boon's log stardate 3403.04
Sun Tzu's Art of War was quite interesting, but I still cannot put my finger onto how this "art of war" can be applied onto my daily work life. Anyways, out of the 13 chapters, the trainer only managed to reach Chapter 3: Attack by Strategem. He spent most his time talking about his life experiences and what he has read before somewhere, sometime ago. For instance, did you know that McDonald's was really setup in the 50's by a Mr. McDonald? And the latest owner of McDonald's (before he died some years ago) was actually a milkshake machine salesman, Raymond Kroc, who later joined Mr. McDonald in expanding McDonald's as a franchising multi-million dollar fastfood chain? The current overall owner of the McDonald's chain is his widowed wife, Mrs. Raymond Kroc, who lives in Chicago and earns USD$45,000,000.00 a month and, check this out - during McDonald's peak, there is a McDonald's Restaurant being opened on the globe every 7 minutes. Imagine, the time needed to order a plate of Char Koay Teow and then eat it - voila! another McDonald's is set up! Apparently, for every cent that Kroc earns, Bill gates earns USD$200. Amazing? Believe it or not... Well, all these stories were interesting at first, but it gets kinda boring when you are ovedosed with it, especially after lunch.

Okay.

Read in the newspapers yesterday that the infamous Penthouse Magazine (or General Media Inc.) is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy-court protection on Tuesday so it can restructure debt and operations. Can you imagine that? You (or at least myself) would have though that folks in the porn industry will survive the storm no matter what the economy's condition is. Some media sources said that it is mainly due online competitors and also bond payments that really "choked off" the company. The headline was quite ironic, "Penthouse goes Bust". Read more? Check it out HERE.

But what do you think about the government's strict law against/banning pornography? I remember when I was in college, one of the lecturers who read E&E Engineering in college(Masters, Berkeley), said that he does not think that it is wise to have a strict law governing pornography - giving an example that if you are walking in a park and there is a whole row of beautiful roses, daisies, carnations, etc.. AND then there is this sign, "Please do not pluck the flowers". Tendency is that more people will pluck the flowers - being human and all that - as compared if there is no sign. It is either a classic case of rebellion or a "Cuba Try" attitude (or an inquisitive attitude). He went on saying that without the ban, and when people are given the rights to choose what they think is good for them, it will help in terms of building the overall maturity of the person and perhaps it will also minimize on harrasment issues. Well, let me know what you think... vote buttons are to the right of the screen.

boon out...