May 18, 2008

My typical Sunday morning involves sitting in one of the cafes on Mohamed Sultan Road, demolishing a coffee and leafing through whatever reading material happens to be lying around. Usually I go to the Book Cafe, which (joy of joys) has The Times, the NYT, and the Sydney Morning Herald in its stacks. Today, though, I’m at Delicatessen - which has much better coffee (and a truly great ham-and-omelette croissant), but doesn’t have international newspapers.

Mar 6, 2008

You’ve probably noticed how weak the US dollar is lately. Try this on for size. At an Apple store in the USA, the top-spec Macbook Air costs USD 3,098. In Australia, it costs AUD 4,338 (USD 4,056). A roundtrip to Honolulu on Jetstar (if you can handle Jetstar economy class) will set you back about AUD 920. In Britain it costs GBP 2,028 (USD 4,045), and a round-trip to JFK costs as little as GBP 215.

Feb 12, 2008

Act I: In Which I Can Suddenly Speak Mandarin SFX: Phone ringing AUTOMATIC VOICE: We are now transferring your call to a consultant. Please hold the line. LADY ON PHONE: HellosirwelcometoStandardCharteredhowmayIassistyou. ME: Hi; I’d like to cancel my credit card please. Pregnant pause ME: I’d like to cancel my credit card, please? LADY ON PHONE: Hello? ME: Can you hear me? LADY ON PHONE: Hello, sir? ME: Can you hear me?

Sep 11, 2007

Presented without comment, via Boing Boing and Reuters: _A protest action by a group of Singaporeans with Japanese anime figurines such as the 5-inch tall Ultraman, robots and monsters with placards met some real-life police in the city-state._ A handful of fans of Japanese anime had turned up at a Singapore public park on August 25th with armfuls of the toys to protest against a clampdown on Internet downloading of anime material by Singapore animation distributor Odex.

Aug 31, 2007

A few weeks ago, someone noticed an enormous open interest position in the 700-strike calls on the S&P; 500, for September expiry. These are pretty much useless - the equivalent of just being long the index - unless the S&P; were to drop about 50% in the next month. So, of course, that’s what everyone on the intertubes assumed was going to happen. OMG OSAMA BIN LADEN IS INSIDER-TRADING, etc. etc.