Monday, June 30, 2008

The Rain in Spain

Michel Platini (L): Your team sucked out there Ballack!


Ballack (R): I can't believe Platini said my team sucked today!
Merkel (German Chancellor): There there, Ballack...you don't have to cry.
Ballack: (Sobs)
Merkel: You all really did suck you know...
-------------------------------------------------

Its been a long while since I've watched any football here in Sabah. Man, how I missed the atmosphere during important football matches at mamaks in KL/PJ...

I guess a small tv is better than nothing.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Economics 101

Trying to bring up a topic like economics at a dinner is like introducing durian to a foreigner. Some love it and healthy debates follow. Some feign interest and nod graciously. Some make a mental note never to invite you for dinner again.


I used to hate economics when I was in college. My lecturer made no effort to make a dull subject interesting. There were 2 economic lecturers teaching my course – a Mr SN and a Miss Rajamani (no kidding!). You can already figure out from the name which lecturer will be a better choice… unfortunately, I got Mr SN.


Mr SN would give us an economics lecture on Monday, and then proceed to give us THE EXACT SAME LECTURE on Tuesday. When we informed him of this, he will say, ‘No, I haven’t done this one with you all before’ and continue. It isn’t surprising that I just barely passed the subject.

It is with all these bad memories running through my head in 2007 when I picked up a copy of ‘The Undercover Economist’ at Borders. I didn’t buy it…oh heck no, not on my first trip. That would be very un-Malaysian. I chose a sofa and started reading. The first paragraph of the introduction began like this.


‘I would like to thank you for buying this book, but if you’re anything like me you haven’t bought it at all. Instead, you’ve carried it into a bookshop café and even now are sipping a cappuccino in comfort while you decide whether it’s worth your money.’


After a couple more trips to Borders, and having read 5 chapters (out of 10), I’ve decided that this is a book that belongs in my collection. So I went over to MPH and bought it since they were having a promotion.


What Tim Harford had succeeded in doing in this book is to make economics fun. If only he were my lecturer back then, one might wonder if I might have ended up on a different career path. A wide range of topics are discussed in the book, supply and demand affecting prices of goods and services, game theory, globalisation, why economies fail in certain countries and so on.


Overall this is a very fun book and it comes highly recommended from me. This book was never meant for the economics buff, but written for lay people like you and me who want to know a little bit more about what economics is and how it affects us in our daily lives. I would even go so far as to say that this is the most memorable book that I’ve read in 2007. Go get it people.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Changing Underwears

Lately I've been having a lot of problems and frustrations with MSN Windows Live Messenger.


This always pop out whenever I try to log in...

Error Code 80048820
Extended Error Code 80048439

It seems like it is not confined to WLM (Windows Live Messenger) alone but the problem also extends to Gmail... and also AirAsia when I was trying to book some tickets recently. The whole thing just lags and eventually you give up. Somehow Yahoo mail worked fine.

So I tried googling the error code and found out that I wasn't the only one with this problem. (LINK)

After checking to see if my computer date/time settings were correct, uninstialling and re-installing WLM, turned off firewall and few other things it still didn't work. The last resort a forum actually recommended was trying to change the router settings...to PPPoA (don't ask me what this is) so I did. And of course it didn't work as I was warned by a friend that streamyx is PPPoE... So I changed back everything to the normal setting and it worked.

What the...?

The exact same thing happened when I came to work today. Change to PPPoA...doesn't work, then switch back to default settings and then it works. Its like your underwear is TOO TIGHT...then u change to a new pair and find that it doesn't help. Then you change back to the first pair and suddenly it fits perfectly. What's going on here?