Week 4 and counting

Nothing ventured and much awaits the seekers.

I caught Ratu (an Indonesian duo girl band) over at Planet Hollywood last Friday, and while the crowd wasn’t as big as I thought it would be; it wasn’t too bad. There were a lot of hot babes, and some of them looked very familiar! Were any of you there? The music is fresh, and with Ahmad Dhani from Dewa playing guest, it did bring the house down for a while. Mulan from Ratu is Dhani’s wife, so the special appearance was thrown in for free apparently; I felt that it helped to bring up the tempo a bit. It was a rather lost crowd before his piece, and improved tremendously thereafter.

Been playing quite a few rounds of golf, and am getting the hang of it. You see the problem is, in my head I am convinced that I could play to a 14 handicap, but this is not showing in my game. I am able to keep to about 4 to 6 pars almost every game, but am also almost consistently blowing about 3 to 5 holes with double and triple bogeys. Most of the mistakes I noticed are in the drive and short game. Had a couple of disastrous iron shots, but I think I could fix them myself. As a result I am scoring a 92 to 96. This entry is dedicated to all my real-life and blogging buddies who play the game, just so I could start my “stroke” negotiations early! I shall proclaim to a 20 handicap, and let’s work downwards from there – slowly. (Zed’s Note: ROTFLMAO!!)

I am back to using my Sony Vaio PCG-C1MT laptop, and it is small. Very small. The picture doesn’t say much, but it is about 1 kg and about two palm length in width. Works great when mobile, but I am short of a WIFI card. Low Yatt here I come!

Since losing my Nokia 9300 Communicator I have been disconnected from the web, and have not been able to type up these stories in my head as often; boy I miss the phone. This is my lame excuse for not blogging as much. Well, we’ll see if this laptop is going to help.

Next week will see a whole string of holidays coming together, and let me be one of the first to wish everyone celebrating a Happy Chinese New Year, and may it bring prosperity and health to you and your loved ones. As usual please be careful on the road, and be safe.

Daily dreaming

Row, row, row your boat,
Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is but a dream.

Remember the rhyme? All I remember was that when I learned it, I imagined a boat.

I don’t know how the song came into my head, but it just did. I was minding my own, and suddenly this rhyme popped and voila here I am writing about it.

I have just reread Lord Archer’s Prison Diaries. Archer has always been on top of my list, and million others I am sure. For me he is exemplary not only because of his books but also his life. A man bankrupted and jailed, yet time and again he rises to the top breaking apart what spanners life has thrown at him. He is definitely on my top ten most admirable people in my lifetime, right there along with Tun Mahathir and Nelson Mandela. I think these men exemplified that one man can make an insurmountable amount of difference. A culmination of vision, discipline, and hard work brings about a change that affects millions of others.

Life may be a dream, but the only way to unlock its true meanings and affect change is to begin with one. We must have a dream. We must believe in the impossible.

I know my dream. I want to be rich. Not just financial freedom rich, but rich beyond your wildest dream. Shallow you say? Well thank you.

But, only if I am rich will I be able to do what I really want to do.

Rich is not a goal nor is it the end of my dream; it is only a means for me to achieve my purpose in this life. I know I am here for a reason bigger then trying to survive my daily grind. Rich means I could feed the poor, school the orphaned, and fend for the disabled. Rich means I could show others that it can be done, and that they too should dream and be successful. Rich means that I could finally stop asking - and start giving.

The vivid description Archer gives in his diaries brings us into the realm of his mind and how it works. It is intimate. I like the notion that while he accepts his fate, he reserves some room to hope for a better tomorrow. Imagine his great grandchildren reading his books long after he is gone. The discipline he has, the hard work he endures, and the unrelenting drive to believe in himself - and fulfill his dreams over and over again.

So here I am rowing, rowing, rowing and while merry I may be, I have a dream to fulfill. Let me be, don’t wish me luck but come and dream along with me. Perhaps one day I could write all about it – and let our children see that it can be done.

All you need is a dream.

Take five

I have decided to just keep on typing what is in my mind for the next five minutes. The only edit I will make later is for spelling errors. So if you are looking for some deep insights into philosophical innuendo’s - don’t.

This will be what I call a brain dump.

Anything and everything goes. I have been blogging sporadically for a while now, and this is due to the new… Yikes, I can’t say what I am doing now, and that seems to inhibit my flow of thought quite a bit. Anyway, it is something new and should be launched sometime in the near future. Besides that, there isn’t much to say.

On other fronts it is me trying to improve on my golf which is going down the tube nowadays. I am planning another trip to Jakarta for golf in the near future, and am trying to get my game to a level that would be worth the trip. We are thinking of Bogoraya, Gunung Gilis, and our usual Cengkaring pit-stop on the way back this time (Zed’s Note: Cengkaring is near the airport, and we usually play there before our flight back). I haven’t played Gunung Gilis, and am looking forward to it.

Okay that’s it. My five minutes is up.

Men are like wine. Really?

I had this interesting chat with Ain last week. Ain is a friend of a friend, and it was the first time I met her, she is twenty five and hot. Very hot. She exudes a charming confidence and a smile that seems to say, lets have fun and come laugh with me. My friends and I were in Chinoz just shooting the breeze after work, when she joined us for a drink.

Ain shared a story about how an elderly man invited himself to join her table before we arrived. As she didn’t want to be rude, she did let the gentleman join her, and obviously his lines were predictable. How pretty she is, how smart she looks, how he wished that he had known her earlier, how she looks like a model, okay just go ahead and fill in the blanks, you probably have heard most of it anyway.

We chat about her “old dude” and she mentioned something interesting. She said “Men are like wine, they age slowly, and are almost always better with time”. This was the reason she was curious to hear what the “old dude” had to say, though she was disappointed – this time. I can see the logic in this, it made sense.

As men age, we overcome our insecurities and are not longer eager to flash our alpha male manners, rather we exhibit a certain class to demonstrate our stature. No more chest thumping, laughing loudly, and obnoxious challenges to fellow boys to see who is bigger or stronger. We are suave and self-assured.

We know that figuring out women is an endless loop that is not bound by any rules, but rather she will just change depending on the weather, her hormones, the last conversation she had, and perhaps what she had for breakfast. So men after a certain age, just stops trying to solve the women puzzle, and would rather just enjoy the product. Skin deep is deep enough for most.

Women like this.

They don’t want to be figured out, but instead she use words like love and care to describe their relationships. They don’t need a mechanic to tinker with their head. It is the joy of feeling safe and protected that makes a women happiest, and she will continue to test this feeling – consciously or unconsciously. She will push the limits of her relationship to see how far she could go, and establish her territory. She draws a line around her man, and keeps a fierce eye for any potential rival. In return, she provides all the benefits that a woman has to offer. Sex, food, and that occasional place for a man to go to and let his guards down.

Imagine the lion keeping an eye on his pride. One male, with the lioness doing all his hunting, and protecting the cubs for him. His job is simply to ensure that no other male mates with his girls, and that he keeps the pride away from any harm that might come to it. For this, he will sacrifice his life.

No women would say no to a man that could make her feel safe and wanted.

Alas, it does take a while for a man to figure this out. All the dance and rituals of impressing a women we make was really a show we put up to drive the other guys away. As for the women? They are silently judging the character of their potential mate, and incidentally if they like someone they call it chemistry; or better yet fate.

Actually what they saw was a man able to care for them and will be there when things do take a turn for the worst, just so she could have the best environment for her future offspring. She may say that she doesn’t want children – yet. Truth is, it is biological and is imprinted in our DNA. One of the reason we are put here on earth is to procreate, and as long as that opportunity presents itself; we will.

So as these young runts go about wondering why do these “matured” men seem to be able to pluck their girls as if there was some kind of magic, and as the kids think it has to do with the expensive cars and watches, we sit back in our comfortable chairs and smile. We know something you don’t my young jedi.

It took a while, but we figured out what women want boys. She wants everything. Or at least the thought of being able to have everything; will sometimes suffice. Here kitty, kitty...

Pictures are from Postsecret