C

perfect family car. Citroen's C-airlounge. Or maybe the preferred mode of transport will be Citation X?

work-life, not worklife

Stephen Covey, the celebrated writer talked about work-life balance here. so this is an exerpt for it, for those who lazy to press the link.

-- Discipline 1: Focus on the Wildly Important. This means you need to narrow your focus down to the one, two or three most important goals you must achieve. These goals are so important that if you don’t achieve them, nothing else you achieve really matters much.

-- Discipline 2: Act on the Lead Measures. After you’ve narrowed your focus to the few key goals you must accomplish, you need to select the few key activities that are predictive of goal achievement and that you can influence on a weekly basis. These are called “lead measures.” These lead measures are 80/20 activities--that is, 80% of the results come from 20% of these activities. The 80/20 rule is also known as the Pareto principle.

-- Discipline 3: Keep a Compelling Scoreboard. Once you’ve defined your goals and measures, you need to put them on a scoreboard so everyone knows all the time whether you’re winning or losing.

-- Discipline 4: Create a Cadence of Accountability—a rhythm of team-based engagement and accountability.

--

All these management consulting stuff are talking about the same thing essentially, there's this Johari window thing years back. But essentially i think all laws and good 'rules' and habits to follow comes from human being's consciousness of knowing/having God's likeness, thus following their word. try it, track any of these principles that worked, and it will go back to something you have read in the bible. can they be earlier than the bible? no rite?

Most of us fall into different tranches of closeness to doing what we really want. the broadest base is dunno what we want at all, up a level: knowing what we want, but not pursuing; up a level: knowing what we want, tried pursue but gave up; followed by pursued, and currently in a sterilized variation of what we want; followed by doing what we want, but not focused pursuit; followed by the pinnacle, which is doing and fully pursuing.

of course if you put in the Maslow hirachy of needs (or this, this and this), you will pursue thing according to your different needs in progression. I seriously think that things like having to renovate ur house nice nice, having an expensive wedding, etc makes the exit barrier of the current good paying job and lifestyle higher, and makes the entry barrier to the what-u-really-want high also.

priorities, it goes back to. somethings you would forsake anything, for. some, not.

---

but again, who says that doing something you don't really want is wrong? i think prob knowing what you really want (or at least what you think you really want at least) is more important.

i like this quote: "I would rather regret the things I have done than the things I have not" - Lucille Ball

means, just whack la.

zzzzzzz.......

I can't sleep after 2 teh tariks... im so gonna fall asleep tmr at work.. oh later today that is... oh nooo...

Sunny Days

"Sunny Days"

Sunny days keepin' the clouds away
I think we're coming to a clearing and a brighter day
So far away. Still I think they say
The wait will make the heart grow stronger or fonder
I can't quite remember anyway

So if you're waitin' for love
Well it's a promise I'll keep
If you don't mind believing that it changes everything
Then time will never matter

Winter, Spring... is what love can truly bring
Ice turns to water, water flows to everything
You can lose your mind, maybe then your heart you'll find
I hope you won't give up what's moving you inside

If the car won't start, when you turn the key
When the music comes on, all your cold, cold heart can do is skip a beat

It's a promise I'll keep
When you're waitin' for love
If you don't mind believing that it changes everything
Then time will never matter

-----

I really liked this song, it was playing again and again in my mind; from my favourite Jars of Clay album most probably (I have all of them, and the special EPs) "Who we are instead"; Someone said this, Jars grew along with us. Their songs grow in season and maturity/style (though the latest monster CD is a little over me).

There is cleverness in their simple songs, if you listen carefully. Though who can forget their classics with frankness - love song for a savior.

things that people away from home eat #1

1. chu qian yi ding (CQYD) instant noodles, the one with sasame flavor.
2. your favourite canned tuna, preferably flakes in oil

boil water with instant noodle flavoring (powder flavoring). put noodles in boiling water, and add few flakes of tuna with some of the oil that comes with the tuna.

cook until noodle is very soft, as desired.

add sasame oil to noodle and serve with tuna.

-----

best ribs in town

best instant noodles

best canned tuna

with everything else, visa

mum's soup/cooked food: priceless.

way to reach the heart? simple.

cos we are cruel

i like what gizmodo say.. why we always tease you with products that aren't real? cos we are cruel... i really like this concept phone. bigger keypad buttons please. but yes, i am an avid fan of apple since the beginning of time and i will buy iphone. irrationally.

drunk squirrel

This is really funny, a drunk squirrel trying to climb a tree, saw it from think.com.my

i wonder what is the animal with the highest alcohol tolerence, of course, excluding those that walk on 2 legs.

setting foot in virtual world

http://swerve.lifechurch.tv/2007/03/12/lifechurchtv-has-a-second-life-church-campus/

But for the real world side:

Best Places For Business And Careers#1

Raleigh
Population: 978,000

RANK
Colleges 1 :90
Cost of Doing Business 2 :27
Cost Of Living 3 :121
Crime Rate 4 :49
Culture & Leisure 5 :104
Educational Attainment 6 :12
Income Growth * :152
Job Growth * :35
Net Migration * :15
Overall :1

from:http://www.forbes.com/lists/2007/1/07bestplaces_Raleigh-NC_100138.html

THE-sign, see it?

I Have always emphasized design as the important component in problem solving. maybe this is what designers has been screaming all along, hoping us to hear it. what took them so long for the deaf ears to discover it?

Business leaders with and edge in design, or believe in it. look at GE's ecoimagine, Apple, and of course my favourite company IDEO. tommorow's business school, tomorrow's business leader. people with an appreication for design, but yet have the skills and strategic thinking for problem solving. both soft and hard skills. looks like the world needs me. ain't it? :)

its really not about the art art stuff, its not about aesthatics, its not even about the bombastic word-"creativity". those are just expressions of design. its the mindset, its the direction, the approach and prespective. this would be one of the most useful things i've learnt in all my years of fine art. the perspective and approach. not sure how to explain.



have a read:
Tomorrow's B-School?
It Might Be A D-School Business schools are hooking up with design institutes -- or starting their own

The Academic: Roger Martin Joseph
L. Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, Ont.

Save the penguins!!!!

Save the world, you can do your part. Stop using so much of that tissue paper. Yes, you.

http://www.designcanchange.org/#home

"The Kingdom of Hedgistan"

Quoted from "The Kingdom of Hedgistan: Why hedge funds cluster in the world’s most expensive habitats."

"The first law of hedge-fund dynamics is that most people who start hedge funds don’t wander far from familiar turf. "

"The second law of hedge-fund dynamics—also known as the narcissism of small distances—is that hedge-fund managers seek the shortest possible commute that doesn’t involve working at home."

"The third law of hedge-fund dynamics dictates that hedge-fund managers, like other members of the global plutocracy, tend to move in the same small, concentric circles. “They’re generally image-conscious, they like to congregate, and credibility is generated by affiliation and by proximity,” says Dean Shapiro, executive managing director at CB Richard Ellis, who has hedge-fund clients in both Greenwich and New York."

------

hospitality index..quite interesting

http://www.forbes.com/2007/04/02/07caphosp_capital-hospitality-index_map.html

ERM....

oh well

"....Nor Mohamed Yakcop came to power on the back of advising former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in imposing capital controls and a Ringgit peg as a cure to the Asian financial crisis of 1997. Previously allied to Anwar Ibrahim protégé Wan Hasni as advisor to the Abrar group of companies, Nor Mohamed had also worked as a Bank Negara officer, a role where he lost RM15 billion on bad foreign currency trading bets. It was said that Nor Mohamed made so much money from the foreign exchange foray that he bought a racehorse for the Melbourne Cup race and named it after Bank Negara....

....So Sarvananthan was quickly made Director of Investments in Khazanah. At the age of 29, Sarvananthan, who had no business experience at all in Malaysia, was put in charge of restructuring Khazanah’s businesses and most importantly its equity investments. In spite of his apparent qualifications, Sarvananthan knew nothing about Khazanah’s agenda, nor was he knowledgeable about the Malaysian financial and business environments. This seemed no obstacle though as he was made the most important decision-maker in the so-called Khazanah revamp. ...."

http://www.malaysia-today.net/Blog-e/2005/09/khairy-chronicles.htm

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000039&refer=columnist_mukherjee&sid=alqJwwuG2Vu4

http://www.malaysia-today.net/Blog-s/2006/01/mas-chronicles.htm

http://maverickysm.blogspot.com/2004_05_01_maverickysm_archive.html

http://www.khazanah.com.my/docs/mc200411-FinanceAsia.pdf

Anyone

http://www.macbattle.com/topranked.php

any one of these please.

patriotic songs

Malaysian patriotic songs, provided by a link thru think.com.my

still like demi negara.. yang tercinta.. the most. oh, that day was talking about "lagenda" by sheila majid, with my roomate, i asked him whether he remember this very old sony (hifi or TV) commercial where there is this malay song (or was it indonesian?) but the beginning of the song sounded like lagenda, however the ending sounds different.

anybody remember?

anyway, what makes you proud to be Malaysian? (if you are...) Apparently famous people mostly agree on one thing, which has to do with being born into the diversity and the society/people.

can't disagree much.

Spainish

Latino here i come. where the sun is bright and the girls are pretty.

I want to learn spanish.

oh well, told you

From The Sunday Times
March 18, 2007

‘Microsoft sucks’, says top bloggerPaul Durman
MICROSOFT’s formerly tame blogger has bitten the software company that made his name when it employed him as a “technology evangelist”.

Robert Scoble writes the Scobleizer web log, one of the most-read sources of technology commentary on the internet.

He owes his status to the three years he spent at Microsoft, where he was given free rein to comment on the company’s affairs from the inside. The Economist magazine has credited Scoble with playing a significant role in softening the software giant’s former reputation for monopolistic bullying.

In the past, Scoble has tended to be sympathetic about Microsoft’s failings. However, he was provoked into stinging criticism last week after a series of triumphalist remarks, including some disparaging comments about Google made by Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive.

At a “global summit” of its most-valued software developers, Microsoft repeatedly declared that it would “win” in search and other parts of its Windows Live internet strategy.

“The words are empty,” Scoble responded. “Microsoft’s internet execution sucks (on the whole). Its search sucks. Its advertising sucks. If that’s ‘in it to win’, then I don’t get it.”

He continued: “Microsoft isn’t going away. Don’t get me wrong. They have record profits, record sales, all that. But on the inter-net? Come on.

“Microsoft: stop the talk. Ship a better search, a better advertising system than Google, a better hosting service than Amazon, a better cross-platform web development ecosystem than Adobe, and get some services out there that are innovative.”

Scoble’s comments reflect wider concerns — shared by some Microsoft insiders — that the poorly understood Windows Live initiative is failing to make the impact expected when it was unveiled 18 months ago.

Windows Live was pitched as the centrepiece of Microsoft’s response to Google and other companies offering web-based services. It was seen to be a key focus for Ray Ozzie, who has replaced Bill Gates as Microsoft’s chief software architect.

Talking to Stanford University business school students in California, Ballmer said Google had built only one good business and “everything else is sort of cute” — in other words largely irrelevant.

This also provoked Scoble’s ire. “You’re up against a formidable competitor and one you’ve never seen before that has some real, significant weapons that you can’t deal with.”

LiveSide, a website that tracks the development of Windows Live, is among those who are unimpressed. “Windows Live isn’t making much of a dent in the marketplace,” it says on its Our View page. “It’s a nontopic. Market research shows Live Search to be losing share if anything, and certainly not gaining.

“What Windows Live lacks, specifically, is an identity. No one can describe it, no one from Microsoft has even tried.”

the kind of

the most often talked about, but yet the most difficult to agree on:

1. passion in life // normally known as: what do you want to do when you grow up/what would you do if you have lots of money and no need to work/did you work for the money or the interest/get a life
2. Love // normally known as:what kind of girl you like/would you marry someone like that/was it by choice or was this what you really wanted
3. war // normally known as:it belonged to me/i need to fight for it/Im gonna kick his ass/why should we be discriminated/is this fair?

XXX XXX XXX

Did you ever remember those times when you were sitting at the backseat of your parents car when they drive you home in a cool night, while the radio plays sentimental soft nice songs that gives you that feeling?

the kind of songs that once you hear it, you know its a song to be listened on the road

the kind of songs that makes you enter into that mood straight away, anyway, anyhow

have you every wished that you were just a child sitting at that backseat?

Babylon

Babylon

Friday night Im going nowhereAll the lights are changing green to redTurning over tv stationsSituations running through my headWell looking back through timeYou know its clear that Ive been blindIve been a foolTo ever open up my heartTo all that jealousy, that bitterness, that ridiculeSaturday Im running wildAnd all the lights are changing red to greenMoving through the crowd Im pushingChemicals all rushing through my bloodstreamOnly wish that you were hereYou know Im seeing it so clearIve been afraidTo tell you how I really feelAdmit to some of those bad mistakes Ive madeIf you want itCome and get itCrying out loudThe love that I wasGiving you wasNever in doubtLet go your heartLet go your headAnd feel it nowBabylon, babylonSunday all the lights of londonShining , sky is fading red to blueIm kicking through the autumn leavesAnd wondering where it is you might be going toTurning back for homeYou know Im feeling so aloneI cant believeClimbing on the stairI turn around to see you smiling thereIn front of meIf you want itCome and get itCrying out loudThe love that I wasGiving you wasNever in doubtAnd feel it nowLet go your heartLet go your headAnd feel it nowLet go your heartLet go your headAnd feel it nowLet go your heartLet go your headAnd feel it nowLet go your heartLet go your headAnd feel it nowBabylon, babylon, babylon