40 Things You May Not Know

These are the 40 things.

1. Money isn't made out of paper; it's made out of cotton.

2. The 57 on Heinz ketchup bottle represents the varieties of pickle the company once had.

3. Your stomach produces a new layer of mucus every two weeks - otherwise it will digest itself.

4. The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp paper.

5. The dot over the letter 'i' is called a "tittle".

6. A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top.

7. Susan Lucci is the daughter of Phyllis Diller.

8. A duck's quack doesn't echo ... no one knows why.

9. 40% of McDonald's profits come from the sales of Happy Meals.

10 Every person has a unique tongue print (no licking at the scene of a crime!).

11. 315 entries in Webster's 1996 Dictionary were misspelled.

12. The 'spot' on 7UP comes from its inventor who had red eyes. He was albino.

13. On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily.

14. During the chariot scene in 'Ben Hur' a small red car can be seen in the distance.

15. Warren Beatty and Shirley MacLaine are brother and sister.

16. Chocolate affects a dog's heart and nervous system; a few ounces will kill a small sized dog.

17. Orcas (killer whales) kill sharks by torpedoing up into the shark's stomach from underneath, causing the shark to explode.

18. Most lipstick contains fish scales (eeww)..

19. Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn't wear pants!

20. Ketchup was sold in the 1830s as medicine.

21. Upper and lower case letters are named 'upper' and 'lower' because in the time when all original print had to be set in individual letters, the 'upper case' letters were stored in the case on top of the case that stored the smaller, 'lower case' letters.

22. Leonardo da Vinci could write with one hand and draw with the other at the same time.

23. Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War II were made of wood.

24. There are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos.

25. The name Wendy was made up for the book Peter Pan, there was never a recorded Wendy before!

26. There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with: orange, purple, and silver!

27. Leonardo Da Vinci invented scissors. Also, it took him 10 years to paint Mona Lisa's lips.

28. A tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion will make it instantly go mad and sting itself to death.

29. The mask used by Michael Myers in the original "Halloween" was a Captain Kirk mask painted white.

30. If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19. You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar.

31. By raising your legs slowly and lying on your back, you can't sink in quicksand.

32. The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law, which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.

33. American Airlines saved $40,000 in '87 by eliminating one olive from each salad served in first class.

34. The first product Motorola started to develop was a record player for automobiles. At that time, the most known player on the market was the Victrola, so they called themselves Motorola.

35. Celery has negative calories! It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with. It's the same with apples!

36. Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying!

37. The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.

38. Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book most often stolen from Public Libraries.

39. Back in the mid to late 80's, an IBM compatible computer wasn't considered a hundred percent compatible unless it could run Microsoft's Flight Simulator game.

40. Astronauts are not allowed to eat beans before they go into space because passing wind in a space suit damages them.

You may not know all of them but certainly it was fun. Don't you agree?

Maxis Comes Home

Ananda Krishnan did some mental acrobatics and hi-jink gymnastics.

He took Maxis private in 2007 and sold some percentage to the Saudis. He then went for an Indian sub-continent adventure in telecommunication acquisition hoping to increase Maxis footprint in India.

Now, he has been called back to do national service. Get Maxis back into Bursa! This was the call from the then Deputy Prime Minister in January 2009.

A self-made billionaire who controls Maxis Communications, Tanjong Plc, Measat and Astro,he dropped the bombshell in 2007 to take Maxis private and almost instantly raised eyebrows of millions of investors. Many Maxis investors back then were furious with the privatization plan simply because it disrupted their long-term investment plan – good dividend from a good organic-growing and well-managed telecommunication company. Ananda offered RM15.60 per share (inclusive of RM0.30 per share dividend) for all the minority shareholders, a 20% premium to the last-traded price of RM13.00 a share before the announcement to take the company off the stock exchange.

The 71-year-old media mogul is also reportedly toying with the plan to buy English football club Newcastle United for £80 million, a deal which is just loose change to the tycoon. Ananda, whose family originates from Jaffna, Sri Lanka, is the third wealthiest man in Southeast Asia behind Robert Kuok and Ng Teng Fong and was reported to be the wealthiest Tamil in the world. His purchased of 46% of Maxis Communications from British Telecom and AT&T for $680 million thus raising his stake to 70%. This was his greatest coup after acquiring Tanjong Plc.

To many of the ex-shareholders, Ananda was too cunning for them. He decided to take Maxis private more even though he had promised shareholders a bright future during its pre-listing. Once he got his cache of cash, he booted them out.

Apaprently, the tycoon was said to be sulking because the stock price did not reflect the actual value of the company hence the privatization. Compared with government-controlled Telekom Malaysia (KLSE: TM, stock-code 4863) (mobile player Celcom was part of Telekom) and Telenor’s DIGI.com Berhad (KLSE: DIGI, stock-code 6947), Maxis was traded at the lowest P/E price to earnings ratio. However, investors preferred Maxis because DIGI.com was too expensive while Telekom was too crappy then.



There were also other speculations as to why this sudden exit from the local and institutional’s funds took place.

Just like Genting Berhad, Ananda was said to be cautious with the previous Badawi’s weak and his auto-pilot administration. The local telco market was already reaching saturation level and it was none other than DIGI.com that was the leader in “price-canabalizing” which frustrated Maxis very much then.

Ananda was desperate to get out and be free to relocate elsewhere. India looks promising then. Ananda became obsessed with India and Indonesia markets. He was impatient and wanted to immediately used the cash horde to make his mark in those 2 markets.

Unfortunately, his foray into India and Indonesia was short of his expectations. His voyage into Indonesia viz PT Natrindo Telepon Selular and to India via Aircel Ltd as well as on Sri Lanka’s soils were not easy particularly in India due to this Jaffna Tamil roots.


Now, we see an intended re-listing in the local Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange possibly by year end 2009.The unseen hand had turned visible in the form Prime Minister Najib. Najib wants Maxis to come in to scoop the available monies in the market. So what is Ananda going to do with his foreign operations|?

Maxis commanded about RM40 billion in market capitalization before delisting from KLSE and that means Ananda is flush with cash.

But why re-list now when Maxis was adamant to pull out two years ago? Could there be an agreement between Maxis and the Malaysian government to create a win-win solution? A sanctioned move?

Let us look at teh Indian scenario.

Lara-Dutta-Aircell-MumbaiMaxis may be a darling company but Ananda has learnt that it’s still a long journey to make it big in India’s market. Maxis plans to invest $5 billion more in its Indian joint venture, 75% stake in Aircel Ltd., and to expand the mobile service provider's network after spending $5 billion for the current fiscal year ending Mar 31. With the ambition to offer 3G in India, Maxis’s needs huge amount of money and every billion of dollars count so where else do you seek funds if not from Malaysians?

Competition is tough in India – while Maxis was trying to establish its foot-print, player such as Bharti is already talking about a merger of its India’s Airtel and South Africa’a MTN (largest cell-phone operator in Africa), creating the world’s third largest telco in terms of subscribers. Bharti Airtel and competitor Reliance Communications have been cutting each other’s throat in their fierce fight for subscribers.

Most Indians who can afford cell phones have already signed up with Airtel, Reliance or other rivals but with the cheapest rates in the world, the fight is for the rural customers. Just to build new towers to win low revenue customers who may generate $10 a month in is already tough for a big player like Airtel who has about 100 million Indian customers, what more to newcomer Maxis Communications?

In order to survive the harsh environment especially in the 3G market naturally Maxis has to turn back once again to Malaysian investors for funds – and there are lots of it, as investors move funds out of fixed deposit accounts because of the current low interest regime.

The other sceanrio is PM Najib is having a tough time convincing foreign investors to park their hot money in Malaysia despite the much trumpeted 30% stake abolishment (certain sectors only) in mandatory Bumiputra stake. But most foreign investors are adopting wait-and-see attitude towards the latest news due to the frequent flip-flop in government policies favouring the affirmative policy. Such flip-flops will continue to make investors look elsewhere to invest particulalry to Sri Lanka, Vietnam and China.

The Maxis re-listing will provide that much needed fillip to boost morale on the Bursar.Thus, as the story goes, Najob hopes to use Maxis as a strategy to pull on foreign investors.

Let us assume, Maxis is fast-tracked to re-list in December 2009. Will investors be equally excited to buy in at the price offered in 2002 with the IPO price of RM4.85 a share for institutions and RM4.36 for retail players?

Obviously Maxis cannot demand the same valuation for the listing since the risk factors have increased since then. But barring any sudden tumble in Dow Jones now is perhaps the best time to test the water with the Maxis re-listing story.

So far, local IPOs have been very disappointing and Maxis may be the only candidate to reverse that. Again, another party to benefit from Maxis re-listing is definitely PM Najib’s own brother, Nazir Razak, because the underwriter for such a massive IPO (speculated in Oct 2009) is none other than CIMB Investment Bank.

So is Maxis back with a revenge to play Round 2 as Axiata strengthens up under Khazanah? Remember under Azman Mokhtar,Axiata is no longer as crappy; nor will Telenor be giving up its DIGI market share anytime soon.

Maxis must be prepared to accept a Johnny-come-lately role now that home players have smartened up.

Fun and Photography

ESPECIALLY FOR THOSE WHO ARE INTERESTED IN PHOTOGRAPHY! ONE HAS TO BE VERY SPECIFIC IN ONE'S INSTRUCTIONS!

There is not one dirty word in it, and it is still extremely funny. ..

The Smiths were unable to conceive children and decided to use a surrogate father to start their family. On the day the proxy father was to arrive, Mr. Smith kissed his wife goodbye and said, "Well, I'm off now. The man should be here soon."

Half an hour later, just by chance, a door-to-door baby photographer happened to ring the doorbell, hoping to make a sale. "Good morning, Ma'am", he said, "I've come to..."

"Oh, no need to explain," Mrs. Smith cut in, embarrassed, "I've been expecting you."

"Have you really?" said the photographer. "Well, that's good. Did you know babies are my specialty?"

"Well that's what my husband and I had hoped. Please come in and have a seat"

After a moment she asked, blushing, "Well, where do we start?"

"Leave everything to me. I usually try two in the bathtub, one on the couch, and perhaps a couple on the bed. And sometimes the living room floor is fun You can really spread out there."

"Bathtub, living room floor? No wonder it didn't work out for Harry and me!"

"Well, Ma'am, none of us can guarantee a good one every time. But if we try several different positions and I shoot from six or seven angles, I'm sure you'll be pleased with the results."

"My, that's a lot!", gasped Mrs. Smith.

"Ma'am, in my line of work a man has to take his time. I'd love to be In and out in five minutes, but I'm sure you'd be disappointed with that."

"Don't I know it," said Mrs. Smith quietly.

The photographer opened his briefcase and pulled out a portfolio of his baby pictures. "This was done on the top of a bus," he said.

"Oh, my God!" Mrs. Smith exclaimed, grasping at her throat.

"And these twins turned out exceptionally well - when you consider their mother was so difficult to work with."

"She was difficult?" asked Mrs. Smith.

"Yes, I'm afraid so. I finally had to take her to the park to get the job done right. People were crowding around four and five deep to get a good look"

"Four and five deep?" said Mrs. Smith, her eyes wide with amazement.

"Yes", the photographer replied. "And for more than three hours, too. The mother was constantly squealing and yelling - I could hardly concentrate, and when darkness approached I had to rush my shots. Finally, when the squirrels began nibbling on my equipment, I just had to pack it all in."

Mrs. Smith leaned forward. "Do you mean they actually chewed on your, uh...equipment?"

"It's true, Ma'am, yes.. Well, if you're ready, I'll set-up my tripod and we can get to work right away."

"Tripod?"

"Oh yes, Ma'am. I need to use a tripod to rest my Canon on. It's much too big to be held in the hand very long."

Mrs. Smith fainted!!

The message:

Language must be understood in its context.Are you laughing?

The Wry Wisdom of the Kamasutra

Maharishi Vatsyayan in his magnum opus "Kamasutra" has defined SEX is .............

"Duty", if done with your Wife.
"Art", if done with your Lover.
"Education", if done with a Virgin.
"Business Transaction", if done with a Prostitute.
"Social Work", if done with a Divorcee.
"Charity", if done with a Widow.
&
"Sacrifice", if done on your own.

Well said.

Less Funny More Outrageous

These pictures sent by my friend from Shanghai sure is not that funny but outright outrageous!

See it for yourself!

Maxis Nudged to Re-list on Bursar

It took no less that a forceful nudge in the rib-cage from the in-coming PM for Ananda to be aroused from his private financial sleep to consider a re-listing of Maxis on Bursa. That was January 2009. Now they, are telling that perhaps in December they may come in.

Reuters have this report on 26 July on this call-back to national duty.

Maxis, Malaysia's top mobile phone operator, could re-list by the end of the year following government calls to boost liquidity on the local exchange, a top business weekly reported today.

The Edge, citing unidentified sources close to the company, said the funds used from floating the company's Malaysian operations would be used to expand business in India and Indonesia.

"That's an option that's being seriously looked at. (A listing by year end) is possible, if regulatory approvals go smoothly," one source said.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak on Wednesday said he had asked Maxis to re-list on Bursa Malaysia to boost liquidity and draw in investors to the Southeast Asia's most laggard stock market so far this year.

Maxis said it would take into consideration what the premier had said when deciding on the timing to relist.

"When Maxis was privatised and de-listed in 2007, the stakeholders articulated the possibility of a re-listing of the company after internal re-structuring, some time in the future," the firm said in a statement issued later today.

The firm was de-listed by reclusive tycoon Ananda Krishnan, who controls 75 per cent of Maxis. The rest is owned by state-owned Saudi Telecom Co Ltd.

Maxis' market capitalisation stood at around RM39 billion before it was taken private, Reuters data showed, and the new listing is expected to give the company an enterprise value of RM40 billion, the report said.

Only plantation conglomerate Sime Darby and the Southeast Asian country's biggest bank, Maybank, have higher market capitalisation at RM47.5 billion and RM45.2 billion respectively.

So is Ananda heeding the call of the Pipe-piper? Likely so. But through which of his public vehicles? Tanjong, Measat or Astro?

Time will tell as all these three counters go flying up as they are buoyed by market rumours.

The Passing on of a Malaysian Legend

Yasmin Ahmad, the film director that dared to cross the racial divide in her literary works has gone. She passed on late yesterday night (25 July).

Malaysians from all walks of life are proud of her. She left us a priceless legacy in film and advertisement works that thrived on the themes of love, family ties and comedy against the backdrop of multiracial Malaysia. She was a true Malaysian.

Born in Bukit Treh, Muar, Johor on July 1 1958, Yasmin, who graduated in psychology from Newcastle University, United Kingdom, had won local and international creativity awards.

She began her career as a copywriter with Ogilvy & Mather before joining Leo Burnnett as joint creative director in 1993 and rose to become its creative executive director until her death.

She was married to Abdullah Tan Yew Leong.

Her creativity could be seen in many Petronas’ commercials and evoked emotion of the viewers, especially during the Aidilfitri celebration which would certainly be missed by viewers this year.

In the film industry, Yasmin, however, drew much controversy in view of her openness and boldness in analysing social issues.

She has been targeted by critics since her first movie, “Rabun” was screened in 2003 followed by “Sepet” (2004), “Gubra” (2006), “Mukhsin” (2006), “Muallaf” (2008) and Talentime (2009).

But she also earned rave reviews for “Sepet” which won the Best Film Award and the Best Original Screenplay Award at the Malaysian Film Festival 2005. “Sepet” also bagged several international awards, namely the Asian Film Award at the Tokyo International Film Festival 2005, the Grand Prix Award at the Creteil International Women’s Film Festival in the same year.

“Gubra” won the Best Screenplay award at the Malaysian Film Festival 2006.

“Muhsin” won the Generation kplus – Best Feature Film and the Deutsches Kinderhilfswerk Grand Prix award at the Berlin International Film Festival. “Mukhsin” also won the Best Asean Film at the Cinemanila International Film Festival 2007.

“Muallaf” won the Asian Film Award – Special Mention at the Tokyo International Film Festival 2008.

While leaving indelible marks at home, Yasmin’s movies gained international recognition as they were shown in Berlin, San Francisco, Singapore and at the Cannes Film Festival.

We will remember Yasmin always.