Up, Up, Up and Then Some Burnt Hands (Yes, folks, it’s Our Stock Market)

Even if you don’t play the Malaysian stock market, you’d seen the headlines. First the there was the bull run, starting with some time in December / early January. Actually the first liners started moving much earlier, but the 2nd and third liners didn’t really follow immediately.

Then when January came, almost every other stock was going up, along with the price of chicken. The mostly docile Malaysian players, starved of action for more than 10 years, started to go into a frenzy.

Everyone had something to say or brag about. “Wah, today I made 40k before lunch, man“, “Gahmen is pushing it for the Chinese New Year only lah“, “Eh, my remisier / uncle / mechanic told me this share can double by next week“, “What is this Bursa ah? What happened to the KLSE ah?”

So up, up and up it went, even last Wednesday, the 4th day of New Year, the market was buzzing busier than ever, contrary to previous years, where up until the 8th day of the Lunar New Year, everyone was still too busy with their mahjong and chongker and boozing.

Well, those who bought early and sold early in good discipline (or pure luck) did well. Those who bought at the peak, well… well there’s still hope the market can still recover in a day or two, right? Hmmm… uh-huh.

In the meantime, there’s still plenty of opportunity to play some more new year mahjong or show hand…

Technorati Tags: KLSE, bursa, bursa malaysia, stocks, stock market

Are You Fat? Overweight? Obese?

You know, once you reach a certain age, you start to fret issues you never thought about. Or actually, your spouse and doctor will nag you about it. Most of the time it’s your cholestrol level and blood pressure. And also your weight.

Yep, weight consciousness isn’t confined to preppy teenage girls and young women only, men have to watch the scales (and waist line) if they’re to avoid a heart attack or one of those innard failures. You’ll hear middle age men talking about BMI and ‘good cholesterol’ these days, my 35-year old neighbour has started jogging 3 times a week, although at the rate he goes, his 4-year old kid on a tricycle goes faster than him. Plus he shouldn’t really gulp down that can of Coke after each jog.

My doctor, who believes in the principle that “if you’re slightly overweight, I’ll tell you straight in the face you’re TOO FAT”, told me i needed to lose some weight, 10kg to be exact. Although i noticed he calculated my BMI wrongly, I didn’t correct him, I just used it to set as a higher target to achieve. That was exactly one year ago.

Last month, i went for a check-up again, and the end-result was i lost 6kg in total. Not exactly 10kg, but not too bad i thought. That was before the CNY holidays, since then i haven’t checked the scales yet…

Let’s put aside what the media and Hollywood tells you first. Not being fat has some privileges – obviously. But how thin or light is right? If you’re one of those people who have no idea how much 100 pounds or 100kg is, let’s take a few examples.

Paris Hilton – 50kg

Jennifer Lopez – 55kg

Lindsay Lohan – umm… before rehab for anorexia, she’d probably be something like 35kg or something like that.

David Beckham — 74kg

Tom Cruise – 77kg

Shaquille O’Neal – 148kg

WWE Wrestler Rikishi – 182kg

(all photos from Wikipedia.)

so i dunno… i’m right there between Tom Cruise and Shaq… as with most Malaysian guys, i suppose. After all that binging during the holidays, maybe i should take my doc’s advice and keep to bran and low fat milk…

Or better yet, stick this pic of Simon Cowell on my fridge… ugh…

(pic from Daily Mail)

Technorati Tags: cholestrol, BMI, Paris Hilton, Jennifer Lopez, Lindsay Lohan, David Beckham, Tom Cruise, Shaquille O’Neal, WWE, Rikishi, Simon Cowell, Shaq, JLo

Chinese New Year of Monkeys, Food and Cactus Plants

Wow, what a Chinese New Year week it has been for me.

In the past 8 days, I’ve:

• Traveled more than 750km up and down the country;
• Ate lots (and lots) of good food;
• Went jogging in the blazing hot sun almost everyday wherever I was (and prolly lost a kilo of sweat while at it);
• Watched lots of TV, too. Good TV and bad TV.
• And got to spend a lot of time reading.

Anyway, as a recap, here’s a short log of my trip, plus some pics. I should have taken more pics, I know…:

Friday, The Day Before CNY Eve:

It was a long 2-hour drive back to Johor, not helped by the hot weather &%#$% road expansion works on the PLUS Highway. Traffic wasn’t bad though, except for some suicidal speeders cutting in and out of the construction lanes…

Upon reaching home, I did the usual post driving ritual – sleep it off. Evening – jogged a few miles in the sweltering heat. After that, a visit to the famous monkey park. If you come to my hometown, you MUST go there in the evenings. We feed them bread skins from my mom.

Saturday, New Year’s Eve:

By the second day, my kids are tired of playing with my old matchbox cars in my mom’s glass cabinet. Didn’t help my their dad (that’s me) keeps telling them “this is the fastest car I have… this one can open the doors one…” Hey, matchbox cars were a LUXURY for us back then, okay…?

Jogging again, Monkey park again (I think the primates are getting tired of us). There’s nothing really good to watch on TV during CNY, but I caught some Premier League Snooker. Checked my mail on my brother’s ancient PC (some parts missing).

Here, monkey, monkey… the whole park is one huge rubbish dump after all the food they feed the monkeys with.

At night, my wife made dinner, plus shark fin’s soup. We bought the ingredients from Tesco here in KL for a very cheap price. Yes, I know finning is cruel, but Campbell’s Soup just doesn’t feel festive.

My mom’s collection of prickly cacti which we use to torture our neighbour’s cat.

Sunday, First Day of the New Year:

We stopped going back to Malacca for CNY for a long time, so we just stay at home these days. We went round looking for a lion dance performance, but sadly we didn’t find any.

Watched MORE television. And Kung Fu Hustle for the 15th time already.

Dad b’day cake. We scoured the house for cake decor, so guess what did we use…?

We celebrated Dad’s birthday, he was born on the first day of the Chinese Lunar New Year. He’s probably wishing for a THIRD grandchild.

Monday, Second Day of the New Year:

My cousin comes to visit enroute back from Malacca to Singapore, and after that, it’s back to KL. My mom follows us back to the city for the week. Probably to escape the dreariness of small town Malaysia.

Next: Journey up north and some real photos, i promise…

Technorati Tags: Chinese New Year, Malaysia, monkey

Holidays At Home. And a Re-focus of My Blog

Happy New Year, everyone and thanks for all the wishes. May the auspicious year of the Golden Boar be good to everyone. I’m actually blogging this from my hometown in Johor during the holiday. I haven’t been home for a long, long time due to many complicated reasons, but at the moment, its feels quite good to be home, for the moment.

Last month I just celebrated my second blog anniversary (or as they call it blogniversary in Net-speak), it was quite a muted event, considering how my recent lifestyle and career has impacted my blogging.

Well, over the past few weeks, I have had quite some time to think about my blog, or lack of time for it thereof. But I still love to blog, and have decided to still carry on this blog, for the time being.

What I plan to do is do a re-focus of the blog. I concede that in recent months, the blog has suffered a severe lack of focus, I think that is obvious to any regular readers who are familiar with the early days. Whether intentionally or not, this blog has become somewhat of an alter-ego of mine, entirely by me but not really entirely true of me. As far as alter-egos go, they can say things I may not necessarily say out loud, and vice versa.

Perhaps that comes as somewhat pretentious, for those who know me personally, or just unrealistic at the very least, but at least it won’t be anymore. I would say the gap between simontalks and simon the actual person would closing up quite a bit, although i won’t say it’ll be exactly me per se. But at least it’ll be more of myself.

Anyways, posts will still come at their usual rate – at about 3 times a week, that’s as frequent as I can afford.

And so, a re-focus is launched. This blog, will be about me, my life, my outlook in life, and pretty much the stuff I do in life. For starters, I’m gonna update the ‘About Me’ section (tab above) when i come home from the festive holidays (and back on broadband), since I’ve never really divulge much about myself. Very typical of Malaysian Chinese, isn’t it? Always never really telling much about yourself, but somehow, well.

Technorati Tags: blog, bloggging, Chinese New Year, Malaysia

Happy New Year, Everyone

Mandarin oranges, sunflower seeds, dry cookies, red lanterns everywhere.

Right now I’m sitting at home in my hometown, it’s a cooling day after the rain.

Happy New Year, everyone, from Simontalks! Make sure you enjoy yourself this holiday…

Valentine’s Day Is Almost Over. Phew.

Message from Ultra Thin Super Injection Slimming and Beauty Center for Valentine’s Day:

“Send your girlfriend a giant heart-shaped box of super rich Belgian chocolates. We’ll be right there for here for the aftermath. And your money.”

**-**

Message from Greenpeace for Valentine’s Day:

“Sure, send 144 red roses at super inflated prices, which will all probably die come Saturday. Then she’ll have nothing to do with them except throw it in the trash. Did you know flowers are basically dead hands of trees?”

**-**

Message from your local leading English newspaper for Valentine’s Day:

“Go ahead, do that spectacular stunt that you’re planning to do for your girl, like write a sky message with an small plane. Call us, we’ll send our best photographer there in a minute. We usually like to showcase the biggest V-Day money-spending sucker on the front page of our papers the next day.”

**-**

Voice message from Mom:

“I know you’re not doing anything tonight, coz you don’t have a girlfriend and all, but would it kill you to call your own mom once in awhile?! And by the way, this weekend bring back your bedsheet for me to wash. And do forget your dirty underwear…”

**-**

Message from your mail box:

“Tired of sending flowers and chocolates and teddy bears for Valentine’s Day every year? Try our new amazing new product! Strawberry flavoured pork chop ginger candy! Nothing says “I LOVE YOU” more than this tasty new treat!”

**-**

Strange call from an unidentified number:

“Hi, My name is Rajan, my friends call me “ROCKY“. You don’t know me, but i believe you know my GIRLFRIEND Candy. You left your wallet at her place last night, and i’ve kindly brought it back for YOU. Care to step outside your home a minute…?”

**-**

Note from your girlfriend:

“Thanks for the Valentine gift, very thoughtful of you. However, I hope you kept the receipt, I think you need to return it. I’m allergic to any metal that isn’t gold, silver or platinum, and your necklace has caused my neck to break out in a nasty rash…”

How To Put On 10kg During Chinese New Year (And Fall Sick After That)

How To Put On 10kg During Chinese New Year (And Fall Sick After That)

• Doesn’t BBQ meat taste great? Just repeat to yourself, “Once in awhile only, and I worked hard to deserve this…”
• Eat lots and lots of mandarin oranges. And don’t bother to peel off all the white strands of skin.
• Eat, sleep, PS2. Eat, sleep, PS2. Eat, sleep, PS2. Repeat ad infinitum. Make sure your mom comes in once a day to water you and turn you towards the window.
• Nobody’s eating all the keropok and cookies on the table, such a pity to see it go to waste…
• Don’t drink water, even if it’s 40 degrees Celsius outside. Just load up on Coke and Orange crush. With lots of ice.
• Who needs sleep when you have tons of TV shows and downloads and DVDs to watch? It’s not like you have to wake up before 12 noon to go to work, or anything?
• Use the phrase as your mantra – “I’ll work it off after the holidays” and you’ll have a great guilt-free binge.
• Seven words –Chinese New Year open house free food. That veritable time honoured Malaysian tradition. Who cares which bigshot politician is hosting it, as long as there is food…
• Firecracker fumes can be SO addictive…
• Set back your bathroom weighing machine about 10kg and your all set for a great holiday.

Technorati Tags: CNY, Chinese New Year, Malaysia

Two Week Report on Streamyx

I’ve had Streamyx for just over two weeks now.

If i were to give it a report card, it’d be bad.

Somedays i don’t get any connection, some days are okay. But it’s the down time that annoys the heck out of me. The last down time was from Thursday night right up to this afternoon. And I’m paying good money for this ‘broadband’ (and so are lots and lots and lots of people).

Before i subscribed to them, i used to read and hear lots of people including my pals rant and bitch about streamyx, now i can understand why. But it’s not that i have an option, it’s either this or dial-up. Or no internet.

On the good days, surfing speed varies. Sometimes it’s slow, but it’s usually adequate. I haven’t tested the speed to see whether it’s anywhere near 70-80% of the max, does anyone know of any good internet speed websites?

**-**

On another note, i bought a computer table for my daughter (not IKEA).

When we brought it back (it was one of those DIY sets pre-pack in flat boxes), we found there was a piece missing – a crucial piece. If fact, the packet of screws and nails was not properly sealed, and they were all rolling around inside box, leaving fine scratches everywhere.

Anyway to cut the short story short, we gave the store a tongue lashing, and it took them more than a week to replace the missing piece. They even had the cheek to say they lost our contact number.

**-**

Furniture business seems to be booming. Two more huge furniture malls just opened up down the street. Everyday, i can see loads of people buying new furniture. Not just Chinese folks – Malays and Indians and others.

Economic slowdown? What economic slowdown?

Technorati Tags: broadband, Internet, streamyx, tmnet

My Most Memorable Movie For 2006

First off i watched lots of movies last year, no thanks to my DVD player. I’ve always been a huge fan of movies, but you know, these i hardly have time to relieve myself, let alone go to the cinema (and look for parking, queue for a ticket, wait for the show to start, sit through inane ads, etc)

The other day i was wondering to myself which of the many movies stuck in my mind the most, but soon i realized that picking an ultimate list would be difficult, so i just picked the first one that came to mind, which would make it the most memorable.

Ready or not, here goes:

Nope, it’s not a major summer blockbuster, not the most talked about remake, or any of those difficult to understand dramas that win lots of awards.

It’s very different documentary-style movie about the 4th plane that was hijacked along with the 2 that hit the World Trade Center in New York and the one that crashed into the Pentagon in Washington.

4 terrorists hijack United flight 93, and carry out a suicide mission. It all starts innocently, like any other morning in America. As the chaos start to unravel, more and more people get involve – the air traffic controllers, the military, the control tower people, and lots of people who are just too complacent to do anything before it was too late.

“A hijack? When was the last time THAT happened?”

That line was mentioned twice, and show the unpreparedness of the nation who prides itself as the greatest on earth.

The director, Paul Greengrass shoots a stunning movie. He gives no opinions, no solutions, no hearsay, and none of the usual Hollywood crap we’ve come to expect.

There are no stars in this movies, witty dialogue, no happy endings, no heroes. Actually, there are heroes, it’s just the everyday man. The brave passengers staged a daring fightback, but sadly, as history would note, it was all in vain.

It’s a disturbing movie. it might make you sick, it might make you fear to fly. But it’s the truth.

Watch it.

*********

For those who want a complete (more or less) list of movies from last year, you can check out IMDB or this page by the director Kevin Smith.

Technorati Tags: united 93, movies, 9-11, hollywood, united

Great Scenes From That Great Show … #1

Rachel: Oh my God… What.. What are you guys doing here?

Phoebe: Okay, you’re on.

Rachel: What? What? Ross, you’re scaring me. What’s going on?

Ross: Okay, the thing is..

Rachel: Yeah?

Ross: Don’t go.

Rachel: What?

Ross: Please, please stay with me. I am so in love with you. Please, don’t go.

Rachel: Oh my God.

Ross: I know, I know. I shouldn’t have waited ’till now to say it, but I’m.. That was stupid, okay? I’m sorry, but I’m telling you now. I love you. Do not get on this plane.

Gate attendant #2: Miss? Are you boarding the plane?

Ross: Hey, hey. I know you love me. I know you do.

Gate attendant #2: Miss?

Rachel: I – I have to get on the plane.

Ross: No, you don’t.

Rachel: Yes, I do.

Ross: No, you don’t.

Rachel: They’re waiting for me, Ross. I can’t do this right now, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

Ross: Rachel?

Rachel: I’m so sorry.

(She boards the plane.)

Ross: I really thought she’d stay.

Phoebe: I’m sorry.

(Phoebe hugs Ross.)

(okay i know this pic isn’t the exact scene, but it’s from the same season, this is from the “Never off the table” scene…)

I’m a huge fan of the show… i was watching ‘Derailed’ starring Jennifer Aniston, i was reminded of this great scene. For those who can’t remember, (or are unfortunate enough not to have watched it), it’s from the second last episode, of the closing season.

Like i said, i love the show. Where’s my DVD box set?

Technorati Tags: friends, tv, ross, rachel, jennifer aniston