A Trip Down Passo Dello Stelvio

It was almost seven. Cold. I had my hoodie jacket on, somehow still not enough to keep what's left of last night's storm out. There goes the final drag of my cigarette. As I exhale, I see the smoke gush out of my lungs into the air. The smoke does look more beautiful in the morning. To my right the sun tries to penetrate thick cloud and fog.

As moments passed, temperature around me started to rise. My car, orange with a silver stripe running from head to tail. Lights put on low, the Y-shaped LEDs making presence known. The engine lets out a muffled low rumble, almost shaking the ground beneath. Fog slowly thickening from condensation, falling lower and lower into the bottom of the valley. More is revealed. Black tarmac slithering down miles after miles of endless zigs and zags. Straight after hairpin after straight after hairpin, into eternity. I take in a deep breath. The smell of fresh and crisp northern Italy, home to the bull beside me. Eager to ram down the slopes. Hold on. The time will come. 

I got in, pulled the door down. Safety belts. Engine temperature. All check. Wait. The trip has to be taken with windows down, so down you go. Both of yous. I tapped the fuel pedal, and a roar echoes through the mountainside into the fog below. I tapped it again, and the roar lifted the hair on my hands. I think it's time, I told the bull. Right hand on the cold steel stick. No DSGs. Real men shift sticks and slam on heavy, manly, clutches. 

I engaged Gear 1 and immediately floored the gas. In the console, the red tC light flashed for a moment then disappeared. Then Gear 2, steel locking onto steel. The brute power of the car had me stuck helpless onto the seat. Gear 3, and I'm already well over a hundred and forty. Gear 4. First turn. Clutch, toe on brake, heel on gas, heel off gas, Gear 2, clutch off, brakes off, right turn. Screeches were heard as rubber struggles to keep a hold on the wet road. tC flashed, and stopped. As the turn ended, I took the car to fifth in less than two seconds.

Straight. Hairpin. Straight. Hairpin. The engine's roar escalated to scream. Scream to roar and roar to scream again. Gear ups and gear downs. Accelerate, brake, screech, spin, accelerate, brake, screech, spin. Over and over again and again. No radio. No need for radio. An orchestra plays behind me, bouncing off every cliff  and ravine and tree and rock and sand and soil and grass and whatever else they've got up there which I was too busy to notice.

At the entrance of every hairpin I slammed onto the brakes. Carbon ceramics worked hard with Traction Control to prevent slippage pumped out by the five hundred horsed V10. They had to. The pride and glory of the tag depends on it. Rear-wheel-drive occasionally caused spins, which is almost immediately overcome. With the driving skills of a bed-ridden shrimp, I time and time again thanked god for the creation of ABS, tC, EBD, BTW, CMI, FML, FTW and what-nots. 

After about three million hairpins, I finally came to a straight. The sun had already unveiled most parts of the valley now. I saw a breakfast restaurant ahead, and decided it's time to call it a day. I got out of the car, took a deep breath. Ahhh. The smell of burnt rubber and tarmac. I looked up at the road where I came, could still hear the screams and screeches. Most magnificent. 

 One glorious road and one glorious bull. Today, they met and they exchanged views. One of form and function and rules and consequences. The other of brutality and rebellion and freedom and Ultimacy. Today they met and they exchanged views. That smell. That awesome beautiful smell. Burnt rubber and smoked water rising from tarmac. That awesome beautiful smell. Good morning.

I took the last drag off my cigarette before killing it into the ashtray. Eminem playing behind, my dog sleeping on my blanket. 1.30 AM. I close the Top Gear magazine and tucked it somewhere between The Ghost and Abarat. Time to sleep.

Take Two Steps

You've been out looking for the perfect house for about 3 months now. You like this particular condo, but find most sellers price their houses a tad bit too high over your budget. You went to see the place twice already, with different real estate agents so they won't suspect you love this place and try to take advantage of that by quoting you an unreasonable price. Having known quite a number of agents by now, and desperate to own that house, you do either of the two things below:

1. You announce to all your agents of your interest in the unit, and tell them the price you're willing to pay. Your  though was that you'll buy from whoever can negotiate for you the best deal.

or

2. You stick to only one agent, for whatever reason you so choose, to get the deal for you at the best he/she can muster.

At first glance most may take up choice number 1 because of 2 reasons:

a) They want the best agent to give them the best deal.

b) They believe that competition creates good agents.

Well maybe not too much of b), but most definitely a). Who in the right mind would not want to buy something cheap? Plus it does feel good to have so many people working for you, rather than at your office when you are working for so many people. But method number 1 is flawed. It's not a double-edged sword. It's a sword that makes you think the edge is facing your opponent, when it's actually facing you. Why?

We now move to the seat of the owner for a moment. You now own a house you've been wanting to dispose of. A few months passed and not many offers come from either direct buyers or agents. All of a sudden you get numerous offers from various agents telling you of interested people asking specifically for your unit. Would you then sell your unit to the lowest bidder or the highest? It's a rhetorical question we all know the answer to.

What has happened was that instead of achieving your goal of getting the house at the lowest possible price, you've just made the owner think that there are many people interested in his/her unit. This will in turn make the owner increase the selling price to act as desperate-filter, and grab the one with the highest offer and desperate level.

Next time you go out trying to negotiate something either for yourself or your boss, make sure you try to fit into the other party's shoes and see things from their perspective. Or you could go to your nearest Borders and pick up a copy of 'Business For Dummies'. Or you could hire experienced agents to do the negotiations for you. That way you won't look like a monoscopic black and white moron.

Betrayal in E by Constellations of Sparky

E is love. It is reliance and trust. It is the high you'll never get anywhere else. It is the low after that. And it will be the high you long for to kill the low. It is the epitome of emotions. Emotions that separate Man from Beasts. It is a relationship most cherished. It takes you to places none has ever been, or ever will. It whispers soft kind words into your ears when the world frowns and neglects you. In the blistering storm, it holds you close and warm. It keeps your heart beating calmly when it is not.

E gives without taking. It receives when you're happy and want to have more of it. It gives color to gray and light to darkness. It draws silver linings and provides hope when there are none. It does not judge. It does not see class, race or religion. It is fair to all. It makes your dreams come true. It takes you to a world that makes all your dreams come true. It makes you forget material needs. It makes you forget survival needs. It brings you to an existence high above the rest of the world.

But it does not keep you there forever.

E takes it all back, just when you're getting comfortable. It brings you back to the cold and dark and stormy and frowns and the neglects. It gives you back the hate and the words and the actions that hate represents. It makes you need material things and it makes you need survival things. It takes away all the silver linings and good thoughts and calm heartbeats. It gives you back the panic and the noise and the gray. The back alley, the vomit on your shirt, the broken needle. The rats and the molded bread. It gives you back the smell of decay and death.

E makes you hate them all and want to leave them. It makes you beg to be taken away. Far away. Far from the decay far from the death far from the molded bread and the vomit. Far from the need for survival and material. Far from frowning eyes and the blistering cold.

E gives you the heaven you crave, but takes all else from you. It promises eternal happiness and content, but ends it just when you get comfortable. It is your best friend and your worst enemy. It stabs you in the back just when you rely and trust it the most. It takes the color away and gives you a gray darker than the ones before that, and the ones before that.

E is the lowest chord of expression. E is a high and a low. E is Betrayal.

I'm tired

Faint-hearted

Got fired

Felt retarded

Syringes

Cementeds

I'm stranded and demented

"Come on over, come on over here"

They're crawling

I'm scratching

Unearthing and still bleeding

I'm smiling

And crying

Colorful pictures falling

I'm so over, I'm so over you

Derailed from

The world on

A million things that was torn

Fantastic

Just a trick

I'm undoubtedly spastic

I'm so over, I'm so over you!

We've been stripped off devotion

Exiled into oblivion

Understated, unwanted

Unacceptably wasted

And when the cold rain stabs me

When the wind screams unholy

I'm not afraid 'cos I've got you

Ten odd years since we first met

Treated you like my brother

The friend that I never had

This could be my worst blunder

I should have listened to them

You said they didn't understand

The reason you were condemned

You betray all of your friends

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjYp5c5PvW0

Chasing Dreams

In the life of business building one often gets lost. It is too easy to fall into traps of wrong-doings and despair. When the sky is the limit, the ground isn't usually the lowest. People come up with various theories and concepts to encourage and push themselves up ranks. Because the front lines of product and service provision depends highly on first impressions, many devise ingenious ways to stay ahead of competitors. 

The Outlookers 

Outlookers are obsessed with things that make them look successful. They 'invest' in expensive cuff links, coats, belts and shoes to make themselves look presentable to clients. They believe the Mont Blanc emblem peeking out of the breast pocket gives confidence to their clients. They also believe driving luxurious cars give them optimum first impressions. Their slogan is: " Our clothing and car is our shop and sign board. The better we look, the more returning customers we get."

I think it is nice to live in this alternate reality, where people are actually only concerned with looking good and showing the world they're rich but tell themselves it's important for business. Ultimately, it is our actual service or product that will determine customers' return. However i do believe to some degree, everyone looks at what you drive.

Do-Or-Dies

There are some people out there with the Will of Steel. Their belief is: To Be the Best, First Drop To the Worst. They get into countless amounts of debts with bankers and other funding sources, resorting to eating Roti Canai with Ais Kosong every day. In turn, they believe when a man is pushed to the limit, his true potential will surface and take over. Kind of like Aang and the Avatar State, only more dangerous because this deals with real life and not cartoon characters.

I've witnessed fruit from this method. 2 years into it, he emerges a Millionaire. But I also know for a fact that millions have died failing this path. This method works, but only for the select few. We would all like to think we're the strongest, the most resilient, the toughest. But this method is not for those who think, rather those who know.

Objectivers

Objectivers care about how people look at them. They care about their status or the lack of it, which is why they strive like any other to reach the sky. But the Objectivers are, well, objective in their methods. They always find the best possible way to ensure their money are not placed in items that do not possess real value. Fine, cars help you make money. But how real is it? Objectivers would rather place these money in some form of investment, like Mutual Funds, EPF or shares and bonds. Something that they know will make them more money in return. They may be as successful as the previous two, he may not. He may also be at a disadvantage in providing sufficient First Impressions with his clients. But he knows that when he falls, he will have a safety net protecting him from broken bones and hearts.

Objectivers are safe people. They may make it, they may not. In their position, it is way too easy to fall lazy and lose their goals in life, because their commitments are somewhat minimized. The most difficult task for Objectivers is to wake up every morning and creating false urgency to make more today than yesterday.

Take It Slows

Take It Slows only work when they have to, and only as much as they need to. They're happy with what they have and they do not wish to step up to anything else. If there's money, they'll go for a holiday. If not, they'll stay home. They take a Hundred year housing loan to pay minimum every month, and work every month only enough to make payments and food.

Take It Slows are utter failures in business sense, but they live. The previous people are so concerned with rising up status ladders and making money, they fail to actually live a life. They don't see the people around them. They don't feel the cold air on a good morning. Take It Slows believe life is more than money and Bungalows and Gallardos. As much as I don't want to be a Take It Slow, I somehow understand them very well.

I met a co-agent about a month back. He's well dressed and drives an E-Class Merc. Not too bad, I thought. All that went away once I started working with him on a rental case. When you meet a successful person, there's usually a certain 'air' in his/her presence. The way they talk, the way they walk, the way they comment on something. The confidence and the certainty are there even when they're asking for my expert opinion. They respect people in a way they know people will return more respect to them.

Not with this guy. He has a bad stature. He walks looking down on the floor. He doesn't comment. When he does, he's always uncertain of everything. He promises and forgets them. He has less 'air' in his presence than some Camry owners half his age.

People can force out what ever is it they want, but it will be of no use to them unless they act like one. It's nice to see an agent with a nice car, but when it comes to seeing him actually working, he's not worth even its tires.

Dreams are good. Heck dreams are what keeps all of us alive today. Without them we'll all live pointless existences and eventually die off from boredom. But dreams have to take its course. Force it out, and you better live up to its demands. Or it will all be in vain.

Readings: A Million Little Pieces by James Frey

It's over. I flipped through the final pages of the book. It's over. I picked up this book about a year ago, from a friend. From the first page "I wake up to the drone of the plane..", his voice rang in my ears. James Frey. I don't know how he sound like in life, but as he read me his story he sounded a lot like me. *Chuckles*. Duh. Pure raw, blatant, uncensored, violent writing. No consideration for anyone at all. Frey dug deep into his head and out came probably the most beautiful memoir ever written. 

A Million Little Pieces tells a story of a man, at the age of 23, thrown into rehab by his parents. His eyes will bring you through his addiction to substances from Crack to Alcohol, daily pass-outs, pant-pissings and  bloody-vomitings. The insects that crawl out from under his skin, the reek of a Crack house, the Fury that Screams Bloody Murder. His words simple, his emotions rich and pungent. Frey will take you on an emotional ride that will get you hooked onto the book. By the end of the book you'll wish to God it's not the end. 

Frey was called 'The Man Who Conned Oprah' because he apparently created most parts of this book. Fact or fiction, this book is worth ten reads. But be warned. This book should have came with a tag 'CAUTION: FINISH ENTIRE COURSE'. The book will make you smoke or smoke more. The book will make you want to do pot, crack, meth and drink. Like an Antibiotic, finishing the entire book is the most recommended course of action. At the end of the book I felt like I need to quit smoking. But of course I woke up the next day and the feeling was gone.