So my dad is the man. I just found out today when he gave me this financial lecture.

Apparently he wrote the program that decided the currency exchange rate. (Dad; that was who I got my programming start from.) He was the one to say RM3.80 for 1 US Dollar, and the number got passed upwards. No, he did not work in Cyberjaya and drive a Mercedes. He was in a government office so unknown (but not confidential), all we see is an octagon and a circle in our Kemahiran Hidup (Living Skills) textbooks. He drove a rustmobile until it was decommisioned, and so we had to wait for my mom to fetch us from the LRT station until he retired.

Three reactions came to me:

“Really?” (Okay so my dad isn’t one to make up stuff like this.)
“Shiiit how cool is that. You have dulled every habitual shopper’s purchasing power.” (I’m not talking about grocery shopping, I’m talking about imported CDs, clothes, handphones, cars, etc… everything we deem as a cool want.)
“Why the heck did you put it so high?”

He answered the last question, saying that it was the rate then. Oh, how I’d wish it would be RM2.50 per US Dollar so I could afford to buy more stuff online. Who the heck would benefit from such a high rate anyway? Pegging sadly accelerated inflation. The pros and cons of such a number (and the pegging and unpegging) would be coffeeshop controversial and so I shall not disclose that part of the conversation. Or maybe I just didn’t understand enough to convey it here with the strength to defend my claims the way some popular Malaysian bloggers have.

I’ve added links after much justified procrastination. Here goes:

Bent Chopsticks
Thank you sir for faithfully reading my blog and reinstilling my Transformer collecting. (I’m sorry YK, you didn’t tell me to buy Arcee…) He is also gay.

Hey, I’m not ashamed to let people know I have gay friends. I could even brag that I know quite a few, trying to sound like some informed, sensitive new age guy. I even go to underground rock gigs at gay clubs. Yes, it’s that sad that noone is willing to let us rock. Unless you are Paul Meffert (Paul you rock!)

On a side tangent, why can’t lesbians be hot by guy standards? A gay guy can be well-groomed, and a girl would say, “Wow he’s hot. Too bad he’s gay.” A gay guy could also be a sissyus prancealotus (refer to above link for definition).

However, I’ve only seen lesbians of the short-haired variety. (And some say, short-fingernailed.) Tomboyish in nature. Guys don’t go, “Wow she’s hot. Too bad she’s lesbian.” I don’t know any hot lesbians. Then again, I don’t know many lesbians. I don’t even know what music lesbians listen to! (Pardon my generalization in saying Kylie Minogue is a gay icon, and that inclusion of her and similiar artistes in your playlist may indicate your leanings.)

And dammit, straight hot chicks can French kiss each other for drunken party fun and not disgust anybody.

And now, for the other links.

Xiaxue
I haven’t read such an eloquent, witty storytelling camwhore in such a long time, fresh from the land of cheaper guitars, tobacco-less air and chewing-gum-less MRTs.

Expectation
Dammit, why can’t she be a full-on camwhore as well?

Shannon
This coke mix buddy said she could solve the cube.

Chasyss
She seems more adamant to learn the cube than anyone else. 🙂

Macvaysia
Funny dude. Funny blog. From the land where metric and imperial measurements co-exist.

Andreas
Funny dude. Funny blog. From the land where uh… luxury cars come from.

Dave
Excellent guitarist. Despite having four eyes, he captures things in monoscopic vision. 😉

Eddy
He does drum solos, he sings hard rock, shirtless and tattooed, and he’s got balls-out writing.

And finally, for the music geek:
Alan W. Pollack’s musicological journey through the Beatles’ songs
I stole this link from Az. Turns out these dudes were musical geniuses hidden in pop songs with bridges. Yes, you read that right – bridges. Ever noticed how Beatles songs don’t have refrains/choruses, but have bridges instead?

I felt like a schoolboy. Teehee!

I was doing my rounds of refilling my two 1 liter bottles (hard-to-find Spritzer Pops) in the office pantry. I stood there, waiting for one bottle to fill up, when this hot chick came in. I tried not to make it obvious that I was looking. My chance to get a clear visual, I thought, would be in between bottles.

She was directly to my left. 9 o’clock if you will. I turned left, but more like 8 o’clock left (so it would seem I was looking at the door instead of her!)

She smiled at me. A super sweet, and yet sincere smile.

Inside, I panicked. I did my sheepiest smile, shyly trying not to look at her. She was now my 1 o’clock. It was like she caught me. Like she knew my tactic.

As the other bottle filled, I walked near the door as if to get some air, and drinking from the first bottle. I walked back in to close the tap for the second bottle. Oh boy, confrontation again!

I did the same thing. Sheepish smile. She again smiled. Fwah. *flutters hands*

I then exited the pantry.

Now smiling at people waiting in the pantry is a common thing, like saying “here you go, it’s your turn.” To me, it was a corporate courtesy kind of thing, only done in the office. (We don’t smile at people behind us at the cashier, do we?) Balding uncles with glasses would smile at my female colleagues and I, and none of us would be offended. It would be, really, like giving a handshake with your face.

However, this was different. This was a sincere, uncorporate-gestureish smile! It wasn’t a courtesy smile, it was a “I caught you, how adorable” smile.

I wouldn’t have felt so schoolboy if I smiled at her confidently. Where would the fun be in that?

The past few mornings have been spent researching better ways to save money. My mom helped me put in some amount into fixed deposits a few years ago, and they expired recently, so she took it out as one lump sum.

“I’ve had RM**** in a fixed deposit for 4 years getting 3.7% per annum. I want something more.”

That, I said to a personal financial consultant, and she threw all her financial knowledge at me in technical jargon like I looked like I knew what she meant. Maybe she thought I was cute.

Other banks were judgemental based on my T-shirt, jeans and laptop bag.

So the next big thing was unit trusts. I was pretty impressed with the 6-15% interest, but our family’s Chief Financial Officer (my dad) was not.

“Why do you think they have so many new funds and various service charges? To cover up their losses! They only pick those performing ones to show you in graphs!”

And so, I put the cash back in a fixed deposit. 🙁 A joint account with a senior citizen (my mom) bumped up the interest to 3.8%, but still! What is 3.7%?

Supposing you had RM1000, and you chucked it in a fixed deposit for 12 months at 3.7% per annum. That would give you RM37 in interest a year.

RM37 isn’t much, especially if you have a job. I could save that by skipping 4 frappucinos in a year! Divide that by 12 months for just over RM3 a month. You could save RM3 a month, or 10 sen a day, by just converting from your daily dose of Teh O Ais Limau (RM1.20) to Teh Tarik (RM1.00).

Thus, saving accounts of any kind aren’t about getting extra money to spend. It’s about keeping money out of your itchy, spending hands.

I wonder if it’s a coincidence that the few movies that I’ve seen with Matt Damon in them have names in them. Not only names, but names that are easily confused for English words.

For example, “Good Will Hunting“. Its grammatical structure puzzled me for ages. Shouldn’t it be “Good Hunting Will” at least? How was I supposed to know that Will Hunting was a name?

Then there’s “Ocean’s Twelve“. Why not “Twelve Oceans” or “Ocean Twelve“? It wasn’t till I watched “Ocean’s Eleven” that I understood that Billy Ocean was a name.

Of course, I knew that “Saving Private Ryan” starred Matt Damon as Private Ryan, and should not be read as “Saving Ryan Privately“.

I researched and found that there were a few more coincidences – “The Bourne Identity” and “The Bourne Supremacy” were both grammatically correct, if Bourne was a British way of spelling Borne. “The Majestic” is the name of a cinema.

At least a title like “Spirit: Stallion Of The Cimarron” made it somewhat obvious that Spirit was a horse. But heck, that movie kept me at the edge of my seat. Leaning forwards, hand in elbow that is.

A proper picture blog of events since last Saturday shall come soon. In short, an unofficial Xfresh gathering and Rock The World 5. However, I shall distract you with something else.

A friend was misconstrued as arrogant (or lansi as we call it in Malaysia) because she turned her head too slow during a formal introduction.

What do you do when you have such a problem? Having a slow neck?

That’s where Albert Ng, professional head-turner, will come to your service.

All I ask for is a meal in return for how I will drastically change your life. I shall train your neck. I will begin with an excruciating neck massage that invigorates the blood flow. We will then walk about in a shopping mall and I will point out false alarms.

“Hey! Was that Utt we just passed?”

“5 O’clock! Some guy who looks like Adam Sandler!”

I guarantee you that after my certified neck-training, your neck will be up to speed with that girl in The Exorcist.