Not the best of times.

Not the best of times right now. Violence across the globe, religious strife, economics turmoil and I'm not feeling too good either (and not just about my single status too).

First of all, my knee feels sore. The alarming thing is that happened suddenly without any warning. So I'm thinking if this still hurts tomorrow, I'll go and see a doctor. Hopefully, it's not a big deal and I'll feel better when I wake up.

Next piece of bad news is about my bank. JPMorgan recently came up with a deal to purchase Bear Stearns. I read on the Economist that JPMorgan agreed to guarentee $1 billion of Bear's $30 billion most illiquid assets. If Bear Stearns can't get rid of them, I'm doubly screwed. Once via JP and once more via the Fed(since I'm a taxpayer). I hope it doesn't come to this. Ugh. Also from the article is the following.

The bank is heavily exposed to rising corporate defaults. It is also big in home-equity loans, which are souring at an alarming rate. More importantly, it is a giant in the over-the-counter derivatives market, and number one by a long way in credit-default swaps. With such a large derivatives book, the bank can withstand losses of only 15 basis points (hundredths of a percentage point) across its positions before eating through its regulatory risk-based capital, according to Institutional Risk Analytics (IRA), a research firm. These positions are, like those of America's housing giants, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, too big to hedge effectively, IRA says. It also calculates that JPMorgan needs almost five times its current capital to cover its economic risks.

I want to comment about Tibet, but it's late and I'm tired. So I'll leave you a link to pics about how foreign (i.e. non-chinese) people have protested against Chinese action against Tibetans. You don't need to read Chinese, just look at the pictures and form your own conclusions about "westerners".
Lastly, this is a conversation with a relative in China about her opinion on the whole matter. Some editing for space and formatting.

Her: 西藏我没去过. 不过哪个地方是很多人都很想去，特别是中国人.我有几个朋友说一定要去西藏，哪的文化很浓，地方也很好，海拔很高，很多人梦想去哪，特别是搞艺术的，做设计之类的对这个地方很感兴趣
Me: ok.对西藏人要独立的事又有什么看法？
Her: 这次事件搞的满大的，独立我想不太可能的.做为中国人当然不希望他们独立
Me: 那你对“做人不能太CNN"这句话又有什么看法？
Her: 我们做人要实事求是，要厚道.比较同意以上说法，哈哈. 中国人做事也好，我感觉都很有原则，实事求是，做人，做事脚踏实地. 这次事件对中国影响很大的，我同事有去过西藏的，大该去一下，在中国要花1.5万人民币，现在可能又少一点，过去的人都说很好. 像这样地方，去的人一般都是喜欢冒险的，哈哈，不过铁路通了以后，旅游的也很普便了

She says she doubts that Tibet will become independent and that she doesn't wish for independence. On the issue of Western Media Bias against the Chinese government's actions, she says that Chinese people are principled and practical and that everyone should be like that. I guess that's not really answering the question, but I want to sleep already and that's as far as I will get.

Ok. Night all.

Watch the Video, Follow the Instructions

And see how sharp your eyes are.

Post Easter Post

I hope everyone enjoyed their Easter weekend. Even though I'm not religious, since it's Easter, I'd like to take the time to share some takes on the Last Supper.

1. If Jesus were a mouse, I'm thinking the Last Supper might be something like this. Be wery wery quiet, they're eating...

2. A more commercial take on the Last Supper. Although, if food were the main theme, it might be quite apropos.

3. Abstract, with contrasting colours, some might say the Apple is akin to Jesus.

4. Perhaps some people worship this form of Apple Jesus instead.

5. Personally, I worship at this One's altar more than any son of God.


6. Who can resist Lego figures? Lego Jesus FTW!


Well, I'm also back on-site. Using the hotel internet. Which sucks eggs.

Good "QQ" Game. Oh well, I never expected to TF2 anyways. I'm just glad I brought my DS along.

Couple of miscellaneous Chinese vocab.

1. 频频肇事 (pin2 pin2 zhao4 shi4) - to repeatedly create issues.
2. 涉嫌 (she4 xian2) - to be a suspect

Do-Over

This post was originally about someone who was impersonating me as seen above. But like a good friend said, I should grow thicker skin. So that's that.

TF2 Overload

I'm amused at all the creative things people have done with TF2. It's a game but I've seen so many youtube music that utilizes TF2 sounds. It's incredible.

Here are some of the best I've seen. And a special shoutout to AhSeng. Most of them are Scout-based. Bonk!

1. Mortal KomBonk


2. NFL Bonk!


3. Super Bonk Land (Soon to be my ringtone)


4. One of my favourite characters, the Heavy Weapons Guy.


5. More Scout.


And lastly, it's been raining all day here. So naturally my thoughts are about how to keep warm, and what better way to keep warm than the pyro? So here's a tribute to that crazy bastard we all love and can barely understand.

Something I don't do very often

Which is discuss about finance. WARNING:LONG POST THAT I DON'T REALLY UNDERSTAND MYSELF. READ AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION. Here is a Financial Times article written by former Fed(eral Reserve) Chairman Alan Greenspan.

With the emerging financial doom and gloom lead by the sub-prime mortgage crisis and compounded with a steadying dropping consumer confidence and rising oil prices, I thought it would be a good thing to listen to what this guy had to say. He obviously knows a lot more about finance than me. So I'm gonna be leaving pointers on what I think is interesting/important.

1. Apparently this might be the worse crunch for the US since World War II. I guess we should be "privileged" to live in such interesting times.

2. The biggest component of this mess is the housing market. And until the liquidation of the excess inventory has happened in earnest, there won't be stabilization. Which means, that it's a good time to go investing if you can spare a few hundred thousand USD (My thoughts). However, single family housing supply has sharply fallen in the past year. Mr Greenspan predicts that in 2008, around 400,000 homes will be sold. And next year's supply is limited as well so that will prevent even more empty houses flooding the market.

3. One of the biggest changes that should occur from the fallout of this crisis is how risk is assessed by the financial sector. I don't fully realise the impact of his words so I'm just gonna quote verbatim here.

To be sure, the systems of setting bank capital requirements, both economic and regulatory, which have developed over the past two decades will be overhauled substantially in light of recent experience. Indeed, private investors are already demanding larger capital buffers and collateral, and the mavens convened under the auspices of the Bank for International Settlements will surely amend the newly minted Basel II international regulatory accord

The manner of risk-taking companies took were not able to withstand the stress when the whole market took a downturn.

One difficult problem is that much of the dubious financial-market behaviour that chronically emerges during the expansion phase is the result not of ignorance of badly underpriced risk, but of the concern that unless firms participate in a current euphoria, they will irretrievably lose market share. Risk management seeks to maximise risk-adjusted rates of return on equity; often, in the process, underused capital is considered “waste”. Gone are the days when banks prided themselves on triple-A ratings and sometimes hinted at hidden balance-sheet reserves (often true) that conveyed an aura of invulnerability. Today, or at least prior to August 9 2007, the assets and capital that define triple-A status, or seemed to, entailed too high a competitive cost.

4. Current models have an X-factor thrown in to model the market. This means that they cannot adequately describe what is happening. Ideally, we should be able to simulate what happens when the market is given to hysteria. As long as we can predict the systematic lows of the market, we should be able to prepare for it. But that is beyond my expertise as to how such things should occur (My thoughts).

I hope that was informative! And yes, I know it was too long. Bleah.

Animal Abuse

Be warned, the following video contains scenes of graphic animal abuse. I do not advise listening to the video carefully. You might choke on your food.



Bad cow pun indeed.

Spring Forward!

So I know I promised to upload pics and I went to Flickr to upload them, but then I realised that they only allow people (myself included) to see the most recent 200 pics. Since I'm not willing to pay $25 a year to change that access and also because I'm not impressed with Flickr's interface, I'm considering switching photo services. Does anyone know if Picasa is any good? I spent a considerable amount of time today downloading all my stuff from Flickr to my HDD and gave up after the 120+th photo. So just a reminder that yes, I still remember.

In other news, it's time to Spring Forward guys. Daylight savings has arrived! I like it. It means when I reach home, there is still light (although maybe no warmth still) when I go jogging. Means I can go by the lake again. And it's always nice to think that Spring is here, after spending a dreary 4 months in the cold, sleet and snow. That means another 4 weeks to a more *ahem* colourful street scene. I'm looking forward to that as well. It also means it's a 13 hour difference with home now. So that means a better convergence of timing to chat and catch up with people back home. That's always nice.

And who says gamers aren't cool? This is Soulja Boy done Team Fortress Two style. Enjoy.



And to the people who understand - Isn't that rocket jump, turn and frag of the scout so damn cool?!?

Breaking News!

Just because I care. This is an extract of an article from the AP.

Men who do housework may get more sex...

Joshua Coleman, a San Francisco-area psychologist and author of "The Lazy Husband: How to Get Men to Do More Parenting and Housework," said equitable sharing of housework can lead to a happier marriage and more frequent sex.

"If a guy does housework, it looks to the woman like he really cares about her — he's not treating her like a servant," said Coleman, who is affiliated with the Council on Contemporary Families. "And if a woman feels stressed out because the house is a mess and the guy's sitting on the couch while she's vacuuming, that's not going to put her in the mood."

So there you have. Guys this is for you, and knowing is half the battle.

Random Thoughts

So, here are some random thoughts that I've been accumulating and been just to lazy to write down.

1. It's not so bad jogging when it's around freezing, as long as the roads aren't icy and the wind isn't blowing. And you don't jog too far, till your nose gets so dry you have to jog with a gloved hand over your mouth and nose. And I'm just glad the weather has gotten warm enough to actually allow jogging outdoors. And I'm grateful that I don't have to go into the field for another month or so. That's some regular exercise time right there. Time to lose that weight I gained during vacation. Haha.

2. My neighbours are far better cooks than I am. I was boiling a soup today with some dried scallops, dates and ikan billis. And whilst waiting for the stuff to boil, I went to clear the trash and the moment I exited into the walkway, the aroma of my neighbours' grilled fish was just too fantastic to ignore. Single asian working male in foreign country = low culinary skill-time.

3. After the previous post about how I think I left a lot of things behind, I had a chat with my supervisor. And was very impressed with his plans for the division and for progress in the company. But the surprising thing was, that even with these visions of grandeur (our own little R&D model, computer simulations, integrated equipment surveys), he still said that it's best not to get pigeonholed and even encouraged me to look for other opportunities when I thought it would be appropriate. He also said that I had some transferable skills already, with all the field work that I have had. That's something I will think about. Realistically, I think there's probably another 1-2 more years before I will start to actively reassess my life. But it's always nice to know you have nice superiors.

4. NEVER EVER BUY ANY COMPUTER MADE IN CHINA. My Lenovo (Curses on the lousy brand!) has seen the Lenovo return DHL box 4 times since Sept 06. I will get a new PC when my warranty expires. I cannot stand this piece of shite that is Lenovo. Ugh, I cannot even begin to describe the revulsion I feel for them. I will have to stop here or I shall pop a vein. Ugh.

That's about all I have right now. I'm going to bed.