5 Things I Learned This Chinese New Year

1) Chinese New Year cookies are just the best. Someone should open a shop that sells them all year round. I'll be a regular customer. Love the coffee almond cookies, peanut butter cookies and pineapple tarts the best.

2) The gloomy economic outlook is already reflected in the Ang Pows. This year's Ang Pows seem a lot smaller than the previous years.

3) I don't seem to have trouble explaining to my relatives what I do for a living anymore. Now lucky for me, most of them have heard of Nuffnang. When I used to tell them that I was doing an internet business, I used to get a look that said

"Ahhh.. another one of those guys that are just too lazy to work so you create an excuse to stay home and play computer games".

4) Speaking of games, I played wayyyy too much Guitar Hero this trip back. Can't help it when my family tells me that playing Guitar Hero with them is "spending time with the family". After all, it's Chinese New Year.

5) The Nuffies are really hardworking. I can see by the e-mails that go out that many of them are still working from home throughout Chinese New Year. 

And when they're not working, they do things like what Raine from Nuffnang Singapore did in an e-mail she sent to all of us.

Thank you Raine.

The Days Before Chinese New Year

7 Hours is the time it takes from you to fly from Kuala Lumpur to Dubai.

It is also the time it took me yesterday to travel from KL back to Penang by car. 7 fucking hours in the bloody car! Can you imagine that?!?

Fortunately for me Princess came along for the ride to keep me company so it made the trip a lot less painful. If I had to pick one person to be with me in an enclosed area for a long period of time, I would pick Princess. She's just so entertaining to be around with and she says the funniest things.

The night before we left for Penang, Princess and I went for a little Chinese New Year dinner of our own at Solaris Mont Kiara. I just recently discovered Solaris and it quickly became one of my favourite places to hang out. I don't know whether it's because of the many restaurants or bars or the way the place is lit up at night... but I just love it.

Princess and I picked this restaurant called Empire that served pretty fine-dining like food. It was Friday night so we decided to spoil ourselves. Plus the restaurant was having a promotion where if you spent more than RM150, they would give you 20% off your total bill. 

We tried to make good that offer but later on realized how painfully hard it is for two people to eat RM150 worth of food assuming you don't order any alcohol. 

Heck, we took out our little calculators and calculated everything. Even if the both of us had appetizers and dessert, we still wouldn't have made enough to hit RM150 so we decided to let go of our kiasuness in the end and do without appetizers and dessert ie fine dining budget style.

Halfway through our meal the chef came out and asked us about the food which I thought was fantastic! We later got to talking a little and I asked the chef "Hey where're you from? Are you from around here?"

And suddenly he looked around the restaurant and whispered to us

"I'm from Singapore... but don't let anyone know".

I was a little surprised at his reaction. I couldn't understand why! So I told him so what if someone knows you're Singaporean. Malaysians don't discriminate against Singaporeans and vice versa. I've loads of Singaporean friends... heck my business partner is Singaporean. 

In fact I think Malaysians and Singaporeans are very much alike. Look at the way we speak English. Nobody else in the world speaks English like us.

Anyway we ended the night early. Princess and I had to drive back to Penang together tomorrow and she was staying over at my place. Unprepared as usual she must've forgotten to bring her pajamas or something so she ended up running through my closet (without my permission) and grabbing herself a t-shirt and shorts of mine.

The next thing I noticed when I went looking for her was this.

She was standing in the toilet reading a book while removing her make-up.

Forget my amusement on how a girl can remove her make-up and read a book at the same time... pay attention to how my bermuda shorts look like on her.

It practically looked like she was wearing long pants!

Hahahahaa cute little Princess. 

Reminds me of the time she was wearing a bath robe at the Venetian.

Can you even see any part of her leg?

Happy Chinese New Year everyone!

Nicholas's New Toy & Nuffnang Ang Pows

Just about a week ago the Nuffies were having our usual lunch together at a cafe near the office on Heritage Row. We were talking about the usual stuff... celebrity blogger gossip, movies, relationships and sex. 

Then at one point some of the guys started talking about phones. Nicholas who had been with Nuffnang since some of our earlier days had a phone that was close to a hundred years old that he thought needed replacing.

That reminded me of something... of how since months ago we've been meaning to get Nicholas a Blackberry since he's often out of the office for meetings and it'll help him send and receive his e-mails while he's out. Besides some of my friends have it and they all think it's great.

So when we all got back to the office after lunch I pulled him to a corner and told him we were going to get him a Blackberry Bold, the latest Blackberry in the market here so far. That would be Nuffnang's gift to him... not a company phone but his. That means we buy him the phone as a present and even if he leaves.... he keeps it (you're not going to leave are you dude?)

The next day we all went over to Pavilion for lunch and accompanied Nicholas to a Maxis outlet to get him a Blackberry. 

Needless to say, he was excited like a teenager about to get his first blowjob.

While the rest of the Nuffies pretended to be sad that they weren't getting one themselves yet. 

The Blackberry Bold turned out to be a pretty cool phone. 

Now Nicholas not only checks his e-mail in real-time but is online on MSN constantly 24 hours a day wherever he goes. Most of the time however, the truth behind your boss giving you a Blackberry is so that he can e-mail you anytime he likes and you can no longer use the excuse: "I haven't checked my mail yet".

HAHAHA! Nicholas... fooled you are!!! FOOLED I TELL YOU!!!

Nevertheless... Nicholas was still happy.

and Pinky still pretending to be sad. 

Silly girl... doesn't know the hell she just escaped.

-----------------

Just this week Ming came up with an idea. He declared that Nuffnang should give all its staff Chinese New Year Ang Pow for luck. You know so our Nuffies will make more money throughout the year.

It's my first time giving out Ang Pow's since clearly I'm not married, and I had no idea how much to give. So I asked Tim 2 (One of the Nuffies) how much was the average Ang Pow he got every year. Then I took that number he gave me and multiplied it by 10 and that was the Ang Pow we gave out to the Nuffies in the customized Nuffnang Ang Pow packets.

It turned out to be quite a lot of money but I think the Nuffies all deserved it. They all worked very very hard many days, even through weekends sometimes selling ads, servicing clients and even planning events for Nuffnangers. 

May everyone have a Happy Chinese New Year up ahead!

To my readers who are heading back to their hometowns, take advantage of this week to spend time with family and catch up with old friends.

To my readers who are overseas for work or study.... fret not. I know how you feel, I spent 3 years in the UK without coming home for Chinese New Year. It doesn't feel the same.... but being around friends and a phone call back home just makes you feel better.

Real Chanel or Fake Chanel?

I've only just recently come to learn how much a woman's hand bag can cost. Now I used to think LV was expensive with the lower range bags cost RM2,500 to RM5,000.

Until my girl friends told me about Chanel. Chanel apparently costs at least RM10,000 onwards... for each bag.

Seriously... unless the bag comes with a coffee maker, a missile launcher and your very own R2D2 from Star Wars I can't understand how a bag can be worth that much!

Since I've learned about these bags I've started paying attention to seeing them in public and I've seen so many of them! Heck it's almost as if everyone has a Chanel. 

Many of which are apparently fake though. I saw this really trashy looking girl in 1-U the other day wearing Asadi sneakers, jeans and some t-shirt but carrying a very flashy Chanel bag. I wanted to believe it was real at first but even Princess ruled that out as a real bag.

Then just last week I saw this girl lining up in front of me at KFC carrying this Chanel bag.

You tell me... real or fake?

Hello This is Lolo!

Not too long ago I learned that Princess just like many other people I know grew up with a teddy bear. You know the kind of teddy bear you sleep with every night and even when you go overseas to study one day you bring it along with you.

The bear she has is so old that it had turned from its original pink colour origin to... purple. Yes... I guess now we all know that once you put black and lots of black on pink, it turns purple.

The joke though is not how the teddy bear changed the colour of its skin over its years but it's the name Princess gave her. The teddy bear was named LOLO.

LOLO! Can you imagine that?? I thought it was a really stupid name! Haha!

So one day I decided to change my MSN nick to "Lolo" and for the sake of realism I put up a picture of Lolo as my profile pic. 

The responses I got... well... I learned that if you change your MSN nick to something stupid, some of your friends will worry for you.

~Y[S]~ joshuaongys says: (2:20:16 PM)okay something muz be wrong with u

Lolo says: (2:21:57 PM)what?

Lolo says: (2:21:58 PM)why?

-----------------

Some will think you've lost your mind...

MaN|acZ *mssoc says: (11:15:07 AM)mr. Timothy Tiah is known as Lolo?

MaN|acZ *mssoc says: (11:15:07 AM)lol

MaN|acZ *mssoc says: (11:15:10 AM)u gotta be kidding me

-----------------

Some won't get it...

Dean says: (9:18:03 AM)whatup biatch?

Lolo says: (9:19:25 AM)hello this is lolo

Dean says: (9:19:48 AM)what the hell is a lolo?

-----------------

Some will play along...

jammie says: (4:27:17 PM)o hai pink bear that turned purple hahhha

And some really just won't give a shit what you call yourself and just act like nothing happened...

Lolo says: (10:50:53 AM)gin where u

GiN says: (10:51:06 AM)hey lolo..

GiN says: (10:51:09 AM)i'm in kl...

GiN says: (10:51:21 AM)wats up lolo..

Lolo says: (10:51:34 AM)ahahah

Being Rude at the Urinal

Just a few days ago I was at the gym. Right after my work out I decided to go answer nature's call so I walked towards the urinals in the changing room. There were 3 urinals there and this guy was standing right in the middle one peeing away, something already rather uncommon. I mean usual toilet etiquette is if you see three available urinals you use the one on either corner, not the middle one right? (So when someone else comes and wants to use the urinal, he'll avoid the middle one and use the one at the other corner giving everyone enough privacy to go around.)

 

To make matters worse, as this guy saw me coming from behind towards the urinal on the left, he started staring at the urinal on the left.

So I moved to the one on the right and started doing my business. Suddenly he turned his head from the left to the right and started casually looking at my dick. I shot a look back at him to remind him that I can see him peeping over but he just casually kept looking as if nothing had happened.

Then I tried to clear my throat to get his attention. I went *AHEM*

The guy looked up at me then looked away a little embarrassed. I breathed a sigh of relief only to find that just a couple of seconds later he started looking again!

I was FUMING mad... 

I was so close to shouting at him

 "KEEP YOUR EYES ON YOUR OWN COCK LA MAHAI!!!"

but I decided to just finish up and go.

And the joke is, this is not the one and only time that this happened. This happens so often to me and I really can't see why. Why? Why? I have never once even thought of wanting to look the other side... why would you even seriously want to? What are you going to see that is so different from what you already have?

Nike Viral Videos

You gotta give it to Nike. They just really know how to make viral videos that people want to watch. Last year they released this video which I thought was probably one of the coolest videos I had ever seen.

It put the viewer in the eyes of a footballer who got discovered by Arsenal.

Then just recently, they released this really cute video.

Gotta give it to them.

My Achilles' Heel

I didn't get any sleep last night. Like literally! I mean I've had 'sleepless nights' where you only manage to get a few hours of sleep throughout the night but last night was the first time in my life that I actually lay in bed from night till morning without any sleep. I think I managed to scrape about 10 minutes of sleep towards the end but just when I was dozing off the sunlight from my windows started creeping into my room to wake me up.

The source of the sleepless night: Anger. Anger over something that happened almost 2 years ago but only now seemed to have come back to affect me emotionally. How this thing affected me up to now still comes to a surprise to me. 

Few things in life really hurt or upset me. My motto in life has always been "It's not what happens to you but how you react to it that matters", so that really gave me a new perspective in whatever I face in life. Every time something bad happens to me, I think of it very much as a challenge and that somehow gets me excited about going through it because at the end of my life, I want to have lived not necessarily a long life, but a meaningful one.

Even business-wise. While a lot of business owners I talk to are worried about the recession and how they will survive 2 years of it, I am actually excited about it because it's the first recession I ever had to go through as an entrepreneur and when we do make it through, it's going to be affirmation that Nuffnang is a company that has really grown up. Besides, I am not afraid of failure for I think that the lessons I will learn from then will be invaluable. You lose a little bit of money in the process, but my father always calls it "tuition fees".

Unfortunately what kept me up last night had nothing to do with work, business, money or any of the usual stress. That is stress I perhaps have become fairly immune to and have developed a habit of always looking at the positive side of things. It had to do with someone doing something very very wrong and getting away with it scot free after all these years. 

And that's what angers me! I believe that if you do wrong, it will one day come back to around to bite you in the ass and that is the principle of how I live my life (Do good and good will come back, do harm and harm will come back). It angers and frustrates me when justice is not served especially when there's absolutely nothing that I can do about it. 

Fortunately after a whole night of thinking about it I've decided to accept what has happened and perhaps learn to forgive. I'm just writing this entry and putting all this into a bottle now... then closing it so I will never think about it and let it bother me again.

So the question I ask myself again is, having experienced far worse things how can something like that affect me so adversely. But just like Brad Pitt who played Achilles in the movie Troy, I think somehow every man even in the modern world has a weakness, an Achilles' Heel. 

Something that really gets to him and at an extreme, is something that could possibly bring him down to his knees.

I think I've finally found my Achilles' Heel.

3 Things That Happened To Me In One Week

Looking at Watches I Can't Afford

Ming came down to KL just a few days ago for some work stuff. For those of you who don't already know, Ming is the strictest, fiercest and more dominant one of the two Nuffnang Bosses. 

Look at his face when he was working on his mini-laptop.

Such anger all bottled up!

Anyway, we found ourselves at KLCC on Saturday to meet a friend for dinner. We were there a little early so we followed his girlfriend shopping for a bit until he spotted the Rolex shop there. Since we were just talking about watches earlier on, he said "Come lets go see!".

I just gave a short laugh at first thinking that he was joking but a few seconds passed and it dawned on me that he was serious as hell. So there we were, two young dudes dressed in t-shirt, jeans and sneakers looking some sort like this, 

walking into the Rolex shop at KLCC.

As we walked in I was thinking to myself

"Shit shit they're so going to ignore us both... they're so going to ignore us both!!!"

But the lady behind the counter smiled at us and showed us a few of the lower end Rolex watches. The cheapest there was like RM14,000.

Then Ming suddenly asked to see another different range of the Rolex watches. I can't remember what it was called since I don't know anything about watches that I can't afford but the lady happened to say that range cost a minimum of over RM30,000. She added that they were all kept in a safe at the back of the shop.

Instead of taking her hint that she doesn't want to show it to us when we're obviously not going to buy it, Ming said

"Can I see it?"

And at that point already I was thinking to myself

"WAHLAU EH BRAHDER!!! How much you want to push the limit? I'm surprised they even let us in here!!!".

I think the lady rolled her eyes a little bit but she hid her boiling anger really well and kept being professional. Though I bet after we left the store she probably suggested to her Boss that they impose a cover charge for entering the store to keep the kids out.

A Person More Gadgety Than Me

Yesterday I met up with the CEO of MOL Access, Ganesh Kumar at his office. He showed me around his office and showed me his entire list of gadgets. 

He had a MacBook Air, an Apple TV, iPhone, Big LCD TVs and heck everything any guy could wish for on his list of gadgets. And the joke is... all this is in his office. How he gets any work done remains a mystery to me!

I said to him 

"You know they say every guy has one thing in their lives they spend a lot of money on. I guess I know what yours is.

Not An Eligible Bachelor

I got a call from CLEO magazine this week asking if I'd like to be in this year's batch of their CLEO's 50 Most Eligible Bachelors. The only condition for joining I guess is that:

1) You're a guy

2) You don't look too ugly

I guess I pass on both counts but I told the nice lady who called that it's not really my kind of thing and that no amount of air brushing is going to make me look good even in photos.

I asked the Nuffies however and they all thought that I should've done it. Saying that it was a once in a lifetime experience and at least they could tell their friends that their Boss was in the list once.  

Oh well... it's just really really not my thing.

So there you have it everyone. 3 things that happened to me in the past 1 week.

A Day in Hong Kong

When I was in Hong Kong with Princess last month we managed to catch up with some friends. One of which was Andrew who just recently moved to Hong Kong to get married to the love of his life: a Hong Kong girl named Jayen.

Andrew insisted that we had to go to this place where all the local Hong Kong people go. Where they serve typical Hong Kong breakfast kind of stuff like egg sandwich and french toast.

It was supposedly so good that we had to queue up for 20 minutes just to get a seat and this was in the middle of the afternoon like 3.30PM where you'd think most people would've been done with eating by then.

Now I really couldn't understand it! 

I mean it was just fried egg and bread, how different could it possibly be unless they secretly slipped weed into it or something. Why was everyone going back to this place where the waiters wore white uniforms and had pen ink stains just on top of their pockets as a result of accidentally scraping their pens on their shirts while putting it back into their pockets.

This is the egg sandwich.

and this the French Toast.

It looked pretty normal and I thought it was great but.. well... not exactly to die for. Perhaps my expectations were raised wayyyyy too high before I got there.

Princess herself didn't eat much. 

My reply to Andrew when he asked me how it was...

"Ok lah but not exactly like... WOW right dude?"

Though I did enjoy the coffee mixed tea (yin yong) there.

So he asked me what I wanted to eat then and it was almost like a reflex, I said

"EGG TART!!!"

About 30 minutes later I found myself staring down at this ORGASMIC egg tart that we had bought from a shop in Central Hong Kong.

Yes my dear readers, it really IS as good as it looks. Allow me to illustrate by showing you this picture of Andrew's face when he had one in his hand.

It was the moment of truth, the best egg tart in Hong Kong or not... I took a big bite...

and in all the excitement I neglected to remember that egg yokes that had just come out of the oven have really really hot fillings so I ended up burning my tongue to Kingdom come (sigh all sorts of different shit seems to hit me lately).

But by the time I was done screaming in pain at the burning sensation on my tongue and the taste had sunk in, I realized that I had just had the best egg tart I have ever had in my life.

The crust was just sooo crispy and the egg tart was soft and so damn bloody tasty they must've made it with the eggs of some Aristocrat Chicken.

After the orgasmic egg tart we paid a visit to the new most famous tourist attraction of Hong Kong. One that involves something probably more famous than Ocean Park and Lan Kwai Fong .... 

Elite Multi-Media electronics store. The store where Edison Chen had apparently sent his laptop for repair.

I was taking so many pictures in front of the store I think the staff inside were beginning to notice. If I had stayed there just one minute later, I'm pretty sure they would've come out chasing me with parangs. I have long legs so I would've gotten away in time.

Princess on the other hand would've probably been caught and made into char siew pau.

After we quickly got away from the store we ended up doing a little bit of shopping at the flagship H&M store in Hong Kong.

Then we met up with some of my old Malaysian friends who are now working in Hong Kong for dinner and then drinks.

We had dinner at this place where they gave you this jar of pork fat that you were supposed to put into your rice and mix it around while you eat the dishes. My friends loved it but as much as I love Bak Kut Teh and a lot of other pork related stuff, I drew the line at liquid pork fat.

After dinner we all went for drinks at this place full of bars in Kowloon just near my hotel in Kimberly Street. We ended up talking a lot of cock for a few hours.

Among the many are two really good friends.

Ah Bon who's in the middle and Hong Wee on the right. 

Ah Bon works for Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong and he was telling me how he used to have a lot of co-workers to say good morning to every morning but since the recession hit, that number halved.

He still earns a very very fat pay cheque though..... and is SINGLE!

Ladies!!! 

I Broke My iPhone!

ARGH!!!

Yesterday I dropped my iPhone and I just noticed this morning that it stopped vibrating. That's a big problem for me because the ringer on the iPhone is already as soft as it can get and I never really hear it. Most of the time I know I'm getting a call because it vibrates.

Now I'm going to have to go buy a new one and I googled for the price of a new one and it costs RM3,000. That's crazy! That's like the price of a brand new laptop!

ARGHH!!!!!

I thought about changing phones to something simpler but I've just gotten to used to being able to check and reply e-mails while I am out for meetings.

Maybe I should get a Blackberry like the Blackberry Bold. 

Argh! Spending way too much money lately.

Update: Guess what... I dropped it again and the vibrate is working again now.. HAAHAH no need to spend!

Happy Country!

Aih, January has begun and so had our regular routine workdays. Yesterday I started going back to the gym again for the first time in 2 years and every inch of my body today aches so much I can barely pee straight.

I took almost a full minute just to put on my t-shirt this morning. Can barely lift my arms above my head now it's not even funny. So to distract myself, I am going to think HAPPY THOUGHTS, HAPPY MEMORIES AND HAPPY PLACES!!!!

Let it be said that Disneyland is the Happiest Place on Earth!

It really is! 

It's been hardly a month since I was in Disneyland Hong Kong with Princess Audrey here

and I'm longing to go back again.. soo soo bad.

I don't know what it is about Disneyland. It's not just the rides.

Or the Christmas tree when I was there.

Or the very thoughtful D0nald tickets for the guys and Minnie tickets for the girls.

Or even the fake snow they had on Disneyland's Main Street USA.

But heck it's just that really happy happy atmosphere. If Disneyland was a country it would be the country with the lowest suicide rates (probably at 0), with no stress whatsoever and their asylums will be filled with people who don't suffer from mental illness or depression but suffer from excessive happiness (Yes I hear that even too much of a good thing can be bad).

The sad thing is that the park closes relatively early. Just right after dinner and after the fireworks display, everybody rushes to the exit ending the happy happy day.

By the time I passed the exit, the realization that I had just left Disneyland for the day had began to sink in and I started getting grumpy. And when I start getting grumpy I start cursing and swearing at everything (e.g. DAMN YOU GRASSHOPPER!!!)... something that if I did in Disneyland, I would get kicked out. 

Yes it's true, part of the Rules & Regulations of Disneyland is that you're not allowed to curse or swear or say any bad words. Not even shit.

But my mood gets better by the time I get back to the lovely Disneyland Hotel and see the lovely beds.

Or the very cute-sy Disney-themed amenities.

After a quick shower, Princess and I went down to the hotel restaurant to have something to eat but also to later meet a couple of my good Hong Kong friends that I haven't seen in a while. 

I ordered myself a typical Cheeseburger.

And they served it with tomato sauce that they made look like Mickey's ears.

And while waiting for my friends to come, Princess and I decided to do a little camwhoring on the dinner table, something that my parents definitely wouldn't have allowed me to do growing up.

In fact I could almost see all the families around us looking over at us with their parents shaking their heads at our lack of table manners.

But ahh whatever... they probably weren't bloggers so they wouldn't have understood.

Finally my two Hong Kong friends and ex-coursemates came: Eddie and Timothy (Yes... I have a Hong Kong friend named Timothy too). After graduation, the both of them naturally took their economics degrees to go work in banks. 

Timothy Siu (on the left) worked in London for 2 years after graduation but he's now at Cambridge University doing his Masters.

Eddie (on the right) on the other hand is working in Standard Chartered right in Hong Kong and seems to be loving his job.

I ended my night at Disneyland Hong Kong with many happy memories to keep from the day and the warmth you feel when you catch up with old friends you spent years with in another foreign country.

If you're asking me for a memorable and happy moment I've had since 12 months ago, it was in Disneyland Hong Kong.

Oh well... back to work now everybody... Tuesday blues!!!!