Google Thinks Asians in Asia Just Can't Help Bribing

So I've just completed the first course of Google's online training for partners in Asia.
And guess what the very first slide says?

'Don't bribe'.
This pretty much sets the tone for the rest of the course,
which comes across as a Westerner calmly and patiently explaining to his inherently corrupt Asian counterpart why bribery is wrong,
and what the consequences are.

They were even kind enough to include pictures of goddamn hands holding stacks of cash.

And the motherfucking quiz at the end takes condescension to a whole other level:
Simple questions that are something like 'Is giving money to an official wrong?'

Motherfucker.

Another Goddamn Rant

Was forced to skip another essential gym session last night,
which ended up with many of my other frustrations bubbling up and almost escaping my lips.
But nope.
Gotta be quiet, gotta lie.
To keep the peace.

She's happy so long as she's not the reason I'm upset.
Although she probably knows it,
if I make any subtle hints that she was a contributing factor,
then she gets really upset,
and the whole conversation will once again,
revolve only around her.

I appreciate what she does for me,
for the family, I fucking do.

And I hate the idea that I even have to add this goddamn obvious caveat.

I see where the family's going.
I see it with my dad who's body is falling apart and STILL he has to work,
and not just work,
but worry about losing his fucking job after dedicating his life to the company.
And oh no, it's not like he's earning a lot based on seniority, nope.

To show its 'appreciation',
because of his age,
they've got him on a yearly contract that may or may not be renewed each year.
For lower pay.

Motherfuckers.

Anyway I digress.
Besides the standard family stuff,
there are a few things that are really important to me,
to the point where it falls short of obsession (I hope).

Finally being fit,
and having a six-pack and a big but cut figure (shut the fuck up).
I'm 33 this year and I feel the fucking clock ticking.

Having enough money to NOT have to get into the office.
Work begins in like, three weeks.
I have three weeks of free time. And just the thought of stepping into the office again,
getting up in the morning,
putting on the prerequisite attire,
day in and day out,
while having the spectre of job loss looming over me the whole time.

Just the fucking thought of it.

It's not exactly the work that I hate.
I see the path laid out.
Keep doing the same thing with minor variations for days and weeks and months and years,
with pay increments here and there,
never enough to be fully comfortable though... never enough.

Get an apartment,
worry even more about losing job to make payments...
begin cutting corners in terms of ethics or self-respect...

Keep doing the same thing over and over again.
Until a thing grey carpet covers my head,
until my skin is like the old trees in the oldest parks,
until my back hurts constantly,
until it becomes a struggle to walk.

And have the worry about making ends meet become more intense.
Without my youth and strength,
what will happen if I fall sick?
If she falls sick?
If something happens. A fire maybe. A minor accident even.

No. Fuck no.

If she won't support me,
hey, that's fine.

I still have to do it.
For the little one. For myself. And yes, even for her too, even if she doesn't fucking appreciate it.

Any new plans for businesses,
keep it to yourself.

Got complaints?
Blog about it. Don't whine like a little bitch.

Pretend pretend pretend.

Set a time for the gym,
and be OK with her getting mildly upset that you left even when she wanted your help with something at the time (which, by the way, is most of the time, at all times of the day).

It must be done.
If we were climbing a mountain,
we'd never get to the summit doing things her way.
And what's worse, she'd probably complain about never reaching the summit despite the many fucking breaks we had to take.

Nope.
This must be done.

I'll wind down the fucking chicken business,
and look up what's trending in this shit-hole of  a city,
and see if I can make some small change,
before I take another stab at the chicken supply business.

Well enough of that.

Democracy?

Gonna be a quick post on something that's been crashing itself against my skull,
trying desperately to get out.

Democracy. Specifically so-called Western-style democracy,
which also happens to be practised in Singapore.

Here's the thing. Fascism is really hard, you guys.
Maintaining a really hardcore police state tends to drain profits.

Manipulation is so much better.
It's the lubrication that allows for a 'soft dictatorship',
or something like, I don't fucking know, a 'semi-totalitarian state'.

Democracy works only with an informed populace.
You don't need to know everything, but you need to have and regularly practice critical thinking skills.

- and I've just again been interrupted by my wife who wants help with the baby.
Nothing wrong with that usually, unless it happens all goddamn day,
preventing me from doing meaningful work.

It's hard looking after a hyperactive baby,
but expecting me to contribute so much time to helping out
will prevent me from working.
And guess what? No work = no money.

She understands that on some level.
Some level. But it seems like she gets so fucking emotional,
that logic goes out the window.

Things that could've been settled in a mere hours take fucking weeks.
It's like all she sees is how hard her part is in looking after the baby,
despite the help she gets from my mom and siblings.
Nope.
I need to help at all motherfucking hours of the motherfucking day.
Even with my messed up body,
occasional migraine attacks.

And what's even better?
She usually doesn't even fucking acknowledge the help I do put in.
Just today I spent half of the day looking after our baby,
despite not having enough sleep,
body aches all over
(from having to sleep outside, because she asked me to due to my snoring waking up the baby),
and a fucking headache.

When she finally had the time to look after the baby,
she chastised me for essentially not helping out at all,
by making it seem like she does all the work.

And this happens daily.
While I'm trying to get the business off the ground and look for a job at the same time.

Motherfucker, I can't even finish this goddamn short article without being interrupted twice.

Anyway, I digress.
Best to end this early.

Democracy doesn't work with a dumbed down, uninformed population.
And voting for the lesser evil?
That's still fucking immoral.

I mean, if person A kills two of your kids, and person B kills only one,
would you vote for person B?
This is relevant especially in the US and the endless wars that they wage on other countries around the world.

Well enough of that.

Still Sinking

We went below the $18K mark yesterday,
and I'm still nowhere close to properly launching the business.

The money will run out at soon,
and instead of launching the business,
I'll probably have to get a job.
And in the current job market coupled with the colour of my skin,
it's definitely going to be harder than last time.
Hell, it could even take more than six months.

I'm trying so goddamn hard to get the business off the ground,
and get in shape to look good for interviews.

And yet, time and again she has shown that
she just doesn't seem to get it.
We've had arguments and discussions and agreements
over how she should focus on the baby so I can do some actual work.
And yet nearly every single day, I can barely get a step or two forward
before having to put things on the backburner while I help out with the Littlest Dictator.

I really do love spending time with the little one, I do.
Not too many dads get to spend
almost the whole day every day with their kids for the first years of their lives.
That's something I'll forever treasure.

But the money IS running out.
My dad's likely going to be retired (or forced into retirement by next year or the year after that).
When that happens, what the hell are we going to do?
Where's the money for the milk and diapers going to come from?

We're on a sinking ship,
and it really hit home yesterday (or was it the day before?)
how she seems oblivious to this fact.
She actually asked me to get a stroller that's designed for a bigger toddlers,
one that would likely cost more than two hundred bucks.
And here's the kicker: It's unnecessary!
Our current one works just fine and IS meant for bigger toddlers too.

This is apart from the occasional question on when we're getting our own apartment,
to the weekly question of where shall we go on the weekends,
as if I had got any proper work done throughout the motherfucking week.

We keep going like this,
and the money will run out,
and her reaction's likely going to be another responsibility-evading 'I didn't know!'

I desperately need her help to actually look after the baby throughout the day while I work.
Yea sure, you'll catch me watching videos and shit like that.
But it's something I need to do, to get going.
I'm trying to break out of that habit, to just get to work, but it's an uphill task,
and I get interrupted every ten or fifteen or twenty minutes.

She needs to understand that an hour or thirty minutes a day is
NOT ENOUGH to get proper work done.
But she can't.
Or more likely, she won't.

So all I can do is continue to struggle as the ship slowly sinks down into the water.

Well enough of that.

Permission to express grief

There have been so many tragedies lately,
that I've almost become numb.

From natural disasters to man-made ones,
the ones we read about,
and the ones that are alluded to,
but we never find out about.

From the atrocities committed by so-called Western powers,
to the horrifying things done by China and Russia and their allies,
to everything in between done by the smaller players, like Isis.

Denials and bullshit justifications come from those players on a regular basis.
What's really exhausting is listening to the ignorant, bigoted justifications by their civilian supporters.
Everyone from the truly bigoted ones who celebrate the deaths and torture of civilians in other countries,
to the self-proclaimed liberals who seem to be desperate to convince themselves
why their side is the 'good' side.

The horrific bombing in Brussels has dominated the news recently.
And while people from all over the world have expressed solidarity with the Belgians,
quite a few have rightfully pointed out the hypocrisy in how the so-called Western victims are treated in the media and by citizens in those countries, compared to the non-Western ones.

And of course the justifications for this begin to pour in,
grasping at anything they can get a hold of to claim why there's nothing wrong with that.
That OF COURSE they will identify more with Western victims,
followed by finger-pointing at those who point out the hypocrisy,
in an attempt to shame them into silence.

None of them bothers to mention the global nature of mainstream media today.
Deaths of civilians in faraway 'Brown' countries are treated more like entertainment,
or something that simply happens in that part of the world.
Oh, did you know? 10 families were wiped out in a drone attack in Afghanistan today.
Let's move on, to sports now, shall we?

We've been conditioned to tune out those deaths,
to identify those victims as 'others'.
What it basically means is that their deaths don't mean so much.

I have a feeling that the outrage and incredible outpouring of grief for the Brussels victims (the ones in Brussels, not the 'Brown' ones in those faraway countries)
is due to several reasons:

1. Fear. If it can happen in Brussels (and Paris), it can happen to your city, too. Suddenly it's no longer entertainment or simply background news.

2. Racism. How DARE they target Westerners - meaning 'White', though the victims of course include non-White civilians.

Never mind the fact that their countries have been waging unprovoked war on so many countries for so very long. Nope. They are superior. It's not the same, you see because of reasons.
Clashing cultures is one bullshit reason they like to use over and over again.

It also reaffirms their twisted, racist beliefs. The comments from some of these people
make it look like they're almost happy that it happened.
Now they can justify attacking that Brown family who lives down the street.
They can harass others they deem responsible (of course, always absolving themselves when people like them commit atrocities because of again, reasons).

Oh and by the way, when you attack an entire goddamn country, EVERYONE is affected:
From law-abiding civilians to criminals. Everyone.
A few of them will retaliate in kind, and they won't adhere to anyone's standards but their own.
Ironic though, because attacking civilians is exactly what those good ol' regular NATO forces do.

3. Genuine sadness at the senseless loss of life, and a realization that this is what victims in those faraway countries encounter on a regular basis.
These are the ones who have just woken up.
The disconnect has been remedied.

From what I've seen online though, no.3 seems to be in the minority.

These reasons are by no means exhaustive, of course. But going from article to article,
readings comments on those articles and on social media... I think it's a pretty good bet.

World War 3 is coming, without a doubt.
There will at one point be a war amongst the major powers. We saw a glimpse of it when Russia intervened in Syria.

The US is on the decline and despite their best efforts,
other powers are rising.
And they will not bow.

What does that mean for people like you and me?
Misery.

I just hope it doesn't happen in my or my children, or my grandchildren's lifetimes.

As for what my plans are?
To make as much money as possible,
and retire somewhere rural,
out of the way.
Live our lives in peace.
I can hope, can't I?

Well enough of that.

Goddammit

If for some insane reason you've been reading my blog (seriously, don't you have a life?),
you'll realize that I complain quite a bit here.
OK, OK... fine. I bitch a lot.
It's my motherfucking blog.
Also, everybody needs an outlet.

But this post is going to be different!
It's going to be upbeat and filled with sunshine and bunnies!

Just kidding.
And fuck you.

Where was I? Oh yeah.
Around late afternoon yesterday,
I sort of got the wind knocked out of me. Emotionally (ehh go fuck yourself).

A simple request to my wife to help me identify three Russian meat companies...
just three...
turned into another mini-argument.

These happen a lot whenever a business-related request of mine comes up.
And from where I'm standing,
I've got a pretty good idea why. At least one of the major reasons anyway:
She doesn't think it's a good idea.
Doesn't matter what it is,
if even a hint of complexity comes into play...
she immediately expresses reservations.

Oh she'll say that she supports it.
But I've learned a long time ago that it doesn't mean much.

She's a big fan of asking for things,
and spending money...
but when it comes to making money,
eh, not so much.

She's even expressed interest in working,
as in, she'll work while I stay at home and look after our baby.

One problem though: It won't work.
I know it won't. She'll miss the baby too much,
she'll get too annoyed at work,
she'll be too tired and stressed and come back every day in a very irritable state.

Might not happen immediately.
But it will.

I know her way too well to know this.
Oh maybe I'm just a little bitter right now.

Back to what happened this afternoon.
Right after that mini-argument, I felt... deflated.

What's the point, really?
Why not just get a regular job,
work miserably a few months (while worrying about losing said job),
save up enough for the down payment on a nondescript HDB apartment,
and spend the rest of my goddamn life trying to stay ahead of the interest payments.

And she'd still be dissatisfied.
All that would mean fewer vacations and luxuries.

And I would be miserable.
Not the kind of atmosphere I'd want our child to grow up in.

But that response. That fucking response.

And what she said about 10-15 mins later felt even worse.
As she picked up the baby,
in a tone that had a mixture of resignation and regret when you treat a motherfucking pet poorly,
she said that we could review those companies later,
after she was done washing the baby.

As if she were doing me a favour.
Like a condescending boss talking down to her incompetent subordinate.

And during this moment... it just hit me out of nowhere:
I wish I were married to someone I was attracted to.

And it made me even more depressed because it's true.
Holy shit it's true.

She could be someone I'm attracted to.
She could be.
All she has to do is workout.
But I can't even broach the topic without driving her to tears,
and having to pretend I meant something else.

All this bitching and moaning might seem like I don't appreciate her.
I do.
I mean holy shit without her I wouldn't have a daughter,
and wouldn't even be able to look after her properly.
My life would probably be a mess (literally and metaphorically).
I owe a LOT to her.

She genuinely cares about me,
as I care about her.

But certain aspects of her personality...
keep dragging me down.
And it takes a lot of effort to pull myself back up again.
All while pretending everything is OK.
Like climbing up a steep slope with weights tied to my ankles and shoulders.

I have to carry on, though.
The alternative is to just lay in the muck... pulling my daughter down with us.

Well enough of that.

Remember Where You Came From

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