Perfunctory blog entry. Word of the day: "mesothelius"


Am in bad mood, but tomorrow I'm off to Melaka for company induction - two days
of team-building orientation activites; and much to my pleasure, a lot of
great-looking babes from the new batch of Private Banking and Corporate Finance
recruits are going as well:) Best of all, one of the Private Banking babes is the fiance
of a friend of mine - which means I have a not-too-subtle entry point as far as conversational
gambits go:) Blech - I wish.

Still, I could use some serious asset management.

Not that I expect anything to happen - I'm happily domesticated, after all
*insert sardonic drawl tag*, but who knows? Some eye candy, and getting away
from this damned systems backtest at work might do me some good.

Actually, have already returned, and spliced my post-Melaka entry with the pre-Melaka one which
didn't make it through a few days ago. Nothing of particular to note; fun trip, got reasonably wasted
one night with some of the Corporate Finance people, chatted up some chicks, to little avail, obviously,
watched some of the local Melakan transvestites with amusement, went through the usual inane
team-building and corporate seminar crap of which little value was retained. It galls me how utterly similar
the exercises and the tone of the "serve-the-company" rhetoric is from firm to firm - although at least
my current employer had the decency to splurge on a hotel resort, whereas my last employer crammed us
all into a tiny classroom in their corporate headquarters.

Also managed to shake hands with the company chairman. Very soft palm. The "helping the obscenely
rich get obscenely richer" issue was a recurrent conversational theme I had with some of the guys I met there.

Quite a few bastards from Melbourne as well, particularly in the corporate finance side. Invariably, the
tech support and IT people were all Malay guys, the tellers were all Malay women, the legal and trustee
side were all Indians, and the business front-liners (retail, card sales, corporate banking, wealth management) were
all Chinese. Racial advantages of specialization?

Back now, and really tired. Parents coming back from China this weekend; an hour-long drive to the airport implicit. Gak.
I really must go swimming this weekend too.

Games currently occupying cubic volume in my "To-play" piegonhole:

Hitman 2: Silent Assassins
Medieval: Total War
Icewind Dale 2
Celtic Kings
Mafia!
No One Lives Forever 2 (a much better Brit-spy parody than the overrated Austin
Powers)
Stronghold: Crusader (which, unlike the original brings the emphasis back to
good old castle-storming rather than the accumulation of cheese)
Earth 2150: Lost Souls

And at least three or four others I can't name offhand...

Currently playing Syberia - while superficially similar to The Longest Journey
(classic European adventure game, old-school mouse-only interface, female
protagonist undergoing spiritual and emotional character development through
surreal journeying), it has some of the most gorgeously baroque backdrops ever
designed, and one thing's for sure - the game designers take potential kinetic
energy (the game revolves around superbly complicated clockwork automata) to the
max.

Managed to finish off all my outstanding VCDs in a 14-hour binge of viewing,
thanks to parents' sojourn to China (and hence no irritating interruptions for
lunch, errands, family-bonding time, etc.), although my physical state is
degenerating visibly. I *must* start swimming again soon.

Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever is one of the most mindless, explosive-saturated,
slow-mo-addicted movies I've ever seen. Still, it might have a certain crackling
appeal to those who think the value of a good action movie is directly
proportional to the number of massive explosions per frame. Warning though - the
story makes absolutely no sense, even by the standards of the genre.

Barbershop - good, wholesome, nigga-value comedy. Worth watching just to listen
to R&B singer Eve go on about the theft of her apple juice.

Red Dragon - Worth watching simply to see Anthony Hopkins cash in his check one
more time at the Hannibal Lecter franchise. Edward Norton seems a little stoned;
a good actor walking the paces. Ralph Fiennes, however, has that peculiarly
glazed, psychopathic look of confused hunger that he does well in his more
bizarre roles - and ogling his buff physique while he cavorts naked, sporting a
gratuitous Blake tattoo might appeal to some female affocionados of his genre.