My economy lecturer sent me this story at the end of the working hour today. Just like the economy being the science of choice and assumptions; our life is just about the choices and assumption that we make. Of Evil & Good Choices One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that was going on inside himself. He said, "My son, it is between 2 wolves. One is evil: Anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego. The other is good: Joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith..." The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf wins?" The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one I feed."

One Memorable Weekend [1] Perak Won The League; [2] Service Apartment Shopping; and [3] Joseph Stiglitz's Globalization and its Discontents. This has got to be the one of the best weekend I ever had recently. As if a weekend stay at one of the hotel in central KL with two good friends wasn’t fun, all events in between were truly enjoyable, and yet it is only early Sunday morning that I began to type in this entry while watching the delayed match of Perak victory over Malacca on TV3, whereby Perak has proven its might as the modern football giant in this country when they beat Malacca with a spectacular scoring record, 6-1. And for the second consecutive years, Perak won the Premiership title. No other team has won the league back to back. And this is the last year for the Premier League before the introduction of Super League next year. I came to know the news when my brother called in, excitedly to inform me that we had won the League, and we won big, and Kedah only managed to draw with Sabah. And here I am watching the delayed game on TV3 and waiting for a friend to come over to have some chat. This morning after woke up at 9, I was surprised at how late I woke up, Hakuna Matata! nothing to worry about because I have nothing in plan for this morning. Upon getting dressed up for the day, my friend was busily browsing through the paper in hunt for property in KL for a long-term investment. After flipping through some ads and reviewing the locations, prices, attractiveness factors, we decided to make it a try at one of the apartment service that is strategically located in the KL ‘Bermuda Triangle’ area. So, we took a cab to the sales office and after managed to find out where it was, we began our tour at the showroom, guided by this informative young female sales executive whom then showed us two room types available for display to buyers. Two different sq ft areas; two different prices. On the wall, the company displayed the apartments plan with indication which lots have been sold, and which not. After being shown and explained all the information we had to know, the renovation package, the discount, the lease package, the return to the investments, my friend consulted me, I wish I had all the tips to give. I also tried to remember the calculation of mortgage payment from my finance that, but I plugged the wrong formula. It should have been the annuity model, not the future value formula! Talk about short-term memory! So, my friend made few call to find out about whether this investment is worthy. After all those calls, we had brief chitchat with the banker who was stationed there for some insights. Thanks to the banker, not only did my friend managed to be convinced to make the purchase and learnt some tricks to maximize the return for this investment, I did learnt a lot about purchasing a property, good for me, yes! So, what planned as a shopping day to take price cut of the sales carnival turned out to be a $xxx,xxx property purchase! As my class was about to start in the afternoon, we had a quick lunch. On my way into the subway train, I caught the glimpse of two familiar faces, oh wow! My buddy bloggers. And they were heading to the same station as well! On the train ride, we talked some about some new development in the blogging scene and planned to have a gathering on Sunday evening. Sounds good to me. There were seven of us in this module. A good mix of crowd I noticed when we introduced ourselves to the each other. And so is the facilitator. The facilitator this time had from the beginning talked about originality in ideas, never to cut and paste, to be critical in argument, and convinced us how important it is for postgraduate student to write a dissertation although it is an option for us. I joked that John Nash's idea of being original is skipping classes and ignore textbooks :-) True to his expectation for us to be critical, the class begun with group discussion to identify the characteristics that defined capitalism. So we were broken into two groups. Representing our group, I presented our points on capitalism transition, its forms, the players, the government role, the high growth capital areas, etc. I couldn’t help myself later on from getting hu-hu and ga-ga on the capital market structure, the free trade, liberalization movement, and globalization, that were all explained so well with all the insights our facilitator gained from attending some WTO meetings and from some high-profile consultation jobs. It's so fulfilling. After class, with my hunger for consumption that profits some capitalist in town, I rushed to the mall on my hunt for Stiglitz (2000) and Batcha (2000). Stiglitz’s Globalization and it Discontents proved to be a good first reading for the class. The Kinokuniya finally managed to have in stock the Financial Derivatives book (Batcha), of which I would like to self-taught before taking this module next two months. My cousin is featured on the cover of the leading business publication in town. I am so proud of all his achievement and the strategies that were implemented in turning round a firm in red for how many years to be back in black. I then headed down to Starbucks. While waiting for friend to join me at the Starbucks, I managed to read Stiglitz for about 30 pages, while sipping the house blend black coffee, refill after refill. In between, I heard the noise coming from the park, where they are launching the sales carnival. There were big fireworks displays. I wonder how much had the Ministry of Tourism wasted for the show and concert. There were three-firework display actually; each lasted for about 5 minutes! Talk about celebration-carnival-fiesta, aren’t we getting too much of them already? What is the government thinking? That feeling good is all their responsibilities for the people? That they focus too much of activities in Klang Valley that they are neglecting the fact that the gap between the rich and the poor is widening (Read: NST last week)? That they should now review their poverty reduction policy? That the policy we had on this was never sustainable? That Mahathir economic policy have been much on infrastructure building and overlooked such vital social issue? At 11pm, we left the Starbucks, and got back to the hotel. I waited for the Perak delayed game on TV to start. While chitchatting with friends, we had some snacks for supper and CNN bashing session. Then the game started! It was in every way, a perfect game. Perak should have instead won 9-1; that they wasted 3 opportunities only to win 6-1. It was a beautiful game that I wish I was at the stadium to be among the crowd watching Indra Putra’s 2 goals, Seator’s 2 goals, one from Shahrul Azhar (the captain), and one from Yusri Che Lah. I thought Indra-Seator-Yusri Che Lah combination has only gotten better and Shahrul Azhar back into the main eleven after full recovery from typhoid had turned the team game in a big way. After the game, the whole stadium waited for the Kedah-Sabah game to be over in order to confirm Perak league championship title. After three minutes, it was officially announced that we are again the champions that Kedah managed only to draw with Sabah. The players and officials made a round of celebration circling the stadium and according to my father (who was at the stadium, well, I caught a 5 seconds glimpse of him on TV when the camera was showing the crowd!), our Raja Nazrin and MB Tajol Rosli were so happy for the team and that the atmosphere was marvelous. The next day, our class talked about WTO in its relation to GATT, GATS, and TRIP. And we talked about how would WTO jeopardize our domestic producers and economy structure in bigger scale. And how the developed countries are pushing ideological agenda instead of economics agenda against developing countries as shown in the case of US victory against shrimp net usage in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and India, that was alleged to have endangered the turtle (endangered animal), of which itself meant that American conservation law is now part of our law! Imagine what else can they do. It was not about the turtles, actually. It is about the fishermen in States that demand fair competition with the rest of the world because of this special device that they have to attached to their fishing boats so that the turtles are being scared off from being caught in the fishing net. Attending this lecture has made all my urge and passion to join the anti-globalization movement a new agenda that I should be looking at for the many years to come!

Tuesday, July 29th. 2003; 11.30 pm Perak 1 – Selangor 0 The Football Association of Selangor (FAS) should be thankful for Perak for its odd 6,000 fans flocking the stadium Shah Alam, which only prospered the FAS gate collection, against the mere 200-host fan attending this very crucial match for both team. This was a game to ensure the dying Selangor team could secure a place in the Super League next season. This was also the game to ensure that Perak could hold on to the Premier League champion title for two consecutive years. We arrived at the stadium at 8.10pm and had to be in a long line for the seven tickets I bought for my family. There were familiar faces at the gate, the Perak Fan Club manager, Mr. Jamil, some people from hometown, and for goodness sake, I also met some of my high school senior there. What a small world! Shah Alam was like Ipoh to us that very night. The yellow-black jerseys are everywhere. I just put on my Apple OS X t-shirt for this game. Entered into the stadium, I witnessed a huge crowd who are already eager to watch their local heroes performing after missing the actions due to the fact that the league was temporarily stopped for the ASEAN LG Cup in Jakarta. There is one clear message I could conclude in this game; that we need more midfielder with the caliber of Ahmad Shahrul Azhar, and the Perak legendary Azizul Abu Haniffa. These two players are brilliant playmaker. Shahrul Azhar absence in the first half of the game showed how the forward frontier was being deprived of good passing and game control. Nantha Kumar still has a long way to go. And rarely did Perak managed to penetrate Selangor penalty box in the first half, but there were few one two one chances that were failed to be converted into goal. Well, actually, Seator did scored but only to be faulted for offside position. Selangor forward had a few goal shots but Hamsani was brilliant in keeping the goal secured. That however, didn’t stop me from being extremely worried about any against goal in the first half, because, like it or not Perak has to win this game to distance itself from the head-to-head rival with Kedah. Half time break, there was this guy selling this small magazine with Indra wedding picture and Raja Nazrin (Perak FA’s president) photo made the cover. Inside are some interviews, write-ups on the fan club AGM, player profiles, going-on, Indra wedding coverage, and some updates. This publication shows much the Perak team and the fan club prosper in the few years. After some Coke treat, the game began with Perak had the kick-start and dominated the remaining 45 minutes. Accurate short passing, good servicing from captain Ahmad Shahrul Azhar from midfield, and better coordination between Indra and Seator made it much more enjoyable to watch. Shamsol Saad and Faizal Zainal of the defense displayed a rock-solid performance. And a very promising young chap from the President Cup team, Ravitheren … proved that Perak is never out of talent. This bloke was good! After numbers of shot that didn’t make into the net, finally, with only two minutes remaining in the game, the off-guarded Indra Putra made his brilliant run in the center forward area to bypass some defender and turned it into the very goal of the night. It was the moment of excitement for everyone. If only Perak shot earlier, the momentum of the game would have been so much different. The Selangor players were already exhausted with the fast paced game of Perak. Two minutes after official time, the game was over. To everyone’s surprise, our Raja Nazrin Shah, who recently awarded the doctorate by the Cambridge University (?) came down congratulating the players and the team officials. It was indeed a great evening for everyone!

Wednesday, July 30th. 2003 Is Redundancy Necessary? Having attended a meeting to strategize a state's IT project particularly in education, I am worried at how projects at this scale are incompetently managed, strategized, and executed. Despite lack of expertise in certain areas, installation of the wrong personnel into certain committees and working groups have proven that IT agenda state level will be merely be showcasing of deadlinked webpages at launching ceremony. By far, I don't believe that academicians alone should be responsible in this planning. Three pronged approach is required to gauge everybody's inputs - government(Federal & State), private(players in the value chain), and community(educators, learners, marginalized group). This brings me to a question whether federal intervention should be kept at minimum, or that we just let the state pursue its own agenda since federal is sluggish lot.

The Three Men Journey Into Tennis Post marital scare of becoming sloppy had encouraged two of my college friends to start on some activities that would keep us fit, as if the singles aren't sloppy! So far we have in mind tennis games, gym, ping-pong, and some jogging. The planning was done yesterday over a text messaging conference system, that we would be starting today, and only to have me changed the whole plan, because I will be going to a soccer match tonight. So much of planning that even made some plans to get some new gears; shoes, racket, shirts, etc. Wow! Time for shopping! And for crying out loud, the shopping carnival is just three days away! And today we headed out to the mall in hunt for rackets. One of us is lucky that he has the 50 bucks coupons that made his purchase of a brand new HEAD racket a very good bargain. Well, I was eyeing the racket first because of the weight and its cool color, but yeah, what the heck, it turned out that he like it too ... and he took if after found out the silver one was kinda dull. And I am gonna get mine when the sales start this Saturday. Looks like I will be the one who'll be getting all the balls for the games. And the other friend decided to use an old racket, which still works fine. I was keen on this PRINCE racket that was light and cool in color. And we had this joke that my friend who bought the HEAD racket got good head and me who'll be getting the PRINCE racket was supposedly not to play like a princess. Ya, right! If everything else works fine, centrus paribus, holding everything constant i.e. no change of plan, we will be starting this Thursday evening. Here we come, Mr. Federer !!!

In the News Today Raja Ahmad Zainuddin talked about the "demam" Yob in Jakarta and Jamal Nasir announced that Perak will be bringing in a new striker, Baichung Bhutia from East Bangles, the team that won the LG Cup in Jakarta yesterday. Bhutia was the best Asian player in May 1999, and apparently he played for a Division Two club in England circa 2000-2001. Hopefully, with Khalid injury, Flavio dismissal, Bhutia will be the new force in Perak forward together with Seator and Saravanan to win the three remaining matches in the Premeir League. Jamal Nasir reportedly saying that the team had gained more that they could have ever imagined. Despite the loss in 3 & 4 position game, the team was awarded the Fair Play and it seems that LG had invited Perak to an LG invitiation game in Vietnam soon. And Perak had agreed to this. New players such as Harizul Izuan Abdul Rani, Ahmad Norafandi Mohd Yatim, Ravitheren, some other players who haven't had any international experience, Surabaya has provided them with the new experience playing at regional level. [1] Fair-Play untuk Perak [2] Perak bakal dapat khidmat Buthia [3] Pro&Kontra - ‘Demam’ Akademi Fantasia dan ‘demam’ Yob di Jakarta

Updates on "Thank You Mr. Markowitz" - Analogy of life-long learning optimum portfolio based on the Modern Portfolio Theory Thanks to both of you Jikon and Alvin for providing me some perspectives to argue this on this analogy to the MPT. Jikon posted an argument about being Jack of Trade and how it has turned out to be to his disadvantage and hence recommending me to argue from Malaysian perspective. Alvin noted the missing risk free investment in the analogy and the measure of risk to those skills, of which we have to refer our HR text as well as trend to try quantify these skills market value. I will explore more on Jikon's case and try to relate to beta and the unsystematic risk. I will also toying around with the idea of weaknesses of the theory and how it affects the analogy in many ways. I have also realize that I have missed out the part on diversification, i.e. that if one did electrical, getting a cisco certified network engineer is a concentrated diversification, and if he goes into entertainment, that'll be a conglomerate one. There's even some new theories built on Markowitz, e.g. there is this one theory that try to leverage on Digital Signal Processing theory from electrical engineering that try to address the problems of time and noise dimensions that Markowitz seems to have been lacking. This theory is relatively new. It will be interesting to see how the financial community and the IT industry work together to make it work. My ultimate goal in establishing this analogy is to simplify people's choice in making decision on charting future ambition; the return, risk, etc. I'll probably require reading and understanding in econometrics for this.

Thank You Mr. Markowitz Early this morning when I was cracking my head to find the best solution to my Modern Portfolio Theory paper structure, I came to a wonderful discovery that I thought I would want to write it here after the exam; but I could care less since moment like this doesn't come often. And thank you to the Sumatra coffee that had kept me awake to see all these new development. 50 years ago, Harry Markowitz paper on "Portfolio Selection" was published in the The Journal of Finance in 1952. The ideas introduced in this article have come to form the foundations of what is now popularly referred to as Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT). Throughout the years, his work has been the foundation for the financial community, that in 1990 Markowitz was awarded the Nobel Prize. "Modern Portfolio Theory quantifies the benefits of diversification. Through a mathematical technique called mean-variance optimization, Markowitz showed exactly how an investor could reduce the volatility (risk as measured by standard deviation) of portfolio returns by choosing assets that do not move exactly together. When he graphed volatility (risk) against expected return, Markowitz developed a way to view the efficiency of a portfolio. A portfolio is said to be optimally efficient if there is no portfolio having the same volatility (risk) with a greater expected return and there is no portfolio having the same return with a lesser volatility. - Montecito Capital Management on MPT" And I just realized that although many writers would use the eggs analogy of explaining this theory, I could somewhat now use this theory as a reasoning to explain why being A Jack of All Trade and the life-lng learning is an optimum strategy for every individual to survive in the knowledge economy. Let's say you have an undergraduate degree in the Electrical Engineering and you somewhat after five years into your career stuck in a position where you could just pray for the manager to die or leave the firm to get the position, or get a new job elsewhere, or start a new business. Or let's say you were in the semiconductor and the economic cycle hits the industry rock bottom that demand stumbles and production is reduced significantly, and the management just announced a retrenchment scheme. Bet you would be scared as hell when your career is at stake. So let's say that degree paper is your only portfolio, and if you don't venture into new knowledge or new skill, your portfolio remain just that one share. Hence, exposing yourself to risk of cyclical unemployment. Therefore, a rational knowledge worker would pursue on something new, either by self-learning, getting certified professionally, attend seminar, or take up post graduate courses. With the new skills becoming new shares, you now have a basket of portfolio of share of knowledge and skills, each with its expected return, since knowledge today is source of power and profit. In the event of downturn in the economic, each of your share is exposed to risk of being either unwanted or insignificantly in demand at that period of time, thus its volatility disperse widely, hence, the risk of any of the share in the portfolio to decrease in its market value. You motivation and passion to explore or learn something new can be described using the marginal utility curve that could also define your risk preference, whether you are willing to take new challenge (risk loving), or stay put at where you are (risk averse), or being indifference at any of these two choice as you are probably already making your big bucks (risk neutral). Your curve when plotted with the composition of your portfolio, will intersect at a point, of which yields your optimum portfolio, whereby you can now determine what new knowledge or skills gives you the higher return, given the level of risk that you can tolerate. And I will after my exam plot my utility curve and play the like of David Friedman reasonings in the Economics of Everday Live to determine my optimum portfolio and thus charting long term investment, both as an investor and the fund manager!

Review: The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene This is without a doubt one of the best non-fiction book I have ever read. Praise to Greene who had properly put his thought clearly into the most linear'ed' and segmented idea organization you can ever found in a book. Each law is supported by its Judgment, Trangression & its Interpretation, Observance & its Interpretation, Keys to Power, and its Image . Read insights into some of the ancient war moves e.g. Bonaparte, Alexender the Great, etc; political and modern day strategist like Henry Kissinger. Even better, read the ways of how some of the famous con men in history; e.g. Yellow Kid Weil preyed their victims. The first law: Never Outshine the Master is the best start for me as after reading it, I understand better one of the Malaysian's most scandalous political action. The Judgment of the first law reads: "Always make those above you feel comfortable superior. In your desire to please and impress them, do not go too far in displaying your talents or you might accomplish the opposite-inspire fear and insecurity. Make your masters appear more brilliant than they are and you will attain the heights of power."

Will Perak Walk Away? We Hope Not Seriously, why is it that whenever Malaysian participate in sport events in Indonesia, like it was reported during Thomas Cup few years ago, that our athletes would usually get down with virus or the food poisoning. This time, seven Perak players and the manager, Jamal Nasir are down with typhoid at the Asean Club Championship. It is no wonder that despite the victory 2-0, the team wasn’t playing at their best against the Cambodian’s SAMART. Filthy food and accommodation perhaps? Or plain hate crime? Or neighborly bad faith likes the American and the Canadian? But this one has gone too far though, that the Singapore’s AF team is also affected. We hope the team could recover soon, but it all seems impossible new since the game against Bec Tero Sasana of Thailand is scheduled tomorrow's evening, and most players though recovering are still weak. And without Indra and Nantha, the midfield won't be functioning well to play against the favorite Thai team in the semi. Our family, being strong supporter of this hometown team of ours, is hoping that the team could clinch a victory at this tournament, and that the state football association could grab the winning prize in the hundreds of ringgit. Definitely good sum of money for the team and the management, but in case they walk over, they will bring back the USD10,000 prize money. After topping the Premier League last season, the Perak FA is one of the most financially sound FA in the country. I'd rather say, the best managed. Attendence at the each home game has been in the tenth of thousands (or more) on average, and sponsorships have been good (I'll try to get the list of company soon, If I am not mistaken, Adidas is one of them; Malay Mail once feature an article on the FA’s financial health.). Apart from that, winning the first round of the Premier has only fattening the FA revenue. With a good President Cup team, the state has never been out of fresh good legs for the Silver state. Furthermore, recent signing of Brazilian Flavio and Liberian Seator are worthy the money. Both have been good at the tournament and fans are hoping that they will do more good to help the team win the League and the Malaysian Cup. [1] Perak may concede walkover in semis [2] Skuad Perak dilanda kepialu [3] Laporan Dari Surabaya, Indonesia

The Mental Blog This Sunday I will be sitting for an examination, and I am not well prepared for it. With Philip Glass's score on Escape to India playing on my earphones right now, my mind is trying to escape from the mental block that I have been experiencing lately. Juggling between the exam preparation and the paper for submission can be cumbersome, though I got used to it already, this time it is not the same. The best thing about writing any paper is that you got so many materials to your findings, but it sucks when you have the InfoSmog syndrome, when you are overwhelmed with too much information, the exact state I am in right now, and I can't seem to decide what goes where. It is already Wednesday, I am scared as hell like I have never been before. The paper has yet to have a proper structure, although I have most of the answers already. It probably require a one nighter to get a better attention to it. Last week was a total waste. Thought that I needed some break, I took some days off, only to find out that I too much of a break. Procastination is creeping through my veins and my attention has been slowing, I admit so. Anyway, with about an hundred odd hours more to go before the exam, I'll figure things out and get through with this one.

A Beautiful Mind, A Beautiful Jenniffer Connelly A Beautiful Mind, is a very inspiring movie to me, the one that really moves me. Lucky Russell Crowe to have gotten the chance to act with Jenniffer Connelly whom portrayal of Alicia Lorde, John Nash's wife, won her the Best Supporting Actress at the Oscar that year. She is remarkably beautiful, her radiant smile shine through the entire space, her dress at the governer's dinner on her first date was like WOW, her determination on putting up with the schizophrenic episodes for her husband illness will make any man to say how lucky John Nash is to have woman like her, just like Sol's (Nash's good friend whom also joined the Wheeler Lab with Bender) sentiment towards her, while on a walk through the Princeton campus, asked Alicia how does she fare. She simply talked about how Nash is recovering using the pill treatments, but instead, Sol's was apparently interested to understand how Alicia is getting through. I have watched the movie for like four times now, and I want to watch it over and over again. Now that I have finally bought the book, which was well written by Sylvia Nassar, I understand John Nash much better than the movie, which Nash's illness experience was made up and totally fiction. I have yet to finish the book, but what I can tell you now is at that time, Nash was very much inspired by Von Neumann and Einstein, whom also attended Princeton. He really met Einstein once and explained to him a new theory in physics, only to have Einstein telling him to read more physics! The inspiring part of John Nash is the fact that he promotes originality. Skipping class and pursuing problems from different perspectives indeed made it possible for him to come out with the famous Nash Equilibrium (thank you to the hot blonde lady at the bar) that has been used to solve complex negotiations, licensing problems, etc. Ron Howard directed this movie, which had caused some controversy over the screenwriting because despite John Nash originality, the movie was so 'ORIGINAL' that it didn't tell the whole true story of John Nash. You gotta read the book to understand what I mean. The part whereby he gave the acceptance speech at the Nobel Prize was another Hollywood moment. It had never happened. Nash was not asked to give a Nobel lecture, presumably because of his instability. He did, however, give a short speech at a small party in Princeton. Here is Nasar's synopsis: He was not inclined to give speeches, he said, but he had three things to say. First, he hoped that getting the Nobel would improve his credit rating because he really wanted a credit card. Second, he said that one is supposed to say that one is glad he is sharing the prize, but he wished he had won the whole thing because he really needed the money badly. Third, Nash said that he had won for game theory and that he felt that game theory was like string theory, a subject of great intrinsic intellectual interest that the world wishes to imagine can be of some utility. He said it with enough skepticism in his voice to make it funny. And this beautiful movie had inspired James Horner to compose this beautiful score; All Love Can Be. -All Love Can Be - I will watch you in the darkness Show you love will see you through When the bad dreams wake you crying I'll show you all love can do All love can do I will watch through the night Hold you in my arms Give you dreams where love will be I will watch through the dark 'Til the morning comes All the light I'll take you through the night to see A light showing us all love can be I will guard you with my bright wings Stay 'til your heart learns to see All love can be...

The Typical Tropical Weather The weather couldn't be any better, cloudy, gloomy, and dark, the kind of weather that makes me feel good. It's breezy, though humid, but still, too good to be true. After 'rainless' weeks before, this week, well it is only Tuesday, that this time, we are blessed with that much amount of rain. The heavy downpour yesterday surprised me in everyway, because as far as I can remember it has been a long time since it rains at that hour, that while I was just going to start on my literature review, the sound of thunder and the raindrops outside, makes me feel all cozy and comfy to start on my work. This morning, the weatherman on the famous Malaysian morning show, Malaysia Hari Ini, forecasted that there will be some rain and thunderstorm this evening, probably by the time I am supposed to leave home. Weather review in Malaysia has now becoming better particularly on that morning show. I can't complain the lack of creativity since we only play rain or no rain, no thing on percipitation, no thing on pollen, like in the four seasons' countries. I miss the beautiful fall scenery in South East America. Romantic and inspiring. It brings out the memory of the bustling early morning walk to the halls, the packed cafetaria, the bagel, the coffee smell, the bananas, and the can of cokes of which some of the students take to the class for some caffeine treat. So, believing in the forecast today, I brought myself my favorite blue umbrella. Another item that was enough to make me feel so busy with articles, my sling Gap backpack, the laptop, and that umbrella. Wouldn't it be great if we got snow here, that I could defintely put on a trenchcoat or jacket!

Who will cry for the little boy? This poem is from another good movie, Antwone Fisher, though been dubbed by critics too formulaic, it's a great debut by Denzel Washington as a director. It is based on a true story of Antwone Fisher himself, who also wrote the movie. A great first person account. "Who will cry for the little boy, lost and all alone? Who will cry for the little boy, abandoned without his own? Who will cry for the little boy? He cried himself to sleep. Who will cry for the little boy? He never had for keeps. Who will cry for the little boy? He walked the burning sand. Who will cry for the little boy? The boy inside the man. Who will cry for the little boy? Who knows well hurt and pain. Who will cry for the little boy? He died and died again. Who will cry for the little boy? A good boy he tried to be. Who will cry for the little boy, who cries inside of me?" by Antwone Fisher

Open And Turn The New CLIE PEG-UX50 The Palm camp today is overwhelmed with the anticipation news on Sony plan to unveil the new CLIE model, of which the news have been spread out on cliesource.com, palminfocenter.com that made reference to the Sony Japan website. I would have inserted some pictures on this blog should the blogspot plus have done with their maintenance. Let's get to the PDA. This marks the debut of the UX line, and is given the name of PEG-UX50. The most appealing feature of this PDA is the hybrid clamshell and the laptop design that marvels whoever sees it at the first time. Putting a new chapter to new whole Zen of Palm, this model is is capable of being rotated and positioned like the tablet PC. SONY nicknamed this design as Open And Turn. It is such a wonder that a cutie little PDA like this one that measured approximately width 103× height 86.5× depth 17.9mm and weighs 175gm. Powered by the SONY Handheld Engine (TM) (CXD2230GA) CPU of which is unknown to me the speed of the processor, but it looks like it is of 230MHz, of a non-Intel chip, SONY chip more like it. Okay here comes the funny part, the AltaVista using the BabelFish translator has this to say about the RAM capacity: "Total 104MB (user active territory itself: Approximately 16MB, built-in media: Approximately 22MB) " Oh, wow! Some cliesource members make joke out of this that, at provided 104Mb RAM only 16Mb is available to the users. However, a much better guess of which makes sense to me it that, "built in media to refer to preinstalled software apps.... so 16MB user available, 22MB apps and the rest heap memory/system cache". External left are the, infrared ray port and the Power/Hold switch. Also come with big surprise this time is the USB port 1.0 which will make this machine an easily plug and play external drive or to connected to other hardware. The screen is of HighRes+ with the resolution/display color 480×320 dot/65,536 colors that matches the NX80V or the NZ80 models. Thanks to the back light loading TFT color liquid crystal display for that. Extended battery PEGA-EB40 Conformity standard IEEE802.11b Use band 2.4GHz band (1-11CH and ISM band) WEP (encoding the data) 64, 128bit Modulation technique DS-SS (IEEE802.11b conformity and Wi-Fi (R) conformity) IEEE802.11b Bluetooth Palm OS 5 or 5.2? Memory Stick PRO Memory Stick Gate Memory Stick DUO Memory Stick CLIE 3D Launcher - screenshot avaliable here Launcher [1] SONY CLIE PEG-UX50 [2] Clie Ux-50!! Great!! I'll continue later ...

iCome, iWrite; uRead, uHeard me! This is the codification tool of tacit knowledge at its best. If knowledge is to be read, and wisdom is to be heard, there's plenty to be read, and there millions of unuttered words and thoughts yet unsaid, yet unwritten. This is the evolution of publishing tools that have allowed almost everybody to be a producer. A perfect market efficiency because information are freely available, nobody dominates. Cost is almost non-existent, and there is even healthy competition among producers. This is the truest manifestation of the knowledge economy. This may sound like misogynistic knowledge management proponent trying to oversell a new tool, but, if you are not riding on this one, you might be left behind among the early adopters. You will probably loose out your edge at sharing your knowledge, doing your self-marketing, beginning your personal-accidental journalism, pushing new a social agenda, or building a whole new community (Najah, 2003). At this time, it's probably is that innovators' site like the ones of andrewsullivan.com, digitalfugue.com, and slate.com that have brilliantly started the movement, that has made this world a suddenly interesting place to live in. Today, at this QWERTY keyboard my mind travels beyond new territory, new dimension, new idea, new hypothesis, new argument, new thought, new opinion that could soon become my stuff to be written, to be read by others, and my voice to be heard by my fellow readers. Thank you to blogger.com and blogspot.com for you both has been the enabling tools to the enablers. And for making life much more intriguing than it has been. [1] Najah Nasseri, How Weblogs Accelerate Communication, INFOSOC, 2003

Perak March Through the Quarter Final Yesterday Perak won again, this time a concinving 3-0 victory over Brunei 's DPMM FC at the ASEAN Club Champion League at the Stadium Petrokimia, Gresik, Surabaya, Indonesia. Two days ago, although the "Bull" won 2-0 over Singapore's Armed Force Club, it was indeed a boring match. The only highlight of the match was the superb Indra's heading that made its way to the goal. Seator, on completing the victory, also through heading from a good pass from Flavio sure had impressed Jamal Nasir and Tony Netto on his first debut with Perak. And we thought Yusri Che Lah should have been replaced by Saravanan earlier when he was down, injured. Saravanan only came into the match when it was only three minutes remaining in the game. Talk about Yusri Che Lah, what a waste of Perak money. This player brought over from Selangor didn't do any good at the game. I couln't comment much on yesterday's 3-0 game, because it was aired at office hour and neither did I manage to catch the replay on Astro Ria, but Utusan did a coverage on this. I am surprise that other papers don't cover this. I can't believe that what matters in the sport section these few days is the new Selangor management. What a waste of space! Yesterday's official result: 3-0 Frank Seator (min 52, pen) Syamsul Saad (min 71) Harizul Izwan Abd Rani (min 90) Kudos to the team. With this victory, Perak has secured a place in the quarter final, of which they will be playing this Sunday against a team from the Cambodia. Look forward for the live match on Astro Ria! [1] Malaysian champs cruise against DPMM [2] Perak Mara Ke Suku Akhir ACFC 2003

Belasungkawa: Nenda Pah'n'Chek Ton (1919 - Julai, 14, 2003) Dalam Kenangan Pah'n'Chek memang seorang wanita yang jiwanya kental. Dia adalah kekanda kepada nenda ku, namun dia lah yang membersarkan bonda. Pada cerita-cerita bonda, aku kagumi kekuatan yang ada pada nenda. Pah'n'Chek turut jua membesarkan cucunda yang kini rapat, tak ubah seperti ahli keluarga kami. Berlatarbelakangkan Bukit Chandan, Kuala Kangsar, Perak sekitar 1980an, pada mana aku masih di bangku sekolah rendah lagi dan kami selalu apabila cuti tiba, akan ke Kuala Kangsar menaiki bas ekspress. Paling mengimbau kenangan bandar diraja ini ialah apabila kami tiba sahaja di pekan Kuala, kami tidak pernah melepaskan peluang menikmati laksa dan cendol yang kini, dua tahun lepas aku ke sana, sudah tiada lagi gerai tersebut. Kami kemudian akan menaiki kereta sapu yang popular di bandar-bandar kecil menuju ke rumah nenda. Dalam perjalanan, bonda akan bercerita tentang salasilah keluarga kami, tentang istana lama yang bonda tuju untuk mengaji semasa kecilnya, dan tentang kisah sultan-sultan pada masanya yang kerap mengadakan jamuan untuk rakyat jelata. Rumah nenda luas kawasannya, di kelilingi kebun getah dan halamannya terdapat sebatang pokok rambutan yang tinggi merimbun dengan buah rambutan yang meranum tatkala tiba musimnya. Malamnya, kawasan ini agak menggerunkan kerana lampu jalan kekadang menyala, kekadang tidak, namum, bila terpasang, cahanya tidak sekuat mana. Seperti rumah tradisi Perak, rumah ini dua lapis. Tangga berwarna merah tidak ubah seperti tangga yang terdapat di rumah tradisi Melaka. Pintu masuk terlalu unik untuk aku gambarkan keindahan ukiran yang terdapat padanya, begitu jua tingkap-tingkap yang terdapat dirumah ini. Jadi di ataslah ruang tamu, dan satu bilik tidur. Untuk ke bawah, yang luas bukaannya berbanding atas, ada tangga kayu yang menghubungi. Pada rekabentuk rumah seperti ini, ruang makan biasanya luas di bawah. Dapur kayu terletak di luar rumah. Di sekeliling dapur ini, subur berdiri sepohon pokok jambu air yang senantiasa berbunga apabila kami tiba di rumah nenda. Dapur ini akan senantiasa mengingatkanku akan peyek yang Pah'n'Chek tidak pernah tidak buat untuk Hari Raya. Setiap raya nenda akan bersiap-siap dengan tempahan peyek serta bahulu, yang kami turut sama membantu menyiapkan. Bilik mandi terletak di luar dan tandas nun dalam 20 tapak di belakang sana, terlalu dekat dengan kebun getah. Cukup senja, kami akan pastikan segala urusan mandi dan sebagainya sudah disiapkan kerana kepekatan malam yang ditemani bunyi-bunyi cengkerik, pasti menakutkan kanak-kanak sekolah rendah seperti adik-adik aku. Rumah Pah'n'Chek tidak jauh dari rumah adindanya yang lain. Adinda Pah'n'Chek kerjanya memproses getah susu, dijadikan getah kepingan (scrap) untuk dibuat tilam atau kegunaan lain, kata kami, tilam Dunlop! Dulu bonda pun turut menolong Pah'n'Chek menoreh. Bonda katakan dia peroleh kekuatan semangatnya dari Pah'n'Chek, pekatnya malam akan megutip durian di dusun. Pernah juga ada cerita yang harimau muncul di sekitar kawasan tersebut, namun tidak beri kesan apa-apa pada Pah'n'Chek. Pah'n'Chek kemudian berhijrah ke Ipoh, kerana cucunda yang dibesarkannya mula bekerja di sana. Kerana dimamah usia, nenda mula sakit tua. Namun, nenda jarang nyanyuk, dan pendengarannya masih kuat tatkala usia sebegitu. Nenda kemudian berpindah ke Kuala Lumpur semasa dia sudah semakin sukar berjalan, dan terpaksa berkerusi roda. Semasa aku baru tamat pengajian dan memulakan hidup perantauan di Kuala Lumpur, dua tahun adanya aku tinggal bersama, dengan adikku, dan cucunda nenda. Masa berlalu begitu pantas, nenda semakin uzur, namun dia masih kental meneruskan kehidupannya. Setelah sekian lama aku tak menziarahinya, baru semalam petang aku pergi juga melihat keadaan nenda. Cucunda Pah'n'Chek cuba perkenalkan aku pada Pah'n'Chek, namun dia hanya boleh melihat, tiada terkata apa-apa. Kederatnya sudah tiada, lantas terus tutup kelopak matanya untuk tidur. Dalam jam 6 petang kami pulang, dan tidak kami sangka pagi tadi, jam enam pagi tadi, tatkala aku bersiap untuk ke pejabat, cucunda nenda dengan nada teresak-esak, menahan sebak, memberitahu yang nenda sudah tiada. Dia telah pergi ke Rahmatullah. Pagi tadi bergegas kami ke sana. Turut hadir, rakan taulan nenda dari tempat kerjanya, jiran tentangga, dan turut hadir seluruh keluarga kami dari Ipoh dan Pahang datangnya. Sempat aku bacakan dua surah Yasin untuk ketenangan roh nenda di alam barzakh. Setelah jenazah dimandi, dan dikafan, jemaah seramai lebih kurang 40 orang adanya menyembahyangkan nenda. SesudahZuhur, jasad nenda selamat disemadikan di perkuran Islam berhampiran Gombak. Aku masih lagi teringat tenangnya raut wajah nenda apabila ikatan kepala dibuka sedikit semasa jenazahnya sudah berada di dalam liang kubur. Aku senantiasa doakan akan rohnya ditempatkan di kalangan orang-orang yang beriman. Insya-Allah. Al-Fatihah untuk nenda.

Reading List: [1] Corporate Finance and Investment: Decisions and Strategies, Richard Pike, Bill Neale, Third Edition, Prentice Hall [2] Investment Appraisal and Financing Decisions: A First Course In Financial Management, Stephen Lumby, Fourth Edition, Chapman & Hall [3] Essentials of Investments, Zvi Bodie, Alex Kane, Alan Markus, McGraw-Hill International Edition, Fourth Edition [4] Cases in Strategic Management, John Pearce, Richard Robinsion, Irwin, Third Edition [5] Fundamentals of Corporate Finance, Richard Brealey, Stephen Myers, Alan Marcus, McGraw-Hill Irwin, Third Edition [6] Strategic Management: Concepts and Cases, Arthur Thompson, A Strickland, McGraw-Hill Irwin, Thirteenth Edition

A Wedding and A Birthday Tonight a good friend of mine whom was legally married last week, will host the reception at a hotel in KL, and I was asked to be the usher for guests coming in from our office. There will be about 7 of us. One lady couldn't make it because she is still mourning over her mother in law death, back in hometown. And, we had all did a collection for wedding gift. At first, I thought I want to get it myself, but maybe when I have time to do good shopping, I'll buy a personal gift. I arrived at the hotel where the couple has been staying for the entire day for the evening preparation, very early, at 7pm. They were at the penthouse! It was the first time I met the bride, and I felt very much at home, when she welcomed me, "hey, we finally meet!" It seems that my friend had introduced me to her wife. Well, it was no wonder, given that I usually get a ride from the groom to the train station at some evenings when I have business in KL. I hang out in the room talking to the best man and a couple of their friends from school. We checked out the bride's make-up from time to time. The hires make-up artist, who is one of the best in town, did a very good job. I was so impressed when I saw the result as they entered the wedding hall.

A Friday Afternoon at the Sri Petaling Mosque I frequent this mosque almost every other Friday ever since I started working nearby the area. Located around the Sri Petaling residential area, the mosque is bustling with lots of activities on any Friday afternoon. The entrance from the nearby school is the busiest, where people usually park thier cars, and walk to the mosque or stop by the hawker food stall. Today, I had my vermicelli soup today with lots of sliced beef, of which I added the hot soy sauce that adds the ummpppphhh to the hot soup. Not only food, but there are also some traders selling goodies such as kuffiyahs, books, and watches (yep, Tag Hauer at RM15). This mosque is famous for the tabligh movement that manages and runs the mosque. I was also informed it was also built by this group's fund and engineering expertise (can anybody confirm on this?). The mosque praying hall is HUGE - the left wing, the center area that is carpeted, and the right wing, with the high ceiling architecture that never fails to greet the servant of Allah with tranquility for prayers. The fact that the mosque also host a school system, eps. for its young members, means that this mosque is always blessed with activities and the good amount of makmum for each prayer time. The students live at the hostels located within the mosque area. There are even two dining halls, one of which is opened for public to try out the original briyani (cooked by the South Asian or Mid-East members), the nice tandoori chicken, and other delicacies that I must warn you, lil bit pricey, but worth it. And you got the chance to eat on the floor! As much as I adore the mosque peacefulness while I perform my prayers, i'tikaf, and listening to the khutbah (sermon) by the khatib (preacher), I am sometimes dismayed by the fact that some jemaah, surprisingly adults, whom are much prefer to get the spots by the wall, so that they can dooze off to sleeping. And there are even some that hanging around outside the vicinity to have some conversations with friends. How sad that is considering that the khatibs here mostly preaching without written text, and probably some are hafiz (or becoming one) because they can recite the verses flawlessly. The content of khutbah sometimes talk about current happenings, but are very well said with much emphasis on values that underlies the issues, rather than critics. I notice this in one of the khutbach during the Iraq war, where there was never any mention of war or Iraq or America, but was referred to the beings of the ummah and how we can build our strength and unity together. Someday I hope, all mosques in Malaysia is modelled in this manner. Have you been there lately?

As Good As It Gets I have watched this movie so many time and And I have put on the soundtrack so many time, that if you play the track from the album randomly, chances are I could tell which scene it belongs to. The score is so memorable that it actually sings out the scene in it. It tells the struggle of Melvin Udall of Jack Nicholson to overcome his fear of getting out the human side out of his obsessive-compulsive behavior. It tells the struggle of Carol Connerly of Helen Hunt to take care of the asthma and the lack of medical aid she's been getting (Democrats 90's reform), her small apartment which she shared with her mom, Beverly in New Jersey, and the usual Melvin Udall who she waits almost every morning, serving him the usual cholesterol-filled breakfast with his own plastic cutleries. It also tells the struggle of Melvin neighbor's Simon Bishop of Greg Kinnear who went broke after a theft plotted by friends of Skeet Ulrich, and the witty part of his art agent of Cuba Gooding Jr. Notice the great casts in this movie! James L. Brooks ... i'll finish this later

Validating the Organizational Behavior Theories My restless body and mind are still up through this very late nighter. I will soon have to start readjusting my biological clock to its normal state. Probably because of the black coffee from Boh Tea (this is my first time drinking coffee from Boh!) that I drank earlier at a meeting. A meeting that I described very successful in meeting its agenda. A meeting, though not that many attendees, yet very productive, where bunch of highly spirited members were reflecting at thier past and planning the future. It is very rare that I feel this fulfilling attending a meeting. Everyone knows each other. Everyone constructively build upon each other's views and opinions. This is indeed a newly self-managed team, comprised of members with high self-efficacy that has given the sense of empowerment to all the members; where leadership has now became a shared activity, where the accountability has been shifted from few key members to both individual and collective, where the group has developed its purpose and mission for the upcoming 4 quarters, and where effectiveness is measured by the group's collective outcome. This is indeed a cohesive group that has reached its norming stage; after we had successfully passed the forming and storming stage, where question such as "Can we agree on roles and work as a team?" is ubiqutiously in everybody's frame of mind. The transition to this stage is a reflection of highly charismatic and highly transactional leadership characteristics and values enacted by the deputy director. High on people and high on task. Or is this just another truth of the theory that now I am in the in-group, that all these should make sense to me?

Silence of the PalmInfoCenter Recently, things have been very quiet at the PalmInfoCenter - PIC, the slashdot of Palm fans. What used to be like 400 postings on a topic has now gone down to like 5, or 10, or recent best 47. What is going on? Does this have to do with the fact that the Palm release of Zire and Tungsten (C, T, W) and SONY's very own CLIE NX73V and NX80V didn't create long impact among the users? Or that OS 5 is so good that people don't require support like they used to in the early days of OS 3 and OS 4? Or that Ed Hardy move to Brighthand has brought over some of his fan to that "co-ed" site? Or that this is a spillover of the economic downturn readjustment to equilibrium that those IT people are beginning to see some new jobs popping out, that they are busily looking around for new opportunities? Or that people are joining the "dark side" right after HP came out with like four iPaq models this summer alone! and that Dell started selling the cheap Axim line? My take is that SONY has been quite slow this time in coming out with new radical design that could again flock the entire fans back to the threads in those topics. And also that anticipation of OS 6 this fall is an excuse for people to hold on spending for that new OS. These two are my exact sentimement right now. I am particularly looking forward to a new version of TG50. I want it to be on OS6, buit-in both Bluetooth+Wi-fi, with Virtual Graffitti, 2 MS PRO slot - one for storage, one for GPS! Or perhaps some new design that reminisce the N760C. Or is it that people have been busily blogging?

Mr. Haxa Does Blog Acapkali sudah aku bikin sites untuk diri aku sendiri, namun setiap percubaan temui jalan buntu. Ke mana saja hala ku, pasti tersekat-sekat dengan isu-isu reka bentuk yang aku tak sudah-sudah edit sana, filter sini, crop situ, oh wow, mana mungkin akan aku sudahkan. Sudah juga aku beli domain sendiri, tapi begitu juga nasibnya. Mungkin kali ini, aku harus terus menerus berkarya pada mana fikiran ku akan melelong, memikir, dan menafsir. Apa ada diri ini perjalanan jauh pada aliran tertentu yang harus aku tumpu? Atau mesti aku coretkan saja perjalanan hidup ini. Benak hati ini dan kotak pikir aku sudah puas pikir isu ini. Namun, gerak hati kata, terus saja, kerna, sampai bila harus aku tunggu. Akrab juga aku dengan beberapa bloggers in town. Suka aku katakan yang sudah sepurnama aku melilau-lilau pada blog orang lain, membaca tulisan mereka, ada juga kemukakan komentar-komentar aku. Ada tapak-tapak blog yang aku baca hampir tiap hari. Those that are really worth visiting for - the frequently updated, originality, focused, and critical on the issues they are writing on; all my critical success factors on blogging. Let me see, I was once in the high school magazine editorial board. Did a reporter job at one of the conference I volunteered, and the other one, I rapporteured. I worked as an instructional designer for about two and a half years. I am now a researcher in the IT. I love writing essays for my MBA classes that all the time I exceed the word counts' limit. Well, I didn't write crap for sure! And I have this tendency of oftenly taking notes or minutes on my CLIE at public lectures or meeting I attend. I will probably come out with some themes of the day or week or month that I will be focusing on the research work, presenting findings, and drawing my recommendations and conclusion on that particular subject. Also, I will have some academic writing to get myself ready for my doctorate. At time, I will just be writing some personal thoughts. With all deeds start with an intent, this one is to challenge myself to write better, think sharp, it will also be an avenue for me to fill in all the voids of my single days. -Hello Blogging!-