Impermanence...

The things we touch have no permanence. There is nothing we can hold onto in this world. Only by letting go can we truly possess what is real.

What's the dearest thing to you? Can you let go of that? Do you want to possess what is real?

Bloodshot eyes, cracked lips, sore throat, muscle ache, dizzy.

I have just made an interesting discovery over these weekend. I bought a couple of vodka's from the grocery store to add together to my old stock. Yesterday afternoon, the sight of those bottles were just too tempting. I took 2 bottles in the afternoon, and just to confirm my suspicion, I took another one at night.

Bet half of you all out there doesn't know how to make the veins dilate. Sugar! Drink more sugar water, eat more really sweet things, most preferbly high concentration of glucose, the simplest form of carbohydrate, since most sugar having high concentration of carbo.

Vodka is an extremely sweet kind of alcoholic drink, it's even sweeter than those Tiger, Carlsberg and all those we can find everyday on the shelves of supermarket. The sweet alcoholic drink, after we gobbled it down our throat, our digestion system kicks in. It can sense some glucose in the drink, well, our body always has a soft spot for glucose. The nerve system will dilate all the blood vessels so that we can absorb as much glucose as we can. That's the trick which vodka is capable of doing. After that, the alcohol kicks in. In the dilated blood vessels which exist in almost every place in our body, so whenever any alcohol pass through, the alcohol will absorb the water together with it, inclusive of the watery material of our body cells. That's why alcohol will make us feeling dehydrated. And that's how I get all those superb effects stated up there...

Just to prove that my theory is right, anybody fancy being my test subject?

Last samurai

Just taking a little walk back in time...

I was trying to figure out what actually made the last samurai such a great movie. Maybe I am just over-sensitive guy, but I was almost in tears after that movie.

It's definitely a good movie.

"The perfect blossom is a rare thing. You could spend your life looking for one, and it would not be a wasted life."

How true is this?

We live in a pathologically dissatisfied world. And I'm going to tell you why. Because we love to compare. Go around the world and discover that people aren't happy with their bodies. Filipinos want to be fair-complexioned like Westerners and so buy bleaching stuff. Westerners want to own bronzed bodies like ours and so purchase tanning lotions. Those with moles have them removed, while those who don't strategically implant beauty spots.

Some people want to shed a few pounds to look like Ally McBeal, while others want to gain some baby fat to look like Drew Barrymore. When are we ever going to stop and simply be happy with how we look? We live in a sick world, I tell you. And that sickness is comparisonitis.

Take a look at wealth. When we drive our old Proton, it really suits us fine. We feel blessed in fact when the rain pours outside and we feel snug and cozy on its faded upholstered seats. But the moment we see our own office mate (or neighbor, or buddy, or cousin, or brother) drive his sleek sky-blue, four-door, four-wheel drive Mercedez, we automatically feel like third-class children of God. Next time we drive our bumpy, noisy, rusted, dilapidated Proton,(notice how all the defects come out all of a sudden?), we feel deprived, dispossessed, pariah, debased and only a little higher than the insects of the earth.

Listen carefully. Bill Gates total assets are worth $60 billion. That's more than the GNP of some small countries. Tiger Woods earns $80 million simply by smiling on TV in a Nike shirt. And the stars of the sitcom Friends are paid $750,000 per episode!

My point?

No matter how hard you work, there'll still be some people who will be richer than you are. And there'll be some people who will be more beautiful, have more sex appeal, have more boyfriends and have more problems. Try it for once. Stop looking around. Don't compare! Don't compare her nose with your nose. Don't compare his wife with your wife. Don't compare his salary with your salary. Don't compare her kids report card with your kids report card. Don't compare his prayer group with your prayer group. Don't compare her cellulite deposits with your cellulite deposits.

For crying out loud, Stop comparing and Start living! And you'll be happier with your life, I guarantee.

This is crucial:

The most difficult thing in the world is to be who you are not. Pretending and trying to be someone else is the official pastime of the human race. (I don't think dogs and cats and cows and horses have this problem.) And the easiest thing in the
world is to be yourself. Be happy. Live! There must be a reason why God made you tall or short or fat or thin or bumpy all over.

Love who you are!

Be happy, it's not that difficult.

Were my boss big ideas too big?

This company never drew the right kind of customers it needed.

A decade ago, this company was surviving well in this place where we call M'sia. A lot of them are using this software, at those times, I believe their IT dept is so naive that they would actually fall for any software development company out there as long as the necessary craps are being presented.

Core developers from India left, senior developers (working for more than 4 years) left too, chief technician left, accountants left, a lot of those temporary workers who were here to fill the voids, left too. The situation now? It's like a whole new company, everyone with less than one year worth of experience. But this company won't give up, they believe that they can spearhaad another revolutionary breakthrough in new fields of development with fresh graduates.

They had their profitable years, the business was alright then. My boss, Mr. Bob, his reach exceeded his grasp. In bidding for a new market for VoIP, Multilevel Marketing, and Home Automation, he simply moved two of his technical support staff (fresh graduates with < 1 year experience) into these sectors. One into Multilevel Marketing, another one into VoIP and Home Automation. He hired some highly priced developers from outside M'sia to help to steer these young potatoes (technical support staff) to finish their work. He was not planning to go into small time play, well, he was swinging for the fence.

A lot of people expressed their interest in the products, but only a handful of them actually did come out and try out the products. The one that actually bought them? Priceless. The only business which are making money for this company, being a distributor of home automation products, and some gadgets. The margins were pitiful.

Those highly priced developers, could not get what they wanted. Their salaries were delayed for no reason. Manipulative promises. Employees were not happy. No channel of communications between employees and management. Those highly priced developers, they somehow managed to go back to their own country again, yeah, together with the company laptop as their salary, and also one month free accomodation in M'sia, will never be heard in this company again.

Until this current moment, the company is a bit shaky. This kind of the things always happen when a company trying to break new ground. They have not enough resources yet they tried to make it through. The odds are always on the thin side.

May the force be with this company.

Great things happen when we have low expectations?

I encountered that phrase while browsing through some of the blogs. I took some time to think about it, and hell yeah, it's true enough.

Great things? Nah. It's not all that great. It's because when we have low expectations, we won't be disappointed that much, that will cause us to feel that it is way better than what it should be.

Desire leads to suffering. *Wink.

Fishy case of Hustler

This guy, the hustler, reportedly from M'sia, perhaps around KL as well, decided to stop blogging a few weeks ago after receiving a number of flame mails from some readers out there. Based on the information from his site, he got the 2004 Asia blogging community runners up award, well, which is not a bad achievement after all for a blog which has just started not so long ago.

His articles had been quite funny, I must say. I believe most of us are having the same feeling too. I was quite disappointed that he decided to stop blogging then. I was a bit curious too to know why, so, I dug around the blogging community to discover the missing pieces.

First, I stumbled upon kenny's blog. The hustler busted? It seems that the part which I've been missing out was related to some kind of pictures posting. He was just trying to convince the readers out there that there were actually many other readers from all around the world which appreciate his site too. Just follow up with the link. It's alright to brag a bit sometimes, but just don't go too far.

What if all the articles are not true? Well, who cares? At least he/she can write well. Nobody can tell whether what we write in these blogs are based on real life events anyway.

Malaysia Boleh!

Brain freeze

I'll be busy whenever that MLM guy comes down from Ipoh. Hopefully his mood is pretty good today. I get to leave early too.

Amy is behaving superbly well. Wow, much better than what I've been expecting.

I have.. lets see... 40 cents in my wallet. Anybody mind to sponsor me my lunch tomorrow? *Wink*.

Ascetism, does it lead to enlightenment?