Seek and you shall find

It's summer and that means one thing.....yard sales! Er, not to mention blazing hot weather and dusk at 8pm of course. Grin.

Spent Saturday morning from 7am till noon driving from 1 garage sale to another with a few colleagues. The very first stop and I managed to find 2 Dilbert "illustrated book" *ahem comics* going for a buck a piece. There goes my supposedly aim to cut down on unnecessary expenses. Oh well.

The best was yet to come. On the 3rd stop (we covered around 18 houses today; I'm surprised there were so many yard sales just within 10 minutes drive of the office), I found a gem of a deal. Check out the pic below.


I found a combi chess/checkers/backgammon/etc set going for a steal (it cost me around half my lunch today) that was almost new. You can see the upper board and chess pieces are made of tempered glass. Below the removable chess board is the velvety backgammon board and you can also notice the drawer on the side of the platform, which conveniently stores all the game pieces when it's not in use. It's gonna make a nice conversation piece :)

Game pieces and the backgammon board with the chess/checkers board removed.

Limau ais dengan garam (versi tak-halal)

Went to Red Lobster (an American theme-restraurant) and stumbled on to something that knocked me out till 10am this morning! That was superbly refreshing :D Have I found my cure for jet-lag?

My restorative on the right.

They called it a Lobsterita (basically a very generous helping of blended frozen margarita). On the other hand, we had our own term for the drink (check the title of the post).

- Refreshed. Now it's time to work.


Silverworm corner: Janet Lowe's "Benjamin Graham on Value Investing". I'm on the third chapter and it still reads like a biography....I was sorta expecting to find more technical information/ clarifications on BG's investment principles. Let's see what the rest of the book brings...

On the spin-table: "Picture" by Sheryl Crow & Kid Rock. Destined to be a classic.

Witching hour....

The dreaded jet-lag strikes again. it's nearly 2 weeks since I've touched down but my rebelling mind is still under the impression that I urgently need to be awake at 1am. Oh well, might as well make full use of the time and get some work done. The project deadline's looming closer and closer and there's still tons to complete, no thanx to my decline in productivity.

Found this site in my now daily witching hour trawl of the net. Am sooo tempted to try and make my own hollow book. I blame it on the countless hours of reading mystery novels and Hollywood.

- Now that's weird; it's 1:44am and I'm singing "Breathe"....

2am and I am still awake...................

Winter just wasn't my season

Can't get enough of this song. Check out "Breathe (2am)" by Anna Nalick.

2 AM and she calls me 'cause I'm still awake,
"Can you help me unravel my latest mistake?,
I don't love him. Winter just wasn't my season"
Yeah we walk through the doors, so accusing their eyes
Like they have any right at all to criticize,
Hypocrites. You're all here for the very same reason

'Cause you can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable
And life's like an hourglass, glued to the table
No one can find the rewind button, girl.
So cradle your head in your hands
And breathe... just breathe,
Oh breathe, just breathe

May he turn 21 on the base at Fort Bliss
"Just a Day", he said down to the flask in his fist,
"Ain't been sober, since maybe October of last year."
Here in town you can tell he's been down for a while,
But, my God, it's so beautiful when the boy smiles,
Wanna hold him. Maybe I'll just sing about it.

Cause you can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable,
And life's like an hourglass, glued to the table.
No one can find the rewind button, boys,
So cradle your head in your hands,
And breathe... just breathe,
Oh breathe, just breathe

There's a light at each end of this tunnel,
You shout 'cause you're just as far in as you'll ever be out
And these mistakes you've made, you'll just make them again
If you only try turning around.

2 AM and I'm still awake, writing a song
If I get it all down on paper, it's no longer inside of me,
Threatening the life it belongs to
And I feel like I'm naked in front of the crowd
Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud
And I know that you'll use them, however you want to

But you can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable,
And life's like an hourglass, glued to the table
No one can find the rewind button now
Sing it if you understand.
and breathe, just breathe
woah breathe, just breathe,
Oh breathe, just breathe,
Oh breathe, just breathe.

Wish I watched this.......

Sorta missed my chance when I was briefly back in Penang a fortnight ago; just couldn't find the time with the mad rush to finish the laundry list of errands that built up. Plus the fact that it was only shown in Mega Pavillion cinemas.....

Take care and get well soon

Last night I found out that my college mate & former uni housemate was recently involved in an accident. CK was trying to avoid a motorcycle in Penang and his Kembara was hit sideways. From the pics he sent out, the side collision happened at a pretty high speed as his car turned turtle.

He wrote that he suffered some permanent disability in his right hand (but he can't tell exactly what form yet) and he wrote to us using his southpaw (i.e. left hand).

When I first heard the news, I was naturally shocked, and grateful that he came out in one piece. Somehow, I still have a hope his right hand will turn out ok and he'll be fine. Take care my friend and get well soon.

Got me wondering if I'm too optimistic and hopeful sometimes. Naive even? In a way, I'm glad I'm not that jaded and cynical. On other hand, I'm afraid I might be setting myself up for dissappointments from my wishful thinkings.

I think I can live with that :) I want to keep on dreaming and aim for the stars. Why be tied down by self-created chains of self-doubt and needless worry?

Pipe dreams you say? Who knows? Only the future will tell, and it looks pretty fine in my eyes. Smiles.

-An eternal optimist.

Silverworm corner: Decided to continue with "Benjamin Graham's Value Investing" by Janet (or was it Jane?) Lowe. Need to keep an eye out for BG's "Intelligent Investor", the book that so influenced Warren Buffet.

On the spin-table: "Every day is a winding road" by Sheryl Crow. Random pick from my Launchcast playlist.

Jet-lag: The bane of productivity

It's been over a week since I've touched down in California and I'm still suffering from jet-lag. It doesn't matter what time I sleep (day naps or not doesn't seem to make a difference), I'll be up at 1-2am everynite. The worse part is, I can't seem to sleep until around 5-6am and I hafta be up by 8....argh......

I thought I was over it during the weekend when I finally got a chance for some decent rest, but come Sunday night, I'm up and watching Comedy Central until 3am.......

I'll try working through lunch and take an early night's rest and see what happens. If things doesn't change, I'm gonna use the witching hours to get in some work and try some melatonin. A friend recommended that and at this point, I'm willing to try anything....

Diet progress: So far so good, can "feel" a bit of improvement but it could purely psychological. Shrug. Felt lazy on the weekend though and succumbed to microwave dinners of the guilty variety. :P Need to pick up on the crunches and push ups. Seems like abstaining from late exercises did not help the jet-lag.

Current brain food: "Warren Buffet Speaks"
- A collection of quotes from the one of the world's best investors. Figured I'll take a quick read through on his thoughts before reading his actual book. Still deciding whether to start with Warren Buffet or Benjamin Graham. Sorta leaning to Benjamin Graham; after all, he taught WB.....

Rocking to: "Spin" - Lighthouse
- Just so happens to be playing on Yahoo Launchcast's Adult Alternative station....Cutting down on cafeiene and decided to get an alternative natural high from music instead. Ah, what would life be without music?


Food for thought: Seems like the share price for X company is steadily dropping. Getting tempted to take the plunge and invest in it....Need to focus more and get some fundamental investment books under my belt before the opportunity slips away.......

-On a natural high.

Tempus Fugit....

A blink, and it's almost a year since the inaugural entry. In that time, a lot has happened....and it's been an interesting year. Since the last blog, I've flown enough miles to cover the globe a few times and I'm writing this half a world away from the previous entry.

Time flies, and it's weird how some things have changed while others remain the same. I'm not sure if I can say I've grown wiser, but at least I can save I've grown horizontally, sadly. Smiles.

I'll keep this short; I just wanted to restart this blog of mine. Good intentions, but I need to get out of my lackdaisal attitude and keep to my intentions.

Ta.

-Listening to: "So Julie" by Lo

-Playing: World of Warcraft.
Thanks to EJ who is so kind to let me share his account. The game rox! My life is slowly but surely being leeeched away.....

-Book of the day: "The Millonaire Next Door".
Interesting read. It sorta complements "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" in that Robert Kurosagi imparts financial freedom while this book (can't remember the authors off-hand, and I'm too lazy to google for it :P) elaborates and aims for the next step, i.e. to be financially wealthy.

Been thinking a lot on how to invest my savings; I think I need to read up more before deciding on the investment vehicle of choice. A friend of mine has been advising me but I'll need to do my own research to check out all my options.