrogant classmates I had back in uni, I can't help not feeling sorry for them. It'd be more correct of course to point out that not everyone working in those industries is like this, and that I'd be guilty of gross generalization by tarnishing everyone with the same brush, and risk my entire tirade being dismissed, hence I shall include that disclaimer.

If I sound bitter, yes I am. Perhaps it is the residual effect of feeling first hand the arrogance of such people, the constant overlooking of people who do not work in glamorous jobs, the second class treatment, the fact that people close to me have suffered from the activities of such people, and the feeling of injustice I feel for my co workers who put in a good hard day's work and yet are regarded as lower than and earn less than the cockroaches who have contributed to this crash. Life is not fair, and people say 'accept it and don't fight the system'.

If we really wanted to prevent ourselves from getting into another crisis in the future, really, we just need a few simple rules. (i) focus on manufacturing (ii) focus on delivering higher value added products/goods/services/propositions (iii) have stringent regulations (iv) reduce the insane executive payments to weed out the incompetent (everyone's greedy, let's just weed out the incompetent and greedy).

An unexpected joy...

...came in the form of an unexpected pay increment today.

I was summoned to the Director's office, and handed a letter, and when I examined it, it was a 6% increment.

Quite unexpected, but quite pleasing.

I guess thats more money in the bank every month!

Definitely not complaining in this day and time.

Wanna buy a home?

I don’t suppose anyone is really looking into the phenomenon of “30 being the new 20”. This basically means that people live with their parents well into their 20s and 30s in today’s era, compared to our parents’, where children move out in their 20s. A big part of the reason is the affordability of a new home now compared to our parents’ generation.

If one looks at the cost of a home now, a reasonable dream house is really priced out of the average consumer and the average Joe plumber wage earner’s means. When one pulls a couple k a month, and the cost of an entry level property is a couple hundred grand, ranging from 350 to 500k, the prospect of owning that home is so unreal that there is little real incentive for our yuppies to seriously cobble together a financial plan to try to reach for that home. Hence they choose to indulge in lavish short term lifestyles, figuring that a few hundred dollars splashed on a Kontiki trip or a luxurious spa treatment does not really dent their chances of owning that dream home down by the beach.

This post will not be debating on the virtues and the general spending habits of the 20 something age group, and definitely will not criticize the debt laden culture that so commonly inflicts those of this generation. As an aside, did you know that the average American carries 13 credit cards? What is the implication of that?

At any rate, I’ve been looking at homes here in KL, and it is still affordable to a certain extent, but definitely not for those who are earning an average salary. Over in Australia, where house prices have been fluctuating wildly, it seems that for an average couple starting out, trying to find a reasonable property in Melbourne and Sydney is quite an impossible task, unless one is prepared to stay at Werribee. Werribee! That’s a couple hours train ride from the CBD! What next? Will we be taking planes to work next on a daily basis, sometime in 50 years? Seems like there are no more affordable and reasonable housing left on the suburbs of Melbourne and Sydney – and KL.

Imagine the social costs of housing affordability. We are seeing it already – fathers renting rooms closer to their workplaces to save the hour long drive to work and the hour long drive back home, in their bid to provide a bigger home for their children to play in. Heavy traffic jams, productivity being affected, time spent on the road instead of enhancing family welfare or contributing to the economy via their work, and people being more stressed out, having to sleep earlier and wake later…etc.

We really should address this issue. If I was in Government…

Perverts are everywhere

When one walks down the street here in KL, or in many other Asian or Middle Eastern countries, for that matter, he or she will be acutely and hyper aware of the many lustful, sinful and other less than pure glances and outright ogles from the men in such places at females who wear clothes that show a bit of skin.

Such females usually can be divided into 2 camps. Those who are ignorant and unaware of themselves being disrespectfully looked at, mentally undressed and whatnot and those who are aware/have been told etc but who insist upon it as it is their right and hence they should not curb their own wants since they do not suffer real harm or indignity. Aside from this fact, which I shall not debate, there is also a subtopic of whether or not the cultural, religious and societal norm of a place breeds the sexual health and nature of its men.

One would be tempted to think that in such places, where women are usually required to cover up, a bit of skin could well create some excitement due to the fact that these men are a bit backwards and the sight of something which they rarely get to see gets them to lose all sense of being civilized. However, this argument is sorely tested when one comes into contact with news reports and incidences of peeping toms and other perverts in Western countries, where it is the norm for the females to prance around in very revealing clothes, partly because of the safety and security they feel in wearing such things there, as the men are a bit more refined and refrain from outright ogling at bits of exposed female flesh.

Cutting costs with human lives

I was watching the movie The Towering Inferno the other day. It exposed me a side of construction and architecture that I was never really aware of up until then – how cost cutting, shoddy workmanship and ‘creative get-around’ methods are employed by builders when building properties, which are in essence, death traps.

Then I read about the fire at Bourke St. (Myers), which is the 2nd time in 2 months. It just makes me think that in their greed and quest for profits, all these developers putting people’s lives at risk just makes me sick. I feel almost sure that they employ vastly different standards of qualifying in building their own homes. My family being in the construction business as well, I am privy to some info on the safety of some of our homes today as well.

It is a common occurrence to replace high grade materials with lousier materials, or even different specs that were originally drawn up by architects. Architects also are under pressure to reduce costs while maintaining certain expensive features, such as attractive looks, hence safer but more expensive materials will surely be sacrificed. An example is our tarmac: although we are supposed to use high grade, high concentration tar with a certain pebble density, we are using something much cheaper. That’s why a section of road on our North South highway en route back from Penang to KL is especially slippery during heavy rains. It just makes you wonder 100 years from now, what will be the condition of some of our landmark properties.

Bike rage - the new rage

Cycling is one of the best and most enjoyable sports around. I love it. It’s fun, it is healthy exercise, it is environment friendly, it is not noisy, it is much cheaper than driving, and there are lots of instances of bonding with fellow riders, and you can talk to each other as you cycle. In short, it is really one of the best activities that we can engage in. Back when I was in Melbourne, I used to take the bike everywhere, if it was within a 20-30 min ride. Since returning to KL, I’ve been mostly transporting myself via my car. However, now that I have bought my bike, I do intend to make more use of it, and cycle to places within a 20 min bike ride radius, such as supper, breakfasts on weekends, The Curve, etc. It is very heartening and encouraging that The Curve has bike racks for people to lock their bikes to. Hence I can cycle 20-25 min there, have a workout, and cycle back again, which would give me both cardio and resistance. What a great idea!

However, we have to co-exist with other road users, namely cars and motorcyclists. In my opinion, the more dangerous ones are the motorcyclists. Long being the ones intimidated/bullied/picked on by cars, they are now no longer the last item on the road food chain, and hence have decided to take their frustration and newfound sense of superiority over the latest additions to the road chain – cyclists.

Other road users have to realize and understand and accept that cyclists are here to stay – and we are only growing to increase in numbers. The Malaysian government has to make our roads more bike-friendly, have more cycling lanes to accommodate cyclists, in our bid to be a world class city. Being world class does not merely mean having high concrete towers.

There is a new term coined for road rage against cyclists: bike-ism. And as this article shows, it can have dire and possibly fatal consequences too. There is a new an alarming trend of backlash against cyclists. Knowing how our drivers are here, the Government needs to do something to educate and ensure our drivers do not behave in dangerous ways towards cyclists. This is an opportunity to Malaysia to really take a lead in Asia and make a name for ourselves as being a pioneer here in being cyclist- friendly, and showing the path to an environmentally conscious nation.

Which subclass of man are you?

In society’s never-ending bid to categorize and classify people into neat little squares, and in the evolution of the moden man, we have in recent years been introduced to the fancy concepts of heterosexual, homosexual, metrosexual, ubersexual, SNAG, bi-sexual etc. You know, in the days of my dad, you were either a fag or you weren’t. You were black or you were white. There was definitely no 5 shades of grey to make excuses for insufficient blackness, if you get my drift.

Part of the problem here is that men are allowing society and women especially to paint them in a certain light, to classify them into neat little square boxes, and worst of all, then going out and living in such a way that these phrases become self fulfilling.

What happened to the quintessential bloke? Now I don’t mean one who regresses to drinking beer, belching every 5 seconds, whose main reason for being alive is pizza and football and the monthly issue of Playboy. A guy who is tough, strong, not afraid to get down and dirty, but also is capable of showing emotion.

As a digression, my understanding of heterosexual is: a guy who only wants women. Homosexual is a guy who only wants guys. A metrosexual is some guy who knows his toners, color coordination of clothes, knows his moisturiser, 5 step face maintenance routine or what have you, knows his perfumes, dresses in fitting expensive shirts and trousers, nice belts with shiny buckles and pointy leather shoes, ubersexual is the backlash movement by men in response to the increasing feminization and stripping away of their masculinity by being very stereotypical male, to the point of being homo averse and threatening. SNAG is a soppy wimpy type who is ultra sensitive, thoughtful, caring, cries easily, soft, but that does not mean he likes men. A bi is basically a slut who will shag whatever moves.

Why can’t we just drill them down to just 1 definition. MAN. Simple, easy. I mean, after all, that’s what we are. We all got 1 cannon, and 2 cannonballs. I reckon we shud just call ourselves a MAN. Mature. Able. Noble. Tada!

It takes maturity to know what to do in any given circumstance. It takes the ability to do it as well. But the clinching factor is, is the guy noble enough to do it?

At any rate I reckon men are just becoming confused. Society, and women in particular, love shoving em around, in and out of boxes, and create new stereotypical labels. But the fact is, life ain’t that easy. Those obviously gay types on Sex and the City are obviously TV characters, dramatized and sensationalized for effect. Those like that platypus mouthed Carsson from the 5 gay me makeover (and wtf is that show about anyway, Give ME that budget and I bet I could do better, and come on, I don’t appreciate you coming in trashing my room and ridiculing my collection of soppy sentimental junk even though they mean something to me). So this carsson guy, probably has some playacting in there to boost his image.

In real life, most people don’t fit the stereotype, and there are several shades of grey. Some gay men behave straighter than straight men. You cant tell. Men are being confused. I have these elements. So am I a uber? But I also have A B C elements. So am I a SNAG? And so on it goes.

Come on guys. Where are your testicles. Stand up and be what you really are. show what you are made of. Stop bending back stop fitting into society's stereotype of you. So what if you are neither here nor there? So what if you are soppy? So what if you are unable to articulate your emotions? If thats you, thats you. And people who care for you and love you will accept you are, and the rest, just ignore em.

So I reckon we should just cut the crap and make life easier on the 21st century male.

How much is your time worth?

So you think yo uare brilliant. You have aced your high school exams, you went to a good college, easily procured a spot for urself with a top uni, worked hard and graduated with good grades, secured yourself a job with a top MNC, and now rake in relatively big bucks, as much as it took your parents 10 years to make when they were your age.

Great. You've achieved what you've always wanted.

Now, if you were in a hugely satisfying job, and got immense satisfaction from teaching little kids, thats GREAT. The problem is, what if you are not quite sure why you are in your current job, and you cannot say with conviction that you love this job, and there are days where you just tell urself it isnt worth it. What if you are getting tired by all the deadlines, quotas, stress, pressures, targets, KPIs, meetings, projects, deliverables, presentations, business cases, explanations, reports, politics, being cooped up in an office while gazing wistfully at the sun outside? Did you really go through the last 20 years of education for...this?

You spend hours and hours a day at work. You work from 8, 9 til 8, 9. Not much time for much else. Can't dictate working hours. Have to put up with other people's moods and attitudes.

On the other hand, you could quit, and set up your own business. Open a restaurant! Sell something simple, even if it is just chicken rice or bak kut teh. In M'sia, you can keep your overheads low by not emphasizing the packaging, because we just care for the taste. You can be your own boss. You dictate your working hours. Don't feel like working today? Feel like starting later? Go ahead! Hire someone else to run your shop for you, to collect the money. So, while your shop and hence you are raking in the cash, you're out there enjoying the sun and a good book.

That operates on the concept of passive income. For us in our 9-5, we have to work to pull in the cash. Once we stop, we dont make anything. We are trading our time, our youth, our passion, our adventure-time, for some money, a shitload of stress. Thats active income. Passive income is like when artistes sing 1 song or writers write 1 book, and sit back, and keep reaping the revenue generated by that few hours/months of work. So if we had our own stall, we could operate on that concept. The stall will run and generate profits while we are in the cinema.

Isn't that great?

What else...we could skip the whole run of the mill degree-uni thing, and just go to tradeschool. Or become an apprentice. Did you know in Australia senior bricklayers get paid 1 buck per brick laid? Plumbers, mechanics, air cond repairmen, these guys make shovelloads, and they have a union. These guys rake in more dough than the typical accountant, professional, exec, white collared paper pusher doing the dirty down in the city.

Or, you could get yourself an education until you finish high school, then go into an apprenticeship or tradeschool, from 17 til 30. And all the money that would have been spent on your education post high school would go into a fund since you were 17 and earn compound interest. By the time you are 30, you'd have more than 10 years of trade experience, and 1 million in the bank, easy, to start your business with.

I wish I had done that! With my good character, smirk, I'm sure my customers would love me and keep returning.

So, you wanna travel?

You do, huh?

In this day and age, everybody wants to travel. There are, generally, a few distinct types of travellers. Let's not talk about the groups of travelling families, middle aged people. This post is about the 17 to 35 year olds.

Most people in that age group, either:

- want to travel solo to some place, or around the world, to experience different cultures, and coz they need to get out of their current routine, or coz they just want to constantly be on holiday. or they want to see someplace, which has previously only existed in their dreams and imaginations.

- want to travel solo to some place, or around the world, and also to live for a short period of time in 1 place. In order to do this, they work part time, or do a travel-work thingie, or embark on a vocational course. This is to experience the culture, get away from what they have been used to, and because they want to live life in that place as how they imagine life in that place is lived, in their dreams.

- want to travel solo to some place, or around the world, experience new things cultures people etc, meet people. Perhaps, to meet someone special and enjoy that feeling of amour. To meet the type of people they dream about, that cannot be found where they currently are.

Whatever it is you want, there is no wrong in that. If thats your dream, if thats what makes you happy, well, go for it, if you find that it is worth leaving behind whatever you are leaving behind. If you feel that that helps you recapture your youth, or gives you a sense of romance, or a sense of freedom, or a sense of empowerment, then, go ahead. But if you are travelling alone, especially for girls, you have got to grow up, be sensible, be realistic, and not be naive. Many a time a girl has gotten in trouble in their search for fun, excitement, and that bit of adrenaline. They think that as long as they are in control, then they can get as deep in as they want.

The problem is, they are NEVER in control. The fact is this: you can rave all you want about feminism and all that, but the fact is, you are vulnerable. The trick is to seem non threatening, to let the girl feel like she is in control, to let her feel like she is calling the shots, that she is dictating how deep in she is going. Let her feel like she wants the drink, and make her think that she is still sober, and can call it off anytime. And that you will be willing to roll with it. Once she thinks she is in control, she will let her guard down. When the timing is right, you go for the kill. And by that time, she will realize that the control is just an illusion. And by then, it is too late.

Many a girl-just-wanna-have-fun moment has resulted in horrible consequences. And when that happens, besides rape, besides being drugged with devastating effects on the body later including affecting her ability to reproduce, you also get deaths. And these are the reported ones.

This article about the recent disappearance of Britt Lapthorne in Europe, the Australian girl, just drives home that fact. She was just out to have fun. To her, she was just being friendly. But in the minds of the guys there, although not conveyed to her, she was viewed as easy, promiscuous, etc, and her body has just been found. Such dumb, naive, stupid and selfish acts basically have led to her family being the ones who are the real victims, who are left to pick up the crumbling pieces of their life, forever wonder and regret, to deal with the insinuations and whispers about their loved one's moral decisions. As the author herself recalls and admits, when a young girl travels solo, more often that not, it is with God's good grace that she returns completely unscathed.

People can be horribly naive. Just because something is not in their horizon of consciousness, it doesn't mean that others will not act upon it. There are still many parts of this world, even in civilized areas, where people disappear. They don't realize, 6 girls are no match for 1 guy. A guy can take several hits from several grls. But one punch from a guy, can knock a girl out cold. You can rave and rant against this unfairness and whatnot, but thats reality.

So, the point is, if you are a girl intending to travel solo, go for it if thats what you dream. But whatever you do, it is not excess prudence to let your imagination run a bit, take extra precautions, be very careful, and not be naive, do not take risks, alwiz think of your family, and most of all, are you REALLY in control?

Money Smarts

Well, in line with my latest attempts to start acquiring some financial smarts and being more fiscally responsible and prudent, let me attach the below link. It's written by Scott Pape, the author of the Barefoot Investor.
Caught my attention several years ago in uni, and writes very handy, practical and down to earth advice, instead of the typical run of the mill rich-dad poor dad crap that spouts rhetorical nonsense without providing real world tips.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24475836-664,00.html

It does contain some really good tips, some basic fundamental stuff we all should know. If you are between 25-30, have had barely any savings, try to read through some of his previous articles as well.

I've got a very basic plan to get back into financial health.

- Settle all my credit card debts, keep one just for petrol and other expenses, and the other for non essential items, e.g. dinner, entertainment. Thats it. Carry just 2 cards.

- Submit my claims to the company. That comes to a few k.

- Collect debts from friends.

- Hence forth, keep a running balance of about 3k in my savings account, which generates negligible interest anyway, for use as petty cash and to pay off expenses. Keep another account, an FD, and stick everything else in there, and when I get my salary each month, stick the balance in after topping up the expense account. Although the FD account only generates 3.7% interest per annum (compared against the real inflation rate of 4 to 5 %), it is still better than other packages out there. This is because other funds require (a) a certain minimum deposit amount (b) insurance packages which I don't need and am already covered for (c) are either very risky or long term (d) tie me down, which is not a good idea at this point until I have a more stable cashflow (e) are essentially gambles, like in shares or unit trusts or other managed funds, which I do not have time to monitor yet or to figure out my investing strategy. Once I have a stable cashflow, and excess cash leftover after a 6 month buffer at current salary, then I'll use that to invest.

- When the Aussie dollar looks to have fallen as low as it can fall, quickly deposit as much as I can afford into my Aus account, so that I can benefit from the inevitable rise back to the 6 plus percent interest rates it was although this might take 1 year.

- Have my eyes on a few local and Aus shares. When the drop seems to be levelling off, not anytime soon I'm sure, I will snap up some.

- Right now is not a good time to purchase property. Perhaps in a year or so, when prices bottom out. When prices bottom out in a year or 2, I'd be in a stronger position to purchase something as significant as property. Although changing a car is a freat and attractive idea, at this point, again, it is definitely not something I want to do, given that interest rates on cars just increased, the economic situation is dubious at best, and that I might not be around in M'sia after next year.

At this point, this is the best plan I can think of, unless better ideas are encountered.

What's your plan? Time to start drafting one!

So you think you want a credit card?

If you want to get a credit card, you must be

- disciplined
- organized
- careful.

You have to be disciplined in sticking to the original objectives of the card, and not simply use it and end up incurring huge debts. You have to be disciplined in ensuring you settle your obligations on time, and meeting your mothly repayments. The trick that they always leave in the very fine print is that not only is there a minimum monthly repayment charge (and the associated late payment charge, suspension if this is not paid, and fee to reactivate it) but on top of that, you are charged a % of whatever your balance is. You have to spend and use your card in a disciplined manner, and make sure you pay off ur obligations. Once you get in debt, these banks, which are similar to legalized loan sharks, will charge a hefty interest on you and you will end up paying through your nose. A credit card can give you great convenience, but is also the fastest way to financial disaster.

You must be organized and keep your records. Any statement/PIN sent to you, must be filed away. Reason being, it is not uncommon for fraudulent transactions to take place on your card, or for mistakes by the bank. You should keep all your statements to and check them and do reconciliation to ensure the totals tally and that no one is shaving a couple of bucks off you every month. If you ever suspect there is something amiss, and mind you, there are lots of seemingly suspicious signs in this day and age where it is part of life to make credit card transactions via the Internet, and you want to refer back to your statements, it costs money to print out each sheet of paper, so you could be paying up to RM100 for a whole year's worth of backdated statements. If you believe you paid off your balance but yet it is not reflected, you at least have your receipts and statements to back it up.

You must be careful of fraud. Do not simply use unprotected websites and internet facilities and disreputable websites. Also, websites without the Verisign securelock feature are to be avoided. Just carry some common sense, dno't leave your card lying around, don't even let others take ur card away and return it to you for signature as restaurant-goers often do, because the waiters could use your card for fraudulent purposes too. And just y'day I received an SMS by one of my credit card supplying banks telling me to call them back for some purpose related to my cc. When I did call them back, a lady answered the phone and kept giggling, in the most unprofessional manner, and straightaway asked for my IC number. After reading about 3 or 4 digits, I became suspicious of her and asked her how for some verification. She instantly hung up.

When I was in uni, and was studying Telecommunications (which by the way is one of my all time favourite and coooolest subjects), which dealt with cyber crime, hacking, etc, we learnt a lot about how the Mafia and organized European, Russian, etc syndicates have got computer security specialists planting trojans and other spyware and keystroke recording software into other people's computers and steal their passwords. Cybercrime today is a v serious business, taking on a very organized and sophisticated face.

So guys and girls...be careful, be very careful.

So you think your job is bad?

Well check this out. This email was written by 1 of my best friends to the rest of our gang. Names and details changed to protect privacy of those implicated.

- - -

for the last one month i have been chained to a wall and fed sh*t and ask to do work on an impossible time line! Everyday in [Insert Name of his client] untill no time go check mail man...
Wah i've been reading all your emails from two months ago slowly la! wtf is happening man! i can slowly see the descend in to despair and madness!
First everyone very happy very good, some of you say going to UK for holiday, some still asking me to sign up credit card, some looking to go holiday, then slowly come from back UK not happy, wan to quit job, job very sien, then descend to job very sh*t kena frame, wan to change job, girl problems, then fu-k-ing go down untill wan to OPEN BAK KUT TEH SHOP?
hahaha
damn funny...
anyway in line with the latest email who is idiot i bet i'm the biggest idiot! [insert name of his employer] got firm approved leave last friday cause earlier in the year we didn't get a public holiday so they replace with last friday so can get wednesday to sunday long weekend!
Starting from Wednesday i was working trying my best to finish, each day more and more crap keep coming up, by thursday i was still working till 3am everday, i tot can faster finish by friday so i can at least enjoy the weekend... BY MONDAY 3am this morning I"M STILL WORKING MAN!!!
From wednesday to Sunday suppose to be MY HOLIDAy! MYYYYYYY HOLIDAy! MINE OK! MY FREE TIME! i had to do this stupid [insert client name] job! with no OVERTIME! or extra pay! So looking forward for this free time and i hadwork every god damn day!
Remember how i used to complain to u guys i have to work untill 3am? 4am? What happens when u get more work? Extend dateline? Get more staff to help you? NOPEE. The answer is DON"T SLEEP! Thats right fellas i've hit a NEW LOW.
Now a days its so damn crap that we don't sleep for 2 days in a row. Work two days in the a row. Sleep one day. Work two days in a row, sleep on day!., I woke up during Sunday 11am. I have not slep untill today nonstop working. But i don't care la i took about 2 hours off to play game yesterday... hahaha 2 hours of my time! take that !
my hands are shaking man... i can't stop them shaking... eat so damn alot of sugar.. coffeee + sugar... sweets ... choclates arghh... my head hurts too man
there is really so damnm alot of work. now a days not only do we have to be [insert his profession], we munst be industry specialists man. Basically i have spent the last 4 days analsying the whole f-earking [stock markets in a certain region comprising several countries] write analysis on what went upa nd down and WHY! WHy did this counter drop by 2 dollars [insert his name]? tell me why! .... HOW I KNOW WHY! BECUZ SOME IDOIT WAN TO SELL LA! sigh...i have to go research the guy's annoucements, balance sheets, ratios, news and market forces and write why.... call becuz we wan to make sure my client,... the [an establishment] gains on disposal of shares is correct...
GHEY! just check the selling contract against the purcahse contract the difference in price enough la! CHeck already! but nooo not enough.. .the partner wan me to do research to see if qualitatively it is correct also....

ahhh ok ... i feel better sorry guys just needed a place to rant... so damn frustrated with my job. i think i'm going back early to sleep today la dont' care man... going to crash my car if i continue like this. i'm just so damn angry becuz i was so looking forward to my holiday! and turned our i didn't even enjoy one day man! i couldn't go out and watch a movie.. or just go out and grab somethign nic eto eat! its like u try to rush ur work and suddenly its SUNDAY NIGHT and u're so pissed off...
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2 days later, we received this email:

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anyway i think to top it all up, i finally succumbed to my work man, yesterday (Tuesday) i was checked into the hospital for exhaustion man.

I woke up during 3am on Tuesday with very high fever, headache and joint pains man. Very dizzy cannot breathe properly and my lower back damn pain. So my dad drov eme to the hospital near my house and my fever damn high man around 39 degrees, basically just exhaustion my body couldn't take it just broke down man. So ordered by the doctor to just sit there on the hospital bed do nothing for one whole day man... ask for one book to read also kena scolded man... just got one intern nurse fresh from nurse school can hear the experience nurse outside the door telling her "so this ur first time giving injection in a public environment don't do it wrong ah, im giving u chance to experience".. chan hai cham man.. then see her very shy ask me pull my pants abit down to poke my ass but she [insert race] so cannto pull to far so she f-e-arking poke damn high up there man near the hip! damn pain man! keep asking me pain or not DIE LA U!
The funny thing is i thougth finally i got chance to make my boss feel guilty la treat me like a slave so i call her/him (two of them) and told them the news. So they wer elike "er.... like this ah... dateline is on wednesday wor.. nvm u take ur rest first". so i tot wah ok , then my colleague call me later and told me she heard about me and ask if i was ok then she said "wah i heard your boss talking about you then u know what they say they said they think [insert friend name] cannot handle late nights le not strong enough for this job"
chan hai man! my plan backfired now i look bad infront of my boss alreayd man! instead of them feeling like maybe i work this guys tooo hard give them some slack let them at least sleep everday for 3 hours, instead they think i can't handle this man! haih....
so still haven't ok yet but i'm back at work today man... now i got more work to do

- - -

He has been sending us these sorts of mails for the past 2 years. And mind you, he doesn't make great coin, but above average, to be sure. So, you still think your job is bad?

Have > Want + Need = Happiness

Take a good look at the formula above.

Have > Want + Need = Happiness.

Hence the only way to be happy is either to increase your have, or decrease your want+need. Increasing your have will mean working really hard and being really stressed out at some high paying job. You will end up trading time and health and investing in relationships and activities you like doing. Hence, alternately, you can reduce your wants and needs. Some will depict that as lowering your standards. Some will say why do I have to tone it down. If I can go for a spa massage that charges RM300, or a Chinese traditional practitioner who charges RM35, why should I settle for the Chinese one if the spa one is more relaxing and enjoyable?

Well they really have no choice, rant argue rave rail all they want, thats the reality of the situation. Either you push yourself to the limit and earn a lot, or, you want less.

If you think about it for a second..we were happy in uni. We spent much less. We were happy in high school. We spent even less. So why must our spending increase proportionately as we increase our earning capacity? The trick to good financial sense, is to earn/have more than what we want + need. Bills, petrol, necessities aside, we just need to keep our spending low. Eat well but not too well, but give ourselves weekly treats, don't need to buy new material items regularly, and just be prudent and sensible. I think thats the trick to financial health.

We really got to think about our finances, I reckon. If we retire at 55, and want a modst RM2.5k a month income, and live til 80, that is 2.5 X 12 X 25 = 750k. That excludes sudden expenditure increases such as medical bills and travel, and given inflation today, 750k is really cutting it close.

I guess just have to make a disciplined and concerted effort to live within our means.

Of cats and dogs

I am not an animal hater.

I love dogs.

So I am getting quite upset that I recently saw 2 dogs, at different locations, lying beside the road, with what looked like faint red markings on the ground next to their heads, something that I take to be blood.

Rigor mortis had already set in.

It made me really sad. And then quite angry.

Can't something be done? Why must we have so many strays all over the road, and then have them knocking each other up, leading to a whole litter of puppies born, innocent, and then either left to starve or grow up and continue this vicious cycle, and then the DBKL comes along, and shoots the dogs, or they eventually rot and die and their carcasses feed the friggin crow population, and they get knocked down by cars, fall dead roadside, some with their innards spilling out, and then we see rigor mortis set in, and then we see maggots appearing. It's like watching Discovery Channel live.

Once upon a time, that dog was also a cute fat puppy, just born into the world, warm ,soft fat cute, squishy, innocent, pure hearted, loving, just waiting for an owner to pick it up and love him so it can also love the owner back with all its longing puppy heart.

Maybe we should stop importing and selling dogs until every single stray is off the street. Then we need to take care to register each dog and its births etc to monitor n control the stray population.

Which begs another question. What happens to dogs left unsold in pet shops? I mean, at a certain age it surely becomes unprofitable to keep the dog. You can't keep em forever, esp if it isn't bought and it is almost an adult. So what happens? Where do they go? The dog pound? The RSPCA? WHAT is actually happening? Is it really the cruel harsh reality that at the dog pound they are put down, and then their remains mashed and grounded and turned into dog food?

Which by the way is exactly how cows got Mad Cow Disease. Apparently, what they are fed is made of mashed up pieces of dead cow remains. How much of this is true is unknown, but thats just food for thought.

Gymergy

What is gymergy?

Simply put, it is energy generated from gyms. If you look at all the work (in the Physics sense of the word) done in the gym, the amount of energy generated has high potential (there, another Physics term). Look at how many people run on the treadmills, attend the cyclic studio, do the stair workout, and various other forms of weightlifting. I am pretty sure there is energy there to harness, clean energy (in the environmental sense of the term) that puts to good use what is generated, instead of letting it dissipate into thin air and being wasted. The energy could be used to operate the various electrical facilities at each gym facility, and if there is excess, sold back to the national grid.

Otherwise, what a waste of all that running and cycling.

- - -

A friend is going into business providing en mass those solar grids to put on houses to capture solar energy and utilize this energy to power the house, and if there is excess, again, sell it back to the national grid.

I think it's a fantastic idea.

You know, something else to think about...during in x-rated activities, sports games, I'm pretty sure a lot of energy is generated as well. If we could but harness this for recycling, we'd go some way towards saving the Earth..

And give people excuses to have indulge in more x-rated activities!

The financial collapse

People are saying that this is the biggest downturn and crashlanding faced in the global financial markets since the Great Depression. Apparently house prices are dropping, interest rates are being slashed, share markets are crashing, currency values are tumbling, people and companies and now even national economies going bankrupt etc. There's been all sorts of hyperbole, reports, blah blah, which I will not go on about.

I haven't felt anything. So far, there's only the petrol price increase, and the associated costs of living that goes with the territory. I don't dabble in the share market, I haven't bought a house recently. In fact, it is good news in a way because when house prices have fallen enough, and if there really will be a recession as predicted, in the next 2 years I can afford a better place. Similarly, share prices are cheaper to pick up, and since they will then keep going up, I guess it's a good bet for some gains.

What keeps me laughing though, are the news reports of all those Wall Street types who have lost their jobs, those banks and bankers who are eating dirt now. And all these investment bankers and so called bankers and richie rich people having to eat humble pie.

What makes me bitter?

Well, what I do for work, is we are involved in producing something, an actual physical product, and we have to sell it, and the consumer is able to touch/taste/see/feel/hold it, and then they pay us for it. So we are making something first, and then selling it. It is hard work, but it is honest money.

In the case of all these people, a couple of bad experiences have forever made me think a certain way of them. #1, most of these people are cocky, arrogant, and think that they are better than the rest of the world because they make more money. Well, it is not honest money. Selling financial products is like hot air; when the crap surfaces, the product is not even worth the paper it is signed on. Selling virtual numbers, dealing with virtual numbers, where fortunes are made and lost with a key stroke, not dealing in something SOLID. When I was in uni, and taking commerce subjects, you should see the arrogance and disdain the commerce/finance people had for engineers. Sneers and stifled giggles were not uncommon. I was asked a fellow basketball player what he worked as. He looked at me slowly, gave me the once over, and cockily said, 'I'm a banker'. And proceeded to ignore me. Well, in the interest of being friendly, because everyone in the group was chatting about our work, and I did not want him to feel left out, I asked "So what do you do for the bank?". I mean, you could be a cleaner, or teller right?

And he paused tying his laces. Turned his head slowly to look at me. And repeated, like I was a dumbo, "I'm a banker. You know what that is?". I was so incensed I proceeded to give him a couple of hard forearm shivers and kicked his ass. You meet a lot of guys like that while playing basketball in PJ. Cocky, arrogant, educated, thinking they are God's gift to women just because they can speak good English, were educated in the UK, and work as an investment banker. Oh puh-lease!

Then there were those uni-mates who graduated, worked in banks, and now everyone talks of them in such wide eyed respectful gushing tones, about how much money they are making...doing what? Being high class salesmen who flaunt pieces of paper at rich men with disposable incomes, in return having a smoke and a drink. No dignity, if you ask me. Everyone is just doing the paper chase. Everyone wanting to get money with minimal work but not by using their brains. Just pushing whatever product their boss tells them is the flavor of the money, with scant regard to what happens once the deal is done. Thats exactly how my mum lost about 20k Sing dollars. And these are the same type of products that banks are trying to sell to me.

Basically, buy this unit trust. It's good. But we don't monitor for you, so if you don't monitor it, there is a possibility the value might drop to zero and you lose your capital. WTF? If we were so free to monitor it, we neednt buy it from you - stupid. It's not that I am venomous towards bankers. Far from it. Those guys who actually do the qualitative and quantitative work, I have respect for them. The back end guys, the operational guys. But please don't try to tell me how respectful and wonderful and intelligent investment bankers/currency traders are. I will never be able to respect guys who sell pieces of virtual paper. If you are going to sell something, do it the old fashioned way, mate - make em, then sell em.

I just hate people who think that they can jump queue and one up the rest of us and are better than us, purely by participating in what I see as not much more than a get rich quick scheme by the greedy, for the greedy.

The only tragedy here is that while the top echelon of these types, the head honchos at Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, etc are walking away with literally hundreds of millions either in savings/payouts, the life savings, the tears+blood money of all the Ma and Pa investors who were merely trying to procure some insurance for their kids' college education funds, are now left in the lurch.

It was absolutely disgraceful and disgusting that Hank Paulson wanted that 700bil bailout fund. Ultimately, the big guys at Wall Street are now insulated, and used that money to fund some private champagne celebratory parties, instead of using those funds to guarantee or at least liquidize and pay back some of the funds to the Ma and Pa investors. And, these are taxpyer monies. The next step, mark my words, will involve wholesale guarantees of bank savings by governments.

Sharks...the whole lot of em.

Random droppings..

Everyone who knows me knows that I'm the biggest KFC fan. I can wolf through 5 or 6 pieces easily in a single sitting, and if I have just come off a sports game, I can take even more. But here I have met my match. Just take a look at this article, 2 ridiculous women eating 5000 calories and over 10 pieces between them. I concede defeat in this one, but goodness, someone needs to tell her to cut down her food intake.

On a side note, I reckon I should cut down on my chicken intake. I am a bit worried that they might lead to me developing breasts. A VERY scary thought.

KFC really is a great meal. It is a male favourite. Tastes good. Filling. Simple and easy to eat. Affordable. Lots of meat. Quick. Can be eaten anywhere. Nothing beats that...so never get between a man and his KFC.

I remember the days when it was called Kentucky Fried Chicken, when the OR tasted better, and it wasn't all painted bright red (the signs, not the chicken).

Just read a most entertaining interview with Noel Gallagher. Been an Oasis fan since early high school, and really enjoy their songs. Have always wondered how 2 brothers who purportedly can't stand each other can work together to produ ce so many great songs. Most people are not like that; they would not put aside petty personal differences to make something good that others can enjoy.

And just to spoil my day, here is yet another example of those dumb tourists encroaching on wild animals' habitat, and securing a swift and utterly undeserved death sentence on the animal. Makes me sick, it does.

OK, off to the Eye Specialist now.

The world around us

Everyone knows that the world is facing climate change, and that the environment is rapidly changing for the worse as a result of Man’s activities, and that we are very near to if not at/over the tipping point. Several factors have been blamed.

But one of the most baffling, and recently gained much public attention, factors, is the methane gas produced by cattle farts. I shall pause a moment to let you digest that sentence. Yes ladies and gentlemen, while we are enjoying our steaks and chops, the cattle is having the last laugh – yup, eat me if you want, but my flatulence will slowly kill you anyway. Over the life of cattle, from birth to death, it would have released a significant enough amount of methane into the atmosphere. That’s just something really odd, to ponder over. Those cute harmless, white, furry animals playing king of the hill just beyond the stiles, who look so nice dotting the countryside on rural drives, yup, they are slowly strangling us. And who said eating cows is cruel because they do nothing to harm the human race? We have to redefine ‘nothing’. These guys are the real poker masters and assassins, for while we fawn over their cuteness and make furry soft toys in their likeness, they can look us in the eye, while chewing cud, knowing that they are secretly planting poison in the air that will kill us.

It gets personally worrying & irritating when my job prospects and livelihood are affected by factors that were not at all attributed to anything I did. Due to escalating costs of living here, unstable politics, and safety issues, I have been seriously considering taking advantage of my PR and moving back to Australia, and am just awaiting the timing. However, recent unemployment reports, wages snapshots and economic assessments in Australia are not so rosy either. Australians are abandoning home ownership dreams, and the previously already hefty price of homes has increased again and looks set to continue. The petrol prices are inevitably rising everywhere, with the bad news that it is also rising in Sydney, and in Malaysia would also raise eventually hence the Government has to remove the subsidies anyway. Demand for managers in engineering and IT are declining in all Australian states, except for WA and Queensland, which are very resource based, as opposed to corporate. Jobs overall ARE increasing; it’s just that the right sectors aren’t particularly growing. I guess at this time everywhere in the world is shaky now, and we might be jumping from the pot into the frying pan. I guess if one is stable and secure in where they currently are, they better wait it out for a bit.

Assume there is a lottery prize to be won. There will DEFINITELY be MORE than 1000 people vying for 1 prize money over the course of the week. That makes the odds of claiming first prize roughly 0.1%. And that’s a very optimistic calculation, obviously. And loads of people gamble for that 0.1%. Assuming that the odds are now raised to 6.5%! Suddenly, the chance of winning the top prize in the lottery has jumped by 6500%! Hence if I now told you that there is a venture that has a 6.5% chance of making you a billionaire, would you jump at it? Well, 6.5% of the world’s billionaires were school drop outs. That means most of you reading this article right now would never be in their class, as I am pretty sure we are all tertiary educated. At that point in their lives, all they had was passion, courage and a certain amount of idealism. At one point in our lives I am sure we all encountered the same thing. What stopped us? Pragmatism? Insufficient confidence in ourselves? This has really got me thinking hard. Is it too late then? [A post for another day.]

Proof that increasingly, we are pairing up with the wrong people. Partner hopping is on the rise, and the oft floated suggestion that cohabitation earlier results in more successful marriages later is being turned on its head. Personally, partner hopping is something I don’t quite like. It suggests sexual experience, promiscuity, a bigger number of ex partners to possibly be compared to, an inability to settle down, some other deep seated issues which resulted in break ups previously, and a higher propensity of the same thing recurring. People getting together without being mature enough about relationships, people misreading signals for love, and people being too self centred, and people wanting love and relationships more than they are ready for it, these are some of the myriad causes of this phenomenon. On a side note but related, we should be having babies earlier if we can afford it.

This is just bizarre. Boys arrested for attempted necrophilia. That is rampant enough in morgues, especially to young female victims. What is really disgusting about this is that the female accident victim, all of 20 years old, was buried a week before. What if she had started decomposing? Which brings me to another point: can one catch diseases, e.g. STDs and AIDS, from having sex with corpses?

A Toyota engineer has collapsed and died. This is yet another case, and highlights the working culture in Japan: long hours and high stress + high living costs. No wonder so many Japanese are going mad. This is just more proof that one can really work oneself to death. Toyota has a famed manufacturing system, the Toyota Production System, which is the envy of all manufacturing establishments and held in high regards. Perhaps they should now start focussing on employee welfare, instead of merely on quality, cost, productivity etc. It just makes me feel really bad and reconsider when buying a Toyota car, when I think that each dollar I pay will have a certain % going to the families of engineers who died on the job.

OK, enough for the day.

Relationships today are weird

There are some things I will never understand about relationships. Anne Hathaway, the leggy beauty in Get Smart, apparently dobbed in her boyfriend of 4 years for doing illegal con jobs. Scams. Anyway, she apparently realized what he was up to, struck a deal with the cops to escape, and then they arrested him.

I don’t know, I could never dob in any ex of mine if all they did was some con job of some people. Its not like he killed someone, or cheated some poor old pensioner of her life savings. He just ripped off rich but wanting to be richer (read: greedy) people.

And I’m sure we’ve all heard of people who take thrills in watching their partners in bed with other people. That, I really cannot fathom. I reckon those couples will not last. It is dysfunctional. It is definitely not encouraged in the bible. The bible says 1 man 1 woman, 1 woman 1 man. So when this article popped up about the rampant practice of swinging in a major Australian city, it really blew my mind off. What in the world is the world coming to? How can people exchange lovers? Even if its, as the article alleges, only for a weekend?

Thats y I know i couldnt ever marry an actress. i'd be mortified when i see the scenes of her being in love with someone and all that hugging and crying and worse still, the kissing, and heaven forbid, any lovemaking scenes. i'd run on set and strangle the shit outta the actor involved, beat the crap out of him, set fire to his corpse, and burn down his house, kill his family and eradicate all his pets, including the goldfish and the pet persian.

thats y i know i couldnt be an actor either. imagine coming home to a sulky wife who says "well, that kissing scene you had with brooke..was a tad too real wasnt it?". and then banishing me to the couch.

1907 vs 2007

Yes, in the last 100 years, the world hasn’t advanced at all, as a race.

What is the world coming to nowadays?

What was said 100 years ago is true today, revealing that the human race has not done much improvement and evolution in the last 100 years. If anything, although our scientific knowledge might be at its peak, the human race as a whole, is nowhere near as enlightened, classy and innocent as it was in days of yore. Gone are gentleman, classy women, and educated people, and not just in the academic but also the cultural sense. Greed has become the number one emotion among human beings, with the chase for the green overriding all other concerns, ranging from the ethical to the environmental. Everyone is fighting to put themselves in their kids in the position to make a lot of money. The richest institutions are banks, and the biggest investors are banks. The richest paid jobs are banking jobs. But what do bankers do?

Bankers sell you crap financial products that you either do not need, or that are bad for you, all just to earn the commission on that. Insurance packages are designed to frighten you. Everything is designed to strip you of your hard earned cash. Nobody pays with what they have. Everything is done on credit, on loan, and when there’s nothing to borrow or sell, they sell trumped up marketing products, and long before the general public knew of the sub-prime woes that are today besieging the global economy, bankers already knew, but were still selling anyway. It is consumerism and capitalism at is frenzied peak. Buy, and if you can’t afford it, borrow!

"Modern man drives a mortgaged car over a bond-financed highway on credit-card gas."- Earl Wilson 1907-, American newspaper columnist

Institutions are all about making money. Trying to afford an education is getting harder and harder. It is probably more worthwhile financially to send your kid to TAFE than to university. At my alma mater, they are having an accommodation crisis, where university students are hot-bedding it, which basically means they take turns to sleep on the same bed.

We are hot property. Institutions are scrambling to decode what is in my head. Everyone wants to know what I am thinking. Everyone is trying to strip as many dollars from me as possible. As a Gen Y (is that even me? At 25 years old?) member, I am merely a statistic, a cross section of the socio-economical fabric of the population, and am targeted as a hot marketing prospect, an eager beaver consumer. Everyone is trying not to understand what makes us tick, how to harness our energy, how to make the world a better place with us, what is screwing us up, what makes us happy, what motivates us. No. everyone, every research dollar is hell bent on squeezing every drop of blood from us, and when we are broke and bankrupt to our knees, they will conveniently dispose of us, and move on to Gen Z.

Y'day, we fought over land. Today we fight over oil. Tomorrow, we will fight over water and food. Mark my words.

Yes, in the last 100 years, the world hasn’t advanced at all, as a race.