On investing and porn

Stock market has been performing badly. Wall Street goes banana.

It was the banks. Bear Stearns collapsed, Merril Lynch is about to be acquired, and Lehman filed for bankruptcy.

And now it's the insurers. AIG needs a savior.

Investing looks bleak.

Some people say that I work in a safe industry - consumer products. No matter what, people still need to go on with their life. They need to bathe and wash their hair. And people still make babies too.

But there is another industry whose demand never dies, thus ought to be less volatile than technology or banking: porn.

And we can now invest in porn industry. Adult Entertainment Capital, Inc. went public yesterday in NASDAQ, under ADLE ticker.

MSN Money says the porn stocks are worth watching. With yesterday's closing at $0.0065, you can easily be a shareholder.

An article says that it's a big market, around $57 billion globally. Looks like a huge market that can still be exploited...

A classmate once interviewed with Vivid Entertainment for an internship position in finance. The whole school enjoyed his story about the interview.

Can you imagine the experience of attending ADLE's annual shareholder meeting?

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Banned!!

Marina Mahathir found more nonsense in Malaysia. Unspun added more meats on it.

The victim is now the devil-horn hair clip. (yes, hair clips for children)

This adds to the list of banned 'products' in Malaysia, which, Unspun summarized, include Inul (though she finally got to perform at the KBRI), Avril Lavigne, the sight of women's armpit on TV (what?), and more.

Well, it's not all that bad, actually. If it's an art, it seems people here are more receptive.

Like the recent Sloggi Art for Humanity in Sunway Lagoon. (photos from Bun Virus' flickr)


A bit of hypocrisy, eh? Or simply an irony? But life will be boring otherwise...

More pictures here.

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On In Bruges, Tarantino's movies, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and Tera Patrick

I watched In Bruges last week, and enjoyed it. It is said to be a good dark comedy movie - whatever it means - receiving 79% positive reviews in Rotten Tomatoes.

The movie reminds me of Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction or True Romance. In comparison, In Bruges uses the word "fuck" (and its derivatives) 126 times (resulting 1.18 "fucks" per minute). That's still better compared to True Romance's 1.86 and Pulp Fiction's 1.58.

I like most of the movies written or directed by Quentin Tarantino. They're quite unusual. I also enjoy other unusual movies like Blair Witch Project, Memento, or Twelve Monkeys (I adore Madeline Stowe, after Winona Ryder). Don't get me wrong, I also like masterpieces like Forrest Gump, Saving Private Ryan or Band of Brothers. (oh, I, too, like Tom Hanks.)

Speaking about Tarantino, he is rumored to want to remake Russ Meyers’ 1965 exploitation flick Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! Among the stars include Britney Spears, Eva Mendes, and Kim Kardashian. Well, only Eva Mendes has a proven acting experience, but who cares. Throw in Paris Hilton to make it more interesting! I'm sure Tarantino will make something out of them.




Further rumor, however, says that Tarantino wants Tera Patrick in the movie as well. Yes, Tera Patrick the porn star. (doesn't sound too familiar to me though - I know only Asia Carrera, and found out that she has a blog!) Tera was delighted and said: "It would be the hottest remake ever, and I'm honored to be considered."

My opinion remains the same. Tarantino will handle it nicely. Perhaps a role like what Brad Pitt did in True Romance - a cheerful stoner.

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Next generation soccer: topless

Austria 10 - Germany 5.

Whoa, wait. Didn't Germany beat Austria one-nil?

That's Euro. We're talking about Sexy Soccer, or topless soccer, or whatever you want to call it. It was played on the beach with one football, two goals, and two topless ladies teams.

"The traditional swapping of shirts afterwards was not an option as the six-a-side teams wore nothing but thongs, with the national colours painted on to their bare skin."

Get the idea? Picture to prove?

The players seem to be playing pretty hard...
"We played pretty hard, we even had some injuries, like I for example broke my toe nail," 29-year-old bank employee Doris Fastenmeir told Reuters.

But they're not professional players after all...
"I was supposed to hold the balls but I really have no idea how to do that," said German keeper Jana Bach. "Maybe it is because I am not all that much into soccer. I am more into shoes to be honest."

I'm a big fan of Germany. But after seeing the pictures, I think I'll be just a neutral soccer fan...


This is where all hooligans and bonek united...

Links:
Some nice pictures, also here.
Full report from Reuters.

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Busy

Been busy like bees - mostly over the weekends, with works, guests, and trips. I went to Genting, (yup, again) with guests, spent a weekend observing my team going through a teambuilding activity, interviewed an MBA applicant (and completed the evaluation), and went to Singapore for the Police concert (they rocked!). My parents are visiting at the moment.

Here's Tari's hand during the concert (and some other pictures below):


And other things that occupies and just can't get out of my mind. I hope to settle many things in the next few weeks.

I've missed reading blogs for weeks now, but created a lot of drafts. Yeah, those unfinished, useless drafts that sometimes I didn't even remember what I was trying to say. Not that I have much to say -- Tari can attest to that.

Some photos I took in the concert.

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Holy cow!

This term is not considered to be very popular among teenagers, and most teens claim it is definitely not a very popular phrase. (wikipedia)

Whatever.

But seriously, holy cow! I didn't write (and read) any blogs for the past four weeks. I guess I'm neither a blogoholic nor a blogophile. The truth is, a lot happened and I just naturally decided not to get close to any blog-related activities. It kinda felt good, though :)

Business planning
This was the root cause, definitely. Somehow Asia Pacific region does their business plan just at the start of the 2nd half. Ridiculously way too early. No wonder it has never been accurate. But you know Asians, they like to put a bit too much in their pockets. Anyway, I probably spent too much time given the craps our business partners put in. At the end, though, it seemed to be a big win for Malaysia.

Single life
This has also become a once-a-year routine, during the kids' school holiday in July-August. This year's highlight was sweeping the floor. Having not done it for so long, I found it very difficult to clean just an apartment unit. The area I just swept instantly got dirty again! I felt like Tom, with Jerry kept teasing me... I could've thought about checking the sweeping technique.

24
Finished season 5 and season 6. I feel like I know Jack Bauer inside out.

Negaraku rap
I'm pretty sure tons of blogs out there talked about this short clip by a Malaysian student in Taiwan. I wonder how most Indonesians will react if this was done to Indonesia Raya...

When everybody knows your name
I didn't do much cooking during this period. Two places I visited frequently for the take-away food were Burger King and SOULed OUT - their pizzas are good! Towards the third and fourth visits, the servers and I were like buddies. Well, I doubt they really know my name, but it has reached a different 'level' in my limited social life. To me SOULed OUT is now among places like Prambors Cafe (used to be in Blok M), Champions Cafe (was in Kemang), and O'Hara (this is where RIF used to play) in Bandung. The first two are now history, physically. Not sure about O'Hara...

Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name,
And they're always glad you came;
You want to be where you can see,
Our troubles are all the same;
You want to be where everybody knows your name.
(Cheers)

Business, not results
Spent an evening with a colleague from Thailand and we agreed that the reason we exist in a corporate is to deliver business, not only results...

Fantasy football and Premiere League
New season has started at Yahoo!Fantasy Sports.

IKEA ads
Tidy up! Some hilarious commercials from IKEA.



Gwen Stefani
Gwen Stefani stopped by in KL, the last city in her Sweet Escape Asian tour, despite protests from student groups in Malaysia, claiming that "the concert would clash with local values". What a great performance from Gwen, and totally different audience (much better than the ones at MLTR's concert)! Most importantly, I feel much, much younger... :)

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