Princess' Surprise Birthday Party

Tuesday was Princess's 24th birthday. 

For the past 1-2 months I've been stealthily putting together a birthday surprise for her (with the help of Pinky, Mellissa and Wendy).  Planning a surprise for someone so far back was a lot harder than I thought, especially if you spend almost every other free non-working hour with the person you have the surprise planned for.

Anyway her birthday finally came after all the preparations and I must say everyone involved in planning the party and everyone who knew about it did a stellar job in keeping quiet. Some of us even 'forgot' that it was her birthday and didn't even wish her so to her it was a typical work day.

Of course I knew I had to appear as if we were doing SOMETHING for her birthday so I told her I would take her for a good dinner. Since she loved Japanese food, I picked her up late after work and took her to Kampachi in Equatorial Hotel. She looked a little bit exhausted but the minute she got on to the dinner table she ordered away.

 The greedy girl ended up ordering like 3 main courses for herself... finishing none of them including this big bowl of sashimi.

In her defence, she thought that the bowl looked a lot smaller than it actually was so she ended up ordering an order of Soba and fried rice, both she didn't end up finishing.

That's in addition to some of the other sushi she ordered.

I kept my dinner simple and just got some beef to eat with some rice 

and some sushi

Over dinner she was telling me all about her day. How she even forgot that it was her birthday and how she doesn't feel any special. Like it was a normal work day for her.

I just listened and nodded along. Then I told her that I felt a little bit bad for not planning anything for her for her birthday, a lie of course.

The funny thing was that as happy as she tried to look over dinner and as upbeat as she was, I felt like she was a little sad. That... well... she expected something more or was hoping for something more out of her birthday but just kept telling herself that birthdays are no big deal anyway.

So after dinner we headed back to my apartment for a bit. I convinced her to come by to watch DVDs or something. When we got out of the lift on my floor, I passed her my house keys and asked her to open the door. At that point my heart was beating so damn fast in anticipation of the surprise.

She whined

"Is this my new role now? Door opener?"

Then she walked into my dark apartment only to see in the shadows all the balloons Pinky and I had put up hours earlier. She thought it was a small surprise I had for her.. to decorate my apartment... so she said 

"Oh balloons!".

Then I turned on the lights and suddenly everyone jumped out of their hiding places and shouted

"SURPRISE!!!"

We all starting singing "Happy Birthday" with all 20 of us walking towards her with a custom-made Pink Hello Kitty cake Mellissa had helped me source for her weeks ago!

From the mediocre courtesy smile she had given me all night, she suddenly put on a HUGE smile on her face... all surprised to see all the friends I had invited there that night. 

A month ago I had sent invites to all her friends that I knew, all her friends that I didn't know, her parents and of course the Nuffies to attend this surprise birthday party for Princess. 

I was impressed at how everyone managed to keep it all a secret up till the end. 

Princess turned around to look at me for a while and she gave me a big smile. 

Then I let her off to go around like a social butterfly and hug all her friends there that night and serve them her Hello Kitty birthday cake. After we all had CAKE I pulled Princess to the side and said "That's not all... there's something else".

I gathered everyone around the TV in my living room and Pinky played a video that I had been working on for a long time (with invaluable and very very significant help from Wendy). 

You see, Princess has lots of friends... but many of her very close friends also happen to be overseas and weren't around to attend the surprise party.

So 1-2 months back I contacted one by one of her close friends, some whom I already knew but some whom I had never even met and asked them all to do a video each to contribute to a Birthday Video I was doing for her. Fortunately they had all heard of me and knew who I was so they didn't think I was some stalker creep asking them to make videos for my own sick pleasures.

Then I snuck to her house one day and with the help of her mum got together a collection of old photos they had of her growing up to put in the video. 

I passed everything to Wendy to put together and she spent like... I don't know, freaking 2,000 hours or something rendering the video together.

Thank you Wendy, I owe you dinner.

We turned off the lights and everyone sat down to watch the video together.

If you want to watch the video too. Here it is.

Part 1 

Part 2

Halfway through Princess started crying.... everyone thought she was crying because she was touched by the video but she later told me it's because she saw her best friend Angela in it and that made her miss Angela more.

So there you have it everyone. She wasn't crying for us.. she was crying for Angela *grumble*!!!

The night ended relatively early for us because we all had to work the next day. So after a quick present opening session everyone went their own ways.

At the end of the night when we were alone for a while Princess started crying again.

I asked her 

"What's wrong?"

And she said

"Nothing.... just really.. touched".

and gave me a hug.

Another Nike Football Video

Is it just me or does Nike have all the major football stars.

Seriously, I thought that previous viral video that put the viewer in the eyes of an upcoming footballer had a lot of football stars in it. 

Then they came up with another one.

That's like... can you imagine an ad for Chanel have not just Nicole Kidman but Jessica Alba, Kate Beckinsale, Angelina Jolie, Charlize Theron and all the other Hollywood superstars in it.

PS: To everyone who's going and don't already know, Rihanna's concert tomorrow has been postponed to a later date. Not sure when that is yet but it's not canceled. Just postponed. So don't go show up at an empty Bukit Jalil stadium tomorrow night ok?

Look Ma New Jeans! Should I wash them?

I did a bit of Post-CNY shopping last weekend. Princess had her silly Japanese friend visit us over the weekend and we brought him around.

His name is Masato. I gotta say that Japanese tourists are the most fun to take around. They're so enthusiastic about everything you show them. Princess and I brought him for Klang Bak Kut Teh and he was so damn impressed.

Then again... it's Klang Bak Kut Teh... who wouldn't be impressed.

Anyway, towards the last few months of last year I started my jogging regime. Every morning I would wake up at 6AM just go to jog around KLCC Park before I come home, shower then go off to work.

Then just starting this year I went back to the gym to do a little bit of working out.

The result... my waistline had dropped from 34" to 31" and I suddenly needed new jeans.

So I found myself at The Curve last weekend with Princess and Masato and bought myself two new pairs of jeans from Levi's.

Tadaaaaaa.... check out my new jeans!

I like jeans.

I mean heck, it's just the best investment in clothing. I wear it for everything. I wear it when I go out on weekends and I even wear it to work every day since Nuffnang's office dress code is casual, then again so is just about the rest of the advertising industry. I remember once going for a digital advertising conference in Singapore. I wore a suit thinking that well.. it was a conference right?

Little did I realize that everyone there was just dressed in shirts and jeans. That's all! Jeans have somehow become the new work clothes, at least in my industry.

And it's the kind of thing where you can spill shit on it and you won't even have to feel bad because most of the time you can't even see it.

Here's the thing about jeans that I'm not sure about though.

I wash my jeans once every 3 days but I have some friends who say that you should never wash your jeans so often. Only once a week or even once a month. I have a friend who said she never once washed any of her jeans. That jeans is not for washing.

Another friend of mine told me that he didn't wash his jeans for 3 months and when he eventually did, the water he washed it with turned all black.

So what is true? You tell me. 

How often do you wash your jeans? Do the poll on my sidebar.

One Week Before Valentine's Day

It's one week before Valentine's Day, a day that I used to resent. "Damn those happy couples!" 

So I logged on to Facebook yesterday to see what my friends were doing.

Here's the funny thing.

Around July - October last year, every time I logged on to Facebook I saw a lot of my friends "ending their relationships". It was almost as if it was the time of the year where everyone was breaking up. Yesterday when I logged in, not only was NOBODY breaking up, but in fact everyone was getting attached one way or another.

I even saw this girl I used to know from secondary school who just got married. Her wedding pictures were all over Facebook!

I guess Valentine's Day is a time of love!

Everyone wants somebody to spend it with though the truth is I have had my fair share of single Valentine's Days and I always found something fun to do.

So I looked around to see what my proudly single friends are doing.

I guess they're all going for an Exclusive Singles Night Party that says 

"Fuck you Happy Couples! Fuck you very much!"

What am I doing for Valentine's Day....?

Well... that's a surprise :)

Pinky Leaves Nuffnang Malaysia for Nuffnang Australia

There are many things that I have yet to learn about running a business and one of those is "hiring the right people". 

It's easy to hire people. Just look at your Profit & Loss account to see if you can afford to hire another person to help with the workload and then just make the decision to hire. Once you put out a job ad on any of the job portals you get like... hundreds of applications. It also helps that every day there are people applying to Nuffnang through our Careers Page.

Hiring the right people though is something that I am still very much learning. I have made some really bad hires in the past, not necessarily because they were not good people or anything but just perhaps... they weren't suited for the job or right for the culture of the company. 

For example Nuffnang runs on a very independent-like work culture. That means throughout your working hours, nobody's breathing down your neck. You can sleep when you feel like sleeping, you can Facebook if you like, you can do whatever you want as long as your work is done at the end of the day.

Perhaps some people are used to this culture in companies they currently work for, but for some we've experienced they come in not used to this culture and start abusing their new found freedom and independence. That means they do all of the above.... but let it affect their productivity a little too much. That doesn't mean they're not good people nor does that mean they're not capable or productive. They probably are. It just means they weren't right for us and we weren't right for them.

For a moment last year I was making a string of bad hires and I started to doubt my ability of reading people well. I started asking a lot of help from my mentors: managers or CEOs of other companies that have far more experience and they tell me that the only way to learn these things is to make the bad hires then develop a gut feel that you think you can trust.

I've admittedly been very very lucky in finding most of the wonderful people that work with me at Nuffnang today.  That doesn't mean I skillfully knew how to pick the right ones out of a haystack. Not at all, I was lucky instead. They all came to me filled with so much enthusiasm that it was hard to reject. It was almost like it was a gift from above. 

One day though I made the excellent decision of hiring a girl that boosted my confidence. Her name was Pinky.

She was soo full of life. A very fast learner she picked up on her role in a very short time and just her being in the team boosted everyone's morale. She was the kind of person that made silly jokes or comments all the time, the kind of person that you always want around your office. 

Of course everyone else in the office has to be just as wacky for it to take a full effect but everyone loved her!

And the best part was she loved everyone too.

She once told me

"Tim... when I first took this job I didn't expect much. I mean I knew about Nuffnang, a lot of people tell me about Nuffnang but I thought it was going to be just another job. But I was so wrong, I never imagined that it would be so much fun working here. You guys are like a second family to me".

We were all very close....

Then one day, Pinky got an unexpected offer to advance her studies in Melbourne, Australia. Something that she always wanted to do but never knew if she could. It was indeed a hard decision for her. She talked to me and told me how on one hand she knew that this was something she had to do but on the other hand, the fact that she loved us all made it so hard for her to go. She never wanted to leave Nuffnang.

We all cried and hugged..... (no I'm kidding) but I eventually told her to go. She asked me if I would take her back when she came back and I said of course (if we had the right place for her then). 

Then an opportunity came up one day later. Our Nuffnang Australia office in Melbourne needed some extra help and I thought Pinky would be a great addition to it so we told her that we'll give her a part-time job at Nuffnang Australia to come in if her schedule suited it.

She was delighted of course... that although she was leaving the team in KL, she wasn't leaving the Nuffnang Family that interacts way too much casually over the inter-company e-mail chains.

On her last day at work in Nuffnang KL, we took her out for a farewell lunch where we had our traditional CNY yee sang.

And we gave her all a Goodbye card.

With all our ramblings written on it.

Mellissa and KY too gave her a nice going away present.

Pinky... we will all miss you.

Good luck at your shot at being an Aussie Nuffie.

Don't cry... you promised not to cry!

Check out what I cooked!

Times are bad so Princess and I decided this week to cook!

I dug out this old Pasta recipe book that Ming bought for me a long time ago and flipped through the pages with Princess to come up with something we could both agree on. Everything I wanted to eat, she didn't want and everything I didn't want to eat, she wanted.

How like that!

So in the end we both settled for the most standard thing that anyone could eat. Carbonara!

It's actually freaking easy to make, at least the one in the recipe book.

All you need to do is boil your spaghetti.

Then cut up some bacon and ham if you like.

And fry the ham with olive oil until it's "golden brown" or so the recipe book described it as.

Then while you're getting that done, crack 3 eggs and beat them with 3 table spoons of cream, something Princess very proudly did while looking as stylish as she could.

And then once the bacon is cooked enough, put in the pasta and the beated eggs and cream into the pan and you've got it all sorted out.

The end result... 

Not too bad eh.. only took us like 30 minutes. 

The joke though is that it ended up being more expensive to cook for two people than for us to eat out. I've learned that unless we're dividing the food up to 4 or more people, just eat out!

Oh oh and disclaimer... my food poisoning wasn't caused by this pasta ok?

I mean my cooking may not be good... in fact it may be bad.. but it's not poison.

Ahhhh!!!

Look at the time! It's 5.40AM!

I've been up all night rolling around the bed with a stomach ache. Woke up to throw up 4 times tonight alone, threw up until there's nothing else but water left to hurl but still I'm hurling. What the hell is wrong with me. I don't remember eating anything dodgy in the past few days!

I'm waiting desperately for the sun to rise so I can go see a doctor.

I think I'm going to hurl again... brb

Andrew and Jayen's Wedding

Remember Andrew and Jayen, the very funny couple that took Princess and I around Hong Kong while we were there in December?

The two of them finally tied the knot and last night was their wedding dinner! At my age, all the previous wedding dinners I've had the chance to attend were all from relatives and family friends but this is the first one of a friend that I had ever attended.

Something that a lot of my older seniors tell me that I will experience more and more in the coming years. They say when you're 26-35 you'll be attending multiple weddings a year. 

More and more of your friends getting married which puts more and more pressure on YOU to get married and which also apparently encourages you to budget a certain amount for wedding Ang Pows you have to give out every year.

It's like you estimate how many of your friends are probably going to get married this year and you budget for it.

Speaking of Ang Pow, Princess and I went to the wedding proudly armed with an Ang Pow. When we got to the registration table Princess asked me

"What do we do now?"

Ish... silly question from Princess. I confidently walked up in front and told them that we were friends of the groom. They took out a list of names and asked us to mark down which ones were our names. I looked at the list up and down for a full two minutes but couldn't find our names at all. For a minute there I thought that maybe we weren't invited at all.

Then I turned to Princess and asked

"Did you remember to RSVP?"

She did of course. And we eventually found our names on another sheet of paper. Then we confidently walked in and sat down on our table with some of our other friends there.

Then about one hour into the dinner I turned to a friend seated on our table and asked

"Hey.. when are we supposed to pass the Ang Pow ar?"

She said

"Oh you were supposed to do it when you register".

Princess and I were taken aback a little. We let out a big

"OH REALLY?!?!"

Then we asked everyone else

"Hey did you guys give your Ang Pow already?"

And they all said

"Yes.. when you register that time you give so they can record you down".

Then I had a flashback. Right after I got our table number the guy who gave it to me was waiting for me for something. I wasn't sure what... but it's like... he didn't exactly quickly move on to the person behind me right after he gave me my table number. 

But Princess and I got our table number and proudly walked in... we probably looked like a cheap bastards who came to eat free food.

Aihhh... we're such wedding noobs. It was after all our first wedding of a friend. For all the previous weddings we've been to, our parents always handled the Ang Pow part and we shamefully paid little attention to any of that.

I later ended up passing it to Andrew himself when he came to our table to do the traditional "YAM SENG".

I hope he was sober enough to remember though. 

Aihh... goofy goofy us.