What I've been up to...

I've been really busy these few days so I'm going to do quick updates on some things that I've been up to lately.

1. My mum came down to KL to pay me a visit. She stayed with me and we had plenty of good food when mum's around. She loved the Sony Vaio I bought her and to show her thanks she insisted she buy me a nice Korean BBQ dinner.

Project 365: Day 43, 30th March 2009

2. I learned that Princess is still terrified of my mother. I guess it doesn't help that we intentionally try to get each other in trouble with each of our parents (the both of us have sick ways of having fun). The other day on the way to her home for dinner I made a totally harmless joke and called her Dad by his first name: Eng Hong. She laughed about it and all.

Then 20 minutes later we were at her place for dinner and I was helping her mum set the table. She then intentionally told her mum "Eh Mummy, you know just now Tim called dad Eng Hong".

At first her mum let out a chuckle, then she realized that she shouldn't be laughing. So she reprimanded me 

"Very brave ah you!"

And I just went 

"NOoooooooo!!!!!".

Then I muttered to Princess later on... "You watch out.. my mum's coming this weekend".

And I really got her good. Take that Baby!

(I just remembered that tonight I'm having dinner with her parents again... FUCK!... BABY NO PLEASE DON'T!!! LOVE IS KIND... LOVE IS FORGIVING!!!!)

3. Went with Carol to the Skype - MOL Access Berhad signing ceremony today where Kim and Ringo gave a speech about how they use Skype to maintain their long distance relationships. They both advocated LDRs.... that it really works.

Project 365: Day 44, 31st March 2009

HMPH.. Boss Stewie says NO to LDRs!!!

Both Kim and Ringo were like celebrities there. Everyone wanting to take pictures with them.

When I met some of the people there and introduced myself, at least 3 of them said

"Wow! You look really young? How old are you? I imagined Timothy Tiah to be a lot older".

Yes I get that a lot unfortunately. Once I even walked into a meeting with Nicholas (who looks a little older than me) and the people we were meeting immediately extended their hands out to Nicholas and said

"Hi.. you must be Timothy".

Nicholas laughed and said

"Uhh.. nooo... THAT is Timothy"... and pointed my way.

Yes... I look like a school boy.

4. Ringo showed me her new Coach bag that she bought as a birthday present to herself lately. 

She told me that I should buy something good for myself too when my birthday comes. Problem is I'm not sure what... I can't think of anything that I can afford that I actually really really want.

5. I turned down a chance to be on TV this morning. I was supposed to be on this talk show about the internet but I figured that all the questions that I would be asked is something a lot of people with enough online exposure would have answers to. I didn't think I would be adding value to the show at all so I told the producer that I think she could find someone better suited. I didn't want to go on air just for the sake of going on air. 

5. Three people I had met in the past week alone told me that I look very exhausted and stressed lately. Even top blogger Desmondkiu had the same thing to say.

Do you guys think so?

Sigh.. maybe I am the most stressed out 24 year old in the country. Part of my stress is coming from finding the right people to hire. The workload at Nuffnang now is immense and everyone is so damn overworked that we desperately need a bigger team. 

Problem is we've interviewed so many but still can't find someone that we all love like Pinky.

6. Was just in the office and I started feeling a bit hungry since it's nearing dinner. I walked over to the Nuffies on the other side of the office over to Andrea and said 

"Andrea... how would you like to do something very important for the survival of Nuffnang?"

She saw right through me.

Then she replied

"What? Get you food?"

With everything out in the open I said

"Yes! Letting me starve will be bad for the company right? So please! Go down and help buy me a packet of Mamee please!"

Then Shalyn who was sitting next to Andrea looked over at me and asked

"What? One Mamee only? Is that enough to keep you full?"

HMPH!!!

WHAT AM I GIRLS?!?! AN OBESE FISHBALL!?!?

I DON'T CARE!!! EVERYONE'S WORKING LATE TONIGHT!!!

7. Oh I forgot one last thing... I've just started planning another surprise for Princess today but it's something that will only take place in the next few months. All the work involved...

Earth Hour!

Okay before I start my entry today, allow me to update my Project 365 pictures.

Had lunch with Kim, Suanie and KY on Saturday. We ate at this Nasi Lemak place that had plastic tables and chairs extended out on to the road like a typical Mamak. Halfway through our lunch we heard a loud roaring sound approaching us from the distance.

We looked over to our right only to see a gigantic Alam Flora garbage truck.

In that moment of crisis I looked down at my half-eaten food to see if I could save it from being exposed to the stench that was going to be onto us in the next 30 seconds. I thought of running away with my plate but realized that I wouldn't get very far.

Defeated... I just took out my camera and snapped a picture of the garbage truck passing us with Kim holding her nose.

Project 365: Day 41, 28th March 2009

To make up for it, I made sure I ate dinner today somewhere indoors and away from all garbage trucks. Had dinner with Princess at Jake's in Starhill.

Project 365: Day 42, 29th March 2009

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

Yesterday Princess and I took part in Earth Hour, something I once thought I would never do. I first heard about Earth Hour 1-2 years ago when it first started off. I heard about how people in some cities around the world were turning off their lights to show unity in fighting global warming and I thought it was a stupid idea.

What is the point of turning off your lights for one hour when each one of those cities were going to have their lights on the other 8,759 hours of the year? 

Then towards the end of last year Abinesh from WWF came over to my office to see me. He reintroduced Earth Hour to me and showed me this very inspiring video.

Then without me even having to ask he addressed a number of my concerns and doubt I had in my mind. I learned that it wasn't about the energy you save in that one hour (though that's pretty substantial considering the number of cities that take part all around the world). It was about all of us in the simplest possible way voicing out our concerns to World Leaders that we all think something had to be done about Global Warming.  

So if the whole city of Sydney shut off their lights then as a world leader you gotta know that this is some indication that the people of Sydney want something done because hey, if you don't give a shit about global warming then why suffer the discomfort of having your lights off for a full hour?

Some people say that Earth Hour is just a publicity stunt and they're right! It IS a publicity stunt aimed at getting the attention of everyone around the world, educating us and having us start discussions about Global Warming, that is if anything a good thing if you ask me. Even if you thought Earth Hour was a total waste of time, it did at least at one point make you think about global warming. 

WWF Malaysia won my support both personally and via Nuffnang Malaysia. Nuffnang served out ads to increase exposure of Earth Hour and Nuffnangers who supported it started writing about it on their own blogs. During Earth Hour, the Nuffnang Malaysia site was temporarily taken down in support of it.

On a personal level, I spent my Earth Hour at home with Princess. 5 minutes before 8.30PM, I turned off all the lights and Princess and I went out to the balcony to watch the lights of KL Tower go off.

At 8.30PM sharp it went off as planned but the joke was I looked at all the other apartment buildings around me and just about all of them still had their lights brightly on. One of my neighbours even had his apartment lit up so brightly it almost looked as if aliens from space just landed their flying saucer inside.

Princess sounded a bit defeated when she said

"I knew this wouldn't work in Malaysia".

After spending some 15 minutes on the balcony Princess and I went back into my room and lay in bed the remainder of the hour talking and laughing in the dark. We decided that the best way to avoid any accidents in the dark like knocking over something was to stay in bed as long as we can.

We took some pictures too.

At first we tried to take a picture without the camera flash.

But that obviously didn't work.

So we turned on the flash which temporarily blinded me.

If you're wondering why Princess looked a little pissed, it was because I took many many pictures trying to get a proper shot in the dark and she was getting very agitated by the flash. 

After Earth Hour I went over to my computer and left this on my Facebook only to have some of my friends immediately reply me.

Looks like there were a lot of other people out there who didn't take part too but I think Earth Hour is all just a matter of personal preference or belief. If you believe in it then great, if you don't then it's okay. Not taking part in Earth Hour doesn't in any way mean that you don't care about global warming and climate change.

To everyone who were part of Earth Hour and to WWF Malaysia, a job well done in pulling this together. Perhaps KL wasn't as dark as Sydney during Earth Hour but it certainly got a lot of people talking about global warming in these few weeks leading up to Earth Hour.

And that after all is what really matters... not how many lights we turned off in that hour, but how many people we get talking and thinking about global warming. Once the education process of it is done... then we're all in a much better position to take action against it. 

Update & A Card for Princess

Okay okay!

I'm late in posting up my Project 365 pictures so I'm going to backdate a bit.

Project 365: Day 37, 24th March 2009

Jun King from NewEra came over to our office a few days ago bearing gifts. Knowing that I love my XBOX games... he brought me Prince of Persia.

I love Jun King!

The next day, I had dinner with one of Malaysia's Top 20 Bloggers Desmondkiu. Caught this funny picture of him stretching.

Project 365: Day 38, 25th March 2009

Yesterday on the other hand I went with the Nuffies for lunch at Pavilion. We took a monorail and walked there from our office. Right after lunch when we were just about to leave it started raining cats and dogs so all of us were stuck in Pavilion for a few hours.

Project 365: Day 39, 26th March 2009

The rain was too heavy to run, and no cabs wanted to take us back.

The Nuffnang office was left unmanned for a few hours. Fortunately we had our Blackberrys and iPhones. So in the interest of killing time we went to the bookstore to read some books and possibly buy some.

I saw  a greeting card section so I thought of buying Princess a card. I spent some time browsing all the cards when I came across a card that had words on it that I thought really described the way I feel about Princess.

Now I normally don't buy these type of cards because I always preferred to write my own words but this particular card described my feelings so well I had to buy it. I bought it then wrote this on the inside of the card for Princess with my toddler handwriting.

I then put it in the envelope and slipped it into one of Princess' bags that I had with me at the time. 

The words that I was referring to on the front of the card were this...

Project 365: Day 40, 27th March 2009

The card read:

Are there other couples like us? 

In some city a thousand miles away

are there two best friends

who happen to be in love?

My mind wanders to that question now and then,

but never far enough 

to ever believe

that someone like you

could be found

anywhere else in the world...

Because I know

there's only one person

who's so much fun,

so easy to love,

and so completely amazing...

And when you open it... it ends with ...

Nuffnang Music Bash '09

It’s finally here!!!

The first major Nuffnang party in Malaysia for 2009!

After months and months of my fellow Nuffies and Mehlin and gang working their butts off, we’re finally pulling together the first major Nuffnang event of the year. 

The magic date and time is the 4^th of April 2009 at 6pm till 10pm. And the magic place is…. Maison at Jalan Yap Ah Shak. Just nearby the Nuffnang KL Office.

This time we’re once again collaborating with Maxis Broadband but instead of the animal-themed party we did last year, 

this year it’s going to be the first of the Nuffnang Music Bash ’09!

So instead of animal costumes, this time we’re all supposed to go looking all glamour dressed looking like we’re music celebrities like Justin Timberlake, or Bob Marley or … whatever genre you’re into. The good thing about partnering with Maxis Broadband for our events though is that they’re always kind enough to supply us with laptops hooked to the internet with Maxis Broadband to allow anyone to Live Blog at the event.

As usual we’ll be giving away best-dressed prizes and a Nokia XpressMusic 5800 for the Most Creative entry written to gain an entry to the event. We’re also giving away a Canon Digital Ixus 870 IS for the best live blog.

Unlike a lot of the events we had in the past, the Nuffnang Music Bash ’09 is going to have a very celebrity kind of feel to it. Something that has quite a bit of glamour into it.

Among some other things to look forward to at the event:

1) There’s going to be a bloggers’ band performance that means we actually got some Nuffnangers to actually perform as a band on stage! 

2) We’ve even forced some of the Nuffies to do a dance on stage. They’re doing Jai Ho from Slumdog Millionaire.

HAHAHA it’s going to be so funny. I forced them all to show me a rehearsal today.

Project 365: Day 36, 23^rd March 2009

HAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Come to see the actual dance.

Shy Carol tried to hide herself from the video behind Andrea towards the end of the video but that just made matters worse for herself. Yes the rest of us Nuffies will be cheering from the crowd.

WOOO!!!

3) I’m going to be performing Justin Timberlake’s “Like I Love You” on stage. HAHAHA no I’m just kidding. Not happening at all.

I can’t decide what to wear for the event. I thought for a while about being lazy and going dressed as a Korean Pop Star as I did in the VPost party.  

But oh well I decided not to be lazy so I’ve narrowed it down to possibly go as one of my favourite groups.

I’m going to go as one of them from Coldplay. 

I love Coldplay!

Started loving them since I started studying at University College London where they came from too. Heck just about every UCL student I know loves Coldplay! 

I’m not sure how I should really dress to look like Coldplay though. Maybe I’ll go as the dude on the right: Put on a t-shirt, sweater, jeans and sneakers then walk around all night with my hands in my pocket with an angry face like that

HAHAHA that sounds pretty funny actually.

OKAY OKAY ON !

I’m going to go like that! And I’ll keep an angry face all night to keep in character.

And if I can find enough money I’ll hire a few promoter girls to stand outside the club before I go in. Then once I step down from my car I’ll get them all to scream
“I LOVE YOU COLDPLAY!!!”

And I’ll get them all to throw their panties at me.

Talk about feeling like a ROCKSTAR!!!

For those of you who’re going! See you guys there!

Visiting the GAB Tavern

If you drive down the Federal Highway from Subang to KL and back often enough you'll notice a big compound with a few buildings. On top of one of the main buildings is a big red sign board that says "GAB" which stands for Guinness Anchor Berhad.

Guinness Anchor Berhad is the company that houses a lot of good booze brands under it. Heineken, Tiger, Guinness and Anchor to name a few. That big compound is also the brewery where they make all their beer and somewhere in that compound is "The Tavern".

A pub for everyone who works at GAB to get free flow beer every day!

Not too long ago, Heineken invited a number of Nuffnang bloggers to the Tavern for the first time to have dinner and drinks with their staff. When I say "drinks", I mean nothing less than the freshest beer in the country. The beer at the Tavern comes fresh out of the brewery that makes it housed in the same compound!

We learned a whole lot about beer. Let me give you an example.

Now you guys would think that a bartender's job is easy right? I mean just get a beer mug and pour beer from the tap. Well... not really... if you want to do it right.

When you pour beer from the tap you have to pour from a 45 degree angle in the beginning and then slowly straighten your mug as it fills up. This is to make sure that the foam at the end just reaches the top by the time you're done.

If the mug is not full or overflows after the foam settles then you've basically failed your bartending test.

We all took turns to try and some of us like Huai Bin here even found it hard enough to get beer into the mug. He eventually ended up filling half the mug with just foam so much that it looks more like a cappuccino than beer to me.

LOOK AT THAT!

Kenny on the other hand was the champion that night. He invented the art of filling up a mug with 20% beer and 80% foam!

How he developed that skill... I have no clue.

Ironically the girls there that night did a far better job pouring beer than the guys.

Cynthia did a great job. It wasn't a "perfect pour" but it was far better than the effort of all of us guys combined.

Princess too did a better job despite having to reach higher for the lever and despite us depriving her of a stool she badly needed.

Cindy from Malaysian Dreamgirls was the only one who managed to get the "perfect pour" right out of all of us but I didn't manage to get a picture of her doing that. I was too busy quietly chanting and hoping that she messes up so she doesn't make all of us look bad.

After KY and the rest of the guys had their turn on the beer tap it was my turn, a chance to redeem the pride of us men there that night.

I failed terribly. 

I flooded my mug with so much foam it looked like an exploding volcano. At the fear of wasting beer in front of all the kind GAB people there that night I attempted to suck up all the overflowing foam but again failed miserably. 

So we got fed up of trying and decided to just do what we bloggers do best. Camwhore!

If I poured beer for all of you whenever you ordered it, it would only be half full. We spent the rest of the night drinking free flow Heineken and ended up chatting with the Heineken team who invited us: Jasmine and Iryne. 

They showed us some cool things that Heineken was doing online like this new online multiplayer game they had on their website.

Last year Heineken had a big public screening of the UEFA Champions League in South Africa. This year’s screening though is going to be in Thailand so the online game is a massive virtual raft race from South Africa to Thailand.

You can join fleets and compete with people from all around the world and the winner will win a free trip to Thailand to watch the UEFA Champions League finals at an event there. Heineken parties are just the best, I’ve been to so many even back in KL and they never disappoint. 

You get to customize your raft too. Mine had a nice deck chair for me to chill on while I “float” away to Thailand.

Anyway we ended the night all a little high from the booze but happy. 

Heineken parties just never disappoint. The next one in KL is going to be on the 25^th of April at the Hap Seng Star Mercedes-Benz Auto Haus on Jalan Sultan Ismail. They’re bringing in an international alternative rock/hip hop group called The Bumblebeez but here’s the best part: They’re going to be setting up huge projectors to project mock Roman architecture, making the entire place look like Rome from the inside. SERIOUSLY!

If you wanna know more about some Heineken events coming up, click here.

As I lay in bed that night I kept trying to figure out what it was I found so difficult about pouring beer from a tap into my mug. Seriously!

One day... one day I shall master the art of pouring beer... 

one day...

Buying Mum a Birthday Present

I was at Damansara Idaman today, this new gated community near Tropicana. Living in a gated community like that is like the "Malaysian Dream". 

One day I hope that after all my many many years of working and saving some money I may be able to afford a house in an estate like that where houses have no gates and children can cycle around the area without fear of getting kidnapped. 

Project 365: Day 35, 22nd March 2009

That's the kind of place I would really love to settle down with my family some day but it would also probably take me a lifetime to save enough money to live there.

A lifetime! Let me illustrate how long a lifetime is

For me that's like looking at excel spreadsheets another 3,382,192 more times in my life

For a postman it would be delivering another 10,381,201 letters in his life.

For a doctor it would be seeing another 5,219,219 patients in her life.

and for a prostitute it would probably mean shagging another 2,182,382 men in her life.

Heck I feel like I've already been spending too much money lately. Just recently I splurged on my mum's birthday present: My mum's birthday is in the next few days and I was saving some money to buy her something nice.

So just a few days ago I went to Midvalley to shop for her present. When I reached there I got a phone call I had to take so I parked my car in the lot and then stayed in the car for like 10 minutes to finish my conversation.

While on the phone I saw a woman illegally park her Waja right by the wall in front of me. I didn't really understand why though, since there was so much parking everywhere else but I think she was just too lazy to walk.

The woman driving the Waja trotted away and 5 minutes passed when I saw a group of guys that looked like they just came from the gym. They all got into the Honda City right next to me and started trying to reverse out. Now because the Waja was in the way, they found it extremely hard to get out of their lot and eventually... the rear of the Honda City bumped into the side of the Waja.

I don't know if the guys didn't realize it or not but they just sped off, probably thinking to themselves that it served that Waja right for parking there. After I finished my phone call I got out of the car and took a picture of the dent to show you guys. See how thoughtful I am ? :)

Moral of the story everyone, don't park illegally. If you make it hard for someone to get out of his/her parking lot chances are your car will get hit and you'll have no one else but yourself to blame.

Heck if you did that to me and I drove a hummer (or a tank) I would intentionally drive your car so far into the wall you would think that the wall ate cars.

Anyway my whole purpose of visiting Midvalley was to go to the Sony Store.

Now I've been thinking about what to buy my mum for the longest time and I decided that I was going to buy her a laptop to replace her old IBM laptop she had from years before. Credit to IBM for making laptops that last that many years but her laptop was so damn old I could've sworn that it was probably the same model that King Arthur used to send out e-mail meeting invites to his Round Table Knights.

To add to the story, two years ago my mum bought me my very first MacBook that I eventually used to do all the early Nuffnang work and to start off Nuffnang.

So I decided that to at least attempt to repay her, I should buy her a laptop. Not any laptop at that, but a Sony Vaio. 

Why? Because I think it's pretty cool and it was one of those laptops that I wish I had (before I discovered the MacBook) but could never really afford.

While getting the laptop set up I started a conversation with the salesgirl there and asked her how many of these she sells a day.

She said just that day alone, she had sold 4 before mine.

This is the cue for everyone to say

"Recession? What recession?"

I just got off the phone with my mum an hour ago and told her that I bought her this present. She scolded me. 

"Why you spend money like that? Times are bad you know!".

For that reason my mum is really one of the best mums you can find out there. I mean she always tells us never to buy her anything because she would rather we save all that money for our future to buy a home or something. 

Remember when she talked me out of buying a nice chair for my office two years ago?

I guess I should be doing more saving so that I could perhaps buy a home like one of the ones at the beginning of this entry.

But oh well, birthdays come only once a year and I think my mum deserves it.

Happy Birthday Mum!

Project 365: Day 34, 21st March 2009

Last week it was eyelash extensions, this week I followed Princess and waited for her to get her manicure done.

In return.... 

She's going to be watching me play XBOX again tomorrow afternoon.

Ahh it's going to be a good day tomorrow.