Shorty and I one night just decided to go on YouTube to listen to the theme music of all our favourite cartoons growing up. Just listening to them tunes brought back lots and lots of memories. I thought it might make a cool blog post so here are my Top 10 favourite.

10) Cow & Chicken

Mama had a Chicken… Mama had a Cow… Dad was proud he didn’t care how.

Can’t say I absolutely loved this particular cartoon. I did watch it here and there but I found some parts where they played too much on Cow’s nipples to be a little disgusting. Still the theme song for its intro is one that you’ll remember forever.

They always seemed to play Cow & Chicken about the same time they played “Courage the Cowardly Dog” though. I liked Courage a lot more. When you look at him you just can’t help but feel he’s thinking “FML” all the time.

9) Powerpuff Girls

I guess by the time Powerpuff Girls came out I was young enough to still enjoy cartoons but old enough to not worry about publicly liking Powerpuff Girls. You know how boys are last time, you can’t like anything girly.

Powerpuff girls though was cool. My favourite character was Bubbles.

Always wanted to have a gf like her one day. Then again… current GF ain’t too far away from that….

Tiny… check

Big Eyes… check

8 ) Captain Planet

I watched this a lot growing up. Thought all their superpowers were really cool except for the one Ma-Ti had. I mean the others could cause earthquakes, tidal waves, fireballs or hurricanes but what can the native Indian Ma-Ti do?
He has this super power called “Heart”. When he does that… well nothing really happens. Ok not exactly NOTHING. According to Wikipedia this is what he can do

“Ma-Ti uses the power of heart to instill caring, passion, and sympathy into the people of the world to care for the planet. He can also use this power to communicate with animals telepathically”

So he can instill care, passion and sympathy except on those bad guys they always fight in the series… oh and he can talk to squirrels.

7) Johnny Bravo

All I can say is… WHAT AN EPIC IDEA FOR A CARTOON!

GOTTA LOVE JOHNNY BRAVO… WHO DOESN’T! A guy who takes good care of his hair, always wears sunglasses and calls himself “Pretty”.

6) Chip N Dale

Chip N Dale was this cartoon about this team of characters that went around.. well.. foiling the plans of bad guys to take over the world or do evil stuff and all that. I remember liking it a lot because you have two types of characters. Chip was the smart one and Dale was the … well stupid one who also happened to be my favourite one.

I don’t remember why I liked Dale so much. Maybe because I always thought he was funny or that he was always good with the ladies. The theme song for Chip N Dale is one of my favourites though.

5) Transformers

Back when I was a kid watching Transformers, I never imagined they would actually make a movie of it many many years later. And a really good movie at that too! For some reason as a kid I liked Bumble Bee eventhough he was really like Ma-Ti in Captain Planet… useless.

The Bumblebee in the Transformer movies though could do some decent fighting on his own. Back in the cartoon he was just… well.. like I said… a Ma-Ti.

4) Smurfs

Just listening to the opening music gives me happiness. Ahhh I remember the mushroom houses they used to stay in, the little bad man who always tried to catch them and of course… Smurfette.

Smurfette was hot man… in those kid years.. everyone had a crush on Smurfette. Eventhough she was this blue little cartoon character.

The good news is that they’re coming up with a Smurfs movie this year I think. I’ve also heard a lot about Smurfs lately from the hype of the game Smurf’s Village that has been going all around. The game’s so popular now that there are even sites like this that sell “Smurf Village Secrets”.

3) Dexter’s Lab

Dexter’s Lab to me back then was kinda like a little Stewie from Family Guy. Except that of course Stewie didn’t have a little annoying sister that pressed buttons that weren’t meant to be pressed.

That’s one thing I always noticed about Dexter’s Lab. HE ALWAYS HAD SOME BUTTON FOR DEE DEE TO PRESS.

2) Duck Tales

I LOVE DUCK TALES. I love everything about it. Every episode was more or less the same. The Beagle boys was always trying to steal money out of Scrooge McDuck’s money bin. That’s right… he has this big safe full of gold coins that he calls a money bin. And what does he do in the money bin whenever he’s not out earning even more money? He swims in it. Literally.

Love the theme song too.

1) Robotech

This is hands down, my favourite cartoon of all time. It’s actually my very first taste of anime.

The whole showthough really wasn’t just like any other cartoon. It had a deep plot and a really cool storyline set in the future. War, love, friendship… all those themes were covered in Robotech. It was also the first cartoon I ever saw that actually had people in it “Die”. That was always a strange thought to me. I mean back then… cartoons in my mind didn’t die. Look at how much Jerry manage to beat the shit out of Tom in Tom & Jerry. No matter what happens to Tom, he still lives.

In Robotech though, they build up characters throughout the show and one by one of them they die. I think it even made me cry once. The show was long though. It had 3 whole seasons to it. They referred to each Season as the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Generations. The 1st Generation featured the first set of humans. The 2nd featured the children of the 1st Generation (once they grew older) and the 3rd generation featured children of the 2nd Generation.

Cool huh?

This is one of my favourite scenes from Robotech.

I love Robotech. I wish there was a way I could find all the episodes again just to keep. I hear that Tobey Maguire is a fan of Robotech and is going to be making a movie of it too. I really hope he does. It would be a dream come true.

So there you have it everyone. My Top 10 Cartoons growing up.

When I look at the cartoons I grew up watching and compare it with the ones the kids of today grow up watching I can’t help but feel that the cartoons of today really aren’t very good. I don’t know if it’s just that I’ve grown out of cartoons to appreciate what kids watch these days but even popular cartoons like Ben 10 and Spongebob Squarepants really make me wonder why they’re even popular in the first place. Sure their animation is a lot better than before but I always felt that the cartoons of today were really “hollow” if that makes any sense.

Anyway what are some of your other favourite cartoons of your time?

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Right after posting this entry I realized that I missed one very very important cartoon.

GARFIELD AND FRIENDS

One of our Nuffies Tim2 just moved into a new place some months ago. So last Friday he decided to do a house warming for all us Nuffies. All of us went over at work. Yuen Yee, Robb and Shun Yau were a bit late though because they got stuck in the office late for some meetings. So while waiting for them to come, the Nuffies were watching YouTube videos on Tim2’s big TV in his living room.

One of the videos they thought that would be fun to watch was this particular video.

Spoiler: Watch it only if you’re not easily scared. It’s one of those “shock videos” that scare you when you least expect it though it starts looking like a “strip tease”.

So the Nuffies thought scaring themselves was a funny thing. What they thought was even funnier though was scaring Yuen Yee. So when she finally reached Tim2’s place, they all got her seated in the living room and played the video. I decided to take a recording of her reaction and it was hilarious. Watch it here.

I watched this video so so many times. There are so many things you have to notice from the video:

1) First time you watch it

Just look at Yuen Yee and her funny reaction.

2) Second time you watch it

Now look at the Nuffies sitting behind her. All of them covering their faces with the pillows… all knowing what’s coming. Funny enough, they were right behind Yuen Yee but she didn’t notice anything.

3) Third time you watch it

Notice that once Yuen Yee starts screaming, she mysteriously ends up with a pillow that she covers herself with. Where did this pillow come from? Look at how she managed to grab it when it was right behind her… without even looking at it (in the moment of crisis).

4) Fourth time you watch it

Pay attention to the Jacqueline. She’s the Nuffie that has the big white square pillow covering her entire face in the beginning of the video. At first she’s hiding totally right behind that big square white pillow.

Then right after she hears the scream she points downward at Yuen Yee then starts clapping away like a happy little bird.

I have such funny colleagues!

The minute I found out that Secondhand Serenade was coming to KL, I immediately went to get tickets. The truth is that I only really knew one of their songs, the most famous one “Fall for you”. But that song was a song that I always listened to two years ago when I first started going out with Shorty. The whole song’s meaning didn’t exactly fit into our situation of courtship but just one line did “A girl like you is impossible to find”… and I thought then that it was exactly how I felt about Shorty.
That’s of course how I feel about her now still.

It was a small concert held in Bentley Music Auditorium at the Curve.

The crowd though was the most responsive crowd I had ever seen. No joke! It’s amazing. Talk about being their biggest fans. For every song that Secondhand Serenade sang, the entire crowd seemed to know the words and they ALL sang along. What a crowd.

While I was enjoying the show though I realized that Shorty couldn’t see much from where she was standing.

This is exactly the view of the stage from her eye level.

The poor girl couldn’t see the stage at all. Not even a bit and that’s how it’s like for any “standing” concert. So I got Shorty to hop on to my back and she watched it over my shoulder.

So I took her for a little ride!

I gotta say the lead singer, John Vesely is amazing. Gotta love his voice…

I managed to take a short video of him performing “Fall for you” at the end. He didn’t even have to sing… everyone else in the concert was doing the singing for him. Watch it to get a feel of how the atmosphere was there that night.

It was great.

Love them love them! Learned about their other songs at the concert and they’re all good too. I can’t believe I nearly missed it just because I didn’t hear about it anywhere. I’m surprised they didn’t market it any harder than they did.

Guess who the main sponsor for Secondhand Serenade in KL was though…. you won’t guess it. Kayu Nasi Kandar. HAHA!

I walked into the office today and saw this hanging from the ceiling.

Attached to it was a suicide note addressed to Michelle (since it’s her Stewie). I called the Nuffies responsible “cruel’ but  the Nuffies claimed that it was a suicide. Open verdict anyone?

I just finished watching the latest HBO Mini Series called The Pacific. It’s made by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, the same people who did Band of Brothers years ago. I remember Band of Brothers and how I would catch it every week on TV. I think it was twice a week when they aired it.

Both Band of Brothers and The Pacific were mini-series about the American side of World War 2. While Band of Brothers covered to war in Europe against the Germans, the recent mini-series The Pacific covered the war between the USA and Japan on the Pacific islands. I typically like movies or TV shows based on modern times. I don’t like all those movies with horses and carriages or anything even older than that. I do somehow have a peculiar interest in Modern History. Especially World War 2.

I don’t know what it is that fascinates me about it. Maybe it’s just the fact that it was probably the largest war that involved the most number of countries the world has ever seen or the stories behind it. TV Shows like The Pacific gives us a glimpse of how the war was like. How it took a toll from the soldiers on the battlefield to the families that wait for them at home. You also get a glimpse of how war changes men. How it pushes even the hardest people to the physical and mental limits. And how… it also forces boys in the army to grow quickly to men.

When I see things like that I think of how lucky we are in these times. My generation has never seen a war *touch wood*. We’ve never had to enlist in the army to fight for the survival of the country we love. So when I watch or read about World War 2 I think of how lucky I am.

I also think about how people were able to do what they did. How soldiers or people in general were brainwashed to the extent that they were able to massacre mass numbers of innocent people. From the jews in the concentration camps to the Chinese in Nanking. It really makes you wonder you know. If people back then could be brainwashed, could we today be too.

Every time I meet someone who lived through World War 2, I can’t help but ask how it was like.

Once in London I met this really old man while playing table tennis in this community court. I learned that he served in World War 2 in the British army so I asked him what it was like. He told me he was one of the “intelligence officers” that were specialized in “fooling” the enemy. So what they did for example was put up rubber tanks and fake tents etc etc so that when the German spy planes took pictures from the air, they looked like the entire Allied army was there. He told me they were so successful in what they did that even when the Allied forces invaded Omaha Beach, the Germans kept thinking that they were going to land on some other beach so they concentrated most of their forces elsewhere.

I asked him then if he knew any of the people who really fought on the ground and he told me about friends he had lost. Friends who had lost limbs to explosives, friends to even had gone deaf because a mortar exploded right next to them. He told me how even those that made it back safely without any physical injury suffered from mental stress of the war and were never the same again. All this.. was depicted in The Pacific.

Then some two years ago when I was in Tokyo I had met one of my father’s old Japanese friends. He had lived through World War 2. I asked him how it was like and he told me how right after Japan surrendered, the Russians in the north were kidnapping Japanese back to Russia to use as slaves. The Americans who arrived however were bringing aid and food for civilians. It was because of things like that, that the Japanese were really afraid when the Russians wanted a part of northern Japan. They were relieved though, when the USA decided not to give up any of Japan to the Russians because it was the Americans that fought the Pacific war, not the Russians.

He then told me how poor Japan was after the war. How they were so poor that he had to donate blood regularly just to earn enough money to buy food. He told me of how the people of Japan were determined to build their country back and had worked hard to do so. He somehow said that it was a feeling that he felt the young people in Japan today didn’t have.

War is horrible. I hope we will never see another World War in our lifetimes. Watch the Pacific if you can. It’s a great series. Here’s the trailer of it.

Here’s a couple of things we’ve been up to in the office lately.

About a few months ago we came up with this program called “Pillars”. Where every “pillar” of the company ie the various departments inside the company are supposed to meet internally among themselves. They’re then supposed to look into all the things they have done in the past year of 2010 and then decide what is it that we can improve on. They then put everything into a presentation and then present it to the rest of the people in the office.

Today was the first day of the Pillars presentation. The Sales Pillar and the Ad Ops Pillar went first.

I loved the experience. It’s a chance for every Nuffie to have a say on what we could do better and contribute their ideas. It’s a chance for everyone to have a voice. It also really helped me learn more about our company from the grassroots up.

It was great.

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We have a new Nuffie. Her name’s Michelle. It’s somehow tradition in Netccentric/Nuffnang/Nom Nom that every time we have someone new come in, we would play a prank on that someone. The prank on Michelle was that everyone managed to convince her that on her 2nd day of work, we were having a “school day” theme. So everyone was supposed to come in school uniform.

So the next day, Michelle came in a Japanese school uniform with stockings and all.

It’s true that the girls have themed days in the office sometimes though. Every Friday, they would all have a theme. Like sometime they would have a Maxi Dress theme or sometimes a “ribbon” theme where wears a ribbon somewhere on their outfit.

This Friday’s theme was “boyfriend’s shirt”. I didn’t manage to get a picture but Kim Ong who visited our office did.

Here’s a picture I took from her blog of some of the Nuffie girls wearing “Boyfriend shirts”.

She also visited our KL office on Friday. If you want to read her blog entry click here.

Sponsored Post

Sometimes I like to look back at how times have changed in the past 26 years of my life. I remember life as a little boy in primary school growing up in Penang. Things were simple then and it always felt like I had so much time to do anything I want. Days passed really slowly.

I go to school in the morning. Talk in classes, sleep through some and when recess comes I would buy some junk food and play monkey bar with friends. Then I would come home, go for tuition or piano class. The one thing I always remembered doing though. No matter what day it was and no matter what was going on that day, I was in front of the TV every weekday at 5.30PM.

Why? Because 5.30PM was cartoon time! We had cartoons like Captain Planet, Mighty Mouse and Transformers. The half hour after 5.30PM was total bliss, I even made myself sit through all the commercials because I loved how fun the Ding Dang and Tora commercials looked. The kids in there always played with the featured toy in a way that made it look so real.

All the fun didn’t end at 6PM though. From 6PM-7PM starts my very early taste of “Hong Kong TVB Drama”. The first show I followed was called “Breaking Point” and it starred Leon Lai, someone whom I thought was the most handsome actor that ever lived at the time.

Today I look at my life and so much has changed. The existence of Astro has multiplied the number of channels from the old three to some few hundred of them today but I hardly get to watch enough. I go to work in the morning and very often come back only after dinner.

So I miss all the good shows they have in the evening. By the time I come back at night I’m distracted with so many other things like going online. Everything online these days is on demand. You want to see a video, you go to YouTube and you watch it whenever you like. You don’t have to wait for 5.30PM-6.00PM to see a video of this narcoleptic dog.

So just like many people these days I’m spoilt by technology. I’m used to getting my entertainment now whenever I want it rather than work it in my schedule to watch TV at a given time. Which is also why some of us these days don’t wait to catch How I Met Your Mother on TV. We buy the DVD box sets when they come out.

Plus I find I have different things that I want to watch at different times of the day. The channel I turn on every morning before I go to work though is either BBC or CNN and when I come back at night I turn on Star Movies or HBO

I always wondered that. The computer has changed so much with technology with the internet to give us the entertainment we need but the TV, something that has been around for decades more than the computer hasn’t. Then recently I learned about Astro PVR.

Astro B.yond’s PVR allows you to automatically record any program you want while you’re away from the TV or even out for drinks with friends. Then you can come back and turn it on and watch it whenever you want. You can even record up to two different channels at the same time when you’re watching something else.

Nuffnang’s running a contest for Astro’s B.yond’s PVR where all you have to do is leave a creative comment on the Nuffnang blog here. The most creative comment as decided by the people at Astro will get to win a one year subscription of Astro B.yond PVR. Do note however that you NEED an Astro subscription first before you can get PVR. So if you want an Astro B.Yond PVR then join up. 10 Bloggers get to win 🙂

Find out more about Astro B.yond’s PVR here

Like them on Facebook at www.facebook.com/astro or on Twitter at @astroonline

Taylor’s invited me over for their open day last Sunday to do a sponsored post. I was to be there at 10AM on a Sunday. I dragged Kitteh along… a risk because Kitteh is never happy to be up before 12PM on a Sunday. We spent almost 5 hours there on the campus and by the end of it, we learned so much and had a lot of fun.

Let me tell you about our day there. The first thing we saw when we got there was this big hot air balloon. Kitteh was dying to sit on one ever since she saw the movie “Up” so she was really excited when Wai Quan who was showing us around took us there.

We queued up for a while and watched as it went up and down taking different people. It finally came to our turn. We hopped on and took a picture.

When the balloon began to rise though my paranoia kicked in. I started worrying about what happened if I fell off or the balloon “popped” or something ridiculous like that. Then I don’t know what happened but before we gained much altitude, we landed again. The operators told us that the winds have become really strong and they decided that they need to let it rest for a while.

Kitteh was disappointed but I was… secretly relieved.

So after pulling Kitteh away from the hot air balloon, Wai Quan gave us a tour of the campus. The first thing we saw was this showcase of what looked like a race car right at the front. We had no idea what it was so we went to check it out.

There were a few students from their School of Engineering there at the showcase and they explained it all to me. Here’s something that I NEVER knew existed.

Apparently in recent years, engineering students from universities all around Malaysia take part in this tournament called the Formula Varsity Race. They are all tasked to design AND build their own cars. They have to do everything of having a race car team. Everything from the engineering part of it, to finding a driver to even finding sponsors to help them fund their project.

This car that students of Taylor’s University made cost RM50,000 to build and can go as fast as 100km/h. It also happened to be the varsity champion in the race against other universities by a big lead.

How cool is that! While I was at university, all I spent my time doing was coursework or studying theories. These students here were building actual cars and racing them!

I asked them what they wanted to do once they graduated and they all talked about a career engineering and designing cars. They even mooted the possibility of working in a race team like the Tony Fernandes’s Lotus F1 Team.

After we were done checking out the race car we went on to tour the rest of the Lakeside Campus. The whole campus cost some RM450 million to build.

We checked out their Student Life Centre that was normally packed during weekdays we’re told. It’s a place for the students to organize non-academic activities. They have ping pong tables, foosball table, a keyboard, and a corner to watch tv!

Kitteh noticed the foosball table, grabbed a feel of one of the bars and then said “Woo this is a good table”. I wondered how she could tell and she told me a bit about how she used to play foosball too.

We then moved on to check out the other facilities. Apart from the class rooms and lecture theaters we checked out their computer labs. Like this one here that was filled with Macs to teach students how to edit videos.

Then we came across something that got the playful side of us out. Under the Taylor’s Law School, they had this thing called the Moot Court. Sort of a mock courtroom where law students can go there for a real life courtroom experience and practise debating at hearings.

Kitteh decided to do something acting on her own. This is Lawyer Kitteh presenting her case and defending her client.

And this is Judge Kitteh and Judge Tim listening to an argument by the prosecution but being skeptical about it.

My favourite though was this picture of Kitteh. We were supposed to pose pretending to be in a discussion but she put on her exaggerated argument face.

Seeing that we were getting too carried away with the moot court act, Wai Quan pulled us away. Only to bring us here…

Taylor’s University Lakeside Campus has its very own studio where people could record and edit audio and music.

Kitteh jumped in and pretended to be a recording artist… like in 200 Pound Beauty.

Again before we got too carried away, Wai Quan pulled us away. We were brought to this Gallery where art and design students could display their work.

And this automation and robotics lab where we saw this robotic T-Rex being made.

I insisted though that we checked out their library.

The library has always been my favourite place at university. It’s where I spend a lot of time studying near exams. It’s just fun studying together with friends because that way you feel pressured to study rather than be distracted by your computer or by your bed when you do it at home. This library was pretty neat. It had all sorts of seating arrangements. Some for quiet study, some for heated discussions and some just for lounging around. It even had a mini theatre to view videos, a computer lab with PCs and MACs and a 24/7 study room in case any students were inspired to cram at 4am!

The coolest part of the whole visit though was learning about their Hospitality, Tourism and Culinary Art Courses. Before visiting the campus that day, I didn’t think much about Hospitality Courses. I thought that you would just learn how to manage a hotel and that’s about it… but I used to wonder why you needed to do a course for it when you could just …. Learn on the job.

Then I sat through a talk by the Deputy Dean – Yeoh Tay Boon who was also in charge of the School of Hospitality, Tourism and Culinary Arts.

He talked about how yes in the past, there weren’t any courses specific to hospitality or hotels. But today there are… and they teach you not just the very basics of running a hotel or customer service but things like accounting or yield management. Yield management is pretty interesting. It’s like where the hotel decides out of its 100 rooms, they can afford to sell 20 rooms at a discount but the 21st room then goes up at its usual race.

The yield manager’s job is to manage this. At Taylor’s though they took it to a whole new level. Throughout the campus there are restaurants and bars that are run by students from their School of Hospitality, Tourism and Culinary Arts.

Tangerine Deck – overlooking the campus’ lake

Some facts: Taylor’s School of Hospitality, Tourism & Culinary Arts is Southeast Asia’s largest and most established hospitality and tourism school. They have been around for 25 years now, and last semester alone, they had 3,200 students! To fit all these students the school built a range of specialized facilities to better equip them to what goes on in the working world. In fact, we were told that even in terms of area, the school is probably the largest hospitality school in South East Asia, beating schools in Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand! These facilities include:

• 14 culinary suites including a Chocolate Room, Garde Manger, Pastry Kitchens, Artist Kitchen and a Culinary Bar & Theatre;

• 6 full-service restaurants (ranging from fine dining serving, Asian, lifestyle and multiservice);

• 3 training restaurants;

• 3 hotel suites;

• 3 front office receptions of varied concepts;

• 2 tourism practical rooms;

• Travel agency

• Wine laboratory

Bet you’re thinking then what the heck it a “Wine laboratory” right? Well a wine laboratory is a special lab for wine demonstration and tasting. It’s equipped with artificial sunlight and lighting panels so that it’s easy to pay attention to the colour of the wine.

There’a also this theater that really looks like the set of Chef Wan’s cooking show. It’s called the “Manifestation Theatre”. That’s where they do their beverage and culinary demonstrations for students to see.

If you’re wondering how students are going to be able to see anything that goes on in a frying pan if they’re sitting at the back of the theatre. It literally has one of those cameras in cooking shows where it zooms in on what you’re preparing or cooking and projects it on a big screen.

Then of course just like in any cooking world, there are the “kitchens”.

Taylor’s has five hot culinary suites for preparation of appetizers and main course meals and three pastry culinary suites for preparation of desserts. There are also Artist Kitchen and Cocoa Room for food, chocolate, sugar and ice carving. Now out of the “Culinary Arts” side and into the “Tourism” side. I thought this was something interesting.

In the school they have two rooms equipped with Internet and Customer Relations Service System (Galileo), fax and phones. Students can plan, design, create packages, do airline bookings and negotiate with industry suppliers here. All of these contribute to learning how to design different inbound and outbound packages. Then on to the “hospitality” side of the school is where I think they took it the furthest. Taylor’s University has a real hotel open to public that will be run only by students of Taylor’s! It’s called Ruemz,. It‘s catered to business travelers to Subang who want to stay at this hotel laboratory which is Malaysia’s first. It’s located on campus in the building here on the right, and is scheduled to open early this year.

We went to check out the hotel. This is how the lobby is like.

And these are how their rooms are like.

Ruemz also has their own blog where they will conduct product reviews to the industry. Find out more at http://www.ruemz.com/blog

I thought that was really so interesting…. How Taylor’s University has really taken education to a whole new level. From the Racecar project by the School of Engineering to the hotels and restaurants by the Hospitality students… students there don’t just learn theories but they actually get hands-on experience. I kinda wish my student days had more hands on experience but I guess it’s great that we have it now in places like Taylor’s.

There was so much more that I had learned from my visit to Taylor’s Lakeside Campus Open Day even though I’m passed being a student. If you’d like to visit their campus too, they’re having their Campus Day on the 8th and 9th January 2011. You’ll get to see the campus then and even see what kind of courses you want to pursue from the huge Open Day Booths at their Multi Purpose Hall.

Or you can just check out their website www.taylors.edu.my

Note: Some people have noticed how I’ve stopped referring to Kitteh as Kitteh but now as Shorty. Just like how I stopped referring to her as Princess but as Kitteh some months back. The thing about Shorty and I is that we somehow come up with different names to call each other every and then. Some are cute and romantic, some are not. These nick names come up as a result of certain things that happen in our daily lives. Like lately Shorty did something that made her look like the cute red monster character in the iPhone game Mega Jump, so I called her Mega Jump for a while.

The latest though is…. she calls me Fatty and I call her Shorty. Haha I know it’s hardly romantic and more platonic than anything but that’s just the way we are. We’re like best friends that just happen to fall in love.

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Every year I normally spend New Year’s Eve at a private house party with some friends somewhere. This year though Shorty and I decided to do something different. We decided to actually go out and witness some of that New Year’s Eve action on the streets. So the 11 of us started off with dinner at Cafe Vivo in Pavilion. Some of us was too shy to have their pictures on my blog so I’m just going to focus on the ones who weren’t.

That’s Leon and Gin.

And of course Shorty and Ringo.

The food was pretty good. Service though wasn’t as good as the food. After dinner I insisted we go for ice-cream so we went down a couple of floors and had Italian ice-cream at this Gelato parlour just before it closed.

The plan was that after dinner & dessert we would take a walk from Pavilion to Cangkat Bukit Bintang. That was where we wanted to spend our New Year’s Eve. So we got out Pavilion only to see people EVERYWHERE on the streets of Bukit Bintang.

I had never seen Bukit Bintang this packed before in my life. The roads were flooded with people so much that 3 lanes for cars became 2 or even 1 lanes. Cars had to move very slowly past the crowd. A number of people in the crowd were walking around armed with those sprays that spray out snow like stuff. People were running around spraying at one another though they left the innocent passerbys like us alone. Except for one guy who saw Ringo and thought to himself “Hey that’s a nicely dressed up girl, let me mess up her hair with this” and gave Ringo a good spraying.

Lucky for Ringo he only managed to get a bit on to her hair but that was enough to piss her off. I took a picture of Ringo and she looked sad on the outside but I can tell on the inside she was burning with rage.

You don’t mess with a girl’s hair… you just don’t.

We took some 20 minutes trying to squeeze through Bukit Bintang to get to Cangkat. My friends were worried. They thought the crowd was really rowdy and they wanted to break out of there as soon as they could. I on the other hand…. perhaps naive as a child, thought that it was amazing. I loved the atmosphere there. I mean there’s only that once in a year where everyone would come out and hang out in the open like that… all waiting for a countdown. Everyone was smiling and happy!

Besides there were a lot of cops around to make sure nobody did anything violent or over the top. The cops even sent their K-9 unit equipped with a dog so big that everyone couldn’t help but stare.

Shorty described it more as a wolf. Shorty likes big dogs anyway. When talking about dogs, I always said I would like a small cute dog that ran around the house but Shorty always wanted a dog big enough for her to put on a saddle on it and ride it.

As dangerous as everyone thought the crowd was, it obviously wasn’t dangerous enough for us to stop and take pictures there.

After a long struggle we finally reached Cangkat. The street on Cangkat was busy but relatively more quiet and felt safer than it was at the adjacent Bukit Bintang.

All the outlets there seemed to be having this huge Heineken party people have been tweeting about.

So we chose Little Havana owned by someone we happened to know. We sat down and we ordered some Heineken while we hung out and waited for the fireworks.

They gave us this neat little Heineken bottle opener. Gin loved it and wanted to take it home so badly so we conceited it to him.

At the end of the night though I think he FORGOT to bring it back because I didn’t see him carrying it. All that fuss Gin… all that effort and you forgot to bring it back!

Then came the 2 minutes before midnight. Someone in the bar announced that there was about a minute left to the countdown so everyone got ready to count the last 10 seconds down. Just before it happened though we heard a loud bang and the sky lit up. Further down Cangkat, they had already released some Fireworks to usher in the New  Year. So we skipped the countdown and everyone in Cangkat ran out of the bars and stood on the street to watch the Fireworks. It was simple, probably not as elaborate as the one in Dataran Merdeka or something but it was good enough.

All we need for New Year’s Eve is good company… and fireworks. So that was how we spent the New Year’s Eve of 2010.

Happy New Year everyone. From Shorty and me.

Whenever I reach the end of the year I always look back and think to myself how the year has passed so quickly. I wonder then what I did the whole year. So I do a couple of things. I go through my blog archives and I go through all the pictures I’ve taken for the year. Those two things tell the story of what I’ve done in the past year.

That’s the thing about blogging or being a blogger. It’s not just what you publish online but it’s also the discipline you have to take pictures wherever you go. Pictures always tell a story.. of what you’ve done or what you were doing back at a certain time. Here’s just a quick summary of the things I did in 2010.

Early January was the first time I’ve started using the Kindle.

Ming bought it for me for a Christmas present the year before. It remains today an awesome gift. When it comes to reading books, nothing beats the Amazon Kindle.

I went to East Malaysia for the first time in my life. It was for the filming of Project Alpha Season 2. We shot a few episodes in Kuching and one even in Kenny Sia’s gym.

Like a week after Kuching I had to leave again for London for the shooting of another episode of Project Alpha there. It was my first time going back to London since graduation so I took some time to meet up with some of my old uni friends who were still there.

Julia, my British Born Chinese friend that always amazed me how she sounded totally English when she spoke English with her accent and totally Hong Kee when she spoke Cantonese.

and Adrian who is working at the Bank of England now.

Took a walk down memory lane too. Visited my old University College London where I spent 3 years of my life.

and even visited the old council flat I used to stay in as a student.

Spent a bit of time on a food adventure too.

Had my typical English Breakfast.

Went back to Alounak, my favourite Persian restaurant in Bayswater.

and actually went for lunch at Maze, a Gordon Ramsay restaurant.

Dropped by Miu Miu at the later part of the trip to buy Shorty a gift. Met a salesgirl there who happened to know all about Nuffnang 🙂

Got back to Malaysia just in time for Chinese New Year. Played sparklers for the first time since I was a little kid.

That’s me playing it with Shorty.

Back in KL the Nuffies had a Chinese New Year lunch because Robb insisted on having his Yee Sang.

Felt really bored one weekend with nothing to do so Shorty and I decided to make Oreo Truffles. Turned out to be quite a hit.

Had a little Nuffie BBQ at my place.

Saw the biggest pint of Guinness I’ve ever seen in my life (made out of balloons).

Went to AMP Radio and met up with some of the Era DJs 🙂

Headed off to visit our office in the Philippines. Here’s the first dinner we had with the team there.

After that dinner we went to this really nice bar where people could go up and sing a song they wanted to sing with the backing of a live band. I went up and sang “How to Save a life” (badly).

I wouldn’t have done it without the help of the Filipino Nuffies… and the booze.

The next day we had dinner at Jay’s house. The cook for the dinner that night was this TV celebrity chef in the Philippines they referred to as the Martha Stewart of the Philippines.

Met Hannah there too.

Came back from the Philippines and then made a trip to Singapore with Shorty to visit Universal Studios there.

Ming booked us a luxurious night at Capella. A once in a lifetime kind of experience because it’s too expensive to stay more than a night.

Since we were having a luxurious night, Shorty and I dressed up and went for a good dinner with some friends too.

Came back from Singapore in time for the Project Alpha Season 2 launch. Filming was done and it was time for the blogger launch at Cineleisure Damansara.

Moved into my new place.

Nuffnang and Gatsby held Malaysia’s Largest Blogger Gathering with over 500 bloggers at Berjaya Times Square one afternoon.

Everyone had a sticker with the number they were. We hold that record still till today.

Went to Malacca one day for my favourite Chicken Rice Balls.

I can never get enough of that and it doesn’t matter if I have to queue. I spent all the time queueing just taking pictures with Shorty here.

Went to Japan with the Jipaban team in September for a trade show.

Had Xiaxue, Ringo and some other tag along too.

Popped by Tokyo Disneyland for a day too right after the tradeshow.

Right after Japan I headed back to the Philippines for work.

Came back in time for the Nuffnang-Vaseline party at Lunar Bar. One of the few cocktail-classy kind of parties we’ve ever had.

After that I headed to Hong Kong for some meetings. Took this picture while waiting for the people I was meeting to come into the meeting room.

Shorty and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary. Got Firdy to make us these little clay figurines.

Went for the Horeca Temptations party at Seven Ate Nine with Gin and Coring.

Took a flight one day and remember seeing this Firefly attendant wearing an Air Asia cap.

Attended the Glitterati Plus Open Meeting at Taylor’s for the launch of our new program for bloggers who want to be really active.

Went to San Francisco after that for the Web 2.0 Summit.

Ming and I visited the Google office and many other offices of Silicon Valley companies then.

Over the weekend I made a quick trip to Vegas too. Just to check out how it’s like.

Came back in time for the Merry Guinness Christmas party.

December came and we went for our first Nuffie company trip ever with the staff from Nuffnang, Nom Nom Media, Netccentric and ChurpChurp.

We went on a cruise.

And that everyone was my year.

I did miss out one part of it though. My business trips to the Nuffnang Australia office but I’ve lost all those pictures because my Macbook’s hard disk crashed some time in the middle of the year. Sucks but that’s life.

Hope you guys had a great 2010 too. I wonder what 2011 has in store for us!