UPDATED: 20.02.2009

If there is something not answered here, Google knows a lot about me. Search for “mgcarley” or “mathew carley”, and chances are, I am the result.

A bit about Mathew (stolen from my Facebook profile).

“Stolen from Facebook?”… yes. I log in there more often than here because there, I have the audience… here, well, as far as I know, no-one reads this tripe :)

I was born and bred in Hamilton, New Zealand, and for reasons I can’t seem to figure out, I live in Mumbai, India (and have done since 27 November, 2008. What a day to arrive!)

Before that, I was living in Helsinki, Finland from October 2005 – on-and-off -though due to the efficiency (or lack thereof) in the Finnish Immigration Department, I was only given my first residence permit on 11 April 2007.

While waiting for my permit, I also did stints in France, Thailand, Czech Republic, Italy, Germany and… yeah.

I run 3 companies in different sectors of the luxury market, and recently ceded control of the Finnish branch office to a business partner. I work with a lot of different companies on a lot of different projects (some turn up on my CV, others don’t).

I’m slowly shifting my focus away from mass-market to focus on the luxury-market, and will focus a bit less on IT in order to accelerate progress in our other markets.

Even so, I believe that through my career that I will remain heavily involved in IT, and so I have my hands in startups all over the place (as you might have noticed).

Life seems to be taking me all over the place – hopefully this will continue. In December 2007, I returned to Finland after a 2-month contract in Japan. My most recent big trip (save migrating to India in 2008) was just before Christmas 2007, when I went to Frankfurt, Germany to buy a car and drive through Austria, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkey to Tbilisi, Georgia… I stayed 3 weeks and flew home to Finland.

Work and Goals

If I can find an excuse to travel, I will. When I travel for pleasure, I like to find company in my fellow Hospitality Club members. When I’m at home, I host them (If you’re heading in this direction, mgcarley is my username)

At the moment I am working to get my business(es) in order, establish myself properly and pave the way to make myself wealthy and take over the world…

 

Activities and Interests

Golf, Tennis, Karate, Cycling, Driving, Travelling, Learning Languages, Programming (Mobile applications and Rich Internet Applications), Practical Jokes, Listening to and playing music.

Photography, videography and multimedia stuff. Sound and sight are important to me. As is food (cooking and eating). And my hands.
People, Cultures and Women (which incidentally confuse the hell out of me and aggravate me plenty, but I still love ‘em anyway. Just a pity you can’t take them apart to see how they work!)

International Business, Venture Capital, Finance. Economics, Taxation (weird, I know), International Law, eLearning, Tourism, Hotels, Relaxation, Meditation, Health, Electronics, Mobile Devices, Sound and Video production, Drupal, Design, User Interfaces and usability.

(Free and) Open Source Software. Hospitality.

I like to tinker, and despite my past views on education (I disliked school), I’m big on education, but not necessarily traditional school.

I love to drive, I love fast cars, I love the idea of the Autobahn, and I *loved* driving at fairly excessive speed on it (over 200km/h in some parts (as well as the Austrian, Hungarian and Turkish highways). I have video which I will probably post to my website one day.

I like Porsche (especially Boxter or Cayman), Benz (S-Class) and Audis A8… Luxury without too much bling and of course, engineering bliss.

 

Music

Put simply? Very varied. I like most music from all around the world – some 24, 500 pieces grace my playlist, ranging from Bach, Brahms and Beethoven to Sibelius, from Nigel Kennedy and Vanessa Mae to Yo-yo Ma, from Buddha Bar, from Alan Parsons Project to Electric Light Orchestra to Pet Shop Boys, from The Eagles to Rod Stewart to Metallica to Black Sabbath, Apulanta to CMX to Lordi to Yö to Zen Cafe, HENRY ROLLINS, Cherry Poppin’ Daddies to Glen Miller, Santana to Yngwie Malmsteen, as much of “The Rough Guide to…” albums that I could find, from Crowded House to Dire Straights, DJ Tiesto to Benny Benassi, Elemeno P to Green Day, to Mika to Lily Allen and (literally) hundreds of others.

Books

Last fiction book I read was “The Asian Connection”, by Glenn Carley (not a coincidence – its my dad’s third book).

Am currently reading “How to win friends and influence people”, having finished “How to stop worrying and start living” both by Dale Carnegie. I keep “The Teaching of Buddha” handy and I’m working my way through “The Human Brain” by Susan Greenfield.

Otherwise I stick to informational stuff like newspapers, certain types of magazines (National Geographic) and whatever else I find interesting.

TV/Movies

Don’t watch TV much (except Late Night with Conan!), but I keep Family Guy, Futurama, Scrubs, House MD, QI (Quite Interesting), and several documentaries handy from channels such as National Geographic, Discovery, History and a few others, covering topics like health, money, predictions, politics and government, religion, the future, science, space, disasters, technology, travel, weapons/martial arts, big brother (as in, they’re watching you, not Big Brother the reality show-yuck!). I am also a heavy consumer of various Video-streaming sites such as Guba.com, TED.com, BBC World, CNET/ZDNet and TVNZ.

My #1 favourite movie would be 1 Giant Leap, and I’m anticipating 1GL 2.

I also liked:
The Girl Next Door (Elisha Cuthbert baby)
Cruel Intentions (Reese Witherspoon – I especially like the screwed-up faces she makes when shes riding with Ryan Philippe in the jag… reminds me of someone I know)
Lost in Translation (Scarlett Johannsen before I totally lost respect for her for going out with that douchebag Timberpond or something)
300 (2006 – History, blood and gore. What can I say?)
Fast and the Furious Tokyo Drift (2006 – Fast cars and the whole Yakuza thing, plus that Vin Diesel guy is only on-screen for about 30 seconds, which almost makes up for FF 1&2)
Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure (1988 – This movie got me started playing the Piano).
Footrot Flats (1989 – Obligatory NZ feature-length cartoon that I grew up with)
Good Morning Vietnam (1987 – Need I explain?)
The Man who Sued God (2001)
Dogma (1999 – Part 4 of 7, taking the piss out of religion)
The worlds fastest Indian (2006)
Man of the Year (2006)
Into the Wild (2007)
…and surely others!

I don’t do the cinema thing much, but I’ve enjoyed many movies in the past couple of months on flights. Admittedly, on some flights I may have imbibed too much Vodka, so I can’t really remember what I watched or whether I enjoyed it enough to mention it as a “favorite” :D

Quotable Quotations:

Sometimes I get what I want. Sometimes I don’t get what I want. And sometimes I get what I never expected.
-Ramesh S. Balsekar

If someones standing in line in front of me at the café, and they can’t decide what they want in the half an hour it took to get to the register, I should be allowed to kill them.

While some people drink at the fountain of wisdom, others merely gargle.

I lost my head when I found my heart… I act stupid, due to cupid…

Women should have labels on their foreheads that say ‘Government Health Warning: women can seriously damage your brains, genitals, current account, confidence, razor blades, and good standing among your friends’.

“The only difference between the women I’ve dated and Charles Manson is that Manson has the decency to look like a nut case when you first meet him.” –Richard Jeni

If my father is Welsh and my mother is Hungarian what does that make me? Well-Hung.

A slashdot post citing references? You, my friend, are way out of line. –Slashdot user #318230

Ah yes, how dare we obey our own laws. You ignorant fool, it doesn’t matter if what we do in Canada is illegal in the USA, it matters if it’s illegal in Canada. Want to change it? Too fucking bad. It’s our country, you have your own. –Slashdot user #989335

Happiness is only real when shared.

“Never invite vegetarians to BBQ’s, it’s like inviting lesbians to a dick sucking festival.” –Eddie Olavarrieta

…There’s a lot of porn piling up on the internet… it doesn’t download itself! -Greg House, M.D.

“Why are you suspicious?”
“Because it’s either that, or accept that you’ve done something nice. Then I have to deal with the Horsemen and the rain of fire, and the end of days”.
James Wilson and Greg House

Witch, n. (1) An ugly and repulsive old woman, in a wicked league with the devil. (2) A beautiful and attractive young woman, in wickedness a league beyond the devil.

Being happy doesn’t mean everything’s perfect; it just means you’ve decided to see beyond the imperfections.

“Come to the edge”, we said; and they said “No, it’s too high”.
“Come to the edge”, we said; and they said “No, we will fall”.
“Come to the edge”, we said; and they very reluctantly came.
And we pushed. And they flew.

Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four essential food groups: alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fat.

“My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.”
- Albert Einstein

New Rule:
If you’re going to insist on making movies based on crappy, old television shows, when you have to give everyone in the Cineplex a remote so we can see what’s playing on the other screens. Let’s remember the reason something was a television show in the first place is the idea wasn’t good enough to be a movie.