Connections / It's a small world after all.

Here I was, sitting at the bar counter in a little french restaurant called Telluride somewhere in New England. Minding my business talking to my colleague over red wine and good food, the man who sat to my right suddenly said to me " Are you guys in shipping?".

Apparently he had heard me mention something about the types of ships used to ferry goods around the world, as my colleague had asked me about earlier. We turned to him and told him yes and no. We were grain traders. Boring business dealing in trading and shipping grains like wheat and corn from one country to the other across the great oceans both Atlantic and Pacific.

He however, worked for a ship owner that specializes in shipping chemicals and clean fuels. That's where the first connection came. Upon further chit chat, I later found out that he was in Singapore a month back and stayed there for 6 months. That's the second connection.

What's even weirder is, he worked for the same company with the husband of one of my friend.

This complete stranger. At the french restaurant and by blind fate sat beside me, been to Singapore and worked with the husband of my friend. That's the third connection.

Okay, now, how do I make these into numbers so that I can probably buy the NY Jackpot. Hear it's close to USD 100 over mil now in prize money. Or maybe that's not what it is about...heh, the money bit.

But don't you think it is weird? Coincidence? Or is there really such a thing called coincidence.

Maybe our world and the world outside is not that big after all. We are all connected somehow in this little biosphere called Earth.

Ukraine

Ukraine. A very fertile land with almost 53% arable land and I also think it's the largest country in Europe. (East Europe).

This is a land where some of the earliest trades of wheat took shape when the demand for bread becomes more and more significant to feed the masses in UK during the industrial revolution.

Food for hardworking people of Ukraine.

Field of soybeans.

Potato harvest. French fries in Ukraine taste good!

Above is a soybean plant. Edamame for you.

This is a stalk of corn and below is the field.

Grass being grown over harvested fields to replenish nutrients.

Ukraine is a land full of land.........to plant food for the world.

The New Audi A1

Audi has come a long way from 100 years back.

I remember when I was a kid, when my father drove past the first Audi showroom in Ipoh, I asked him what brand of car it is. The four rings look very interesting to me and it looked like the Olympic rings minus two. And they are silver in color.

I never did like gold since young I dont know why though I want to kick myself for not going long it when it was abt 400 bucsk an oz. I should trust my gut.

Somehow I vaguely remember then perhaps when I get to be able to afford one I'd get myself one.

Well guess when one's on a roll, like a small snowball going down the slope it will gather momentum and mass along the way and that is what Audi seems to be doing.

Improving it's boring designs of yesterday with its current ever expanding range from the A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, A6, the coming A7,A8 Q5, Q7, rumored Q3, TT and the R8. Not to mention also the various variants in the S types to the RS types.

Well here you go, enjoy the video.

Mass Effect 2

You know why I love videogames? Check out the following video.

It's from Mass Effect 2. Looks awesome. Western RPGs have gone a long way versus their Japanese counterpart who is still making Final Fantasy number XIII so on and so forth.

The thing about western RPG is there is a solid story and feels more engaging and more real time versus the Japs.

Jap RPGs are just a re-hash of the same old turn based formula themes with upgraded graphics thats all.

We Hate Bankers

You know what, hearing President Obama talking about how he wants to tax the bankers like JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and the like for making lots of money and hence wanting to reward its employees by granting big bonuses is comical and paradoxical.

On one hand, these banks (those mentioned and some like Citi wants to repay) repaid the TARP money plus interest of around 20% and now we have the President here coming on TV wanting to *penalise*them for making money turning their books around, and hence hopefully the US economy, eventually by having more liquidity and thus alleviating the Federal Reserve to continue to finance all the bad assets is just plain not making any capitalistic sense!

You know what, I think the any Govt in the world should do? They should just open their arms to welcome these banks to set up shop in their country. And let them do what the do best under some form of regulation/ethics code and like some would say, let the good times roll.....

Why the hell not? They provide funding, they provide jobs, they pay well to the people they employ and they pay taxes base on the profits they make.

Make heck of a lot of sense to me.

NYC Sights

City of Blinding Lights

Finally, the city I had wanted to visit. The city that I have always knew from the movies and tv shows. Finally I was there, walking the streets, breathing the air, hearing the sounds and taking in the sights.

It was quite an experience. Rain on my face, snow on my shoes, smoke from the manholes and yellow taxi cabs everywhere. NYC! NYC!

I feel small in this city. Almost invisible. There are so many people packed in this city, you become just a background or backdrop for countless tourists taking pictures to commemorate their visit. Lines formed everywhere, restaurants are full and the service is to me just adequate and yet the city is on the brink of bankruptcy.

The city in the country where piracy is shun upon, strangely street peddlers sell counterfeit LVs, Prada and Chanel bags right outside the big and fancy boutiques. Yes, NYC is also a city of paradox and contradiction.

Central Park, a brilliant concept when building a city. A garden amongst the madness along it's borders. A lung for the city to breath in non congestion air within a sardine of a city.

The grid system is brilliant but not so for a city on such a tiny land mass. Driving within the city is certainly no joy. It's a city built for walking and the subway. The veins buried underneath the skin of the city ferries its inhabitants like veins in our bodies ferrying blood vessels to the vital parts of our body.

While Central Park is it's lungs, Wall Street and the whole of downtown is it's heart. The voices of people yelling out buy and sell orders and the whispers of secret deals and exchange of information from within the walls of the buildings here feed it's inhabitants with food and aspirations as well as greed. Here is where the American dream is supposedly made these days. A place of opportunity as well as contempt for its extravagance.

NYC. A city that is unique. One of a kind.