The gorgeous 407

Peugeot 407 - 01

 

Most people who know me know that I love BMWs. I’ve been a Bimmer fan since the age of 6 when my dad first brought home a red first generation 520 (can’t remember the E code number, though).

The Bimmer to me always has an aggressive front “face” and drove quite well for a sedan car… very much establishing BMW’s sporting saloon niche cars.

So here I was today evening sitting in my first Bimmer in a traffic jam, and along comes the Peugeot 407 alongside me. Damn, that is one gorgeous car. I mean, I fell in love with the looks of the car the first time I saw it, and it still gives me the shivers whenever I see one on the road. The car really looks so good in the flesh. Sadly, the 2.0 model imported by Naza into Malaysia is a underpowered compared to its direct competitors the Honda Accord, the Toyota Camry (urgh!) and the Mazda 6.

These were the cars I was considering prior to me going for the 2001 model E39 Bimmer. Of course the Bimmer drives better than any of these, but the Peugeot has the looks.

Jeremy Clarkson’s review of the car hit the nail on the head… he concludes:

What you really need, if you want to come across as moody and interesting, is something desperately unreliable.

This then is a car that offers the style-conscious motorist just about everything. We can see, as you slide by, that you must have a family but that you haven’t bought an MPV, which would mark you down as technically dead, or an SUV, which would identify you as being Wayne Rooney.

We can also see you’ve bought a French car, which means you’re anti-Bush, anti-war and possibly that you have a place near Pau. These are all good things, too.

Best of all, though, we can see you’ve bought a car that you knew full well would go wrong all the time. This is good, too. Sit at the side of the road with the bonnet up reading Victorian poetry and I can pretty much guarantee that every girl who drives by will want to sleep with you.

Great stuff! *grin*

my-KART project updates

my-KART logo

One of the best things that I’ve been involved with outside of family and work is the things that Azlan and I started with my-KART.

my-KART started out as a way that Azlan and I could have regular kart races with our friends. We previously found it very difficult to get a good “quorum” individually so decided to “pool” our group of friends. We then formed the Yahoo mailing list and that was when the interest spread quickly – mainly thru word of mouth.

Today (Nov 05) we have something like 170 registered members (give or take 20). And we constantly attract around 40 participants for our monthly races and our quarterly enduros.

We now see a lot of opportunities opening up to my-KART. Certainly, my-KART has a key role in shaping the motorsports industry in Malaysia. Our vision of building racing talent for the country through popularising grassroots motorsports starts with the amateurs, the PBEM (professionals, businessmen, executives and managers) segment, the casual enthusiast, the parents, local companies, car-clubs and not forgetting the youngsters who are the country’s future. To this end our aims and behaviours must be noble and sincere. We must ensure we build the community and awareness whether they race or not.

Over the next few months until end 2006 we shall focus on 5 key areas (in no particular order):

  • community: building the community & be active in social activities
  • members: continue to drive memberships & inculcate our values amongst our members
  • excellence: focus on excellence in our racing events
  • alliances: forge alliances
  • awareness: create corporate awareness, and wider visibility

Now we have a group of 20-30 core members sharing common ideas and actively contributing towards my-KART’s and the local motorsports industry’s future. I would invite all of you to be part of this journey as my-KART moves into 2006 and beyond.

Who are the Japanese singers I listen to?

A friend of mine got into my car and heard some Japanese music playing on my CD player. Who are the singers and why do I listen to them? Do I understand Japanese?

Firstly, the singers I currently listen to are Mayumi Itsuwa (mainly from her Memories album) and Utada Hikaru (only “can you keep a secret?”).

Why do I listen to them and if I understand the language… well my father worked with the foreign service and was once posted to Tokyo for 5 years. I lived with my parents for 2 years before moving to boarding school.

Actually, I enjoyed our time in Tokyo as I got to watch a LOT of anime and found the country quite unique and beautiful. Japan is a country that successfully blends technology and tradition without diluting either. I also learnt to eat tempura which is a good thing. 😉

Am I a finance manager??

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the challenges faced by finance managers in the world of business.

These are some fairly serious philosophical discussions. There are no right or wrong answers, but what is right for the circumstances and for the individual. I won’t bore you my dear readers (all two of you) on this particular site, but if you’d like to engage in philosophical or hypothetical discussions of financial & management topics you should go to my more serious website called “f.i.r.m. | financial responsibility and management network“.

What I’m watching nowadays

I’ve been watching Star Trek Enterprise and find it quite difficult to go thru the whole first season. Even T’pol’s character is not enough to make me stay the whole mile.

I had expected Enterprise to be more “edgy”, but it has ended up fairly safe using the standard formula from the original series. Given that this is humankind’s first foray into deep space, I would have expected to see some fear and trepidation of charting the unknown space. A bit of horror and some feeling of helplessness would be good.

So now I am watching Lost. Now this is a bit of what Enterprise should have been. One island / monster mystery as a background… the helplessness and reducing hope of being rescued, the characters with skeletons in the cupboard. Okay… I don’t expect Enterprise to be filled with dodgy characters… but hey they can’t all be squeeky clean?

I’m also going to start watching Battlestar Galactica… but not ready to comment | more info. Merely going by the rating it has earned.