WIIZOMBIES

All little kids love electronics

COCKTAILZOMBIES

OK Happy birthday. Tanti auguri.

CHICKZOMBIES

After Christmas lunch at St. Regis: Feliz Navidad!

FEASTZOMBIES

What I look forward to every Christmas.

XMASZOMBIES

Merry Christmas, everybody. Happy holidays!

GUNZOMBIES

AA205 (Risk management) is so gay we had to go play games immediately after the exam.

BEERZOMBIES

Nobody wants to play Left 4 Dead II after drinks because a drunkard can't shoot straight and a drunkard who can't shoot straight is a shitty team player and a shitty team player gets everyone killed.

Through Hell & High Water

There's no obstacle a big ass hydro pump can't clear!

Nick, it's time to evolve.

Heard at the Office...

"There is no problem with the code or the model. After careful evaluation of your case, the problem lies between your chair and your keyboard."

"Outlook fucking crashed again??? I have to get out of here and get some water before this fucking computer flies like you've never seen birds fly."

Ooo Putain

Spent a few hours backtesting a strategy that looked good for the first two years of trading, and then blew up on the third. That kinda shock, you certainly don't need in your life. Trying another that looks quite promising, and that appears more stable even in quiet periods. If there's anything traders hate, it's quiet periods. These moments of market indecision ruin equity quite quickly sometimes! Make up your minds, assholes, so I can then take the money from your pockets. Zero sum games. Someone's gotta give.

Kill a man, and you're a murderer...
Kill millions, and you're a conqueror...
Kill em' all, and you're a ... GOD.

Singapore Mercantile Exchange

New playground is opening. Lighten up folks.

Dude, the future is so bright, I'm needing sunglasses to shield myself from my own glory.

I JUST GOT MY DATA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

R.I.P. Umaga

Man this guy just died of a heart attack! (No fat jokes please) His matches and moveset were amazing despite his size.

You can't be right always

EUR/USD, 1H, Today

Well! Down 260 pips on the EUR/USD trade I took a long position on. Can't win all the time! Just man up and move on. I'm finally getting the psyche right; I'm not even affected emotionally anymore. And that's another thing; your positions are prone to Friday night delights. Try to stay away on Fridays.

Gonna give this trade a little more time, it's near a pretty strong 1.4800+ support, and the RSI is brutally oversold. Otherwise if things have turned for the worse on Monday I'm getting the fuck outta there.

On a side note, Kenny said to short gold (look at tagboard), and look where it is now? Down more than US$50 per oz. Didn't listen did you? Yeah, I don't hear you laughing either!

Book

When I finally write that trading book I've got in my head, it's gonna be titled "WTFx!!".

Turtle Brain

Someone said, the only time you need a brain to trade successfully, is when you're designing your system. Once you've got your system and your rules, just be dumb when executing trades according to your game plan.

And that is the secret of all trading. There is no special rule. It is just discipline. Don't be smart, don't be creative.

As illustration, he then went on to say that George Bush, in an alternate reality where he weren't president, would be an extremely profitable trader.

Anyway, go long on EUR/USD and GBP/USD now.

Looking for Interns

Have I really finally been handed the Holy Grail of all trading? Is this the zen moment of my trading career? I need to assemble a team to test some strategies, and put this into action soon.

There is nothing more precious than time. Because when you pull up in your Ferrari, the expectant crowd does not want to see a fat balding old bastard hobble out. Not cool.

Dovè KFC?

I had a lot of Kentucky Fried Chicken yesterday. I suddenly remembered that there was none of that KFC stuff in Italy. Not a single KFC restaurant. (And less than 40 Burger Kings in the land of paninis) So today I decided to google it. It turns out that, even McDonald's at one point was close to pulling its golden arches out of Italy because all it was doing was opening up loss-making restaurants. If even McDonald's with its sprawling restaurant franchise experience was having a hard time, well, what of other American junk food? And Pizza Hut? Don't even think about it.

Today I also read about the prostitute whom Silvio Berlusconi had a good time with. She wrote an exposè about their affair. She said for a 73 year old man he had amazing stamina. He's also said to be a bigger rock star than even Rod Stewart was in his prime, just by the lifestyle choices he makes.

FC Barcelona smacked the crap out of Inter Milan.

Rich City

The 20th and final Reventon has been sold to a Brit. Each of these costs 1 million Euros, or more than SGD 2 million. 3, or 15%, have been sold to Singapore.

Buy

Be Right, Sit Tight

Trading tip: Never, ever, ever give in to the temptation to close a winning trade early. Sure it's pleasurable to lock in profit. But why shortchange yourself! The traders who get rich are the ones who can be right and sit tight. Bye!

Back in the Ring, to Take Another Swing

EUR/USD, Daily

Double bottom here, huge one. Slow and steady uptrend since March. This has been coming for a long time. Ride it.

You know how parents have grand plans for their kids to become doctors or lawyers or whatever? Or how kids have dreams to be maybe dentists or teachers or pilots or something outlandish like astronauts? You hardly ever see any kid writing English compositions about how they want to be bankers or traders or oil barons or CEOs. Why? Because Business is a dirty world.

But I'm going to make my kid a hardcore trader. From the day he can count he'll be doing mental sums about bid-ask spreads and holding period yields and margin requirements. Plus minus times divide? Are you freaking kidding me? Are you a wimpy kid or what?

Kenny Props

I dunno what mathematics he did here but yeah easy to understand right? Do something real with your lives and stop chasing stupid ass jobs!

1 Life

When resources are limitingly finite opportunity cost is at its ass-kicking best. I'm not talking about how many barrels of oil there are left to pump from beneath the Earth's surface or how much corn there is to go around this harvest. They are not that limitingly finite.

When you have only one life, what do you do?

Career applications are such philosophical exercises; you can't even begin to understand what thoughts those behavioural/competency questions stir up in you even when you bullshit about how you're so suited for energy trading or how you're the perfect candidate to be the next generation leader or how you are so focused and single-minded about your desired position yet you use the same old shitty catch phrases for every application diverse as they are.

Today in the office the boss wasn't in, so when the sun went down and all was dark, I reached for his laser pointer, stood by the window, and started pointing at the people on the street for a laugh.

Car Challenge

Guowei says that if I do this to my Porsche, he will do a similarly-styled bodywork for his Ferrari in a Doraemon theme.

It's all about Control

Ctrl: the usefulness of which you cannot even begin to understand.

• + PgUp/PgDn
• + Shift+Enter
• + Tab
• + Up/Down/Left/Right
• + Shift
• + d
• + s
• + c/v
• + b/i/u
• + scroll
• + Alt+Del
• + Freak

Stop reaching for your mouse instinctively like the old folk grab for their walking sticks!

Pound this Shawty

EUR/GBP, 30m, Today

Short this shit right now for a quick buck.

Sticks and stones may break my bones...

... But words will never hurt me! (so you think)

The daily assault interns in the research office endure:

1) This is just retarded, right?

2) You don't know this? You guys are f'king joking, right?

3) I thought you're university students? I learnt this in 10th grade!

4) Why are you so slow? I hate slow people.

5) You, and you: Am I looking at two hiring mistakes in front of me?

6) Why's the data wrong? Is it sheer stupidity or sabotage?

7) If I produced this work, I'll be ashamed! Embarrassed! Mortified!

8) So I'm looking at this shit, and I'm thinking one of you has low IQ.

Man I can't wait to spring out of bed just to go to work each morning!

Re-Cess

Recess is composed of two parts; 'Re', as a prefix, and 'Cess', as in 'Shit'. Put it together and of course you get 'Shit happening all over again'.

Rabbit and Guinea Pig at a casual dinner

It's Race Day, Sucka

Courtesy of Yiling, who shot this thru some ring she found

It's been more than a year since those days at 4 Robinson Road

Ferrari-red Hot

Too Fast, Too Fast for Love

For as long as Singapore has the F1 night race contract, I think Char and I will be there every year. Pretty good fun! Best way to kick off a school break too. Need a Ferrari flag for next year. Maybe it'll be good to pick one up from Italy when I visit again!

Meet the Basterds

We ain't in the girlfriend-sharin' bidness. We're in the ass-kickin' bidness. And cousin, business is a-boomin'!

Thanks for the support, guys. I think he dried up in fear and wilted already.

Quit Flappin' yer Gums, Biatch!

The most irritating thing in our computer rooms is that you sometimes get the unholy misfortune of being sat next to ridiculously chatty airhead girls whining about everything from dolling up for interviews to cooing over semi-cute sissy boys.

One of the big pluses Bocconi has over Nanyang. You get assigned random seats in Bocconi. So if you come in with a huge group of friends, you'll be scattered, and that is the easy mechanism they have to prevent turning the computer room into a conference hall.

GPA is SEX

Got a call from career services to remind me to apply for HSBC's investment banking internship. Ended up having a chat and getting feedback about my work performance at my internship, and about the informal discussion I had with that FX trader I met some weeks back. It was mostly music to my ears.

So, somehow, the conversation got steered into the use of your GPA as a gauge of your sex life. I presume he did not mean that the level of your love-making correlates positively with your grade point average in school.

I'm on the verge of sinking into 2nd lower territory. Draw your own conclusions!

Fortune Told

For her Spanish dog we decided to go visit a Spanish restaurant. Haha your Spanish dog should be proud. Paella and tapas in Barcelona and Madrid were great.
-

Took a drive through parts of the Formula One circuit. The fences along the roads make sure that spectators are safe and no Final Destination 4 moments occur with debris on the road. Char can't wait for F1!
-

Met up with the boys since Kong's back in town. Great laughs, great food. It's been 6 years and we're still reliving the same old things just as we do each time we meet up. Incidentally Kong is wearing the exact same thing as he was the last time I saw him in London.
-

Now, do you know exactly when you're going to get married? When you'll see your cash holdings hit 7 figures? How many kids you'll have? How to avert calamity in your life? Nothing to see here, move along now, sucka.

Week of Anniversaries

First, the terrorist declaration of war on the world (2001), and then, the crumbling of Lehman (2008).

Today I had to sit in with The Boss to interview a candidate. Poor guy. When was the American revolution? Russian revolution? French revolution?

Also today, The Boss talked about girls. He says he's having a hard time finding a girl to settle down with, because as he ages, acquires more languages, and travels more widely with time, the constraints on his dating get lifted one by one, till it's hard to do a full scale optimisation of his choices now.

I recommended settling for a portfolio, then.

Keep Rollin'

Open the door to the rest of your life.

Work sucks, but we still do our job applications anyway!

Buona Notte

I know it's kinda out-of-fashion to be complaining about sleep deprivation when you're in your final year, but man, it's so good to be able to go to bed right now without having to set an alarm for tomorrow morning.

Another thing to say good night to:

I was going to use my recent gains to buy a 2nd hand Mercedes E200, but some calculations and discussions later, I've found that the insurance charges and road tax will be killing me like no bear market can. I thought it would have been a significant milestone if I bought my own car (a Merc at that!) with my own money without yet holding a job, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen now. When a deal sucks, you gotta walk away--insurance and road tax for one year would have cost more than half the price of the car! Back to being one of those guys on public transportation breathing in the sweat and farts of a hundred other creeps. Not looking forward to that.

Next target: 1st car, Porsche 911, 2011.

Have your cake and eat it, too

http://xoxothecakeconglomerate.blogspot.com
Bunnies love cake, and everyone could do with a little tiramisu in their blood.

Hehe

We from Milan are Generation Italy. In short, Genitalia.

Hi how's it going sucka?

Some updates; I'm not shutting this blog down just yet even though I'm back in this boring ass part of the world.

1) Work is such an ambivalent pain in the ass, I can't tell which side of my ass hurts more. Look forward to it for the rest of your life, like it or not.

2) It's final year now boys and girls. Have fun now or forever die slowly from regret.

3) Popcorn is recovering tremendously after Nacho's passing, and is becoming friendlier to Char. Popcorn's wheeking and singing a lot these days.

4) Char's always been the love of my life (but sometimes she needs a little reminder) so fuck off you nerds who're trying to step in and make freaky little comments on her Facebook pics. You can't do better than that? Facebook? Come on, eat Popcorn's shit, numbnuts. And you think you've got your weird little chemistry with her? Don't make me torch your hair.

5) A quick portfolio tally told me I've made more than 5 grand year-to-date, meaning my exchange programme in Milan has cost far less than expected. Air ticket for second visit next year perhaps? Join me.

6) I miss the people and the places I've had the privilege to encounter in the earlier half of this year. I've so many photos of you all, I'm gonna be covering part of my room in your ugly faces.

7) Meeting freshmen just slams it right back into my brain that we're all aging. You guys are so young and you've not made your mistakes yet. Such excitement.

8) Economic recovery? Bernanke back for round two? I hope these two come hand-in-hand.

9) I still haven't met up with so many of you assholes.

10) Don't be a fool.

Europe, Sucka

Here's a video I made to sum up the exchange programme. The things I did, the people I met, the places I visited. All here.

A Death in the Family

Movie snacks Nacho and Popcorn

9th August? What would you care about the 9th of August. National Day, is that what you say? No. Nacho left this world on the 9th of August. Always one to lift her head, always one to burst into songs of joy (and hunger), beady red eyes alive with mischief, rose-petal ears flapping as she trotted curiously, such is the memory of Nacho.

Goodbye now baby. I couldn't have had a better pet. I pray you didn't suffer as much as I imagined.

Up!

So, does the Oracle of Omaha himself think things are going Up from here? Maybe it's just me, but this character looks like Warren Buffet, and the Dow has just breached 9,000. Live life with optimism!

Home Sweet Home

Going through the tons of video footage that I have brings back all the memories of the good times. Time to stick it all in a blender and produce a compilation.

June 27, 2009

Too Young to Fall in Love

The music of the '80s was the best. Guns N' Roses, Twisted Sister, Led Zep, and here in their original lineup, Motley Crue. The concert was bad to the bone. Well worth the ticket being able to see them perform live.

Monza was a small town north of Milan where this event was held. When this metalfest ended past midnight, Char and I had to camp out at the train station waiting for the first train at daybreak back home.

June 26, 2009

Rooftop @ La Rinascente

Jay was in a suit because he had an interview at LG. He made Ray wear a suit too so he won't feel odd. Ray then made me dress up likewise too.

End of an Adventure

Akropolis @ Athens, Greece

Just got back from Athens this evening. That was it. The end of an adventure. I've been gone for so long.

Next stop: Singapore.

June 25, 2009

Gleeful Basterds

Craziest night ever. I can't believe you guys!

June 24, 2009

Ciao Mel!

My house mates, Anto and Mel. See you back in Singapore, Mel. Buon viaggio, enjoy the rest of your journey before you go back home to live a real life again. We hope you enjoyed your stay in Milan. Well, of course you did.

June 23, 2009

Just Cavalli

Final bash in Milan, before everyone disappears and the next time we meet is either in Singapore (for those of us who're lucky), or never again. When I saw tears rolling down Sylvia's cheeks despite the pained smiles that belied her reluctance to depart, I realised this was a watershed moment in the end of this escape from reality.

(On a side note, "watershed" was a deliberate pun about the shedding of tears, so kill me.)

June 22, 2009

Best Car on the Best Street

Rolls Royce on Via Montenapoleone, in a colour usually reserved for those convertibles driven by fat balding geezers who've finally made it big to drive that flashy car they've been wanting to drive since they were 20.

June 21, 2009

Tastes like Chicken

I want to throttle those goons that describe just about any other meat as 'tasting like chicken'. What does rabbit taste like? Chicken. What does crocodile taste like? Chicken. What does a pot of piss taste like? Chicken. Listen, unless it is really chicken, stop being dumb! Ray, Clara and I baked chicken for dinner, it was pretty good, except for a few power outages we suspected were caused by the energy-sapping oven.

June 20, 2009

Absolut Rain

In an uncharacteristic Milanese summer rain we crammed ourselves soaking wet into a little bar for drinks. Baby let's have sex on the beach.

June 19, 2009

From Fumagalli

Man what a night the 19th was. Good times to remember, here in Club Fumagalli. Thanks to Mike, Vera and Ray for hosting. Space Marine coooooooooooooool.

June 18, 2009

Ma Va Fanculo!

Antonio and I watched Egypt vs Italy. Who cares that Italy lost 1-0? The Confederation Cup is a stupid cup anyway! Italy's going to win the World Cup 2010. That's when the game counts.

June 17, 2009

I'll be Back

Again, I didn't toss a coin over my shoulder into the Trevi Fountain, because I know I'll be back another time anyway. Char said it was kind of me to accompany Mike's girlfriend around for this trip. I replied that many people at home have been taking care of mine for the past few months and making sure she wasn't bored and lonely (I'm thankful for you friends). But not for much longer, the countdown is what, 9 days? That's less than the digits on both my hands. Not too long now sweetheart.