Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Why We Hate/Like Cristiano Ronaldo

10. When he walks out on the pitch, he makes sure he's one of the last, walking as slow as possible.

Possible excuse: I don't want to stretch himself
Real reason       : I don't want others to block the cameras

9. When he misses a chance, he reacts like he's passing shit after a week of constipation

Possible excuse : I was really hoping it would go in and score for the team
Real reason        : I'm lazy to drop back and defend so I pretend to care about the missed chance while the opposition attacks

8. When a free kick just misses the goal (or a spectacular try), he would look up to the heavens and then wag his finger like it's hot

Possible excuse : My fate is in the hot hands of God
Real reason        : Damn, I'm so hot that God better watch out

7. When he scores, he gives a cheeky wink and shrug of the shoulder

Possible excuse  : It wasn't me, it was the team
Real reason         : It's definitely me, and it was damn easy

6. When he scores, he opens up his arms for others to embrace

Possible excuse  : This is for all of you, my friends
Real reason         : Hail to your savior, talentless twats!

5. When he dribbles, he suddenly falls down after a light touch from the opponent

Possible excuse  : At my speed, any touch would be amplified and cause me to lose balance
Real reason         : The camera will focus on my face

4. When his team mates score, he doesn't join in the celebration

Possible excuse  : I want him to have all the spotlight
Real reason         : He should've f*ck*ing pass to me!

3. When the ball doesn't get to him fast enough, he will go all bonkers and throw his hands in the air in resignation

Possible excuse  : I wish we could work together as a team to score
Real reason         : I want the ball so the camera would focus on me, you ugly Iberians!

2. When he takes a freekick, he places the ball carefully, he takes three big steps backwards (always, he never turns around for the run-up), stand with his legs apart, hands on the side like a gunslinger, puffs out his chest, looks directly at the ball, clenches his jaws and butt, with exaggerated breathing style.

Possible excuse  : I have perfected this technique to deliver maximum power and accuracy to my free-kicks
Real reason         : I am "poyo"

1. After a match he takes off his shirt

Possible excuse  : I want to exchange my jersey with my poor opponents
Real reason         : Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian...who's next?





Tuesday, June 29, 2010

The Perils of Flip-Flops

Not the ones you wear. I'm referring to decisions. Making one and later revoking or backtracking.

Indecisiveness must be differentiated from correcting a mistake. The former is a weakness, while the latter is a strength.

Recently, the government announced that Ascot (one of Vincent Tan's many money-making vehicles) will be re-issued a sports betting license, thus giving it a strong advantage as the only legalized sports betting company in Malaysia, much like Genting monopolized the casino industry. Then, after a few weeks and after Vincent Tan has made the necessary public disclosure including his own personal offer to be a Malaysian Bill Gates (which I think is a bit "poyo"), the government back-tracked. There's no other way to describe it.

Now, I won't comment on whether sports betting, or gambling in general, is good or not. Even if they can show statistics that says 100% of people who gambled will lose their family, kill their kids, and dance naked in Dataran Merdeka, it wouldn't matter.

What matters is having a government that can make a thorough strategic analysis of the situation before making a decision. Surely they must think not only of the financial repercussions (in terms of tax collected) but also the political and social fall-out from any decision. Flip-flopping is bad, not only in business to make money, but in the business of running a nation.

Until today, I still have reservations on buying a new car due to constant rumors about lowering of excise duty on imported cars. I've been hearing this since 2008.

Stick to your guns if you truly believe that the future will be all the better for a decision made today. As a leader of my own organization, I know how hard it is to make a decision. But that's why we're here. To decide. Whether it's right or wrong.

Side note: Did you know that Genting Highlands (I think First World?) is the world's largest casino resort?


Monday, June 28, 2010

Lessons From England's Exit

We can learn a lot from football.

1. Humans are prone to error (and the better for it, IMHO). It's what humans do.

2. The amount of newspaper coverage you get has no direct correlation to your actual value (Barisan Nasional, please take note).

3. It's hard to find a solution to a problem, but very easy to point out problems in a solution (Pakatan Rakyat, please take note).

4. One defeat can erase dozens of wins (all business leaders, take note).

5. When you're up, everyone's kissing your ass. When you're down, everyone's kicking it.

6. Ability to speak in English is not an indication of intelligence (John Terry's pretty vocal, isn't he?).

7. We can aim for the sky but first, make sure we have wings to fly (Malaysia Boleh, please take note).

8. Higher wages does not mean better players (watch out NEM).

9. You cannot manage egos (all managers, please take note).

10. Never bet on England. Ever.

Friday, June 25, 2010

From 3GP to GDP – A Thinking Man’s Drinking Session


I have promised to make things simple. Here, I will just list down the topics my good mates and I covered in a short 1 hour lunch session, in order of their appearance in the conversation.

1.  World Cup 2010. Of course, we talked about Italy’s funny exit (I thought it was funny) and how New Zealand proved to the world that they’re more than just Kiwis and All-Blacks.

2.   In spirit of the current controversy surrounding Ascott’s gambling license, we decided to do our own social experiment *ehem ehem* on sports betting. So far, it has been proven that some are clearly luckier than the others (on a consistent basis, no less), while the rest (majority) are saddled with “enormous” debt.

3.  Which leads us, inexplicably, to Ariel Peterporn’s controversy. No further details necessary. Except that TM’s decision to ban most “interesting” sites is futile due to the simple fact we could use Google’s DNS (oh, you didn’t know?).

4.  One of them complained about the quality of 3GP videos, while another commented that almost all materials involving Malays are in 3GP, which lead to us talking about the weird places these folks fornicate. They all agree that when we have multiple videos of Malay couples having sex in open staircases, on motorbikes and in the jungle, there’s something seriously wrong.

5.  Based on this 3GP discussion, they wondered why Malays fornicate everywhere and with anyone.  And how come that anyone does not include them? I concluded that they’re much too intelligent to meet these girls from the videos. They regretted studying hard.

6.  At the current rate, Malays would procreate at a pace that would overwhelm all in Malaysia, and that may not be such a good thing. I mentioned about Lee Kuan Yew’s social engineering program in Singapore to control the QUALITY of babies.

7.  That led me to lament that Malaysia has not controlled its population growth in tandem with the economic theory for rapid progress. And how do we normally measure progress for a nation? Gross Domestic Product or GDP.

8.  What are the merits of measuring via GDP? What about the actual happiness of the people? Would high GDP growth be worth it if the people are sad and stressed-out (like Singaporeans!)?

Yes, we did cover a lot of things for such a short span of time. And that’s how we roll. I’ve been with group of guys who does nothing but talk about girls, and I’ve been with groups that talks only of politics. To them, Luna Maya’s probably a name of a Liberal Democratic party in Indonesia.

So girls, this is how a thinking man’s group session goes about. We’ll talk about the silly stuffs for sure (because we are Alpha male), but we do talk about serious stuff. Much more serious than girls talking endlessly about the plot to Twilight. 

It’s about a vampire and a werewolf chasing after a freak. And you need 6 hours of movie-time for that?

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Reduce JPA Scholarship for Overseas Studies

In light of the recent debate on reducing the number of scholars we send overseas, I have decided to re-post my FB note dated 29th November 2009. Yes, I can see the future:P
_______________________________________________________________________

Enough of posturing, campaigning and politicking. Let’s try giving solutions. From traffic to education, I want to start putting my ideas onto paper, figuratively speaking.

Since I studied locally, and because local graduates get a lot of stick, and since we won’t ever be expensively-paid consultants that can later be put as a director of one of the most profitable O&G companies in the world, I’ll deal with local graduates first.

The issue? Quality. Apparently, we are not smart enough, competent enough, and literate enough to even be considered as graduates/degree holders. Fine. Let’s assume for a fact that this is true (although, if I may be politically correct, this is BS). What’s the solution?

Certainly not in building more schools. Certainly not in giving more computers. Certainly not in giving them more money. It’s all about people.

I believe we are what we are because of the people we surround ourselves with. Successful people make it a point not to hang out with losers. Losers bring you down. Time and time again, from Napolean Hill to Zig Ziglar to Richard Branson, the power of positive association has been pointed out as a key to success.
So the theory is quite simple – get the right number of successful, determined and intelligent people in a group to influence a bigger set of people, and the rest will at least strive for a higher benchmark.

Unfortunately, we, and most education system tend to do it the opposite way. Even from High School we were segregated based on our marks. You’ll probably find that some classes are filled with gangsters while others are filled with geniuses.

How can losers ever be taught about the possibility of winning if they were not exposed to the CONCEPT of winning itself? How can anyone expect a D-student to turn into an A-student when he is exposed only to other failures? Do we expect miraculous transformation to come from within?

We know the answer. And therein, I believe, is the solution.

To immediately transform the quality of our local graduates, we must fill our local universities with the brightest minds in the country. A higher ratio of excellent students over average students would dramatically improve the quality of the education experience. Winners create winners, and the strong will create an environment to push the weak.

For this to happen there must be a paradigm shift in the way we approach higher education. We must dispel the myth that people will become stupid if they study locally, or smarter if they study overseas. We must be brave enough to send LESS students overseas. Universities will never evolve if we keep on filling them with the rejects like myself *sarcasm insert here*.

I know how some are afraid that the smart students, instead of influencing others, are influenced instead. That’s a valid concern, but I somehow have this strange belief that throughout their lives, high achievers have developed certain skill sets that allows their mind to only think of the possibilities out there and channel only positive thoughts – not vice-versa.

My own experience at UiTM has taught me that successful students do play a part in developing the people around them, either directly or indirectly. Unfortunately, there are too few of them around (at a ratio of 5% of the student population?) to effectively influence a larger set of people.

This is a radical approach to higher education. It’s just a crazy idea that I thought of quite a while back when I met MRSM students who were sent overseas only to come back not significantly better than the best of the local graduates.

This is not a chicken and egg situation. A radical approach must be undertaken to address the growing discontent with the quality of local graduates (whether it’s true or not is a debate for another post…). And radicalism lies not only in extreme actions, but in extreme thoughts.

Send more smart students to study locally. You cannot wait for the Universities to become “better” because it never will. Just take a deep breath, sign the papers Minister, and accept this idiotic idea. After all, your Oxbridge S.Officer ideas have not really changed things, right? (no offense to my Oxbridge mates)

p/s: Choice is but an illusion.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

French Conspiracy

Read in some forums that there's a racial divide in the French World Cup 2010 squad, which is ironic considering that there's less diversity this time.

Or maybe that's the problem. When it's between A vs B, its easier to take sides and be all clan-like. But if there's A vs B vs C vs D, then there's too much split for anyone to form racial barriers.

If that's the case, what's going on in Malaysia?

Friday, June 18, 2010

Welcome to the New Old Me

It's been a while. In fact, for the past few blog postings in the previous blog, I have always lamented that it's been a while.

The truth is I stopped writing for the same reason I stopped doing a lot of things. I just got bored with it. I get bored easily, something which worries the hell out of my wife.

But now I'm back. Because I got bored (see the trend here?) micro-writing via FB and Twitter. However, the experience has helped me a lot in getting rid of excess junk from my materials.

Something which you'll notice in this new blog - a lot more simplicity in form and manner, but complex in its context and content.

Why the need for a new blog? Simple. I've outgrown the old self, which may delight some of my previous readers (is there anybody out there?). I no longer can pretend I am not responsible for the fate of my family and my staffs. I have gained more than just weight.

I have added role. I am the leader not only for my organization but also my own family and increasingly, my bigger family. Hence, the title tuanchief. It ain't about bragging but a self-deprecating kind of joke.

At the same time, I believed that a huge part of me, the part that is critical of everything and anything is still around - with an added dose of new experiences.

So it's all a bit familiar - the rants, the raves, the reviews, the wit (ada ke?) - and yet not-so-familiar.

Hopefully, I'll keep this one running for quite some time.