F1 hype

Witnessed my first F1 race yesterday and had an amazing time. It definitely helped that I was seated at the corporate box where they really know how to spoil you silly. First, you're greeted with a cold wet towel, then offered a class of the official champagne. There's a whole long bar worth of really really good food! You're then constantly asked if you'd like more wine, beer, coffee etc. And of course, the most important part, the box's air conditioned! 

Well, I guess for $3k they better treat you like a royalty!

Hhaha I've not even talked about the race yet. 

You start feeling the excitement and vibes the moment you enter the gates. The whole place was like a carnival, there were baskers, alot of food tents, people just enjoying the sun on the grass....

the random group of rowdy ferrari fans waving their patriotic flags. 

The qualifying race itself only started at 10pm (we were there since 4pm!). All I can say about my virgin F1 experience is I truly understand the meaning of 'catch no ball', in this case it's "catch no car'. The cars just zip by so quickly, leaving only a trail of VERY VERY loud screeches! The sound is no joke man! At first I tried to be hero, declining the offer of ear plugs but humbly went in search of one the moment I heard the first car go by. 

The only disappointment was, there were no accidents! I was really hoping to see one especially since we were seated right between 2 very sharp bends. 

Ok la I've to confess, i enjoyed the "spoiling me with booze n food" part more than the race itself hahaha. 

Will post some pics here soon but don't expect any photos of the cars cos they were too damn fast! 

Flabbergasted

Wow, I'm really flabbergasted by the huge public outcry over the DBS high note. It's simply unimaginable how many people lost their hard earned savings to these products that were purportedly sold as "low risk" investments. 

In sad contrast, MAS took a super long time to respond and when they eventually did respond, all they could say is "not my problem, go take it up with your bank". WTF??? 

But thank goodness for the internet, affected investors were able to come together through blogs and hopefully take a collective action in order to be heard more effectively.

This is impact of just one investment bank (lehman) going down, there are numerous notes tied to others like Goldman, UBS, Merril, Morgan Stanley, all of whom are in serious trouble now. I think we should all collectively pray that the US bail out plan works man otherwise the amount of wealth literally down the drain is too scary to imagine. 

Check out the links:

http://tankinlian.blogspot.com/2008/09/sad-experience-of-minibond-investor.html

http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking+News/Money/Story/STIStory_281540.html

http://comment.straitstimes.com/showthread.php?t=13637

http://www.lioninvestor.com/what-will-happen-to-my-lehman-minibond/

crystal ball strike 2

Following my post yesterday, this just came out in the news:

"New York - Morgan stanley became the next great wall street name in peril on Thursday with reports it was in talks to be bought by US Wachovia Corporation.....

With flames of the financial crisis outrunning renewed central bank intervention...media reports meanwhile said Morgan Stanley was looking for help"

and so the saga continues....

Credit Crisis Crystal Ball: What does it say?

I chanced upon a bloomberg article written in 2007 which sheds alot of light into the Lehman brother debacle and possibly predict "who's next?"

Since as early as sept last year, the bond market already signaled the impeding end for Lehman brothers when bond yields show that Lehman is considered riskier than Columbian bonds. Columbia, based on their credit rating, has essentially has a junk bond status. And yet, lehman bonds were trading at an even bigger credit spread discount against columbia.

As far as I can recall, Lehman has always been a very aggressive and highly leveraged investment bank that did not have a superb credit rating history. Therefore, it comes as no surprise Lehman would be hardest hit and first to fall as a result of the credit crisis.

Ok so now we know "Lehman's kah-put", the multi billion dollar question is "who's next?"

Let's look into the crystal ball called the bond market again:

Hmm, I see a name appearing.....it says Goldman Sachs and.....possibly Morgan Stanley

Goldman last year issued a $2.5b senior debt and the bond market basically considered Goldman's bond no better than near-junk yield despite their AA-rating.

To make matters worse, firms in the limelight now like Lehman, Goldman, Merrill and Morgan Stanley are facing this year almost US$133b of bonds maturing. Merrill had the highest debt due this year at $42b (and as we all know they're in the shits now), next in line is Morgan Stanley at $34b. So could they be next? 

Or perhaps it's Goldman? 

I think now it's not a question of who's in the brink of bankruptcy. It's more a question of who will the Feds chose to bail out. The US have been the world's largest debtor since the beginning of time. Therefore, the Feds will have limited capital to sustain enough life support machines for these financial institutions in ICU now. 

While everyone grapples with this financial tsunami, i think the consensus is that, it's far from over. The cancer has so far only affected Wall Street, it has not even hit the main street yet. 

Siem Reap

I'm finally getting round to editing/processing my siem reap photos. I don't like the digital ones much cos I accidentally set the ISO wrongly to 800 so images came out murky looking. but here's the few I managed to salvaged:
Our lovely hotel (made more lovely but a super chilled glass of Tiger beer greeting us and never ending flow of more FREE Tiger beer for the 3 days we were there)


Chilling out at Pub Street where we had an overdose of a cambodian dish called Amok Fish



Angkor Wat










I'm getting the photos I shot on film this sat and it's been AGES since I shot on a film camera so I can't wait to see them!

Chicken Rice Many Styles

We went through a Chicken Rice obsession over the last couple of weekends. It started with my craving for my mum's version of chicken rice. This dish was a great source of comfort while I was growing up where Mum would make it when dad's out entertaining or on business trips. Dad didn't like this dish, I never got round to asking him why since it's so damn yummy.

Ok so here's Mum's Chicken Rice, cooked by yours truly of course:



So that was one weekend, the next weekend, I had a whole load of Thai herbs from BKK and we still didn't get enough of the Chicken Rice.
So I decided to try a Thai style version of the Mum's chicken rice. I was kinda apprehensive initially as I couldn't quite imagine how the flavours of the herbs would come out. Almost ditch the idea altogether at the last minute but thank goodness I didn't cos it turned out heavenly! Just imagine, the flavours of fresh lemon grass, kaffir leaves n loads of garlic cooked with the chicken n rice....topped off with crispy fried sweet basil leaves and chilli padi.
Here's how it looked:

Too much of a good thing

Just got back from Bangkok (yes again). Prior to the trip, it was a really tough month before that. Alot of shit happening and like they say when shit happens it usually happens all at the same time. You won't believe the stuff and stress Conrad and I had to go through man. IT's so bad I don't even have the strength to bitch about it.

So.... we really really needed the time away from Singapore and the BKK trip couldn't be more timely.
We decided in Bkk we're gonna relax and be indulgent. That includes eating all our favourite foods and MASSAGE!
But I think, we overdid the massage part.
The first 2 days in BKK we were hard at work. But the next 2 days, we had TWO massage a day! And I'm not talking about the spa-rish kind where the therapist go gentle on you. I'm talking about the HARDCORE Thai kind. wah liao eh....when you're gettingit, it feels shiok but after that.... every where also damn pain. Now I feel bruised and battered all over and for some reason even more tense than before.
I think I'm having a bad case of massage hangover....think maybe i need another massage....heh heh heh