Today, I called in sick for the morning and would come to office in the afternoon. I told my team leader I'd be absent the whole day if i'd feel any worse.

But that would mean I'll have nothing to do in the condo (yes, I hate idling while awake). I just did my laundry anyhow, took a nice bath, shaved, put some after shave balm, got dressed, put on my fave scent (Giorgio Armani Mania ... my last date loved sniffing it) and went out to the jungle that is Manila. With the MRT and LRT trains as the metaphor for my swinging vines.

I did my lunch at the 3rd floor food court in Times Plaza in UN, and while I was munching on my humble lunch of maling (is maling = meatloaf?) and eggs, I heard two, seemingly high-ranking company people discussing stuff using big corporate words like "international", "key project", "financial target", and the irrisistible "millions" (not to say I love money or detest the rich, but you have to have respect for people who're ping-ponging words like that in public).

Somehow all of this intrigues me (again, it's not about the "millions") but the overall structure of how such things work. The system, the movement ... the economics of it all. I did mention that I had begun an interest in economics. You see, I'm a graduate of computer engineering, and I wouldn't be surprised if people stereotyped me as some sort of geek. Well I am in a sense, but surely not geeky enough to be worth that anti-geek radiation suit. Now economics ... this is one of my most hated subjects in college. I thought it was boring and dull and pointless. I wanted my hands to create instant results. Hence, my affinity for programming because there, a few strokes of the fingers and you could produce something interesting like say, computer games. I made my first computer games, Eclipsis and Space Den back in 1996. Both gone to the pc game heaven in the sky when my idiotic cousin formatted my hard disk without my consent.

Now I bought this book The Worldly Philosophers by Heilbroner and to my surprise, I loved reading it. At least, I'm still on the introductory and preface parts *grin*. Initially, I wondered what sort of bore-monster will be waiting for me in the next pages.

Quite unexpectedly, the author anticipated what's in my mind by saying something like "reading a book about economics and saying it is boring is like studying logistics and saying that warfare must be dull". Oh how cool of you Mr. Heilbroner. Beer?

Not only that, he made the book "engrossing". Like how you ask? Stories. Yeah, stories baby and lots of 'em. Not just any story mind you. These stories are funny in, uhm, an economic sort of way (am I getting really geeky now? again?).

So. On with Adam Smith !!