Tiring Work

I have not been running for about four months, since I hurt my right heel late last year. I have since started running again last weekend. However, I am so lacking in stamina and energy that I got real exhausted after doing a two-day training at Cradle. Who knew that two days of talking was so damn tiring!

Therefore, I need to exercise more regularly from now on to improve my physical stamina. I need to ensure that I can at least handle working at a stretch with little rest nor relief in between, if I am to handle more and more work.

Yes, I am likely to be getting more and more work this year. Although I am juggling so many hats this year, I have been approached to juggle three more hats. If things go well, I’ll be juggling five hats by year-end.

Getting busy is a good thing if I can keep up with it.

I need to get crazy fit!

I Dislike Holidays

Can I say that?

Honestly, I do not like long weekends because they are neither long enough to be a proper holiday, but they are just long enough to be disruptive to the schedule. Long holidays are too short to get any real work done and so, I usually end up wasting them. Like this weekend, I did not get to do what I wanted to do because I had to do what I needed to do instead.

Sigh.

I’d rather have everyday be work day but I’m sure that I am in the minority. Work-life balance – bleah! If work is not life, then it’s the wrong thing to do. 😀

Malaysians in Space

I was just reading last month’s copy of E&T magazine about space exploration, when I noticed that Malaysia was listed amongst the 50-odd nations and regions with astronaut programmes. I guess that our angkasawan programme is a recognised one, regardless of whether he was just tagging along for the ride or otherwise.

While there are few outside of the US, Russia, EU and China who are able to send their own man into space using their own rockets, these other nations usually buy a seat on one of the rockets from the US or Russia. There are many reasons to do this and national pride is one of them.

On a personal capacity, I am also trying to stick my finger into the space-age pie. I will blog more about this later, if things come to fruition.

Dark of the Moon

One film I’ll watch in the cinema even though Megan Fox is gone!

This film look pretty good too and might satiate me for a while. 🙂

Natalie Portman! 🙂

Superhero filled summer!

Yeay!

Convince, Confuse and Cow


I was once told by a very senior salesman that the key to selling any product is – convince, confuse and cow (in that order).

First, we try to convince our potential customers on the virtues of the product. This works on a logical level as we try to rationalise the advantages that our product has against the competition. However, this can only work if our product has useful attributes, which is rarely the case. Therefore, onto step two.

Second, we try to confuse our potential customers on the facts. This works by driving all logic out the window and disrupting the thought process of the customer. We twist things and re-orientate views in such a way as to paint our product in better light. This is what marketing tries to do all the time. When this fails, there is still step three.

Third, we try to cow our potential customers into buying. This works on an emotional level and exploits the fears of the customer in order to frighten them into buying. Threaten their lives, or their childrens’ lives often works because people become irrational when faced with these threats. The insurance industry works this way.

Our dearest Prime Minister said today: “I see the MCA sending the message that the Chinese cannot support the opposition and at the same time expect strong representation in the government. They have to choose. If they want the opposition, they must sacrifice the party in government. If they want a bigger say to serve their interests, they have to support a Barisan Nasional component party.”

So, when I read something like this, I think that our dearest PM is now desperate. He has failed to convince the people, and the people are not sufficiently confused to miss the point. Therefore, he has had to resort to scare tactics in order to threaten the local Malaysian Chinese community like this.

It smacks of desperation and the trouble with the third tactic is that, it can backfire horribly. When you threaten your customer, they either break-down and buy your product or they take out their guns and shoot you where it hurts. I do understand that threats are a legitimate tactic in politics, but this is risky.

Unlike the older generation, who are quite convinced that having representation in government is important, the younger generation are beginning to see that impotent representation is as good as no representation. Like I told a friend a while ago – every threat is also a challenge. It all depends on the point-of-view.

I hope that our PM realises this and puts a positive spin on this before things really get out of control and the local Chinese community actually take him up on his challenge – to vote the MCA out of government.

PS: I thought that the MCA had already lost the Chinese vote for ages.

My Take on RPK

I am not an RPK fan-boy. If you read my blog regularly, you will see that I both support and criticise his views. That’s because I am a thinking man.

A lot has been said by many parties on his recent public admission on local television. I have been asked about this by some friends as well. I thought that I should put my personal take on his actions.

I must say that I do not know RPK. The only time I have spoken to him was to ask him a tough question that he was unable to answer – at a SABM forum.

There are those who think that he has sold out and is now back-stabbing the opposition. These people are brainless to say the least. Think about it for a moment. If he has sold out, then this is definitely not the worst thing that he can do. He can do a lot more damage to the opposition. Do you think that RPK does not have dirt on the opposition leaders?

There are those who think that he is back-stabbing the opposition now. Personally, I think that the opposition are doing more damage to themselves from within than without. The opposition regularly shoot themselves in the foot and kill each other. They do not need the likes of RPK to do them any harm which they are not already doing to themselves.

There are those who think that he is lying or has been lying all this time. Honestly, RPK keeps telling everyone to not believe what he says but to take in the information and process it for ourselves. He tells everyone to use our own brains and not to rely on him. Everyone has a bias, even RPK. His words are not gospel.

So, this is what I think of his actions.

I do not know what his motivations are but I am sure that if he was out to kill the opposition, they would have died a horrible death. RPK is just being RPK – the closet anarchist – and we need to learn how to deal with it.

He has a role to play, and he is playing it very well in bringing about change, not just in our political system, but also in our political mind-set. Otherwise, the change will not be sustainable and we will fall back into the same traps again.

I hope that he continues to stir the pot.