2 New Updates: Churp Churp & iPhone 3Gs

There are two things that are new in my life this week.

1) The first one is the result of my recent passion for Twitter. It's called ChurpChurp and it's a Twitter Advertising Network meant to help Twitterers earn a little bit of money. Of course I think it's going to take some time before Churpers start earning as much as some Nuffnangers do but Ming and I thought it would be a fun venture to go into.  

ChurpChurp was also featured in an article on Marketing Magazine on the day it launched. Man those guys work fast!

2) The next thing of course was something I just got today... my new iPhone 3Gs. 

Yes everyone... after the long debate on Twitter and after so much pressure from everyone pressuring me to get a Blackberry instead of an iPhone, I decided to go for the iPhone. They're both really really good phones but I guess.... I've grown used to everything Apple.

Today was the first day that the iPhone 3Gs was being launched so I went to the Maxis Center in Gardens at 10.00AM sharp just when it opened. There were already a few people there waiting but I managed to get a number 8.

Then I sat down with my book and started reading away... patiently waiting. I also started looking around at the people who were waiting for their iPhones. Trying to see if a theory my friend told me about iPhone users is correct. The friend said that Blackberry users are business people who are important or cool and stylish. 

He went on to say that most iPhone users are teenagers and nerds who wear jeans, t-shirt and carry a bag pack around and who probably never gotten laid before. I'm an iPhone user so I naturally got very offended by that comment.

But shocking enough I saw so many of them waiting for the iPhone with me. They were all dressed in jeans, some random sports t-shirt, sports shoes and with pimples all over their faces.

Then I looked down at myself and realized that... hey... that was exactly how I sometimes dress and how I look!!!

Later on a good looking working man dressed in a smart long-sleeve shirt came in to collect his iPhone though.. so that made me feel better. Kinda made all of us "unpopular kids" look popular again. 

After close to an hour my name was finally called and after giving my details they brought out the box that kept my iPhone.

I felt so much joy in myself. I wanted to grab the box and hug it but I didn't want to look weird. So I did a more 'manly' show of affection to the box. I picked it up to look at it, grunted like a Warcraft Orc and nodded with approval as if everything was okay.

But in my showcase I accidentally fumbled, slipping my fingers off and tossing the iPhone box into the air. My eyes opened wide like dinner plates and I grabbed it with panic, fortunately catching it before it hit the ground. 

The two ladies at the counter gasped as if I had just killed a puppy. I then just calmly put it back on the counter and smiled. 

"No worry... I drop my iPhone all the time".

I smiled coolly at them like nothing bad had happened.

I realized after that though that I just indirectly told them that I'm going to abuse my iPhone and I could almost see the sadness in their faces. So once I got my iPhone I quickly ran over to the nearest store to buy it a screen protector and a cover that everyone even in the store refers to as "The Condom".

See the black condom around my iPhone?

It's supposed to absorb shock when you drop it. Of course it doesn't absorb shock as well as say.. . strapping the iPhone to a pillow but lets be practical here.

The condom reminds me of the old mobile phone protectors we used to have for the old Nokia 8310. The RM20 ones that look like condoms as well. 

So this weekend I have a new toy to play around with. And something to show off to Carol who used to make fun of my old 2G iPhone when she bought her iPhone 3G. She used to say how it sucks and all that. HMPH.

CAROL... COME MONDAY... YOU WILL REGRET MAKING FUN OF MY OLD IPHONE!!!

Karaoke with the Nuffies!

Announcement for UP: Whew. After 3 days of looking through all the e-mails and reading all your stories I've finally picked the winners of the tickets. It was so hard though.. because there were just too many good stories.

The winners will  get an e-mail from Nuffnang in the next few days ok? If you don't... hope you win something the next round ok?

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Just a few nights ago we decided to go for a karaoke session after work for Lee Meng's farewell. It was also Rina's birthday so we planned a little surprise for her.

It started with us rushing out of the office after work to get to the karaoke in time before they gave away our reservation or something. Half of us ended up coming late due to work but we eventually gathered around and sang!

Among the songs t I die die must sing at any Karaoke session are

"Mungkin Nanti by Peter Pan (All the Nuffies LOVEEE this song)"

"Zui Jing by Lee Sheng Jie"

"Hai Guo Tian Kong by Beyond"

"Flying Without Wings by Westlife"

"Any Beatles or Elvis song".

The best singers in the Nuffnang team are probably Shun Yau and Jestina. The rest of us aren't too great. We haven't before heard Rina sing though. Before we went there Firdauz was saying that Rina probably can't sing because she's already so pretty. He thought that life wouldn't be fair if she was pretty and could sing well.

He was wrong though... Rina picked up the mic and sang "Underneath your clothes" by Shakira and all of us awed in silence. Except for Firdauz, who constantly kept saying to himself "Fuck my life fuck my life... life is so unfair... "

We then put Jestina and Rina against one another. They both took turns to sing "Menghitung Hari"... and they were both so good we couldn't decide who was better. So we did the most diplomatic thing.. clap for the both of them equally as loud. 

Halfway through the session we decided that it was time to surprise Rina with our birthday cake we bought for her. So I left the room and told the waiter to bring the cake. Then went back into the room.

Suddenly Rina said that she had to go to the restroom. 

I panicked for a while. Started thinking... what if she walked out and bumped into the waiter bringing the cake in. My mind thought of the option of telling her

"No wait Rina! Don't go to the toilet yet!!!"

But I figured that it would've sounded very weird so I let her go and crossed my fingers. After she left I rushed out of the room to tell the waiter to hold the cake. I made it in time and had them bring the cake right when Rina was back into the room.

She was surprised... not just by the cake being there but also by the size of it. She said it was probably one of the biggest birthday cakes she had ever had.

Yes... Nuffies love cake... we're all fat.

We also tend to be overconfident of how much we can eat. All of us there only managed to eat like.. half the cake. Rina had to bring the rest back home at the end of the night.

Here are some other pictures from the night.

This is me and Nicholas. The man who now manages the Nuffnang Malaysia team. 

This is Jestina... the other really talented singer that makes the rest of us look bad.

Carol and Tim2. 

Two people that I depend on so much... and two people who have helped shaped Nuffnang to what it is today.

This is Lee Meng, singing one of his Jay Chou songs.

I thought it was really funny how the Karaoke place gave us these little "mic condoms" to keep the mic clean. See the yellow thing bag thing on the top of the mic.

Nicholas and Jestina... laughing about something. 

Not sure what.

Nicholas, David and I.

David is known as one of the two "players" in Nuffnang. David is the more charming one that sweeps girls off their feet with his words and body language. The other guy on the other hand is unlike David, he goes for the "cute" factor instead. Girls like David because he's charming... girls like the other guy because he's "cute".

Here's me from the left... (not sure what I saw that gave me that expression on my face. Maybe I saw a poodle with a bazooka or something), Doria, Vernice, Rina and Lee Meng.

And of course... a group photo of all of us there that night.

We missed out some of the Nuffies that night...

4 hours passed really quickly and soon it was time to go home. We were all tired and looking forward to going to bed. Jestina on the other hand... refused to leave without singing one last song!

Nicholas had to drag her away.

I think she wanted to practice for her next 1 vs 1 against Rina.

Busy Friday, Saturday and Sunday

Whew, past few days really flew by for me.

Here's what I did.

1. Went to Genting early morning on Friday. No... not to gamble or for a holiday but to for a presentation I had to give in Awana.

2. I contemplated bringing a light jacket with me to Genting in case of the cold weather but I decided that it probably wouldn't be that cold anyway. At least based on what I remembered the last time I was there.

I got out of the car and I felt a little cold. Dammit... regretted then and wished I had brought a jacket.

Jestina though came prepared with her jacket.

This is us taking a picture after our meeting. I was on the phone.

3. Met these really nice people there that day. They were listening to my presentation. Apparently one of them has a sister who reads my blog. Hello SISTER!

4. After my presentation at Awana I went up to Genting for a while. Haihh fine fine I succumbed to temptation. I justified to myself saying "Aihh.. I've already come so far!!!"

5. Went up to see Ming who was there for a retreat with his MP from Singapore.

6. Then happened to bump into Nicole there sitting in Starbucks.

 I was standing outside Starbucks waiting for Ming when I looked in and noticed that a guy sitting down looked really familiar. Then I recognized him as Casey, Nicole's bf.

Went over to say hi and take a picture.

7. I headed back to KL before the sun set for a date with Princess. The both of us haven't been for a date with just the two of us for a long time so I planned a little outing which started with dinner at Jake's in Starhill.

We were there to celebrate my 4 week beef ban. After having had to eat 3 steak dinners in just one week about a month ago I decided that I was going to stop taking beef for a whole month. So there we were.

Princess though had a seabass.

8. After dinner we went to watch Harry Potter. I fell asleep in the movie and it was the first movie I ever watched where I had to ask Princess questions about the movie after it ended. I didn't understand parts of the movie. Hard to understand when you sleep through it.

Yes... I'm not a big fan of Harry Potter. Both the movie and the book.

9. Met up with Pierre, Lay See and Ming after the movie for supper at my place. Yes... Ming came down from Genting in the end.

Stayed up till like 4AM.

10. Woke up late on Saturday. Spent much of the afternoon just hanging around at home with Princess then in the evening we went for Jia Jer's birthday party.

11. We were watching Top Gear for much of the night. Princess failed to understand why a show about car reviews kept us all so interested.

12. After that Princess and I went for Artistry. 

Met a lot of other friends there. Left about 2.30AM. Then came home and watched some videos Desmond gave me till 4AM.

13. Woke up late again Sunday morning. Spent the afternoon playing XBOX.

14. Went to watch Operafest with Princess' family at night. Confirmed my suspicion that Opera isn't really my thing. Though I did like Phantom. Uncle Ooi on the other hand was singing along and really enjoying himself.

Okay... a new day tomorrow. Bed time now.

Nite nite all!

Who Wants UP Tickets?!?!?

Okay I got it again... tickets to another great movie.

This time I've got premiere passes for the new Pixar movie: UP (thanks to Sony Pictures).

Here's the date and time of the screening: 

Date: 11 August 2009

Time: 9.30PM

Venue: Cathay Cineplex Damansara

You guys know UP right?

Watch the trailer if you don't.

It looks hilarious.

Okay I've got 20 pairs of tickets to give away to you guys. This time I'm going to try to be a little bit more fair than the last time though. 

Instead of first come first serve, I'll give it away to the best 20 people who can write me an e-mail and tell me what they've always wanted to do in their lifetime and why. Gives me a chance to get to know some of you better too.

The most interesting 20 will win a pair of tickets ok? 

E-mail me now at lengmoublogs@yahoo.com

The closing date for this is 11.59PM on the 29th of July 2009.

One lesson I learned from the previous time I gave away tickets was that I got a big flood of e-mails after my entry and I didn't manage to reply them all.

So I'll try to reply everyone but if I can't then I'll inform only the winners ok? I'll e-mail the winners by 1st August 2009.

Thanks everyone. Hope to see you there.

Update: It's been an hour since I've posted this up and I see so many really interesting emails from you guys on what your dreams are. I had an idea and thought that it would be nice if you guys shared your aspirations with everyone else on my blog here too. So once you e-mail me, do cut and paste it and leave it as a comment here too ok? Totally optional though :)

Pierre & Lay See's Wedding

Announcement: Okay before I forget again, if you're a fan of Tey Cindy who just recently lost her old blog URL. Here's her new blog.

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Last Saturday, Pierre and Lay See got married. You guys remember the both of them right? The "perfect couple" that everyone from Malacca knows. Both together since high school, both smart, both good looking, both from rich families... both nice people... aihh.. both everything.. I'm going to tell my story of the whole day in pictures and words.

1. Woke up at 6.00AM on a Saturday. I looked out my hotel window and Malacca was still dark. 

2. I nudged Princess up and asked her to get ready. We had to be at Pierre's place by 7AM. I was going to be one of Pierre's Heng Tai's. Princess made it to the bathroom to wash up, constantly chanting "Haih... 6AM.. fuck my life... fuck my life".

3. Left the hotel and headed to Pierre's house. Was there by 7ish. The sun was finally beginning to rise. Kenny was there too as one of the Heng Tai's along with me. 

4. All the Heng Tai's were asked to wear a white long sleeve shirt and black slacks. We were then given a pink tie each and told to wear it. 

That idea couldn't have come from Pierre or any of the other guys. We knew it was insisted upon by the bridesmaids. 

5. Waited a long time for Pierre. Was told that he was in the shower. We joked about him being in the shower rubbing his forehead and asking himself

"Really ahh... am I really sure about this".

6. But Pierre soon made an appearance and we left his home in a very big entourage. Some 15 cars.

7. The minute we reached the Bride's home, 

we saw them... all the bridesmaids who looked at us heng tais like wolves look at meat. It's like they revel in the tradition of how they get to torture the groom and the groom's heng tais.

The girls were all dressed in pink, which explained the stupid pink tie we were all wearing. 

8. They immediately got all the guys to sit down on some plastic chairs they had prepared for us. Then they asked us all to roll up our pants and took out something that made me go "What... the... fuck...???"

It was a strip of bikini wax. They were all going to wax off a portion of our leg hair. The head of the bridesmaids announced

"This is to show you men how much pain we have to go through sometimes".

Then each bridesmaid picked a guy and they all started putting on the wax. I looked at Princess with hope that she would save me but she stood there just laughing.

9. Soon I heard the first wax get stripped off. It was Kenny's and I heard his scream

"AARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!"

Then one by one of the guys had their leg hair waxed off. 

10. When it came to the guy next to me, the girl doing it for him was scared of pulling it off quickly or something. So she SLOWLY pulled off the strip plucking one hair off his leg at a time. He was screaming in pain and shouting

"PLEASE JUST DO IT QUICK!!! DO IT QUICK!!!"

I knew what he was thinking at that point. He was thinking

"LET ME DIE... JUST... LET ME DIE!!!"

11. I was terrified when I saw that. I begged my bridesmaid to make it quick and painless. She pulled it off and I was left with a smooth bald patch on my leg.

You can see it so clearly on the picture but in real life it's obvious like anything.

This is how Kenny's leg looked.

See the patch?

12. For the rest of the torturous half hour that felt like an eternity, the girls gave us little pity.

They made some of us line up and hump each other to pop the balloons with our crotches.

They made us put on lipstick 

and play "suck and blow" with each other.

And they made us eat disgusting sandwiches with an overdose of wasabi and some bitter chinese herbs

One of us had it right when he shouted over to Pierre

"Pierre!!! You are losing your friends FAST!!!"

That's right Pierre.... really fast.

13. Finally we got into the house and managed to get Pierre to pick up the bride.

 Then they did the tea ceremony and some other wedding traditions.

14. We ended the morning going back to Pierre's home where lunch was served in his garden.

When Mr Kenny Sia saw food...

he didn't wait. 

Princess and I had lunch, then we took a picture and headed off.

We went back to the hotel shortly after for an afternoon nap, then woke up again to dress up for the wedding dinner.

15. Pierre's wedding dinner had a Paris theme. So they made the outside of the ballroom look like Paris and the inside of the ballroom had many projectors that projected images of Paris on the walls to make it look like Paris.

Princess and I finally managed to take a picture with the bride and groom.

See my tie sticking out at the bottom of my suit jacket. Almost looks as if I have red underwear sticking out of my zipper hahaha.

16. They gave out MAMEE goodie bags... which only seemed natural since Pierre's family owns MAMEE, Double Decker, Mister Potato and... whatever else.. I love Mamee!

17. The wedding was really grand and had the very tastefully done video slideshow of both the bride and groom growing up.

Then.... they told the story of how the bride and groom met. Princess and I were eager to hear it. I mean... here's a perfect couple.. both perfect in everything... maybe they had a lousy story of how they met or something right? Like maybe they met in class and that's it.

We were wrong.

Here's how they met.

Lay See's best friend Kelly is also Pierre's cousin. One day when they were both 14 or so, they were both at Kelly's birthday party. Then Lay See who was 14 at the time (or somewhere around that age) happened to accidentally spill spaghetti on herself only to catch Pierre's attention.

Pierre called Kelly later that night and told her that if she helped him court Lay See, he will find her an eligible boyfriend. Pierre and Lay See eventually started dating in groups of friends... you know, being young and all. But by age 17 they both officially got together and have been together ever since. 

Their sweet story made Princess cry and dashed our last hope at thinking that there was a chance they weren't perfect.

They are a perfect couple. Near the end of the dinner, Princess asked me

"Baby our wedding won't be anywhere as good as this right?"

I nodded.

"I'm sorry Baby..."

Princess and I were both glad we were able to be a part of their wedding though. Pierre was just one of those friends where it really mattered to me for me to be there at his wedding. Thanks for the invite dude.

Oh well...How do you fight Pierre and Lay See....  they're just too perfect. 

To feel better about ourselves, Princess and I took more pictures outside... pretending that we were in Paris.

Maybe one day we can show our kids these photos and tell them how we went there for our honeymoon. They wouldn't know the difference.

It looks like we're really in Paris and not outside some hotel ballroom in Malacca right? Right?