Conversations With Self

Vampires, Romeo and Juliet, and really sharp pointy stakes

2009-11-17T21:37:00.002-05:00

It’s vampire hunting season again.

Since the advent of Twilight, and other cheesy vampire-romance movies, reminisce of low-quality, dismal fanfiction-like pairings where someone had a “brilliant” idea of pairing a vicious bloodsucking vampire with a misunderstood gothic social outcast... Hmm... Sounds like a Mary-Sue plotline already.

Of course it would never work, the whole mythological essence of a vampire doesn’t work for romance, as misguided as that notion is. Vampires have no reflection, ergo, you technically can’t take a picture of a vampire, ergo, there won’t be any cutesy couple photos. Then they have horrendously pasty white skin, because of all that time spent crawling in the dark. And seriously, ladies, do you really want to have sex in a coffin? It’s not that spacious in there, it’s pretty uncomfortable, and I wouldn’t recommend it if you scream loud enough to wake up the dead. That’ll be pretty embarrassing.

So there’s a little retconning of our perceptions of vampires. Suddenly, they’re youthful, charming and most importantly, they can choose to not drink the blood of the ones they love, or be consumed by some other undead-ish desire to transform their brides into eternal undeads like themselves. It sounds to me if vampires can choose not be vampires, then… Wait… The impossibilities are mind-boggling here. Does that mean I can also choose not to be human, but a three headed marathon comedian? (Don’t ask) Then can rabbits choose not to be rabbits, but wolves instead? So yay, Stephenie Meyer has somehow successfully managed to humanize vampires and turn the undead back into the living! She’s a walking Jesus!

But the consequences are earth-shattering. For one, the phrase “how to kill a vampire” has been Googled over 50 million times and rising rapidly, with the coming release of the most likely to be god-awful sequel of Twilight. Young men have been stocking up on ash stakes and learning to cook a mean garlic pesto spaghetti to keep vampires away from their girlfriends. Holy water sales have gone through the roof, and I just saw a holy water purifier for sale online, which doesn’t just removes chlorine and microbes from your tap water through reverse osmosis, but automatically blesses it too; handy for watering garden plants and keeping vampires off your property too.

Somehow, it feels that humanity is scraping the bottom of the barrel with these sort of ideas for movies. Vampire lovers, zombie strippers, werewolf attorneys, mummy babysitters, homicidal unkillable psycho gas attendants. And perhaps it just irks me that it’s these sort of movies that entertain, titillate and skew my entire world view of the right order of things. Gone are the days where man was supposed to kill vampires, and zombies are supposed to eat brains, and werewolves are supposed to get flea collars.

And it’s drama for the sake of drama. Romeo and Juliet doesn’t quite cut it anymore, star-crossed lovers can’t just be from different feuding families, but someone must now up the ante. One must be human, and the other must be a complete abomination which eats humans. But it’s the same drawn out story no matter how you carve it. If I replaced Romeo with a werewolf and Juliet with a vampire, I would get three movies about feuding werewolves and vampires entitled Underworld, Underworld 2 and Underworld 3. The originality is just astounding.

And we can also draw similarities between Twilight and Titanic, even though I am proud to say that I've never tortured myself by sitting through these two movies. For one, both movie titles begin with the letter "T". But that aside, same story, two lovers from different worlds, who could never be together, and they part at the end of the movie. It's a recycling of old movie plots. But with vampires.

It's not like everything can be made better with vampires. Think about it, how would movies be if we have things like, "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and Vampires!" or "2012 and Vampires!" or "The Time Traveller's Vampire Wife". Sometimes it works better with zombies, e.g. this book right there, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. At least that one doesn't attempt to package itself as a new brilliant story, it just improves the story with the addition of zombies. But I'm sick of the same recycled crap that Hollywood churns out to feed the starving masses of hysterical pre-teen girls. Yes, guys, if you actually did watch any of the abovementioned films and enjoyed it, you're better cutting it off and going to Thailand. Have a little self-respect!

But my biggest ire is the fact that our womenfolk are swooning over these suave and charming unholy creatures of hell that goes against every law of nature there ever is. Nothing pisses me off more than making out with a girl, only to have her pull back with a loud sigh, and say, “Why can’t you be more like a vampire?”

Swimming against the tide

2009-08-16T12:08:00.002-04:00

What is vertigo? Fear of falling? No, Vertigo is something other than fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves. - Milan Kundera

My friend called me weird. She says I give off weird vibes to other people. Maybe it is because she doesn't understand me at all. Because I don't feel that there's anything weird about me. If anything at all, then maybe I'm the only one who is extremely normal.

You ever think about those lunatics in mental asylums and wonder whether they are the ones who are really normal, and it is just us 'crazies' who are running the world out there, dictating who is normal and who isn't?

Sometimes, I feel as though I'm swimming against the tide. And the harder I swim, the more I'm pushed back. And for a moment, always in my exhaustion, I feel that I should just slip back, give up, and slide back where the tides take me...

A thing that Milan Kundera said in his book, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, is that human beings are weak, and we revile our weakness. We try everything to hide our weakness, and when we could bear it no more... That's vertigo, isn't it? The urge to jump. But it's more than that, it's about finally acknowledging one of our greatest weaknesses: our mortality.

Human beings are gifted with the worst curse ever, the curse of struggling. Everything we do, is a struggle. Day-to-day life, is a struggle. And this reminds me of the man who is drowning, not waving.

What is the meaning of life? I think I have been chasing the wrong question. Shouldn't it be what is the one thing we want in life? Thing is, we all want the same one thing in life. We all do... And we struggle to achieve that one thing, some moreso than others. But in the end, no one ever successfully achieves that one thing that they desired most...

In Vogue to Blame Wall Street

2009-02-03T00:34:00.003-05:00

I don't know. It smells of hypocrisy, doesn't it? When politicians stand up to blame Wall Street for their 'excess greed' and 'wanton spending'. I guess the same people have forgotten about McCain's seven homes or Ted Stevens' Bridge to Nowhere. Maybe they've even forgotten about that $700 billion stimulus plan initially blocked by the Senate just so that it can be stuffed first with completely useless incentives like repealing an excise tax on children arrows made by a company in Oregon. Maybe they've even forgotten about the repealing of the Glass-Steagall Act, and that policy-makers, the very same ones whom we have let run the financial markets are the exact same ones who have pushed for deregulation which pretty much has almost certainly put us into this mess.

I've been working in the finance industry for a good six months. And if I've learned anything during this short tenure, it is that bankers are not to be trusted. Which kinda makes it hard to actually give them money, and hope that they'd invest it in anything other than a Ponzi Scheme. (Madoff, anyone?) But businesses need money, and hence banks lend money, and bankers collect big fat checks in the process themselves.

Even 'Truth' is not above fraud, as proven by Satyam, when, yeah, never mind. It's not easy to generate $1 billion dollars in fake cash. In the meantime, I have this gold mine AND oil field in Antartica that has been audited by PWC. So if anyone's interested...

I get the feeling that people are outraged by what they perceived as excess. I kinda don't feel it that way; after all if you can afford it, how can it be excess? If someone else can afford a luxury that I can't, is it 'right' to scream how unfair and reckless that is? Okay, they're using taxpayers' money to fund their outrageous bonuses. And the whole system's really unfair because they get a bailout and Main Street people don't. But I blame Main Street for this mess as much as Wall Street.

The whole cycle of rising house prices, rampant mortgages and lifestyles beyond what people can afford is a huge factor in this mess. It wasn't Wall Street forcing people to borrow ARMs or mortgage their homes to unlock equity or basically take out a 110% loan on their houses which they know they can't afford to pay, instead hoping on rising house prices to pay off their debt. How can Main Street be a 'victim' when the old adage still holds true, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is"?

For the rest of the world, a mortgage-free home is a dream, a pinnacle of success, of homeownership to finally own something expensive and make it yours after 20 years of mortgage payments. Then whoops, let's take out that 110% loan, to supplement our personal spending and hope that in five years, we can move to a bigger home and repeat rinse cycle.

Americans still own the biggest homes in the world. Where's the outrage in that?

And so if there's demand and money, the bankers will come, swarming like flies over a dead corpse and a feeding frenzy assumes. And then you can hear B. B. King singing "Let the Good Times Roll" and suddenly everyone's rich because everyone has borrowed 20 bucks off everyone else, making this one of the largest cluster-fucks in financial history.

For your information, a cluster-fuck is the vulgar way of saying that the banks have over-leveraged off each other, creating a co-mingling of risks so concentrated and inter-dependent on each other that the moment one of them keels over and dies, they bring everyone else down with it, with a credit default swap market that is worth USD73 trillion dollars, or three times the entire 'insured' bond market.

It's hard to put on the breaks when everyone is sipping champagne out of a glass slipper and the Dow was surging to new highs, all the way to 14,000 and beyond. Forget irrational exuberance or putting the brakes on the economy or, heavens forbid, creating an artificial, small controlled downturn, just to slow the bubble a bit. Everything was rising in value, and everyone from Main Street to Wall Street wants a bit of it.

That is to say, Main Street itself isn't blameless, but then again it isn't any particular group of individual that's to be blamed entirely, or so the politicians would like us to think.

I'm just saying at the end of the day, we should have known better. We should have known better than to trust what other people say. We should have known better than to listen to Jim Kramer of Mad Money, or Goldman Sachs on the price of oil. ($200 anyone?). We should have known better than to trust a banker.

But then again politicians have better sense than that to blame Main Street, their voters base. And of course, it's easy to make a scapegoat out of an industry that is historically characterized by excess, greed and deception. So, it seems strange to me that people play with fire and they don't expect to get burnt. Or dance with the Devil and don't expect to lose their souls. Or whatever, I could do a million different analogies, but they'd all end up the same: We should have just known better.

At this point, I wished Bush had got the saying right: Fool me once, shame on you... Fool me twice... Well... Never mind. We'd just raise hue and cry, and once the dust settles, we'd let the good times roll again.

So long, and good riddance to mediocrity

2009-01-19T02:00:00.003-05:00

And with that, I bid adieu to America's 43rd President and his mediocre administration.

The moment couldn't have come sooner, and perhaps we will be spending years smarting from the effects of Bush's disastrous policies. But reflecting on how short the human memory is, his mistakes will only slip into the history books as footnotes and dry text, and not the sheer incompetencies and ignorance that has led America into the greatest financial crisis of its time, mired in a world that is increasingly anti-American and hostile, begetting a new sort of warfare, where the enemy has no care for itself. Truth be told, the world isn't safer than it has been since September 11, 2001.

But rather than detail the errors of the Bush administration, which I'm sure a simple Google search would do, I believe that we should learn from our mistakes and make sure such a travesty never happens ever again.

Looking back into 1999 and 2000, one has to wonder what made Bush the choice for president? And even if one was to simply dismiss his good fortune, and our bad fortune, to faulty balloting in Florida, then how did he get re-elected again in 2004? Maybe it wasn't so clear then, that he was leading a war against terror and maybe we just needed to give him more time to sort things out. But then, by the time Hurricane Katrina struck landfall, the inefficiencies of the administration could be tolerated no longer, and damned be the war in Iraq, if America's leader cannot even save his own people from a natural disaster.

Maybe President George W. Bush was just unlucky to have two calamitous events strike in his term. But that's the thing; does America ever want a leader who is unprepared for the worst?

In America, brought about by long decades of scandals and conspiracies, and notions that the elite is ruling America from behind the scenes in ivory towers, there is nothing bigger than the distrust for institutionalized knowledge, woefully played up by the political bozos and attempt to reach out to the average Joe.

The epitome of this ideology is the question that voters are asked, "Which presidential candidate do you rather have a beer with?"

My answer would be damn, hell, if the candidate has time for a beer with me, then he's not doing his job running the country. I don't want a president that I can relate to, or a leader I can watch a game with. I just want a competent guy that can do his job better than the other candidate. So what if he's more out of touch, or so what if he's a black man, or a white woman, or even a closet-crossdresser. It's time we judge a candidate on the merits of his abilities, and less on his association with Joe the Plumber or the general public.

And that's exactly how I believe we should remember Bush as he steps out of office on January 20th, 2009. That he is a warning to future generations that we shouldn't let anyone just waltz into the White House, and come out eight years later, no worse for wear and wholly unaccountable for his more than questionable policies.

So what if the president is a person we can most identify with? Toss out some statistics, that 30% of Americans come from broken homes and 50% of marriages end in divorce, and it's really embarrassing and speaks volumes about failed parenting to raise an unwed teenage mother. The average American is also overweight, makes under $50k a year, forgets to do his taxes and doesn't even have a college education. The average American also doesn't own a passport, can't point Iraq out on a map and definitely can't see Russia from his backyard. In fact, any inkling of what an average American is like, should send shivers down your spine because that's not the sort of guy you'd want staring down terrorists or dealing with rogue nations or despots keen on acquiring nuclear weapons.

It's time for a little dose of realism of what the job is really about, and let's face it, guys; average isn't the best choice for president after all.

Dating Rules: Updated

2008-12-20T04:46:00.004-05:00

Women are fickle creatures.

And before I get run over by angry feminists, let me state that again.

Women are fickle creatures.

I had the pleasure of knowing a woman who is a colleague of mine, and we became close friends. During the course of our friendship, one of the things that she has espoused upon me was how quickly she has judged me based on my first conversation with another colleague at work. She was just a silent participant in that conversation, but oh how quickly she formed an opinion of me.

For it was not my idea to talk of computer games or Japanese anime, I just went which ever direction the conversation took me. After all I was new to the company then. But within that short lunch break, I was already termed a geek and consigned to the hell of platonic friendship. Not that I have any deigns on this woman, mind you, she's a sadist by nature and an artful mis-directionist, if there ever were such a thing.

So it was during her birthday, which we celebrated with a good round of drinks, and talked about things. And by things, I mean namely her, because it was her birthday. So when we got around to the question of what kind of boyfriend she was looking for, she was rather adamant about not dating a guy with "uber-micro" (geek talk for really awesome computer gaming skills).

I was pretty sure she wasn't referring to anyone in particular, especially the geekiest guy on the table (he doesn't mind the title and among his geek credentials was that he took a day off after the latest World of Warcraft expansion came out just to play it). Therefore, it should come as no surprise to everyone that's exactly who she ended up dating right now.

I'm remarkably amused by the whole outcome here. While I do enjoy reminding her of the latest status of her boyfriend's geekhood, it just struck me as whatever women say that they're looking for in a guy, I just don't buy it wholesale. I know other people complain about how girls go for the biggest douchebags or the baddest jerks, even though these guys are completely the opposite of the kind of people you'd bring home to meet your parents. But to me, it just seems difficult to practice what you preach, especially for women.

Maybe it is to my detriment that women are like that. (Yes, I'm generalizing.) But I have been recently struck with a thought that what women want and what women need are completely two different types of men.

Okay, what brought about this blog post from me? I was reading columns the other day and stumbled upon this bizarre op-ed about new and modern views on sex. Apparently, there is a new dating model out there right now. The definition of "sex" has been fudged since Bill Clinton had daringly announced on national television, the immortal words, "Oral sex is not adultery".

It just seems that we're living in a society where third base is pretty much the same thing as a kiss at the end of a date. Everything else is fair game, and there need not be any sort of emotional attachment for acts which we traditionally view as sex.

So I'm in a rather confused state over what's going to happen next. Next time I meet a friend of the opposite sex, I'd be there wondering, "Okay, how do I greet her now? Do I hug her, kiss her or blow her?" Because the dating model right now is hooking up, have a few rounds of casual sex or one-night stands with someone you know and if something emotional comes out from that, then maybe consider going on a date.

If that's all the more confuzzling, try wrapping your heads around this one:

They [Women in their thirties and forties] will do everything but intercourse. That to them is far more intimate and more of a commitment.

Riiiiiiight...

"Hold on, honey. I'll just screw the mailman right here before you take me out on a romantic candlelight date where all we do is hold hands while you get a bad case of blue balls because I am committed to you."

I'm still trying to understand that, but I think I have a better shot at unraveling the mysteries of the physical universe. But you know something? Such reasoning could only come from a woman.

Not my country, not my leader

2008-11-05T21:16:00.000-05:00

I have watched, with a strange fascination, the 2008 US elections which just saw Senator Barrack Obama elected as the forty fourth president of the United States of America. I question my interest, beyond just the mere facts of this being the one election in the entire world that affects everyone, great and small. On the back of economic woes, two wars in the Middle East, and a mind-blowing national debt, I’m thinking that he might have a tough time enacting the changes he has promised. But no matter what changes he fails to bring, he has already shown me that changes have already been made, and that even before he has stepped up to the president’s mantle, we have to remember that he has already brought about the greatest change of them all.

If my own country, Malaysia, is to learn anything from this, it is solely that nothing is permanent, and that everyone must learn to change, or die trying. Large regimes that fester with distrust and corruption are bound to have an end, and in the very least, change can come about through bloodless means as long as the political system allows for it. And that US presidency elections bring hope, that at least some people in the world can live up to that ideal, that men can be masters of their own fate, and that anyone, truly anyone, even if it’s a C-average student or, god-forbid, a hockey mom from Wasilla, can run for president.

I kinda find myself envying the US presidential elections a lot, mainly because my friends in the States can honestly say that they did (or did not) vote for the actual man who would lead them for the next four years. All in the same time that the US presidential elections were happening, I look over at Malaysia, and somehow, even as a citizen (second-class), I look at my own powerless hands as I watch a man that I’m almost certain that 95% of Malaysians did not even have a chance to approve, rise to the most powerful post in the country without nary of a rigorous scrutiny of the public eye.

What democracy is there in a country where the people cannot even choose their leader?

I am stretched with incredulity that my PM has the audacity to suggest that anyone can be the prime minister of Malaysia, despite the clear lack of a democratic process in his handing over of power to his deputy. While he has the benefit of being unaccountable for his careless words, it is sort of a laugh and backhand slap at the minority groups in Malaysia when there remains a clear disjoint between his words and reality, which underscores how really out of touch he is with the public.

This is a country where our leaders can barely stand up to the swathe of accusations that pile up on the Internet, where the media has sat back, rolled over and died on their responsibility to report the truth, and the taint of corruption is so pervasive that we cannot even fathom this country without it. In America, they had two great men, run for the most important post of the country. In Malaysia… We are hard pressed to find even one who can rise above the pettiness and hubris.

And again, as the US elections have demonstrated, how powerless we are to do anything about it. A leader, not of my choosing, and a country, with tiered citizenship. It seems that we have not come a long way from being ruled by outsiders. I can honestly say that this is not my country and the man in power is not my leader.

While the US celebrates its historic change and upholding of human ideals of freedom and right of self-determinism, the rest of us can only sit back and watch in envy, as we can only hope that our time will come soon.

The Palin De-Factor

2008-10-23T23:30:00.002-04:00

I’d just like to say first and foremost that I called it, and that Governor Sarah Palin has been nothing more than a liability to John McCain during his presidential bid in 2008.

To be honest, if none of us stands up and decries the embarrassment that is Palin, then it is a failure of democracy, plain and simple. Her abject stupidity, faux-folksy demeanour and bimbo-like posturing screams everything that no one wants as a vice-president. She has more right to be on the cover of some tabloid than in the White House. To date, she has done more to ruin McCain’s presidential bid while furthering her own political ambitions, rather than actually play her part in a presidential campaign. If anything Palin is, she is not a team player.

Take her recent history for example, showing abuse of gubernatorial powers in allowing her husband to attend official meetings, trying to get her sister’s-in-law ex-husband fired as a State Trooper, misappropriated state funds to fly her children around the country and, get this, the latest updates, spent $150,000 on clothing, hair-styling and accessories for her vice-presidential bid.

Holy Jesus, that costs more than Joe the Plumber’s house!

So far, evidence has surfaced that Palin’s nothing more than “just another politician”. She’s not another maverick, despite selling an unneeded, extravagant private jet at a loss to the state of Alaska or saying no to the Bridge to Nowhere, but then keeping the money instead. She’s corrupt, abusive and power-hungry: not a good combination in any leader that you’d want.

In fact, let’s just be frank about it. It’s undeniable that Sarah Palin has generated huge buzz when she was chosen. It’s true that she “energized the GOP base” and that she “breathed life into McCain’s campaign” and that she was a choice that made McCain more of a maverick than some old, tried-and-tested politician.

But therein lies the brilliant lie. People didn’t like Sarah Palin. In fact, no one has made up their minds about her yet. But truth be told, people were curious about Sarah Palin. That’s why there was all this hype. People haven’t made up their minds yet who Sarah Palin is, and it is to a large extent, part of this curiosity that led to a misleading surge in numbers. And so people were really curious about what this woman had to offer.

And to everyone’s horror, so far, nothing good’s been coming out of her closet. The GOP party has slumped to find good points to pad her thin and starving resume. Sure, she said no to the bridge, but that was a flip-flop after she learnt that people didn’t want the bridge, so kudos to her that she actually listens to the public. But then again, she kept the money, and funnelled it into other seemingly useless pork-filled projects. Then how about the plane? Yeah, it was sold at a loss on matter of principle, but it wasn’t a good business decision anyway.

Look, the thing about this Palin is that there are plenty of things to criticize about her. And most of it is relevant to the campaign. And most of it is true too. Which is why she hasn’t come out and repudiated most of these claims. Instead, knowing that she has no reason for anyone to vote for her, she goes out there and panders to the crowd about a hundred and one reasons not to vote for Obama.

Palin’s enjoying the limelight she definitely doesn’t deserve. In fact, the public should not let her fade into obscurity like most VP-candidates of failed presidential bids, but she should rise to notoriety to the likes of infamous traitors to their cause; Benedict Arnold, Guy Fawkes and Marcus Junius Brutus. She has turned traitor to the McCain’s presidency, flaunted her newfound popularity just like all those new upcoming celebrities and drowning in her own fame as more and more of her misdoings are uncovered. She has failed the litmus test of McCain’s maverick-styled leadership and instead of backing McCain, she is trying to run this campaign as though it was hers. She’s becoming an increasing liability to McCain, and she’s constantly making false claims and wrongful accusations of the other camp, pandering to common smears and lies.

If George W. Bush has ever proved one thing, it is that we don’t want a C-average student running the country. Then how do we put up with a Barbie-doll, hockey-mom who has gone through four colleges, regularly shoots moose and thinks that she has sufficient foreign policy experience just because Alaska is next to Russia?

The efforts to paint Sarah Palin as “one of us” has failed miserably, even with her folksy talk and cutesy gestures. She’s a dumbass, true and simple, and if she winks one more damned time at the camera, I’ma gonna demand to see her on the cover of Penthouse. And what’s the difference between a pitbull and a hockey mom again?

Lipstick, $150,000 worth of clothing, and a long list of ethical and legal abuse, that’s what.

Inhale Life

2008-10-06T04:03:00.000-04:00

I have no interesting tales about how I bought my first cigarette. No sneaking non-existing tobacco sticks out of my mom’s purse or paying some homeless bum for a packet of cigarettes. If anything, I’ve started smoking at the young age of twenty-three, with most of my mental faculties still intact, albeit eroded by the liquor-filled days of college. In fact, I remember clearly like it was only… Okay, it was only yester-year when I walked into Dwayne Reed and bought my first packet of Malboro Lights. Malboro, because that’s the brand that always stood out in my mind with the Malboro man, and Lights, because it just felt like the right thing to buy. Not too strong, not yet anyway, at least.

I coolly held a bottle of soda in my hand, as I leaned a little forward as though scrutinizing the prices of the cigarettes behind the counter, before calmly mentioning, “Pack of Malboro Lights, please.” The attendant’s eyes barely flicked upward, and I wasn’t sure if I should be offended that she didn’t ask for my ID. Maybe it was the word, “Please” that threw her off. But I could feel her judging me, thinking to herself that I’m definitely a non-smoker.

If anything, I was born too late to start smoking, both age-wise and era-wise. Long gone were the days where smoking was the social norm, and those smoke-filled bars soon gave way to health clubs and detox drinks. New York, led the charge of this new revolution of health-conscious young people, and lighting up a cigarette these days is as offensive as farting in an art gallery where the high-class people are too busy turning up their noses at the latest masterpieces.

And age-wise, maybe if I was eight years younger, posing as some curious under-aged kid thinking of trying cigarettes only to get hooked at an early age, then I might have an excuse for buying cigarettes. No one starts smoking when they’re going through their mid-twenties. It seems anti-thetical because rational people aren’t suppose to smoke. Rational, college-educated people are too smart to fall for extinct cigarette ads, and peer pressure seems to have morphed from having a smoke to going to the gym. From what mainstream media seems to tell me these days, the only people who smokes these days are the really old, the really young and the really curious.

To my misfortune, I don’t fall into any three of those categories. I just… Didn’t care. Despite repeated surgeon general warnings, societal disapproval and knowledge that I will be thrashed to hell by my own parents for engaging in this disgusting habit, I picked up my first cigarette, flicked my lighter into life and inhaled.

There is something about being a smoker in New York City though. It’s like pitting yourself against all that everyone else stands for. I never quite realized the alienation smokers go through until I found myself huddling under the eaves of a building, holding a cigarette in my trembling fingers and watching its embers meagrely glow as it warded away the cold of the night. It becomes a startling realization that the city hates you. Usually it ignores you on those cold streets where people average the fastest walking speed in the world. But now that you’ve lit up, it literally hates you, right down to the ‘No Smoking’ signs, all the way to the absence of ashtrays in public venues. The once commonplace relic of the smoker which always seemed to cry, “Hey there, grab a smoke, sit down and relax,” is now absent from most of city life.

The other day, I walked by the storefront for New York Health and Racquet Club, and was holding a cigarette in my lips in front of a platoon of hip young New York women, wearing their tank tops and tights, plugged into their iPhones and running on treadmills calculating the amount of calories burnt. And then I felt it like I’ve never felt it before. There I was puffing my already deteriorating health away on my Malboro Lights while these women slave away for the perfect toned body. As beads of sweat and self-torture roiled down their already stunning bodies, I kinda realized maybe that’s why everyone hates a smoker: that we do what we want in spite of the consequences.

And despite all these dagger-like looks hurled at my back, I come to find kinship and brotherhood where there were none before. In an increasingly unfriendly city, human connections begin appearing where there were none before. In a not too distant past, John Doe would walk up and ask casually, “Got a light?” and I would shake my head in disappointment at meeting a man with so little regard for his health. But these days, as I silently draw out my cheap 80 cent lighter, it became sort of a secret handshake between renegades in an increasingly health-conscious world. It was the fist bump of smokers, when my thumb rolls over the flint and sparks flew to life and a bright orange flame burned.

The cigarette lighter became a cheap badge of honor, just like the type you get from sending in a dozen tops of cereal boxes. We belonged to a secret underground group with our own secret codes and handshakes. There by the corner of the bar, we’d hold our cigarettes in silent defiance as we bow our heads against the chilly wind and nod to each other in solidarity. And we share our cigarettes as though we share our lives and human connections are formed over a simple, “Can you spare me a cigarette?”

Hockey moms, lipstick on pigs and for god sake, it's not a bailout!

2008-10-03T03:28:00.002-04:00

Yeah, yeah, let me take the unpopular stand here right now and say it's not a bailout.

Alright, don't warm up those baseball bats too soon. I can waffle a little and say that it's a partial bailout and that basically it's going to make some people insanely wealthy, while others are going to be stuck with the bill. But that's simply overlooking the fact of what this bill is going to achieve. This bill is going to make the American taxpayer the proud owner of the toxic sub-prime debt derivatives that caused this whole mess of banks collapsing in the first place.

That doesn't sound half as bad as the media points it out to be, to tell you the honest truth. In fact, while blood is running down on Wall Street, savvy investors like Warren Buffet are sifting through the sea of carrion and picking up awesome investments at ridiculously low prices. In fact, his $5 billion purchase of a stake in Goldman Sachs should clue people in that there's money to be made even when everything has gone to hell.

If I had the money, I would sift through these crap investments and look for something that would bring me at least 40% returns by next year. To be honest, it's all about pricing, oversight and making sure that the taxpayers don't get ripped off. In fact, I would think that it's a good deal to buy all these toxic assets for pennies on the dollar, and then once market has resumed normalcy, sell them off for a huge profit.

C'mon! Taxpayers are the ones with the bargaining power here, man! They can negotiate for the prices they want, mainly because markets have failed. And if taxpayers can get these assets at an attractive enough price, then, viola, what's supposed to be a bailout becomes the single greatest tax rebate for American tax payers everywhere.

It's all about pricing.

Of course then again, one could expect little with Paulson at the helm. But that's just the fine print about implementation and execution. Fundamentally, the "bailout" is sound. It aims to remove toxic assets from balance sheets, and prevent companies from declaring Chapter 11 bankruptcy as their equity levels fall far enough to jeopardize their debt covenants. And it's not a case of whether these companies want to sell or not, but rather at what price are they going to sell these things at. The sellers are practically falling over themselves to get rid of these stuffs.

It's a buyer's market out there!

And I'm somewhat revolted by the abject ignorance of the politicians when it comes to this. What really irks me most is that this bailout is going to go through, but not without additional earmarks meant to "protect the taxpayers" whatever that means. I'm seeing here additional tax breaks for smaller businesses and individuals, I'm seeing here more congressional earmarks, but fundamentally the bill remains the same as it is. A USD700 billion ba-... I mean, fund to purchase toxic assets.

And while I'm looking at this pork-stuffed barrel, it sickens me to the core to hear politicians talking about Main Street, not Wall Street, and I've just had about enough of it after hearing Governor Sarah Palin, vice-presidential hopeful, harp about how Main Street, or Wasilla, Alaska according to her, is under threat by these greedy corporate bastards. I find it ridiculous that she keeps blaming predatory lenders for their predatory lending practices.

Darn right it was the predator lenders, who tried to talk Americans into thinking that it was smart to buy a $300,000 house if we could only afford a $100,000 house. There was deception there, and there was greed and there is corruption on Wall Street. And we need to stop that. - Governor Sarah Palin, October 3 2008, Vice-Presidential Debate.

She wasn't just "right" but she was "darn right"! Never mind that her statement implicitly calls for more government regulation which is antithetical to her party policy line, but her statement barely even stands under the scrutiny of itself. Yes there was deception and greed and corruption. But deception and greed and corruption on whose part? C'mon, stop giving me bull because I refuse to believe for one moment that there was no greed on the homeowners part. Homeowners are as much the problem here. They aren't the innocent victims here. In fact, for the last five years, they have been profiteering by living beyond their means in houses that they shouldn't have been able to afford in the first place!

And on top of that, didn't some alarm bells sound in people's head when someone approaches them and claims that they have a deal that is too good to be true? Is the government suppose to protect the people from these sort of salesmen? Whatever happened to the good ol' days of caveat emptor? How much longer would Americans stand to be unaccountable for their own rampant stupidity? Just because they were being stupid, the rest of us have to foot the bill?

Look, maybe I'm just cold and callous, but those people rightfully deserve to lose their houses. They gambled and they lost and they got burned. No one's bitching about it when they lose money in the stock market. Okay, they do, but then they also suck it up and dive right back in. Except that the problem here isn't just one or two people defaulting, but a whole bunch of people defaulting. In fact, this is where moral hazard comes into play more critically than before. Homeowners are choosing to default, rather than continue paying for a mortgage that they cannot afford in the first place! They were counting on appreciating house prices to pay off that balloon payment at the end of the mortgage, but the housing bubble burst and everyone's suddenly calling all bets off, packing up and leaving in the middle of the night. If anything, I'm thinking that the banks got screwed over because people were defaulting en masse not because they have to, but because they want to.

It's in vogue to be bankrupt these days.

But let's be fair to Sarah Palin, despite the fact that we shouldn't be, because she is running for the second most important post in the world. She doesn't want to insult the voters, she doesn't want to blame the voters. In fact, there's nothing maverick-y about her playbook besides mentioning the word 'maverick' three times in her vice-presidential debate with Joe Biden. She's as phony and pretentious as they come, and her recent display of a lack of knowledge and diplomacy makes her an atrocious choice as a vice-president who is supposed to more often than not be a proxy for the president on the world's stage. Her cutesy act and redneck drawl might be endearing to people who think they've just tuned in to the latest season of American Idol, but in my opinion, Joe Biden did no one any favors by not savaging her, ripping her apart and tearing her up on that political stage. He might not want to seem like a bully in front of the American voters, but Putin, Ahmadenijad, Kim Jong Il or any of the world's dictators wouldn't even be half as kind.

The American public and media are still coddling her, setting the bar so low for her that as long as she manages to speak without fainting, that can be easily hailed a victory and great success on her part. Before lamenting how far our standards have dropped, one has to wonder how she got on the ticket in the first place. Her tactic of only dancing to her own tune has backfired on her tremendously as she dodged questions by Gwen Ifill, as she doesn't let people know what kind of person she is and where she stands on the issues that matter. In fact, she's been nothing more than a cheerleader for McCain and clearly enough, if elected, she is going to spend the next four years even more obscure than McCain because she is nothing but a huge national embarrassment. Her poise and knowledge is nowhere close to that of Hillary Clinton, she exudes none of that political prowess or quick wit when sparring with Joe Biden, and she clearly does not know what the vice-president does, as so clearly framed by Biden.

So I'm disappointed. Disappointed in the American people for letting this fiasco run on longer than it needs to, delaying this 'bailout' longer than it has to, and letting this political charade run its course longer than anyone can stomach. The 'bailout' isn't going to be different much the next time around. It's just going to be stuffed with more handouts to make things seem more palatable.

But no matter how you frame it, it will always be lipstick on a pig, but damn hell, we need this pig a lot more than you'd think. And I'm not talking about Sarah Palin.

The Creation of a Malaysian Middle Class

2008-08-26T03:16:00.000-04:00

Everyone wants to be middle class. I don’t know why, but if you ask just about anyone on the streets, they’d say that they’re from the middle class. Upper-middle class, lower-middle class, middle-middle class, there’re so many distinctions of middle class just so that we can fit everyone into this category which seems to be in vogue.

After all, who doesn’t want to be in the middle class? It’s a good place to be in. In some ways. Sure, those in the middle class are financially independent, they live generally comfortable lives, and they are not embroiled in the bitter class struggle between the upper class and the lower class.

So with this broad description, I’m kinda asking what it is to be middle class? Historically, it is defined as simply white collar workers. But that definition is way outdated because I wear a blue collar to work at the office. I mean… Heck, it’s too restrictive a definition because even dispatch guys would be white collar workers. Officially, it’s defined as a group of people that’s neither at the top or the bottom of the social hierarchy. That’s really broad, and can apply just about to everyone, except those at the very top or bottom of the social hierarchy. But there are other clear indicators. They possess some sort of economic independence, and usually attained tertiary education. They are typically professionals of some sort. And of course, they typically own homes, drive their own cars and typically have some sort of hedonistic twist to their life, that their enjoyment of life should somehow compliment their existence.

Typically the middle class is fraught with some dangers. I mean, well, the Marxists called them fat, lazy and over-pampered. They’re referred to as having bourgeois values, and googling that sort of leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I like to ask, what’s wrong with being middle class? In fact, the middle class is often the catalyst for change, as they are the ones who are typically well-educated, socially and environmentally conscious and are present in large numbers that they are a sizable force by themselves.

We don’t need to look far for examples of middle class people changing the world around them. Take Malaysia for example. Independence was gained not by the ruling class or the working class, but rather the middle class. Yup, Tunku Abdul Rahman may have been of royal descent, but he was mostly a middle class guy, he worked like the rest of us as a Malay District Officer, then became a lawyer, and I’m really sidetracking here but you get my drift.

Then again we gotta look at the global perspective, and that today’s movements aren’t actually led by the upper class or the lower class, but rather the middle class. Environmentalism for example, is a rising concern, and it started out with the middle class, before it became the topic du jour. So it is, that middle class tends to spawn the greatest activists and change within a society. They are the ones most in tuned with the happenings around the world, and they are typically at the forefront of a great wave of change.

On top of that, a middle class is good for the local economy. They are great drivers of growth, mainly because as a group they have the largest purchasing power, and they are more resilient to economic shocks. They would account for the largest portion of private consumption, and hence a country’s economy would be less exposed to external and international risks.

So with all of that, where does Malaysia’s middle class stand? I can’t seem to find any numbers out there on the Internet, and I do consider myself pretty good at surfing the data tsunamis. But I don’t know, maybe it’ll just be good to assume that if you earn above RM30,000 per year, you’re in the middle class? Doesn’t quite seem that way, because it doesn’t quite qualify enough for ownership of a house, car and kids. But thereabouts, and you sort of get my drift.

First step to creating a Malaysian middle class should be through education. Remember the defining conditions of being in the middle class? Tertiary education is one of them. Unfortunately, I shall sidetrack on a diatribe and decry the state of education in Malaysia. The formal education in Malaysia is in a sorry state, and sometimes just from the official examination results announced, one has to question the effectiveness of these exams. Heck, all I’m saying is that if you get 16 A1s in the Malaysian equivalent of O levels, then is that the success of the student? Or the failure of the examination system.

What is the use of thousands of people getting straight As when Malaysia in itself does not produce enough intellectual people of international standard? I question the effectiveness of the examination system, and the fact that we only seem to produce students of a certain kind. As a person who has undergone this system, I kinda deplore the rigid structure of it that seems to glorify only exams at the end of the day.

A simple fix to this would simply be a lot more transparency in the scholarship process. But that’s weak sauce, and we need to give room for students to explore their options from a very early age. Abolish some of the earlier exams, and allow a more flexible curriculum. Indulge in the arts, or compete in the sciences, I don’t care. As long as they strive for some sort of differentiation at a younger age, that they might be able to find what they like and work for it.

But I think a more serious and permanent fix to this state that we have right now would simply to change the teaching medium to English. Simply just cut through all the bullshit and get straight to the crux of the matter. The Malay language is cumbersome and ineffective in giving form to the kind of information that we need. And on top of that, we simply do not have the kind of population or economic power to instill our language as the de facto language regionally or internationally.

Long gone is the stigma that English is the language of colonial masters or erosion of culture. Instead it has been and still is an enabler for social mobility and upward progress. By looking at the rich areas in Malaysia, we see that English is predominantly spoken in these regions. Is it simple coincidence? Co-causality? Or rich people speak English and English speakers are rich? I rather believe not. I think English is an appropriate medium of instruction, as many industries today embrace it.

For one, the finance industry and banking world embraces English wholeheartedly. So do most research and high tech projects. IT does use English, though they seem to speak more in program code than anything else. But you sort of get the drift that English is rather widely used. Heck, so what if 1.2 billion people are from China and they speak Mandarin when the language of professionals seem to be in English? That’s kinda all I’m saying. So let’s not keep our graduates at a disadvantage by teaching them a language that will only be used locally. Why give them a ceiling at the prime of their life? It’s counter-intuitive to tell them that the world would one day belong to them, when they can only compete among themselves.

It’s time to get our heads out of our asses. This isn’t about race or national identity or culture. This is about progress and doing what is necessary to survive in this world. If there’s anyone to blame, it’s the world. But it is simply just the way things are, and we have to adapt to make sure we are constantly relevant. However, the current ruling powers in Malaysia seem to want to delude everyone into thinking that everything is so tranquil and stable within their own borders that they failed to see that the world has long passed them by. And it’s time, I believe, for the Malaysian middle class to find their own voice, and rise collectively. We have to believe that we can do something about the state of affairs, and we have to believe that there are equal opportunities and that the liberties and freedom of the Constitution is rightfully ours. We have to believe that change is possible. If recent political developments have anything to show, it is that one man can truly make a difference.

Sweets, business school, and what my younger sister taught me

2008-07-29T08:16:00.003-04:00

It is my prerogative as an older brother to teach my younger sister things. You know, usual stuff like where does mom and dad hide the contraband, or how to avoid punishments, or ways of getting around certain inconveniences, or basically teenage life. I feel that I have fulfilled my brotherly responsibilities by influencing her in sufficiently bad ways that she has picked up most of my bad habits and none of my good habits.

But then again, I have not been a permanent resident at my own home for over eight years, so I did miss out on some of my younger sister's more formative years. And while we were talking about those years, and my younger sister is thinking of writing her personal statement for university, I sort of realized something about her that sort of puts to shame my entire graduate life in business school.

My younger sister has harnessed the essential business principles for a successful enterprise at the tender age of fourteen. Whether subconsciously or not, it does prove an interesting business case study. It is amazing, to realize that some of these things are so fundamental that even a teenager can think of it, yet we slave over it in business school, forking over thousands of dollars just to be taught common sense.

Sometimes things are just funny that way, no?

Anyway, the story begins as such. One fine day, my younger sister was eating sweets in school, a luxury my dad affords her, because she's inadvertently the youngest and most spoilt, when her friend approached her and asked for one. Now having the sort of business acumen that is somehow sometimes even absent among my college peers, she realized a few things. One, that there was a need for sweets and other confectionery items among her classmates as there was no tuck shop that sold such items in school. Two, her classmates were of the rich, spoilt brats sort, that have servants and chauffeurs and maids waiting on them hand and foot (I do mean this quite literally) and hence they do have the significant purchasing power for this market.

Putting two and two together, my sister realized that she could fulfill this market need by purchasing sweets from the shops outside, and selling it to her friends in school.

Now this is actually a more genius idea than it seems. Because first of all, my younger sister is providing a service, and a direct access to sugary goodness. Second of all, she is enabling these kids to circumvent their parents authority by letting them buy sweets in an environment where parents have no significant control over their children.

And so my sister's idea was put into motion. She first studied the market and realized that on the outside, people sold sweets by the weight. In school, she is able to charge 10 cents per sweet, as it is the smallest common denominator around. (No one cares to use 5 cents anymore.) By applying simple marketing principles, she is able to determined a price, and hence a profit in this business. So by taking advantage of this fact, she bought sweets wholesale, and broke them up into individual pieces and started selling sweets on her own.

Now, some of her customers are more than happy to pay a premium on these sweets, because I guess to some, they feel that 10 cents is cheap no matter how they look at it. Others are just glad to circumvent their parents' authority. And so my younger sister's business flourished.

But that wasn't good enough for her. The first step she took was to analyze her business and determine that she could obtain a better margin by decreasing her Cost of Goods Sold (CoGS). By doing so, she would then improve her gross margins and bottom line profits without increasing the price and pushing away the customers. So she sought out the cheapest supplier.

As sweets vendors are out there by the dozens, bargaining power of suppliers is low, and she is able to find a vendor who is able to sell her at the cheapest. And since sweets are more or less a commodity... Well, vendors usually sell the same brand of sweets, she is able to easily substitute her suppliers, hence the bargaining power of suppliers is very low.

So she has taken the first step to managing a good business.

The second step she took was to obtain a line of credit from my father. She effectively took out a 0% interest loan from my father to start her business without offering any of her own capital. In effect this would mean that her return on equity is in effect infinity, as she has gained profits without putting in any of her own money. And her cost of capital is effectively zero.

So with her business up and running, she began to take orders from her friends, as they would pre-order the number of sweets they want. This, in effect, guarantees a steady stream of income, as she has built up a loyal customer base. So with all that in the works, it seems like she has a profitable business on her hands. But that was not enough.

After that, she discovered she was beginning to have some surplus inventory, because not all her sweets were getting bought up, and she had to carry a more than a few different kinds of sweets to fulfill the tastes of her clientèle. So she started to manage her customers relationships properly by offering free samples of her excess surplus, and building more customer loyalty as well as increasing the likelihood of them doing business with her. This was basic Customer Relationship Management (CRM).

Now after that, she realized that her friends are more or less coming to school with not 10 cents in their pockets, but one dollar or more, she decided that she could move a bigger inventory, and hence having a larger turnover by packaging assorted sweets together in smaller packets, and selling them. This also allows her to move some of her less movable inventory, like sweets that aren't as popular.

At this point in time, she realized that other people were finding her activities profitable and decided to mimic her. As barriers to entry were low because of the low capital requirements, she soon found competition in this business. However, my younger sister has set up such an efficient business with the lowest CoGS and lowest operating margin, plus she also has first movers advantage as well as built a long and lasting relationship with her customers, these competitors quickly gave up and instead purchased from her.

I think, at this point here, my sister has effectively saturated the market, as there are only so many students you can sell sweets to each day. So she quickly decided to diversify her offerings in some conventional, but sometimes bizarre ways. But since she, herself is a student, she understands the needs of her customers best. So, she quickly decided to offer among other things, stationery, magazines and CDs. Of course, made to order, as those have a much higher cost. She wasn't about to risk her own capital with overstocking, instead utilizing Dell's marketing model of made-to-order even way before Dell began its revolutionary marketing model.

This, I think, makes a really good Harvard Business Case Study, even though the scale of her operation is quite small. But I think her operation embodies a lot of concepts that I've paid thousands of dollars to learn, and here she was, implementing those ideas with precise and cut-throat efficiency. So it does make me wonder, what the hell was my business education for, when a simple fourteen year old can figure such things out?

I must admit, the feeling of being ripped off is churning in my stomach.

However, in retrospect, through another perspective, I think my younger sister might have easily been perceived as nothing more than a money-grubbing, under the table, black market enabler. She simply found an opportunity, and used it to make money. And yes, despite the genius of her business acumen, such entrepreneurship was and still remains highly illegal in her school. Such trading was done on the utmost secrecy, when she would scurry to be the earliest at school to distribute her contraband, and then would be on the lookout for the necessary spot checks and random searches conducted by the authorities on her and her fellow classmates.

I'm very sad that her genius is to be discouraged in such a way. Her operations was one of a beauty; she even had inside informants who'd tell her where and when these spot checks and invasions of privacy would occur. But thus is the sad state of education, where personal creativity is to be crushed, individual expression is to be neutered and ingenious insights is to be stifled. And at the end of the day, it will all be sold back to us, at outrageous prices, at these institutions of higher learning in the form of a piece of paper called diplomas, after having robbed us of the very common sense that they claim as their own.

Choosing my difficult path

2008-07-25T04:04:00.003-04:00

Hmm... Now.

All I got to say is that the Japanese really know how to make hilarious commercials. Just as I thought things couldn't get more ridiculous with the wounded superhero... Yeah, never mind, that's what I did too. I had to watch the same commercial six more times just to make sure that was Richard Clayderman on the white brake-less piano. Damn, he should get a speeding ticket for that. I'm pretty sure those things aren't meant to go that fast.

And no! I wasn't distracted by those distracting cyclists.

But this commercial got me thinking a little. It sort of implied that if I drove a Renault Megane, I pretty much can choose from a whole list of distractions available to me. After all, who wants to drive down a plain old boring road? Something unusual must have happened to make it an interesting journey, right?

Just to highlight my point, just on Monday, I was driving down the North-South highway from Penang to Kuala Lumpur, a journey that would have taken me about less than three hours, despite what all the skeptics say. And I got to say that it was a pretty boring journey. While it might have been a challenge with the low visibility and pouring rain, I was confidently making good time in reaching KL. So all it all, it was a pretty not difficult path. Then suddenly, about an hour away from KL, I just happened to zip by a Shell gas station.

My first thought was, "Oh, a gas station!"

Not quite a bright thought, I must admit with sufficient hindsight. Coz about a kilometer down the road, I glanced down at my dashboard, and noticed the low fuel indicator light flashing.

Now, a lesser mortal would have screamed, panicked, and try to back up to that missed gas station. But me? I buckled down, tightened my knuckles around the steering wheel, and gently eased my foot off the gas pedal, cutting to a more economical speed. I gingerly kept one eye on the fuel indicator, and another one scanning for signs for the next gas station.

It was about a good fifteen miles down the road at that law-abiding speed, when suddenly my parents who were dozing off in the back seat suddenly realized why I wasn't overtaking with my usual zeal, instead choosing to hunker down safely in the middle lane. I calmly told them that the fuel indicator light has been flashing for the past twenty minutes. Of course, they immediately bolted up in surprise, and I could feel my dad's breath washing down the nape of my neck as he anxiously craned his head to try and spy the next gas station ahead.

Of course, it didn't help calm their nerves, when I calmly mentioned that I saw a sign back there, that the next gas station was another twenty miles away. I also remarked that being that worried definitely doesn't help the car eke out the additional gas mileage.

During this whole time, my younger sister has rediscovered her faith, as she lapsed into a stunned silence, probably cursing me out with every known vulgarity in her vocabulary.

Now, strangely, I felt an adrenaline rush like never before. Not even when I was zooming down the highway at a quite illegal speed, accelerating on sharp turns and overtaking with blatant disregard for my own personal safety. I was driving an auto car, and trust me, when I have to switch to Neutral to go downhill, means its quite bad already.

And somewhere on the back of my mind, I was replaying all these horror stories I've heard about people getting killed on the highway when they had stopped on the shoulder of the road because they had gotten a flat. I keep imagining myself stepping out of the driver's seat and getting run over by this huge sixteen wheeler, and bouncing a good eighty feet into the air before hitting the road, somewhere between the 378 and 379 marker.

I guess there are worst fates.

But just as I thought all hope was gone, my eyes were firmly fixed on the signposts that said that the next gas station was a mere 2km away. And I rejoiced, and laughed for joy as I finally pulled into that gas station. And just as I stopped next to the pump, I laughed and laughed raucously. I laughed with reckless abandon, and I laughed harder than I have ever laughed before.

I had cheated death, and I have lived to tell the tale!

After I pumped gas into the car, we all stopped to have a late dinner. Moreso because we needed to calm all our nerves. The food has never tasted better, the soda has never tasted sweeter and the durian (yes, I had a durian in the trunk) had never smelt more fragrant. Yes, people, I am alive! And this is a celebration of life!

And sometimes, it is the little victories in life that count.

Now, thinking back, with that advertisement in mind, choosing the difficult path definitely has its perks. And dammit, I'm not talking about those distracting cyclists! I mean, metaphorically, choosing the difficult path in life definitely has its perks. And not because it leads to greater rewards, but sometimes just the journey itself is so rewarding.

Someone mentioned to me that I live a far more interesting life than I give credit for. I think, on one hand, while it is a matter of perspective, there might be some truth in that regards. After all, in certain aspects, my life has been one heck of an adventure, diving straight into the unknown, one waterfall at a time. Imagine jumping off the edge of a waterfall, screaming your lungs out above the roar of water and kissing the sky farewell. Sometimes it's like that.

But like I said, it's all a matter of perspective. Maybe it is just because I'm a good storyteller telling about mediocre experiences? With sufficient embellishments, even the most menial tedious task can seem as exciting as discovering buried treasure, dispelling the curse of the Ancient Gods, and rescuing the fair maiden from an untimely sacrifice.

Because, I've lived through this life. And I know I have spruced up stories a bit, and truncated the boring and painful bits. With reference to that waterfall, I never did tell of what it felt like when there were jagged rocks beneath the crashing falls. So it's kinda like that, I don't really tell about those parts, and sometimes maybe it's just that my life is only that interesting.

At the end of the day, I guess I'm satisfied with the difficult path I have chosen. I wonder if I will continue to make some of these interesting choices in life I have chosen for myself. After all, interesting people are inherently risk-takers, and it is the risks they take that makes their lives interesting. And as any actuary can tell you, given a long enough time scale, the house always wins, and Death gets paid his dues.

Should Creationism be Taught in Schools?

2008-05-17T00:49:00.002-04:00

I don't really know why I was drawn to this debate, but for some reason, I was browsing a site I recently discovered: http://wiki.idebate.org

I kinda found a topic dedicated to debating Creationism and whether it should be taught in schools. My initial thoughts turned to that of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and how that it was a good satirical point of view to the whole thinly guised God debate.

But I guess I still find this debate annoying and insulting as to whether it should be taught in schools. A quick browse through the whole length of argument brought me to a quick stop as I stumbled across some of the proponent's arguments. Namely that Creationism is scientifically testable, and that Creationism must be taught because otherwise it violates the freedom of religion.

Maybe I got this wrong, but I think those arguments are mutually exclusive. One cannot with a sane mind argue using both lines in a single debate. Religion, as I've come to understand it, has to do with faith. I have been told that God does not prove his existence, because otherwise there is no faith, only knowledge. To ascribe the title 'religion' to Creationism is akin to saying that we have faith in it, and require no further proof. And yet there seems to be this contradicting need for it to be scientifically testable. Should we then scientifically test if God does exist?

But what amused me most about this entire argument is that Richard Dawkins has drawn the similarities between teaching Creationism in schools to child abuse.

The notion seems very laughable in the first place, and yes, I do find his books more of a diatribe of preaching to the choir, and that he lets his disdain ring out louder than his points of argument. But then again, how is teaching Creationism like child abuse?

My friend related a story to me about his professor. His professor was an eccentric man with a son. He apparently taught his son certain oddities that we would normally furrow our brow in confusion if we were to ever hear of it. For example, an escalator going up would be called an escalator. While an escalator going down, would be called a descalator.

This professor of his also went on to teach his son a weird habit. Every time the entire family would eat a cantaloupe, he would quip, "If you cantaloupe, you must get married." Or some weird variant of the phrase. When this child of his was happily eating cantaloupes in class one day, he suddenly remarked that out loud, much to the amazement of his teacher. This professor was promptly summoned to a parent-teacher meeting.

I guess it is one think to make jokes or pull pranks especially on an innocent child, but then to intentionally teach flawed and unsound ideas to him?

I don't know about you guys, but that somehow feels to me, a lot like child abuse.

New Life in the Old World

2008-02-19T09:15:00.008-05:00

Time zones suck. I find myself readjusting every so forth. But then again it's to be expected. I haven't really blogged about being in Manchester and it's already been two months here.

Another two jobless months.

So I'm pretty much lost here in limbo like always. I guess I'm kinda a fool to think that it would be different anywhere else in the world. Impossible to get a job without a visa. However, in the UK it is different. In fact, discrimination is not just allowed, but it is mandated by the UK government in ways that I think disgusts human rights activists. Sure, I'm not born in the same country, but how does that automatically disqualifies me from working? All other arguments about protecting the social welfare of its own citizens fall flat on their face, particularly since I'm taxed at the same rates as the UK citizens, but I'm not subject to the same welfare privileges. I doubt I'd be able to live on their social welfare system here, which means that my very working here subsidizes the lives of these people. Look, I want to work for you and make money for you, but noooo... I can't. And therefore I'm unemployed, and you're hiring some half-assed bugger stumbling through the job.

So that's basically my gripe here. Bitterness doesn't quite cut it, but I think it's more of to be expected, and I can just sit back and do nothing. But I'm not going to sit back and do nothing, I've got plans, and I am not going to let stupid immigration laws stop me. David, you said a long time ago that nationality is legalized prejudice. You don't know how true those words ring right now.

Now here's a thought, why aren't countries being run by public companies? Think about it, it makes sense, you make politicians as accountable as boards of directors, and then citizens are your basic average shareholders. You select a country that has the right welfare plan, right taxation and right social provisions accorded to you, and then you pay the price in the form of taxes. And in a free market economy, prices rise and fall according to demand, and people can easily trade out their citizenships for other citizenships. This would automatically erase all national borders, and anyone can be Irish, not just on St. Patricks Day. Then on top of that, poorly run countries with almost no citizens would simply be hostilely taken over by another country via financial acquisition. So because of that, it'll make politicians first obligation to the people, because without the people there is no country. We're currently living in an archaic system where we are nothing but serfs to our own government and uncivilized barbarians to the rest of the world. Forget racial discrimination, national discrimination is a glaring problem and we should look at ourselves, and wonder since when is the life of an American of greater value than a Bangladeshi? Or the life of a Brit greater value than a Hutu? Or the life of a Australian greater value than an Indonesian?

Yup, welcome to the Old World.

Anyway, living in Manchester does have it's sights and sounds, and forgive my political rant, but I'm probably going to go off tangent a bit here and there and that's because I've been ignoring my blog. That means I got a lot of deep-seated angst and I'm thoroughly annoyed by a lot of things, like in Manchester, how does someone pay 5,000 pounds per annum of car insurance for a car that's worth only 6,000 pounds? Purely ridiculous, I don't even see how insurance companies can come up with that kind of quote? I believe that Geico would make a killing in the US if it applied its brand of business here, along with its strategies. But then again maybe not, because UK is not a democratic country, despite having elections. It's more of a socialist welfare country, and the results are stark when compared across the Atlantic.

But I digress.

I was at the fish market the other day, and I guess this is one of the things I miss about when I was in New York. There's no way I'm going to the Bronx just to look at the fish in the fish market, but there's one nearby and I enjoy looking at some of the stranger offerings. But then again in Western countries, there are not as wide a selection of fish as in Asia. And I sort of miss the typical Asian offerings whose names I only know in Hokkein, so I can't list them out here. But it's nice to see fresh salmon, really, the kind that has never been frozen before. Those are really good, so I digress. Also I got the chance to see the largest prawns I've ever seen. And yes, I've quested for huge assed prawns before, but these ones are easily over 8 inches long, and clearly huge. Just that prices dictate that I couldn't eat them, so hey, I'll leave that for another time. This picture doesn't quite cut it, but trust me, it's not 2.99 per kg. It's 2.99 per 100gs, and I think that's way too rich for my blood. I think one of them is about 300gs? that's like a 9 pound prawn. Or in US dollars that'd be about 20 dollars. Or in Singapore dollars that'll be SGD33, or in Ringgit Malaysia that'll be RM56. I could go on, but you get the idea. And that's a single prawn. Single, single prawn. One. Meaning whoops, that's it. Yup.

Right now I'm feeling pretty much like an ass. I'm sitting around most of the time, doing nothing, watching the stock market and entertaining my own dark thoughts. Every once in a while, I go out and do something like see the fellow donkeys at a small zoo at Heaton Park. And I guess life's like that, sitting around, eating, sleeping and letting the visitors ogle at me like I'm sort of animal on display. Oh wait, yeah, that's exactly what the metaphor is for. But that's life in Manchester. Oh wait, I definitely got something to say about the beer here in the UK. I don't know why but English beer tastes disgusting to me. Sure, some people like Boddingtons, but that's simply following the principle that someone has to like it, otherwise it wouldn't be around. But for the record, I find myself drinking Kronenberg, Peroni and Tsing Tao over here, as opposed to Bud, Amstel and Stella over there. Yes, Stella Artois is an European beer, but I drink it in the US anyway. I don't know, but somehow I never did quite like Boddingtons. Plus, I don't drink Guinness, which is kinda weird considering how I was in Dublin airport looking for fountains of Guinness, but that's another sidetrack.

Anyway, I know most of you are nay-sayers and that I'm wasting my life away, and you guys have no idea how much I agree with you and how hopeless my life is going for me right at the moment. But then I have my little triumphs where I told you so. I have been dabbling in a little gardening, and for those who realize, "God damn! It's February, who does gardening in February?"

My response would be, I don't do gardening as you'd think. My gardening entails of buying three tulip bulbs, transplanting them into a nice plastic container and leaving them to grow on the window sill there by the sun. At first my sister scorned me and said it would never bloom and that it was a waste of time and money. And happily two weeks later, I got something to show for it. So one has to realize, that if this is exactly the kind of triumph I've been celebrating in my life, then I'm woefully underachieving, and that is exactly how sad my life is right now.

I know I usually publish a list of songs that would mark what has happened to me over 2007. But somehow it doesn't quite cut it for me any more. I've been looking for songs sung by homeless unemployed, but I guess those don't make it out onto the mass market. So right now, writing to you from limbo, stuck in the middle of nowhere, and hoping to make it out someday, that's all folks.

Comprehending the Incomprehensible

2008-01-18T08:16:00.000-05:00

The other day, I was sitting around this dinner table with my sister and her fellow medical colleagues, when the subject was broached on what kind of wives these guys would like to marry. I recall a certain description that when like this.

Me: What kind of girl are you looking for?
Guy A: This girl... When she speaks, the whole table must turn and look at her and smile... The sun must come up, and the birds will start singing, and then spring will bloom, and there will be peace on Earth, and love among mankind.

Okay, the latter part was purely exaggerated by me, but somehow I feel that his expectations are somehow nonsensical and maybe a bit naive. Somehow, I don't know whether I can approach another girl, thinking that she has all these qualities I want, and sort of strike out all other girls that lack these qualities. But strangely enough these guys do... they list out stuff like how their girlfriends, not even ideal ones, must be Asian, have to be shorter than them, doesn't need to work, and a lot of other inane details like nice personality, funny, listens to them and cooks for them when they come home.

Anyway, I think the idea of a girl that must fulfill these qualities is disgustingly naive. I mean, hey, sometimes if a girl is interesting enough, why not, right? Why not? Sometimes it's all there is, interest. But I think I am almost certain that I would live and die a happy bachelor.

Yes, all you married people out there can look upon me with envy already. Just two months ago, one of my old classmates got married. Truth be told, the first thing I thought to myself was that his girlfriend got knocked up. But now, the 'official' story is that he really loves her, is devoted to her and wants to spend forever with her. Somehow, cynical me still believes she got knocked up and this is a huge cover-up operation.

But the idea of living together with someone for the rest of my life sounds... If not disturbing, I got to say it's the least bit unsettling. I can't imagine living with someone else... Period. Living with another person, particularly one that encroaches on my personal space and habits would annoy the hell out of me, and if I stay at least 12-16 hours in close proximity of someone else, I would suddenly find a strange craving for flesh and blood.

I sort of came to that conclusion now that I'm staying with my sisters here in Manchester. Maybe it's just them, maybe it's the same with everyone one else, but for those who have been talking to me a little, they would know that my sisters can't leave me alone for a good goddamn minute. In fact, every time I want to do something on my own, for some reason or another, they request my attention in the oddest ways. Sometimes my younger sister talks non-stop about the most inane gossip which I listen to half-heartedly kinda like music in the background. And my older sister requests that I do so many things for her, which includes being her personal maid.

To be honest, I just wish I could somehow lock them out of my life for a good four hours every day, that way I can keep my sanity, but for some reason my sisters can't stop talking. I hardly use my voice at all, when I'm on my own, I don't particularly enjoy listening to my own voice, or the very need to annoy the shit out of my siblings, but sometimes I feel that I'm losing my grip on to sanity just by living with them.

Besides that talking habit of theirs, I believe that there are so many incomprehensible things about them, and hence I extrapolate to the rest of womankind. Namely, my older sister has a penchant for saving money on the most trivial of all matters, snapping at me for using the phone and spending a little extra on groceries, but she doesn't mind at all shopping for more clothes which she doesn't need, or going out and eat despite the weirdest of occasions. What's that saying? Penny wise, pound foolish? Hmm... It's even more apt since I'm here in the UK.

Furthermore, I was just arranging my sister's shoes, and I've noticed a couple of things. First thing I shall mention is that my younger sister bought a pair of boots that costs 45 pounds. After barely wearing it for a couple of days, she moans that it causes her feet to blister, and I haven't seen her wear it the past week. Now, maybe it's just me, but I make sure shoes are comfortable before I buy them, but my sisters buy shoes because... I have no idea why. I shall not speculate. Now, women out there may hate me a lot for saying this, but I think four pairs of shoes are enough. Maybe five. Any more, and I think it's a pure waste of money. I look at my sister's collection of shoes, and to my horror, why does her shoes look pretty much the same? Same black, same height of heels, same style. Okay, maybe one is suede, and the other one is leather. But seriously, so many of her shoes look too alike that maybe she should not look at another pair of shoes until she has at least worn hers out. Which might take a good year or so. But asking a woman not to buy shoes for a year is like asking someone to hold their breath for a good ten minutes. It's bearable for the first ten seconds, and then it quickly dwindles down to hell, the moment the next sale season comes on.

Maybe I just don't understand them, their weird needs for a closet full of clothes and more, and I don't understand how my sister could wind up in these weird phone contracts that seem to suck her wallet dry. I don't understand why does she have so many untouched books, and I don't understand all these weird bottles that fill up her medicine cabinet. I don't understand why there are so many hair products, and I don't understand their weird impulses. I don't get why I have to cook for both of them, when they seem perfectly capable of doing so, and I don't understand why they love annoying the hell out of me. I don't even understand why they need to buy me a bath robe, and I don't understand the importance of a birthday. I don't understand the importance of anniversaries and commercialized holidays. I don't understand the need for soft toys and the fact that they play Neopets. I don't understand the need for three different watches and six different bags. Seriously, I don't get it at all. It's like living in a completely alien land, to see my sister own something and never touch it for months.

Between me and them, I can pack my entire life into two luggages and one laptop bag. That's the amount of stuff I own. My older sister needs an entire moving van. Or two. I never could get that at all.

I'm just saying, hell, I guess I'm doomed to bachelorhood, I could never imagine myself being saddled down with so much baggage. Truth be told, if I upped and left, I could almost swear I was never here. Isn't that what life is? A fleeting transient moment, and then we're all dust. And to attach meaning to anything more than that... Feels nothing more than a burden.

Of Leprechauns, Shamrocks and Guinness

2007-12-26T11:08:00.000-05:00

Upon landing at Dublin International Airport, I am quickly disappointed by what I perceived as the Land of the Promised Stout. In a world where Guinness is synonymous with Ireland, I do not believe it has an awesome enough presence here in the Dublin International Airport. I half expect pubs nestled in between kiosks, serving the black liquid to raucous travelers interested in whetting their parched throats and making the cramped trip in a long cylindrical tube packed like sardines all the more bearable.

To my great dismay, I find no such thing. There were no Guinness fountains at the lobby, spouting glorious black stout for everyone to dip their hand in, and have a taste of Ireland. There were no barmaids handing out pints of Guinness to welcome travelers, much like how the Pacific Islanders of Hawaii hand out garlands to wish people well when they leave. There were no kids running around waving their half-empty bottles of Guinness chasing each other across terminals. There were no loud singing parties around kegs of Guinness or anything close to promoting this godsend drink to humanity.

I am reminded of this one scene in Family Guy, where the Irish were a utopian society two thousand years ago, on the brink of the final breakthrough and transcending their own human bodies, when suddenly beer was discovered. And they are the way they are now.

It’s fun to make fun of people based on their cultural differences.

But I’m still disappointed from the lack of free-flowing Guinness at the airport. Right now it’s 9am and I’m sitting outside a bar named Apron Bar, and much to my dismay, it is closed. In fact, there it is, the Guinness tap, right next to a Heineken, which I understand, since Heineken’s made in Netherlands, but next to the Heineken tap is a Budweiser tap. Ugh. See, this is what I don’t get, the restaurants here should be offering Guinness everything.

“Sir, you ordered an Irish breakfast, would you like a Guinness with that?”

“Ma’am, here’s your sandwich, coffee and complimentary Guinness.”

“Ms, here’s your magazine, and would you like a Guinness with that?”

“Buy your souvenirs right here, and get a free Guinness.”

“Sir, would you like a Guinness with your Guinness?”

I say hell yeah to all of that. Not because I got a drinking problem. I just choose not to quit. In fact, instead of having a Guinness like I intended to at a bar, I had to settle for a Guinness. I scanned down the list and looked for a combination that in the least had Guinness in it. I was looking for something like an orange juice, pineapple, banana, yogurt and Guinness smoothie. But I had to settle for it without the Guinness.

“I’m sorry sir, there’s no such option.”

What do you mean that there is no such option? Guinness is to the Irish as what water is to human beings. I sort of expect them to wash their dishes in Guinness, and when I went to take a dump at the public restrooms, I half-expected the black fluid to gush out the cistern and drown my sh*t. Then I would go to the sink and wash my hands, and Guinness would start pouring out to wash my hands, and I could scoop up a bit with my hands, gargle my mouth, brush my teeth and then take a good long drink.

I’m sorry, Ireland. You just don’t impress me, not with your cheap rip-off imitation Guinness souvenirs. I don’t want a keychain with the Guinness emblem on it, or a t-shirt proudly pronouncing my alcoholic beverage of choice. (I have two in my bag right now.) I want a Guinness, and I want it right now! It pains me to think that it is impossible for me to get a Guinness in Dublin International Airport. Granted that it is only 9:22am right now, but you get my drift of how important this is and I feel disappointed. Disappointed I tell you. Nothing can make up for that disappointment, as I sit here, thirstily outside Apron Bar.

The other thing I wanted to note was that I was on a flight with Aer Lingus, for all I know, it might be the national carrier of Ireland. They gave me water with my meal! What the heck? Where’s my Guinness? Then to my horror, they demanded a surcharge for any alcohol. I’m sorry Miss Air Stewardess, where’s your pride in your own country? You should be paying me to drink Guinness, so that I become an alcoholic and would be completely dependent on it for the rest of my life until I suffer from liver cirrhosis. See? Take the example of Malboro and Phillips-Morris. They had the right idea. Give out cigarettes to young teens, get them hooked early, and they become customers for life.

But I digress.

I was planning to come to Dublin on March 17th, to be Irish for a day, join the proud Irish culture of shamrocks, Guinness and rugby. And drunken brawling. But somehow, when I sit here outside this closed bar… I seriously need to rethink that.

Broken

2007-10-29T12:36:00.000-04:00

First and foremost, there is a very simple explanation for my lack of updates. I've sort of taken my writing elsewhere to a different medium and a different format. No, I have not transfered my blog over to Friendster or some other cheap knockoff. I just don't blog that often anymore.

Last night, I had a conversation with a friend. He was telling me about his life in Singapore, and remarking how it sounded like a stupid teen drama series, very much not unlike Laguna Beach, Orange County or Gossip Girls.

Yes, I know the names of these series because I got to have something to mock in my spare time.

I suppose part of me is filled with envy at my friend because despite all that he hates about living in Singapore, the fact of the matter is he is LIVING in Singapore. He's got friends, family and something going for him. Yes, dude, despite your problems with Google and doctors, you know, I kinda prefer your life over mine right now. That is if I had a life.

As I blink back a tear, I wonder what kind of cruel joke the cosmic universe just played on me. A while back, there was a thought in my head, more like a philosophy or belief, that I would prefer no other life like mine, because I have made the best possible decisions for myself, and I should live with no regrets. Yet now, I look over across the fence towards the yards of my neighbors, and I think to myself, "The grass is truly greener on the other side."

A person is always swamped with problems. I understand that not everyone has the same kind of problems as me, and that I would just be exchanging some problems for others. But that's not really the point here. The point is that my life has dipped into a spiraling low months ago, and has yet to come out of it.

I guess I should explain a bit more about my "life" before continuing on that thought. Right now, I think I've gone through my 23rd interview over the span of a year. Maybe I'm not getting it right, maybe I'm just a mediocre candidate. Either way, this was startlingly brought to light when my younger sister commented that I was unemployed for 6 months. Truth be told, I kinda question now my employability. Inherently, I am a flawed human being, with defects that I, myself, cannot understand or fix. I don't know what is wrong with me, and I don't know why I keep fucking up.

On addition to that, I'm merely living off the charity of my friends, and I have no idea what I'm going to do right now. I mean, I'm waiting for Morgan Stanley to call to let me know whether I've gotten an internship or not. And this is an internship. Meaning some low-paying, low-responsibility, we-might-hire-you-for-full-time-if-we-like-you, kind of a job. I don't mind a job like that, I don't care about pay or hours or responsibilities. The lady sort of told me that she thought I would feel bored at the job. No, lady, you wanna know what is boring? Sitting at home every day watching CNBC, waiting for a job offer. That's what's boring. I just want to work, and sometimes, I don't get it, the body is able, the mind is willing, but... what is lacking?

Right now I have only one thing going for me and that is my trading portfolio. It's kinda weird seeing how everything I've learnt go out the window, as I witness the futility of my education when dealing with speculators and interpreting news. I sort of tend to obsess about what I do, and I'm rather proud as to what I've achieved so far in terms of just doing a couple of simple trades in the past month and a half. After all, I'm still learning, and I've already made huge mistakes.

But I kinda watch my relationships around me fail miserably. I don't really want to talk to my friends out of shame, and sometimes when I talk, it sort of becomes a bitchfest about my lack of a job and my current status. And sometimes I realize that I'm kinda bad at it, that I don't really want to talk about it. And I really have that sharp deep pang in my heart and an abject misery every time my parents or my sisters corner me and ask me via long distance how goes my job hunt. I've turned to either ignoring them or mumbling some sort of excuse that I'm still looking, when in fact, I've resigned myself to the couch literally. Somehow they must have sense my annoyance and reluctance to talk to them that I think they sort of sensed it is a taboo subject, and if they want to shut down the conversation with me, all they have to do is hint at the idea of returning home and finding a job there. That line of conversation always drives this feeling into my heart that I want to pick up my computer, smash it across the room, and huddle in a corner and cry.

It has come to the point that my mom doesn't even dare to ask me how my job search is going that she's resorted to asking about other things in a strange bid to just talk to me. She's resorted to asking me things about my opinion on the stock market, or recently today, a girl I've never even thought of for a while. Stuff in a bid to get me to talk to her. I admit I am pretty much a prodigal son, I took a bunch of money, left, had a decadent lifestyle, and it is shameful to go home empty handed. And I don't even call home, because I've nothing good to call home about. No good news, no crap. I'm worried that the next phone call I make home would be just to say I've given up, and I'm coming home.

Many of you think it is no big deal. But trust me, it is a big deal. First of all, you got to realize that I've never actually gotten what I've wanted. Everything I've worked for since I was 16, everything I put all my effort into, I've always come out as second. Never first. I can run through a whole list of things, like not getting into the school I want, never getting the grades I want, never holding the right committee positions, never winning the competitions I've participated and never getting the girl I want. And trust me, I've struggled. I'm not where I am, and nothing I've ever done come close to where I want to be. And this is perhaps the final straw. That I can't even fucking work at a fucking decent firm who would sponsor a fucking visa for me. I just want this so badly that I feel cheated out of it. The universe merely only conspires to cheat me out of what I really want, Coelho.

I'm kinda ashamed to talk about it, and as many of you know or read, and I think it is only the closest of my friends who read this, you may be surprised to find how affected I am by this. I run and hide from this unemployment. I so badly want to work, and I feel like I've failed. And I don't really want to talk about it or deal with it, because somehow I'm hoping futilely that this problem will go away. And right now, I'm up in the middle of the night, screaming at my helplessness, and the encroaching feeling and the looming deadline, that perhaps I'm better off dead. I truly do not know how to deal with this, and I can't deal with platitudes or comforting lies. The only thing that can help me now is a job, but we all know how that's going.

The job thing is big. It's way big. It's the lynch pin in my life. I figured everything comes after getting a job, a place to rent, spiffier clothes and a girlfriend. Everything can only happen after I get a job, so my life is kinda trapped in limbo right now. In fact, I've been this way since I've graduated. I've been in this state of perpetual uncertainty and dread. The past six months have been a hellish repeat, and if you ever want to know what's it like to live a single day over and over again, I have to say it is the same feeling as living each day with uncertainty. Each day is the same to me, because I don't have a future. I have nothing on the horizon for me. I have nothing to expect, nothing to look forward to, and nothing to do. It is perpetual misery. Tomorrow, I'm going to send an email to the firm I'm waiting for a response from, and I already know the answer. No response is as good as a no. And I hate it when they do that. Because I would first appreciate a straight-up no, without the blatant lies about how I am a qualified candidate, but they decided to pursue other applicants.

This has become way too much of a pity-fest. And I'd hate you if you talk to me about anything I've written here. Call it a coward's way out. This is my way of telling you what's going on in my life without actually telling you. Seriously, no words of comfort, no asking me how am I feeling, and no patting me on the back and telling me it's going to be alright. Because if it's anything I've learnt during the last six months, nothing went right, and nothing will be right. I've already done enough lying to myself, at first blaming the whole thing on my visa, then on my lack of work experience then on my eccentric personality. I have enough blame on myself, and offering advice would only make things worse. Offering sympathy makes things worse. Offering empty words makes things worse.

So this is what's it like when you're lying back on your bed at night, just waiting to die?

Frank Sinatra sang the words, "If I can make it there, I can make it anywhere, New York, New York." Guess what, Franky? I can't make it here. So guess I can't make it anywhere. So where in the world can I make it then?

Faux Business News

2007-10-16T19:16:00.000-04:00

Just yesterday, Fox Business News started airing.

Now, this means that there is an alternative now to CNBC and Bloomberg, and Fox is showing its strength as a television network that it now has another channel dedicated 24 hours to Business.

So, I decided to give it a spin, after all, what matters most to a guy who wants to have a feel of the market pulse is "fair and balanced" news on the market. After all, business is business, and there is no red or blue in business, only green.

Now, my personal opinion of Fox News is that it is a retarded network pushing the Republican agenda through various narcissistic reporters such as Bill O'Reilly. And perhaps the lies just do permeate through the reporting and I think sometimes even the focus of Fox News is to put the spin on things and insinuate so many things that are going to kick anyone who does not agree them in the balls. So that's my own personal bias, and I thought I could give Fox Business News a chance.

Big mistake. It was as f*cking biased as Ann Coulter. In fact, it's atrocious because it puts so much emphasis on junk that I feel that there's a lot of business news missing. Do you know what was the sole thing that was emphasized the whole day?

The huge news that Fox Business News was trumpeting the entire first day it was on air was that Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Okay, I feel that that news is way over-rated in the first place, and probably deserves as much as a blurb in a 30-second segment at most. But that wasn't exactly what Fox Business News deems "business-news" worthy. What was more important for Fox Business News was that they had to have this graying old scientist come up on screen and constantly insist that "global warming has no human fingerprint on it" and "scientists are agreeing to global warming for fear of losing their grants".

I'm seriously sick of that kind of bullsh*t. I mean, okay, even objectively speaking, what is the point of discrediting Al Gore and his Nobel Peace Prize? Okay, even if it is true, what is the remotest business implication of that news? See? The whole thing is that they never made any sort of connection between business and global warming other than standing up and calling it a crock of sh*t. And that is the sort of news you can expect from Fox Business News.

There were a lot of things questionable, the way they did things. They were talking about Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama and giving their usual spin on things, and just calling their policies junk. Okay, as much as I agree, I kinda want to keep their crappy opinions out of the air and at least give me something other than trash talk.

I've always wondered how Fox News appeals to people, and I'm amazed that Fox News has trumped CNN as the 24 hour news network. Okay, maybe even that is a lie, but from what I gather from the first day of Fox Business News on the air? It's a travesty and I honestly cannot find the words to say how revolting it is.

Extravagance

2007-09-30T17:20:00.001-04:00

A while ago, I was wondering how much I could spend on a single dinner, going overboard and everything. I think that while it's unnecessary, considering the amount I spent could easily feed a family in a third world country for a year, I believe that that is the price of the experience, not the meal. And sometimes the experience can't be obtained any other way. And so, I found this menu at this restaurant in New York City, called Per Se. There's only two choices, the Chef's Tasting Menu and the Vegetarian Menu. And so I will list the items on the Chef's Tasting menu for June 28, 2007.

"Oysters and Pearls"
"Sabayon" of Pearl Tapioca with Island Creek Oysters
and Sterling white Sturgeon Caviar

Salad of Mission Figs "Aigre-Douces"
Redondo Iglesias Serrano Ham, Heirloom Radishes "Cuits et Crus."
Petite Mache and Aged Balsamic Vinegar

"Peach Melba"
Terrine of Hudson Valley Moulard Duck Foie Gras
Frog Hollow Farm's Peach Jelly, Pickled Peaches
Marinated Red Onion, "Melba Toast" and Crispy Carolina Rice

Sauteed Fillet of "Rouget Barbet"
Globe Artichokes, Sweet 100 Tomatoes, Braised Sunchokes
and Garden Tarragon with Espelette-Scented Tomato "Vierge"

Butter Poached Nova Scotia Lobster
Baked Young Beets, Celery Branch Batons and Mustard Greens
with Green Apple Mustard Cream

Sirloin of 24 Carrot Farm's Rabbit
Caramelized Belgian Endive, Rainier Cherry Marmalade
and Mizuna Leaves with Rabbit Jus

"Medaillon De Cervelle De Veau"
Cranberry Bean Ravioli, "Haricots Verts," Confit of Kettle Garlic
and Summer Truffles with "Sauce Perigoudine"

Snake River Farm's "Calotte De Boeuf Grillee"
Bone Marrow Stuffed Cipollini Onion, Watercress Puree
and Fork Crushed New Crop Potatoes
with "Sauce Bordelaise"

Andante Dairy's "Blue Apron"
Compressed Summer Melons, Petit Basil,
Basil-Infused Olive Oil and Banyuls Reduction

Burgundy Plum Sorbet
"Confiture de Fenouil." Red Pluot Coulis
and Lemon Verbena Foam

"Tentation Au Chocolat, Noisette Et Lait"
Milk Chocolate "Cremeux" and Hazelnut "Streusel"
with Condensed Milk Sorbet, "Pain au Lait" Sauce
and Sweetened Salty Hazelnuts

"Mignardises"

Prix Fixe 250.00
Service included

Wow, how's that? $250 for a single meal. Now if you wanna toss in another $120.00 for the wine pairings, that's a cool $370 for a single dinner. 10 courses and all. I don't know, but I'm not too comfortable with the prospect of eating something I can't even pronounce. Hmm...

But even if $370.00 is way too pricey for you, I think I read in a magazine, the average entree and drink at Masa costs $466.00. And that's a sushi place, and how can raw fish cost that much?

Slipping

2007-09-13T14:52:00.000-04:00

I figured I was an 'experiencer'. In a way, I collect experiences. Whether it is living precariously through the lives of others, or through stories, or through my own personal experiences. I collect experiences.

And a long time ago, I said I want to try everything at least once except cigarettes and drugs.

Wow... how things have changed? I'm currently halfway through my first pack of cigarettes already, and I'm pondering why the hell did I pick up smoking. I don't smoke that often, and it's more like I'm smoking just for the hell of it. I know I can stop, I did have an intermittent two weeks where I didn't smoke any cigarette, and I don't feel any urge to smoke, but I just do. It's not an addiction, but I'm sure my protestations are similarly echoed by addicts, so that's pointless.

But I find myself engaging in this kind of self-destructive behavior, in the past five days along, I've had at least two drinks each day, and gone to bed drunk. So yeah, maybe I'm turning into an alcoholic. That'll be interesting, right?

But back to smoking. One of the reasons I want to smoke is because I want to know what the deal is with smoking. So far, I sort of feel the harsh irritation as it goes up through my nose, and it sort of burns. And I can sort of understand how that might cause some form of cancer. But seriously. How dumb are we? Okay, so far I've come up with two reasons to stop smoking. One is namely, cancer, of all forms and sorts, and other health related problems. But those are grossly overstated because well, there's a lot of shock value in these blitz ads that highlight the dangers of smoking.

The other reason to stop smoking, I feel is more direct and I believe it is a better reason to stop smoking. Mainly, it's because your insurance health premiums will rise. Yes, the monetary cost of smoking hurts majorly there, and I think that would be the best reason not to smoke. And it's one of those things, because these insurance companies either think you smoke or not, and even if you smoke a single cigarette a month, you are a smoker.

But then again, without a doubt, no one ever expouses the reasons NOT to smoke. I've heard crap reasons like it builds character and it's cool and it's because everyone else does it. Okay, those are weak reasons, and I suppose on some level, desperate level, it is acceptable. But I've got a couple of reasons of my own. First of all, it makes your voice deeper and hoarser. And I think people pay more attention to you then. Secondly, it gives your fingers something to do. Strangely I miss that, other than just sticking my hands into my pocket. Thirdly, it's a great way to meet random strangers outside a pub. And lastly, it helps takes away the hunger pangs, and is probably a great dieting tool.

However, I must insist that I do not condone smoking. I just do it like the hypocrite everyone else is. Also I do not claim to be aware of all the risks of smoking, but based on what I know, and what everyone has already told me, I think I know sufficient to make my decision.

This is perhaps my first and last pack of smokes. After all, I don't really see the appeal of it.

Despite all my rage, I am still a rat in a cage

2007-08-26T08:34:00.000-04:00

The world is a vampire, sent to drain
Secret destroyers, hold you up to the flames
And what do I get, for my pain?
Betrayed desires, and a piece of the game

- Bullet with Butterfly Wings, Smashing Pumpkins

Ever watched CNBC? Or Bloomberg? Or any of those financial channels? There's a standard that is common throughout not just the news anchors, but every so-called expert that they've interviewed.

Maybe it's a sign of things to come. I mean, why is it that everyone they interviewed on CNBC is a white, middle aged guy? I wonder whether it's some sort of stereotype there, or whether all economists or financial market watcher is a white, middle-aged guy. Or maybe it is just that the financial world is filled with white, middle-aged guys.

One of my old professors in NYU had the gall to say that her husband was complaining it was tough being white, because there were so many laws protecting minorities. I think I did mention it once before, but then again, I think her words so aptly disgust me. No wonder I got a B+ in that class.

But I hold no illusions anymore. I mean, I've been rejected after so many interviews that it matters little to me anymore. I just can't succeed. I don't know why. I really don't know why, and I'm starting to blame the things I have no control over, and it ends in a disgusting cycle of self-loathing.

But back to CNBC. Why is there a stereotype? I thought to myself how pervasive this is, and for all those huge authors out there who not just sell their books, but their image, they push this white guy image out there to the max. Look at Donald Trump? He is one of the few people who publish books with his picture pasted so clearly on the cover. And it feels to me that you're not buying anything of value in the book, but rather you're buying the book because it was written by a white man known as Donald Trump. When was the last time you bought a book with the picture of an author named Karpal Sangit Singh on the cover?

Somehow the white man image is there. It means something that I can't understand, nor can't project. I had a conversation with a friend about setting up a simple website offering basic financial knowledge on interest rates and understanding of the numbers in a balance sheet, cash flow statement and income statement. He told me that if the website was going to work, I would need to create a white man persona, adopt a white man's name and then my words would be taken seriously. Like how advice dispensed by Lim Gan Hong lacks credibility, but words written by Franklin Goldstein carry more weight than the computer you're using.

Heh, it doesn't matter. Maybe, just maybe I am not good enough. I've already gone through that so many times. Just maybe I'm not good enough. Yup, people who know me realize already that I have very little self-worth. So if one of very little self-worth could come up with these questions, then is it all merely just in my head or is there some truth to it? I tried opening my eyes, but all I see are people telling me to close them again.

The path between a dream and a destiny

2007-08-12T07:26:00.000-04:00

When you start listening to others, and telling others what they want to hear, somewhere along the lines of that conversation, you are not what you are anymore.

That is the process of growing up.

Because no one ever wants to hear what you have to say. But rather what they want you to say.

Rarely have I met people I can be honest about. The usual people are those who ask for my opinions, pretending that they care I do have a sound mind. And when my opinions do not agree, I am judged. Wow, makes you kinda wonder, what is the meaning of an opinion then? And why do we even bother having opinions?

Even more so, I struggle with myself, and I wonder is there a point in arguing with people? After all, if I do change a person's opinion, then have I imprinted my persona upon them in some sort of bizarre evolutionary process like memes? Isn't it rather like the survival of the fittest idea? And if I fail to win an argument, which is 99% of the time, there could only be animosity between us.

So is there a point in arguing? Or is it a rather simplistic way in exchanging facts? But humans don't exchange facts. Humans can't exchange facts. Facts like "The sky is blue" carries a little taint of opinion, no matter how simplistic it is. Because there are a hundred ways to describe the sky. "Oh blue is the sky" or "How blue the sky is" or "Blue sky blue" or whatever stylistic ways that hardly involve changing the words. And I guess, there are only opinions.

But back to the matter at hand. There was once an experiment I described, where if a person wrote, referred and expressed himself as third person, and continued to do so for long periods of time, his writings would become sillier and incomprehensible. That is the loss of identity. And hence, why should it be any different if I were to express your opinions instead of my own? Just so that I'll fit a mold?

I don't know.

Okay, that was a little depressing. So I guess I'll toss in this little blurb here that has utterly no relationship to the topic above.

I recently got a laptop, and I'm enjoying the portability that it offers. So I decided to come up with a top five list of best places to use a laptop. And here we go.

5. At a coffee shop - Nothing beats having a hot drink, in an AC-room, tapping away on your laptop, looking busy to all the patrons, except that everyone knows that you're browsing Facebook and looking up chicks.

4. At a park - Okay, cool breeze in the air, basking under the warm sun, getting your tan on, while at the same time, checking the weather reports online, plus a humongous long playlist of your favorite punk rocker humming in the background. That sounds perfect.

3. At a bar - Once, I pulled out my laptop to play Risk on my computer at a bar. Highly entertaining, sure I got weird looks, but hey, alcohol and surfing the Internet just got a whole new feel to it. And yes, it makes people's blogs a lot more funnier.

2. In bed - I'm really spoilt. Last time, when I had a desktop, at least I had to get out of bed, get changed, brush my teeth, and then check my mail. Not today. With a simple reach of the hand, if I cannot go to my computer, my computer will come to me in bed. So I can check my mail, reply, look at the news and watch a little something on YouTube without even getting up.

1. On the throne of the house - Okay, I get it, not many people understand this euphemism. Every house has a throne. It is usually white and made of porcelain and everyone in the house sits on it some time or another. And usually after a night of heavy drinking and getting wasted, one usually spends a better part of the morning, hugging this porcelain throne and throwing his guts up. So why is this the best place to use a laptop? Hey, let me just say, if someone can bring in a newspaper to read on the throne for at least half an hour, imagine how much more time could be spent there, if he used a laptop instead.

Caught between transition

2007-07-30T01:26:00.000-04:00

I listen to the music with no fear,
You can hear it too if you are sincere.
Coz I'm a punk rocker, yes I am.
Well I'm a punk rocker, yes I am.
- Teddybears feat. Iggy Pop, Punk Rocker

I'm moving, I don't have a permanent address now in New York. For the next month or so, I'll be in transition, living off my friends, and being homeless in a sad way. Yes, there are worse things in life, but none as bad as not knowing where you're headed. Try being lost at sea without a compass or directions.

That's my life right now. I'm too tired to share, talk to me for details. You know who you are.

Random Thoughts

2007-07-20T02:22:00.000-04:00

She prattled on: Jason, let me tell you a secret about girls. Girls don't like guys who are drunk or loud or popular. They like guys who are genuine. Guys who don't hide stuff and open about what they think and feel. Unless of course, if you're creepy. Then if you're creepy, there's just no hope for you, so you might as well be single for the rest of your life.

Me: Yeah, did I mention that I'm going to a party for the final Harry Potter Book?

She said: You're creepy.

Okay, that's not exactly how the conversation happened, but the first part was true. She didn't call me creepy, but c'mon, think about a guy who wants to go to the party for the final Harry Potter book: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

I am just a forum for ideas, none of which are mine, just inputs from a million minds.

Another conversation, involved the odds of finding the girl. I recall a long time ago, when bidding a friend farewell to the United States, we sat down and calculated the odds of him finding a girlfriend in America. The numbers were pretty bleak, and I guess that's besides what I'm trying to say.

I guess I've sort of found my role in life. I'm not destined to lead great revolutions or command massive armies, though I do not doubt my ability to. I am simply put on this planet to observe, and I guess I am to observe the human condition and its relationships.

I'm sorry, all of you who know me. If you haven't figured out by now, I'm living my life precariously through yours.

You know how in surveys you're asked, are you Single, Dating, Married, Divorce or Widowed? I sort of discovered a new state of relationship while discussing relationships with said person. She told me she was "single and confused". I think this is an interesting classification. I mean, all those states above are sort of determined, and fixed, in mutual accord. You're either married or not, dating or not, divorce or not and widowed or not. Otherwise put single. However what if you think you're single, but this person you're interested in thinks that this person is dating you? Or vice versa that you think you're dating this person, but this person is too casual and nonchalant about it? Hence, there's a new state of relationships, which is Confused.

But today, I was sort of questioned about my stance on traditional relationships. Is it okay for a girl to ask a guy out for a first date? I'm a sucker for traditional courtship, but a wise man once said to me, "You don't go to war with the army you want, but the army you have." So you play the hand you're dealt with, and there doesn't seem to be a good reason to turn down a strong girl. Why shouldn't a girl ask a guy out? It says some things about her, being able to make decisions, being forceful, being decisive. And I kinda like that in a girl, a sense of independence and direction. And it'll definitely be way better than having to play the dating game where you guess each others intentions.

But I digress. Sometimes I ramble. There's a pressing question weighing on my mind. What the hell is a financial services representative? Is it a fancy name for a salesperson? And why do I get two interviews for the position? Am I so retarded as that I have to make calls offering products to clients and sell things like a lowly agent? Look any moron can do that, and despite what I understand about financial instruments and debt instruments, I don't really feel comfortable in a sales position. It feels... that I could always do more. With unemployment at an all time low, the fact that I'm unemployed means something, doesn't it?

So many things happening, and I've been accused of losing it. And sometimes I think I've lost it. Cartharsis. Purge. Purge. Purge. Cartharsis. Focus, there is only the rational part and I find myself sometimes devoid of all feeling.

Today I had an excellent meal of Thai black rice and chicken curry. I thoroughly enjoyed the special grain, never have I tasted something that nice. It had a little bite to it, I could feel the thick grain which wasn't soft or mushy, then there's a good, husky taste and scent that reminds me of highland rice back home, and it looks awesomely black.

There's something wrong with me. There has to be. I write and write, but nothing comes out. I scream and scream, but no one hears me. I grasp for help and I gasp for air, I feel myself overwhelmed and drowning. I feel whatever I let myself feel, and it is best for now, I am devoid of feeling.

I wish I could make more out of myself right now. Erratic behavior. Plus, maybe I've been hypnotized. I've told people my mind's extremely fragile right now, and I guess they never knew what I meant. It just means I'm vulnerable to suggestions right now. Very vulnerable. Offer me the right words and motivation and watch me do stuff I would never do.

So Sam bought a new DSLR camera today, a Nikon D40X. It was a sweet thing, it brings a new appreciation to your eyes, because I've been disappointed with my inability to capture the night Manhattan skyline with the camera. I just can't do it. The technology won't let me capture with clarity or detail, and I feel a new appreciation for my eyes as my eyesight seems to be getting worse. I don't know what it means, I've been suffering from blurry, double vision when I stare at close objects. The words on the monitor jump around. I try to reassure myself it's a tumor pressing on my optic nerve, and slowly claiming my sight and life. But I know it's just sheer exhaustion that I don't even feel. I don't even allow myself to feel exhaustion. Hence, this is how much I appreciate my eyesight now, knowing that we are still far from replicating said technology.

There are no mistakes, no randomness, and everything is said with a meaning. I always wondered why I could understand people more through emails or IMs. It feels that with so little information from generic words, I can see understand people through their choice of words. Say you're sad, means you want comfort. Say you're depressed, means you want attention. Say you're lonely, means you want a hug. Say you're fine, means you don't want to talk about it. Say you're okay, means you're not okay.

I'm okay.

Sometimes mere words convey a lot more of information than the whole human body language and subtle intonations. Maybe it's information overload, from me having to process this huge amount of information of trying to study a person visually, aurally and linguistically. Try it, it drives me insane, trying to watch for body language, hear the subtle changes in the tone and pronunciation of words used, and finally the choice of words. Choice of words is most important. We never just use the words we use, we choose and become the words we use. And perhaps that's why I can never bring myself to look anyone in the eye when they talk to me. Information overload.

I guess that's why I operate best behind a computer, where I can slowly take my time to process said information and adjust for best response.

Today, I had a cab driver who was from Guinea. If anyone has every contributed to some poverty fund for Africa, I guess this is the cue for you to feel like a sucker. Shantytowns built around mansions guarded by personal militia. Millions of dollars of investment going in to develop oil fields, yet high school graduates have to peddle cigarettes by the roadside. Even nice people are corrupt, because if you don't take the money given to you, someone else would take it. There is no law there, only corrupt governments supported by Western countries in the loose guise of economic interest. I got out of the cab feeling a bit more hopeless than I've ever been. I tipped him a dollar more.

You told me that people should be treated differently. Treat different people differently. Wow, it just crossed my mind that this is a form of discrimination. You kiss the ass of people in power, you scorn those below you and you treat your equals like sh*t. There are big fish and small fish, and not everyone knows what you know. I heard that there are big fish in the company that do not understand the fundamentals of running an investment bank and it is your job to convey these fundamentals to them. How did these people become big fish in the first place to not understand the difference between EAR (Effective Annual Rate) and APR (Annual Percentage Rate)? Simple and compounding. I guess the only basic of investment anyone needs to learn is that money naturally grows, and everything else is just fertilizer. Treat people differently, because not everyone is the same. No such thing as equality. I must be naive.

I want a motorbike. Not because of the wind running her fingers through my hair, or the roar of the beast beneath me as it leaps forward. I want it because it's dangerous. I want it because all I have to do is twist my wrist and jerk my hand and I go flying, forty feet, into hard asphalt. You ask why have such suicidal thoughts. It's not suicide, it's not about ending life, it's not about being depressed. It's about having control over my life, knowing very well, then and there, I could just end it all, in that one split second, and I would finally spread my wings and fly.

I am Jason's Left Hand

2007-07-17T18:45:00.000-04:00

Tyler Durden: Self improvement is masturbation. Now self destruction.

Pain is a sign of being alive. We had this conversation before. And we were looking for the meaning of life. Death is what gives life meaning, so said the Endless. Things only matter to us because we die.

I don't know why I gave myself a second-degree burn. It still hurts, but the pain's numbing. I poke it every now and then to remind myself that is real. That sometimes, even a horrible abomination of a blister, is a part of me. It looks vaguely familiar, it reminds me of Fight Club, when Tyler Durden gave the narrator a scar on his left hand, burnt by lye. And I look at the ugly blister on my hand, and I think, "This is a sign, that I'm alive." And I proceeded to mutilate my left hand.

Reaching for the stars

2007-07-11T14:37:00.000-04:00

I wonder what sort of education I am receiving when I look at my school's career listings, and I find this position for a Suite Attendant. I see that after spending 40k a year for 4 years at a prestigious university situated right in New York City, that my fellow peers who have graduated are qualified to be a Suite Attendant at Hyatt.

Here's the posting:

Title: Suite Attendant - Hyatt - Full Time

Description: The Suite Attendant is responsible for maintaining the cleanliness of the guest rooms assigned.

Position Type: Full-Time
Desired State Date: August 11, 2007
Number of Openings: 1

Qualifications: This person must have the ability to lift, pull and push a moderate weight. This is a fast paced position. Previous cleaning experience as well as the ability to communicate to guests preferred.

Qualifications? Ability to lift, pull and push a moderate weight? C'mon, I see how my education has greatly contributed to that position and I feel all the more satisfied with my degree that as least I can be a hotel cleaner.

Choked full of good ol' cholestrol

2007-07-08T00:38:00.000-04:00

The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a new star.
- Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755 - 1826), Physiologie du Gout, 1825

As some of the people who judge me based on my appearance can attest, I love food. I mean, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what's for lunch.

And so I think this week has been exceptionally rewarding on my stomach. Previously I've written about paying a visit to Daniel Boulud's restaurant, and well, on Wednesday, 4th of July, I decided to celebrate it by eating perhaps the most American thing one could eat. I went to Peter Luger's Steakhouse.

Peter Luger's is one of those places where New Yorkers instinctively know to go for a good steak. And bad service. And strangely enough, people go there for both. It's a haut couture thing, but me being just me, I went there, blissfully ignorant of the service, and intent on sinking my teeth into a good-sized lamb chop. Yes, I don't eat beef.

And so there I was, sitting down there, browsing the menu. The prices were exorbitant, which was to be expected, $40 bucks for a piece of steak? It was expected because we decided to call in first for reservations on the grandest of all American holidays, the 4th of July and true enough, we were told they were fully booked. However, we had thought about that earlier, and instead decided to have breakfast, lunch and dinner altogether at 3:45pm and thus they managed to squeeze us into their busy schedule.

Now, back to prices, $40 bucks for a steak seems whacked, and so is $3.00 for a bottle of coke. Somehow, at Peter Luger's they had miniaturized Coke bottles. Remember those good ol' days when Coke bottles were made out of glass? It seems like Peter Luger's went back in time, got those bottles in bulk, then went to the future, and miniaturized those bottles and now serving it expensively to clueless New Yorkers who could easily get a liter of coke for half that price easily. Here, I have a picture of the Coke bottle with my cellphone next to it for comparison.

But I digress from the main reason I went to Peter Luger's. While sitting around waiting for our glorious food to be served, I stared around the decor, and it was done in an old fashion way, kinda like how when houses were all made completely out of wood, and the tables were reminiscent of an age gone by. And suddenly the waiter walked by carrying something that caught my eye. He was holding the largest, most ridiculous steak ever. Imagine a plate 14" in diameter. Now imagine a piece of steak 1" thick, and larger than that plate. And the waiter set it down in front of this elderly woman who instantly gasped in shock (she's a tourist of course) and exclaimed, "I can't eat all of that!"

And that, my friends, is a steak for one. I was left wondering how much meat would be served on my plate. We were not to be kept waiting for much longer, when our food finally came. Okay, granted, this is a picture of a "small" steak, and this picture doesn't really do it justice, but something to note was that it was really well prepared, and the steak was juicy and red in the center. And we smacked our chops (pun intended) and got down to stuffing our arteries with fat and cholesterol. It was one of the best lamb chops I've ever had, and to everyone who has ever ordered your steaks or red meats well-done, I pity the fool. Seriously, all meat was meant to be done like this, seared quickly on both sides, with all the juicy tenderness trapped inside, and then you actually taste cow, or lamb in my case. No one ever wants to eat a stinking burnt piece of meat, so from today onwards, if there's no red in my red meat, it's overcooked.

Well, overall the experience was 3.5 stars out of 5. It was honestly kinda pricey, and I don't see the point of having that much steak that a normal person could finish. Of course if you're an abnormal person, then by all means, this could be meat heaven for you. Although I think I did swear off meat for the entire week. Food is excellent, atmosphere is only a little honest, as I feel that every restaurant that is famous in New York City, has an aura of pretentiousness around it. Their onion rings definitely could have done some homework, but hey, you're only there for the meat.

And while I thought I would swear of all unhealthy food for the rest of the month, my friend and partner-in-gourmet-crime brought up this restaurant called the Chip Shop. Sounds unflattering and unpretentious, it is like a little piece of England tucked away in downtown Brooklyn among the pizzerias and fast food eateries. Any moron could have guessed that this is a fish and chips eatery, and yes, to Americans it's called fries. So we journeyed down to downtown Brooklyn, via a couple of bus stops and the place seems a little out of the way from any subways and kinda makes me wonder whether this was worth the trouble.

The shop has a nice quaint atmosphere, and it has Beatles on the wall, which I give complete props to and I salute the decor. Of course there was your regular British flags hanging around and pictures of Queen Elizabeth, but nothing says British as much as the Beatles, or until I turned my head to see a poster of Ian Flemming's James Bond, 007 in "In Service of Her Majesty". Okay, maybe this is taking it over the top with the British decor, I sort of got the hint already from the shop name. Now, why did I venture out this far for just fish and chips? I mean, is excellent fish and chips enough to make me go that far? Apparently, this place is known for deep-frying everything.

A brief glance at the menu showed stuff from deep-fried pizza to deep-fried ice-cream to deep-fried macaroni and cheese, to deep-fried deep-fried fries. Okay, the last one I made up, but you get the picture. So we sat down and basically had a sampler of everything we thought was interesting. You know how Americans only know about fish, chicken and beef? I was happily surprised to see that I got a choice of deep-fried cod, deep-fried haddock and deep-fried plaise. Wow. Real fish! And so we settled for the haddock, and now it was time to peruse the bizzare menu. We decided on deep-fried macaroni and cheese, deep-fried pizza and something that just caught my eye, deep-fried Reese's. Now, seeing as there were so many deep-fried stuff already, I ordered coleslaw, but not before making sure that it wasn't also deep-fried.

Now, let me explain to you the magic of Reese's. Imagine all the goodness of chocolate and all the goodness of peanut butter, and all the goodness of all that is chocolatey, sweet and peanut-buttery, all wrapped in a single package of lovable happiness in a bright orange bag. And that is what Reese's is. At this point, in my life, just when I thought it couldn't get any better, Chip Shop did one thing no one would ever do; they deep-fried it.

What does deep-fried Reese's look like? It looks like this. However, as unappealing as it looks, remember, if you ever go to the Chip Shop, start with the desserts. You want to start with the desserts because it is worth starting with the desserts, otherwise, you'd be too stuffed to actually enjoy them. Deep-fried Reese's adds the nice crunchy texture to an already excellent tasting candy, and it cannot be any more perfect than it already is right now. I may be over-hyping it, but that was a piece of heaven I just put in my mouth and felt it go straight to my tummy, and as fat as I felt, I felt even happier and any food that brings a smile to my face, is worth eating. Within seconds the Reese's was gone, and the smile still on my face as I gorged myself on all that deep-fried food.

The fish was excellent and fresh, though I found the mac-and-cheese lacking in cheese. And the coleslaw was good for getting rid of that fatty taste in my mouth, though the English lemonade in a can helped a lot too. I believe though, they should serve freshly made lemonade, though, this place could try to be a little healthier. The deep-fried pizza was excellent, and at the end of it all, I was feeling really stuffed. That's a lot of batter. I think I give this place props solely for the deep-fried Reese's and the excellent fish, the shepherd's pie looks tempting but I've already eaten my fill here. Awesome, just when you think something can't get any better, they come out with deep-fried Reese's... what will people think of next?

Yeah, now after all that unhealthy food, I would hit the gym if I had a gym membership, but instead I think I shall just not eat for a couple of months to purge all that oil and fat from my body.

7 days to go

2007-07-02T16:52:00.000-04:00

Someone asked me why do I want to stay in America. And he mentioned, "Don't say freedom."

Maybe it isn't America that I like, but rather New York. It's the sort of city that isn't stifling, that people don't really care who you are, and it's the sort of city that's old and fresh at the same time. Till today, I'm still discovering sights and tastes in New York City. Just now, I walked by a place called "One If By Land Two If By Sea". It's a seafood restaurant tucked somewhere in the niche of West Village and I think that's the sort of appeal.

New York City always has something to offer, it ranges from the exorbitantly expensive to the downright dirt-cheap. There's classy restaurants that'll kill your wallet for $500 a meal, and it's always an experience to be in one. Just the other day, my friends and I went out for dinner at Daniel, which is a great French restaurant, all-authentic-none-of-the-pretentiousness, until the main course was served. The food's good, without a doubt, fresh fish, soft succulent meat and the quail foie gras was excellent. And it was really an experience, which would have been better, if we weren't in a rush. But yeah, it was a great place. The drinks were good too and I guess the best part was dessert, where we got a couple of complimentary dishes from the chef. Now, it was interesting that we actually got to meet the owner himself, Daniel Boulud. He just came out, spent a little time talking with us and got to know us a little better. And when he found out I was leaving the country soon, he sent out a nice little extra for me, passion fruit sorbet and mango, with the words "Bon Voyage" written in excellent chocolate calligraphy.

After that experience, we went to a cigar lounge, and each of us had a cigar. It was one of the three or four cigar lounges left in the city, due to some mandated law about no more smoking in public places. In a way, it's about protecting the health of people, but then again, there's something about a bunch of guys dressed in suits sitting around a table on couches and sipping on cognac and smoking a cigar. Yeah, it's one of those experience things.

I suppose these are the sorts of things that I would miss. There are so many things to do at every hour of the day, and I enjoy wading through the crowds on days when there are flea markets as well as walking into a high-class establishment which only sells a small selection of trinkets that pays for the entire 4000-sq ft floorspace. It's as far as you want to go, as impossible as you want to be. Take for example the humble burger. Slap a patty of beef in between two slices of bread and you got a burger. And burgers in NYC go from anywhere between $3.95 to $41 at Old Homestead. You have to ask what makes a burger worth $41. Apparently, it's made of Kobe beef, and it's a couple of pounds of meat packed in between two buns. And from the looks of things, people who eat it, will go vegan for the rest of their lives. But that's the sort of decadence that comes with living in New York City. There's always something to try, and there's just always something. While I personally don't eat beef, it's the sort of thing that one can expect. Routine isn't routine here in New York City, and it's the sort of adventurous city that only those who dare to try (or rich enough to try) would really appreciate.

I guess I'm leaving pretty soon, well, I think I'm pretty much kicked out or evicted. Not wanted. Denied. Rejected. Look, it hurts a little to not be wanted, it denounces your self-worth. It also means I'm not good enough, and truth be told, now that I look at myself, my own resume, I don't think it's that hard to say that I'm not good enough. Since I failed to impress even myself, I don't think I can impress any one else. I wonder what marketable skills I need to pick up right now, apparently, nothing I do is good enough. Sure I can study, sit down, and ace an exam, but that isn't even good enough. So what is?

I have to go soon.

I don't know what I want to do with my life now. Seriously, I want to work, I want to be employed even if the pay is crap. For those who've never been unemployed, it's this lack of self-worth and not contributing to the society that's getting to me. I feel undervalued and unappreciated, and that's why I really want to work. I really want to be doing something with my time and I don't think I should be judged solely on the basis of my visa.

But that's over now, and I'm about to go, not kicking and screaming, dragged off into the night, but my head hanging in shame, and probably from a sudden drop and a short stop.

Seat of Power

2007-06-25T23:45:00.000-04:00

A little while, not too long ago, I embarked on a journey to the seat of power of the US government.

Considering the state of the US politics, I would like to take a look where it all happens, and particularly I had on purpose on my mind, in journeying to Washington D.C. and that was to show the US government the finger.

You see, the problem I have with the US government is that they've effectively stalled any chances I have of staying in the country, plus a very convoluted xenophonic system is in place to ensure that I stay out. I have not been able to get a job, particularly because of my visa issue, and I am extremely annoyed by that. I have every reason to be. I don't think I am incapable of doing work, and I am a quick learner. So to be denied every job that I've applied to must be some sort of doing of some extra-dimensional power. Or Capitol Hill.

So I headed out from NYC to Washington D.C. with a bunch of friends in a rented SUV. Now, this is kinda like a roadtrip, except that it didn't contain a single zany scene like in Eurotrip or Roadtrip, typical American movies. But my only advice is that there are two things that are crucial for a roadtrip; 1. a credit card and 2. your own mixed CD.

There are a couple of rules of mixed CDs for roadtrips:

1. No soothing music. This will cause the driver to fall asleep.
2. Must be loud and able to sing along to.
3. Only at most one song from one artist at a time.
4. You will be judged by the content of your CD and everyone else can vote your CD out the car window literally.

So yeah, I guess I failed to bring along my own CD, which would have made the trip better. However, I was forced to listen to an emasculating and castrating mix of Hansons and Brian Adams.

But the trip was short, it involved mostly visiting the musuems around the Mall and looking at the monuments. Obviously the first museum we headed to was the Museum of Natural History. I was fascinated by the exhibitions of the crystals, but I felt really rushed and unable to really appreciate the exhibits. Though I did get a chance to see a 200-carat emerald and the Hope Diamond. Okay, I must admit though, I'm not sure whether I can tell the difference between a real and a fake diamond, and the Hope Diamond did somehow lack some lustre in my eyes, but I could really appreciate this 13-carat diamond, I think it's color was D or C. Which makes it worth a couple of million at least. And when juxtaposed next to other diamonds, it was really clear.

Anyway, that aside, we spent the rest of the time looking around the Mall, and I had the chance to take this photo. I guess it reflects how I feel at this moment. You try being qualified, but unemployed. Just try it. I really don't know why and I'm done blaming myself and now instead I'm blaming Congress.

I think, somehow, this is perhaps a better view. Congress wants to build a fence south of the border, and I think this picture sums it all up. The proverbial fence that keeps immigrants out of America to preserve American jobs. Heh, that's the sort of audacity I can expect. I wonder whether there is such a thing as an American job. Is it such a guarantee that if you're born in America, there is an American job created for you? What the hell is an American job? Is it a job that can be filled by an American only? Or is it the sort of job that America is obliged to give an American?

Somehow, I think that Americans forget that they were all immigrants once, and I guess even that is something easily forgotten.

So is there such a thing as justice for me? I don't think so. Here's a picture of me sitting on the steps of the Supreme Court. At this moment, when this photo was taken, there's a court case in D.C. where a lawyer is suing a laundromat for a sum of $54 million for losing his pants. Now, granted that this case even made it to court is reason to suspect that justice only comes to those who can afford it. This is the illogical sense of 'fairness' that is sweeping the country. Just like the guy who sued the yatch club for $1 million after he slipped and fell onstage and got up again. So wait a minute, I'm pretty sure that discriminating me on the basis of my student visa is in fact illegal as stated clearly in the laws, but somehow I feel that that's a case that will never even make it into court. So where's the justice? It's not to be found on the steps of the Supreme Court, that's for sure.

I spent the next day in the Holocaust Museum, and it's sort of another chilling reminder of what happens when people start getting the idea that there are distinctions between 'us' and 'them'. There's a sort of irony that above those prison camps, they have the phrase, "Work shall set you free" in German. Sometime last week, after returning from D.C. I had a conversation with a friend who wished he could laze around like me, and I said I wish I could work. That's ironic considering he's earning way too much for an internship and I think somehow, being able to work, would make me free, because I wouldn't have so much anxiety.

Somehow, it was a brief trip that involved monuments and museums. Washington D.C. was one of those places that was planned out immaculately. This trip was severely lacking, in time and sights, but I guess it sort of reflects my time here in US; a lot of things to do, but never enough time. I've been tossed out of the country.

What if...

2007-06-24T01:28:00.000-04:00

What if we had a registry or a organ donor system where we give priority to a person who is a registered organ donor, over someone who isn't a registered organ donor? This sounds retarded, but wouldn't this somehow be an effective arrangement to encourage more volunteers for organ donation?

Forget fairness or ideas of need, technically it doesn't matter if everyone is a pledged organ donor. It's a question of selfishness. If we were to enact this policy, wouldn't this place a part of the benefits of organ donation from the recipient to the donor?

Think about it, no one wants to be an organ donor because there is no discernible benefit. But by giving this benefit to the donor, as some sort of insurance policy, we'll increase the number of organ donors way more than the needed amount of organs. It's like if everyone contributes 50 cents to a pot, with a promised payout IF something happens, then people would see that they are receiving some benefit. This doesn't change the number of organs needed, but rather, just increases the number of willing donors. It's less altruistic, but perhaps, saving lives is the goal of this policy.

Here's a thought I had a long time ago. I believe governments should nationalise people's kidneys. A person only owns one kidney, the other kidney belongs to the government. It is up to the government to recall this kidney at any time, in the case where someone else needs a transplant. Think about it, right now, in America, there are 300 million fresh kidneys wandering around.

I looked at United Network for Organ Sharing and there are currently 96,874 people waiting for a kidney transplant. With 300 million fresh kidneys lying around, and even worse, going to waste, I think perhaps the benefits from this would be immense. Almost no one would require a dialysis machine anymore because there would be a surplus of kidneys, and there is a guarantee if the kidney which belongs to you fails, the government is obliged to find you a suitable donor immediately. And given the number of people, that is as good as a guarantee will ever be.

So with these two propositions, wouldn't we have more willing donors? Wouldn't we eliminate a lot of stress and strife resulting from dying because of waiting for a suitable donor? It's a radical idea, particularly on the nationalisation of kidneys. Call me an organ communist, but don't get me wrong. If the government taxes your dollars, why can't a government tax your organs? Governments occasionally call on people to do their patriotic duty to give their lives for governments, why not something less like a kidney? Remember, the benefits are immense for the small price of pledging a kidney. With 300 million and only 96,874 kidneys needed, the odds of you being required to donate is one in 3000. Would you bet on those kind of odds? And in return, you'll have the guarantee, that you'll never need to die, while waiting for the kindness of someone else for a donation.

On Marriage and Statistics

2007-05-22T16:37:00.000-04:00

I was on the subway thinking how I was going to begin this blog. Yes, I always have a subject in mind when I want to write before I write, and this time I need an opening for this blog. So while I was deep in my thoughts, suddenly someone was talking very loudly and very excitedly.

"Ashley f*cked Matt! She f*cked Matt! Now why would she do that? Why did she do that?"

Yes, girl with black and beige striped top with braces. Why would Ashley f*ck Matt? Maybe because she wanted to? Or maybe just because he's attractive? Does that make him f*cktractive (the antonym is fugly)?

Okay, perhaps I shall seek answers to this question, and what better place to find out more about this social bizarro conundrum by watching a movie? Namely, I "procured in a semi-legit fashion with loads of grey areas" the movie School For Scoundrels and proceeded to learn all I could about the human courtship.

I always wanted to watch that movie because there was this one part where Dr. P asks, "How many of you retards own self-help books? That's the first problem. You can't help yourselves because yourselves suck."

So the first lesson on human courtship is if you need help, the last place you should get it from is a self-help book. So apparently this movie did have something to teach. And so the movie went on to teach how to pick up chicks. These are the following gems:

- Be Dangerous. It's cool.
- No Compliments, Ever.
- Always Get The Girl Alone.
- Wherever You Are, The Place Is Lame.
- Relate To Her.
- Lie, Lie And Lie Some More.

Apparently these are the necessary steps to getting a girl. And honestly, it sounds really plausible with sufficient explanation. For example, never compliment a girl, it just means you're out of things to say and you're just a boring person. And the lying part? As Dr. Gregory House would say, all relationships are based on lies, and this is just an excellent way to start a relationship. Dr. P says in the movie, keep on lying until you have something real to offer her. Pretty much, in short if you're such a lame loser, you got to lie your way into a relationship.

Wait, this is starting to sound like the interview process to me.

Anyway, with this in mind, perhaps this sort of explains how one human being becomes attracted to another. But then again, this feels too vague. After all, one can only be so smooth and after that, other factors start to come into play. So I guess I shall refer now to this scholastic article I was reading, entitled: What Makes You Click? Mate Preference and Matching Outcomes in Online Dating by Gunther J. Hitsch, Ali Hortacsu and Dan Ariely.

Basically the methodology is set up an online dating site, collect information and see how people respond to various profiles. Most of the results are based on the first-email premises, meaning that they determined that a person is attracted to another if an email correspondence is sent. So with this in mind, and note that the authors are from University of Chicago and MIT, this isn't just some lame article written by FHM.

This article is awesome in that it gives actual numbers, but everything has to be taken with a pinch of salt. For all I know, they could have just written this based on stereotypes. After all, this article just seems to reinforce a lot of stereotypes.

The first thing that struck me is that based on the data collected, the participants are taller than average, and thinner than average. Now, what does this mean? The average height of all the participants are taller than the average of the locale they were in. The average weight of the participants is less than the average of the local they were in. Hmm... I'm not saying that they're lying, but... whatever you like to infer from that piece of information. Now these data is also split by gender, and while the average men weight deviate from 2-5lb off their population average, the average weight of women deviate from 5lb to 23lb from their population average. *cough*

Again take that with a pinch of salt, after all, these 22,000 participants might be the thinner, taller and more attractive people of the general population and short and fat people don't resort to online dating. Or then again, maybe women understand the concept of weight as, "What's the lightest weight you've ever been since in college?"

Note, there is not yet any statistical brick-brack in here, it's merely pure data. They didn't write the standard deviations for the weight, but if you tell me that women age 50-59 on average weigh 23lb less than the similarly aged populace, I'm gonna say that's at least three standard deviations away from the expected mean. In simple language, that's a 0.03% chance of sampling a random population with that sort of mean. Hmm... highly unlikely.

Damn, I love statistics. But on to the more fun part. Now, I quote, "women who are 'seeking an occasional lover/casual relationship' receive 17% more first contact emails relative to baseline, while men experience a 41% penalty."

Again, I'm not saying that men are looking for casual relationships and women are looking for long term relationships. But if you're a guy, basically, stating that you're looking for a long term relationship, rather than just looking for friends, or lovers, or casual relationship would increase your chances of finding someone.

Now on to more interesting stuff, women prefer men who are tall, about 6'3 to 6'4, while men prefer women between 5'3 to 5'8. Any taller than that, women start to suffer a penalty and their hits become less. And yes, weight does play a significant role. There apparently is an optimum body-mass-index for people to find attractive, and so, to quickly summarise, the optimal BMI for men is 27. This means that a man is slightly overweight according to the BMI scale, but again this could mean that women want a chunkier, muscular guy. For women, the optimal BMI is 17! Seventeen! This is borderline aneroxic. And remember recently in Milan, there was a law passed that women with BMI less than 18 cannot be allowed on the catwalk. So that's basically what a BMI of 17 means! So chicks kinda really have it a bit more difficult than guys.

As for professionwise, for men, there is a strong preference for lawyers, followed by firefighters, then military, then finally those in the medical profession (hint: this definite does not mean nurses). So, pretty much, a man in uniform is better off than a doctor in scrubs. I wonder where does the UPS guy stand then?

For women, it's a bit tougher. Men don't really care what profession you're in, as long as you're hot, and strangely all women in different professions get less responses than women who are college students. Hmm... again, somehow, I am reminded by a certain commercial of a certain DVD of a certain Girls Gone Wild. I wonder if that has anything to do with this.

Okay, here comes the most interesting part. The part of attractiveness. Basically the guys who did this study are economists, and they'd like to measure things in terms of money. So how do you measure attractiveness in terms of money? With all things held constant, they tried to see what level of income a guy must have to compensate for his poor looks to get as much response from a good looking guy.

Here, on a scale of 1 to 10, if you're ranked 1, to get the same kind of attractiveness as a guy ranked 10, you must earn $186,000 more annual income than him.

What does this mean? Granted that stud is earning say $60,000 a year, an ugly guy must earn $246,000 a year to garner that same sort of attractiveness that he has. So in short, money does really make a man more attracive. Yes, you women are gold-diggers! We have empirical evidence! Okay, I mean, I need to make approximately $186,000 a year so that I'd be more attractive than that homeless guy sitting on the corner of my block so that I'd be more attractive to a chick. See? If you think that that is unfair, and that I've mistakenly stereotyped girls, look, I'm just saying, it's the data that's speaking. Money does make a guy look more attractive.

However, for women it's all different. It's not possible for a woman to earn more money to compensate for her less-than-average looks. The data shows that it's not feasible, that income has no effect on making a woman receive more first email contacts. It just doesn't work. And I sort of feel sad for women because there's nothing they can do short of plastic surgery to make them more attractive. But then again, who wants to work hard, go through 8 years of college, graduate with PhD and slave away for the rest of their lives just to muster enough money to attract that hot chick, when a simple $5k boob job would do to attract a guy?

But finally, the article comes to the study on ethnicity, and okay, the pool is divided into Caucasians, African-Americans, Hispanics and Asians. There's a preference for heterogeneity. Meaning, that if you're Caucasian, you'll definitely prefer Caucasians, and ONLY with a significant rise in income would a woman overlook the ethnicity of a man that she will date him.

Okay, now this makes all women seem like gold-diggers, but we'd like to measure everything in terms of income because that is a number that we all can understand, rather than some arbitrary measure of "good-looking" or "average-looking".

To show some of the numbers, when given a choice between two similar men, one Caucasian and one Hispanic, the Caucasian woman would prefer the Caucasian man, unless the Hispanic man earns about $77,000 more in annual income than the Caucasian man. Now, these are just averages. Now to point out the outrageous discrepencies which I feel are a grave injustice to Asian males. White women, clearly prefer Asian guys least, as an Asian man has to earn about $247,000 MORE than their Caucasian counterpart in annual income before she would be indifferent.

That means that I have to be like in the top 10% of income earners, to even date a white chick. And don't even get me started on dating an Asian chick. Look, as cute as they are, the numbers show something even more devastating. While white women prefer white men, and black women prefer black men and Hispanic women prefer Hispanic men, the only sole oddity is that Asian women prefer white men ABOVE Asian men!

Oh the betrayal! The heartache. Even back home, I don't even have a homeground advantage in asking an Asian chick out! What the hell? She'd rather date some scruffy white dude over me???

Asian women would date a similar white guy, who earns $24k less in annual income than a similar Asian guy. So... apparently, I must be missing something here. I feel that it's kinda ridiculous. And I guess that's the way the cards have been dealt. So totaling up my expected annual income, to compensate for my height, weight, looks and ethnicity, to date a white chick, I must earn about $596,000 more annually than a good looking white dude. $596,000 annually???!?! That's the price of being born how I look, that's the price of genetics. Wow, I'm appalled. So, this means I need to earn about $619,000 a year, so that a white chick would prefer me over a McDonald's drive-thru employee. Yes! That's what this means! Wow, the difference is appalling.

I guess this also means I should not get my hopes up of finding a girlfriend, and in short, even if I were the last guy on this planet, I guess I still need to be earning at least a six-digit salary with any hopes of getting laid.

I've basically summarised the interesting parts of this study, and there are also other more technical things, like for the binary logit regression, the R-squared statistics for looks for women is about 0.30, while for looks for men is about 0.18. If you have no clue what R-squared means, just ignore this, but take away that looks is a better determinant of whether someone will contact you online, rather than your income or career. In fact, those are really marginal in this analysis. So you got to be good-looking to survive in life.

I was reading another economics junk book, you know those like Freakonomics and they sort of came to the conclusion that taller people seem to make more people than shorter people. They came to the conclusion that for every inch taller that you are, you earn approximately $1,000 more in annual salary. So apparently there might be some correlation here, after all, someone once told me, if you can pick up a chick at a bar, you can ace an interview. The same skills and factors might be called into consideration here, and I don't really doubt it, that attractiveness counts in looking for a partner or a job.

So that's a lot to take into, I mean, look, succeeding in life kinda depends a lot on your physical attributes, and I'm sorry that if you don't have any, like me, you better be earning hella a lot of money.

My Promiscuous Responsibility

2007-05-11T23:41:00.000-04:00

Since the publication of Freakonomics, economists have (finally) found a way to pay off their hefty student loans and turn their degrees into profit. And so with this as the preface to my story, I began by wandering around Barnes & Noble, poking around the Economics section, but I chanced upon a book entitled: "More Sex Means Safer Sex".

This book piqued my interests, not because there was the word "Sex" in the title, or even that it was repeated twice in the title, but because this book seemed way out of place, and thus I picked it up and perused it to hopefully glean some information as to why this book seemed to be in the wrong place.

The first chapter in this book had this one statement which I'm paraphrasing because I can't remember jack sh*t. Some economist said that if we have 2.25 more sexual partners, we could possible eradicate AIDS.

"Holy sh*t!" Mr Smarmy Snake-in-my-pants yells. "I need to tell my wife and six girlfriends about this so that I can have a nine-hole golf course!"

Okay, ahem, hang on a minute Mr Smarmy Snake-in-my-pants. The "we" that the economist refers to are the non-promiscuous people, i.e. the geeks, nerds, losers and me, of the species homo can't-get-laidicus.

So let me get this straight. If I go out right there now, and find two chicks, have a threesome regularly, then on the off-day, get together with three of my buddies and have an orgy with another chick, I'm doing my part to make the world a safer place from AIDS?

Somehow, it doesn't seem to work that way for me, so I continue reading the book, hoping that it will shed some rationality upon this matter. The scenario continues something like this, but the names and details have been changed.

John always plays World Of WarCraft. He plays as a level 67 Night Elf/Rogue and often plays straight till 5am in the morning. However, on this one odd day, he gets up and goes to a bar and have a drink. Right across the bar, sits this chick named Melinda, and she catches sight of John and smiles at him. John's heart skips a beat and he is now faced with the biggest choice of his life, since choosing to play as a Night Elf/Rogue. He either has to go over there and make small talk with Melinda, or go home and quest through the Outlands. John's manhood crumbles and he goes home and clicks away on his computer.

Suddenly, in walks Javier, alpha-male extraordinaire, baller, player and HIV carrier. Within two seconds, he spots dejected Melinda across the bar, and quickly moves in for the kill. With his suave words and convincing smile, he quickly manages to convince Melinda that she'll prevent global warming by going back home with Javier, having sex with him and doing anything he wants for the rest of the night. The next morning, Melinda has HIV, and doesn't realise it until full-blown AIDS hits her three years later.

Now if John did his manly duty and threw back a shot of tequila and salvaged enough of his manhood to turn away from World Of WarCraft to walk up to Melinda and chat her up, he would have saved her from the clutches of Javier. Okay, this doesn't make any sense, as Javier could so own John's ass on the dancefloor, but common sense also states that any competition is still competition anyway. Even if it is from a level 67 Night Elf/Rogue.

So this sounds like a very plausible explanation for how me having 2.25 more sexual partners could potentially save the world from AIDS, but I think this explanation has two serious flaws in that.

The first flaw is that there is some sort of inherent assumption that there are a finite amount of Javiers and an infinite amount of Johns. The problem with any guy is that once he has 2.25 sexual partners, why wouldn't he want more? Why stop at 2.25? Why not 3.67? Or 7.22? Inadvertantly, a John would become a Javier, and hence we would need infinitely more Johns than Javiers for this to vaguely work.

Because the scenario goes on to say that if John instead hooked up with Melinda for the night, then Melinda is saved from AIDS. And if John hooked up with some disease-infested hooker, then John goes home and safely dies from AIDS without further spreading it to anyone else. Sounds cruel, right? But that's life and death. And thus because of this, we would need infinitely more Johns than Javiers.

But this isn't such a bad problem. In fact, there might be infinitely more Johns than Javiers. A typical line I heard in a bar is, "Jenny, let's leave this bar. Its full of creepy losers." Yes, this technically goes to show that empirically, there might be a lot more Johns than Javiers, almost infinitely more.

Overheard at a bar:
A: Let's leave this bar. It's full of creepy losers.
B: What about that cute guy over there reading "More Sex is Safer Sex"?
A: No thanks, he's definitely a loser.
B: But he's reading a book.
A: He's reading a book about sex, he's definitely a creepy perv loser.

So basically the moral of the story is, don't read a book at a bar. And that you can't please any woman. And that there might be infinitely more Johns than Javiers.

The second problem is that there is this great moral conundrum, when a monogamous person with altruistic intentions of saving a problem has to choose between remaining monogamous to his girlfriend, or whether to go out to Hooters and grab some 1.25 ass.

Okay, this scenario is highly unlikely, because the odds of an altruistic male is about 1 in 100,000 and the odds of finding a male who believes in monogamy is 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. So this makes the chances of finding such a person almost infinitely small, and pretty much the world would be saved by the rest of the male human population who don't believe in monogamy anyway.

So in conclusion, perhaps there is something to this solution of the AIDS problem. Just by having more sex, we can make this world a better place to live. Think about this and extrapolate to not just HIV, but also chlamydia, gonorrhea, HPV, spyhilis, genital herpes, bacterial vaginosis, pelvic inflammatory disease and trichomoniasis. Isn't it worth it? Just by having 2.25 more sexual partners, we can make this world a better place. It's my promiscuous responsibility to do so, so please call me at 669-7273963.

And no, it's not my actual phone number, it's a code. But please, let me know if you're in.

A Dirty Feeling

2007-05-01T00:27:00.000-04:00

And so another chapter comes to a close, and I think that today is an apt day to make my final post about college. I am graduating.

For those who don't know, I'm a major in Actuarial Science and Finance, with outstanding quantitative skills, well-versed in MS Office Suite, particularly I can make Excel dance if I want to, I have a strong statistical background, well-suited for quantitative analysis and algorithmic trading, and I have plenty of experience working in teams and I am able to communicate my ideas effectively and currently unemployed and would gladly accept any offers right now to whore myself to the next employer who is willing to hire me for sub-par sweatshop-like wages. Currently, my only job offers come from three friends, two of them asking me to be their little Asian bitch, and the third one is a gay marriage proposal. I shall not elaborate. So now, you have a great opportunity to hire me for little more than subsistent wages, a highly-skilled and well-credentialed professional. What better bargain could you get?

Somehow, I am more than disillusioned by my entire experience here in my university. The fun times were mostly had outside of the university, mostly were things that I could have done, had I been in any other university. Though I must admit, going to Vegas from Singapore might have posed a problem.

Maybe it's an inherent business school problem, but there's really no such thing as community building within a business school. I quote a friend, "I had people burn me by giving me the wrong answers to a question just because they wanted to do better than me." Wow, somewhere along the line, could you actually imagine this happening to you back in elementary school?

I guess this brings me to my point, business school changes you in ways that any ethical person wouldn't like. The change is subtle at first and suddenly, one day, it hits you when you do something that you wouldn't normally do, and when you start being more business-like. It all starts with the competitive streak. I'm pretty sure I brought that with me to business school, so business schools do not create a competitive streak in people. But it sort of goes to show that competitive people go to a business school.

I must detract for a moment, unlike business schools at a community college, or a typical college in the movies, where you see frat guys drinking their brains out and never attending class, and then graduating with a degree in business administration, that isn't really what business school is about. At a business school, sometimes it becomes really cutthroat. After all, there are only so many jobs and internships to go around.

But it's seedy business. First you start doing your best. Then you realize that doing your best isn't enough, and you cease to share your knowledge. There's pretty much hardly a thing as collaboration in a business school. Let's just protect my own ideas and let me get credit for what I do. Whoever said there's no 'I' in team, surely didn't know how to spell 'me'. Because that's basically what's it all about. Me, me, me and me. Then suddenly you start lying, and you become more of a dick, and you start delegating responsibility and blame, and congrats, you graduate with an MBA.

But it's kinda that feeling I have right now. Forget all that talk about hiring the best and the brightest. It's all fluff, because if anyone bothered to read a company's annual report, they all say the same thing, "Our greatest assets are our employees, because they are the best and the brightest." Okay, if every company hires the best and the brightest, where are the second best and the second brightest? Or the worst and the dullest? There is no best or brightest anywhere out there. To be part of the business world, you need to pass a simple 'airport test'.

The 'airport test' basically is a test that goes like this: If I were stuck in an airport, would I mind being stuck at an airport with this guy?

That's all there is. I feel that's all there is. I had interviewers tell me, your qualifications are no different from other candidates. Pfft.

But I just want to say how dirty I feel coming out of business school. It's worse than coming out of a strip club. Yup, I know.

I feel somehow that I've compromised on my ethics and my soul. I probably need to do some charity work for the next three years in the malaria infested jungles of Africa to redeem a portion of my soul. One thing I've noticed weirdly about a change in me is that my MBTI personality type has changed. I was kinda certain I was an INTP (Introvert, Intuitive, Thinking, Perceiving) but the latest test which I took two months back revealed instead I was an INTJ (Introvert, Intuitive, Thinking, Judging). Now there might not be much of an difference between the two, but between perceiving and judging, there's kinda a personality switch I feel. One is more in the background, and the other one is more directive. J's tend to put their ideas into action, doing less meandering in the theoretical world. More of the, "Let's do it." rather than "That's interesting." reaction to things. And the business world tends to appreciate J's more than P's.

It's a whole slew of things that have made me feel that I have changed. I like myself less than I did three years ago. And part of the reason is I question: what have I accomplished these past three years?

But then again, it's not entirely my fault, after all, I am also a product of my environment. For instance, I don't believe that I have been treated fairly by my university. The housing issue is one thing. The fact that they have a flawed recruiting process is another. The academic curve is another. The inexperienced faculty is another. The lack of quality education is another. I mean, I could list a lot more, but nowhere have I felt challenged, enriched or enlightened. And from my conversations with some of my friends who know me, much of my learning is done out of class, most of my interesting posts aren't regarding school.

I did voice this out to my school's dean. After all she encouraged feedback. My friend was really cynical that I wouldn't get a reply which just goes to show what students who don't fawn at her feet think about her. She did reply, and basically she said this: "I'm sorry you had a disappointing experience here but you've already paid us and you're graduating, so I wouldn't give a shit about you anymore." Okay, maybe those weren't her exact words, but it certainly sounded like a very sarcastic, "Boohoo. Too bad, so sad." and that's about what I get for USD150,000. Granted, I also get a piece of paper that is suppose to get me a job, but hey, I am still unemployed.

I have a good mind to take that piece of paper, roll up an eighth of weed in it and smoke it, which basically is about the only thing it is good for right now.

I've come out from this whole process wiser, but none the better. Sometimes I just feel frustrated by the double standards things are. I am disappointed at some of the choices that these employers make. Congrats to them, you've found someone you'll like to work with. But then again, when you request a drug test, and these people, yes there are a lot of these people, somehow manage to fake the results, does it mean you've made the right choice? I mean, I've heard so many conversations in the halls about drinking some weird crap so that drugs will be masked in the urine test, so that they can get their cushy Morgan Stanley internship. Wow... what does it mean? Does it mean you won't hire potheads, but make an exception for potheads who are smart enough to beat the system?

I don't know. Maybe it's a deep regretful feeling in me that I've talked like them, walked like them, acted like them and drank like them. And I don't get to be like them with a cushy job and all. So maybe I've compromised on who I am, tried to be who I'm not, and maybe it's time to call it quits. After all, how low must I sink before I realize that no matter what I do, that I'll never be a part of the White Gentleman's Club. Wait, you probably know it by another name, the White Anglo Saxon Protestants. Whatever you call it.

So it has come down to this, I'm about to call it quits. This is a world that doesn't want me, and doesn't want me around, only my money. So maybe I have to prepare for certain eventualities. But I'm not keeping my hopes up.

I had an insensitive professor who said something along the lines of, "You know, it's really hard for us white people to get a job because we aren't a minority." That's about as racist as it comes. Can someone say 'nappy-headed ho'?

So what's there to not feel dirty about? Being corrupted to the core, doing things I wouldn't normally do, and picking fights because of malice and superiority complex. I've stopped thinking about other people's feelings a long time already. I've only been looking out for number one, and I guess I have killed a mockingbird. It's not that hard, just go to business school.

Welcome to New York City

2007-04-17T10:18:00.000-04:00

Welcome to New York City.

Sin City

2007-04-16T19:13:00.000-04:00

Disclaimer: I guess this is one of the few times I better write a disclaimer. This is not to cover my own ass against some legal lawsuit, but rather, perhaps, for those who know me, the person who you are about to listen to, is not who you know. This person who is recounting this story is aware of the repercussions to his reputation and yes, seriously, it's probably that bad.

It all started one fine day, when my phone suddenly rang. It was a quiet, normal day, with me swamped by work as usual, when my friend called up and said he has plans to go to Las Vegas for his 21st birthday and that me and a bunch of other guys were invited. Okay, maybe it didn't happen like that, but this sets the beginning of the story, when we, a bunch of crazy college students, hopped on that plane in the middle of a Thursday afternoon, to experience a weekend of debauchery, decadence and sin.

The moment we got off the plane, we were more than antsy to gamble our parent's money away. The first sight that greeted my eyes was that of the innumerous slot machines that stand at attention to greet all tourists who just got off the flight. There's a weak feeble sign on the first on, "No one under the age of 21 is permitted to play at the slot machines or loiter nearby" which is much like the required government warning on all cigarette labels, "Smoking Kills" but you might as well do it anyway.

The first sin we committed was that of avarice, or rather, we got a stretch limo from the airport to our hotel. First time, seven of us piled into the back of the limo, and we were cruising down the strip. While such extravagance was not lost on me, it gave me remarkable insight into the mentality of the place. There were literally stretch limos all over the place. And the proximity of the airport to the casinos were not lost on me. Instantly, we were hit with the dazzling lights of all the casinos on the strip, each trying to outdo the other in all impressiveness with the lights and pools and facade that looks like it's made of gold. The innumerous casinos there are insane in their attempts to attract customers. This is a picture of the Mirage at night as we strolled on by.

Our chauffeur was very helpful in providing VIP passes to some of the best clubs on Vegas, plus tips on which strip clubs to go. His most memorable comment was, "You know, in the summer, it's so hot that chicks just walk around wearing a g-string, heels and pasties." Google that if you're not a guy. There was uproar in the limo upon that statement, we cursed that our dear friend, whose birthday we were celebrating, who was not born in June or July. But clearly, there were more than enough sights to see, and sights to see galore.

But that aside, we instantly hit the casinos after our blitz check-in, and hit Caesar's Palace and then the Flamingo. The former was an awesome high class place where the high rollers go and the cocktail waitresses are in the skimpiest pieces of cloth which does not even qualify as modest in most nightclubs. I was getting spoilt on the eye candy, but the stakes at Caesar's Palace do not agree with my wallet, and hence we moved off to Flamingo. Flamingo was old-school gambling haven, with the pink neon lights and considerably less eye-candy, but undeterred, we were prepared to gamble and prepared to lose some money. After handing off some money to the casino, we decided that maybe 4am was a good time to sleep and we headed back to our seedy hotel.

The next morning, we instantly hit another bunch of casinos, it was all a whirl of greed, gluttony, sloth and envy. I saw chips and I guess I sort of lost it a little. I didn't lose a lot of money, but rather I was pissed that I exceeded my gambling budget so fast. We visited places like the Wynn, and Paris (pictures) and it was another whirlwind of gambling and other such decadent behavior. Somehow, I know from my past experience that there's no point in chasing after losses, but there seems to be something in me that screams out to put more money down, maybe you'll win this time. I guess at this point here, I think of luck, that I am not a lucky person. I think the world owes me a lottery jackpot by now for the innumerable bad luck I have. But that's just a gambler's way of thinking. Luck is a way that people try to maintain some sort of control over unpredictable events. It's like saying: I have good luck, no matter what sh*t happens out there, it's gonna be alright for me.

Well, I'm not a lucky person. And things didn't go well, but it didn't matter. It was all to be expected, the house always wins. But I found myself itching and wanting more. It wasn't anymore about winning money, there was something in me that asked me to play, that I didn't want to stand around doing nothing and looking lame. I played, I was tempted into playing. How could I not play with a gambling table every two feet? I gambled away quite a bit of money, but there was a strange feeling inside me that I didn't fear losing or enjoy winning. A hollowness inside, and I remember myself saying, "It's okay, so much sh*t has already happened to me that I don't think losing that much money would change anything."

That night, my friend's dad, who also flew in for his birthday, took us all out to dinner at Nobu, and we had a very filling dinner, with sushi prepared in a variety of fusion ways. It was awesome, it was different from the usual sushi. The prideful sushi aficionado myself, I was somewhat surprised that even salmon drenched in olive oil and soy sauce could do the lambada on my tongue. A dish that was completely unique was this whitefish with a tangy taste of lime. To me, it wasn't want sushie was suppose to be, but it whetted my appetite. Everything was fresh, and I tasted life. Before I could take a picture of the dishes, chopsticks were quickly bearing in on the raw pieces of fish, and luckily, me being Asian, I could fight them off and grab my share. It was that good.

Anyway, after that we tried hitting a club, but with one of our posse not bringing the right shoes we were denied despite a lot of name-dropping. For some reason, we just knew Keith ran the show, and we just said Keith said we could do it. And I remember the bouncer telling us, "Guys come on in, we could sit you next to eleven girls." Do the math, that's about 1.6 chicks per guy. And all because one of our dudes couldn't make it in... so we were greatly disappointed, but not for long.

It turns out that gambling was not the only vice in Vice City, and just upon exiting the hotel, somehow we got a stretch limo (again) to one of the hottest gentlemen's club in the city. Okay, I'll come out and say it, strip club, tittie bar, whatever you want to call it, it was there and it was an experience. Chicks were coming up to us and asking if they could dance for us, and while there was no pressure, their sexy red lips with batting eyelashes said no, their sexy slender hips and luscious womanly bits said yes. So it started out, a couple of us bought lap dances, and the birthday boy (yes, surprisingly we were still celebrating his birthday for the entire week) got plenty of eye-candy. It was a strange thing, to see chicks so ready to take off their clothes, and I was intrigued. Okay, seduced. Whatever.

Anyway, this hot blonde chick, Paula, in kinky red lingerie walked up to me, and she came up and said to me, in a seductive Czech accent, the most cliched starter for a conversation, "You better be careful." I knew the lines to this conversation and I responded in turn, "Why?" She stared close into my eyes, barely inches from my face, I could lightly smell the perfume emanating off her sensual body, and she said, "Because of danger." I responded according to the script, "Are you dangerous?" And she gave me this look as she rubbed up against me, then she looked away. I swear, this all happened, the most cliched conversation I have ever had with a stripper, "I don't know," she replied as she leaned in.

That set the stage, like a snake hypnotising its prey with its gentle swaying motion, she sat on my lap and asked me, "Do you want a dance?" I looked at her, I wondered how could I say no?

I guess its time here for a morality check. Is it immoral to go to a strip club? Is it immoral to ogle at a naked woman's body and have lecherous thoughts? Is it immoral to want to have a feel of another woman's skin against yours? I guess in all aspects it is, but strange enough, I respected this woman. She was smart, she knew how to handle a man, she said all the right things, gave all the right signals, she knew how far to give and when to stop, and tantalising for more. Her job was stripping, and she was good at her job. It was tempting and I wanted to find out more about this woman.

I said, yes. She didn't hesitate, she didn't look away for a moment, she got straight to it, and she took of her top. She started to grind up against me, and I guess I was lost in the moment. She smelled weakness I guess, and then she looked at me with her dark brown eyes and said, "Do you want to go to somewhere more private?" I could swear she was one of the most hottest chick there, if not the hottest, and I could not think of a reason to say no. She had me there.

We went to a dark backroom, where I gave away my credit card. Genius, I know, this was going to be one hell of an expensive lap dance. I took into mind not to simply sign away anything, and was quite amused upon reading their disclaimer. It said something about not soliciting prostitution and blah blah, and it was such a thick paragraph of words that only someone like me would bother reading the fine print. But my attention was soon taken away for the next thirty minutes. It wasn't all just show, okay, forgive me, but I didn't just want to stare, I wanted to know the person who was giving me something to stare at. I wanted to know why, I wanted to ask, and she was a complete professional. She amazed me by knowing the right things to say, her lies were plentiful; she was from Czech, she came here to study, needed money to pay off her student loans and she found doing dancing fun. I slowly remembered the details as I wanted to mull over them later. She also knew when to stop talking and start putting on a show, she knew how to engage me in conversation, and I could swear no one would give a rat's ass about what I had to say, but she listened with rapt fascination as though I was recounting how I saved the world, twice.

My thoughts ended up in a simple conclusion; if she ever walked into an interview, she'd get the job no matter what it was. She knew the right things to say, and how to avoid the wrong questions. I questioned, probed and tried to learn all I could, and I have to say that I am in awe of her skills. If I had her pretense or her ability to relate to people, I wouldn't be unemployed right now. Sure, her breasts were fine and her ass was tight, but this was a person who knew what she was doing. She was trying to be as close as possible, yet distant at the same time, and we flirted quite a bit and I felt a bit sad that she was just doing her job. But I did learn a lot of things, about how to say the right things, how to avoid questions and how women have this power over men to mold them like putty in their hands, or in between their breasts.

I guess by now, my reputation's pretty much what it is now. I figured that perhaps I should be ashamed for doing what I did; paying for pseudo-sex. But I learnt something, and that was something that I would not have ever understood, had I not been in that chair. Is it wrong just to think of it as her job? I don't know, while I was there, I didn't feel guilty, I didn't feel immoral or dirty. I felt that was an interesting experience, and perhaps I understand my fellow man a little better now. How some guys do enjoy having their balls ripped off by their significant other, or how men can be tempted into doing things they wouldn't normally do. We can be high and mighty on our throne of morality, but perhaps the only way to master ourselves and be truly upright is not to avoid temptation, but be above temptation.

That argument sort of sounds like, "I can quit smoking anytime, I just don't want to." But as I reflect upon that, it was a lesson that I learnt. I have no desire to go back there. I might if I'm in the area with something to celebrate, but no other reason. It was a pure hollow, physical, business-like relationship and I felt the emptiness and the lies, despite those lies making me feel good while I was there. Maybe I'm glad I did it, I think that I should learn to lie like her, tell people what they want to hear. All I need to do now is to learn the cues. It's weird, huh? Me, having respect for a stripper, but I think somehow, we always got something to learn from someone else.

But I suppose that was that, and we left soon after. I told her, "You'll forget about me tomorrow." She said she wouldn't, and she called me a Malaysian prince. (She glanced at my passport) Sorry miss, am not that rich. Maybe she won't, after all, a good stripper is one who develops long-term relationships with her clients. But seeing as I'm not going back there anytime soon, she'll forget me. But I've dwaddled on this topic for way too long.

We went back to our usual regime of gambling, and the next day, we found ourselvs at the Wynn, and I watched my friend cash in pot after pot at poker. I remember this one hand he won, it was ridiculous. Mind the poker lingo: he had pocket kings and the guy had pocket nines. The flop came five, rag, rag and then after the turn, which was also a rag, my friend raised 120 dollars, and the guy called. When the river came, he raised 120 again, and the guy thought for a long time, then he said, "All-in" My friend thought for two minutes, then called, and doubled up his chips right there and then. Total pot size? Over a thousand dollars. I remember watching with envy, he made it all look so easy. But I suppose he had luck too, that elusive lady b*tch who would is so fickle.

We gambled quite a bit more after that, I remembered here at one point, I almost lost it. I placed down two large bets and lost both. It was a blow and I was still feeling empty inside. It didn't matter how much money I lost, I was just basically pissed off with life because back in the real world, out of Sin City, my life was basically in the sh*ts. We went "bawling" later that night. Seriously, "bawling". We got a VIP table at a club, shelled out big bucks for a bottle of Absolut Citron and Grey Goose, and were drinking quite a bit. Some of us, were really "bawling out of control". Heh, this picture is of my friends and they really look like they're "bawling". Note the really expensive sneakers.

It was quite a night, I suppose, there were these two dancers who decide to take a break in the area next to ours and that was the second hottest thing I saw that night, as two of them made out. Okay, no kissing, but very close to it, very very close. I wish I was a little drunker at that point, so I would do something completely stupid and at least talk to them. But they were enjoying a cigarette there and soon thereafter they left. They didn't come back.

Strangely, for an overcrowded nightclub in Vegas, there was a dearth of hot chicks. We made friends with one of the bouncers and it was pretty cool to have a 6'2 guy weighing 300 pounds, dressed all in black who'd go up to random chicks and say, "Look, I got a couple of guys back here who'd like to meet you." Yeah, awesome! But there was an apparent lack of hot chicks. For every one hot chick the bouncer introduced to us, she had one ugly friend tagging along. Sorry, I'm that shallow, but I'm just here for the eye-candy, not in the mood for conversation. I was still there drinking 9-parts vodka, 1-part cranberry juice, and the crowd slowly started to thin. I guess we should have come earlier, about 11pm instead of almost 1am. All the hot chicks might have left already. But anyway, in case some people were wonder what did I mean by the second hottest thing in the bar and what is the hottest thing in the bar, look at what I got my hands on.

Anyway, I guess in part, I have become quite shallow and very much an asshole. But I guess it comes with the turf. I have committed the seven deadly sins enough times that I wonder what is a possible penitence there is for me. But it is Las Vegas, and it is what you get when you go there. I guess I really believe in experience and this has been a truly awesome experience. The stories told, the "bawlers" out of control and it's a once in a lifetime thing. And I think once in a lifetime is just quite enough for this lifetime.

Afterword: We picked ourselves up and went back, but not before a little bit of Roulette again, and I found myself crashing earlier to sleep than the rest of the guys. We woke up and checked out and the hardcore gamblers went playing poker again, while the not-so-hardcore gamblers hung out at a sports bar with the company of this cute waitress named Lindsey. We tried to get into the poolside, but it was for guests only and I guess I had a glimpse of what it was like there when a bevy of beautiful bikini-covered tits and asses walked by me, through the casino and back to the privacy of their own rooms. But at the Hard Rock Hotel, they played awesome music, and in true style, they had an awesome decor and a lot of memorabilia from the great rockers of the past, from Beatles, to Meatloaf, to Metallica, to a whole bunch of other people and in truth, I am now inspired to mount a guitar on my wall. But that was the conclusion of my trip and after all that has happened, maybe what happened in Vegas should have stayed in Vegas.

Hypocrisy forgets, but never dies

2007-04-10T09:46:00.000-04:00

Remember, remember always, that all of us... are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

I guess right now I'm dealing with the whole immigration thing. After all, I am a designated non-resident alien. Wow, look how that phrase just stings. Not human, not person, but alien. Maybe I've watched too much X-Files, but since when has the word alien have any neutral or positive connotations? Isn't it just a crude way of saying that I do not belong to this world?

You see right now, I draw a parallel between me trying to get into the United States (again) on a H1-B visa, and the situation I'm watching right now as NYU admits more students into its halls.

The background is that the admittance rate of NYU has soared by 4%. That means 4% of applicants who wouldn't have gotten in, in 2006, now would have gotten in if they applied in 2007. Or in numbers, 1,165 more students are admitted to NYU. According to Bloomberg.com, approximately 1,000 less students have applied to NYU this year, because of the required SAT IIs. So less people are applying and more people are being accepted contributes to this rise in acceptance rates.

I think NYU being the no. 1 dream school is highly overrated. I'm here in NYU and I couldn't really understand why that is so. But one thing I do protest is that I believe NYU is letting in too many students. Last year's incoming freshmen totaled 4,400 noobs and noobettes. And I think that that is way too much. First of all, the common areas in the buildings are always consistently flooded with people. Come exam time, there are no places to find a computer or a table to even study at. Computer terminals are full up. Last year there was a housing fiasco where 500 students were not assigned on-campus housing because there were not enough spots. NYU is heavily promoting it's study abroad plans to peddle students to its overseas campuses to relieve some of the space shortage in the university. With all these signs, clearly the university is taking on more than it can handle.

With regards, what are the adversed consequences of this? Technically, I should be for admitting more students, because each marginal student that is accepted (marginal, used in an economic sense) would invariably raise my GPA along the curve. But somehow, the facilities in NYU aren't enough to go around. Ever tried hitting the gym at 5pm?

Now if the population in NYU increases by approximately 1% a year, and tuition grows at over 5.5% a year, now what was the inflation rate in the United States again? 3.23% in 2006? 3.39 in 2005? Now what's going on here? Am I not getting my value for my money? Or is it like NYU is seeking to patch things up by bringing in more students so that they would pay more so that we can all reap the benefits of the influx of cash?

NYU scores top for three things, which are #1 dream school, #1 students dissatisfied with financial aid and #1 for gay acceptance. That's pathetic in my opinion. First of all, NYU isn't a dream school because it's NYU, but because it's in NYC. Students dissatisfied with financial aid? That's not something to be proud of. And finally there's a fine line between tolerance and proponents. I don't mind people of different sexual orientation, but what is "Gay by May" suppose to mean?

So kinda there's nothing to be proud of. Instead, shouldn't it be more selective, breeding only smarter students? Sure, it's elitist behavior, but when there aren't enough places, housing or facilities to go around, shouldn't you start culling the student population instead of seeking to expand?

But isn't that the same exact argument for the entire immigration debate? That America should shut its doors to immigration. There are limited number of jobs in America and that these should go to Americans to provide their livelihood instead of to immigrants with no loyalty, and would drive wages down and make everyone suffer.

Have you seen some of the comments out there on immigration? Wow. Those people are certainly bitter. The vile slime they sling around, yes, the veneer is only that thin, and racism easily shows up. Some of them complain that immigrants do not know how to speak English, and that tech companies only hire them because they are cheaper, but not more efficient, and that tech companies are abusing the visas for low-skilled and medium-skilled jobs.

I'm sorry I'm not hired because I don't fit into that mold. I don't speak English well, I work for less money that reasonable, and guess what, I guess any cab driver can be an actuary.

But there are differences between letting more students into a school, and letting immigrants into a country. Immigrants has one of those connotations that is closely related to "illegal" and "border runner". Letting highly skilled workers into the country would generate more jobs. C'mon, highly skilled workers would mean that high tech industries would grow and spend money, relying more on the lower industries to provide services and goods, and blah blah, it trickles down to the blue collar worker. Highly skilled workers pay more taxes than those people who are whining about their jobs. Social Security overload? Budget deficit? Any of those sound familiar to you? Don't you need more people to contribute money to these?

The only ones whining about the influx of immigration is NOT the companies, is NOT the blue collar workers, is NOT the government, and is NOT especially the consumer. It's the people who are losing their jobs and salary that are complaining and projecting their loss onto the larger masses by saying it's going to be the end of the world if America lets in more immigrants. All their arguments revolve around their own personal selfish loss. If it wasn't their loss, they wouldn't have said anything else, they'd be enjoying their martini, driving their Porsches, and sleeping with their secretaries. You see, it's true, immigrants are driving down wages, but were those wages fair to begin with? Are we so sure as to proclaim that the salaries that we receive right now are considered fair wage? Those people seem to think so, that they think that perhaps USD100,000 is mediocre and they dream of job security and they can continuously leech of a company without thinking of being replaced.

Guess what? Welcome to the global economy. It's globalisation coming back to bite America in the ass by taking away its jobs. Twenty years ago, while the west was so inclined to open markets in the east, now, the east is going to infiltrate the job market in the west. I don't think any one is qualified just to blame the loss of their job on something like globalisation or how companies are being unfair, evil and cheap by hiring the cheapest or outsourcing.

In fact, I think that it is unethical for a company not to outsource and cut its cost whenever possible. If America prides itself for freedom and capitalism, then hold true to your values and let companies act in the scope of capitalism; seek the lowest cost, sell to the highest bidder. Is it unfair to punish the shareholders of a corporation by not allowing them to lower their cost? By forbidding them from outsourcing or seeking the cheapest labor? Why do they have to pay for your job security? Why do shareholders have to suffer at the expense of the public? A minority few has to subsidise the lifestyle of the many?

I guess you can only display outrage if you've never shopped at WalMart. Isn't that what you're doing also when you shop at WalMart? You seek the lowest cost, be it made in Detroit or GuangZhou, China. There's no protest by the toaster stand, calling you evil and hypocritical for not supporting American jobs, there's no government legislation saying that you need to hire a lawyer, fill a thousand forms and pay USD10,000 to buy something that's Made In China. Go ahead, when was the last time you bought something that was made in America just for the intention of saving some American jobs? Now if you were in that perspective, what would you do? Would you buy a DVD player made in China for only USD40, or made in America for USD250?

That's the thing I don't get about inconsistent behavior like this. How can a company be blamed for looking for the cheapest, while consumers are not for sales and low prices?

See, I'm struggling with that a lot in my life. That it comes to my thoughts that how can someone advocate one thing yet vilify another? It's rather like how Congress wants to ban violence but allow porn. Or how people goes to church then turns around and condemns death to Saddam, which they got. Or how some people demand the worst possible punishment for a racial slur just to make an example for everyone else. I know people here are talking about how shock jock, Don Imus should be punished or made an example of for making a racist comment about the Rutgers Women's Basketball team, but I also wonder whether they have thought of racist thoughts themselves, and whether they feel better about themselves, if they can sleep better at night if they somehow burnt Don Imus at the stake? The public outrage feels that way, it seriously does somehow stink of hypocrisy, and Al Sharpton is no less the face of hypocrisy. Sharpton is always there whenever there is racist crime, he seems to thrive on it, he comes down so hard on it like some high-handed religious zealot that it seems the reason he lives is to fight these battles over racism, and he has to appear the most morally outraged among everyone. Sure racism is a crime, but to make an example of it, and to ruin a person's life because of one faux pas, because we all thought of it at one point but just never said it, feels that we're just barbaric because the punishment never did fit the crime. Since when was it right to make an example out of a person for everyone else?

That's hypocrisy man, that's being racist against racists. Prejudiced against the prejudiced. Intolerant of the intolerant. People are smarter and they know how to give such behavior the treatment it deserves; a loud resonating disapproving silence of changing the channel.

I do believe there is a way of reconciling all these observations, and that is my assumptions are wrong. America doesn't value capitalism, or freedom, or lowest cost, or anything else. No singular virtue could be singled out that could explain all these behaviors consistently. The only explanation is that people are inherently selfish. They only act in a way that benefits themselves.

What about me? Why do I want my university to start closing its doors while America opens theirs? Am I being selfish? Maybe, but I don't think so, it's just what I believe is the best possible outcome for everyone, and not just myself. Mainly because I do not see any added value in my university for adding more students, rather that NYU loses more than it gains, because the space for each additional student costs more than his tuition, and reduces all our overall educational experiences by depriving us of one less utility in the university, be it housing or academics or school facilities. You can't argue that my life will be worse of if I didn't know that person, when I don't even know 70% of the students in my own university. Whereas I see myself adding more value to America by staying and working, rather than leaving. How do I justify that? I have a college degree, that already means I'm better qualified for a higher paying job than the 75% of Americans who don't.

The Scripted World

2007-03-06T00:24:00.000-05:00

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:

Jaques, scene vii, Shakespeare

Human relationships are a funny thing. Seriously, yeah, funny haha, rather than funny weird. When I walk into the bookstore, there's invariably a whole entire section devoted to the human relationship. How to interact among people, how to manage people, how to understand people, how to get a date, how to impress a date, how to bring home a date, how to date a date, how to ask for a second date, how to succeed in a date, how to date a successful man, how to date a successful woman, how to date a successful date, how to date without dating, how to date and not date, how to find love in dating, how to find dates in loving and a lot of whole bizarre books that tout pretty much the same basic truths in human relationships; it's about confidence.

But I am struck by this one scene in the movie School for Scoundrels: Dr. P: How many of you have self-help books? Okay that's your first problem. You can't help yourself, because your self sucks!

But that's not entirely what I'm getting at. Because at the end of the day, a successful relationship is like a waltz. Human relationships are about dancing, and I'm partial to the waltz, so I like to describe a harmonious human relationship as a beautiful waltz.

One, two, three. One, two, three. Step, step, step. Spin, twirl, turn. One, two, three. One, two, three.

You see, we got to follow certain pre-arranged steps in order to get along well with others. And it's much less about what we say, but rather what we are going to say. People don't really care about your ideas, but they like you pretty much all the same if you say the right things. A friend put it rather aptly on his blog, that invariably the correct answer to any Miss Universe question would be, "World Peace." and that the invariable correct answer to any soldier would be, "Because I love my country, sir!" and "Yes, sir!" professed with gusto and full of passion, albeit badly disguised.

One thing I've learnt by going through job interviews is that no one gives a shit what you say, or how you feel about the job. The interviewer never fails to ask you the same cliched questions, and he knows that those questions are cliched. You, in turn, know those cliched questions and must always respond with cliched answers. See? This is like the waltz, the interviewer leads the dance, and one, two, step. One, two, step. And if you don't follow, well, let's just say the music doesn't last forever.

A typical dance routine goes like this:

Interviewer: Do you love this job?
Me: I love this job more than my mother.
Interviewer: How do you feel about finance?
Me: It flows in my blood.
Interviewer: Are you a team player?
Me: Hell yes, I love sports

Answers like, "Everyone has a mortgage to pay." and "For the money, of course." doesn't quite cut it, even though it's so chillingly true. No brilliant smart alec answer will cut it, no outstanding matter-of-fact statement will cut it, only the most pretentious of all altruisms will get you where you want to be. It's all about the dance. You must dance to the rhythm... even though you feel the strings tied to your arms and legs and the crowd screams, "DANCE PUPPET DANCE!" And pretty much, that is what is needed to succeed in a job interview.

To extrapolate a little into other more personal human relationships, the dance becomes even more important, and all the more scripted. The closer we are to people, the more we stick to this awkward dance routine, that seems old and stale. How many conversations have we started with:

Dude: Yo, wassup?
Me: Nuthin', how about you?
Dude: The usual.
Me: Oh.

Why is it important to keep in rhythm to these dance steps? Because that's how we know each other, it's like some sort of secret club handshake, or some bizarre routine only known by insiders. It's a secret code that identifies ourselves, and when we get closer to people, the traditions and norms sometimes become even more outrageous, to foster a better sense of closeness. This is the sort of fundamental that all secret societies are based on, and this includes all sorts of fraternities and sororities.

It's interesting to look back at some of my message logs and notice how all my conversations start with the same sort of routine way. To those people I know, I start off with a few vulgarities, name-calling, plus things that I wouldn't say in front of a lady. And they respond in kind. See? This is also part of the dance routine. When two jocks high-five each other, and buttslaps each other and chugs beer and burps, that's pretty much too part of the dance, to get closer to each other, by mimicking each other's steps, and forming human relationships.
I guess what I'm really talking about is kinda closely related to culture of a people. It's the kind of social norms that I say, that sort of cement a kind of close personal relationship with another person at the expense of a little truth.

Maybe if we look at a couple's relationship, it goes even further:

Chick: Do you love me?
Dude: Of course.
Chick: Then say that you love me.
Dude: C'mon now...
Chick: Please?
Dude: Okay... I love... you...

Have you ever gotten into a situation where you asked someone a question, and you know they are going to lie to you, but you accept the lie anyway, because you don't want to ruin the relationship? That's pretty much like in the waltz... if your partner steps on your toes, you just shrug it off and continue dancing, because you want the dance to continue. Take for example:

Chick: Were you looking at that whore?
Dude: What whore?
Chick: Your eyes were practically all over her ass.
Dude: You know I only have eyes for you.
Chick: Yeah right.
Dude: C'mon baby, I love... you...

It's a kind of waltz, of tip-toeing around each other. We must each know the right things to say, and the right things aren't necessary the truthful thing to say. I think relationships aren't based on truths, but based on expectations, and the most successful relationships are those with little expectations. After all, if you don't expect your girlfriend to be loyal to you, your girlfriend to care for you when you're sick, or your girlfriend to at least call you once in a while, then you're fine with her being your girlfriend, and no broken relationship there, then, no matter what she does. And the thing is people expect you to do the dance. You must dance, because that is what is said in the script. People know the script, they know your response, they just like to hear you follow the script, because at least they know you are on the same page as them. Then, at least, the show can go on.

The show must go on.

Empowerment of the Masses

2007-03-02T14:36:00.000-05:00

Of all the people in the world, I find that it is only the Americans who reject what we term as "general truth". Take for example the issue on global warming. It's not something dumbed down like "climate change", but global warming, because the world is getting warmer. Quit climate changing the topic. But Americans are so skeptical about the whole thing about global warming. I've talked to smart college students who are still arguing that global warming does not exist. And I'm wondering why, with overwhelming evidence, and a generally supportive science body, that Americans refuse to accept this is happening.

Another issue which most of the world has no problem accepting is the view of evolution. Evolution may as well be the gospel truth. It sort of makes sense, with sufficient hindsight, it explains things, and it sort of gives a general idea of the study of living things. The only problem with evolution is that it takes God out of the picture. Isn't that what science has been doing all this while: explaining real physical phenomena without the superstition? So why is it that Americans take so much offense that evolution is taught? They might as well hate all sorts of scientific explanation, because there's no god factor in them.

Finally, a thing I would like to bring up is that it is only in America, that drugs, with their fancy names like Zoloft, Zanpax, Lunestra and Cialis are marketed directly to the consumer. You see enough advertistments out there, telling people to go ahead, "If you think you're suffering from a disease, you probably are, and if you take our drug, you'd be happy and chicks will flock to you." Yes... these advertistments usually contain images of healthy happy couples holding hands together, implying that drugs help a relationship. Then with a jarring jolt to reality, they are required by law to list possible side-effects, but doesn't matter, the soothing voice continues, telling you your problems can be solved with just a pill.

To me, these three things are the result of what's wrong with Americans. I feel somehow that they believe that they are very intelligent people, and they view any sort of knowledge that comes from a source beyond them, professionals like scientists and doctors, with deep suspicion. Knowledge such as global warming, evolution and prescriptions are specialised forms of knowledge, only possibly discovered by scientists and doctors who have been in the field a long time, and have done many studies on it. A layman could not possibly "discover" global warming, nor evolution. Which poses a great challenge to many Americans to accept these truths.

Americans dislike being told what to think. This comes after a long history of self-empowerment and conviction that they are pretty much the best thing to walk the world. Number one country in the world? America. Number one holder of patents in the world? America. Most patriotic country in the world? America. Go Team America, go!

But then they come to the conclusion that the only truth they believe in, is those truths that they can ascertain by themselves. Forget the common practice of quoting junk science and rogue scientists and even the Christian Science Monitor. Despite whatever you think, the tomb of Jesus is another hoax. Americans, for some reason, have a big distrust of institutionalised knowledge. They are only inclined to believe in themselves, which leads to sometimes a misguided sense of the way things work in the world.

It's kinda like back when men first discovered fire, and knew thunder, lightning and wind, and without the rigorous demands of science, they are lead to invent their own simplified superstitious explanations of how things work.

The Truth Is Out There?

I Want To Believe?

When your theories break down, and you have no more explanations, the only thing you can do is blame everything on a conspiracy. Global warming is a conspiracy by the environmentalists. Evolution is a conspiracy by the ultra-godless-liberals. Doctors don't want to treat you with the best drugs, so that they can profit. Yeah, it's the institutions who try to cover things up, the FBI, NSA, CIA, whatever other three letter organization who could possibly have nothing better to do, than to kidnap, brainwash and anal probe you. Yes. You people.

You people who think you're so smart that you can just figure things out on your own. That everyone else is out to get you. That you live in a web of lies. A single individual is empowered today by technology and science. The individual has access to knowledge beyond the greatest libraries in the world. He can do things, discover truths and find out new knowledge. However, you people have turned inwards, your own empowerment used to propogate your own misguided "truths" instead of finding out real truths for yourself. With great power comes great responsibility. But instead, you chose to wallow in ignorance. Pfft.

Oh yeah, did I also mention? America has the most conspiracy theories in the world.

... but someone's gotta do it.

2007-02-16T10:05:00.000-05:00

Here's an article I found in my school's newspaper.

Certain names have been changed to avoid potential lawsuits and damaging my chances to graduate.

Cheating Is A Dirty Business, Sternies

Oh Sternies,

It is painful to realize that those you trust and support are dirty, cheating whores.

But Sternies cheat rampantly. Though not everyone is guilty, the problem, like HPV, is endemic. And everyone in Stern knows it. With such emphasis placed on a GPA (which only reflects a student's academic achievements), knowing other students cheat forces the whole community to follow suit to stay in the game. If cheating hurts anyone, it hurts the student - oh, how it burns - and tarnishes the reputation Noob is so proud of, holding itself as one of 's strongest and most credible colleges. Within the school, there is a lack of sincerity and passion. Instead, Sternies are driven to beef up that resume. Furthermore, the administration doesn't practice what it preaches - it's easy to teach business ethics, but enforcing them seems a bit out of Stern's league. If students can't act ethically in class, how can they be expected to act ethically in the business world?

THe only kind of diversity Stern celebrates is ethnic. A diversity of interests? A diversity of backgrounds? Those won't make you a Stern Scholar, and if you're not a Stern Scholar, say goodbye to leadership roles.

Stern students are educated to promote change in a business community where corporations exhibit no responsibility. With such a priority on educating students in ethics, social responsibility and teamwork, it's heart-breaking how many students have already thrown those lessons out the window. Teams in all kinds of classes must compromise with members who have only their individual interests in mind, not the team's. Social responsibility is stressed in the curriculum every year, but Stern students will cheat, lie and knock down anyone in their way without considering the effect on the community.

Some feel dirty and betrayed, as should the administration. What kid of relationship is it when those involved are forced to cheat? The word "healthy" doesn't come to mind. Valtrex does, though.

We're not as bad as those film students who'd like to portray us.

I must admit that I think much of our business stereotype is created in part by our arch-nemesis in the realm of education, our opposites, the emotional to our rationale, the rhyme to our reason, the idealistic to our realism. Yes, that's you, film students.

When was the last time we saw a film where the ultimate evil was not an old Caucasian man with no heart and family, in a business suit that he looks like he's going to be buried in?

All business students must somehow feel the sting, being accused of being unethical, moralless bastards committing bestial atrocities against humanity. This article isn't even about criticism of our education, or failures of the system, but rather a direct criticism of business students as a whole, as if we, ourselves were born as the monsters that you described. This feels worse than mud being flung in the face, not just by outsiders, but by people within this community and university. Furthermore your abject ignorance in this matter is so blatant, that I'm surprise that even anyone from my business school would chuckle at this matter and toss your editorial aside.

Like most schools, our GPA matters very little to whether we can secure our next job. Yes, most employers do look at GPA, but they look beyond the academic credentials. They look for transferable skills, networking abilities, business experience, quick-thinking and decision-making skills. We have outside interests and hobbies, we connect with other non-business people in a variety of other ways, and we are not just motivated by that huge annual bonus at the end of the year. Business students aren't just judged on paper, by resume or by stereotype, but rather as a person.

Furthermore, to question our moral ambiguity is to question our upbringing and an insult to our parents. How much do you know of ethics? Adam Smith taught that the best outcome is when everyone acts in their best interest. Milton Friedman believed that the sole responsibility of a corporation is to make profits. I'm sorry for not subscribing to your belief in corporate socialism, but isn't that what you're advocating when you speak of commandeering the private assets of the investors to further the public's interest under the guise of ethics and social responsibility?

I'm sorry that we don't live up to your lofty pedestal of not cheating, lying and stealing. Business students cheat, lie and steal. But wait, don't arts students also cheat, lie and steal? What about science students? Don't they also plagiarise, misrepresent and falsify? But it is us, business students, who bear the greatest stigma, of being trialed, judged and sentenced in the courts of stereotyped minds based on ideal, infallible standards. Oh the irony of being deemed inhumane, yet being judged on human fallicies.

It is us who should feel betrayed by our own community, being denounced and thrown out to the dogs, at the words of a jealous and disgruntled, soon-to-be, McDonald's employee. Such vitrolic, biased and unfounded accusations based on an inferiority complex are a clear abuse of power as editor of my school's newspaper. Where're your ethics now, bitch?

Checked Out

2007-01-31T23:19:00.000-05:00

There you are, standing in a line at a supermarket. You feel the gaze of people as their lewd looks wash over your body, and you feel like a victim of an overactive imagination. Yet the worse part comes, when you finally reach the end of the line, and the guy at the check out counter starts reaching into your basket and handling your goods.

"Hey nice buns."
"What round melons you have."
"Got milk?"

Even though the guy at the supermarket counter is called the check-out guy, I don't think he has any right to do any sort of "checking out". I find it somewhat disturbing to be judged and discriminated by what I buy, when I buy and how much I buy.

"Hmm... Mac & Cheese right? How's college?"
"Coffee? Doing a lot of late night studying, huh?"
"PRICE CHECK ON TWELVE PACK CONDOMS ON AISLE 12!"

They seem to pass down judgement with every guilty pleasure in your shopping basket. They discriminate so easily. Junk food? College student. Fruits? Married guy or just gay. Fresh, organic vegetables? Lesbian, vegan couple. Yes, you can always spot them, from their organic fresh pickles to their hippie-colored, Alpaca, au naturale, clothing, and you just can't miss that other similarly dressed woman who seems conjoined to her by the hands, or lips.

It's sort of like a fat lady comes to the counter, and starts putting low-fat icecream, low-fat sausages, low-fat cooking oil, low-fat pig lard, low-fat fat and low-fat cholestrol... then the guy must have been trying to stiffle back a laughter and yell out loud, "Forget low fat, lady, just don't eat for a month and save an Ethiopian village."

But after all, you are what you eat, and implicitly, by association, you are what you shop. But hey, I just want a huge bag of chips once in a while. Call it guilty pleasure, call it necessary sin, call it whatever, it doesn't need to be judged. I'm just glad to get out of there, with my package, and my dignity, still intact.

discrimi-Nation

2007-01-23T08:56:00.000-05:00

I've learnt in the course of my years, that everyone says the same thing. Everyone has the same kind of corporate culture, everyone emphasises on the same key highlights, everyone speaks highly of the people, everyone gives better perks, everyone has the same competitive strength.

I'm sorry, but if everyone has the same thing, no one has anything. Every company I met with gave me the same pitch, a great environment to work at, a non-discriminatory policy, a dynamic corporate culture and its strengths are its people. Yes, its strengths are its people. Take a look a every annual report. Good employees are the basis of a good company, and each company has the best people.

Makes you sort of wonder, where are the not-so-best people? Makes you wonder, which are the companies that treats its people like shit? Makes you sort of wonder, which is the company that doesn't have these competitive strengths, or discriminates against people, or doesn't place any emphasis on professional development?

That's why I'm beginning to feel jaded with the word meritocracy. Everyone claims to be a meritocracy, but what is a meritocracy? The word meritocracy is just about as tangible as the phrase "paradigm shift" or "multiverse". It's a word that just doesn't describe anything. Nothing is a meritocracy, period. A meritocracy is a system which rewards the talented, capable and intelligent. If meritocracies exsits, why does the word itself, not proliferate as much as the phrase, "It doesn't matter what you what you know, but who you know."

Awesome, cronyism-in-guise-of-networking trumps meritocracy anyday.

Any meritocratic system has its points of abuse. It has some sort of clause that allows it to discriminate, in some sort of weird seemingly logical excuse. Take for example the US Army. They are an institution that discriminate against homosexuals; "if you ain't gay, you're okay." So, hint to all the guys, if the Iraq war goes back, and US institutes a draft, hey, you know which way to swing. Though, it'll be interesting, if Hollywood makes a movie (yes, Hollywood likes to make movies about gays.) about the impossible situation where the US Army accepts homosexuality, and allows gays into the army and creates an all-gay platoon. Yes, it's Brokeback Mountain in army fatigues. Urgh.

But you get the point, that every system has some sort of fail-safe discriminatory policy. I can't help but feel it. Every company tells me the same thing, "Everyone we interview is qualified for the job." Wait a minute, have you seen some of the people you've been interviewing with? Okay that aside, companies aren't exactly looking for people to work. Companies are looking for people to work with. There's a whole difference. If I look like Britney Spears, blonde with a loose personality and looser legs, I'd be VP tomorrow.

Nah, I'm just exaggerating, but I have this funny suspicion that applying for jobs is like getting picked for dodgeball in elementary school: first you pick your best friend, then you pick your next best friend, and leave out the guy who won't give you candy, and pick the next guy, and next guy, and when you got everyone you like on your team, all your good buddies, you look back and the rest of the people you don't know, don't like and don't bother and say, "We regret to inform you that we cannot extend you an offer to join our firm. This should not be considered an adverse comment on your abilities; rather it reflects our genuine desire to thoroughly evaluate a candidate in relation to his or her goals, our environment and current staffing needs."

Thinking out loud

2007-01-13T12:46:00.000-05:00

We grasp on to these little tidbits of time, hungry for a bit more, asking for just some more, but what is it just that we're exactly asking for?

Not time, not exactly. I just want a moment, where I'm just happy, when everything is just nice the way it is, where I am comfortable.

Happy birthday to me,
Happy birthday to me,
Happy birthday to me,
Happy birthday to me.

How many moments does a person have in a lifetime? Moments, that aren't time. Everyone has the same amount of time, 24 hours, 60 minutes, 60 seconds, seven days a week and 365 days a year, but moments are so different. Moments, are the times you remember, memories. And all I want is just always, just, one more moment. And it's so fleeting, so gone before you know it, that you realise that you've just had it, when you are no longer experiencing the moment.

We could pretend like we're meeting tomorrow.

I find myself clawing at the sands of lost time. Wondering a lot of what ifs. Two nights ago, I wondered, "What am I doing in New York?" It is too late to be asking that question now, isn't it? Sometimes I am afraid of what things could have been, and what things could be. Just thinking of my transition between high school and college, did I ever appreciate how a miniscule change could have made it all different? I guess I never did appreciate it, neither did a lot of people, but how close I came to being a doctor, or an engineer, or something else. Or nothing.

I wonder why NYU even accepted me. I never realised how risky it was to put NYU as my "safety school" I figured it was just another regular school. I mean, well, think about it any way, if I were accepted into NUS med school, or dentistry, I would be in Singapore, and I always wondered, whether I would just be like you, doing nothing every day, waiting for time to pass, until the sky falls down. Or whether I'd become this completely different person, completely studious with my head so far down the books, I fail to see anything else. Or what else could I have become? It was all a flip of a coin, my life itself could have branched in a multitude of directions, think about it. I had applied to so little universities, that I could be doing nothing right now. Nothing.

One criticism about me is that I think too much. It reflects in my skeptical approach to everything. I suppose I might have been too hard on myself and the world. But I see myself in everyone... a little bit of me there, reminding me always of what I could be, or what I could have been. I could have been a doctor, or an engineer, or a slacker, or a biochemist. I could have been a shallow person, or a hermetic recluse. I could be a Wall Street Banker, I could have been a social worker. I could have been so many things which I see in so many people whom I want to be, and I want to be them all. I see possibilities, I see where I could be. And because of that, I am afraid that I am not where I want to be.

Y'know what I want for my birthday? I just want a regular day. A regular day. That's all I'm asking. A regular day, where no one acts any differently from any other day. Except the polite greeting of happy birthdays and a sincere handshake. That's all... today's not a day to show any sort of appreciation or celebration. Every day is just as special as today, and every day I am here, is a good enough reason to celebrate already. No artificially created moments, no awkward social situations where I'm obligated to feel happy and appreciated and touched, no empty gestures, just a little bit of decency, because that's just want we need in this world. Decent people.

Sometimes I wish I could be less vague in how I write stuff out. But sometimes, it is the words that don't matter, you just feel those words and they evoke a more powerful meaning in your mind that words just can't. Or maybe I'm just making excuses so I can write blogs which just don't make sense.

Do my writings just jump all over the place? Is it that hard to find continuity in everything I write? No it's not... it's all one fluid thought for me, just one single fluid thought that runs on about me. After all, am I writing about three things? Or am I just writing about one? What do these words mean? How are they related? Why do I ask questions? Who are these questions for? And at the end of it all, it doesn't matter what you know or what you think, but rather what you feel. And perhaps if you look deep enough, you'll find that everything is all the same, and all is one, and you'll see a little of yourself in everyone.

Not everything has to make sense does it?

How about this? I just want a little more time, to be in a comfortable place, among people I love, to tell them all the things I want to tell them, and let them say all the things they want to say, to guide me in a direction where I want to go by helping me figure out, who I am.

2006 Annual Report

2006-12-30T12:45:00.000-05:00

Lady luck drives a hard bargain: one heart's desire for one year's misfortune.

This year proves to be a futile year for any endeavour I have attempted. I find a haunting whisper in my ear, "How does it feel? To be mediocre?" Perhaps the bitter taste of mediocrity doesn't haunt as much without the burning desire for ambition and the ability to dream. How does it feel to look at the stars and not be able to reach them?

The year began with a wispy aftertaste of light-headedness brought upon by imbibing a forbidden drink, I guess I let myself dream again. But then a quick brush with reality brought me crashing back down to earth, as realisation soon set in. But this wasn't a repeat of the seas of youthful emotion and the feeling of being wanted; the result was what I chose to be. I always liked New York because it was fast paced. I believed I am shaped by my environment, I become whatever my environment is like... almost chameleon-like. And I believed New York would make me become who I want to be.

Someone asked me, why do I like New York over Singapore. Truth be told, the two places could not be compared. One orderly and traditional, the other chaotic and breaking the rules. But my attraction to New York lies in a morbid fascination and desire to be something that I'm not. To put crudely in a comic-book fantasy, if the X-men, Rogue could absorb another mutant's powers by touching him, I could absorb skills, characteristics and social behaviours that are unique to the place.

That time, I decided, for myself that I wanted to be a workaholic. Truth be told, I failed at it, I work at too much a leisurely pace. In review of my past actions, I have a tendency to do things at a slow pace that will culmulate in a product before said dateline over a long period of time. But I wanted to be focused on work, I wanted to be career-oriented, I wanted to drown myself in ambition and become a machine.

The semester ended with deep frustration in unable to secure a living space for next semester, and perhaps a bleak outlook into the possible future. But even that was left hanging to be determined at a later date.

I guess when you're busy with work, time passes by like a haze. But the results of that semester was disappointing, and beyond disappointing. Summer however, was a pleasant time to take my mind off things and relax without a single thought of my life abroad. A brief sorjourn to West Malaysia, a whirl around Singapore and back, yeah... in the midst of a world class battle... between football teams. I think there's nothing like a good football match to take your mind off the mundane things in life. After all, there is nothing quite like seeing dreams come true. At least, it's an illusion that dreams do come true for regular people.

The other day I found a song that I suppose aptly describes me and this year. It's "We Are the Normal" by Goo Goo Dolls. The chorus, the only part I remember, goes like this: We are the normal/We live and we die/There's no reason why.

I suppose to those who wish they were normal have no idea what it means to be normal. Nothing ever happens, nothing outstanding anymore. Nothing to be happy or sad for, but just for each day more that passes. And somehow as the days drag on, and the hours become longer, I wonder if even existence is something to be grateful for.

The second part of the year, involved a transition and a year-long commitment to commute. Living in Brooklyn was a sacrifice that was questionable. After all, it was unnecessary, and mental notes are taken to reconsider certain aspects. I've always described New York by its air. New York has a smell of the day's garbage and the hint of cheap perfume. A trashy microcosm of the world that wants to look good.

I already said I wanted to be molded by New York. I guess I wanted to become better, I tried to make things happen, but abject failure is still a mild way of describing my attempts. In many ways, I've learnt the art of the Noh theatre, swapping one mask for another as quickly as possible, morphing characters on stage. If lies roll off my tongue easily, my moods alter as needs be in the situation. I've described myself before in a high-powered weeklong interview; I wasn't myself, forcing myself to be who I'm not. I had to know names and faces, I had to smile and greet and seem enthusiastic. I put up such a facade that I found it physically draining. I can't believe I did all of that, and I felt that if that kind of "enthusiatic networking" (read: vigorous apple polishing) is needed to succeed in life, then I am a contemptible failed imitation. Social Butterfly Disorder? I wish.

No, it does not matter, I watch in cruel and morbid fascination as I become something else completely different. I don't mind, it's a weird feeling, being detached from yourself, sort of like accidentally cutting yourself, watching the blood ooze and slowly documenting the very reactions and feelings going through my head. I don't know what I am right now. Or maybe it's just the lack of sleep I'm having tonight.

Somehow, I've just been more than disappointed in the way things turned out. Certain road tax changes in my own country, that are a mere snippet in the news, yet I protest, because there are too many cars on the road for too little people. Certain death sentence issues. Because I find it illogical that these steps are taken. It's odd. It doesn't make sense. Because it is such a hollow victory, after all, such events are quickly forgotten to the grim realities that really, no one has actually won yet and a civil war is raging on.

I compared countries to D&D characters with different alignments. I think maybe America and Iran are not so different after all. Don't we all pursue one thing? Law and order? I mean, we all want to create a lawful society. But a crime-free society is a society that can only be created without avenues of personal freedom. It's a tension of opposites, I never thought it would be possible to square off two virtues. Law vs freedom. To exercise total law, we have to take away total freedom. It is a sad consequence, after all, law can only exist as a compromise among people, and a compromise is an erosion of personal freedom. Because law is the only thing that provides certainty in life. Dare I suggest absolute law means absolute certainty?

I think in this uncertain times, people suffer from uncertainty. And I presume if the ends do justify the means, then any means must inadvertantly be good, even though we judge it to be morally wrong. Can an action itself be judged without the consequences? Should it?

Anyway, perhaps, do I get a second chance? To live this year all over again? I think I'm out of second chances. But I think, if I could go back and do this year all over again, I'd do it differently. That's regret, I suppose. A feeling I never wanted to feel. But it is human to regret, no? And I'm only human.

I've been described as normal. To my sore amazement, I am more normal than anyone else. I am just... normal.

This year, I only have one recommended song, which was mentioned above, I'll come up with a song list as soon as I reach back to my mp3 list. Live To Win by Paul Stanley is somewhere on it too.

Yeah, I think that's what I thought a while back. The purpose of life is to win. Somehow, I think I even failed at that too. But I guess it is a time to reflect on what it is to live, and why am I here. We're constantly plagued with that question, and with utmost respect, I believe that this is a question that cannot and should not ever be answered with any finality. Therefore after a period of time of not bothering with the question, perhaps 2007 is a time to retreat and rethink the way I approach things.

In summary, failures of the year include failure to capitalise on certain opportunities, and hoping too much for good things to happen plus inebriated with confidence of own abilities. Though these effects will certainly be felt into the new year, I feel that there should be winds of change coming and new tidings approach. I believe the coming year would be spent with much retrospection, as well as a certain wariness of one's own abilities, and an ability to dream small before dreaming big. Certainly my worries for 2007 are not as apparent as I let anyone know, but 2007 remains a turning point and a critical year. Never before have I said that any year would be as important as this one, and I believe that 2007 is the first year of my future.

I just wish I was lucky again. Or is lady luck a cruel mistress, spurned once and never to return?

Moderating Moderates

2006-12-01T13:36:00.000-05:00

*Sniff* *sniff* I smell in the air, winds of change. A storm approaches.

I was browsing Amazon.com searching for literature to fuel my voracious hunger for knowledge. I haven't been reading for a long time, and I can't remember the last time I actually went through a fiction book. I find real life more enthralling than fiction, mainly because fiction books attempt to sound plausible, while non-fiction books attempt to sound implausible. A vicious irony I figured, after all, fiction writers create stories to make us believe, and non-fiction writers strive to cause us disbelief.

It's a strange thing, that we tend to believe fictional stories more than we believe non-fictional ones. It is true; we have the propensity to do this. How many true stories are dictated along the tones of disbelief and amazement that an event actually occured? How many fictional stories just meander around the edge of a writer's imagination, only to somewhat be set in a very realistic possibility. After all, all fictional stories begin in a believable setting like this:

One fine day, I was browsing Amazon.com, searching for a book that has captivated my interests: Liar's Poker.

Anyway, a non-fictional story would have certain unbelievable elements like this:

It is the fundamentalists who derive their power from the silence of the moderates.

So here, I begin my story, and I guess it is up to the reader to determine whether this is fact or fiction, or whether it even matters at all.

One fine day, I was browsing Amazon.com, searching for a book that has caught my interest: Liar's Poker. I guess it is a book that all finance students must read, the perversed captivation with the alien world of trading where dishonesty and lies are the tools of the trade, and the ever ringing battlecry "Cash is King" rings through the everyday wars to fleece profitable margins from unwary noobs to the whole investment game. It was a book that feels inhumane and heartless, it's about creating ridiculous amounts of wealth, through no economic enterprise, but only by the shuffling of papers, the clicking of keyboards and the exchange of cash. (Here you can dispute that the management of risk is itself an economic enterprise)

But that aside, I have comfortably settled on two books that I wish to purchase from Amazon.com and through some evil scheme by Amazon.com, they have effectively ensured that any two books I want to buy will always fall short of the required $25.00 to qualify for free shipping.

I was browsing the new books section when two texts caught my eye. The first one was "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins and the second one was "Letters to a Christian Nation" by Sam Harris. Such books, symbolises salvos shots into the Christian camp, yet seems to be appeasing to their own side, preaching to the converted and receives many recommendations from their own camp, but not from the other.

I found it very hilarious, that the only people who recommend these books, are those who already believe what these authors believe. And those who don't, well... let's just say most of the reviews were either five-stars or one-star. Somehow, as usual, there was the, "You don't know God and God loves you still despite your ignorance" mantra plus the innumerable Biblical quotes.

But above all, I found great protests, of the form, "Do not associate me with the fundamentalists."

This line stinks of many things, and nothing favourable. I find this an uncomfortable exclusion of responsibility of which none of which actually belongs to the protestor, but instead, I find in the same paragraph, along the same lines of thought, there are 2.1 billion Christians and 1.3 billion Muslims. I don't see how one can disassociate themselves from the crowd, when they aggregate themselves as such.

And it is in this aggregation that they gain such power, the power of belonging to a group with similar beliefs. In a group, there is only one voice, only one leader, only one goal. Otherwise it'll be two groups, and you cannot aggregate two different groups as one, if they aren't similar along those lines. But I find it somewhat annoying, at the same time to disparage fundamentalists, and claim their actions as none of your own, then add their numbers to support your cause.

In my marketing course, in which I thought I would learn nothing at all, I've learnt about the omission bias. Omission bias is the tendency to judge harmful actions worse than equally harmful inactions.

The classic example would be this scenario. You and a friend are put into a room, and there's a button in the center. If you push the button, you'd die, and your friend will survive. If you don't push the button, you'd survive and your friend will die. Now sample a group as to what their response will be. Then switch the situation, if you push the button, your friend will die and you will survive, and if you don't push the button, you will die and your friend will survive.

Omission bias: If you don't do it, it's not your fault.

Omission bias: It wasn't me, I'm just a bystander.

Omission bias, and the following poem by Martin Niemöller:

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

Inaction doesn't mean absolving of responsibility. Action, or inaction is a choice. And by choosing inaction, it is the silent endorsement of the rest of the non-fundamentals of the 2.1 billion Christian population or the 1.3 billion Muslim population that whatever the fundamentalists says, goes.

Aggregate thyself.

If we were to blame people with the power to change things, which don't change, then most of the blame, the bloodshed and violence, and the chaos and misery of this world, lies squarely upon those who don't speak up, the silent moderates.

The dividing fence is a very painful place to sit on. It's kinda like people trying to get the best of both worlds, but in the end getting nothing. I find it impossible to say anymore, that we should always take a fair and balance view of things, that we should never do things to extremes, and we have to be moderate in all our actions. When I see the world going to hell, and the majority frozen to inaction, I think it's about time, I hop off the fence and join the extremists. It doesn't matter which ones, it's better than sitting on the fence and doing nothing. Because doing nothing when you can do something, is the biggest injustice of all.

2006-11-28T02:06:00.000-05:00

During an interval of a show, there are about seven different commercials airing, ranging from ten to thirty seconds long. There are about three commercial intervals per thirty minutes of viewing, and thats about twenty commercials being aired.

Now, if the average person watches three hours of television every day for seventy years, he would have seen 3 million advertisements. That's not including the innumerous posters, newspaper ads and other billboards that are scattered around the city.

But television ads are unique in the sense that if you're seeing a television ad, it is somehow remotely interesting to you. Obviously this is because television watchers are self-selecting. Desperate Housewives viewers would be inundated with household product ads and pool boy services ads. Manly men shows like sports shows would be intermittent with beer and truck commercials. Cartoons will be filled with advertisements on toys and McDonalds.

I guess such psychological, mind-altering, behaviour-modding, persuasive clips are unethical but on the other hand it is interesting to find what kind of people share your tastes. If you watch football, you'd probably be into huge trucks and Miller Lite. So would the people around you. Which is also why you don't get shoe sales promotion during that time. Or shampoo ads. Or ads that don't cater to your segment. Although Victoria's Secret ads would indeed generate a lot of viewership but not sales.

Which brings me to the point that if an ad shows up on tv which you are uncomfortable with, maybe you shouldn't be watching that show. Like if you were getting your Saturday morning cartoon fix and a Barbie commercial goes on, maybe it would mean that your manhood is under attack by cruel, feminist, lawyer Barbie who sued Ken for his house, car, bank accout and left nut in a bitter divorce settlement, then you'd better flip channels.

But it is indeed amusing to guess what sort of people respond to these commercials. I find American football commercials most interesting and annoying at the same time, because a football game lasts exactly one hour, but effectively takes up to three hours of show time. Translation: you watch twice as many advertisements than the game. If any sport is a sellout, it would be American football, with over five million dollars for a 30-second commercial during the Superbowl Halftime Show.

There is always some truck, pickup ad during any football game. It feels like everyone who watches football owns a truck, or wants to own a truck. It is an interesting demographic that ever advertisers take note. There was this truck ad where they showed a viewer fast-forwarding through a football game and then stopping to watch a truck commercial. Then he starts moaning, "Oh... yeah... I could watch this all day." I swear man, some of these people love trucks so much that they jack off to these commercials.

However there was this one commercial during a football game that a friend pointed out that made me laugh. It was about Wrangler jeans. First cue: country music. Buttshot of man wearing Wrangler jeans. Clip of men going camping together. Buttshot. Clip of two men doing outdoor stuff. Buttshot. Clip of more men together. Buttshot. Buttshot. Buttshot. Then comes the kicker: two men grabbing a slippery fish together with a huge smile on their faces. Then Wrangler logo. Fade music.

Yeah. Football, trucks, beer and Brokeback Mountain, anyone?

Global Warming and Tabloids

2006-11-16T09:45:00.000-05:00

Just yesterday, I listened to a very interesting argument that global warming does not exist. It is simply a myth by the liberal left to stymie the great American economy by stopping the rampant acquisition of wealth by the greedy monopolists.

Sometimes I just wish bigotry like that did not exist. I was at a loss in trying to refute such arguments, but my friend was also expounding on his opinion that if the government were to stay out of most businesses, everyone would be better of. People would be richer, there would be less cost of maintaining the government system because there would be less of a system, business will grow and the world would flourish and rainbows and ponies would dance in the green meadows and everyone would hug and kiss and laugh in joy as there would be world peace.

No, that's not what he said, but I think there was that gleam in my friend's eyes as he spoke of a truly free-market economy. He believed if the rich got richer, the poor would get richer too.

But there was some ambiguity in his words. On the other hand, he didn't really care about the poor. Whatever he earned, he deserves. He deserves to keep it, and the government should keep its corrupt hands off. Screw social security, screw taxes. He wants an itemized tax bill, if he wants to support the war on Iraq, he'll pay taxes for that. If he wants to support abortion, he'll pay tax on that. If he doesn't support giving aid to third world countries, he won't pay tax on that.

The ambuigity that I speak of, arises that on one hand, he claims that the rich will inadvertantly benefit the poor. On the other hand, he doesn't want to help the poor at all in the form of charity; the only way he wants the poor to get his money is through sub-par minimum wage. Yes, he also stated why the minimum wage should be abolished. So I see a walking contradiction of why the current system sucks and should be abolished.

"We should take all the poor and put them together in this area or something," he says.

"And what? Gas them?" I ventured.

"And poke them."

Okay, maybe he said that in jest, but I feel his disdain for the poor. He feels that the poor are just poor because they are lazy. I feel that he is rich because of the color of his skin.

He may have a point to that, that the poor are poor because they are lazy. I take the subway from Brooklyn to Manhattan every morning, and always I see the same newspaper being read by similar strap-hangers (coloq: subway riders). Everyone reads the New York Post. The New York Post is equivalent to the toilet paper I use to wipe my ass. No, wait, it's not even good enough to wipe my ass with. It is a piece of garbage that is filled with the most purile, nonsensical bs, with headlines written in the most childish IRC manner. The cover page always has something that makes me feel that the copy-editor was some ten-year-old kid in elementary school, with similar notions to insult the subject of the article as well as the mind of the reader. It is the only newspaper that ever put the divorce of Britney Spears and the verdict of Saddam Hussien side by side on the front page. It is a paper that caters to the insensitivities and ignorance of the readers, with headlines like "Muslim Thugs Prove Pope Right" with regards to Pope Benedict's comments, and other similar offensive headlines.

It's so different being on a subway that just traverses mainly Manhattan. People there carry New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. "Newspapers of the left" they call it. Whatever, they at least report decent relevant news rather than some hot topic entertainment gossip. Sure, Jayson Blair might have made up stories for the New York Times, but New York Post does it on a regular basis, with their own spin on truth.

Clearly, even within the urban scene, there is such a stark distinction between the rich and the poor, just by the paper they read. There are other things I've noticed, the language they speak, the clothes they wear, the color of their skin, all these things demarcate the rich from the poor. But I don't believe that the amount of money in their wallet is solely their own fault.

My conception of things is that the wealth gap cannot widen too much, else it will tear the fabric of society apart and we'll have anarchy in the streets. Because when you push a man into a corner and he has nowhere to go and nothing to lose, that is when you should be most fearful. Wealth, is something that denotes how much a person has. But wealth only means something if there is a market for exchanging wealth. And this market only exists if society exists. And society exists only if the laws of society are obeyed.

So a person's wealth is only wealth if it is recognized by society.

Crime, on the other hand, is just a fracturing of society, because crime is whatever that disobeys the law. And arresting of criminals and putting them in prison is analogous to putting a bandaid on the fracturing of society and say it's okay now. What I'm trying to say is that if the poor are pushed way beyond the poverty line, they will resort to crime, and crime will take away your wealth. And maybe more.

I guess it is inherently in the rich's vested interests that the status quo remains, that the poor don't get poorer, and continue to be assisted by the rich. Because to the rich, law and order are more important to them, than to the poor. That is why the rich pays more taxes, contributes more to social security and pays for a lot of social welfare benefits.

At the end of the day, the only law that still governs universally is the law of numbers. While 10% of the people may hold 90% of the wealth, they are still outnumbered 9 to 1.

Stockholm Syndrome

2006-11-07T23:00:00.000-05:00

The Stockholm syndrome is a psychological response sometimes seen in an abducted hostage, in which the hostage exhibits loyalty to the hostage-taker, in spite of the danger (or at least risk) in which the hostage has been placed. - Wikipedia

I was sort of thinking about Stockholm Syndrome while walking around town today, and I think what I'm about to say is heresy, especially to me. I thought that, there is no way in hell anyone could like numbers that much. How could someone enjoy counting, and all the innumerable theorems that build up the vast knowledge of mathematics. It is easy to relate to the frustration of struggling with the math problems and wishing all the numbers would just go away.

Which is why I think I may be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. I profess my love for mathematics, but only as a psychological defense to the torment of being pounded with numbers and equations. Think about it, my feeble mind could not grasp the complexity of the equations, so it did the next best thing, it professed love for mathematics, so that it could at least con itself into thinking that since it enjoys mathematics, it might as well do more mathematics.

And how do I realise that I may be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome? After my exam today, I sort of felt a withdrawal from mathematics, realising that I didn't need to study any more. I felt this sort of awkward dependence on mathematics, realising that my life lacked direction and meaning with this completion of my actuarial exam. Well, not that I passed, I have no idea of the results just yet, but the idea that I was done with this for now left me with a gap in my life. Then I realised that maybe I was held hostage by this concept of mathematics, that my life was defined by it, and I am a slave to mathematics. That without mathematics, I am suffering from a withdrawal, and I want to go back to solving math problems.

See? It all makes sense now. It all makes sense. I think.

I hate people...

2006-10-30T23:09:00.000-05:00

I hate people.

It's pretty much a given. I'm sure you can't tell from the amiable way that I treat people, but behind that smiling face with the squinty eyes, I pretty much hate people in general. Save a few people I know in general, I pretty much hate the rest.

It is a sort of condescending view of people that I have in my mind. George Carlin had this awesome quote:

Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.

Maybe I am not qualified to think that, but certainly I think that that is the case. I mean, yeah, today in class, a guy stood up and said, "Bill Gates is Britney Spears in China, and Britney Spears is Britney Spears in America. I mean... like how many of us read celebrity magazines like People, and read magazines like... uh... ah... (scratches head)... some scientific magazine."

Wow... I mean, didn't he just describe himself? Yeah, he actually struggled to pick up a name of a factual magazine, say Scientific American, National Geographic, maybe even The Economist, but... he flopped on that.

I guess there are more than enough reasons to hate people, I mean, stupidity just being one of them. There are other annoying traits, like people who try to push their views around with the line, "You want to bet on that?" Especially when money isn't the issue, but that kind of attitude just stinks of corrupt capitalism and lack of intellectual depth. It's the kind of argument that shuts people up or makes them put money where their mouth is. That isn't the point. I hope people like that don't have money to put anywhere. It's childish, parochial and purely annoying.

I also hate unions. I haven't mentioned this enough, but I hate unions. Every Monday and Wednesday, I have lunch with three other guys and true enough, there would be one anti-union joke. I don't see why should a high school drop out earn anywhere near the amount of a college graduate. I don't see why that's the case, when market forces dictate that morons are a dime a dozen, and if they are intelligent enough to form unions, they are probably intelligent enough to actually work. But no, unions in fact promotes abuse and laziness in unionized workers. Trust me, those people who never show up from Verizon despite multiple calls and horrendous tech support who should be fired, continue to drain whatever system they are part of because they are in a union.

The counter-argument is that the average worker is easily abused by the system and pushed around by corporate America. What about corporate America, the largest tax payers in the country, being held hostage by a bunch of thugs who refuse to work, give subquality performance and demand perks that are even unheard of in third world countries. No, screw you, the American dream doesn't mean that everyone can get rich no matter how lazy or stupid you are. You don't deserve to get paid and quit whining about how your jobs are being outsourced mainly because you're too stupid to get things done and stay relevant. No, there's no reason to pay a person who is a liability than an asset. And that's what unions are, they are a liability. Today, the workers are protected by more than half a dozen laws and workers are able to bring lawsuits against their employers, even the most frivolous sexual harassment lawsuits. Wow... I mean, talk about employee empowerment, and what do unions do? Negotiate for higher, undeserved pay, raise the inflation rate by being paid for more than what the economic value of their work is, and just be a burden to everyone else. For every increase in their pay, consumers like me pay for it. Particularly when I can pay less in a non-unionized country. Yes, unions are that evil. They don't look out for people as a whole, they are a focused minority only interested in empowering themselves and protecting their own selfish self-interests at the cost of whoever's not a part of them.

Did I mention that I also hate the government? Yeah. Or religious fanatics? Or pussy moderates? Did I mention that I hate people who believe that I should believe what they believe? Did I mention that I hate people who aren't skeptical enough? Did I menion that I hate people who annoy me? Did I mention that I hate fanboys, pretentious people and arrogant assholes?

Yeah, the list just goes on. I mean, I'm all for having a shotgun and cleaning out the gene pool once in a while. It just annoys me. How there are so many people... and they just continue to annoy me, oblivious to their own personal world, selfish in their actions and ignorant in their ways. And with the lies put into their heads that all human beings are equal. No you're not. No human being is equal. And equality arises from learning to deal with it. Ignoring it doesn't make it go away. Someone will always be better than you, and you don't need to look far for that someone. There's no way then, you deserve anything.

I believe that no one deserves anything, no rights, no privileges, no crap. You work for everything you want, and if someone's got to give it to you, you have no right to whine like a little bitch if someone takes it away from you.

There, I said my piece. But I still hate you.

Lost

2006-10-21T23:15:00.000-04:00

A plane crash strands the surviving passengers of Oceanic Flight 815 on a seemingly deserted tropical island, forcing the group of strangers to work together to stay alive…

Thus begins the story of Lost, the spectacular series (that I’ve hardly watched) that is now facing it’s third season. There’s a particular lure to that show, where 42 strangers suddenly found themselves in the middle of nowhere all with the same question on their minds, “Where the f*ck are we?”

It is more than easy to identify with the show, and connect with it on an emotional level. Lost, is the physical manifestation of our daily struggles with our own personal identities. At least I think so, which is a rather bold statement since I’ve hardly watched any of the episodes, and only know the general outline of the show. It’s about people, stranded, lost, confused and scared sh*tless by the realization that they are no longer where they thought they were. And they are not alone. And something is hunting them.

Okay, sans the last part, I guess a lot of us could identify with that. I mean that’s life, the strange surreal feeling when you wake up one morning, detached from your past, apathetic towards the future, and dazed in the present. Suddenly nothing seems certain anymore and you find yourself lost in life.

Like the people in Lost, paranoia quickly sets in, in that state of abstract lost-ness. You start feeling things that you aren’t sure of anymore, you are emotionally vulnerable and you start hallucinating. You feel and act in unstable ways, you sometimes shut out other people, you sometimes do things you consider morally reprehensible, it quickly spirals down and out of control as one action leads to the next, which leads to the next and soon you’d just be as confused and wouldn’t know what you’re doing anymore. And it begins again, like a positive feedback system, (pardon me, engineering students), that the more lost you feel, the more paranoid you get, which in turns makes you feel even more lost, and there are no brakes to this system because there is no one you can trust, because you’re getting more and more paranoid by the second and everyone seems out to get you, and you strangely would suddenly trust people you wouldn’t normally trust, you lose your sense of right and wrong, and you get attached to things you never liked, and then if rationality sets back, you realise you did things you would never do and you can’t go back again to the way you are, which then in turn initiates another cycle of lost-ness. And this hopeless state goes on, until you’re either driven insane, or you suddenly hit a bump and refashion your entire self, rebuild your own identity and reclaim your own name.

That is the feeling of being lost.

But it is strange, that I can even consider living a life like that. My reality anchor has been severed a long time ago, and I guess as I slip into this dazed state, I just focus on what to do next and I take one day at a time. I was asked this in an interview, how do I handle a tremendous workload, and my answer was simply to write it all down on paper and slowly check them off like a list, one by one. And thus the tapping of the pencil goes. I write and I write, and somehow, the list in my mind seems infinite, but then I struggle to reconcile the fact that I have only written down one thing on my physical list, “To live.”

But I think I am not who I am anymore, this entire lost feeling has finally caught up to me and claimed me victim, I swear I’m lost, but that is purely in the perspective of I am no longer who I am three years ago. Maybe even three months ago. My mind travels back to just one incident three months ago, and I recoil at the thought of my vicious actions there that were unprovoked, insane and evil. I have not brought myself the courage to confess that, not here, not publicly, not anonymously, not ever. To think, that it is that bad, and I wear that memory like a scar, it never did physically hurt me, but I guess scars run deep and the inner wounds never heal. I discovered that day, a new evil within me.

Sometimes in the midst of putting on the mask and taking of the mask, I have lost my sense of mind. I am always transitioning between worlds, always being different, always having dual personas, triple personas, maybe even five or six that I don’t even know of yet. Maybe it is time to admit, that the whole reason I hate people who put on masks, is because I am one of them too. I am neither as virtuous or pure as I would like to think of myself. I have finally said it, I, myself, am a pretender at times, if not all the time. Personally within this deep heart of mine, I am not sure who I am, and who I want to be.

I guess I need somehow to chronicle this revelation of myself. I discovered about five years ago that I could easily manufacture myself. I am able to adopt tastes, preferences, philosophy, thoughts, hobbies and interests that were never my own. I was able to talk like the crowd, float through cliques and be a part of just about anything. I was able to feign excitement and change my thinking that I would make things interesting. I was able to make myself think I was having fun, I was able to completely change my character from an introvert to an extrovert, I was able to stand up and lead, take charge, and I learnt that all of this, well, even before I would never have done it. And I guess this doesn’t sound much like changing, but in the midst of all of these, my priorities were changing. I wasn’t as idealistic as I was, I wasn’t as innocent as I was, and I wasn’t who I used to be. My last post is a reflection of that, how low I’ve sunk. When I stood up and said that I’m going to change myself, I did and I guess that’s when it all changed.

I realized more often than not, I was trying to blend in. Be a part of the crowd. And I think perhaps deep inside myself there is something twisted and wrong, that something that yearns for human contact. I can’t put this in words, but I present a similar but opposite parable in the words of David Carradine as Bill, from Kill Bill 2:

As you know, l'm quite keen on comic books. Especially the ones about superheroes. I find the whole mythology surrounding superheroes fascinating. Take my favorite superhero, Superman. Not a great comic book. Not particularly well-drawn. But the mythology... The mythology is not only great, it's unique. Now, a staple of the superhero mythology is, there's the superhero and there's the alter ego. Batman is actually Bruce Wayne, Spider-Man is actually Peter Parker. When that character wakes up in the morning, he's Peter Parker. He has to put on a costume to become Spider-Man. And it is in that characteristic Superman stands alone. Superman didn't become Superman. Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he's Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red "S", that's the blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him. Those are his clothes. What Kent wears - the glasses, the business suit - that's the costume. That's the costume Superman wears to blend in with us. Clark Kent is how Superman views us. And what are the characteristics of Clark Kent. He's weak... he's unsure of himself... he's a coward. Clark Kent is Superman's critique on the whole human race.

What if beneath the mask that is me, what if I’m just putting on glasses to be me, what if I take of those glasses, beneath my skin, I am some sort of animal, some bizarre twisted being, so capable of evil and hate, only despising everything he stands for.

I have completely reviled myself.

Once realizing that I’m such a despicable human being, if I am even a human being, there is only redemption left. After all, what is lost, remains to be found.

I am looking for the better part of me.

God is among us, and He comes in plastic

2006-10-10T13:29:00.000-04:00

Money is the new god. Well at least I start to think that way. I wonder whether it is a good thing. After all a little cynical realism can't hurt anyone.

The other day I was walking out of school, when I got sidetracked by this group of people, Young Disciples of Jesus, and I swear I'm being stalked by them. I wonder whether it is this forlorn lost look on my face of having lost my spirituality and having my soul damned to eterenity, or whether I was just thinking deeply about something. But they approached me, and maybe this has been the fourth or fifth time I've been approached by them? Each time I politely say no, thank you, and I amble on with my annoyingly slow pace.

This time, it was different. Maybe I was in a different mood, or maybe I was just directly in the vicinity of my business school that I thought like a business student. I yelled out mentally, "God's with me in my wallet, and He comes in plastic."

I stood there, somewhat surprised at my arrogant materialistic reaction. I turned my eyes skyward and waited for that blast of lightning to hit me from the sky and fry myself to crisp.

I've changed a lot and I guess I grow tired of people who tell me that money can't buy you everything. Money is a tool, money is a means, money is necessary. Sure, money is the root of all evil, but how come no one ever notices that it takes money to do good deeds too? But I guess I'm really twisted when I make this point; that without money, there is evil. With money, there is good. Let's see whether I could even justify what I just said.

If there is no money, there is need, that needs to be satisfied, and people would satisfy it with any means, kill, rob, etc. etc. Now if people had money, they wouldn't need to do these kind of things to survive, instead they can show charity, kindness and aid.

Now what happens if we agree that money is synonymous to god and that we interchange those words; without god, there is evil. With god, there is good.

I guess this blog really doesn't have a point.

What if god was money? I mean, in a certain sense, if we were to admit that god is whatever people believe in, a supreme force that shapes the world, then doesn't money automatically qualify as a god if we believe in the power of money? Then what is wrong with that belief?

Money moves the world, changes people and shapes global policies. It determines the actions of people, it is the mantra that some people follow. It changes people, from Biochemistry Masters to Finance Degrees. It may not be all-powerful, but money is inadvertantly a symbol; a symbol of power. Money is the physical manifestation of this abstract idea of power that we have. And that we covet it, want to accumulate it, worship it because it grants us our hearts desire. Money isn't a god, it is the symbol of a god. But people seem to forget that when they say that money is a god. I guess that is what we're meaning, when we say money is the new god. And that money would continue to rule over people, human beings and everyone on this planet, because there is only one law; the powerful rule over the powerless.

Maybe money isn't the new god. But maybe credit cards are. Granting little wishes every day, with every swipe.

Future Business Leaders of America

2006-09-28T09:15:00.000-04:00

A long time ago, I read in a Singapore newspaper an article about the unofficial education that goes on behind the scenes. It is the kind of education that is learnt outside of the classroom, in the corridors of school, in the canteen, outside school gates, but always between students. Students are taught what they should be like, or what their school is, this unofficial education breeds people of a certain kind, and the clear and resultant effect of the existence of this unofficial education is the sad but true stereotypes that the general public forms in their mind of a particular institution.

But what about if this unofficial education is not just about a particular school, but what if it is about a particular group of people? What if it has permeated through all schools, and anyone who is a business student has been "unofficially educated" as to what a business person is like?

I am insinuating a lot, and this is just my perspective not as an external being, but a part of the system.

A couple of my friends know I've been b*tching about my school's Casino Night, where it was meant to raise funds for children with leukemia. Somehow in the midst of it all, while other students were winning meagre amount of chips, with small token buy-ins of between $500 to $5000 in chips, someone showed up at the final auction with over $200,000 worth of chips. Wow. That was some luck. Until I allege that this person did not win anything at all, but the close friendship of some of the organizers of the event, the student government.

Some hours later, and some really bitter bitching to the blatant cronyism to a friend yielded a story that this wasn't just an isolated case. There are other student governments who attempt to misuse school funds to provide facilities for just a privileged few of themselves at the cost of the rest of the students. Much detail is not mine to say for fear of misquoting. However, I have just learnt a valuable lesson; that people right now, college students are just as capable of corruption, insider trading, cronyism, nepotism and the whole sleazy side of business. I could easily see any of them cooking the books, fudging the numbers and being a part of a conspiracy or cartel.

Some days later, I was talking with a friend who had a lot of interviews. One thing he said to me stood out in my mind, "They like people from fraternities a lot." Woah, this was huge news to me. A typical frat boy is nothing more than a crutch. I have not met someone in a fraternity whom I said to myself, "That is a smart person." That's basically what I have to say about fraternities, and I have friends in fraternities. Imagine whatever stereotype you have about a frat, and yes, that's probably true. So this was really big news to me. Why would any sane employer want a frat boy?

My friend told me that in a fraternity, they are taught bonds of brotherhood. In crude terms, if their boss said, "Hey, be a buddy and overlook this for me, will you?" or "It's a nine, not a four. A nine. Yeah, nine. Here, have a twenty." or "Could you kindly misplace this huge bill we have from the accounting department?", they would remember their bonds of brotherhood, through thick and thin, and the frat sticks together and easily be compatriot, and easily accessory to white collar crimes. These people already know how to do favors for others, and they are of flexible morals. Just try being in a frat, and the first thing they drill into you is that the brother (senior member of a frat) is always right.

Welcome to America.

Okay, to speak completely for the other side, employers are looking for candidates with personality. They want smart people with a life outside of work. They like to work with interesting people.

Somehow, I just don't buy that bullsh*t. Try and tell me that people in my school are smart and I'd laugh at your face. Intelligence is still a rare thing to this day. Serious intelligence, beyond the booksmarts. There are smart people, but I see people who are mostly hired are... well... questionable.

Last week, Princeton and Harvard did away with the whole early acceptance thing. It seems that early decision has a bias towards a certain groups of privilege students. Disadvantaged, or (gasp! political incorrectness) poor students simply need to compare whatever financial aid each school has to offer before accepting, and early decision simply destroys that opportunity. I thought, hey, yeah it's about time. My roommate is one such victim of the early decision practices of my college. Forced to accept a poorer financial package and in a college that wasn't his top choice, he was threatened to have his acceptance to the other college revoked if he did not attend my college. That is the problem with early decision.

But if that was a problem, colleges have a deeper problem; one to do with legacy candidates. While top Ivy Leagues in America have acceptance rates of 10% to 12%, these very same colleges accept "legacy candidates" at the rate of between 30% to 40%. That would mean that if your parents went to an Ivy League school, you are about 3 to 4 times more likely to be accepted than if you were just another candidate. This very same practices are the ones that let people like George W. Bush be a C+ student at Yale, while I strongly doubt that he'd amount to anything past a high school degree if he were in my position. It's just as disgusting, because something I don't see being hereditary is intelligence. Okay, maybe not to a large degree, but I find this practice hard to agree with, when I face the question, "Have your parents or any of your relatives attended NYU before? If so, please list."

However that isn't the end of it all; there are such a thing as faculty brats. Meaning, children of faculty has an even higher chance of being accepted into a college where their parents teach. With acceptance rates as high as 80% to 90%, I question, how qualified are these people? I mean, sure, they have smart parents who might have planned their whole lives to attend whichever college their parents teach at, but I liken this whole situation to a father giving his son a job as vice-president of his company upon graduation.

I just looked on news.google.com and I found an interesting article. Hey, even if this kind of sh*t happens to Harvard, imagine the rest of the business schools in America. I don't believe that an ethics class is in any way helpful at all, I have a friend who attempts to miss ethics class whenever possible.

So if you're worndering how it is possible that scandals from Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, Arthur Anderson, Halliburton, Kmart, Mirant, Peregrine Systems, AOL Time Warner, Qwest Communications International, Merck, Exxon, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Parmalat, Royal Dutch Shell, Refco, Goldman Sachs, CMS Energy, Duke Energy, Dynergy, General Electric, JP Morgan Chase, Sunbeam, Xerox and many more happening each year that even Forbes stopped counting after 2002, then wonder where have they gone wrong, I suggest the answer: they've learnt it all in college. And these colleges will continue to present you with tomorrow's business leaders of America.

Welcome to America.

2006-09-24T12:10:00.000-04:00

There she was, lying in the trash. Thrown away after being used and abused. Discarded like an empty wrapper, she was fine, yet she was simply... trash.

Seeds of Thought

2006-09-15T13:20:00.000-04:00

Sometimes you begin on a blog, and suddenly you don't like where it's going. Then you press delete, don't look back and click the red X in the top right hand (or left hand corner if you are a noob Apple user) and it's all gone, whatever you've written, whatever is there, on your mind that you were just pouring out, gone, gone, gone.

Maybe it is the numerous distractions in my life that culmulate to a mind-pounding, pneumatic-drill-in-my-head-type migraine. The symptom is this vice-like grip in my mind, and I'd like to diagnose it as something cool like brain tumor, but I think it's nothing more than just feeling under the weather, plus a little of some bacterium that got into my head. It's not the alcohol! It's not the alcohol! I got it after going to the gym on Tuesday. I attributed it to low blood sugar then, but it still hurts till now, and it's annoying.

Sometimes I wish I could open my head and stick a ladle in it and give it a good swirl. Now that's really churning my noodle... It seems agonizing to me, to be a creature of logic. Why must my every action be dictated by reason and not passion? Okay, maybe a better more poetic cry would be, "Why do I think with my head and not with my heart?" I wish I knew some Latin here and can spout something sounding intelligent and fluent in the Romantic languages, but that's just pulling crap out of my ass. But I was discussing this with someone, and I sort of asked myself the question: what's it like to fall in love at first sight?

The logic in me claims that such feelings are deeply superficial like a certain iMMokid who sits and broods in his room all day. It isn't love, it's a sort of attraction, it's a dreamers fantasy, it's purely lust and fetish. It's nothing more than carnal desire, stuff that I quickly attribute to decadence, sin and corruption. The physical body is beautiful, that I agree, but to lust after it, to desire it sexually and to possess it is... feels... somehow disagreeable.

I don't know much about love. And I guess that perhaps it isn't all that wrong just to fall in love with somone because of how they look. I mean, how different is that from falling in love with someone because of her personality? Or her humor? Or her awesomely long and shapely legs? It's all parts of the same person, all about a person. It's like some people who shun such superficiality of mere physical beauty like to claim stuff like, "I find her mind sexy." and that "Beauty does not last, but character is forever."

No, nothing is forever. The same abstract attributes that we claim to love and last forever also changes. People change, characters change, often faster and undetectable than a skin wrinkles. People go through life, and life changes people, so how is loving a woman for her mind different from loving a woman for her body? Does it make you more sophisticated? More mature? More admirable? More egotistical for claiming such levels of sophistry that is unfounded among the crass common man?

Then I guess, we hold such double standards, that loving a woman for her body is simply lust, and loving a woman for her mind is true love, when both are in fact loving the same woman. I don't exactly know what I'm saying, but I think that loving a woman for whatever reason is... well... yeah, love doesn't need a reason.

But if we can accept that people can love for physical reasons, then I suppose we can augment our current perceptions of love to allow and for it to be socially acceptable that people can love because of money. I think that it's ridiculous people think that looks and money are not good reasons for love. The most cited reason would be because these things don't last long. But what does last long? Techincally bones last a long time, especially when properly fossilised... think about it... so should it be acceptable that I love you because of your awesome bone structure? Can I fall in love with the skeleton in the biology lab because it just looks like you? After all, bones are on the inside, and everyone tells me, "It is the inside that counts."

No I'm sorry, I don't find bones sexy at all. I don't do necrophilia either. I'm just somewhat annoyed with all references to "putting the p*ssy on a pedestal" and setting double standards for things that should be and should not be. After all, why am I going to business school? It's to find a good job that pays a lot. Why do I need money? To buy stuff. To provide stuff. So how different is making a lot of money from going to the gym, or learning the Romance languages or learning how to play the guitar or going for sensitivity classes. It's all for one single thing... to make ourselves more attractive to the opposite sex. I'm sorry I put it as crudely as that, but this migraine isn't helping my crankiness one bit.

But some guy just (as in 10 minutes ago) told me that a chick confessed her love for him. Good for him. He worked hard for the past 2.5 months and at an impressive 150 pounds from I think about 170? This reminds me of something I overheard; "I'm 175 pounds of pure muscle... too bad I weigh 250 pounds." But back to my friend. The chick said that she fell for him when she first saw him. Wow, love at first sight. Just what I was mulling about.

The other night I was sitting at a bar, and we were basically rating people we know. Because the fives marry fives and sixes marry sixes... and if you weren't a match, it'll end up in divorce. Or worse. So now, take a moment and start rating ten of your closest friends, 10 being the "YES, I WOULD DIE TO BE WITH HER"-hot Keira Knightley type and 1 being the extreme version of Jack Black. Extreme here meaning, a bigger beer belly, a more obnoxious personality, more lame jokes, more crappy movies, and a lot less money and lives in a trailer park. Jack Black already burps and farts and smells anyway. You catch my drift. And after rating ten people, where do you sit on the list? And note, do you see yourself going out with people with a completely different rating from you? Or those closely similar to yours? Then do you catch my drift?

Speaking of drifting, The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift sucks. Even my grandmother could drift like that.

Anyway, I'm really bored right now, so I'm intermittently typing this while messing with my holy handgrenade of rubberbands, and I made it deadlier by attaching not just a laser to it, but a PINK laser POINTER! Awesome, behold! The destructive power of office supplies! I just took a picture with my new camera/phone and will upload the picture soon.

But I guess my problem is that I don't find any passion in life. I don't love doing anything, period. Lack of a sense of enjoyment. Many people would probably tell me that life's not fun and perhaps I can blame them for sucking all the fun out of life. Maybe I need a Near-Death-Experience to somehow convince myself that life is worth living.

By the way, a good analogy for being in reach of something but unable to grab it is: it's like having an itch in your neck, but you're a quadplegic.

I should update my blog more, but sometimes there's nothing to write. But when I do write, I do hope that I have written something thought provoking or at least interesting. I wonder how many people do follow my blog. But I am so annoyed by bloggers who think that since they are famous they can trashtalk and abuse their readers with atrocious language. It's immoral. But not as disturbing as this. I've noticed a couple of bloggers who sort of put up their blogs as a personal worship place and slam a lot of "glamour shots" of themselves in the readers face, with one or two lines that go, "OMG DUN I LOOK SO KEWTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!"

Yeah, I just revolted myself by doing that... I need to go scrub myself off in a hot shower. Out.

Misdirected

2006-08-30T14:06:00.000-04:00

"Hi, could you tell me the way to the _____ Building?"

I grinned like an idiot, and I answered like an idiot. "Sure, just go straight and turn left."

I smell fresh meat in the air; a few thousand of young, wide-eyed, naive freshmen walk around campuses with their eyes fixated on the tall buildings that dwarf them. I smell fresh meat. Smells like enthusiastic youth. Smells like cheap perfume, a sickeningly sweet smell that permeates every gap between every molecule in the air, lingers too long and goes bad too fast. I smell fresh meat, and it brings a smirk to my face.

On Monday, there was this club fair, and I was suppose to be with my club, trying to convince the fresh meat to swear allegiance to my club and fealty to me. It's all one huge ego trip, they all look at me, wide-eyed and amazed, and definitely a couple of them were intimidated by my presence. Over the course of many events in my life, I've learnt the art of lying, and more often than not, I've always added half-truths and whole-lies generously. And I envy those students; not only do they get the gist of things, they also get the Truth with a handful of Lies thrown in on the side. No one told me anything when I came to NYU. They should be thankful for what I do for them.

It's all a grand art of misdirection; to f*ck with young minds and screw them over, so that one day they'll be pretty much like me, an old grumpy men who tells lies to young children to scare the hell out of them. And seriously, more often than not, it's amusing. Very amusing.

A good day

2006-08-14T22:00:00.000-04:00

There are many things that can make my day, and many things that can break my day. Nothing says a great day, to waking up in bright sunshine, and a lovely view of the park outside the window and having something to look forward to in the day. However, no one ever said anything about a great day to me, when it was in the early hours of the morning, when a loud engine carrying the largest hi-fi blaring Spanish lyrics, revs by the studio I live in, in a grand demonstration of the true meaning of over-compensating. Oh yeah, and I live opposite an industrial warehouse.

Nothing says a great day, when checking your e-mail and noticing that there are 19 new messages, and realising that someone out there is thinking of you and sharing some words of comfort with you. Then reality bites with 18 strange advertisments for things you've never heard of or positions you've never thought possible or even want to know, with the 19th just some reminder about some bills you have to pay.

Nothing says a great day, when at the end of the day, you put your thoughts on your blog, reminiscing the day you had, having this feeling of accomplishment. Then you bang your head against the keyboard, realising that you spent the entire day, waiting for the phone company to come install the phone line, while watching cartoon reruns. AND while banging the keyboard with your head, Internet Explorer decides to show you the finger... I mean, the critical error and it must shut down, and you lose all your unsaved data thing, after you've typed about a thousand words with your forehead and eyebrows.

Nothing says a great day, when you finally see something you like online, and decide to purchase it; in this case, a really snazzy camera phone, with the promise of next day delivery. A week later, the phone is bouncing somewhere between New York and Los Angeles, and I have to think about extra shipping costs because of some incredible muck-up. And I'd rant more about it, but then I'll run out of keyboards before it's over.

Nothing gets you more pumped up than the montage song, when Rocky Balboa is training for his heavyweight championship matchup, against Apollo Creed, and thinking that if you go to the gym, you'd be able to flex muscles in places you swear there shouldn't be any muscles. So far, I'm disappointed.

To be honest, life gets me down in many ways, most of the time. Life's full of bloody disappointments. Life's full of crap and life's full of the kind of gunk you find at the bottom of the sink after doing your dishes. Life's full of having to do your own laundry, which I cannot complain enough about. Life's full of all of that. So what exactly did the person have in mind when he said, "Live life to the fullest"?

But all in all, today isn't exactly a bad day. I turn on the news and I see a cease-fire in the Middle East. I see good ol' Dubya smoking some strong sh*t and declaring a victory over Hezbollah. I see a comfy couch when I get back to my apartment and five dollars my roommate lost to me in a bet that I'd go drinking tonight. I see me, doing what I want to do, being who I want to be. Now, I better end here before Internet Explorer doesn't disappoint me by freezing up, hanging and destroying all that I've just typed. That's pretty much how I live life today, a good day.

Infinitesimally Insignificant

2006-08-03T09:53:00.000-04:00

This blog would start just like how all life begins: random and without a purpose.

I write this on the brink of another sorjourn to a different world. And I think how it always feels like this, no matter how many times I've been through it. I feel as though today is my last day, and the moment I step out through that door, I'm in transition, stuck between worlds, and when the doors of the plane opens, it's like being reborn again. It's like my life here is put on hold; I take off one mask, and I put on another. Kinda superhero-ish? No, I'm not that conceited. It's a kind of dual life, where one dies and the other lives, and vice versa in a never ending cycle.

Suddenly I'm tempted to stand and sing, "It's the Circle of Life!" and stand on top of a rock and face the sun. My life is a collection of movie clips, that I'm living out.

Huh, change is good? I wonder what's holding me back? Just pure sentiment I guess. Everytime this happens, I wonder if I'm ever going back again. One way street. That way. It's hard to look in the rear view mirror. All things change, and sometimes there's no way back into the moment where you felt most comfortable.

It is the spoken words that signify the end, the occasional mention of the word, last. Last meal, last tv show, last hour, last words. Kinda like last supper, where the last guest arrived.

But it is the unspoken words that carry the most meaning. The awkward gestures that sort of reaches out and pulls back. The odd gift that seems out of place. The strange action that seems to want to hold on.

This is a moment. Just another moment.

Saving Fish From Drowning

2006-07-17T14:00:00.000-04:00

A pious man explained to his followers: It is evil to take lives and noble to save them. Each day I pledge to save a hundred lives. I drop my net in the lake and scoop out a hundred fishes. I place the fishes on the bank, where they flop and twirl. 'Don't be scared,' I tell those fishes. 'I am saving you from drowning.' Soon enough, the fishes grow calm and lie still. Yet, sad to say, I am always too late. The fishes expire. And because it is evil to waste anything, I take those dead fishes to market and I sell them for a good price. With the money I receive, I buy more nets so that I can save more fishes.

Quoted from Anonymous, requoted from Amy Tan.

World Peace

2006-07-12T02:33:00.000-04:00

Each person experiences abuot 30 wars during their lifetime. That isn't a far off estimate, considering that there are so many ongoing conflicts at the same time. And these are large scale military conflicts that happens usually in our personal perspective, on foreign soil, but we have not discounted the small-scaled wars that happen much closer to home. Pirates, gangs, organized crime, all these people play a part in a war that is against society. It is for sure we live in a war-plagued society; it's a disease that is as very much our nature to breath as it is our nature to kill our neighbour for better gains.

I was watching Hotel Rwanda, and while it dramatizes the massacre of the Tutsis by the Hutus, I thought, oh sh*t, imagine this happening a thousand times over. We'd have no one left. Sometimes I wonder, what is the incentive that these people have to kill? Could we take away that incentive? Because the matter of the rod doesn't work anymore. No one is afraid of capital punishment anymore. Especially in a warzone, it's kill or be killed. There is no retribution, even to those in business suits, waging their wars from their white towers back on home soil, with blood on their hands. I think somehow the international tribunal which puts on trial war criminals who've committed supreme crimes against humanity, is a white elephant; it neither deters nor punishes, it's simply a tool to "legally" kill a former head of state after he has lost the war. The international tribunal simply can't punish those that need to be punished and punishes those who can't do any more evil.

We are fast running out of time to save ourselves, and the more this worldly state of wars prolong, the more likely we are going to be dragged into a cataclysmic war that would annihiliate ourselves. Because at the end of the day, it isn't some killer flu or some large meteor hurtling towards Earth that would wipe out humanity. It is the weapons that we've invented to defend ourselves that would inadvertantly destroy ourselves. There are enough bullets and bombs out there to kill every single person on this planet, twice over, with ammo to spare. So the question that the world's best minds should try to figure out right now is, how the hell can we save ourselves?

There's a solution I had in mind, which comes to writing this blurb. It's perhaps so ridiculous, that it just might work. I suggest that the governments of the world give each and every person on the planet, a television set with cable.

That is my solution for world peace. How might this work? Those who've watched television can testify to the immense amount of time that television just eats up. Switch on the tube to watch a 30 minute sitcom, with 500 channels from cable, you could be channel surfing from now till next Tuesday. This is time which other people without televisions, would be killing each other. The question I pose to you, do you think that anyone would be intent on going out and shooting their neighbour if there was an episode of Seinfeld on? Or American Idol with over 50 million Americans pressed to their screens? How likely is it, that anyone could be motivated to do anything, including waging wars, if there was enough television to watch?

The unifying power of television should not be underestimated. The total viewership of the World Cup 2002, as reported by FIFA is over 1 billion. Imagine that, 1 billion people sat quietly through a 90 minute game of joys and disappointments. That's 90 minutes where these 1 billion people don't shoot or kill each other. Then, imagine, as you know guys, these 1 billion people spend the next 1 week talking to each other about the game with just about anyone they meet who has watched the game. That is the power of television. That is why it is sad to see Israel and Palestine still going at it, during the World Cup 2006. Don't these people have any decency? To stop killing each other during the greatest competition in the world? Even the Greek cities knew how to lay down their arms for the Olympics, because there are much more important things to do than kill each other.

There are also two inadvertant benefits that arises from having a television for every person, one of which is education. I can say honestly, from watching television, that I've learnt a lot more than my entire years of formal education. I am more informed from watching television. With so many people having access to media, and not just local media, but also foreign media, they become more informed and global-minded. They aren't just a single individual on their single plot of land, but they realise that they are a part of a collective. They know things, they listen to news from different perspectives. Anyone who has read a newspaper from Singapore and Malaysia could tell so differently about how they view each other. People become informed and they avoid media bias. Americans for once could see how other nations view their country. Muslim radicals no longer need to become suicide bombers but just as dangerously television evangelicals. And informed global citizens is what we need now. We need informed individuals, those who can make wise decisions, because that is the basis of a democratic society.

The second happy side-effect that would result from all of this is that we actually have a measure that would at least slow, if not prevent the spread of AIDS. AIDS as we know, spreads by sex and syringes. Now, if there were soccer matches on Saturday nights and Desperate Housewives on Tuesday nights, that's two days when people won't be having sex. Television would replace sex as a form of entertainment. And television forces people to stay at home more. Else they would miss their favourite dramas. And yes, drugs are an expensive habit, so why not just stay at home and watch cable television? That is the basis of this whole idea for world peace.

There would be critics to this plan, mainly there would be two contentions, the first less pressing. Who is going to pay for the television and cable? Why, government and advertisors of course. Imagine the current viewership of your ad on television. Now imagine that viewership expanded to over 6 billion people. Instant global recognition. Instant branding. Make the perfect advertistment, you become a market star. This plan allows access to over 6 billion people. What other medium lets you reach out to so huge a market? All it costs would be a couple hundred for the television and satellite dish, plus a couple hundred million for a couple more satellites. Though, if the government cooperates, we could use those now-defunct military satellites as communications satellites for the world. Total cost of this project? About 3 trillion dollars. That's about 500 dollars per person, for a television, satellite dish, as well as cable. As a result of this massive viewership, the price of ads increase, hence the cost of cable borne by consumers drop drastically. That is the price of world peace.

Also the other point that critics might have is that not every place in the world has electricity. This is actually a smaller point than the one above. This is a chance to practice alternative sources of energy, e.g. biomass or solar energy. No one needs a huge coal plant in their backyard, sometimes a simple diesel engine would do, to provide electricity. And with a bit of ingenuity, a small hydroelectric dam could be built over a small river, to generate electricity for a small African village. Sure we're upping our energy consumption, but remember we are creating electricity in rural areas; the need to create electricity for cable television would without a doubt spur on further progress in rural areas. There are at present, ways of generating electricity remotely, so this isn't exactly not feasible.

There are other lesser benefits as well as problems. But indeed this is a solution that should be considered. Because television unifies us as a planet. A common understanding, a common vision and a common television show.

And now I humbly accept my Nobel Peace Prize.

Wierd Stuff That Shows Up On The Internet

2006-07-02T15:25:00.000-04:00

You know how every so often, a weird clip shows up on the Internet that makes itself an icon of Internet culture? Here's another one.

http://dojo.fi/~rancid/loituma__.swf

Thoughts of an evil man

2006-06-25T12:12:00.000-04:00

Are men born evil, or did they just become evil along the way? We tend to think so. All men are born without a name. After all, a truly evil person is a person who chooses to be evil on his own free will.

This person is trying to figure out, since when has he become an evil person. It wasn't a sudden life-changing moment, or a surge of feeling of malice towards the world. It wasn't overnight, it was gradual, very gradual, from as far back as he could remember. A voice, his own voice, inside his head, he keeps having thoughts, evil thoughts. He thinks of evil deeds often enough, not so that he would do it, but rather, just because he thinks to understand evil. It isn't being seduced by the dark side, but it is thinking about it so often, it flashes through the mind, that evil deeds virtually happen inside his head that he somehow loses himself.

If you think evil thoughts, does that make you evil? If you think of death, does it make you want to die? But think evil, and you become evil, even if you don't want it. How does someone just become evil?

This person feels it, he feels his actions changing to hurt others, he sharpens his words to maximise pain, he thinks only for himself, he starts having hidden intentions, his heart is one of shadows and he is unable to find something good and noble about himself.

Its rather like growing up, suddenly one day, it controls you, and you don't know what the hell happened.

He looks back and he's not proud of anything he's done. He has never given others cause to love him, his smile hides his knives and his outstretched palm serves to cause hurt. He doesn't know when he became evil, the choice was made so long ago, and the path to redemption is lost forever.

The Minority Dilemma

2006-05-27T03:39:00.000-04:00

Perhaps my political education has never matured. I am merely educated in the field of physical sciences and mathematics. Much has not been said about the political situation that makes up Malaysia, and I woefully remain ignorant of a lot of things. Particularly the ugly side of things.

I chanced upon a book, The Chinese Dilemma, which is actually a supplement to understanding The Malay Dilemma, a book written by Tun Sri Dr Mahathir, the ex-Prime Minister of Malaysia. I find myself in a position where I have much to identify with in the book, yet at the same time, much to contend with. I am after all, neither one of the old Chinese, nor do I find myself assimilated into a society that is Malaysia. How do I describe myself? I find that the best word here to describe myself is that I am a minority.

The word minority is devoid of all cultural and racial prejudices which plague both Malay and Chinese. I am neither, I am nothing, I am a minority. Simply put as that, if one is to divide and divide and divide society, one would always find me on the minority side of things. I am not just a minority of Chinese, I am a minority within the Chinese, and a minority within that, with respects not only to my social standing, but also my education, my views and my experience. I have told a friend once that I am always a minority, and no matter where I go, or what I do, I remain that minority.

What does it meant to be a minority? It means my interests are always last to be considered, and first to be expended. I am the second-class citizen, I am a sub-class of humans, and the words 'equality' and 'justice' and 'freedom' do not apply to me. My rights only extend as far as what others deign fit for me to have, I exist more for the solace of others, I am here as a coalescing force for the majority to exert their collective willpower upon in ensuring their unity, I am the enemy, I am the reminder what could be worse, I am alone, I am nothing.

One of the issues plaguing Malaysia right now is the "brain drain" to first world countries. I don't deny it. Every other intelligent person I know doesn't talk about going back to their homeland to make it a better place. They talk more about making it out there in the huge big world, they go out the door and never look back. I don't deny it is in my heart and on my mind, to ditch the land I was born in a heartbeat for a better chance out there. It all has to do with perception, it all has to do with what I feel I can achieve here.

Am I an unwanted guest in this country? I've always thought about it, that I am a person without a citizenship. I am treated like an alien, even in my own country. Dare I declare that no country deserves my allegiance? Treat me as such, and I shall react as such. I am a reactionary creature, I lack self-motivation, but once the infernal machine grinds its gears, there is no halting the end result. Such is a creature that I am.

I am a displaced soul. I can't call any place home. I belong to no one, I don't owe the world anything and I don't give a damn. I am simply a product of a society, of dysfunctional people. I am nothing more than that. I am tired.

a walk through the mangrove jungle

2006-05-23T09:44:00.000-04:00

sometimes i am amazed by how far we've come. i squish through the muddy riverbank in my slippers, through the sucking glob of brown slime that burps with a pop whenever I pull my feet out of the gunk. where is the tarmac and bitumen that i use to know? i struggle to remember those times, while trying to make sure i don't lose my slippers in the tropical quicksand.

the events in the past week sort of run through my mind like an olympic track team; quick and breathless. i don't feel proud of the identity that i've been entrusted with. after all, an id card is just an id card. it just states you as a name, a name living at this location, and you aren't special at all, you are another number in a great big register located in some dusty file cabinet in some dark forgotten storeroom. just another number. where has the pride gone? i remember i used to sing a song to remind me who i am, but even now the lyrics turn to dust in my mind, a hollow echo of an indoctrinated past.

but this is just a part of me that is lost. just one part. i am like a star, shining brightly in the night sky, that i have flung myself to all corners of the universe that i have lost these parts of myself, leaving a core with i have never seen or known. somehow, i am just disillusioned with the things that are happening out there today.

today, no wait, two days ago, a boy was kidnapped, ransomed and murdered by a close relative. today people are still talking about the state elections, now all the dirt comes out; people are literally buying votes, 100 dollars apiece. asian markets still on a slump. iran really bent on nuclear armament. is this the world in which i have inherited?

my experience here in malaysia is exactly like my broadband connection; uninspired, interrupted. sometimes i think we're better back in the mangroves, without the daily hassle of life. sometimes i think we were only meant to look up at the stars and think of them as gods instead of huge spheres of flaming gas. sometimes i think that instead of sinking in our own muck, glob and spoo, we are now sinking in shiny metal, greenbacks and plastics. it's kinda hard to believe that a man in a suit is no different from a man in a loincloth.

slopping around the mangroves... there's no closer way to nature. feeling the mud ooze through my toes, thinking how icky it is, yet how cooling it feels. the mosquitoes buzz to welcome me and i think what a friend the mud is. i think maybe this is how it is meant to be... just walking knee-deep in the mud, through the mangroves, the glittering shades of light dancing around the leaves, and leaving kaleidascopes on the earth. this is how i don't want to worry anymore. i just want to see, hear, touch, feel, taste but not think. i've come a long way, we've come a long way, it's time to settle all our worries, leave them behind in the mud, where someone else would come along and step on them.

Shout!

2006-05-08T20:02:00.000-04:00

Sing with your hate,
Scream at your fate,
Fight to the death,
Gripped to the end,
Dreams to defend,
To have and to hold,
Till you're dead and cold.
Hit with your head,
Blood on the floor,
Guilt runs below,
Hold till it hurts,
Hands full of scars,
Face behind bars,
Feel till it's numb,
Cry to no one,
Live on your knees,
Death knows no shame,
Spit on your name,
Laugh a hollow sound,
Dig a deeper hole,
Howl at the moon,
Bite at the flesh,
Tear off your face,
Strike at the rock,
Grind your own bones,
Hurl your own stones,
Anger after anger,
Out of love, full of hate,
No time to argue or debate,
Just act without thought,
Find what is sought,
Lost in the moment,
Whirl like a storm,
Smash the mirror,
Bleed your own hands,
Cut your own veins,
Yell with your lungs,
Throw words of thunder,
Turn your own back,
Leave your only road,
Go away to the heavens,
An offering to the gods,
Smirk your heartless soul,
Slaughter the lonely lamb,
Kick the bucket,
Stick the pig,
The world owes me one,
Undone against the crowd,
Helpless to change,
All I can do is,
Shout!

White Flag

2006-04-20T21:10:00.000-04:00

For those who've seen my dorm before, I think it's not a wise thing to have the window wide open. I'm on the 20th Floor, it's a long way down. But yeah, I give up. Do whatever you want to me, I don't believe for a moment I deserve half the sh*t I just went through over the past week or beyond that. I don't know why I'm put in such a positiong, and I don't know how to react. So yeah, whatever it is, that's pulling on my strings, jerking me around like a puppet, congrats, you win. Now lay off.

Hello

2006-04-16T09:36:00.000-04:00

Hello, hello, won't you come right in,
I'd give anything just to see you again,
Hello, hello, won't you come right in,
Step into my world where you know you're everything,
Everything I need. - Sugarbomb

I should watch The Terminal again. That's what it's like hovering between two worlds.

Kind of like my apartment search right now. Don't know where to go or what to do. And the deadline is drawing closer. Don't know where I'll be in two weeks, don't know if I'll be living on the streets, don't know if I'll find a place, don't know if I can sleep.

Worried? Yeah, partially. Panicking? There's a lot of futility in that. But seriously, I don't know what to do. More so because I don't think of anything I can do. Try running against a brick wall. Or being torn in two.

I pick up the phone and all I hear is dead silence. That's what it's like, being severed in connection. This is analogous to the frog in boiling water... if you don't call, by the time you realise it, it's too late.

Parallel fate lines

2006-04-14T00:00:00.000-04:00

Things happen in parallels.

Today, I was left behind in the "cold" again. I very much hate the word "cold" about now. Yeah, anyway, we were planning to move out together for the next year. Yeah, the typical problem happens, that sh*t hits the fan and one of my friends decidedly pulled out of the idea, not tell us and made plans to do some other sh*t.

It was to be expected in every sense of the word, that having roommates are completely unreliable in this sense that long term plans never work out.

Am I pissed? I suppose I have every right to be pissed. After all, it was irresponsible of him to let us know now. No, wait, he didn't even bother to let us know, we asked him and he said he changed his mind.

Left behind. Again. Without even knowing it.

Stinks of betrayal. Considering how close we came to rent a place today. Just imagine if we did.

Look, I hate not being in the know. Especially things I need to know. Considering that I only bother knowing things that concern me, it's not too much to ask.

I'm still waiting for them to get back to me.

Parallels of fate, everything happens to me in the same way.

A writer's bloc

2006-04-13T00:28:00.000-04:00

Many thing weigh on my mind, but nothing culminates to a point where it becomes blog-worthy. It's like having a million stars, but none of them become a supernova. Pointless no? So instead, I think I shall just sit back and let my fingers do the talking. Apparently, this would lead to a lot of wandering around all over the place.

You know what's the first thing on my mind? I'm thinking that there should be a toilet seat heater. Seriously, there's nothing worse than in the cold winter, having to relieve myself and then despairing at the thought of raw skin having to touch the extreme cold plastic that sends cold shivers of shocks up the spine. Seriously, that so puts me off, puts me out of the right mindset for settling down in the toilet with a newspaper to read for ten minutes. It's like sitting on a block of ice, and I am pretty sure that if you had to sit on a block of ice to do something, pretty soon you'll forget about whatever you were suppose to do and just wonder, why the hell is your ass on a block of ice. That's my case for heated toilet seats, to a nice ambient temperature, slightly lower than body temperature, for a nice warm feeling that makes people happy.

But speaking of the cold, I'm very intrigued by the word cold. It seems to describe everything. A cold winter, a cold person, a cold car, a cold book, a cold meal, a cold anything. It has certain connotations, about being cold. But I am more interested in what image it invokes in my mind. When I speak of cold, I think of cold words. Cold words, reflecting the insensitivity of some people, the inner chill coated by the sound of each word that brings the frost right to the heart. Words that freeze the soul, that hardens the heart and shivers the nerves. I wonder how do people utter those words carelessly and heartlessly. And then, those words pass by, but the coldness stays on, in the residuals of memory and then I still shudder when I hear the echo of those words.

Today I had an interesting conversation with a friend over lunch. He was explaining his position of being a man-whore. His definition of a man-whore is that he's mostly a man, except when it comes to drinks, he expect girls to buy drinks for him. That's his whore part. I suppose he likes it that way. But I shall not comment. Anyway, he had this predicament, which I thought was kind of ironic, and I think this is the start of a really bad date movie plot. He has this chick friend, whom he tells everything to. And I mean everything, from his "manly" sexcapades to cheating on his girlfriend, to every conceivable way he picked up chicks and swooned them with his suaveness. And yeah, here's where the bad date movie plot comes in, he happens to fall in love with this chick. Yup, the one chick he told all his secrets to, the one chick who knows all his underhanded methods, and the one chick who is positively resistant to his charms. He's gonna confess his love for her tomorrow, so I suppose that it's kind of a good thing for him, to actually like one chick only. I got to say, watching it in real life is a lot better than watching a Hollywood movie, Hollywood has a tendency of wrecking movies.

I was thinking whether I'm superstitious or not. Maybe I am, I like to think I'm a modern sophisticated person, above the superstitions and weird practices, but somehow, I don't think so. Perhaps I'm as base as the next person, but I think that if I place too much hope in something, I'll actually jinx it and then bad sh*t happens. It always happen to big things; maybe that's why I don't like talking about stuff that happens to me.

I've just finished Crime and Punishment. Erick said it was... okay let me quote him directly:

E: Wow, you read those kind of things, huh.
Me: what do you mean, "those kind of things"?
E: Long boring books. Or at least that's the impression I have.

I don't know, but sometimes I get this deja-vu-ish feeling when I read a book, that somewhere I've read that book before. Towards the end, I get the premonition that I've read this before and I remember the ending, though I can't remember that I've read it before. Then I suppose that kinda wrecks the story for me. Life's kinda like that too, that some things become so predictable that it wrecks whatever ending I was hoping for.

But that aside, I was reading Crime and Punishment, then I had to put the book down because of the usual life interruptions, classes, professors, homework... I hate dog-earring books... it's contemptuous, undignified and unscholarly. Disfiguring a book by putting a crease through it's pages is a lack of respect. Don't get me started on those who write in their books... even textbooks. I only wrote in one book, in my life, and that was under the threat of death. Yes, those who went to RI with me know of the reality of the threat of Albar... Mrs Albar. But that aside, I firmly believe it disrespectful to disfigure a book. So I took out my wallet, pulled out an American dollar bill and stuck it in the middle as a bookmark. Then I realised what I did and started laughing at the irony.

I need an apartment right now. I'm going to be kicked out of campus housing within 4 weeks, and I don't have a place to go to right now. I know I should be worried, but somehow I doubt I will be worried. The most is that I'd be reduced to sleeping at the library like how that NYU kid did. But then again, I heard that there was another kid sleeping at the Kimmel Student Center. So yeah, given the sad state of NYU housing for next semester, I won't be surprised at all one bit to find a bunch of homeless NYU students sleeping in the library.

Sometimes a person's blog starts to suck. Plain does. It happens, I've seen it before. No, I'm not talking about my blog, I think I've been rather consistent with my rants and bs, so if you know what to expect from my blog, I don't think I can even disappoint your expectations. Some blogs are witty, funny, tongue-in-cheek black humor, then suddenly their writers get girlfriends, and soon it becomes all mush and online professions of love to their significant other and somehow... yeah... err... I think that's rather personal...

But speaking of black humor, my professor today had a brief lapse of morbidity. We were on the chapter of joint survivorship and joint life, and then basically we take a couple, usually a husband and a wife, and the insurance basically works that the other person gets paid when one dies. So for calculation purposes, we, being the practical actuarial students that we are, assume their deaths to be independent of each other. (Btw, any person should know what independent means. One of the essentials of education is the basics of statistics.) But my professor went along and said, "But of course, their deaths are not independent. They could both die in an airplane crash or something. We could get as morbid as we want." At that point, I had a film reel running through my head of ghastly car accidents, or suicide bombings, or mass murderers, or avian flu, or genocide, or bizarre natural disasters, or Martian attacks, or walking zombies, or... or morbid actuarial students who watch too much nightly news.

Sometimes I'm insomniac, and I don't know why. It's not like I'm worried about anything in particular. Maybe it's more of because I'm worrying about everything in particular. Meh, I don't know. My vocabulary these days have expanded to include the two words, meh and bleh. I guess that kinda makes me sound like a sheep. But sometimes, when people tell me something pseudo-tragic that happened to them, the most I can go is, meh.

One, two...

2006-04-10T02:02:00.000-04:00

"Hey, have you seen X's gf's pic?"
"No. Why?"
"Wait till he comes online on MSN. Then look at his display pic."
"Pretty?"
"Looks Japanese."
"Could be."

Okay, first speaker was a friend on MSN. And the second was me. Granted, I suppose this is the introduction to a simple question I want to ask.

"Do you ever get the feeling that when guys have girlfriends, you are no longer dealing with one, but two people?"

Look, I'm not talking rubbish okay, just that recently I've reflected on the people I've talked to and observed on MSN and I particularly like to look at their display pictures. The display pictures people choose for themselves are very interesting choices, and it reflects what they thing, desire or cherish. So what does this got to do with significant others?

When I think about it, I realise how when people are attached, they tend to choose a "couple" pic as their display picture. By a couple, I mean them and their significant other.

And when I talk to these people, I seem to think that I'm not actually talking to one person, but rather two. After all, there are two people in the display picture in MSN, staring back, and smiling in some ineffable manner. And I figured I wasn't actually talking to one person. I'm talking to two.

A friend blogged that there are single people and attached people and they don't understand each other. But hey, I suppose to a large extent you can't blame us single people. After all, I'm not the one constantly reminding you guys of how single am, while you seem to start using a strange collective pronoun called, "We". Hence the revision, that I am no longer interacting with one person, but rather a collective of two.

Perhaps what stranger still, is dealing with this collective entity called a "couple." First of all, I think that the sum of its parts are way too different from the whole. I generalise that one part would like stuff like Ferraris, PSPs, football, fart jokes and breasts. I theorise that the other part would like shopping, gossiping... pardon me, I mean discussing the affairs of a non-involved third party to some degree of partisan opinion, and being as would their gender be. (I confess not to know much about the aspects of this other part of the collective entity.) But the collective entity itself is not predisposed to either preference of past-times. This collective entity displays completely different characteristics, particularly a marked interest in nothing else but staying together through some strong attractive force not discovered by physicists yet.

But back to the part on MSN. I think that a choice of display pic reveals a lot more about a person, than a picture would. But I would damn sure like to know, am I talking to one person, or two?

Just a side thought. Thankfully monogamy is the norm.

High Flyer

2006-04-03T01:39:00.000-04:00

High flyer I see you soar,
On winds of fame and glory galore,
Yet as I squint harder towards the sun,
Is that you?
On wings of friends and fathers-afore.
Can I aspire to your claim on destiny,
That twisted threads of fate so deign,
By some ugly chance of lottery most foul,
That I stand here to watch you shine.
Would I reach those heights,
That you seem to easily go,
If I were born with the wind beneath my wings,
Instead of the dirt between my toes.
Golden feathers don't glean much,
When one is out of the sun,
What good is a strong heart,
An eagle mind, and great wings,
When compared the mediocrity of a lucky headstart.
I don't hate you, I bear you no grudge,
I play the cards I've been dealt with,
All I can do is try to catch up,
Across that ever-growing rift.

What? Not you too!?

2006-03-27T17:34:00.000-05:00

I was walking towards the elevators when I saw my friend sitting down at a table talking to another guy. We had a midterm earlier today and I didn't get a chance to ask her how'd she do. And so I approached her and said hi.

"How was the paper?" I asked.
"It was alright, except that I know I got question 5 wrong. Everyone else I know got the answer, but I didn't and..."
"I think the answer was three hundred and seventy seven thousand... something and the other one was three hundred and twenty one thousand..."
"Yeah, well I didn't get that..."

At this point the other dude looked at me and said:

"Are you Singaporean?"

Horror, shock and astonishment raged across my face. What? How could I be mistaken for a Singaporean? Not that I have anything against Singaporean. But I'm about as Singaporean as... there exists flying cows.

"Err... no, I'm not Singaporean. Why do you think so?"
"Oh, I'm sorry, it's just the way you said 'three'."
"Err... yeah, my bad."
"I'm sorry."

At point my friend interjected: "It's okay, I also thought he was Singaporean."

Voice

2006-03-26T14:04:00.000-05:00

When I read people's blogs, it's not just a bunch of words. It's a voice. I don't read the words, I hear a voice. That person's voice, where the words translates somewhere between my eyes and brain to sound, where the vocals are provided from the deepest reaches of memory. Then there's a disembodied voice, talking to me, inserting all the intonation, breaths, pauses, emphasis, and the feeling behind the words.

It's rather odd that my mind fills this all up. Because there is so much fiction involved, that beyond the message, my mind has to conjure up this whole persona from memory, and the whole thing no longer becomes a chunk of text, but rather a narration. It does put a lot of things into perspective. After all a blog is not just letters.

Then once the voice is reconstructed in my mind, it only goes to show that I put a face to that voice. Skin. A thin artificial covering, that encases the voice to the shape of my memories, to put a physical person within my mind's eye. The reconstruction of a face, a body, of timeless quality when built through memories. And then perhaps just the last time I saw that person. Or a fond image of that person. Typical, stereotypical, usual, defining image.

Then the bunch of words, which started out as a blog, evolves to a voice, which subsequently becomes a person. From a paragraph, to a narration, to a conversation.

Everytime I read a blog. Even my own.

Which brings me back to Conversations with Self.

Fact or Religion?

2006-03-23T16:00:00.000-05:00

Once upon a time there was a science fiction author. He wrote science fiction, of robots and galaxies and space and stuff that wasn't real because that's the name of the genre; science fiction.

He probably figured that it didn't pay well, and he, like many other people, wanted to get rich, the quicker the better. So in his words, "Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion."

And thus perhaps the most ridiculous farce on the face of the Earth that suckered in countless millions in a most ridiculous half-baked story has emerged.

There are miracles which could possibly have happened in a not so miraculous form, and then there are miracles that could only have happened in the realm of science fiction which should have stayed in science fiction. The cult of which I speak of has enough lawyers that it would pursue not just litigious action but also heniously unethical actions which itself would be at odds with it's own moral code except for a caveat that they claim must preserve the sanctity of their own religion; to immunize themselves from criticism, fact and any challenges. In short, they would do anything, anything evil, just to preserve themselves. Which just goes against the very tenets of ANY other religion there is.

I am appalled that they could even apply for tax-exemption under the false guise of a valid religion. Because they sue so many people, they use up so many legal resources, they fight a lot of legal battles, they are a drain to the resources of society, that they should in fact pay taxes. And yes, they should stay out of politics too.

But perhaps, the whole reason I'm pissed off is because of a very well-known controversial and satirical cartoon has apparently been besmirched by this filth of an organization. A prominent member of this cult has threatened to not do a certain movie, of which he was a star in the previous two sequels if this episode lampooning (actually telling the truth more like it) was ever aired on a repeat broadcast. I honestly think, by my sole personal opinion, that the world would be a lot of a more better place with that entertainment of that rerun episode, rather than another megamillion high-tech gizmo bs that is perhaps, no better at all than the last sequel. Also a very important member of this cartoon, left the cast because of some disagreement with this episode over the cult. It's like a huge piece missing in the cartoon. And yes, it is the fault of this cult, for being so self-serving, for being so evil and being so obviously stupid that the people who are part of it know that if they were to admit it, they would kill themselves over the humiliation of how dumb it was. Yeah, I hate you.

And that's my opinion.

The Crucible

2006-03-21T19:29:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I feel that I'm being tested. As though I'm running some sort of gauntlet, while soulless eyes scrutinize my every motion.

"You're being watched," the little voice at the back of my temporal lobe whispers insidiously.

Can't help but feel that every action I make has some serious repercussions that would come back later and haunt me. And this fear of such karmic fate has gotten me almost frozen in inaction.

I am being tested.

College Dropout

2006-03-17T10:09:00.000-05:00

This post is about me.

This post isn't all about all those millionaires out there who dropped out of college to make their millions, this post isn't about how a college degree isn't worth, this post isn't about inspiring people to rise from failure.

This post is about failure.

Last night I entertained thoughts of dropping out of college. Not because I couldn't make it, not because I'm too stupid, not because of financial difficulty, and not because I am forced to. It's because I want to. Sometimes wandering through life in a hazy dreamlike state makes things unimportant. Maybe that's why I want to drop out. Because it is expected of me to finish my degree.

Yeah, expected of me. That I work a 9 to 5 job, make loads of Benjamins and have a Ferrari and packaged together, trophy wife plus pool boy. The future has no allure for me, it's more of a chore, a hassle to experience. Maybe I'm just burnt out. I can't do anymore from here on.

Steve Jobs dropped out of college to make his millions. I want to drop out of college to do nothing. Literally nothing. I feel that I'm doing nothing in college, and I'm paying tuition fees to actually do nothing.

I've hardly given up on anything, on life, on people, and I suppose this is a great place to start, by giving up on college. Start with something big, so that I can continue to give up other smaller things in life. I'm giving up. Almost there.

Once you've lost everything, you're free to gain anything.

The First Question

2006-03-14T13:21:00.000-05:00

There are people who think and people who do. People who think, are those who think what the world should be like, trying to feel it's laws, and trying to make sense of the whole chaotic mess. People who do are people to shape that world through their actions, trying to create something, and make something out of all of it.

There are people who think, and people who do.

I remember once I expressed my opinion that I believed that morality is a social construct to someone. He looked at me and said that he had no respect for people who believed as such. Utterly no respect and disgusted and horrified that even such an idea does exist. Perhaps, had I not known him, I would have viewed that as a complete persecution of me as a person and my atheistic non-beliefs. No, years later it strikes me as an outright persecution, of how I never knew anyone, and a direct attack on what I believe.

There are people who think, and people who do. Action, reaction. I figured the whole belief system exists based solely on the limitations of our own intelligence. That as human beings there are vast gaps in our knowledge, that the only way to fill those gaps is with beliefs. There are unknown unknowns out there, and incidently, these were the words of Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, on the war on Iraq, and perhaps it'll be nice to contrast him with Socrates for being the wisest man in Greece for knowing what he doesn't know. It's rather rare we get a confession from a politician that he is a fool, but we live by what we get. But there are unknowns. The unknowable unknowns. So we fill this gap up with beliefs.

There are things we know, and things we don't know, and we replace the things we don't know with things we believe to be true. Then we can claim with much falsehood that we know everything.

The whole point of knowing everything is to act consequentially. Because after all, if we know nothing, we can't get anything to happen the way we want it to. Imagine for a moment we know nothing about a car. Presented with three pedals and a steering wheel, if we knew nothing about a car, how would we get it to act according to our will? Maybe a car is even too simple, what about a computer? Many people are confounded by even the simplest functions of a word processor. Without knowledge, how would one do anything at all as typing out a document?

Therefore a simple expression has been said, that knowledge is the conduit of which we apply our wills to shape reality.

But as said before, knowledge is imperfect and lacking in some sense. Belief to knowledge is perhaps what cosmetics is to an ugly person. It fills in those gaps of knowledge, that we don't know, it is pseudo-knowledge where we can then act as though our beliefs are our knowledge and apply our wills accordingly. So this means that belief is just about as important as knowledge, that it complements knowledge, where knowledge fails. However, unlike belief, knowledge is infallible. And when it comes to a conflict between belief and knowledge, one must cede to the other.

Knowledge is immutable, unchanging and constant. Knowledge that changes is actually a belief, or the in the words of academia, an assumption that has a logical conclusion.

There are people who think, and people who do. Thinkers are all the philosophers and scientists in the world. Doers are the engineers and politicians in the world. Forgive me, but I have a great disdain for philosophers and politicians, neither ones being a profession of much utility.

So far, I've vaguely established a link between the will, the self, I, me, individual, all the way to the knowledge, then to belief, then to acting in the real world. Anyway, here my thoughts become iffy. What should then be the first question that a person asks?

One of the questions I've been grappling with all my life is: What is the meaning of life? But I think that is completely out of the context. The meaning of life is directly related to what should I do with my will, my knowledge and my beliefs with regards to the world.

What about the question, who am I? Or rather who is the will? I guess that question can only be answered with respect to the world. Rather isn't it our actions who determine who we are? That we, as individuals are reflected in the eyes of others, and that alone, without respects to anything at all, with no origin or fixed point for introspection, that we are nothing? We are shaped by our environment, and we would be nothing if our enviroment was nothing. But this idea itself opens another whole avenue for discussion, but taking that aside, and accepting this for a moment, that this isn't exactly the first question to be asked because we have to interact with the world first to get an answer.

Again, I look at the whole process which to me looks like this:

Self => Knowledge + Belief => Reality

Since the self cannot be answered without reality, and that the question of what to do with self, knowledge, belief with regards to reality is a question of every aspect, I think the one fundamental thing that is lacking is the belief part. Knowledge is immutable, self and reality is undefined without the conduit, so the only question left is, what is belief?

Or rather, what do I believe in?

But beliefs can be conflicting too, so there must exist one belief that overrides other beliefs if there ever was conflict. So what is this prime belief? If I were to ask a question, what would that question be? I think it's somewhat of a cross between, what do you believe is right and what do you believe to be always true? The sort of prime belief that defies even knowledge.

It's the sort of of question that asks, what is most important to you? Or which ideal is most important to you? Or which virtue is most important to you? So that is the sort of question which establishes that prime belief.

From this one belief, all other beliefs must concur. So perhaps, this is the first question.

Live or die trying.

2006-03-03T22:03:00.000-05:00

Sometimes life whizzes by, and everyone else has moved along, and I'm left in the dust, wondering what the hell just happened. It's kinda like being hit by the proverbial sixteen-wheeler truck, except that it's perhaps bette to have been hit by reality than proverbs.

It's sort of like looking around and realising that everyone else has a life, except you. It's kind of like that zombie and mutant questions, what if everyone else around you was an automaton but you; instead in a most perversed way, you are the automaton, aware of everything around you, observing life and not living it because you are devoid of free will. Maybe that's what true horror is, being aware of every thing, but not being able to do anything about it. It's very much like watching Greek tragedy, where the audience knows what's going on, the eminent danger that the characters in the play face, the impending fate of doom and death, yet the characters remain oblivious. Except that in this case it is more of watching through the eyes of my body, seeing him go through everything, unaware of his impending fate, meandering through the day like an automaton.

One would think I would be used to rejection by now. After all, in many aspects, I am technically a reject. A reject, maybe only second rate at best. Useless skillset. Maybe (accepting) being a reject would bring things into perspective; after all what do I have to be so happy or proud about?

But it's all a matter of mind. It's not that hard to reach back into memory for the last thing that went wrong during my day. It's not hard to envision a day when everything goes wrong. After all, I could list everything that went wrong today, and therefore acknowledge today as a really bad day in my life.

I need a "mirror" to reflect me. Glass ones don't do.

My blog tends to lie empty, mostly for thoughts, but little about experience. I wonder if anyone ever noticed that, that somehow I write very little about my life. I don't tell stories of what happened to day, or what I said to who, or any particular event.

I don't even write that I fell sick yesterday.

It's more because my life is far less ordinary, and more mundane than anyone would ever dream of. Mundane. The most notable thing that happened today, is that I bought a cable for my guitar. It's a life so ordinary. Yeah. Sometimes I feel like I'm struggling to simply make a difference. Maybe even, just exist. Like trying to live, or die trying.

On girlfriends and porn

2006-02-26T21:35:00.000-05:00

With regards to a friend's blog and my own healthy dose of skepticism, I must admit that when your girlfriend finds your secret stash of porn on your computer, of course you claim that someone hacked into your computer and put it there.

Death of Thought?

2006-02-23T03:14:00.000-05:00

I was lying awake at 3am in the morning, and wondering, just where have all the philosophers gone?

I had a friend who was doing a degree in philosophy, and naturally, I scoffed at him. For perhaps different reasons, but then again, today, I wonder when was the last significant book on human thought actually published and read? I wonder how far we've gone from the ancient art of writing, to the modern life of not reading. And since we've come this far, all philosophical treatises must be considered archaic and dead for all purposes, simply because we do not read anymore.

But I guess I don't want to say much about the modern day lifestyle as there are many more before me who not just write about it, but portray it in some of the most artistic nature, through film, photos and music.

I turn my thoughts then to those of "philosophers of old," of Kant and Hume, of Dionyses and Plato, of Russell and Locke. A friend commented to me, "Why do these philosophers write such lengthy sentences that are utterly inaccessible to the human mind?" (Well, not in those words, but I have a penchant for refining the vulgar plebian tongue which I speak very well myself all the time.) I was always taught that these philosophers write such complex sentences of epic proportions that they want the reader to focus on their sentences, re-read these sentences, think through what the philosophers are saying and go through the entire mental process and thus become enlightened by the words of these philosophers.

Come to think of it, I've never heard a bigger pile of horsesh*t in my life, well except maybe that the war on Iraq wasn't about oil.

Much of my philosophical thought doesn't come from these old dusty men who sit in the candlelight pondering their existence, but rather from more modern philosophers, of Richard Feynman and Carl Sagan. I suppose I must profess some biasness towards them, for they are physicists, and not just physicists, but outstanding scientists in their own field. Geniuses, we'd like to call them. And so they do their civic duty, not just to unearth the mysteries of the universe, but to ponder the course of humanity given the new knowledge bequeathed for all of humanity to utilise. After all, it must be somewhat of a sobering experience to deliver the power of the atomic bomb to the hands of men who knows nothing about how it works, much less the potential catastrophic possibilities that could happen.

But then again, Feynman did say something once that struck me as common sense. That if we cannot explain something we've learnt in our own words, without the use of complex specialised lingo, in effect we've learnt nothing. After all, why do objects fall to the ground? "Because of gravity." But within that answer lies no knowledge, because the word "gravity" is simply a label for the entire concept between how two objects attracts each other by a force, and we go on to talk about force, and so forth until it is easily understood and accessible. But wherein fact, we cannot give an answer that is forthright and simple that we do not know anything ourselves, hence coughing up the greatest pile of horsesh*t to hide our own ignorance, that maybe someone else might see some value in the words written, or intepret those words in some profound way that at least it might sound that it came from a guru who unraveled the mysteries of the universe.

Perhaps I ought to deal with the fact that the entire purpose of the complex language of old philosophical treatises is to encourage the reader to think. No, I'd prefer to use the word "force" or "exerting undue duress" or "subjugating" the reader to think. I find it ironic that while they can't make a horse drink, these philosophers think they can make a person think. After all, which is far likely, the person struggles through understanding the great mysteries of the Earth, or puts down the book in favor for more materialistic pursuits?

I suppose the greatest argument for their form is that there is so much complex thought within the similarly complex sentence, that to explain it in layman terms is to gloss over the fine-tuned nuances that correctly portray the entire idea that is being conveyed. I suppose that there is little justification to that, after all, the more rules there are, the less avenue for creative thought exists. Highly arguable of course. But I suppose that a similar richness of content exists just by the use of simple language. Jacob Bronowski said, "Science is only a Latin word for knowledge... Knowledge is our destiny." Simple enough that it reaches the mind easily, sufficient enough to provoke some thought, and bare enough to allow creative avenue in any possible direction left to the imagination.

Philosophy, I guess, isn't really about what other people thought way before our time anymore. After all, that would be utter horsesh*t, because that would just be regurgitating information. The human thought has stagnanted for quite a while, I think. No new revolutionary ideas since Marx. And the ultra-conservative Christians are poised to take us back into the Middle Ages. No, I think philosophy is about engaging new thoughts, exploring new ideas, and finding out new things about ourselves.

Perhaps this post in itself is somewhat of my philosophical take on philosophy, and it appears very much inaccessible to many because of it's length and the apparently short human attention span. So I'd like to end with a metaphor on what philosophy should be like:

Philosophy should be like lingerie, revealing so that people would take notice, but covers enough to leave a lot to the imagination, with an allure of seductive curiousity.

Actuaries Are Morbid People - by Me

2006-02-22T23:21:00.000-05:00

Actuaries are morbid people,
The death gods of mathematics,
Rather like the Three Fates,
Except with a pen and calculator,
Determining the probability of man,
Surviving to next summer,
Or meeting his maker,
All with the power of numbers.
Brings a whole new meaning,
When we solemnly say,
"His number's up."
Wait, isn't it better to say,
The math gods of death?
But it doesn't change the fact,
Actuaries are steeped in black humour,
With a slash of the mighty pen,
Even ol' Death's scythe,
Couldn't kill multitudes with godly ease,
But the most morbid of all,
Is the power to take a human soul,
Full of life, dreams, hopes,
Love, grief and anguish,
Reduced to a fraction on a disposable piece of paper,
Which is not even a whole.

2006-02-16T21:21:00.000-05:00

I wish everyone would stop blaming Google for "supporting censorship" and "endorsing a repressive regime".

I sort of detect a sense of irony in the whole matter, that Google has to face up to charges that it is selling its morals for making money in China, and the ones making a big deal about it are the Congressmen of Capitol Hill, not the repressed Chinese. I sort of feel some sort of hidden agenda, that these "politicians" have their eyes on the great big coffers of Google and other alike Internet companies.

C'mon, a censored Internet is better than no Internet.

I could imagine people shouting that I'm promoting the death of the freedom of speech.

Sometimes I'm sick of this bullsh*t that people say. So much for freedom of speech, that I suppose it's okay for people to google for kiddie porn online. That's one sort of thing the US government is trying to trying to protect it's people from. So I suppose the Chinese government is trying to "protect" the people from deviant cult practices. Start to see similarities?

By the way, I like to insist that any irrational faith-based gathering is potentially dangerous especially in large numbers.

What if the Falun Gong was China's Scientology?

But Google entering China is a good thing. Google had to pay the price to compromise it's stand on "freedom of speech". But it offers the people of China a service that is far valuable from the masking of a few incidents. It offers the people of China information, albeit not all information, but some nonetheless. And some is better than none. Right?

I don't know. What would anyone gain by Google refusing to acquiesce to China's demands? A hollow victory in the name of freedom of speech? What about the meteoric rise of China's own search engine? One that is already censored, and goes international. Albeit censored of course. Hmm... would the Congress want advertising revenues which could have gone to an American search engine and be taxed by American taxes to fund whatever pet projects they have? Or go to China to "support a repressive regime"? After all, it's all about money right?

Sometimes I think that the American government's idea of justice is punishing the large corporations of America. Well... I think it's the EU's idea of justice too. Recently there is increasingly more regulations against these corporations. Microsoft now faces a fine from the EU because of "anti-trust issues." Again. Walmart has to pay a lot more for state Medicaid because they are the largest corporation in America. Google's getting it, because they expanded into China.

And it almost seems like a punishment for being successful.

The irony of it all, weren't the corporations the ones supposed to be greedy?

What does anyone stand to gain from all of this legal action brought against these companies? Of couse nothing. Because in turn these companies would do what they do best, pass the cost on to the consumer.

Windows XP N didn't go off very well did it? Walmart still makes a lot of money doesn't it? And Google won't just withdraw from China, would it? Sometimes the status quo remains and perhaps going after these companies won't help. After all if Congress is worried about the trade deficit and China's growing power, they should all play cowboy, like they do best and bomb China. After all the Grand Old Party (GOP) and their poster boy Bush, isn't afraid of invading another country, especially since when they themselves are accountable to no one, damned be the consequences.

2006-02-14T10:40:00.000-05:00

For once, just for once, one semester, I'm asking nicely, just one semester, I'm running out of semesters here, and just for once, I would like my entire registration process for classes at NYU not be governed by some bureaucratic bullsh*t that spans three different departments, five different authorities and a partridge in a pear tree. Just once, please let my registration process actually happen smoothly, like it's suppose to, no more bullsh*t about meningitis immunization I needn't have, or graduate classes I can't search for, or classes which have been dropped at the last possible moment. And then dropped again.

Just for once, cut the bureaucratic bullshit, I'd like to be informed when the proverbial shit hits the fan, and is it too much to ask that I can't talk to somewhen when I need to talk to someone?

I guess for NYU, with it's fourteen schools, hundreds of departments and thousands of administrators, it is really too much to ask.

2006-02-12T02:21:00.000-05:00

There's a blizzard outside right now. I suppose the understatement of the year would be, "It's cold out there."

But then again, it's cold in here.

2006-02-11T17:04:00.000-05:00

I think it should be a criminal offense for mail and delivery services not to work on weekends.

2006-02-10T01:08:00.000-05:00

No man is an island.

You know, we live in a world with 6.2 billion people. What does that mean? That means that we're always "not alone" on this pale blue dot. That means somewhere or another is another human being, and we are always constantly interacting with human beings.

Human beings are strange creatures. They are social creatures by nature. They tend to live together, form fraternities and fellowships and get drunk together. Human beings require this social bond between each other, among other purposes to fulfill their needs and offer protection by forming this unit called society.

However, that's besides the point. Thing is, suddenly, I was wondering... when was the last time I touched another human being? As in physically reached out, and realise that someone else is there. I seem to recall not touching any other person today, not even close to bumping into another person on the street yesterday. Which is particularly remarkable considering there are 6.2 billion people in the planet, and I live in one of the most densely populated areas on the planet.

What does it mean to touch someone? Reach out in a physical way to form a conenctive bond that resonates with another human being to reaffirm each other's existence in a mutual way.

I sort of feel like Bruce Willis in the movie Sixth Sense. Like a phantom that floats by, unnoticed by anyone, my existence doesn't seem to matter. That is what true loneliness is like, right?

Sure I speak to people, I talk to people on the occasion, but then again I recall once telling my friend, "You know, I can get through a whole day without speaking a single word to anyone."

Ephemeral. That seems to be the description of my existence. That perhaps I flitting through the day like a butterfly, and the only trace that I ever was, or ever been was the gentle flutter of wind that is lost among the general noise and hub-bub.

2006-02-07T23:12:00.000-05:00

I should begin to title my blogs

Some people's blogs just seem so... organized... while mine seems to be a mess of hodge-podge, whatever-I-can-think-on-the-spot ramblings.

Oooh.. look, an interesting quote, "I wish my lawn was emo, so that it would cut itself."

But yeah, I think I should seriously title my posts so that at least I have some sense of direction in which I was heading. Otherwise I'll be all over the place, well at least my mind. Unfortunately I'm only in one physical place at a time, which can be severely limiting to the good I could bring to the world.

Of course then again, that would severely limit the destruction I would impose upon the world.

You know how things just happen to you? That vague itch of a coincidence, that when you want/need things to happen, they do? The sort of odd coincidence that arises since I don't have a cellphone, but I will bump into the people I need to ask questions. Or when opportunities fall into your lap when you need it to? Or when classes are mysteriously swapped in your favor, while you run around trying to get things fix, it has already been fixed? And locking yourself out of the dorm, only to find your roommate inside already?

You know, I don't really declare myself an atheist or a buddhist, but if there's a god, hey, he must really love me.

Yeah, well it's the strange coincidences like that. I honestly think it happens to everyone too, but then everyone else just don't happen to notice.

So my posts in the end happens to be really scattered all over the place, and my mind flits from one area to another. Anyway, here's a couple of stuff I want, so if you got something like that which you don't want, look, I'm here.

I kinda need a laptop, a really lightweight one, to do my work, especially while I'm at school. It's kinda hard to pull up what I need in the Stern computer labs sometimes, and I got time to sit down and write my necessary papers, so yeah, looking for one.

I sort of told myself I'll get a really nice digital camera since I started working. But since I started working, my expenses have not gone down, so yeah, there goes that, and I need to work harder to get what I want. However, let's hope I get a summer internship.

I guess I'm cool with the needs right now, I need to take photos, mainly because there are moments in my life I wanna capture, and I need a computer to work on the go. It's not exactly greed is it? Hmm... I don't know... maybe. Is cool, is cool.

2006-02-07T09:41:00.000-05:00

You know, it's kinda sad when you get to that point in your life where the only way you can check what day it is, is by looking at your socks.

2006-02-07T00:44:00.000-05:00

I saw you walk in. Or at least I thought I saw you walk in. Someone else, for some reason, reminded me of you. But it wasn't you.

You walked in. No, she walked in and talked to the guy at the counter. I couldn't hear you over the earphones in my head, but I watched her lips move. And she sat down, where you sat before, but then again, I question, were you ever there?

I felt like a stalker, watching your every move. Perhaps somewhere at the back of my head, a little bird whispered, "No chick wants to be alone on Valentine's Day." I cursed. Perhaps I'm a little gutless. I wondered if I had the courage to walk up and talk to you.

Suddenly she turned, and asked me a question, I was startled, I almost fell off my chair, I tugged at my earphones, and said a hazy, "What?"

"What street is this place on?" she asks.

"MacDougal."

"And?" as though giving me an opportunity to ask something.

"Bleecker, I think."

"Okay, thanks." And she keys that into her cellphone, and shuts it, and slowly savours her falafel.

I wondered what just transpired. I picked up my tray, and left it near the bin, and as I walked out, I gave her one glance over my shoulder. She never looked up.

2006-02-03T10:59:00.000-05:00

What are you obsessing about today?

2006-02-01T21:49:00.000-05:00

The teacup is broken,
The glue has dried,
The fates have spoken,
The shades have cried,
The door is open,
The wind has sighed,
The sins are pardoned,
The soul has died,
The words are forgotten,
The idols are deified,
The void has beckoned,
There is nothing left.

2006-01-29T19:46:00.000-05:00

Y'know, if sweeping dirt and dust away is sort of alike to sweeping away all the good luck by Chinese New Year Tradition, then by the state of my room, I'm the luckiest person in the world.

2006-01-27T20:11:00.000-05:00

Wow, Hamas won. That is... wow. I don't know. Speechless. It's really a huge thing, to see a radical group emerge as the popular majority in Palestine.

What does this mean for Israel? US? The rest of the world?

It's pretty simple for Israel. They now get to bomb Palestine with unabated renew and zest. After all, with Hamas at the helm of Palestine, it's not like they don't have the right to "defend themselves" by launching "tactical strikes" against their neighbouring country with such "precision" (read: massive collateral damage) without fear of international repercussion. C'mon who would back Hamas up openly? I don't know... I mean, Israel can now basically invade Palestine and set up Jewish settlements there. Oh, what, they already did? Oh, my bad.

I suppose some terrorists organisations should stay underground, and I suppose some don't. Hamas is one of them. But then again, I wouldn't say it's the brightest thing they could do, emerging from the crowds to take control. Because it would mean that technically they are a state. And we know what America does to terrorist states. Short of trading oil with them and blowing them up afterwards when the deal sours. But the irony of it all is that Hamas won the elections legitly and democratically. There wasn't a hint or a whisper of election fraud or Jack-Abramoff-like allegations in Palestine. Well at these those I didn't heard of anyway.

But the fact remains that Hamas won the elections legitly. I couldn't really imagine Bush calling in to Abbas saying, "Congratulations on a fair elections." After all, didn't a terrorist group rise legitimately through America's sanctioned method of governance to take control of a country?

The question that is answered in this example is, "Is a weak democracy better than a strong dictatorship?"

The previous Palestinian administration was full of alleged corruption, mismanagement of funds and poor public services. And so, steps up Hamas, to fight this, to fight for the Palestinian people. They have been fighting for the Palestinian people since... since... since Israel!

But how do I the next 10 years of Israel-Palestine relationship? First of all, I don't think Hamas would be so volatile or radical anymore; it needs to seek legitimacy on the international stage, so that other countries would accept it, trade with it and probably allow it into the UN at some very later date and time. Secondly, it needs to manage itself internally, which takes away significant focus from the more radical aspects of the group. There would be more internal issues to handle, and not just retaliation with force. The hardline seems to have gone, well, the demands for the annihiliation of Israel is still there, but not as trumpeted or voiced so adamantly. While some might cast doubt over the future of peace in the Middle East, I'd like to think that this is a positive outcome. After all, managing a guerilla outfit isn't quite the same as managing a bureaucratic giant known as government.

Anyway, chances are I'll offend some people with this post and will have to remove it soon. So don't take my word for it, and much less, don't quote me on that.

2006-01-25T20:59:00.000-05:00

Now, picture this. It is raining... no, pouring... and there's flashes of lightning and crashes of thunder. You are driving your two-seater sports car up the road, when suddenly you see at a bus stop three figures. As you turn up your headlights, and your wipers going way past the max speed, you slowly make out the faces of the three people standing at the bus stop.

The first of them is your best friend. The second is, your heart skips a beat, the girl of your dreams. The third is this old lady, who looks really sick. You know the bus won't come, you saw it broke down 2 miles back. Your car can only take two... what do you do? What do you do?

I would give my best friend the keys to the car to take the old lady to the hospital, so that I can stand at the bus stop in the pouring rain with the girl of my dreams.

2006-01-19T23:25:00.000-05:00

My blog needs a new look. I will work on it as soon as I have the time. Else I'd do what most people in my position to do; outsource the project to a third world country paying sub-par salary, and then claim all credit as mine.

Yeah...

Okay, I gotta finish this post. It has been sitting here officially for 24 hours, and I still have no idea what to write.

Just now I went out for this club meeting, called Investment Analysis Group (IAG) and they gave this really dismal presentation on this company Build-A-Bear Workshop. The presentation was dismal because the speakers were dismal, the slides were dismal and the way the company was presented was dismal, and to my dismay, I sat through the whole thing learning nothing. (Disclaimer: I said nothing bad about Build-A-Bear Workshop, just that the whole damn presentation was a waste of time.)

But that wasn't pretty much the point. The point was more on Build-A-Bear Workshop. The dismal presentation just reminded me of this company, Build-A-Bear and it sort of sparked off a string of thoughts.

My first encounter with the company was when I was with my younger sister, and she kept dragging me to this store in a mall called, you guessed it, Build-A-Bear... and like all younger sisters who THINK they have a nice dependable older brother with lots of disposable income, she asked me for the obvious. Naturally, I walked away, and walked away hurriedly I did. Beyond the exorbitant prices, the glassy eyes of stuffed animals which closely resemble rags and the really expensive price tag. I just gotta stress that it's really expensive, especially for a poor college kid.

But I did consider the investment opportunity of buying a teddy bear for my younger sister, in return for many years to come of, "I bought you a teddy bear for your birthday, what did you get me?" And I figured if I could spread the cost among my family, I could shoulder minimal burden, but extort my younger sister for favours or, my favourite, simply guilt her into not bothering me next time because I was such a nice brother for buying her an exorbitantly expensive teddy bear. Yes, I go to business school, and I don't believe that anything is free.

So after conspiring that much, I set my plan into motion by convincing my parents to consent, i.e. provide most of the much necessary ka-ching, and then finally we went back to the store, and I told my younger sister that she could finally have her bear.

She was of course elated, and I could see my plan falling into place, and I figured she'll owe me a big one for the rest of her life. Kinda like selling her soul to her devilish older brother for a teddy bear, which was mostly funded by her parents.

But then, nothing ever goes according to plan. Suddenly, my younger sister was presented with this whole array of choices from stuffed animal skins to pre-recorded voices to outfits, and she was sort of overwhelmed by the whole thing that she couldn't make up her mind. And the thing was, this was something she had always wanted. Seriously always wanted. As in, she always walked by the store with this look in her eyes that she wants it really bad. Well, not bad enough for her to pay for one herself. But she was always looking. And since she finally couldn't make up her mind, she walked away.

Yes, I share your sentiment... which pretty much is summed up in three letters; W-T-F????

Somehow, I couldn't really understand that, and neither did I try to bother understanding that, until about a month ago, when I chanced upon this article about pension plans, 401k plans and mutual fund plans. I think it was on MSN Money. But anyway, the idea is that if a person is offered too many choices, he cannot and will not decide even if it is to his detriment. That is the problem why many people don't have a 401k plan or retirement plan here in America, just that there are so many to choose from that no one knows how to choose.

So with some sort of similar circumstance to my younger sister and Build-A-Bear Workshop, I reflect on it a little, and wonder how true it is; that we do not make decisions just because there are too many choices.

Just how true it is? That we walk into a hypermarket, and basically see shelves and shelves of cereal that we don't know how to pick one, and at the end of the day, we get so turned off by it we go over and buy some bacon and sausages for that all-American cholestrol-packed, fat-saturated, preservatives-choked breakfast. Or we walk into a bookstore with a basket and start pulling books off the shelves, and just as we are about to reach the checkout counter, we look into the basket and realise, "Damn, I can't read all of that." And thus disillusioned, we leave the basket aside and leave the store.

I think the problem might be there, and the problem gets more complex when it starts involving things we don't know. Groceries and books are relatively easy stuff to choose from. What about when we get into more complex stuff like pension funds, retirement plans, banking accounts, mortgages, insurances and other financial instruments? That's where we lose out by not choosing at all.

I suppose this is a problem which would not only not go away, but get worse. As the world gets smaller, our number of choices get a lot larger. But whatever happens we still need to choose.

So where am I going with all this rambling? I think, after looking at choice, and the problem of too many choices, I'd like to look at choice's counterpart; chance. Because, I suppose, chance is a temporary solution to the whole entire complex problem of choice. Chance greatly reduces our choice, just by presenting us with the choice, Yes or No. It's kinda like chance is that force that gently nudges that box of cereal off the shelves to fall at our feet. Or wind that blows the flyer into your windshield. Or sheer coincidence of omens. It's kinda like that, chance is perhaps just an over-simplification of choice.

But then again nothing is ever simple, and I suppose the only way we could not shortchange ourselves by choosing a disgusting brand of cereal, or closing our eyes to the other great choices out there, is by discerning every choice there is. Sure it's a painful task, but since when in life could everything be answered by, "Yes" or "No"?

Anyway, the story of the whole Build-A-Bear thing and my sister didn't end like that, with my plans completely in the dust. Instead, I attempted to salvage whatever I could from that brief moment of apparent philanthropy and started berrating my younger sister for not appreciating my good intentions and that she better not ask anything from me ever again just because this one time, I was about to give it to her and she didn't want it anymore.

Yup, that's the kind of brother I am because that's the kind of brother I chose to be.

2006-01-18T22:47:00.000-05:00

I hate it when my textbooks cost more than my monthly expenditures.

2006-01-17T21:15:00.000-05:00

Dusk falls, the long shadow looms,
The twice-fallen general sets forth his resolve,
Thoughts askewed with wounded pride,
To defeat his arch-nemesis,
Waiting leagues apart.
He pens a note, sends it forth,
On fleet of foot, on immediate receipt,
The challenge was accepted,
The reply brief and haughty.

"So doth the gauntlet thrown,
Thy come full of pomp and confidence,
Lightning flashed as gods watch,
The battle of mere mortals to come,
For blood would seep thy earth,
For bones lay broken upon the hearth,
Thy dogs of war has let slip,
Thy challenge be meet,
But Attila will not go quietly into the night."

So the two giants reared,
As land shook beneath the drums of war,
The metal shrieked through the air,
Shrieked through the gaping wounds of fallen men.
The general rallied his troops,
Readied for the final blow,
Lest his army fall below the march of swords.

Striking fast, he moved in quick,
But too quick, for the trap was sprung,
For the feeble wooden stick,
Was no match indeed,
Could scorch the wall of steel,
Scattered and fleeing did he run,
The general, twice wounded, thrice fallen,
But he swears on the death of his men,
He should triumph the four time.

2006-01-15T16:33:00.000-05:00

I made it a point not to put a blog on my birthday, as I'll be tempted to say a lot of unnecessary rants about how old I've become, wait... how young I am... what my hopes for the year is, what I plan to accomplish before my next birthday, and yadda yadda, a lot of other semi-ranting bullsh*t that might come to mind.

But that aside, to me, well, I always felt that there was nothing special about a birthday. But then again, I suppose yesterday was the day where everyone would show that they care for me. Which of course, if they did, they wouldn't call me at ungodly hours in the morning wishing me happy birthday, like my sister. But yeah, thanks for all the well wishes, I appreciate them. Thanks for finding a way to communicate, phonecalls, emails, IMs, TheFacebook, etc.

Yeah, well. I was asked what I would wish for, for my birthday. (Note: See?? I can do grammar and noun clauses!) I suppose a wish would be useful if I have dreams. But I suppose I'm not much of a dreamer. One guy told me that I was pretty much the "Just Do It" kinda guy. So when I dream of something, I pretty much do it. It's kinda like somewhere between living in the moment, and living for the moment. But whatever goes on in my mind, I suppose I have to be grateful that there is nothing much to really wish for. Do you think wishes are like supermarket coupons? Could I postpone my wish till next year so that I got two wishes for my next birthday? I'm saving it pretty much for something really important.

This post has basically taken me something like 5 hours to type out because I get interrupted in between by Saw 2, WarCraft 3 and yeah, today I just found out I got the 4.0 for last sem. Yeah, pretty much my life is about numbers, but good numbers so far.

Anyway, I don't know what I'm trying to say here. But I suppose life's been good. And life's pretty much like that... it treats you really nice and well, and then it suddenly hamstrings you. Yeah.

Anyway, here's an interesting site: http://thesurrealist.co.uk/slogan.cgi. It pretty much tosses out slogans... you know, based on your word of choice. Insert some pretty interesting words and you'll get hilarious results. Uncle was basically fooling around with my last name. Yeah.

Maybe I'm still a bit hung over... Meh, who cares?

2006-01-13T19:52:00.000-05:00

Perhaps it was a weird idea, perhaps not. But then again, hungry, lazy people tend to come up with creative solutions to solve their hunger. After all... lazy people never saw their laziness as a problem.

But hunger, yes, hunger is a strong compelling force that drives one to scrounge around the kitchen looking for food. Hunger forced our ancestors to sharpen their sticks and knives, then because of some lazy person's innovation to make hunting easier, lock and load their guns. Hunger made people fight wars, bring about the rise and fall of civilisations and made life go on. Hunger danced with insanity, frolicked with deprived but was never a guest at dinner. Yes, this same hunger, a primal force of deity-proportions, forced me to glance around my bare kitchen to cook up a meal worthy of kings and gods.

Yeah, so ten satchets of ketchup, and three handfuls of rice, and viola! Tomato gumbo soup. It's in the microwave. Just thought I'll creatively put something in my blog this time. Yeah, the ingredients are real, the taste I kid you not, the cost, hmm... less than 25 cents.