You are not too old to screw around ..

You know what they say about not shitting in the house where you live. This usually refers to someone who screws around with his staff, usually his subordinates, in the same office or organisation. The expression is funny; where else can you shit if its not in your house ? Anyway, the other day, I read somewhere that the Managing Director of IMF with a lofty sounding name of Dominique Strauss-Kahn was having an affair with an IMF executive. Today, according to his wife the affair was a one-night stand. If that was the case, then the woman involved must be working as a part time prostitute.

Not long ago, Paul Wolfowitz of the World Bank was disgraced for having an affair with a Tunisian executive working in the same institution. And before this, a certain Harry Stonecipher, formerly the CEO of Boeing, was dismissed for having an affair with a Boeing executive.

I am waiting for the person with the double-barrelled name to be dismissed with ignominy.

Update 09/10/2011 Sunday: Retribution has finally caught up with Strauss-Kahn when he was arrested in New York, dumped in jail, and was forced to appear in court for having molested a hotel maid in his room. For the indiscretion, he was humiliated and forced to resign as the chief of the IMF. It was sheer luck that his lawyers managed to wangle him out from a long prison sentence in US. He was also accused of trying to molest another woman in France.

When RM10/= gets you over 4 gallons of petrol ....

Its good to hear that crude oil price is going own and down. Today, a Reuter's report even mentions that it may go down to USD50/= per barrel, that is about the average cost of production of some oil producing countries. A price of USD35/= per barrel is even predicted. 

The cost of production in Saudi Arabia is much lower. I read sometime ago that it was below USD2-5/= to produce a barrel of crude oil. Its those offshore installations, such as those in the North Sea, Mexico, and Venezuala, that have high costs of production while on shore installations, such as those in the Middle East and Russia, have much lower production costs. These are the ones who would still be making good profits if crude oil price plunges to USD 34-50 per barrel. Indeed, those offshore installations might be compelled to shut down their operations.

I am waiting for the day when I can pump in over  4 gallons of petrol for RM10/=.

The KL Photo Festival ...

Yesterday, my uncle and I went to the 2-day event photo festival held on the main floor of Berjaya Times Square in Bukit Bintang. It wasn't much of a festival or a photo expo. The big names in photographic equipment - Canon, Nikon, Sony - were there, exhibiting cameras and lenses that were not really great stuff. The exhibitors were into taking advantage of the expected volume of crowd by marking up prices of their usual products rather than, offering them at better prices to increase sales volume. 

Thus, you have batteries, filters, camera accessories marked up by 5 to 10 percent and cameras and lenses tagged at list prices. The exhibitors expected the crowd to bring loads of cash and discouraged potential customers from purchasing their products by charging high interests on their credit cards. Thus my uncle and his friend that he met there gave up buying the new Nikon D700 and the Canon 5D MkII from the respective stalls as the prices and charges were deliberately made high. In the end, my uncle bought an En-el3e battery for RM 150/=, about the same price as you could get from a camera shop in PJ or Sungai Wang. My uncle would have bought 2 batteries if the price had been say, RM 130/= each.

We then left the place to have dinner before going home. The festival was one big disappointment for us.