Yep it’s true! This year Guinness is bringing Taio Cruz over for Arthur’s Day!!!

I was all so excited about it until I realized that I have to fly back to Penang that very same night for my best friend of 20 year’s wedding (I can’t possibly miss that!).

So oh well… I decided to spread the love so maybe you guys can get some tickets.

This year’s Arthur’s Day is a little different that the other years. Tickets are not for sale anymore but are distributed through certain channels like Nuffnang & ChurpChurp.

We’ve got loads of tickets so if you’d like to win some for your friends check out the ChurpChurp site.

You can also get more details from the Guinness MY FB page here.

TO ARTHUR!

Meet Arnold.

Arnold is a well-known Australian tech blogger whom I first met through Nuffnang a couple of years ago. His blog won the Best Geek Blog at the Nuffnang Asia-Pacific Blog Awards in Singapore 2 years ago.

Since I met him in Singapore 2 years ago we’ve kept in touch and became friends over the years. Every time I drop my Melbourne and he’s around he takes us out for a good meal and we catch up. When I was in Melbourne last month for the Nuffnang Blogopolis, we met again. He told me how he now has his own business that sells a luxurious and professional kind of iPad covers that were made of leather. Kangaroo leather to be specific.

I thought about it and I thought yeah… I think that would work. Why? Because I’ve seen so many iPad covers and they’re typically really casual looking. Even the official Apple Smartcover comes in all sorts of colours that gives you a really casual kind of feel. But what if sometimes you don’t want to look casual? You’re wearing a suit and the last thing you want to be carrying with you is an orange smart cover. You want something that matches what you have right?

So then I went online to look at pictures of his Aranez iPad cover and it was absolutely beautiful.

Then just this week, he sent me one in the mail….. and I love it!

The first thing that catches your eye when you get it out of the box is this little bottle and a cloth to wipe something with. At first I thought it was meant for the iPad. Then when I looked at the cover again I realized that it was a leather cleaner. It’s like we normally buy iPad covers to protect our iPads right? This one comes with tools and with the expectation that you should be taking good care of the cover as well you take care of the iPad itself.

It really does give you that feeling. When I first took it out of the box, I could smell the leather. Somehow that instantly made me want to be more careful with it when slotting in my iPad and my business cards.

The other thing I love about it is how there are slots for you to put in business cards or any sort of cards on my iPad. That is something I really wonder why few if any of the other iPad covers have. Why won’t they? It’s like when you carry a file into a meeting, you get to put things in it. Why can’t you be able to slot a few things into your iPad cases. I’m not asking to put a baseball in it… just a few pieces of paper or some business cards.

Overall I really like it! The only little drawback about it is that it doesn’t have an in-built mechanism on the cover to prop up your vertically iPad but it’s easily solved by having it lean on something. Most of the time I find myself having my iPad on the table but slanting upwards a bit for me to type on… and this cover handles that fine.

Totally love my new Aranez case.

Thanks Arnold and good luck with Aranez. If you want to get yourself one, visit his site here.

Today I went to buy another iPad for use in my office. After buying it, the first thing I thought about was buying a screen protector and a casing. Now I didn’t need a new casing because Arnold was sending me one of his really BEAUTIFUL Aranez ones already.

But yeah I thought I totally needed a screen protector. So I asked for one at the Apple dealer and they showed me two types.

One with anti-glare that costs RM75 and another that costs RM125 or something like that. The latter was a “crystal clear” one with no anti-glare but was apparently from a really good brand in Japan. My jaw dropped at the price. Here I just spent RM2,100 on an iPad and it costs another RM125 just to buy a screen protector for it? Just a screen protector? So if I bought a casing as well I would spend maybe RM250-RM300 on protecting my iPad? Which is a little bit more than 10% of the cost.

Of course there are two ways of looking at it, on one hand… since you’ve already spent RM2,100 on it, what’s another RM250 to take better care of it. On the other hand, I’m the kind of guy who changes my devices every year… because well like a typical guy I like gadgets. So the lifespan of me using this will be maybe 1… or maximum 2 years. Think about it, how many of us really use our mobile phones for longer than that these days? Do you see many people still carry an iPhone 3G with them ? All I see are iPhone 4s today… and if I’m lucky once in a while I’ll spot a 3Gs but never a 3G.

Then Shorty asked me a question:

“Do you even need a screen protector?”

And it hit me.

Apple claimed that the iPhone 4’s screen is made of aerospace-grade glass that is “Chemically strengthened to be 20 times stiffer and 30 times harder than plastic”. I remember the copy on its website when it first launched it’s iPhone 4. How Apple said that the glass on its iPhone 4 was made of the same material used to make helicopter windscreens. HELICOPTER WINDSCREENS… WOAH!

It’s also “fingerprint resistant”. So why the hell do we need a screen protector? Are we buying things that we really don’t need? I mean you don’t see people buying screen protectors to protect the face of their Rolex’s do they? Not to mention people are generally expected to use their Rolex’s for much longer than they’re expected to usetheir iPhones or iPads before a next change.

The answer is… no the iPhone/iPad’s screens are NOT scratch proof. Even according to this Gizmodo entry, people HAVE scratched their iPhone 4 screens.

And stress tests on YouTube have shown… yes… it does get scratched.

And go around looking at forums and yes you’ll see people talking about how they have a big scratch on their iPhone or iPad.

So yes… if you want to protect your gadgets, buy a screen protector. But are we paying too much for them? My opinion is YES. I think it’s crazy how a screen protector can cost RM125! Ask for a cheaper one and the sales person will tell you they’re not very good and etc etc. Sure you get what you pay for.

Then I remembered what a friend of mine once told me.

I have a friend who used to work at an Apple reseller here in Malaysia. When I met him I asked him
“Woah your bosses must make a lot of money seeing how many iPads they’re selling here”.

His answer was
“Nah… we don’t make much from each iPad sold. Maybe like RM20 or something. Margins are really low because Apple controls the price. What we do make A LOT of margin from though are 3rd party accessories”.

That’s right. That means if they sell a screen protector for RM125, the cost to the reseller could be a fraction to that and the cost to the manufacturer probably even a smaller fraction. Can you blame them though? No! It’s business and supply and demand. If this is the market rate then sure let it be. Businesses must make enough profit to continue providing the service/product. But am I paying much more for my screen protector than its worth compared to my iPad?

For me… what I do know is this. I won’t pay RM125 for an iPad protector. That’s too much.

I have just taken my screen protectors off my iPhone 4 because it was full of scratches after a year. I’m going to try using my iPhone 4 now without it and see for myself if I will really need to buy a screen protector for my phone in future.

Shorty has a friend whose bf is a pilot.

Today after badminton, Shorty casually mentioned to me
“Actually when people ask you what your bf does… it’s quite cool if you get to say ‘he’s a pilot’.”

Before my lips could protest to my own defence, she continued

“…. entrepreneurs not so cool.  Because these days everyone is an entrepreneur. Whether you’re doing some freelancing or something… you call yourself an entrepreneur“.

I then started thinking about what jobs bfs could have that would be cool. I mean for guys it’s easy. For guys… if my guy friend asks me what my gf does for a living, nothing beats
“My gf is a runway model…”

Or

“My gf is a TV/movie actress”.

What jobs do girls think is cool for the bf to have? Well apart from the “out of this world ones” like…. “Inventor of Facebook” or “Hollywood actor” or something. Lets focus on the normal jobs that we could have.

Well I came up with my very own Top 5 List.

5) Pilot

I guess I can’t deny that this is….. cool *bitter*. I mean how can you not be cool if you fly one of these babies.

Although I hear from my pilot friends these days that they don’t really do anymore actual flying with joysticks and all *still bitter*. They tell me that everything is computerized these days. They sort of just operate a computer and everything’s on auto-pilot.

The coolest of the coolest though is say if the bf flies one of these babies for the Air Force.

4) Investment Banker

When a girl tells you her bf is an investment banker, you think of someone who looks like Ari Gold in his best suit like this…

and earns like this.

They travel business class, stay in 5 star hotels and typically drive nice cars. Sure after the 2008 credit crisis, everyone hated investment bankers for a while but all that hate came to an end really quick. Before you know it, everyone wanted to be investment bankers again. Why? Because it’s the most economically efficient job to be in to earn the most money. See if you’re a businessman and you invest in something that fails, you lose your money.

If you’re an investment banker and you make deals that make people a lot of money, you get a huge bonus. The kind of bonus that most businessmen don’t even get themselves. If you lose money, you’re losing someone else’s money. You don’t lose any money yourself and the worst thing that can happened to you is that you lose your job. It’s kind of like… you go to a casino and you get to gamble with someone else’s money. If you win, you take a smaller portion of that money. If you lose it… well that person just tells you, you’re not gambling with my money anymore. Go find someone else to gamble with.

So I think being an investment banker or a fund manager is one of the best ways to earn money… if that’s your main motivation.

Note: I’m generalizing a bit here. Different investment bankers have different roles to play… not all of them directly invest 🙂

3) Doctor

Doctors are just naturally cool because … well they heal people. And everyone always has questions to ask them. Whether it’s this rash you have on your elbow or…. whether or not drinking milk before you sleep is good or bad.

At first though… there was a possibility of the impression that doctors looked like this.

Haha ok not exactly like that but well… a little geeky and all.

Then TV shows like Grey’s Anatomy came along with doctors that look like THIS.

So now when a girl tells her friends that her bf is a doctor, their friends don’t picture THIS.

They picture THIS.

So he looks like that and he heals people. HOW THE HELL DO YOU COMPETE WITH THAT?!

2) Politician

When you think of politician, think Obama.

Or Sarkozy and his hot wife.

These are like the cool politicians the world have to offer.

Politicians have power! Everywhere your politician bf goes, he brings along a police escort. He doesn’t need to stop at traffic lights or wait in jams. He is too important for that… the country needs him and his time for much more important stuff.

Imagine being around your girl friends and saying “Ah I gotta go for a cocktail tonight. Obama’s meeting my bf there and my bf needs me to entertain Michelle Obama while they’re busy.”

1) The number one coolest job I think is…. ASTRONAUT (Yeah ok so this is a little out of this world but you just gotta have this!).

Now when I say Astronaut… I mean Astronaut…. not “space tourist”. There’s a clear difference between the two. The former actually goes into space and does some work for the benefit of mankind. The latter though goes to space just for fun.

How is an Astronaut NOT cool?

First of all when you picture an astronaut boyfriend, you think of a mofo who can take all sorts of punishing G forces. His friends will be like “Did you go on the TOWER OF TERROR RIDE in Disneyland?”.

And he’ll be like… “Mehhh…”.

Or if he goes on a ride like this. Instead of acting the way the guy in the video screamed, he’ll be like…

“Mehh….. just another day at work”.

On top of all the experiences he has had that few humans to date have ever had (zero gravity, looking at Earth from space etc etc), Astronauts are known to be the smartest people around. NASA doesn’t send idiots to space… (well okay they did send monkeys…. but not idiots). They send the best and the brightest of the human race to represent us!

So that everyone, is the Top 5 of my list.

Happy Independence Day my fellow Malaysians!

I don’t know if it’s just me but somehow I’ve grown more and more patriotic in recent years. My friend Jia from Shanghai is down in KL this week and I was just telling him about Malaysia over dinner. Everything about our history, our people… and all the great things about Malaysia. Speaking of people… do you guys notice that we’re getting a little more civil Malaysian drivers on the road lately?

When I first started driving some 9 years ago, Malaysian drivers on the road were the most aggressive. They will never give way to you if you try to cut into their line. Even fight you till the end like it was some game. These days though I notice that at least 30-50% of the time, whenever I want to switch lanes even in a jam, I find the car before me actually opening up and giving way. Because of that I tend to do that more often too… Do you guys start giving way more?

Well that is.. us normal drivers that is. Except taxi drivers. In my experience taxi drivers in Malaysia still continue the “fight you till the end” policy when it comes to giving way.

Maybe if we keep being nicer on the road and “paying it forward”… in a few years time all Malaysian drivers will start giving way to each other and we’ll be known for the most polite drivers in the region.

In any case Happy Merdeka everyone!

PS: In conjunction with Merdeka, MSN Malaysia came up with a list of the Top 10 Young Malaysians and I just found out today they included me in that list too. Among those in the list are Co Founder of MyEG TS Wong, Zee Avi and Nicol David. Thank you MSN for the feature! I’m proud to be Malaysian!

In the car on the way back from dinner earlier, I was talking to Shorty about the TV ads I still remember from long ago. It’s funny.. when you sit down and think about all the ads you remembering watching on TV growing up, you’ll remember quite a lot of them. Ahh those were the days where TV ads was the best way to reach kids like us. When I look at the kids today grow up, they do so many other things and consume so many other media it’s so complicated for marketers to reach them.

20 years ago, if you wanted to hit 6 year old Timothy Tiah with you ad… easy. Just buy a spot between 5.30PM-6.00PM on weekdays where 6-year old Timmy will be watching cartoons on RTM2. The ads those days were really good too. Here are some of the ads that I always will remember:

1) 7-5-5-2-5-2-5 Pizza Hut Delivery

This is one phone number I will never forget. Do you guys remember the Pizza Hut jingle/song back then? The TVC will come on with singing that goes 7-5-5-2-5-2-5 … 7-5-5-2-5-2-5… 7-5-5-2-5-2-5 … Pizza Hut Delivery.

2) Fern Leaf

There are two types of Fern Leaf ads I will always remember. The first one is in Chinese. It’s a song that goes like this : “Zhi shang zhi you ma ma hao…”

The other one… is this one.

Who remembers this song?

Ibu… ibu… engkaulah ratu hatiku 🙂

3) Tora & Ding Dang

Man… these were exactly the kind of ads that hit 6-year old Timmy when he was watching cartoons between 5.30PM-6.00PM on weekdays. These cool ads for Tora and Ding Dang will come on and showcase kids playing with the fun toys they got from the chocolates they bought.

I don’t know what happened to Tora and Ding Dang and if they still have them…. but I always remember two things. The actual chocolate sucks ass. I don’t think anybody ever bought it for the chocolate. Everybody though bought it for the cool little toy they have inside. The other thing I also remember is feeling disappointed when I eventually see the toy. When the kids play with their toys on the TVCs it looks so cool, like it could fly and do all sorts of things that even toys today can’t. But when you actually buy the product and open up the toy packaging… you see just some crap piece of plastic.

I keep falling for it though. Over and over again I will see a new Tora and Ding Dang TVC and buy the product over and over again.

4) Milo & Ovaltine

I always remember these ads. There were so many of them… and they always had the say sort of theme. Energy or sports. Milo had this really jingle at the end of each TVC that went “IT’S MARVELOUS WHAT MILO… CAN DO FOR YOU!!!”.

HAha!

Ovaltine on the other hand had this ad.

5) Nano Nano
This is probably my most favourite ad of all time growing up. Yes… Nano Nano… the sweet with a taste so confusing it still baffles me why I used to like it so much. Why I love the ad?

Well.. listen to the song and you’ll be hooked too 🙂

Haha I stumbled upon this really funny video recently. Basically the story goes that this guy went on a trip to Europe and he told his gf about it but apparently she wasn’t listening. So while he was in Europe for two weeks, his gf had been trying to call him and sent him countless emails.

This video documents the escalation in the tone of her e-mails.

Remember that all that happened in two weeks!

I’m glad I don’t have a crazy girlfriend!

PS: On another note, check out this Dating tips for guys 🙂

After a few days in Beijing, I made a trip to Shanghai with a few of our Nuffies to see some Nuffnangers there. We woke up at 4AM or so that morning and was at the airport by 6AM in order to catch an 8AM flight.

I’m not in this picture because I’m behind the camera with a grumpy face cursing and swearing and asking David why the hell we picked such an early flight. He said that it was the cheapest flight of the day and he wanted to save us some money… so fine.

For the first time in my life I was going to fly an internal flight in China. You know I’ve always heard bad things about the flights within China but I can say that after flying it once, they were all unfounded. It was a really good flight. I think I flew China Eastern. The planes were new, the stewardesses were polite, the seat had a good reclining angle and there was enough leg room.

The instant we got to Shanghai though, the Nuffies put their game on. Julia put on a nice dress.

They said Shanghai girls are very pretty so them Beijing girls wanna keep up! Actually Julia and Rachel aren’t really from Beijing. That’s the thing about Beijing and Shanghai that really remind me of New York. When you go to New York, lots of the locals there aren’t actually from New York itself but from some other city in the USA. Same for China… the locals there are from everywhere else in China. China is HUGE!

I met up with one of my friends there Jia.

Funny how you meet people. I met Jia through my Thai friend when I was visiting Bangkok some months back. Jia actually went to UCL too. He was a year below me! When Shorty saw this picture she said “Wah who is that guy? So handsome!”. I chose to ignore it!

In Shanghai we met with some bloggers and also had some meetings. We had one meeting in an office in the tallest building in Shanghai called the World Financial Center.

The view from the top was amazing!

Shanghai is actually my favourite city in China. It’s not as cultural as Beijing but it’s really a first world city. On par with cities like Tokyo or New York or London. No wonder so many of my friends choose to work there. I met up with one old friend who’s working there too. Meet Ker Loon!

Ker Loon told me that at first he didn’t quite like it in Shanghai but eventually grew to like it.

On the last night I was there, we all went for dinner at this really nice Yakiniku restaurant. When Ming and I first went there some 3 years ago, it was completely empty. But we loved the food there!

This time though it was packed! Like some food bloggers went to review the place or something and suddenly everyone in Shanghai was eating there.

Met up with Darren Chin too… first time seeing him again after some 3 years. Last time I saw him was in Shanghai too. Here’s David with some of the Nuffies.

After dinner though we headed to what is supposed to be the most happening club in Shanghai called Muse 2 opposite this building.

It was packed going in and the Nuffies were pretty excited.

I wasn’t allowed to take any pictures in the club but I can say this about it:

1) There were definitely A LOT more guys than girls in the club.

2) The girls there were unbelievably hot. Shanghai girls… aww man… !

Julia met a group of Singaporean guys when she was there. After a while one of them came over to Ming to say hi. His opening line was something like “Do you know who my father is?”.

Haha is that the way we should introduce ourselves these days? What if my father isn’t anyone big? Then what would that mean?

I arrived in Beijing Tuesday this week and was greeted with something you hardly see in Beijing.

BLUE SKIES.

If you stay in China long enough, especially Beijing and Shanghai… you’d know what I mean. Beijing constantly has this thick smog around the city… like a perpetual haze that comes from all the pollution the factories on the outskirts of the city spew into the air. Once in a while after it rains though, you get to see a bit of blue sky… which was how I managed to see it when I arrived.

I arrived like 6AM in the morning. Ming and I headed straight to the hotel to check-in first.

Then off to the Nuffnang China office in Beijing which is in this building.

Meet some of our Nuffnang China Nuffies.

They represent our small but very passionate team in China led by our dear ex-Malaysian Nuffie David Wong. It was a bit of a culture shock for me though. All our discussions, meetings with the Nuffies took place in Chinese, with the occasional help with Dai Xia or Julia translating it for us. Man I thought my Chinese was okay… but after spending some time in China talking with people there about work and all.. I realize it’s terrible!

I walked around taking pictures of some of the things in the office. They have a photo-bombing Churpie.

A local version of our Nuffnang Bunting.

And a local version of our I Love Nuffnang badges.

Spent most of my trip meeting bloggers and business partners here but had loads of fun with the Nuffies. Captured this one hilarious moment we had before lunch. We were getting out of a cab and David somehow stepped on some shit.

He first went “UGGHHH”…

Then he did one thing that made me realize he has perhaps been in China for too long.

He went to the bushes nearby and started wiping his foot off them.

Haha David cracks me up!

I’m in Shanghai now with the Nuffies and going back to KL tomorrow. Homesick! Blog soon!

Well then you ain’t seen Public Bank’s 45th Anniversary dinner.

The “Tan Sri Teh” that everyone is singing about in the video is the Founder and owner of Public Bank. One of the richest and most successful men in Malaysia.

I’ve never seen anything like it. The Public Bank staff must REALLY love their BOSS!!! Tan Sri has managed to take employee loyalty and love for the company to a WHOLE NEW LEVEL!

*grabs mic from Taylor Swift*

“Imma let you finish… imma let you finish… but Tan Sri Teh has the best music video of all time… OF ALL TIME”.