NewMan Covergirl07

Grainy photo but its got a glamorous quality to it. Calista looks much better here than in the magazine photos. Its a pity she didn't win the big prizes; she was definitely the most beautiful woman in the group.

New Man magazine organized a Covergirl competition. I got invites from one of the magazine people. Good for a laugh. Free drinks, babes in bikinis, wish u were here :)

National Day Parade - looks fantastic but music could be better

I like this presentation- but I disliked the creepy asian music they used.

Nat Fireworks.wmv

Fireworks display- wait a while and see the main stage lite up.

TGIF

Thank God its Friday. The markets closed on a positive note - roughly up 10% from the horrendous crash this morning.

Salutes for all the brave buggers who bought in the morning. They would have made a good killing from all the stampeding lambs.

It was as if someone had shouted - FIRE - in a overcrowded disco.

Some of the notables include Midas which crapped to $1.32 before charging back up to $1.41. Yangzijiang which fell to a $1.72 before recovering from that deathly dive to $1.89. FerroChina crumbled to $1.92 in early morning before staging a late but effective recovery to $2.08.

No joy for me yet. I bought the buggers several points higher.

But you know what - I'm just glad that they are all recovering. I was lying in bed having nightmares of selling the whole portfolio at a 30% loss. But this gives me some hope that - the worse is over. Fingers crossed.

The aim is still the same - sell into the recovery- make 10% - walk away.

Oh no.

The US markets staged a recovery two days ago but couldn't sustain it. Fresh news that a French Bank was shutting down two of its funds exposed to the US mortgage crisis - scared the frack out of people.

The US market fell heavily and people are anticipating another 5% decline.

The central banks have to step in to prop up liquidity. The crisis is now not just confined to the US but spreading to the rest of the world.

All kinds of scary worse case scenarios pop up at this stage. At the top of the list are bank failures and the USD collapsing. All of which will most likely not happen- cos if it did- everyone would get screwed bigtime. I mean, everyone.

As for me, my cough returned back. I woke up kinna sick. And just stayed in bed. I didn't have the heart to trade this morning. I couldn't get into character so I stayed out. Didn't sell. Didn't buy.

The market took a predictable nose dive in the morning but its stabilizing now (thankfully). I've got a lot of hot positions out but I'm not hitting the sell button.

Made a judgement call and decided to just hold.

But at the heart of it, is this shitty feeling that I alway seem in the shithole when it happens. Got caught out in the 1997, 2001, 911, crashes. And now I'm caught yet AGAIN. Its a damned lousy feeling. A sensation of paranoia hits in, it feels like someone out there is out to get you.

But a good sleep and a nice hot cup of tea - followed by a healthy dose of perspective - usually fixes it up.

The trend is your friend- as my mentors always say. How many times they tried to drum it into my pedestrian brain and yet it fails to register. I should have followed the powerful upward trend in SGX. It strongly rebounded in May. Which is what I planned to do until I got spooked by that double top formation on the China markets- and bailed out. Fine. Fine. No problem being cautious. But I didn't get back in when the DT fear dried up. Now look at me - my portfolio is down 10%.

As it is- I have a lot more learning to do.

Chan Mali Chan Rappers

The pre-entertainment stuff. Malay rappers do a rendition of Chan Mali Chan. I'm tempted to say something snide about it - but that's terrible and really snobbish of me. Not exactly a character trait I should grow.

NDP 2007

Quite pretty. But the New Age theme of Fire, Water, Earth, Sky etc.. was a bit jarring. I think it had more to do with the narrator's voice.