At the Singapore F1

Last Sunday, I went with Pierre and Ming for the Singapore F1. I've never been for an F1 race before. Can't say it was something I was interested in at first but with all the hype over it and after watching it on TV last year I decided to go to Singapore to watch the night race this year.

The three of us got the walk-a-bout pass which only cost like SGD100 each. I think it's like the cheapest ticket there. The other tickets can cost like SGD 300 onwards.

The bad thing about the walk-a-bout passes is that there's no fixed place to sit with a good view. The good thing though is that you get to walk around along the entire track and get to stand right next to where the cars are driving past.

We spent the whole night walking around and stopped by the river at some point to have some drinks and Mister Potato, enjoying the view of the city.

Took a picture of Pierre too.

If you're wondering why my pictures are so dark. It's because all these pictures were taken with my iPhone camera. Princess took my real camera with her that weekend.

Later in the night we found ourselves in some part of the tracks where you had emergency teams waiting in place in case an accident were to happen. There was like a fire truck all waiting full of fire extinguishers at the back along with an ambulance all with people already inside them waiting to drive out the minute something went wrong.

It's like they weren't going to waste a minute by even standing outside the cars.

Funny thing though was that the next day we watched parts of the race again on TV and realized that there were a lot of things that happened on the race that we missed because we were at the wrong side of the tracks to see it. You know, car banging one another and all.

Overall, the experience of watching the Singapore F1 was AMAZING.

I mean it's one thing watching the cars from an aerial view on TV. It's another thing altogether standing right next to the track when they drive past. It's really loud when they go past, so loud that we all had to buy these little ear plugs to put in our ears whenever we were near the track.

In the midst of buying the ear plugs, Ming also bought a Singapore F1 cap for all three of us.

It cost SGD55 each... something I thought was waaaay overpriced but Ming decided that it was worth it for the memory. Ming is like that sometimes. He has a slightly different view of life than a lot of people have (including myself).

Like if I were going to spend RM100, I would evaluate to see if this material thing I was getting was worth it or not. In this case for example, I would ask myself if the cap is really worth that much.

Ming on the other hand would value something not merely for its material worth but for the memories it brings. So in the case of the cap, the cap probably wasn't worth SGD 55 but the memory of the 3 of us being there was... at least to him.

So in the hope of capturing the memory of it all in the photos we took, we all made sure we wore the caps the whole night.

I really really enjoyed the night. It was good fun walking around the track and watching the cars go by even if we could only see a car for like a few seconds before it zoomed right past us. I tried taking some pictures of the cars driving past but couldn't manage to get any good shots with my iPhone camera.

So I ended up taking a video.

Here it is guys.

Cool huh?

I think I'll go again next year :)

TO ARTHUR!!!

Last Friday I went to watch the Black Eyed Peas at their Arthur's Day performance in Sunway Lagoon Surf Beach.

The Black Eyed Peas has gotta be one of my favourite groups of all time. You know they're good when you're asked to name one good song they have and you can't help but think of too many.

There are so many! Starting from "Where is the love" to "My Humps" to "Lets Get it Started" to "Shut up" and to more recently "I gotta feeling".

They're just great!

Guinness gave us great tickets at the Silver Zone where we had the most important thing of the night next to the performance: FREE FLOW GUINNESS.

(Check out my t-shirt with my music Domo-Kun. I thought it suited the atmosphere :) )

I don't know what it is with my crave for Guinness these days but I tell you it's not just me. Pierre was telling me the other day too that he's going through a bit of a Guinness craze himself lately. I think it's amazing how Guinness has evolved. From something I only knew my grandmother to drink to something that lots of people our generation love to drink these days.

I tried to take some pictures of the concert stage but ended up with shots like this.

Couldn't seem to get many good pictures because it's a little too dark and we were a little too far away but the music was great and I had a great night.

Oh and here's another thing I managed to pull off! *yay*

I got a video of them singing "Where is the love". This time, having learned from my David Tao experience I made sure I didn't sing along so I didn't DUB over Black Eyed Peas. It's great.

Watch it towards the end and at one point you'll see Desmond Kiu shouting

"WHERE IS MY LOVEEEEE???'

Thank you for the great tickets Guinness!

Oh and thank you for all the Guinness. It made us all happy. Look at how happy it made Kim in this photo (on the left).

It was a great night!

Malaysian Version of Hooters?

My Singaporean friend sent me this e-mail just a few days ago.

The e-mail came with an introduction which I shall quote here

What's the story?  This is a kopi tiam in Kuala Lumpur ~ Cawangan Bandar Perdana.  The price of kopi, beer, teh, milo, nasi goreng, nasi lemak, nasi ulam, mie goreng, seafood tanghun,  beef kwayteow double of what we are paying at other kopi-tiam.  The catch : a bevy of really sexy, young and pretty women serve the beverages & food.  They also talk & play cards, and watch football chanel in sport-tv with you.  Surprise, the kopi tiam owned by a group of women (who know how to milk the situation)  and only employ sexy girls (remember Hooters? this one in Kuala Lumpur is WAY BETTER!).  The girls said, the salary is comparable with working in the office...wow...

along with the following pictures.

At the end of the e-mail she asked "Is this true?"

Well.. I've never heard of it and I think it's fake judging by how airbrushed the pictures are and how the lighting is so perfect. Hardly looks candid at all.

But my fellow Malaysians let me ask you guys. Is this true?

Winds of Change

Sorry if I haven't been able to reply comments or update lately. I've been sick again in the past 2 days. Food poisoning from some food that I had back in Penang. Funny thing is that my whole family who had that same dinner was totally okay. I was the only one hit by food poisoning.

There used to be a time where I seldom got food poisoning or seldom got sick. I would get sick literally about twice a year, normally not more than that. These few recent years though have been really bad for me. In 2009 so far, I think I've been sick some 4 times. That's almost like once every 2 months! 

I don't know what's wrong with me. My body resistance seems to be a lot weaker these days than it used to be. My mum attributes it to stress though. My mum says that she can see it in me sometimes. How my mind is often very occupied by work. 

Princess sees it too. The other day we were lying around my room just talking when she turned to me and said "I miss you..."

I gave her a really confused look and at the point really started wondering that maybe men really were from Mars and women from Venus

"What do you mean? I'm here with you right now aren't I?"

"No... you're not. You're physically here but I know your mind is thinking about work. Why can't you just let it go for a while".

I crept closer to her then and cuddled her for a while 

"Okay Okay".

At that moment, I had defeated it. I had taken my mind off work for just a few minutes but I failed to keep that discipline any longer than that. Before I knew it I was thinking about work again. 

I don't know how I got to be like this. When it first started off, I related it to passion. Passion about a company that I couldn't get my mind off. Now though I think it has grown from a passion to an obsession. I try to take it easy these days. Try not to stay in the office too late but I know it doesn't work. 

I may leave the office at 7.00PM but I never fail to bring back my work with me. Maybe that's why I keep falling sick. Maybe it's because my mind is never at peace. I never just really sit down and relax for a few days and not think about work. 

Not having the urge to check my e-mails or to call someone to make sure everything is ok. This is something that I think I eventually have to find in myself to get over. Ming on the other hand is good at drawing this line. He knows how to stop thinking about work when the time comes for him to relax.

I need to start to learn that too. 

I remember a time when life was a lot simpler. When I had a lot less to think about and all I had to worry about was silly coursework, 

exams at the end of the year and where we should all go for lunch next.

To think I was just a simple university student 5 years ago. 

I can't complain about the life I have now. It turned out better than I thought it would be.

I do however reminisce on how simple life was back then... as a student.

Things I grew up with

So I'm back in my hometown Penang after a very long time. It never fails. Every time I come home I look at the things on my study table, the things in its drawers, the things that lie around my room and memories come back to me. 

All these little things are little keys to memories stored in my mind.

 So while Princess was sitting on my bed blogging away, I took some time in the afternoon and I took out a few old things in my room and started thinking how I got that and what I had went through with it.

1) This was the very same alarm clock that would wake me up for school every morning. 

When I was in primary school I had an alarm clock that beeped but I grew to love sleep even more as I grew older. So by the time I was in secondary school, I got this alarm clock that let out a very loud ringing sound. It was so loud that sometimes I get a shock and I jump out of bed right away trying to figure out what the hell just happened.

That couldn't have been good for my young heart at the time, but it worked. By the time I realized that the loud ringing sound was coming from my alarm clock, I would be wide awake!

2) This was some handcraft that I bought from some students from a girl school in Penang. 

I can't remember which school or who were the girls selling it but what I do remember is that it was for a charity drive.

I think I had a small crush on one of the girls who were selling it so I ended up buying one. It cost me like RM20 or something. A lot of money back then for a secondary school student.

I do think it was worth it though. I mean think of the creativity it took to make this out of matchboxes, marbles, satay sticks and other random materials you find around the house.

3) This is my Audi TT remote control car that I bought when I was 17. 

Yes I still did like playing remote control cars back then. In fact, if I had the chance to play one now I might still enjoy it. Nothing like being able to control a little toy car from a distance.

4) I don't know about you guys but back in school, these watches were the BOMB!

The Casio calculator watches that had everything inside. You name it, world clock, calculator, scheduler, teleporter... you name it. I remember when I managed to successfully beg my Dad to buy me one in Standard 6 because most of my friends in school had it too. When I wore it to school the next day, it felt like I was in some ELITE club. I felt POWER... I felt like THE MAN, that was until G-Shock became the craze and my calculator watch started to look a little lame. Damn fast moving trends!!!

The girls didn't pay much attention to my calculator watch or the G-Shock though. They probably thought it was an ugly watch.

And now, looking back at it... I can't say they were wrong.

Some 13 years later I'm wearing a watch that does nothing more than tell the time. 

No.. it doesn't even beam me up to my spaceship in orbit.

5) Since we're talking about technology now, lets talk about my mobile phones. 

My parents were the kind who always wanted to know where I was. I guess knowing that I always got in trouble in school, they wanted to make sure I didn't get myself in trouble anywhere OUTSIDE school. So the first mobile phone I used was an Ericsson phone that came out right after that famous Motorola brick phone with the flap. I remember how everyone also had to bring out like 2-3 spare batteries with the phone so that you could keep using it the whole day.

It wasn't like "my phone" in the sense that I kept it with me all the time. It was just one of those phones that we had in the house and if I were going out alone, I was supposed to take it with me in case my parents wanted to reach me. 

So I ended up mostly with Ericsson phones until one day I started getting worried about all the talk on radiation from mobile phones causing brain tumours and all that. So I started doing some research on which phones don't emit a lot of radiation and somehow word was that this Siemens phone had low radiation.

I eventually ended up getting one of these.

While all my other friends had the cooler phones like the Nokia "Butterfly". Remember how cool those were back then? They were like the hottest phone around.

Many years later when I got into college though, my Godparents gave me a present. Probably the first and last time they spoilt me. (Ever since then my parents told them not to give me anything like that anymore) 

They bought me this Nokia 8310 which was at the time one of the coolest phones around.

I mean back then it was like the THE phone to have! It could just have these little ringtones, send SMS and make calls but yet it was like... one of the best phones around then. Don't even talk about having a camera or accessing the internet, all that stuff didn't exist commercially yet.

Fast forward today and I'm still one of those geeky guys crazy about phones. So I'm on an iPhone which can do everything my old Nokia 8310 can do but like 10,000 things more. 

How technology changes in such a short time.

The Nokia 8310 though was probably one of the most reliable phones I've ever had. Never failed me.

6) Okay... this is going to surprise some of you but... I actually played the Harmonica as a teenager.

Yes it's true. I had a table tennis teacher who was taught me to play the Harmonica every week. I started off with this beginner one 

and he eventually bought me a better one.

It's not too difficult though. But today I think I can only remember to play 1-2 songs. And they're really old songs like Red River Valley or something.

There is one more thing that I was thinking of sharing here. Something I found in my room. The thing that inspired me to become an entrepreneur but I think I'll write about that in the next entry. This entry is long enough.

Hope you guys are having a great holiday :)

Project Alpha Episode 2 and 3 (Fourfeetnine)

After a 7 and a half hour drive yesterday back to Penang I finally reached my hometown. It wasn't funny. My ass was pretty flat by the end of the ride.

Fortunately my brother was around to drive half of the way so I spent half of the way just playing Airline Tycoon on my iPhone. 

Plus the heavy rain didn't help the jam much. 

The journey turned out to be pretty worth it though. It's always nice to be back home sometimes. My room gives me a nostalgic feeling that reminds me of before and I sometimes find old things that I used to use a lot (no longer though). Perhaps I'll blog about that next. Let me settle down first ok? Must spend time with parents.

Haven't seen them for a long long time.

So to keep you guys occupied in the mean time. Here's episode 2 

and episode 3 of Project Alpha featuring Princess where Jojo dragged her to the gym after hearing that she never exercises.

I thought she was really cute in episode 3.

Catch you guys soon ok ? :)

Selamat Hari Raya!

Project Alpha - Episode 1 (Fourfeetnine.com)

Project Alpha's first episode was uploaded today featuring none other than Princess.


In this first episode we talk a bit about our relationship and you get to see Princess' home, where I spend a lot of time at each week.

An episode will be released each day. The first one today, another tomorrow and so on so forth.

You can view the next episodes when they come out at the Project Alpha page.

The Day I Destroyed My David Tao Recording

Last Saturday I was at the T-Music Festival (sponsored by Tiger) at Bukit Jalil. Man... it sure was one hell of a concert. It started at 7PM and had back to back performances all the way till nearly 2.00AM. Tiger gave me a pair of VVIP tickets where I could stand like 2 meters away from the stage, where I stood for like 5 hours!

The experience though was... mesmerizing. There were like 20 acts from the most famous artists in the region. I mean you had everyone from Yung Joey, Justin, Powerstation, Soler, Lee Sheng Jie to ... DAVID TAO.

There were some Malaysian singers there that night too. I was impressed by this particular guy. I think his name was Eric Lim.

I was convinced by the end of the concert that I will probably never ever in my life again be able to see so many superstars in one night. Unless we have another one next year (please have another one next year Tiger!). I'm pretty sure that a lot of other people there that night are wishing for that too... all 12,000 of them.

Yes I heard there were like 12,000 people there!

For most of the night, Princess and I found a very comfortable spot just like 1-2 meters away from the stage. I was quite happy with our spot. There were people in front of us but I could see the stage really clearly from where I was standing.

Princess though was really fidgety. She didn't seem very entertained and insisted that we tried to push further to the front when we were already so close to the front.

It was then that I later realized why.

From where we were standing, this was what I could see at my eye level.

Princess on the other hand is a little smaller in size. So this was what she could see. Basically the backs of a couple of guys in front of us and that's it.

She could hear the music and the crowds cheer but she had no clue what was happening on stage.

This is where we both saw a kind deed that made us both proud to be Malaysians. The two guys in front of us saw that Princess was jumping up and down trying to get a view of the stage so they offered to let her take their place in front. Princess at first hesitated because she didn't want to separate from me but the two guys even told me to go ahead with her.

So we both went in front and took their place.... and Princess could see the concert that was meant to be seen.

After like almost 5 hours of performances, we all got to see the act that almost everyone was waiting for. David Tao.

The second he stepped on the stage the crowd went totally crazy. So did I! I whipped out my camera and started taking lots of pictures.... so that I could later on put these pictures on my blog and share the joy with you guys.

I took so many pictures until I realized that I should also take a video too. So I switched on my video mode on my camera and started recording away. Just in time to hear him start singing "Ai Hen Jian Dan", one of his biggest hits.

The whole crowd went insane! We all sang along with him throughout "I LOOOOVVVEEEE YOUUUU....". I kept recording almost the full song but I accidentally stopped the recording towards the end only to start it again in time to catch the last 30 seconds.

Soon after singing "Ai Hen Jian Dan", he bid us all goodbye and left us all in tears.

Yung Joey then came on to stage to sing her part. She had a great sense of humour and she really was quite the entertainer.

We all left the T-Music Festival that night with a big smile on our faces.

It had been a great night and a night that I would remember forever. Not only that... I was going home with a recording of David Tao singing my favourite song.

I quickly uploaded and played the videos when I got home.

This was my Yung Joey video.



Not too bad.

Then came my David Tao recording of "Ai Hen Jian Dan". That was then... I nearly felt like banging my head against the wall.

While recording his performance I hadn't realized that I was also singing along in joy with everyone else in the crowd who were all singing along too. Since the camera was right in front of me, it recorded my voice more than everyone else INCLUDING DAVID TAO HIMSELF.

So I ended up with a recording of David Tao's performance but with my voice over.It wasn't enough that I was singing like a drunk, at some parts where I forgot the words I simply mumbled something.

I ended up with a recording of David Tao's LIVE performance, DUBBED over by Timothy Tiah's voice. ARGHH!!!!!!!

I was so angry with myself I was rolling around in bed that night. UHUK UHUK!!!. Princess for some reason found it funny and kept laughing at me.

So I'm not going to share the video I ruined with you guys. Why would you want to hear my drunk singing.

Instead I'll share a video of the last 30 seconds of his song. I also managed to ruin a little bit of this video but it wasn't as bad because by the end of the song I was already losing my breath.

There you have it everyone. The day I destroyed my David Tao recording.

Thank you anyway to Tiger for giving me the chance to see so many stars perform LIVE in one night. Please have another one next year.