the end.

Then an idea, like a million iron particles, rushed to his head, suddenly.

He knew what he had to do, and that he had to do it now.

He got off the train at Parliament, walked to the ground via that escalator ride that took forever to finish, sounds of mechanical rotations and collision getting louder and more violent. He was deaf. He could hear everything and then nothing, like himself submerged in the depth of the oceans and he could not breath but hearing the whole world imploding into him.

And then there Mr. Kenichi saw the man, at entrance D right at the bottom of the Windsor hotel, he saw the man. A beautiful street, he thought, embraced by works of the neoclassical and baroque, the Victorian and the Gothic revival, a street of a glamorous past, before Melbourne was raped off the throne.

Then, having picked up his speed on the man, Mr. Kenichi pulled out the bottle of wine from his bag, and gave the head a blow with all the strength he ever had. The man fell onto the hard blue stone floor, unconscious.

What a beautiful night. He thought. I can still make it to dinner. All there's left to do now, is to fill in the blanks.

one.

this is a story.

he had a dream last night. something about a murder.

a man walking down Collins Street at 8: 56pm, followed by a shadow for one block, then between the fantastically themed display windows of Hermes and the non inspiring leather bags of Bally he was knocked unconscious from behind.

Hermes has a taste for drama when it comes to their window display, this time is the story of ballerinas clothed in their signature scarves. Stupid name that nobody can pronounce with their fucking scarves, he thought.I'll be late.

it didn't even hurt. he felt a resonance in his head, maybe it's coming directly due somewhere outside, far away from the depth of the oceans, but at the same time a sound so imminent and close that his ears fail to capture.

then Mr. Kenichi found himself awake in his own bed at 6:14 am, completely soaked in sweat. It was a comfortable moment, like that which immediately follows an orgasm.

Shit, I was murdered. Mr. Kenichi stared onto the white ceiling of his Dorcas St. apartment. It felt great.

Cloud

Life has been advancing in hopeless directions that I cannot quite fully understand. Once again I realize that Content at the end of the day really doesn't matter, compared to Why sometimes How does make more sense. Because if you ask Why chances are the final, definitive answer is: because I say so you dumbass. How, on the other hand, allows the same shit to be, in terms of perceived reality at least, not the same shit anymore.

In all seriousness I think my dad is very right, as he elaborated my work is not completely pointless and I really shouldn't be complain about it since I'm paid quite well to do whatever it is that I'm doing. On the other hand, the Western, or more specifically, American side of my rationale has been yelling into my subconscious, screaming at my own sentimentality to change. To embrace the chaos. To become, as I know I am, me. In short I've become more than usually indecisive.

A thought over technology stocks: I've been hearing things about a mobile internet revolution, tech stocks undervalued, etc. This smells really fishy, reminiscent of the dot com bubble at the turn of the new century. The arguments are all completely valid, driving demand for efficiency, greater connectivity and business potentials, exactly like they used to be. I would think that manufacturers of essential parts in mobile devices will continue to do business. But it definitely won't be on the Apple inc. scale, in fact, Apple itself won't be on the Apple scale any more I suspect, as novelty, perfection of design innovations, as pessimistic as it may sound, has a practical limitation. As great as the Iphone 4, it is no where near as ground breaking as the Iphone 3, which was in turn less phenomenal than the now antique Ipod.

On the other hand I'm really more into this concept of the Cloud. Somehow I don't like to add the word technology behind it, as the fundamental appeal of the Cloud seems more social and structural than technical, but what do I know. Anyway, platform is the key word, iTune is a good example with its third party developed Apps, i.e. Virtual Consumables. And this, I see, is the difference between this time and last time. The product chain is being completed, not just the separated dots that it used to be.

CHINA

I had a dream a few days ago. About my director who passed away after working in the same industry for almost forty years, and another one, about the first girl I ever loved reappearing in my life after years of non contact, after that ridiculously non dramatic breakup.

Then I realized those were not dreams. They actually happened; both in the last week. This feels like a rare opportunity to detail and illustrate my emotions but somehow I refrain from doing it, there's not much to talk about, really; things do happen, events do take place, after all. This room, this city, this country, this continent, and even this mind-body duo of mine, seem so claustrophobic I hardly have the energy to breath in the realities.

For a moment or two I almost felt it's romantic. Life, that is.

A few items caught my attention: Chinese foreign reserve accumulation slows down, Trade surplus to record highs, and Google succeeded in renewing operational license in China. The first two would signal an upward pressure for the Chinese Yuan, which some argue that would harm the export sector in a substantial and sudden manner, but I think if we gonna get fucked anyway we may as well get fucked gradually at this stage when everyone else's fucked up. Pragmatic approach I think.

Everyone's been saying that the massive comparative advantage that Chinese has been enjoying by exploiting cheap labor is going to be lost to neighboring Asian countries, which is kind of true, cos most export items remain low tech embedded, but there's much more to business than cost I believe. Such as the collective energy that we display. The China story is much more than an economic one.

Which comes to the Google story. I personally don't see it as a mentionable event, as much political, moralistic, democratic overtone as Western media tries to paint the picture, Google knows, and everyone knows, that Google engine is just bloody useless for the Chinese market, full stop. Whenever you type in the latest IN vocabulary in the Chinese online community, Google always directs you to Baidu, its nemesis and originally a mere copy cat. What Google fails to recognize is that although the technological structure of the search engine is Cloud, the objects of the search, namely the information, knowledge etc, remains an isolated concept that has not engaged the Clouds of people, who cares about the real information if we can't do something about it, leave some personal graffiti on it or leave some remarkably stupid comments on it. I don't know about you but I spend less than ten minutes a day online seeking truth and information and hours and hours on it seeking remedy to boredom.

For the first time I have made consecutive successful trades on my demo account, four in a row this time. I made a resolution that I would not switch to real money unless I doubled my account within a month, and so far, with the many demo accounts that I have practiced so far, none met such goal.

I did make some gains sure, big ones too, but then it was met by larger losses that ruined the whole game. As a result I joined in my web seminars and learnt about the most basic ways active traders would do when they deal with their own money，an idea that I admit abhorred me before.

Now I guess I know better. I must learn how the others do it first, and with practice, hopefully create my own strategy. This refusal to play the others' game is just, after all, isolating myself from the other people.

Japan's having a deflation

deflation is not good at this time.

and this time it's caused by a combination of falling export, lowered business and investment opportunities, and the chronicle low interest rates which encourages people to hold on to the money rather than doing anything with it.

so if Bank of Japan counters this by quantitative easing, i.e. printing money, it should theoretically lower the value of the Yen, hopefully encouraging export and domestic circulation.

I believe that at the end it all comes to what the economy lives on, its role as a exporter and as a world financial center. Export really depends on the US (which i think is not that positive on buying things overseas at the moment) and financial centre (there're too many of them, most in trouble).

I am thinking a gradual bull on USD/JPY.

one thing....

and please, I hope I'm not right this time.

But there is inflation(obviously) and the economy is not going up (staggered GDP etc.), therefore, according to the definition, we are approaching Stagflation? How come nobody on the news mentioned this?

revisited 26/03

alas i think Australia has yet again dodged the bullet. it's a strange picture of house price rising, commodities export better than ever, and domestic business environment in a mix of laughs and tears. one thing's apparent, though, that there are a lot of vacancies ads on Collins Street. Business, real business, is not good.