Okay since I got back from Macau a couple of weeks ago, I never really got a chance to update my blog on the fun I had there so here’s an entry on the trip.

Now on one of the days when I was in Macau, I hopped on one of these boats that they call a hydrofoil to take me from Macau to Hong Kong.

One hour and a few seasick projectile puking sessions later, I was in Hong Kong!
Now you know that you’re in Hong Kong when you see plenty of young girls carrying LV bags that you will never be able to afford even after you mortgage your home and sell your kids to slavery.

I mean look at that!

Whether it’s this type (which people are going to assume is fake even if it’s really real).Or this type, where most people would believe its real.

Or this…. LV bags are everywhere.

Just a hunch… but if you took all the LV bags in Hong Kong and China… and sold all of them, the money you raise could potentially be enough for us to feed every hungry child in Africa for 10 years.

Anyone disagree with that?

Anyway, part of the reason I went to Hong Kong was to see a couple of my best bestest Hong Kong friends that I spent my 3 years in London with.

One of them is this guy named Adrian.
Adrian is the only reason why I manage to make it through university. He was my tutor throughout.

After graduating from UCL, Adrian went to Cambridge University to finish off his Masters and left the university with work experience at Goldman Sachs and UBS in London.

He was about to start work with the Bank of England when he decided to go back to Hong Kong for a couple of weeks and I just so happened to drop by Hong Kong in those couple of weeks so he was able to bring my family and I around Hong Kong.

He took us away from the usual busy city main roads and into street like these.

I don’t know about you guys but I LOVE these little narrow streets in Hong Kong filled with good food.

We went for a whole eating festival, eating the best of everything.

The one I will always remember is the so called Best Egg Tart shop in the whole of Hong Kong where they made their own egg tarts.
MMmmmmmm…

Let me illustrate how good it looks.
There!

That’s how good it looks and take into account that I’m a bad photographer and I normally take bad pictures and that this photo was NOT photoshopped!

But no matter how bad the photographer, nobody can make that egg tart look bad.

It was delicious.
So delicious that it was almost a crime to settle for just one.
The pastry around it was soft and warm.

The filling in the middle melted in your mouth and the aftertaste was…. to die for!

Anyway after we have had enough to eat, Adrian brought us to this place.

I can’t remember what it’s called.. but it’s like a little “Walk of Stars” place where all the famous Hong Kong celebrities of the past and present have their mark and their palm prints.

I was really excited as we started our walk… I mean think of the people that I would see!

At first we came across people like this.
Ng Cho Fan… in which both my sister and I said to each other
“WHO?!??!”

But my mum on the other hand was excited as a little girl.

She went
“OOOOH!!! NG CHO FAN!!!”

My sister and I decided to walk on.. I mean there had to be a Jet Li or Jackie Chan there somewhere… or at least.. someone from OUR generation… not from my mother’s or grandmother’s.

So we walked to the next star.

“Pak Yin… who the hell is that?”

My sister and I threw blank looks at each other.

But once again. when my mum caught up with us she said
“OOOOOOOOOOOOO PAK YIN!!!!”.

This went on for the next 10 minutes of the walk and I was beginning to get bored since I was seeing stars and hand prints of artists I have no clue where even famous.

Heck even the garbage boat out passing by seemed more interesting to me.

And I didn’t mean it in a sense that the boat isn’t really interesting. I mean it is!

Where else do you see sooo much garbage… ON WATER!!!

Imagine if that boat sunk.

The water would turn black.

All the fish in the water would instantly float up and die.

And environmentalists will be yelling out at that boat’s company trying to sue its ass off.

Man there would have been an interesting sight. More interesting than the stars I was looking at.

But soon enough, the “Stars” got “Brighter”.

I finally saw a name I recognized.
BRUCE LEE!!!

BRUCE LEE THE MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then it got better.

MICHELLE YEOH!!!

Oh sorry.. I meant.. Datuk Michelle Yeoh!!!!

Then CHOW YUN FATT!!!
(Ok I’m not sure why foot is there… but I think it’s because he had his foot print there and I was comparing our shoe sizes).

Then… the moment we had all been waiting for.

JACKIE CHAN!!!

Jackie Chan is by far my favourite actor of all time.

I mean I am SO in love with Jackie Chan, he could even make a documentary about watching grass grow and I would WATCH THE ENTIRE THING!!!

I just HAD to compare my hand size with him.
And uhmm… I realized that my hands were freakishly small his hands were freakishly big!

I was satisfied after seeing Jackie Chan’s hands and it was about time.

Since the sun was already setting over Hong Kong.

Adrian then brought me to dinner with his family, and with another friend best friend of mine Eddie caught up with us.

We had a good time catching up, and lots of pictures.

The 3 of us…. all graduating from UCL (University College London) in Economics.

We’re a proud bunch… we UCL Alumni.

And it’s because we didn’t simply come from Doofus University or the University of Stoopid Phucks, we came from UCL, ranked the 25th Best University in the world according to the Newsweek Top 100 Global Universities ranking.

All the people in my class went for great career undertakings after they left uni.

Some like Adrian went to further their studies at Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Princeton and etc etc… some, got jobs at Goldman Sachs earning a disgusting salary package of almost RM600,000 a year.

One of our seniors even went on to be Prime Minister of his country like Junichiro Koizumi, the previous Prime Minister of Japan.
Some went on to start a band like Cold Play.
Some, went on to invent the telephone (No shit… Alexander Graham Bell was from UCL).

And finally, some even went to fight for their country’s independence (Yes Gandhi was from UCL too).
All who did great things.

Whereas I decided to forgo all that greatness, come home and do a simple internet startup called Nuffnang.

That didn’t stop my friends from loving me.

After dinner, they all took me in Eddie’s van.
And drove me back to the ferry terminal where I said goodbye.

I probably won’t see the both of them again for another few years.

By then… I know both of them would’ve achieved something great.

SELAMAT HARI RAYA AIDILFITRI!

Now I know some of you are expecting an update but I’m working on a series of entries now that you should be seeing in the next few days, first one probably coming out tomorrow if I’m hardworking enough!

So don’t fret!

Enjoy your long weekend everyone!

About 2 months ago I received a text from my brother.

“K is looking for you… call him”.

Now K is a nickname that my brother gave one of his uni friends when they all used to hang out in Sydney.

K’s real name is Swee Yeong which may be familiar to some as one the Malaysian success stories of our time.
Just a brief introduction in case many of you may have missed out on it.

Just a few years after graduating from Sydney, Swee Yeong came back to Malaysia and started a mobile content company called UnrealMind which he expanded from Malaysia to all around the region and subsequently listed on the Mesdaq.

He then moved on to sell his company for millions years later and left the company around the end of 2005. At 32 now, he tells me he spent much of 2006 taking a break and playing DOTA.
Yes, so the next time you see someone sitting next to you in a cybercafe playing Dota from morning till night.

You might think he’s a BUM with no damn life.

But for all you know he could be an entrepreneur who has already made his millions so HAH!!!

I’ve met Swee Yeong briefly before just before UnrealMind’s IPO but we never really sat down to chat until we met for coffee a few months ago.

Over the cup of coffee, Swee Yeong gave me the little history lesson about himself but quickly moved on to talk about his new project and why he was meeting with me.

His new project was Pacmee.com, a Malaysian-like Twitter though I won’t call it a Twitter per say since there are some innovations to it that Twitter doesn’t have.
For example, if I get an SMS from Twitter telling me what my friend is doing, I would have to create a new SMS to respond to him if I wanted to.

But for Pacmee, all I had to do was to simply reply to that very same SMS I got from Pacmee telling me what my friend was doing.

From Left; Me, Swee Yeong and ChoonYew (Swee Yeong’s partner) at Hannah Tan’s recent album launch part at Mardigras 1-Utama.

Since that cup of coffee, we planned out a campaign on the Nuffnang Blog Community together and timed the campaign for just after its beta launch.

Today, Pacmee is used by bloggers all over Malaysia including bloggers like myself, Kenny Sia, Nicole, Xes and their subscriber base is growing strong. Looks like another successful dotcom startup is in the making.

Oh and I am NOT being paid by Swee Yeong to write this.

I enjoy writing about my business associates turned friends sometimes.

I am having a really really bad day at work today and really not in the condition to blog.

But this joke someone happened to e-mail me cheered me up a little.

I was just reading the news today when I read THIS!

(@(*&$&*(#$(#$&#&(*$&*(#$^&*

DOES ANYONE ELSE NOT FEEL THE SAME AS I DO?!?

YOU DO NOT… JAIL JACK BAUER!!!
I mean.. Jack can rob a bank, get caught red handed with a gun in his right hand and a money bag in his left, then plead guilty in court but you STILL DO NOT JAIL JACK BAUER!!!

NOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooo…..

WHO IS GOING TO SAVE THE WORLD WHEN TERRORISTS ATTACK NOW?!?!?!

I live alone in my apartment in KL.

As a result of that, I always have to find my own dinners and most of the time it’s fine because I’m out meeting clients for dinner most of the time.

But sometimes, whenever I find the time, I like to sit down to a dinner I made myself.

Any real man knows how to cook. He may not need to be a good cook but at least knowing how to cook is a sign that the man can survive on his own!

So one day, I left the office early. Went home.

Rolled up my sleeves.
And decided to cook!

I can’t say I’m a good cook.. but I can say that I LOVE my cooking.

I never always knew how to cook and it was only in my student days in London that I learned how to cook bachelor like food. Simple meals like Pasta.

So that day I decided to make pasta.

Now I don’t like tomato-based pasta and don’t quite fancy carbonara as well. What I do like however… is Pesto-based pasta or Aglio Olio type of pasta.

Here’s how I did it.
First, you need the ingredients.

Simple stuff.

Sausages, ham, fresh mushroom, garlic, mixed herbs, olive oil and pasta (Duh!).

If you want you can include some vegetables but I’m not a big fan of vegetables.

So after you get your ingredients together, chop them up into however you want it to be.

I don’t believe in chopping anything down until it’s small small pieces simply because, it takes too much time (that I don’t have) and… whatever you do, it’s all going into that one frying pan anyway.
So I don’t even bother cutting my ham into small small pieces.

In fact I like it a little bigger so I can feel it when I bite it.

Then of course there are the sausages which are easy to cut.

Except for one thing that most noobs forget about.

For some reason, sausages seem to come in condoms.

I shit you not… they really do come in condoms.

So always remember to REMOVE the condom before you throw them into the frying pan.
And when you do… don’t hold it up and laugh at it!

Don’t!

Just don’t do that… especially if you’re cooking for your date.

Because she’s going to think you’re a little kiddo that has never seen a condom before (let alone put one on later in the night).

Now the next thing and the MOST important thing you gotta do is… boil the pasta.

Just chuck it all into a pot, fill it up with water and boil away.

Now why I say this is the most important part is because… I am VERY particular about my pasta. IT HAS to be AL DANTE which means not too soft and not too hard, but a little chewy.

I like my pasta like that… and you can even give me Al Dante pasta with nothing but olive oil and I will eat it.

I get very very pissed off when I go to a good restaurant and pay RM30 for pasta and the damn chef can’t even make the pasta Al Dante.

I mean.. how hard can it be!

If a noob like me can make it Al Dante, I don’t see why a restaurant chef can’t do it.

Here’s what I do to make it Al Dante.

When you’re boiling the pasta, just remember to stir it and every once in a while try a piece to see if it’s the texture you want it to be.

Just right after you feel it is JUST BEFORE how you like it to be, lift it off the stove and pour all the water out.

Now when you’re done, chuck it all into the frying pan along with the other ingredients that you should’ve started cooking 5 minute ago.
Note that this is not the way ALL pasta is made.

Some pasta especially those with sauce just needs you to pour some olive oil around it then pour the pasta sauce on top of it.
But for this particular one, I like to pour the pasta into the pan and mix it.

And before you know it… VOILA.. it’s done!

This meal should take you 15 minutes to prepare if you’ve done it many times before, 30 minutes to prepare if you haven’t, 1 hour to prepare if you’re a noob and 3 hours to prepare if you’re completely hopeless with a frying pan.

Now if you’re making this for a date then you can go ahead and beautify it to make it more presentable.
But if you’re cooking for yourself then don’t bother.

And Voila… Boss Stewie cooks.

Rambo has had so much influence in my life.

I mean just not too long ago in my Counterstrike days, whenever I felt ball-sy and decided to go alone against an entire team of bad guys (and of course died), my friends will always say
“YOU THINK YOU RAMBO AR?”

And I bet that prior to reading the title of this blog entry, you have never ever heard the words
“Rambo” and “Fag” in the same line before.

Even after I put that line as my blog title you can’t believe that I really mean that…. and it’s true.. I don’t… Rambo is no fag!

RAMBO is DA MAN!!!

And it doesn’t matter that his first film debut was in a hardcore porn film called Party at Kitty and Stud’s.

I mean, put 1,000 of the most dangerous and violent people in the world on a jungle island.

Give them all the machine guns and bombs in the world and tell them to work as a team and kill anyone else that comes on to that island.

Then, throw Rambo on to that same island and give him nothing but a giant Disneyland lollipop and Rambo will still have them all beaten to death with that piece of candy.
Now Sylvester Stallone is old…. last I checked, he already passed 60.

That’s grandpa territory over there.

But I recently came across the trailer of his new upcoming Rambo movie: John Rambo.

Behold!

Watch the most violent movie trailer of all time!

Note to self: Don’t phuck with Rambo!
(And don’t call him no fag… he has balls so big it makes a bull’s nuts look like marbles)

Yes some of you may remember that I lost my bluetooth headset to the washing machine just a few days ago.

To make matters worse, I was feeling very broke after spending so much money on booze that night at Velvet but I knew that I just can’t do without a headset.

So the very same day, I went straight to The Curve to buy myself a new one.

I walked around The Curve and ended up on the Ground Floor of Cineileisure Damansara.

There were quite a few mobile phone vendors there so I walked up to one and said
“I just killed my bluetooth today… and I need a new one”.

The man behind the counter took a quick look at me and thought to himself
“Niama… little boy in a “Mr Happy” T-shirt… don’t even know whether he can really afford a bluetooth headset or just playing punk with me!”.
But he decided to humour me anyway
“Sure Sir… we have this very special bluetooth. Locally made but it is very reliable. It costs more than the Motorola, Samsung or Sony Ericsson ones but it is very stable. Trust me, so far no complaint!”.

I have never used a non-Motorola Bluetooth before.

So I thought about it and said
“Hmm… this one some more is like a clip wan… can clip on my baju wan right? Damn cool”.
And there the salesman was thinking to himself
“Stooopid small kid… clip also cool, like never hang baju before”.

So I took a good long look at it and asked some questions about the specs.

The nice salesman smiled and answered my questions promptly… but by the look in his eyes I knew he was thinking
“Niama… this smart Alec asking so many questions… he better buy if not I will do something really bad to him”.

Then the question that he was waiting for came
“Do you have anything cheaper ar?”

The salesman then struck a look in his eyes that I knew what he was thinking
“AH HAH! I KNEW IT! NO MAHNEY TO BUY SOME MORE WAN TO PRETEND CAN AFFORD!!!”But again on the outside he said
“Unfortunately not sir… this is the only Bluetooth headset we have”.

Then I asked
“How about a normal hands-free set? You know the traditional one with wire one?”

The salesman opened a drawer and took this out.

I asked him how much and he said

“RM10”.

My parents always taught me that my reaction to a price quote should always be
“WAH SO EXPENSIVE AR?!?!”

Of course, I forget that the rule doesn’t apply sometimes, especially when you’re buying cheap products like a kilo of sugar or ….. a fake hands free set.

But I forgot about that so I “accidentally” went on to say
“WAH!!! WHY SO EXPENSIVE?!?!? MADE IN GERMANY AR?!”

The salesman said
“No sir, locally made one… and it’s not expensive lar”.

Seeing that the salesman was still playing it cool on the outside, I went on to say
“Can give cheaper or not?”

I saw that same “pissed-off” look in the salesman’s eyes that I saw earlier… but this time he was thinking
“BLOODY HELL THIS MR HAPPY…. RM10 ALSO WANT TO ASK FOR DISCOUNT… SOMEONE SHOULD BUY HIM A MR. CHEAP SHIRT!!!”

But again on the outside, the nice salesman maintained his cool
“Cannot lar sir… I only make very little from this one sale”.

In the end I thought about it and decided.

I’ve been buying so many bluetooth headsets in the past but they always fail on me one way or another. So why not just go back to the basics and buy something that is cheap and works.

Not to mention, Bluetooth headsets have stopped being cool since uncles with flowery shirts started wearing them on the ear everywhere they go even when they’re not on the phone.

So in the end I told the salesman with affirmation
“Forget about the bluetooth… I’ll go for the RM10 wan”.

The salesman took my RM10 and watched me walk away with my new hands free.

I didn’t look back but I knew he was saying to himself
“*(@&(@&($*#(&*$&*(#$(&*#&*($#*($ BLOODY MR CHEAP!!! YOU BETTER NOT CUM BAK AGAIN OR I WILL BEAT YOU SO BAD YOUR OWN MOTHER WON’T BE ABLE TO RECOGNIZE YOU”

But after all his frustration I knew he was trying to calm himself down thinking
“Ok lah… sell it for RM10, my cost is RM8 so made RM2 lah… not bad”

I took a few steps away from the counter… then I turned back and said
“Hey… can I have a plastic bag to put this in?”

The salesman grunted and took one out for me, mentally recalculating in his mind
“Cost RM8 + Cost of plastic bag = RM8.10 so made RM1.90, ten sen less… niama this Mr Happy”.

Two days later… I kinda figured out why it doesn’t pay to be cheap sometimes.
Haih… broken already.
‘

Just about any famous blogger in the Malaysian and/or Singaporean blogosphere knows Nadnut.

And you know why they know her?

Because she just loves to make fun of people.

I mean take for example, my partner Ming.

Ming was nice enough to invite her to our Nuffnang office in Singapore to check out our Nuffnang Backend (Nuffnang BE).

The Nuffnang Backend is something that we all have kept Top Secret till today.

It’s what the Nuffnang team uses to monitor the entire network, everything from monitoring ad campaigns to selecting blogs into advertiser campaigns and even the minor minor things like checking ad placements on blogs or detecting click fraud.

Yes, Nadnut was one if not the only lucky blogger ever to be invited to the office to view the Nuffnang BE.

And how did she show her appreciation to Ming?

She SPANKED MING IN THE BUTT and checked out his REAL BACKEND!

KETERLALUAN THAT WOMAN!!!

So cruel!!!

So ruthless!!!

Which reminds me of the time when she SPOOFED my “5 Step La La Pose“!!!

Remember that?

Huh?

Well see what she did here… HMPH.

How can a blogger like that NOT get on your nerves ??

Yesterday I was summoned by one of Nuffnang’s clients to pay a visit to their office.

Now let me explain the concept of the word CLIENT.

A client is a customer.

A customer is someone who pays money so that a company like Nuffnang can survive.

Ever heard of the phrase
“Customer is King?”

Well, it can be almost directly translated to
“Client is KING”.

What does that phrase mean?

It means, when the client says to you
“JUMP!”

You DON’T say
“What?”

You DON’T say
“Huh?”

And you SURE AS HELL BETTER NOT SAY
“Why?”

No… you say…

“How High?”

Similarly, when a client says
“Come to our office”.
You DON’T say
“Why?”

But you say
“WHEN?”

and if your client says
“RIGHT NOW”

You DON’T say
“But but… I can’t right now… my grandma is not well and I’m taking her to the clinic”.

You say
“YES SIR WILL BE THERE IN TEN MINUTES! PO PO CAN WAIT!”

and if your client says
“Make it FIVE!”

You DON‘T say
“But but… that’s impossible! I’m in Subang right now and your office is in KL”.

You say
“SIR YES SIR!”

Anyway, this client is 88db.com which coincidentally is owned by and shares the same office with JobsDB.com, a dotcom in Malaysia that requires no introduction.
You will see some of their ads running around the Nuffnang Community this week.

88db.com is one website that you just can’t ignore unless you’re a fool.

I feel stupid enough for not knowing it exists until they approached Nuffnang for a campaign.

I mean here is a wonderful website that has everything you can ever look for, a huge directory of user posted content that can find you everything from weddings to pets to even home-made cookies for Hari Raya!

There is even this little eBay-like trading area where you can sell your junk and buy other people’s junk (Eh! One man’s meat is another man’s poison).

So anyway, back to my story.

I paid a visit to 88DB (JobsDB)’s office today at Menara UOA and was greeted by a very nice and polite receptionist.

Then my client came out of the back and greeted me with a smile.

Everyone!

Say Hello to Christine!

Christine is the Marketing Manager at 88db and one of the people responsible for giving you your ads!

Christine is among the nicest of our clients at Nuffnang.

Upon greeting me today she asked
“Are you still having a hangover from the other night? Do you want some water?”

In which I replied
“No… I’m okay now thanks” (with my face turning redder than a red tomato).

We sat in a meeting room and chatted while waiting for her Boss, the General Manager of JobsDB Malaysia to step into the room.

And before you know it, Steven opened the door, stepped into the room gave me a handshake so firm I couldn’t feel my fingers.

With a smile on his face he said
“Why don’t we do this in my office?”

So he brought me through the workstations of the other people at 88DB (and JobsDB) and straight to his office at the back.

Then he sat down on the chair and we started talking away.Steven shared with me his inspirations on 88db.com
“Where do you find a website today that provides a service of helping people find what they need and yet does not charge both users and advertisers for using it?”

And he was right.

In a website like eBay, typically if you were to sell something, eBay will take a transaction fee off your sale but on 88DB.com, it’s completely free.

If you’re a freelance designer and want to post your services there, you can do so for FREE…

WITHOUT paying a single cent… on a website that is viewed by so many people each day it’s almost like putting an ad up in the field of the World Cup Finals. (Okay I kinda exaggerated there, but you get my point).

Why do they do it?

My guess is just like the Founders of Google, they believed in building something that added value FIRST, before trying to earn money off it, and that is the mindset of a rare breed of new generation dotcoms.

After our long chat, I asked Steven and Christine if they would humour me and let me take a picture of them and putting it on my blog since I don’t often get to blog about visiting our clients’ offices.

They agreed.

Then I asked Steven if he would let me take a picture with him.

And …. he….. AGREED!!!

Now that’s not all there is to this blog entry.

I mean sure, I just kinda explained how a typical day for me at work goes… and where I go… but let me tell you something else I happened to see today.

You remember the chair that Steven was sitting on?

Does it look familiar to you?

No?

Ok let me remind you.

Remember this picture?

THAT IS THE VERY SAME CHAIR I SO WANTED TO BUY WHEN I WENT SHOPPING FOR OFFICE FURNITURE A MONTH AGO BUT HAD TO HAVE A PARTICULAR SOMEONE TALK ME OUT OF!!!

AUGGHHH!!!!!

AUGHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

&(*#$&*(#&(*$#&(*$#&(*$&*(#$&*(

And here’s the joke.

When I first noticed the chair and started drooling over it… Steven said
“Oh yeah.. this chair… I don’t like it… made a mistake buying it.. piece of junk!”

My heart broke into so many pieces, it would take miles of scotch tape to mend it back together.

*sigh*

One man’s meat, is another man’s poison.

PS: Check out 88db when you guys have the time. There’s seriously a lot of stuff going on there.