I am not one who places too much emphasis on luck but last Saturday’s poker night has proven to be our (hkgirl & I) luckiest night ever. Based on my 20+ years of gambling experience, I have never won money. I lose the big hands and win only the small hands. The best I can do is break even for the night. But then last Saturday happened. It started with hkgirl getting a 4 of a kind hand and a straight flush within a span of 10-15 deals. An hour later, I had my first ever 4 of a kind hand and started winning money. Then the night passes by and we are at the final hand.

Final hand. No holds barred. I had a 9 and 5 suited in hearts. The order might be a bit off now but the flop completed my flush with A 3 and 4 in hearts. I forgot what the turn was but guess what the river came out to be. 2 of hearts. Straight flush. My first ever straight flush hand. Same night as my first ever 4 of a kind hand. And also the same night it happened to hkgirl.

You go look at poker probabilities (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poker_probability)
Straight Flush 0.0311%
4 of a kind 0.168%
and you cant explain / describe the scenario of getting all 2 straight flush and 2 4 of a kind hands in the same night other than one word – luck. It feels as if the powers that be decided to pay back all 20+ years worth of luck debt in one night.

I was going to write a bit more on how you need skills to utilize luck but then when you are that lucky, why does skills even matter?

For the sake of completing the story, my straight flush won me the hand over someone who had an A K flush and thought he had the winning hand (99% of the time he would be correct to assume that). I still feel terribly sorry for make him lose that big hand.

...in the same time (given my history of bad luck in gambling), I also see myself losing in similar fashion within the near future

An email I sent out to my angry supplier

All client servicing industry has always been a shit job. We try our best and give best suggestion yet we also have to give client the freedom to turn everything upside down. We can always counter propose or argue about our points all we want but ultimately the paying person has the final say. It sucks but it's also something we signed up for when we enter the industry.

With that said, I totally understand your frustration but with that said let's just complete the deal out of for pay and take this as a learning experience


... my recommendation is to not enter any client servicing industry if you want less stress

Listen

i really admire those who work a full time job and still manage to have enough brain cells to write a full blog. doesn't their brains get tired from facing a computer all day already? onto today's topic...

Sales is definitely the most important job in mankind's history. Everyone has to be a sales at one point or another, whether it is selling yourself in interviews, selling ideas, products, or even selling you to be someone's boyfriend/girlfriend, but not everyone is a good sales. Confidence, quick thinking, common sense, using your brain, understanding who you are selling to are all basic skills needed to be a good sales.

If it is so easy, then why aren't more people good at being a sales? Confidence comes with knowledge, quick thinking comes from experience, common sense and using your brain can be trained, but understanding who you are selling to is what most people have problem doing. For some, it is because they are too busy trying to convey the message they want to sell and fail to realize what the customer really wants. I am sure everyone has faced this issue one way or another with people who just say what they want to say, argue their points and never compromise. Words go into their ears but not into their brains.

More and more people are like this and this is a trend that doesn't seem likely to change...

P.S. just a follow up to my first sentence, my English really is a lot worse after spending a day working...

A Short Story

A little story to spice up everyone's bump day

Once upon a time, there was a clown.
He laughed, he made people laugh.
He smiled when people were sad, he jumped when people were afraid to.
He wasn't rich, but had enough money to live a fair life.
Then one day, he had a change of heart.
He went to the magician and told the magician that "he had decided to sell his happy self, in exchange for a lifetime's worth of money, to get rich"

Do u see the irony?
Money isn't happiness, for him at least.
The two are complete opposite otherwise there wouldn't be a tradeoff between happiness and money. Yet, he chose money.

...That clown is me

Michael Jackson

Its been a while since I have felt so strongly about something so its perfect blogging time.

I was never a big fan of Michael Jackson, never was and probably never will be, which is why his death means nothing to me. Yes, he is an extremely influential figure, but I am just not a fan. I have pretty much the same feeling as if a stranger died - I feel nothing. What i cant stand is all the hypocrites popping up, people who joked about him, people who disliked him, all facebook/twittering the fact that they are sad, they are crying, and they will miss him. WTF? I thought you dont like him.

Another thing, do we really need to have Michael Jackson related news shoved down our throat? and whats the purpose behind a memorial show? Out of all the performers, who really misses him and who is just there for publicity?

just another thing i dont understand about the world we are in today

The cycle

There was a time back in university when I really wished to be in school forever. Imagine how life would be. No need to worry about jobs & money, living in an all expenses paid for life. I remember at some point, probably when work started getting really crazy, I gave up that thought.

After working for a couple years and living off that silly salary, the school > work thought came back. Wouldnt life be great if i can just get paid for reading books? Then MBA came along, it was all good and fun UP UNTIL NOW. UP UNTIL NOW. when I have a ton of paper / presentation / BLAH BLAH BLAH to write.

Job > School

humans... we are never satisfied with what we have

A new kick for your morning!

I have been meaning to write this since Monday but school work has just been horribly busy so I have to wait until a nice Friday evening to finally get a chance to write.

Unless you are one of those people who just take things for what it is, chances are that we always find way(s) to improve the efficiency and/or quality of the things we do.

A medium (or grande) latte at a coffee shop usually costs about 2-3 pounds. We will use 2 just for this example. Did you know you can now get a gram of cocaine for just 20 pounds? Dont believe me? See here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/4602051/Cocaine-cheaper-than-lager-and-wine-as-drug-price-falls-by-half.html

A gram of cocaine can be split into 20 lines with each line having a stronger "wake you up" effect than your medium latte, which means you can do a line of cocaine for 1 pound vs buying a latte for 2! Oh wait, this just in, cocaine price set to drop more!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7898087.stm

The choice is very simple, do cocaine!

...and this is another reason why we shouldnt have kids.

P.S. - no i dont do cocaine... not unless they start doing hazelnut flavors of them

getting 10000000 pages of reading assigned with (24 - 8 hrs of sleep - 2hr class - 2hr gym - 1hr cooking - 2hrs other work - 1hr laundry - 1 hr lunch break = 7) 7 hours to finish is seriously fucked up

Been trying to scavenge something to write about all week but when all that is happening over the week was jetlag and coughing a lot, there really isnt much worth writing about. The quality of my blog shouldnt be lowered just because I feel the need to update.

Here are some quick album recommendation if you are bored"
Friendly Fires - Friendly Fires
TV on the radio - Dear Science
Metronomy - Nights Out

Until next time

catching up

just in case if you are wondering how i spent my xmas week, here is a short summary:

Dec 23 - Sake sake sake. Finished a bottle of 1.8L sake between hkgirl and I
Dec 24 - drinking at a friend's till 4am
Dec 25 - 2 bottles of red wine between me and hkgirl, but we slept from 10pm till 11am the next day
Dec 26 - Beer'ing (i just invented this word) from 3pm till 1am, passed out immediately after i get home
Dec 27 - whiskey soda till 4am
Dec 28 - Just beer. sake. and some more beer from 7-midnight. I was playing it safe.
Dec 29 - White Wine. Sake. 1/2 Bottle o gin, some beer.

umm... x'mas week = hangover week

Happiness in financial crisis

By now if you are reading this blog, you should know that the world is in a financial crisis. So in other words, you probably also find out during your christmas shopping that everything is so much cheaper this year. Why? because all the shops are doing insane discounts cos of the "financial crisis" wooooooooooooo

while i know a lot of people have lost their jobs, the majority still have their monthly salary in tact. You are still getting paid...say... $10000 a month. But everything else in the world is cheaper. For example, I bought 4 shirts yesterday for the same price I would have bought 2 shirts last year in Christmas. Stores are doing never seen before level discounts and its up to us to take advantage of it

Shopaholic Heaven~

In 2008...

Funny thing about us bloggers are that, more often than most, we forget what we wrote before and get pretty amazed when reading the stuff we wrote before. Feels just like a random blog if it wasn't for the familiar web address.

The more I think about it, the more I think this financial crisis isn't a bad thing. Hear me out before bananas, tomatoes, and shoes (lol). Did it not baffle any of you that banks were selling us shit that we never understood? Yea it went up but WTF was it?

Without bad times, we wont cherish the good times. Humans are naturally dumb - we don't learn how to tighten our pocket unless we are forced to; and when we have money, we use it all... as if the every 10 year stock market crash doesnt already teach us a lesson. Yes finance people do make a load of money but we are omitting all the people who get fired on their way up top. A fortuneteller once told me that I should go into finance and I told him the daily life of a stressful 8-6 job just isnt me.

Let's see if my feelings towards this changes in 2009.

I was originally going to write about something else... but its been a while since I have felt such crappy in a long while today so I would just like to reflect on that a little.

I don't know how but I have this special ability to let negative stuff bounce off of me rather easier and I get happy again easily. Exceptions are things that keep coming back to haunt me, for example - me being in London and not being able to fix anything bad that is happening in Hong Kong.

(there is a lot of "I" in this entry)

I sometimes (i guess) over criticize myself too much for being in London while everything I really love is in HK. It's just a crappy feeling to have something bad going on back home and not be able to do anything about it.

I will drink myself to death tonight and when I wake, its a brand new day!

...oh for fxxk sake...

Killing Joke

"See, there were these two guys in a lunatic asylum... and one night... one night they decide they don't like living in an asylum any more. They decide they’re going to escape! So like they get up on to the roof, and there, just across the narrow gap, they see the rooftops of the town, stretching away in moon light... stretching away to freedom. Now the first guy he jumps right across with no problem. But his friend, his friend daren't make the leap. Y'see he's afraid of falling... So then the first guy has an idea. He says "Hey! I have my flash light with me. I will shine it across the gap between the buildings. You can walk across the beam and join me." But, the second guy just shakes his head. He says... he says "What do you think I am, crazy? You would turn it off when I was half way across." - The Clown

WTF is going on

What an ambiguous topic. "WTF is going on" can pretty much be applied to anything that is going on around us now, from the economy to hockey mom running for vice president, but I am just going to share a personal experience from today.

I couldnt be bothered to cook tonight after gym earlier so i decided to go buy takeaway instead. Sunday night was rather quiet for the restaurant, there were just 2 other guys waiting for their takeaway with me and the owner had her 2 kids running around the restaurant like its a playground. So the older brother (about 6) asked me some advice on his drawing homework (i typed assignment first but then realized how un-preschool the word "assignment" is) and I helped him a bit with his coloring. Then the young brother (around 4) saw us giggling, ran over, and demanded my attention. So i picked up the younger brother's toy gun on the ground and started shooting him.

Here is a million dollar question, what was the reaction i got?

A - "Fxxk you"
B - "Fxxk you" + 1-5 punches
C - "Fxxk you" + 5-10 punches
D - "Fxxk you" + 11+ punches

LOL. I actually dont remember the exact punches but he was definitely machine gun punching me for a good 2 seconds. Oh yea, did i mention? He dropped an F-bomb on me also.

I have fxxk'd a lot of people and got fxxk'd (both verbally) probably more times by others. But by a kid who just stopped sucking his thumb? WTF IS GOING ON?

hkgirl said people in UK are like this. WHAT? i am sure there are more kids like him. WHAT? Seriously, if hockey mom becomes vice president in 48 hours, then everyone should do an AP news search for "man from HK struck by lightning".

Until next time.

Here and there

Its been a while but I had McDonald's today for lunch. I pretty much tell myself the same thing every time I step into a McD... "wow, its been the longest time since I had Mickie Dee", but its also the truth. My motivation for McDonald's is just not that big unless I feel like having their McNuggets, pretty much the only thing i really like from them.

James Bond is coming out next week. Is it just me or does it really look like Daniel Craig can break us all in half?

Do you ever wonder how people go to the gym on a weekday between 2-5pm? Don't they have work?

Don't you also wonder why Arnold and Stallone didnt make a movie together? It was everyone's dream back in the 90's.

School was pretty insane last week but the entertainment after has been great. A mountain of one. Justice (umm... that didnt quite happened). NFL at Wembley. Amsterdam tomorrow... looking forward to some of my posts after some funny cigarettes.

bleh

I apologize for the lack of updates lately... things have just been incredibly busy for me.

Bring it

I have noticed that I usually write about a topic and then do a twist at the end and I have fallen pretty comfortable with that format so I have decided to change things up a bit this time. The ending will come before the story this time.

"Bring it"

It wasnt until when I finished that bottle of gin last night until I realized that i havent been drunk for a while. A little history here... I used to get drunk every night! If it wasnt from doing shots at clubs it was doing shots at home with hkgirl. There was a week when we would finish a bottle of vodka every night! (I BS you not)... and that's AFTER we probably drink 2 bottles of wine or a bottle of 720ml sake. And speaking of sake, I love sake. I finished like... a 1.8L bottle of sake this year in my birthday. If I have to choose 1 drink to have for the rest of my life it has to be sake... though i'd probably die without water.

Back to my main point, so i had my bottle of wine last night during dinner and wanted to drink more. Spotted my bottle of gin on the corner of my table and decided to finish the 1/2 bottle remaining. An hour and half later, that gin is gone and my crave for alcohol was even larger then. Then something hit me. I havent been drunk for a long time. Like, 1 month long time, and thats like 1 month in dog year for me. Don't get me wrong, I go out drinking and I have my bottle of wine every dinner, but I just havent been DRUNK. you know? Delirious drunk.

Just kind of miss that feeling

So for those of you who wants to get me fucted. Like i said in the beginning... Bring it!

...I actually dont think a normal person who bitch about being sober for a month

P.S. - I got bored today, so I went back and read my old blog at xanga and my early blogging style was... lets just say very different.

Value

I used to think that I am unimportant, to the point where I can wholeheartedly admit that I can die at any point in my life and I would have no regrets. Why? Because I live my life fullest to the point where I leave no marks of regrets. Yea, everyone looks back and wishes that they had done things differently. Well I'd rather spend time thinking how i would do things differently in the future than worry about what happened. Learning from it, yes, losing sleep over it, no. That's how the no regret, I can die anytime thing came on.

I always told myself that unless I get kids, otherwise there are no responsibilities big enough to a point where I cant be replaced. Honestly, unless you are a major political figure or mother teresa, chances are that the regular day you and me can be replaced at any point. Imagine your boss hired someone else to take your place. There would be that 1-2 months training period but ultimately, you can be replaced.

It gets really depressing if I continue. How should we value ourselves / our existence then? The question may seem pretty big but you should really just look at two things. 1 - From the impact you made and 2 - by the people around you. I am not going to talk about 1 because i would be opening a new topic (when I am trying to close this). I didn't really realize how important I am to people around me until I am now in London. I was too young to grasp my value when I left for the US 15+ years ago, but this time I really feel it. There are just so much I can do for the people waiting for me in HK now.

I cant die just yet... not until I go back to HK and put smiles in all your faces.

I AM SO TIRED!!!

So yea.. MBA is on its 4th week and my ass fell off already.

For the past week, i have been sleeping from 3-8:30 daily, there were 2 days I even worked until 5 before I passed out.

This wasnt what i signed up for...

bed time... I can finally sleep at 2:12 tonight! yippeee!!!