corporate espionage

Found a great new businessweek today in some random shopping with pav bhaji. It has a great story of how a private investigating firm was hired by a rival to infiltrate KPMG and get some audit results out before others saw it. The story was just like a spy thriller and what was amazing was the fact that it was real. I'm sure these things happen but to see it described in public was a first.

Starts with the "search" for a prime target who could be bought over in KPMG - they wanted a young, bored man or an older, spinster woman (stereotypes galore!). Anyway, they found a guy and then fooled the hell out of him by spinning a story on how they were British top secret operatives & they wanted him to help the british government! What bull !!! He bought all of it without a thought and kept feeding them information/documents for weeks! What's more, after all this has been found out and lawsuits are flying all over, he's quietly shifted country and is working in yet another blue chip company! I guess not being director of a company has it's advantages! What does he get at the end? A rolex watch courtesy the brits (or so he was told and bought!). Time seemed to have been on his side.

D-day approaches

Saw Al Gore's "an inconvenient truth" a few weeks ago in the US. Made a lasting impact on me, whether or not the data was all above board or not. Didn't bother me that some felt he tried to put his political angle into it - I didn't see him doing that intentionally. It was just to make a point on reasons why climate control legislation didn't move forward in the biggest polluter's senate. Only when people are seeing unseasonal stuff for the past 2 years (eg. groundhog day coming early, cherry blossoms in jan/feb) that the general public is finally saying "you know what, those guys were right 10 years ago". Personally, am very worried since this also ties in with ancient mayan/indian theory about how this is the last civilization before "Pralay" (final devastation) occurs in only a few centuries from now (or maybe earlier). More on that later one day. Richard Branson has declared a high cash prize for anyone with ideas on how to manage global warming but not sure that's the right approach:-) ! Though no harm in doing so - at minimum a great PR gimmick to get attention on the problem.

This matters to me and to my family - it's personal now. Ironically, am facing another d-day of my own (albeit on a smaller scale) - am bringing in my own child into this world in 3 month's time! Hope he/she will get to live in a normal world with normal weather - a world that lasts his/her lifetime at the minimum.

Month 1 update on resolution

In the interest of discipline, shall try and update the public on resolution progress so far. One month into the year (or slightly more) and I'm down only 1 kg unfortunately. Now that travel is banned, shall put more rigour into the routine. Clearly golf is not going to be burning too many calories, esp if we take ham sandwich breaks and roam around in a battery-powered toy all day.

travel ban and chinese new year!

Beautiful! No travel for next few months due to budget cuts! Some reduction in effectiveness but after a harrowing experience 2 days ago from Jakarta (torrential rain, plane delay, new airline taken which also delayed etc.), I really needed a break from airports. Now on a 10 day supposed holiday for chinese new year but lots of telecons etc. already into the schedule since the rest of the non-chinese world does not stop for singapore. 18 holes golf today - loved it! But desperately now trying to become a union member etc. (ways to cut down on the exorbitant course fees!). Rest of the 9 days shall be spent catching up on music DVDs bought over past few months, movies, sleep, more golf, some music practice with 2 bands and some reading.

yay for limited budgets!

Bobby

Went for an under-reviewed movie tonight - Bobby. Loved it absolutely. Extremely huge star cast, way more than the newspaper ads talk about (several "surprise" actors - including harry belafonte!). Great stories weaved into each other (complexity creates an adrenalin high on occasion and always in movies). What struck me was how old some of the actors have become these days - jodie foster (teenager in accused; young lady in silence of the lambs) now looks 45, anthony hopkins (amazing dialogue delivery still) looked 75 and sharon stone had wrinkles! Highly recommended movie though.