A conversation that took place yesterday.

Hasan: Oh man!!! I was in Tokyo for a week a few months back and I tell you… EVERY GIRL THERE IS HOT. I did not see ONE ugly girl in my entire week there. NOT ONE!!! It’s like it’s genetic… or like… like they dump all the ugly babies at birth (Like how the Spartans used to dump ‘weak’ babies at birth).

Me: Don’t say dump lah.. just say exile.. they exile all the ugly people.

Hasan: Yeah yeah.. seriously… it was so hard to find an UNHOT girl there!!!

Samantha: Hey that’s not true ler… I know this Japanese girl who goes for the same music class as I do and she’s NOT hot.

Me: She’s probably one of the exiled ones… she doesn’t live in Japan anymore right?

Hasan: HAHA!!!

——————————–

Some of you guys probably wonder how I spend my New Year’s Eve every year.

Well while some people spend theirs at street parties or at clubs but believe it or not, eventhough I’m a huge party animal during the average weekend, every New Year’s Eve I choose to avoid all the crowd and spend it with my family.This year my family went for one of those Black Tie New Year’s Eve Dinner & Dance events.

The good news of course is that Hasan is around this New Year’s Eve so he spent it with us too.

Along with Sam of course who didn’t have much else to do so she tagged along.
The party is a little bit of a reunion of sorts where I get to see some old family friends… or people close to me like my Godmother.

Yes… that lady in the picture is my Godmother… not my new girlfriend.

Now one thing I love about parties like this is how everyone gets a “Party Pack” equipped with silly hats like this.
And of course… GLOW-STICKS!!!

WHO DOESN’T LOVE GLOW STICKS?!?!

Even Samantha loves glow sticks.

She was constantly coming up to me the whole night saying
“Please help me tie this one around my wrist”.And also garnering enough glow sticks to wear them all over herself, including a halo on the top of her head.

Which I thought was pretty cute.

At least cuter than what Hasan and I did with them.

Anyway, after the countdown for New Year came and everyone was done singing Auld Lang Syne, it was time for me to adjourn for some other parties, but still never to clubs.
Seriously.. it’s impossible going to clubs on New Year’s Eve. IMPOSSIBLE!!!

So instead, I go to some house parties like this one held by my friend Gin here.
Who supplies the booze at his lovely house that overlooks the sea.

There guys drink and laugh together.
Or chat up girls.

Or even just stand and pose.

I stayed there till 3.30am until everyone decided that it was time to go home… most people have to work the day after that. Most people.. 😛

So yeah … there you have it everyone.

That’s how I spent my New Year’s Eve.

Happy New Year EVERYONE!!!

Oh and as for the bet I had with my friends to have a girlfriend by New Year 2008… well….

Update: To avoid any confusion… I LOST the bet larr!! *Sniff*

A few days ago, my best friend from the Middle-East, Hasan arrived in KL to visit me again (and to attend Alina’s wedding).

The minute I brought him into my quiet KL apartment, he said
“Tim…. I’m going to need some kind of hammer or something… I lost my key for the padlock to my bag and I need to get it open”.I gave him a short lecture about how he shouldn’t be so careless and bla bla bla but after that went on to say
“Dude.. you don’t need a hammer… come let me teach you”.

Okay first… take a look at the zipper. The padlock is holding two zippers together right?

Now all you need is not a hammer or anything… but a PEN.

So grab yourself a pen, and with its pointy edge, try to poke a hole in between the teeth of the zipper.
It will go straight through.

Then once your pen is halfway in the bag through the zipper, drag it along the outlines of the zipper to open the rest of the bag.The whole bag will open up.
And voila!

That’s all you need to open your bag.

Must kinda make you wonder why people even bother buying those padlocks on luggage bags huh.

Now what if you want to close it?

Simple, just pull on the padlock around the bag and close it up again.
Your bag will look as if it was NEVER opened.

Easy huh!

So whenever you check in baggage at the airport, don’t think bad people can’t open your bag.

They can not only open your bag, but open it, take whatever they want and close it back just as if it were never opened before.
After our whole exercise Hasan said
“You damn thief! You’re gonna teach your readers how to steal too aren’t you?”

PS: This really works. It’s not a trick. Try it yourself if you don’t believe me, it’s THAT easy.

Last week I found myself in Subang Jaya attending classes at Taylor’s Business School.

Taylor’s is running a campaign on Nuffnang which involved a few bloggers actually attending the classes they had there and blogging about it.

I thought it would be fun so I tagged along.

The minute I stepped into the Business School, I was greeted by a very nice lady named Christine and ushered to a lecture hall where some other students were there about to take the tour on how it feels like to be a Taylor’s student for the day.

By the time I set foot in the room, every student there was taking turns introducing themselves to the class. I was shy and low-key so I hid my head down.

We were briefed by these two nice ladies here on what life in Taylor’s tertiary education would be like and how today was the opportunity to wear the shoes of a typical Taylor’s student.

That’s like a whole going back to school experience for me and I thought it would be a little fun. So after our introduction, we were all ushered out of the room to the next building.

The campus was so full of life and packed with students that we even had to squeeze with other students in the elevator.But we all got out safe and sound and to the room where our first class was about to be.

Celebrity blogger Jolene and I camwhored a little bit before going in first.

Then she got me to camwhore on my own.

Now you can imagine the faces of the students looking at us wondering what on Earth a guy in working clothes and a little girl were doing taking pictures outside a classroom. Like never attend class before.
Anyway soon enough to the teacher came into the class.

As she walked in, the class monitor shouted
“CLASS STAND!!!!”

And everybody in the class (including Jolene and I) stood up.

The class monitor then subsequently shouted
“SELAMAT PAGI CIKGU”

and the class echoed in return
“SEEEEELAAAAAMAAAATT PAAAAGGIII CIKKKKGGUUUUU”.

And the cikgu looked at us and said
“SEKALI LAGI!”
and we did it again almost like singing a song
“SEEEELAAAMAAATT PAGGGIII CIKGGUUU”.

Then the cikgu said
“KUAT LAGI!!!!”

And we all shouted
“SEEELAAAMAAAATT PAGGGGI CIKGGUUUUUUuuuu”.

Then the cikgu said
“Bagus, duduk”.
And we all sat down like good boys and girls.

Hahahahahahaha… okok that never happened… I completely made it up.

Hahhahaa I was attending a class in College.. NOT school.

The teacher just walked in and started her class right away.

Now I graduated from UCL, one of the Top 25 Ranked Universities in The World (at least according to Newsweek), and if there was one thing I have come to expect about classes during my academic career was… they were slow, dull and kinda boring.

We just went there to take whatever notes we can.

So I got together my “class face”.

My “class face” is a face that I’ve learned to make after many years of studenthood to look like I am really really paying attention when I’m actually sleeping inside.

Check it out!
Like real leh?

There the teacher can be saying
“When the interest rate of the country as controlled by the Central Bank goes down, foreign investors will find it less worth while to keep their money in the country and we will effectively have an exchange rate depreciation.”

All I’m hearing inside my head is

“ANG ANG ANG… TO TE LE DA YE SUKI… DO RAE MON….”.

To my surprise this time however, the law class I was attending was far from boring. It was actually really really interactive with a lot of debates going on between the student and teacher and even students against themselves.

I couldn’t believe me eyes and ears.I looked around for the usual sleepy head in the class.

In every class there is always a student so bored out of his mind, he falls asleep at his desk but I couldn’t find one.

Everyone was so attentive listening to TORT…. The kind of stuff my lawyer friends used to tell me put them to sleep.I stayed as long as I could in the class until I received a phone call from one of my clients that demanded me to go back to the office and get some work out for them.

I went up to the nice lecturer, told her I had to leave and thanked her so much for letting me sit in. She smiled at me and waved goodbye.

I left Taylor’s that day feeling disappointed… disappointed because classes at college or university were never as fun for me as the one I just had… and the worst part is… I’m no more a student ☹ sniff

Maybe I should go back to college one day.

I have never used this blog to rant before!

UNTIL NOW

Let me tell you why!

Two weeks ago… I was driving home from the office minding my own business when suddenly… A *)&#$&# RED TAXI TURNS OUT OF THE ROAD AND HITS THE LEFT SIDE OF MY CAR JUST WHEN I WAS PASSING HIM.

It wasn’t my fault… but I got over it.

Just 1 hour ago I was driving back from dinner at KLCC and sitting at the Sultan Ismail traffic light opposite Beach Club minding my own damn business and listening to my music while waiting for the light to turn green.

Then what happens??!?

A #*)($)(*#($*) LORRY THE SIZE OF EGYPT BANGED INTO THE ASS OF MY CAR!

Now what happens when you know you hit something… you STOP RIGHT?!?!

But not this lorry driver.

No he continued plowing the back of my car down.

I got out of the car yelling at him in English and he yelling at me in Cantonese.

I don’t speak Cantonese. Finally we settled on cursing at each other in Mandarin.

He said that I shouldn’t have moved where I was.

HELLO?!?! I WAS QUEUING AT A *@$(&*#$ING TRAFFIC LIGHT!!!

All the pedestrians walking by starting yelling at him, obviously knowing that it was his fault since he drove his lorry up my A$$!!!

Finally both of us calmed down, I took his phone number and number plate and left the busy road.

And tomorrow I have to spend a whole day making a police report and going to a workshop to hopefully get my car fixed within a few hours which I am PRETTY SURE THAT AT THE EXTENT OF THE DAMAGE.. THAT AIN’T GONNA HAPPEN!!! NOT TO MENTION ALL THE BLOODY MEETINGS I HAVE TO CANCEL TOMORROW!!!

BUT WHAT CAN I DO HUH?!?!

When bad luck hits you… it hits you ALL AT ONE GO…. that’s Murphy’s Law INNIT?!?!

And I’m certainly enjoying that now!!! The last string of bad luck I had was just 3 months ago when a car tried to run me down on Sunway and I woke up with an injured cornea for whatever reason!

GREAT STUFF HUH?!?!

Maybe when the good luck comes it’ll all come at one go too.

Boy I wonder what extent of good luck is going to make up for this.

Maybe a Saudi Prince might hit my car next and as an apology, pay me RM100,000,000 in cash.

Tomorrow morning I am going to post up a proper entry…. by then.. please ignore this entry… I’m probably going to delete this entry then.

This is a continuation from Part 1. If you haven’t read Part 1 yet, then click here.

Okay so after I strapped on my gear and after the instructor warned me not to let go of the wall for the love of my nuts, I started climbing.

The first few steps were easy, but as it got higher and higher, the stones began to get a little further apart and a lot smaller to hold.

But it wasn’t too bad… and it felt good.

Made me feel all… powerful… climbing a wall that is.

Soon enough I reached the very top of the wall and rang the bell on top.

Everybody below clapped out loud and cheered!

Which was then I had the stupid idea of looking down at who was cheering at me.
It was only after I looked down did I realize how high up I was.

You know you’re pretty high up when the people below you are only as big as your thumb.

I looked down… and yelped a
“HOLY SHIT!”
I wanted to go down quick… so I yelled down to my instructor below
“OKAY OKAY!!! I’M READY TO COME DOWN NOW!!”

She shouted back from below
“Okay… let go of the wall now and slide down your harness”.

I thought I heard her wrong for a minute…
“What?!?! I thought you told me NOT to let go of the wall for the love of my nuts!?”

Her reply was soft in the distant below
“Don’t worry… you’ll be okay… I’ll reel you down slowly. Now let go”.

I let go off the wall and slided all the way down the cable to the floor. The fall kinda felt like one of those roller coaster drops where you leave your stomach behind but eventually I touched the ground.

I decided I had enough exercising for the day so I went back to my room, took a shower and headed to the cyber cafe there to use a bit of the internet and check back at work.
I spent a bit of time online (or however much I could afford), then I took a walk around the inside of the ship… giving me some time to take this picture of one of the areas.

Soon enough, it was near sunset and when aboard the cruise, I never miss a sunset.

I headed straight for the side of the ship.

And watched the sun slowly set while leaning on the railing.
Always a beautiful sight.

Soon the time came for dinner.

Now the dinners on the cruise were one of the best dinners you can ever imagine.

On some of the nights they actually have formal dinners where everyone is to dress up and head to a really classy restaurant there they call Eldelweiss or something.

So I put on my suit.

And headed straight for the beautiful two-floor restaurant on the ship.

It almost looked like one of those dining areas that we see in Titanic… only better.

There are chandeliers everywhere, waiters dressed in vests or suits and to top it off, a pianist playing the most wonderful tunes on the Grand Piano there.

The menu, just like the restaurant looked beautiful and had dishes inside that were so fantastic I am yet to find a restaurant in Malaysia with such good fine dining food.
On some days there is Atlantic Cod, some days we have steak like this.

and on other days we had Lamb.
ALL OF THEM… UNBELIEVABLY delicious.

The desert of course is even more unbelievably lip smacking… like this Banana Souffle I had… so delicious I grew wings and flew to Heaven and back after having my first bite.

Now after the wonderful long dinner we have over wine… we adjourn to a performance of the night that they have in the huge theater they house on board.
Some nights there are dancing shows… some nights musicals and one night even a really talented Magician that performs in Las Vegas showed up.

After the performance… the clock nears 11 o’clock which is when everyone heads over to the disco on board that overlooks the swimming pool.

At first we had to start the night dancing to music like “Uptown Girl” which to me was… wtf???

But soon enough, the Black Eyed Peas, Akon and Kanye West’s came on and we had a fantastic time.

By the time we’re all done dancing and head back to our room, housekeeping had made its evening round to clean up the room and make up the bed.

On the bed they always leave us a little surprise.

They supply us with new bath towels every day, but delivered in the form of some creatively crafted animal.
That night it was the swan that they put together.

So that’s how a day on board the Rhapsody of the Seas was for me.

I hope you guys enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing about it.

I’m writing this while in our Penang office now looking out my window.

Yes, Christmas Eve and all of us at Nuffnang are still at work.

But while we’re all working our Christmas Eve away, one of my colleagues Janice forwarded me an e-mail sent from one of our Nuffnangers over the weekend.

Hi Postmaster, could you help me forward this email message to the
marketing department?

I’ve tried to reply their email address but it seems to have bounced =.=

Hey marketing department!

Time check – IT’S 10:16PM ON A FESTIVE SEASON WEEKEND. WHY ARE YOU GUYS
STILL WORKING? Boohoo to Ming and Tim for making you work on a Saturday =(

Isn’t it boring to just click-and-click, and send emails to bloggers without them replying you? It kinda sucks to know that you got to work when everyone’s out there celebrating the Christmas weekend, but hey, YOU GUYS ROCK MY WORLD!

Keep up the good work alright? It’s you guys that slog hard over the weekend to bring ads and keep us bloggers happy. So I hope that my little email-reply-gesture will bring smiles to you guys on this cold freezing night.

Cheers and have a great festive season! =)
Regards
Chris

Awww…. so sweet huh. I only have one thing to add though.

Eh!!!

Tim and Ming worked on that Christmas Weekend too okay!!!!

Oh and Merry Christmas everyone!

Ok I’m finally back from my cruise and plugged into an internet connection that DOES NOT cost USD 0.50 per minute so I can take my time to write this entry.

I’m going to tell you about the way I typically spend a day on the cruise.

I wake up rather late in the mornings… a luxury I seldom have when I’m not aboard a cruise without mobile phone reception.

When I wake up, I take my own sweet time to wash up and then head to an upstairs deck where we have a restaurant there called the Windjammer with a buffet breakfast waiting for us.
At last count, there were about 4 cafes and restaurants on board the ship.

Since I wake up so late for breakfast, I only have a very short while to laze around before it’s lunch time for me to eat again. Yes that’s basically what we do on the cruise the whole time round. Eat eat and eat.

Lunch for me is normally either a sandwich or burger at one of their restaurants
After lunch is when the action starts for me.

There are plenty of activities on board the ship but of course, you don’t have to do all of them unless you’re really Kiasu and want to get every penny’s worth.

Some of our time is spent in lounges like that playing cards or board games like Monopoly.
Oh which reminds me… MONOPOLY SUX! I HATE MONOPOLY!!! IT’S A GAME BASED 100% ON LUCK … and if you play with me… just build a hotel on a few of your properties and I GUARANTEE you that I will be the FIRST to come and pay you rent…

I was the first to lose all the games of monopoly I played on board the cruise. So yes… I am still very bitter 🙁

After playing some board games I normally take a walk around the ship.

There’s the swimming pool area in the middle of the ship that has 4 jacuzzis for people to soak in.

But I forgot to bring my swimming trunk for this trip so I didn’t go for a swim at all. Stupid of me ain’t it?

Going for a cruise WITHOUT my swim wear… that’s like Hang Tuah going to war without his Keris or a Hooters waitress going to work without her boobs.
So while I spent NO time swimming,

I had a little more time to spend on the other things we can do on board.

Like gambling in the casino.

I went in, lost USD 30 to jackpot machines in 30 minutes and I decided that it was a bloody waste of time and money.

I mean where’s the fun in that? All you’re doing is pressing a button and you already know the odds are fixed against you.

For some reason, I can’t understand all the aunties lining up to play those machines.

I left the casino after that and never went back again for the rest of the cruise, giving me more time to do the other activities on board.

There are a LOT of activities on board, really… everything from playing bingo, to Spanish classes to dance classes that are held in lounges like this that come equipped with a huge dance floor.
I went for their Cha Cha class and learned to Cha Cha.

Now I always thought ballroom dancing is for the old crowd, something that our generation will never really use.

I mean how many people do you know our age that know how to ballroom dance. I know NONE.

But both my parents always preached to me that a REAL GENTLEMAN knows how to ballroom dance and my father, always grooming me to be a successful businessman one day made sure that I was brought up knowing how to do at least some form of ballroom dancing.

So I eventually learned how to dance the Waltz a years back and to be honest, it came quite useful in some of the formal dinners that I had to attend in the past.After learning to dance, I felt like I had to do something a little more hard core so I headed to the back of the ship to do some rock climbing.

The wall is pretty high up, a lot higher than it looks in pictures.

I had to sign a disclaimer to say something along the lines that if I fall off and break my neck I will not hold the cruise ship responsible bla bla bla.

Immediately after I signed up, they suited me up in gear.

Something kinda bugged me though.

After they suited me up, I looked down and notice the harness wrapped around my ballz.
I just had to ask my instructor
“Excuse me… is this really meant to be wrapped around my nuts?”

The instructor looked down for a second and said
“Yes…

I paused for a while… then I HAD TO ASK again.
“So… that means, if I fall off the wall, I’ll be hanging with my entire body weight… on my nuts?”

The instructor giggled AGAIN and said
“Well … in a way yes… so don’t let go of the wall”.

I panicked a little
“WHAT!?!?! SO WHAT CAN I DO IF I FALL OFF THE WALL?!?!?!”

The instructor by now had finished hooking on the harness and I was all prepared to go up the wall.

Before she set me off she said
“Well nothing much… but I can tell you what you CAN’T do”.
“What is that?” I asked really really quickly.

The instructor started to walk away but turned her back and said her last few words
“You can’t sue us…. HAHAHAHAHA”

——————————-

Seeing that this blog entry is getting a little too long, I’ve decided to break it up into two parts.
I’ll continue on what happened after that in the next entry.

Have a great weekend everyone

The Rhapsody of the Seas.

That’s what the ship I’m on is called.

Here’s a picture of the ship I took from afar while the ship was anchored of Phuket.

The truth is, the ship looks a LOT bigger close up, hugeee and this picture doesn’t do justice but I never really got a chance to take a picture of the ship close up.Later this afternoon however I’ll see if I’m fit enough to jump off the ship and swim further away a little so I can take a good picture of it okay.

Don’t worry I won’t drown. Fat floats.

Now there’s quite a bit to write about on this Cruise but for this entry, let me just start first with the rooms that we get to stay in while aboard the ship.

All of us on the 80,000 tonne ship get to stay in rooms along this corridor.The ship has 10 floors, all accessible to passengers like us, of which 4 of the floors are dedicated to cabin rooms.

Here’s how my room looks like.

When you walk in there is a small mini-bar on the side
To the right is the bathroom which is really pretty nice.

Almost like a hotel bathroom.

It even comes with a bidet.You know one of those things to spray the crap off your butt so you don’t have to dirty your hands with toilet paper.

Straight ahead from the entrance and actually the first thing you’ll notice when you walk into the room is my very own private balcony where we’ll see nothing but endless sea when we’re sailing away.To the left of the balcony doors is actually a small seating area with a TV and opposite that is the most important part of the room.

THE BED!!!

Yes.. the bed IS as comfy as it looks.

Really really nice… and the best part of it are the mirrors all around it.

I don’t know about everyone else but I LOVE MIRRORS AROUND THE BED (for some… reasons).

The room just like the cruise is really comfy and if anything romantic, almost as if it’s made just for couples.

Made me feel a little worse for being single.

Anyway I’ll blog more about the rest of the ship soon.

I’m going shopping now.

There’s actually a sale on board the ship now.

Ah sorry people.

I tried to update my blog today but the internet on the cruise is too damn slow I couldn’t get the pictures up.

Shall update tomorrow when I reach Singapore.

Until then see yall

S.O.S.!

I need HELP!!!

SOMEBODY OUT THERE!!!

IS THERE ANYBODY ALIVE OUT THERE?!?!?

IF YOU CAN HEAR ME…My name is Timothy Tiah and I’m stuck on board a boat with….

NO MOBILE PHONE RECEPTION
NO SATELITTE TV
NO INTERNET CONNECTION
NO HOT CHICKS

AND A WHOLE LOT OF FAT DUDES IN SWIMMING TRUNKS!!!

Now you’re probably wondering how the hell I managed to update this blog when I have “NO INTERNET CONNECTION” on board.

Well fine the truth is.. there is.

BUT IT COSTS USD 0.50 PER MINUTE FOR EVERY MINUTE I USE THE INTERNET HERE!!!

SO MUCH THAT I DON’T HAVE ANY MONEY LEFT TO GAMBLE IN THE CASINO ANYMORE!!!
Now that’s as good as NO INTERNET FOR ME!!!

ANYBODY OUT THERE?!?!?

SOMEBODY!!!!

ARGGHHHH!!

WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!?!?!

HOW CAN THEY THROW ME ON A BOAT WITH NO MOBILE PHONE RECEPTION AND NO INTERNET CONNECTION!!!

What the hell is this?!?!? REHABILITATION CAMP FOR INTERNET ADDICTS?!?!?

I’m a Dotcom Entrepreneur, I NEED my internet!!!! Don’t force me to RATION my usage by making it so expensive to use it every minute!

FORCING ME to ration my internet usage in terms of minutes each day is like taking away carrots from Bugs Bunny. YOU DON’T TAKE AWAY CARROTS FROM BUGS BUNNY!!!

IS ANYONE OUT THERE?!??!

PLEASE COME SAVE ME!!!

I HAVE MY OWN LIFE JACKET!!!
PLEASE HELP ME!!!

The people on this boat… are weird!!! NO internet… NO mobile phone reception and they’re all acting jolly and happy sun bathing, going for their stupid Spa’s, playing Bingo…. SOMEBODY GET ME OUTTA HERE!!!

Oh wait…

I see a Cargo Ship in the distance.OH YES!!! OH YES!!! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!

BRB… I NEED TO GO WAVE FOR HELP NOW!!!

BYE!