l o o n a t i k

My 27th birthday

2009-09-11T22:46:00.002+08:00

Today is my birthday. Infamous 911.

My youngest brother, Sheng, sent me an sms:

Gor~ happy birthday..haha..It's kinda weird that i sms wish u..sorry nt at home..once again..happy birthday..

My first brother, Siang, of whom I seldom talk to, sent me an sms as well:
Happy birthday.

My second brother, Han, called my mom to asked whether we would be eating outside. My mom told him nope because she wasn't sure what time I'll return from work. I guess his intention was to join if we were to eat outside.

My dad took the effort to buy tapau dinner that cost RM48. It had yam + khau yuk. Pork belly being one of my favourite dish.

My mom gave me a red packet.

My boss bought the whole team Starbucks coffee to celebrate 4 team member's birthday. I took the chance to order a Grande. I usually just get a Tall.

Some colleagues, close friends, not so close friends, sent me birthday wishes in email, facebook wall, facebook message.

My girlfriend already gave me my birthday present in February 2009. And she sent a very touching sms at 12:05 AM.

I just wish in this birthday that I continue to be healthy, to be able to earn and provide, to have time to spent with family and loved ones, to be able to fulfil my promises to my girlfriend, to be able to achieve my little hopes.

The great couple meme

2009-04-24T15:56:00.003+08:00

1) Tell us about the first time you met and your first impression of him/her:
I first heard about her rather than meeting her. It was Teddy who used Shell Communicator to message us to say there are two new testers talking to Jenny. It was then I took a glance and saw this lanky girl with long hair nodding her head furiously and agreeing ‘Okay, okay’ to whatever it is that Jenny and Ervan was telling the both of them.

Still vivid in my mind was the first few occurrences where she stood really close to me, one where the whole SSW team is in the lift and another time at Shell House canteen where we were queuing at the cashier. At both moments, I felt the urge to need to know this sweet aura emanating girl.

The first time I talked to her was when Teddy asked me to help to organise moving one of the computers to another cubicle which was originally located at Vimala’s cubicle. I went over to her place to see the computer and cracked a little joke about the network cable being stolen and she laughed. That made me smile instead.

She then took the opportunity to ask me regarding changing Mercury Quality Center defects status, to which I told her to check with Jaja who should be more familiar with the testing processes. I then heard her speaking in Cantonese, to my surprise, and found the accent so cute.

2) What’s a weird habit or quirk that s/he has?:
When she sneezes, she makes a follow up sound effect of ‘ahh-choo-ee-excuse-me-oo-ee-oo’.
She needs to sleep with her baby pillow at home, or with her own pillow case, with the lights on and music playing.

She always scratches the right side of her nose when sleeping.

Her feet never fail to not shake when she has fallen asleep. That has been the most obvious sign for me to know she’s asleep soundly, so I can stop my patting, brushing or humming.

She’s always feeling cold after waking up from slumber.

3) What makes him/her happy?:
Cheese cake, all sorts of cakes, crabs, chicken wings, steam fish, coke, tea, frappucino, scoring some awesome buys during shopping, receiving presents, festive seasons, colourful lights, europe, sushi tei, soup restaurant, being hugged, being massaged.

4) What makes him/her sad?:
She’s usually quite a cheerful person. Emo movies and separation makes her sad.

5) What makes him/her angry?:
Stupid and inefficient people. Women gossips. Office politics. When I disappoint her.

6) What excites him/her?
A holiday to somewhere she’s never been. Shoes.

7) Tell us something funny about him/her
She has a habit to give cutesy names to some of her more often used objects. Ms Pinky, Ms Fatty, Fishy Fish, Dermy, to name a few.

8) What’s she like at home?
She’s often dressed in a T-Shirt and a cute hot pant with her hair tied in a pony tail.

9) What’s s/he like at work/school?
She is a lot more serious than normal. She takes her job very seriously and professionally. Still she would crack some jokes and is friendly to others. She is very good at multitasking. We would be chatting or talking over Shell Communicator and at the same time, she could be finishing her work.

10) Describe his/her room:
Many hints of pinkish hue. Average size. Her old wardrobe is definitely insufficient to store her clothes. She has a big Hello Kitty cushion and a longish doggy pillow to share her bed with. She has a ambient bedside lamp that emanates a diffuse yellow glow rather than the glaring bright fluorescent light one would normally see. Despite the many bags, belts and clothes; it’s generally quite neat and well organised.

11) What’s her best friend like?
She has 3 sisters - Chocolate Jessica Teo Yen Qi, Shirley, Audrey Chong - Bao Bao. In order of closeness, it would probably be Shirley, followed by Bao Bao and then Yen Qi. The 3 sisters speak with a typical Singaporean slang in their Mandarin. Yen Qi makes lame jokes while Shirley seems to make sarcastic jokes. They communicate with each other quite frequently and even during work hours. They would help each other by sharing shopping cards, help to check prices, and borrow but never returning DVDs. She’s got another close friend in her beloved Malaysian ex-housemate - Karen. Karen also serves as Susan, her secretary that takes care of her mails and bills.

12) Do you know who s/he hates the most?:
I doubt she really hates anyone with a passion.

13) Have you met her exes?
Nope. Only saw in photos.

14) Does his/her parents like you?
Never had that many chance to meet her mom. But I think her mom is okay with me after seeing me despite saying to her daughter not to believe a Malaysian.

15) What’s the first thing s/he would do or say if s/he fell down and scraped their knee:
“Fuck” then whimper needing people to sayang her.

16) What would s/he do in an emergency situation with other people involved?:
She would start to think of who to call to get more help.

17) Which shop would s/he spend the most time at in a shopping mall?:
Longest I’ve been with her was in ESPIRIT

18) What would s/he have for a typical breakfast?:
During work days, if she’s late, she would skip breakfast. Otherwise, she would go for a tuna wrap if available. She likes the Pratha at Shell House. On weekends, she prefers self made ham&cheese sandwich. She also likes Loh Mee with only Fatty Nyuk Nyuk in Singapore.

19) Where would s/he want to go for dinner?:
Japanese food especially when she has no appetite. Otherwise she needs rice rather than noodles.

20) What kind of movie would s/he choose at the cinema?
She likes romantic comedies and comedies in general. She also fancies vampires and werewolfs. She fancies movies and cartoons from Disney. Other movies with intriguing effects or story lines also excites her. But she will avoid movies with extreme violence and of the superhero kind.

21) Describe her taste in music?
Dance music and trance. Generally she’s not very artist based as long as the music is catchy. She also likes Chinese music especially Jay Chou and Ah Mei and Vicky Zhao and also a few female Chinese singers whom I have no idea what their name is.

22) If s/he wasnt going out with you, who would s/he be going out with?:
Her sisters, Karen, or her bros.

23) What item in his/her wardrobe would you like to burn:
Tough question as I don’t seem to find any annoying and quirky item that she owns in her wardrobe yet. She has good taste in choosing clothes that suits herself. Probably will try to encourage her to go sexier and sweeter (in more dresses rather than in jeans).

24) What is s/he good at?:
Board games. Puzzle games. Multi-tasking. Socialing. Planning all activities ahead in daily details which can be so advance into the following two weeks while I generally take a day as it comes. Swimming. She claims to be good in cooking.

25) What is s/he horrible at?:
Handling work stress even after work. Short term memory loss. She can lose herself into forgetting what she’s going to say or do especially when she’s interrupted.

26) What’s something about him/her that is annoying/infuriating?:
At times she has a goldfish memory and it’s saddening when she forgets about the sweet things you’ve done for her. When she is in the mood to be naughty, she'll annoy me until she perceives she has reached my limit. Never allowing me to sleep when it’s obvious that I’m feeling sleepier than her.

27) What’s something that you two fundamentally disagree
Our taste in food are localised therefore she thinks food taste better in Singapore whilst I prefer Malaysia’s.

28) What’s something that you two agree whole-heartedly on?
It is safer, more stressful and public transportation is great in Singapore. That we’re in this relationship for the long haul and we will make it work.

29) Is s/he possessive?:
Yes. Cannot let another woman touch her dear dear not even by accident.

30) Why would s/he succeed in life?
The things she wants, she gets, one way or another. She is clever, she enchants people with her charm and charisma and puts up a likeable personality. She’s a determined individual.

31) What is the coolest gift that she has ever given you?
Her love, devotion and care.

32) What is s/he obsessed with?:
Cheese cakes. Pink. Hello Kitty.

33) What does s/he avoid at all costs?:
The Sun as it gives her freckles

34) What does s/he spend the most money on?
Right now it would be her car installments. Aside from that she splurges most money on fashion items and holidays (though she is calculative and she will plan and budget not to spend a lot on holidays).

35) Describe his/her typical sunday:
Wake up in the afternoon. Generally Sunday is a rest day. If possible no activities will be planned on a Sunday.

36) Why would s/he be dangerous?:
When she’s angry, hell hath no fury like a women scorned.

37) Tell us about a time she looked absolutely gorgeous
Don’t think a time will make it. I’ll list at least 3. When she’s dressed to see Disney on Ice in the greyish and slightly lacy espirit top. When she arrived at KLIA in a grey singlet top. When she’s dressed in a white spaghetti top with a skirt.

38) What’s something about him/her that would surprise all of his/her friends?:
She plays pool professionally well.

39) What do you love most about him/her?:
How she cares about me, her affections and our chemistry.

40) The biggest lesson you have learnt from loving your soulmate.
We both agreed that we both fell in love super fast almost instantaneously. She made me realized that when you are with someone you love, your life just feels complete. She also taught me how to love whole heartedly and accept human’s flaws with love.

The global crisis and me

2008-10-25T18:56:00.006+08:00

No doubt, the financial crisis that has dawned upon us has been amazingly and shockingly fast. At times, it feels as though there is not enough time to register the reflexes that should be appropriate in such conditions. Needless to say, I've not made any changes to my portfolio and was caught out in this sudden plunge. The situation is increasingly worse and no one knows for sure when the tide will turn and a genuine bottom be found. I did a health check to gather the numbers and below is the current result:-

Net yield since I'd stepped foot into equities almost 3 years ago: -11.43%

Current yield of my portfolio: -24.54%

My current portfolio tells me I have lost a Tag Heuer Grand Carrera 17RS and abit more. :(

The half a million ringgit question

2008-10-25T18:56:00.001+08:00

I was miffed about the workshop that I usually go to, trying to up sell me with those exorbitant carbon removing liquid. Just provide the services that I as a customer demand. Mechanics motivated by sales commissions is rather weird. It doesn't then seem to have any other difference as opposed to you going into a butcher to get slayed.

On a separate note, I went to a packed bank today to withdraw some moolah from my FDs since my bank account ran out of them. Long story short, I'm just moving some money around for optimum state so as not to be charged of bank interest that much. We should be careful of these legal loansharks. Later on while doing some bookkeeping, I'd found out surprisingly that I'm very close to surpassing the half a million mark in assets. Seems like a major milestone. Now the question is, what is my leverage? That I think is the question which matters more.

Getting rid of the cobwebs

2008-09-21T18:05:00.002+08:00

Condition
The past 2 and a half months have not been great. The persistent and stubborn inflammation of the skin has returned yet again. I have seen 4 doctors to date. And the amount spent for medical expenses has breached RM500. The third doctor that I went to see is a dermatologist specialist and had diagnosed my condition as pityriasis rosea and had prescribed me with an ointment and probiotics. I was also given a jab and miraculously the condition was almost gone by the next 2-3 days. However, it seem to came back with a vengeance and grew more and in more chronic state. I then decided to see Dr. Mak, who took a quick look and in less than 30 seconds had prescribed ketaconazole, cetrizine hydrachloride and econazole cream; and sent me off the room. He didn't mention what it was and from my research based on the prescription, it could be tinea versicolor or some fungi related infection in the bloodstream. Today is the second day and I have so far see rather positive results. Hope this will finally clear up as I have been very frustrated over this.

Investment
At the current situation, needless to say, my investment porfolio isn't looking great. Couldn't be categorised as abysmal but suffice to say, a -9.41% yield is paltry at best.

To make matters worse, the next progress payment for my apartment shall be disbursed soon. That shall entail more funds to be channeled into the loan account to offset as much of interest charged as possible. If we are not confident of winning 6.85% in investments, we might as well dump the fund there to reduce the amount of principal which is to be charged at -6.85%. Simple arithmetics.

Work
Managed to take 4 days of replacement leaves and went for a short trip to Singapore. Did a lot of walking, as expected, but this time I guess the crux of the trip had opened up my perspective of the lifestyle there and necessary adjustments for working there. I think now, I will only move if the money is right.

With the departure of two team leads, I have suddenly promoted to a higher position, at least on the responsibilities and workload without the pay increment and position change. It has been tough working long hours and trying to solve problems to which I've not had experience on before. Fortunately we have managed to pull through most of it and have gained a lot more understanding and knowledge as a result. To take something out of this, I guess this will clearly mark me as one of the candidates for a promotion in the next upcoming round. Let's be patient and sit out this till March 09 and see what happens.

Misc
Today I have bought my first pillow. It's a dunlopillo and had cost me RM 150. Just a pillow for goodness sake!

Malaysian income statistics snippet

2008-08-03T15:12:00.001+08:00

Some interesting figures:-

38,000 Malaysians have an annual income of more than RM 250,000 ( 0.3% of workforce )
120,000 Malaysians have an annual income of more than RM 150,000 ( 1% of workforce)
7 million Malaysians have a monthly income of RM 3,000 to RM 5,000. (58.3% of workforce)

Yet, why there are only 1.14 million tax payers?

Sad state of Malaysian's economy

2008-07-13T15:46:00.003+08:00

The following chart shows the Monthly Income per household as of 1Q 2008. Isn't it sad to see most Malaysians are actually living close to poverty. As for my family, we are in the top 5% category fortunately. But not so fortunate, in terms of how easily we are in that bracket simply because of the sad state of the overall income of Malaysians.

Apparently, for 1Q 2008, there are only 1.14 million tax payers. In other words, only 1.14 million individuals who has a monthly income of more than RM2500. That is only 10.8% of the total workforce which pays taxes. Isn't that baffling or what?

What this has proven, is clearly that our economy has not been able to move up the value chain and has still remain largely on the manufacturing side. Failure to raise and develop better human capital is one of reason why. Brain drain is also seriously affecting the economy. Wages are extremely low and can't keep up even with neighbouring countries. How are we supposed to attract and retain our own knowledge workers? This becomes a self excaberating situation where the economy does not move up the value chain due to lack of human capital, and our top knowledge workers cannot work in the country because of lack of jobs.

Stagflation

2008-07-06T17:44:00.003+08:00

Zeti's report on CPI inflation at 3.81% are bollocks. First of all, you have a direct 40% hike on petrol and 60% on diesel. The food prices in hawkers and food court nearby the area where I work at has gone up by 12% to 16%. In July, we will see 20% increase in electricity charges. Credit card companies will impose interest charges on future purchases should you not clear your outstanding balances every month. How many people on the street can't do that? Apparently the figure is 1.8 million. That is nearly one fifth of our working population. We see news about price increases everyday in newspaper. Tiles, steel, stationeries, rice, pork, and many more to make the list. And another startling news which is if poverty level is at RM 1500 and in my opinion this is a fair figure, it affects a quarter of the households. In most corporations, the annual increments is less than 10%. Which means, wage earners are getting poorer by the day.

I've noticed a drastic drop in the traffic on the road. I myself think twice now whenever the need to travel occurs, especially for leisure purposes. Silly trips like going to Klang just for seafood dinner is automatically crossed out.

The stock market is in shambles. I have, currently on paper loss close to RM 8000. FD rates at 3+% eventhough losing out hugely due to inflation looks so much better now. An impending BLR hike will surely accelerate this doldrum. This is the new reality. Stagflation is here to stay.

The depreciating standards of living

2008-06-11T13:49:00.000+08:00

The rising cost of living is certainly beyond worry. A fellow colleague of mine commented over lunch today, that his fixed expenses takes up 70% of his take home pay. That got me startled and prompted me to do a fast calculation of my own. In order to appear healthier than what my finance is supposed to be, I have put in only the minimal amount of what must be spent in each category of expenses every month. To my dismay, it also clock in a 70% rate. The consolation to that is, I can see a 30% buffer or savings every month. Do note that I have entered only the minimal amount for each expense category. I then wondered what might probably happen in year 2010. My house installments will start to kick in, in another 1.5 years. That's not too far away. By then, the ratio has gone up to 95%.

As prudent as I could have been, I am left with only 5% savings. If I had to struggle in such a condition even without the full cascading effects kick in, i.e, the rise in food prices, building materials, financial cost (hope not!!), utilities, car maintenance, etc, one can't imagine how someone with lower income than myself could pull through. I now still have a six figure liability to my name. More probable than not, I have to let go of my condominium unit in the near future. The problem is can I find a buyer?

Moving to 8.2 km rural

2008-05-26T17:34:00.000+08:00

My last weekend was spent visiting show houses and new neighbourhoods. My family's insistence of getting a new house and selling off the current condominium unit, or rather my mom's is definitely against economical sense. At a rough count, the target location now is 8.2 km further than our current home and town. Toll charges and additional petrol cost using the current rate would probably be RM 5 per person per day. Discounting the maintenance and car park rental of RM 300 per month now, it's still costlier to move. So my mom's reason of the high running cost of living in a condominium is not valid.

But it makes all the sense, as was written in The Undercover Economist book, as to why such a decision takes place. It is all in the name of the expansion of family. Of course, my mom would put it in a rather cynical way, saying that sooner, family members will not have much place to stand, let alone sit.

I have to give up my sheltered car park. I dread the tiring process of house moving and the impending ill-fated traffic nightmares. What's in for me? From 54 sq feet to 180 sq feet.

Bonus not enough

2008-04-20T23:45:00.002+08:00

Murphy law strikes again. Few days ago, I was driving back home after work. Going through the usual crawl until I reach Jalan Istana whereby the traffic ease up abit. I fiddled with the air-conditioner switch when I noticed the air blowing out is not as cold as it used to be. Suspecting nothing amiss, I had thought the air-conditioner is about to throw some fuss. And then, I saw some steam rising from the bonnet. In an instant, the focus is now on the engine temperature. Holy crap, it's H till the max as far as the dial can go. A few seconds later, the engine indicator came up on the dashboard and I pulled aside.

I switched off the engine and watch the traffic goes by. A moment later, a smiling indian guy on a motorcycle came by and asked if the car has broken down. Immediately he offered to fix the car on the spot. Weighing between giving him the job or waiting for the tow truck to tow the car back to some workshop, I had decided to take a gamble with that guy. Might have been a very risky decision then. However, his dirty mechanic hands and his immunity to heat by touching the boiling radiator helped in my decision making.

To keep it short, the said guy took the radiator out and took RM 150 from me to purchase a new casing and clean the radiator in a nearby workshop. He later came back with the radiator with new casing and many 1.5 litre bottles of water, still on his motorcycle.

Suffice to say, the whole ordeal came to about RM 350. And on the following day, a trip down to Nissan service centre, to reset the ECU because the engine indicator has refused to go off, and for going through a scheduled maintenance job had took me RM 1100.

Gah! The highlight of this post is of the unnecessary expense incurred this month. :(

My ride

2008-04-06T00:26:00.003+08:00

The picture says it all. Before and after. Now there's the additional RM1k every month. Bah!

Typing speed

2008-03-27T00:31:00.000+08:00

92 words

Speedtest

SAP and ABAP random notes

2008-03-05T15:58:00.002+08:00

Date Formatting
BEGDA should be TYPE DATS. Strangely enough, if BEGDA is declared as TYPE DATE, the date formatting using WRITE won't work. That had baffled me for 30 long minutes.

BEGDA = '20080303'.

WRITE BEGDA DD/MM/YYYY.

Result:-
03.03.2008

Static Method
How to identify static methods in a class?
1. Use TCODE: SE24, to study the class definition
2. Go to Methods tab, and look at 'Level' column. It should be 'Static'.

Use the following syntax to call a static method:-

Observe that it is '=' instead of the conventional '-'.

classname=>get_pernr( ).

CALL METHOD classname=>get_pernr( ).

How to do class Definition Load?

Before a static method can be accessed, the class it is associated with must be loaded into the stack for the compiler to understand it.

class classname definition load.

SAPConnect
How to add the email addresses that should be sent to, in SAPConnect administration, from SAP.

1. SOST - Administration of External Send Processes
2. SCON - SAPConnect : Administration (system status)
3. Double click on the node under INT
4. Click on button for 'Internet'
5. In the 'Address Area', add in the email required or use '*@domain.com'.

Small portfolio change

2008-03-05T15:54:00.000+08:00

KLSE Composite Index is down 32.63 to 1281.39 at the moment. I had just bought my first bluechip stock.

The current yield I'm getting for my cash in FD is slightly above 3% if monthly compounding interest is included in the calculation. I've bought PBBANK @ 9.950. To beat the yield in the form of cash, I'll need it to achieve the target price 10.40 at 5 March 2009 or receive dividends payout of 45 cents during this year long period.

What do you think? I think it's easily achievable.

An unsuccessful sale

2008-02-28T16:45:00.000+08:00

Suddenly I felt compelled to sell all of my shares for one counter seeing that it is gaining strength. I made a call and placed instructions to sell all of my holdings at a specific price. I was told that it'll be going to the Sell queue, but if I could place it at 0.005 lower, it can be done immediately.

I thought to myself then, the Buy queue is only 0.005 in difference, which means there is buying strength. Hence, I opted to wait by placing a Sell queue based on my initial price.

An hour later, I had a check again. To my dismay, the last done price has gone down quite a bit. The total difference for a successful transaction would have been only less RM 100 in profit.

I have succumbed to holding due to greed yet again.

The surprising spike

2008-02-15T18:28:00.003+08:00

This is the chart of a stock I purchased sometime back in September 2007. It was moving sideways for many months and I thought the catalyst for it to spike up is not true. I decided to hold it since it's price, although not moving up, is quite stable.

To my glee, this happened as of late. I once heard that the target price is RM 1.00 due to reevaluation by private equity. I think I'll let go once it reaches 30% yield. This post is to remind myself so.

2007 in review

2008-01-07T00:58:00.000+08:00

It has been a tradition of sorts, which I've noticed at first on others and had adopted it for my own blog as well. A new year shall start with a summary and reflection of yesteryear.

- It was the year where I've purchased my first real estate property, albeit being a box in the sky.

- A supposedly growing relationship ultimately became an illusion. I guess I was delusional.

- I'd discovered an amusing fact, which is my net worth has surpassed 1 billion. However, currency of which shall not be revealed.

- Hit a point where I had seriously ponder and consider a career change despite being in a top consulting firm.

- Not long after that, I had decided to resign and move on. In hindsight, it was a brilliant move. A no brainer. I couldn't figure out what took me so long. That's nothing glorious in associating yourself with the brand name when there's nothing else to be gained from in building my career. That is the bottom line and simply a one line statement to describe it. What I have gained from it is truly life changing and a huge impact to my own character. The experience itself is also enriching, challenging, and had pushed myself to the limit many many times.

- An unplanned but eye opening trip to Jakarta and witnessing the life of my fellow CFO friend is interesting to say the least.

- By calculation or instincts, somehow, I've sold most of my equities near the spike.

- I had a bigger appetite towards risks in stocks.

- I have also been more willing to spend and live life a little more.

My material christmas wish list

2007-12-23T12:40:00.000+08:00

In line with the festive season, below are my material Christmas wish list.

1) New car - My current car is going to be 8 years old in two months time. Mileage has not been that much. Unfortunately, a few untoward incidents courtesy of my brothers have led to it's dismal condition it is now.
Estimated cost: 50,000 - 80,000

2) New leather belt - My current belt from Bhs from year 2002 has been left hanging by the hook for many months.
Estimated cost: 250 - 350

3) New Adidas sneakers - My current Adidas Running is 4 years old and is tearing apart. There's nothing else this can be replaced by. It has to be an Adidas.
Estimated cost: 260 - 350

4) Book:The Age of Turbulence - Just feel like wanting to read this one.
Estimated cost: 130

5) New watch - A new automatic watch, chronograph or not, would be sweet.
Estimated cost: 5,000 - 10,000

6) New phone - My current Nokia 7250i is 4+ years old. Friends have been pestering me enough times and my phone has been many times a banter of such occasions. I don't need a high end phone which comes with functionalities I don't use. Therefore, I will never pay such a price for that.
Estimated cost: 1,000 - 1,800

7) Cufflinks - New bling bling cufflinks to the collection.
Estimated cost: 150 - 250

8) Book:A Banking Thoroughbred - Always fascinating to read about how Public Bank establishes itself and of a highly successful corporate figure.
Estimated cost: 50

9) Book: The monk who sold his ferrari

10) Book: The world according to Jeremy Clarkson

11) Book: Paulo Coelho's The Zahir

small addition to the collection

2007-12-17T11:01:00.000+08:00

Bought the above two books. I had finished Lim Goh Tong - My Story. Quite a compact journal full of life anecdotes told with humility and humour. Interesting to note how he achieved what he had, by being at the right place at the right time, strike when opportunity comes, pure hardwork, going against the odds and by having faith and conviction in his instincts.

Another entry point

2007-11-23T22:53:00.000+08:00

Another selldown in the market. Whatever the reason be it the Yen Carry Trade, Subprime fallout by Bear Stearns, Merill Lynch, Citibank, Credit Crisis, China Bubble, Oil Spike, Interest rates adjustment; corrections are taking place in the markets and these are good opportunities to load in again. Without the ups and downs, it'll be too dull. Anyway, my goal is to beat the paltry bank's FD rates of 3.75%. Therefore, I'm not setting myself up with insane lofty ambitions of gaining >30% returns eventhough I might have done so earlier this year.

They say don't buy when the knife is chopping. They say bottom fishing is dangerous.

But I'm not listening because I want to make money.

Back from Singapore

2007-10-21T22:42:00.000+08:00

Finally I am back from my weekend trip to Singapore. It was fun albeit tiring. I came back with a new wallet, lack of rest, sore feet and a sense that the weekend was well spent.

I spent a total of 23 hours awake on Saturday for having to wakeup and board Airebus that departs at 7.30 AM sharp. All the passengers of that bus were upgraded to business class seats. However, the air conditioning wasn't functioning properly. Due to some miscommunication between my pals, I had to shop around and lunch by myself for a moment. Fortunately, I chanced upon the jovial Mabel who happened to hang around at Scotts road before heading to gym. What coincidence it is to bumped into her. It was great to catch up and hear her boisterous laughter again.

The rest of the day were spent shopping along Orchard Road and people watching with our Singapore host, Kin Yew, Mavis and the rest of the crew. Headed down to Ministry of Sound as our main event of the trip. Everyone was pretty whacked after supper at McDonalds and doze off in our taxi ride back to home at 4+ AM. Yeah, Singapore's supposed to be safe like that.

Below is my new wallet. Come to think of it, it is the first wallet that I purchased for myself. I have always been using and drop wallets which are gifts from other people.

Fuzzy greed

2007-10-03T23:14:00.001+08:00

The magnificent yield now stands at 34.87% YTD. I have accounts in two separate funds with gains of 11.99% and 19.73% in slightly more than 5 months. Have been increasingly feeling uneasy of this vertical hike. Should I sell all and realised the profit? I'll have to come back at a -3.64% rate later.

Update: I was right but I missed the spike by 2 days. In just two days, the NAV has shed 2.75% and 5.44% respectively. Anyhow, I'm betting on a lower entry level in the near future. How low? Well that's the next guess.

Update 2: May not be the spike. Have sold both funds and I hold nothing now. The yields which I've sold at are 10.25% and 14.29%.

When the keyboard stop working with your laptop

2007-09-24T19:28:00.000+08:00

My five year old laptop has always been showing signs of it's age. I had reformatted it about three times, which all has been performed reluctantly, as they involved wiping out all data inside. The CDROM also has refused to work and still remains so. The speakers will occasionally give me a static shock when I place my hands close to it. And it will just power down whenever it's too hot such that I have to constantly monitor it's temperature and CPU usage.

Today however gave me the biggest fright of all. The keyboard has gone cuckoo. I can't even logged on to windows anymore given that a number of alphabets cannot be typed by the keyboard anymore. I frantically punished the keys more in hope to log on to the machine at least one last time so I can backup my stuff, and luckily I'm able to do that. I am now typing this with my left hand on the keyboard and my right clicking on the on-screen keyboard. I have also removed my password on this machine.

*Sigh!!!

Retail player's diary

2007-09-05T16:56:00.000+08:00

Bought my first share in year 2004. Sold it in year 2005 and made a lost of RM 668.

Bought my second share this year and sold it in less than a month's time. Made a profit of RM 853. Outstanding 23.5% gain in less than a month's time.

Have bought my third counter and aiming on a fourth one. Let's see how they'll turn out.