Oct 25, 2007

micro-facebook?

i read today that microsoft bought a 1.6% stake in facebook for a 'nominal' sum of US$240 million (HK$1.87 BILLION).... this values facebook at a whopping US$15 BILLION dollars!

i now wonder what's going to happen with the company. obviously, 1.6% does not make too much of a diff to a company - but now i would imagine some pressure would be on to actually make something of the company. it's still hard for me to believe that a website could be worth so much. maybe the 49 million users is it? i mean - at $15billion bux, that makes my eyeballs worth about 300 to facebook!

well - i just hope that microsoft don't ruin the thing that is facebook. it already has enough of these dumb plug in stuff. i don't think i could deal with microsoft ads and stuff!

off to play some golf tom'w. best thing about golf on fridays - no work. and golf. and free eats. hopefully i get lots of birds :P

Oct 3, 2007

way past the bed time



it's 11:30pm... and i just wanted to say i'm sitting home and writing a quick note while my wife is at her friends eating shanghai hairy crabs... eeks... yah - sounds like it's straight out of a horror flick, of the b-variety.

tonite, i had a revelation in my life that i'm not much of a cook. i used to love to cook stuff, but i find that i'm now just doing a lot of instant stuff. instant noodles - i'm real good at. tonite was instant pasta wheels, upon which i dumped a load of left over japanese curry (SO GOOD!). i baked instant choco chip oatmeal cookies yesterday (betty crocker is HOT!). so nuke that for 10 secs the nite after, slop on a scoop of haagan daaz vanilla ice cream, and you have man-made heaven right there! my personal fave lately has been: get leftover rice and nuke for like 45 secs (sometimes need to do it twice if it's too cold). cut up some spam and fry it to near crisp (i like the spicy chinese brand). fry an egg, over easy. put the spam and egg on the rice. sprinkle some black pepper. pour on a bit of light soy sauce. pop a can of coke zero. most importantly, get a glass of ice. sit in front of tv. put in either the matrix or lord of the rings.

bed time. almost 12. gotta wake up in 6 1/2 hours. time to get some instant sleep... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Oct 1, 2007

..::last day of vacation :( ::..



i actually post here now... web.mac.com/cliffma

wat a nice week off. without sounding overly pompous, i really do think i deserved a week off with absolutely nothing to do - no responsibility, no plans, no engagements, no nuthin’. i slept in (to like 9am on avg!!!), relaxed and watched tv, read a book, walked the streets... taking a break in HK is so different from traveling abroad. after a long trip abroad, i’m often more tired than when i left, and with the way we travel, we get back at 10 or 11pm the nite before i need to get back to work... so essentially, i’m exhausted and then have to put on my brain again. that’s pretty stressful sometimes.

however, this past week was just wat i needed. i feel like it’s been pretty much 4 years of stress - working and traveling and no real time for rest. it puts things in perspective for me, i guess. after working this hard for 10+ years, i feel like i’m in the very fortunate position of reaping some of the ‘seeds’ that i’ve sown. it’s been a tuff road - doing the 9-9 thing every day, including 9-1pm thing on saturdays (in some jobs), and working my butt off in skool and stuff. i’ve never been one for suits and stuff - so when i see people around me that gets to have casual/semi-casual days, it makes me yearn for a different kind of job - one that is less stressful, less intense... but then again, god has equipped me for just the place i’m in - so no whining... no biatching... no complaints! i have to say - aside from the everyday suits - i love my job! :)

the picture at the top is my parents - almost 40 years ago (dec 23 is their anniversary), they married and 4 years later, i popped out! i love the pic. i wonder when i look back at our wedding pics, would we be saying things like - ‘nice hair. nice shirt. nice tie. nice shades. nice pants. hehe i think it’s funny. i look at some of my kiddy pics and cringe... brrrr....

anyway - i’m home relaxing now. my last nite of nothing in particular. however, i’m about to bake my wife some oatmeal choco chip cookies, which she will devour w/haagen daaz vanilla ice cream. i’m such a good husband!

(so boring... but wat do you expect when i been braindead for the past 10 days?)

Sep 27, 2007

day 6

well, technically, i'm on day 3 of my mini holiday in HK. between the mid-autumn festival and the weekend tho - it's been 6 days of no responsibility! anyway - i can say that i have done absolutely NOTHING! HA! golf was rained out on monday, so i ended up running errands and stuff. tuesday i went to fanling to have lunch w/the parental units, and then into sheung shui (upwater), my parent's home, and spent the nite w/the big bro and wife. as usual, the holiday at the 'rents was filled with more food than i could ever imagine. pork spare ribs, chicken, pork shoulder (??? yuen tai... VERY YUMMY!), fish, shrimp (blech), veggies, soup... and to wash it off (albeit ~ 30 mins later) like 8 different kinds of mooncake courtesy of the bro, and some fruit and coffee/tea, while staring at a beautiful moonlit nite! oh man - i'm SOOO STUFFED!

if that wasn't enough, food in the morning was crazy. 2 dishes of different fried noodles, fried pot-stickers, and congee - all of which i ate from 9 to 12:30, before washing it down with a coffee and a quarter of a mini mooncake! i didn't eat the rest of the day!

so today, my first foray to MEGA BOX! wwoooooohoooooo!!! i'm so excited. that's about it. i've made new web page - just playing around with iWeb (for once).... so here it goes:

web.mac.com/cliffma

i'll probably update straight to there from now on... i think almost everyone i know that has used iWeb to make a page uses the same background. oh wells... here's for originality.

i'm off on more vacation! :)

Jun 26, 2007

*sigh*

Jun 18, 2007

grow up!

it's been so long since i've looked at my blog, but i'm up at 3am on a worknite, watching the final round of the US open, where tiger woods is 1 shot off the lead, playing in the final group, and where everyone else is also in the chase... it's a good time to update!

this has been a crazy weekend. last week at work turned out to be busier than i thought - but it all culminated in the all nite prayer on friday at church, where i only managed to 3:30am. but i got home, tried to watch some us open (i know - leave the prayer meeting for golf?)... actually - i was tired, but fell asleep pretty much as the round started anyway. eventually getting up at 9:45, started cooking for 180, thinking it would only take a few hours, but ended up going pretty much to 4... but i think it turned out real well - the ma family specialty of 'chasiu chow mi-fun', or chinese bbq pork fried rice vermicelli noodles! :)

180 was awesome. i realized one thing this weekend as i was watching vine news. i'm so immature. my buddy joe did this thing for the vine coffee club nite, where he stuck this silly picture of me. see, it's this evening of discussion w/a group of panelists from the finance industry. you got all this industry bigwigs, founder of this and that, big exec dude from hsbc and standard chartered, and them me. the funny bit was they all got these proper pics, professional, suited, cool smiles, and stuff that you could stick in the economist magazine stuff. then you get me - a silly pic while sitting in the JR (train) in japan, just coming back from a wedding, and linnet and i taking turns looking dumb for the camera... it just really looked out of place.

so that got me wondering - what the heck am i doing w/my life? i mean - sometimes i really wanna be that mature, serious, professional guy. but most of the time, i just don't. i don't want to be anything near that 'suit person'. i'm not even sure my personality fits that profile. i just don't think i'm ever going to get to the point where i could take myself that seriously. i'm in an industry that essentially makes a ton of money for managing other people's money, and you got guys like me that are paid well to tell them how much they made. sometimes people aren't content w/being told they made 15% in the year 2006 in just a plain piece of paper and even giving them an account balance or something. they need to have it in a powerpoint, with bar and pie charts, and return tables, and writing out that 15% into a full sentence, and of course, add in a few bullet points of 'points'... so there in a nutshell lies my livelihood. i've often wondered where my value added in the whole chain of life is.

but you know - i believe that God has put me where i'm at. why?, i have no idea. today, as i was doing sound in church, the dude next to me, watching that same bit of vine news and the vine coffee club, says something like 'wat a load of crock! you got all the greedy bankers in one place talking about God and the workplace!' i kinda ignored the comment, as he was either being facetious or he really doesn't understand the point of the nite. i mean - is he implying that just because i'm a christian i shouldn't consider working in the finance industry? or does he forget that our senior pastor also comes from the finance background?

anyhow - the point is - i'm always wondering if this job is it... it's weird cuz this is the type of industry where one could just do well if you stay where you are for a number of years and do your job - it's called "career". but the higher up one goes, i'm also assuming that there are more responsibilities. that means that you have to be a better example to your staff. but as i look at all the seniority at my firm, i'm just wondering if i want that. i mean, who doesn't want to have that kind of material success? who works just for the sake of working? who doesn't like promotions? ok, so i confess i want all of that. but what i don't want is to compromise my person. i'm not even speaking integrity-wise, as that should be a given. what i don't want is to become like those stiff, boring, cookie-cut people who eat, sleep, live, breathe... WORK. peter pan said it best - 'i won't grow up'!

so herein lies the issue. can i make my way around, keeping with who i am? do i have to play the game? mold myself into that cookie cutter? people respect that? well - i say screw 'em all (if i can say that at all?). altho i'm fast approaching 40, i feel like i have the mindset of a 20 year old. ok, maybe 25? no, i can't ever see myself wearing slacks and tucked-in polos, with colored socks and loafers. maybe i'll break this traditional mold. maybe i'll never make it. maybe i'm destined for middle management my whole life. is that so bad?

which is probably where work and career hits the christian road for me. work to me is less about the work, and more about that people. i would love to see everyone saved. i would love to lead the staff not in business, but life. i just believe that God placed me with the primary job description being - 'love your staff, and show them what being a child of God means'. matt 5:16 says "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven." so to me, that means - don't play the corporate game, and be like everyone else, trampling on each other and back-stabbing to get up that ladder. be faithful, and let god take care of everything else... and i just have to believe that HE WILL honor that word, as long as i'm faithful to that role. it's not that easy, definitely not as easy as telling clients how much they made last year!

anyway - at the end of the day, i feel that i'm just trying to justify my desire for casual day... everyday... in the workplace. i hate suits... i hate ties... so that still brings me back to that dumb picture. when i'm 40, i'll still be 25...

at this time, tiger just missed a short birdie on the 14th, and is 3 strokes behind the lead. not sure if he can pull this off w/so many tuff holes... 6:17am... another 2 hrs n i gotta go to work... good thing it's holiday tomorrow!!!! zzzzzzzzz

Feb 23, 2007

my worst nightmare



the paper today showed pics of a colossal squid just captured in the antarctic waters by a kiwi fishing crew. pictured here is just archive foto of another one, but the one they just caught was supposedly 450KG!!!! i'm like 72 or so, so that be like 6 of me, but the size of 2 double decker buses! that's HUGE! they said that if they made calamari rings out of it, you'd have rings the size of tractor tires!! ahahaah that's pretty funny. imagine getting a dish of that when you're on seafood safari to cheung chau island!!!

on that note, i've just had a chinese new year holiday where i just stuffed my face silly with all sorts of food. i love the family gatherings, but the food is just ridiculous (all but the shrimp and mushrooms..). somehow i lose all self control when my faves (like my home's fried noodles) are on the table - and the animal instinct takes over, or my canine instincts rather. dogs are pretty dumb that way - they can't control eating, so if there's food in front of them, they just eat, and can literally eat themselves to death. that's me over the holidays. give me a plate of fried noodles sans seafood and mushrooms, and i'll show you death by indulgence!

Jan 12, 2007

iWhat?

i knew it would take a mountain to move my molehill of lethargy over the past umteen months. but all i can say is i'm amazed. it's better than anything i could have imagined. i was filled with pure joy just at the sight of it. it has finally become reality:

it's been a LONG wait, and after so much speculation, IT is here! imagine a phone that is aesthetically beautiful, and smart, and does most EVERYTHING you need and want it to do... i was a skeptic before wednesday morning, but i have seen the light! i confess my doubts, but i rejoice in the revelation!

the bad news is that it's not out in asia till likely 2008. i still wonder why apple announced so early when they didn't even have the FCC authorization in the US. and if they had a working product already good to go, why not launch it in europe where regs are easier to come by? or even asia for that matter? it don't matter if you sell an english-only product here (outside of japan and korea) - i would think it would still sell out! i think apple's learning from M$ in that it's best just to pre-announce the launch, no matter how long, and prevent potential customers from switching to alternative products immediately. vaporware as the term was coined. well - as they say in the stock markets, buy on rumor, sell on news. oddly, rumors have been around, and apple stocks jumped about 10% since the announcement on tues (US time). so much for that theory. anyway - i think if they can even sell their projected 10 million units, that'll be sure to push the stock higher... hmmmmm...

on an aside just got my powerbook back from the service center too. i never realized how convenient life was like with my powerbook, until i lost it. however, now that the HD's been replaced, i have absolutely nothing on there. my iWorks disk is GONE, my OFFICE MAC disk is GONE, my WIDGETS ARE GONE!! AARRRGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

it's ok. my life doesn't revolve around computers, nor apple's latest releases. (altho the iPhone really is nice!).

some events that have happened over the past months!

the one_eighty christmas dinner:


THIRST new years eve party:


click on the images to see the albums!

shanghai trip to come!!!!