I was playing poker with some of the Nuffies the other night. On one of the rounds I got a pretty good hand. When I saw the flop though I quickly folded? Why? Because this was what the first 3 cards were.

After I folded I said “WAH who dare play this hand… aiyo aiyo I don’t dare man”.

But Yuen Yee, this brave Nuffie here on the right

decided that it was okay. So she played on… and she won that hand. After which she drew a lot of teasing from the other guys there who said
“Yuen Yee.. .that money you win.. careful ar.. dirty wan”.

After that night I started thinking about superstition. I always believed that I’m not a very superstitious guy but when I thought about it, folding that hand says otherwise. So I decided to be honest about myself and think carefully about things that I’m superstitious about.

1) Numbers 4 and 13.

I’m superstitious about the number 4 and 13. Call me Chinaman but I don’t like it. I notice it every time too. Whenever I go stay in a hotel and if I’m put on the 13th floor I feel uncomfortable. I don’t go to the extent of changing my room altogether but I just feel uncomfortable.

2) Don’t forsake money or money will forsake you.

It’s something that Ming once told me his Mum taught him. And that I think is totally true. Say you’re in a casino and you’re winning big. Then suddenly because you’re winning big you begin to be more free with your bets… then you end up losing it all. That’s because you start taking money for granted.

My superstition on that doesn’t really go on gambling though because I don’t really gamble much. But I follow it on a daily basis. So it’s like… if I’m walking down a street and I see 10 cents on the road, I stop, bend and pick it up. Because I feel neglecting it makes me feel as if I’m “forsaking money’ or taking it for granted.

It applies for so many other things too. Like even if I’m paying for a relatively small amount I never go “Aiyah small money la that wan I pay no problem”.

3) When Sleeping in a Foreign Place, Leave a Light On

This again is something Ming once told me and something I do up till today. At home whenever I sleep I turn off all the lights in my room. I sleep in pitch black darkness. It’s not the same when I sleep anywhere else though.

See these days I travel a lot for work and I stay in hotels every night. Whenever I stay in a foreign place that is NOT home, I make sure I leave a light on. Whether it’s the toilet light or some light in the room. Ming says its to keep ghosts away… I don’t know how true that is but I just leave it on anyway.

So these are my superstitions. What are yours?

So I was at Jalan Alor’s Char Siew Fan the other day with some of the Nuffies. You know how the famous Char Siew Fan has moved right? It used to be on this street and now it’s on Jalan Alor itself. Somehow since it’s moved, I think business has kinda come down a bit. I know it could be for many reasons but I can’t help but feel that it could be because of Feng Shui. I believe in that sometimes. Which is why as much as we’re in such dire need of new office space in KL, Ming and I refuse to move out of our KL office.

Anyway at Char Siew Fan I decided to go to the toilet. It was dirty and all that. While taking a piss I couldn’t help but notice the writings on the wall. We have so many advertising campaigns these days encouraging people to “express themselves”. Well I sometimes think we don’t need to do all that planning and spending all that ad money. All we need… is a wall of a dirty toilet and some people will do it willingly.

So I looked at the wall and tried to find out what people were saying.

There’s this guy who apparently wants to “F#ck a gay that is claver to suck”.

Then there’s Shameer, a birthday boy who apparently fucked a girl named “Apple” on the 22nd of October 2009. (I do hope he meant Apple the girl and not Apple the fruit).

And a Filipino who proudly wrote that “Philippines is the best”.

And in response to that, someone wrote “Who write this is F#ck”.

So this is how some people express themselves. When you don’t give them Twitter or Facebook or blogs or any form of social media, they express themselves on toilet walls. I often notice in most toilets it’s always about someone f#cking someone. Or someone just writing bad words on the wall. I don’t quite understand why people find the need to write the F word on walls without a context. I mean sure, say the F word when you’re angry or when you’re trying to exaggerate something…. but writing the F word without any context… where’s the fun in that?

Speaking of the F word, someone showed me this video of all the uses of the F word.

So how many of you have ever said the F word?

I’m in Singapore these couple of days for a Digital Advertising Conference. Aww man getting here was quite an adventure.

You see the conference was starting at 9AM today and at the same time last night in KL there was supposed to be a digital event that I wanted to attend (in the end the event got canceled but that’s another story altogether). So I arranged for me to take the 6.15AM Air Asia flight to Singapore that morning. Do you know what that means?

That means that you have to leave home for the airport by 4AM and wake up by 3.30AM. That means… NO SLEEP. So the night before I got whatever few hours of sleep I could and when 3.30AM came I dragged myself out of bed and to the airport. I wasn’t traveling alone this time. I was going with a number of friends so we all met at the Old Town in LCCT and were having breakfast there somewhere around 5AM plus.

One by one of us gradually arrived at Old Town and we were just chilling there, having breakfast and talking. Our ticket said that our flight was leaving at 6.15AM and the gate closes at 5.55AM. At 5.50AM though Desmond just placed an order for a set of soft boil eggs. That’s 5 minutes before the gate closes.  I didn’t think anything of it but I gave a passing remark nevertheless “Wah Desmond… brave ah… living life on the edge ah?”.

5.55AM came and the eggs never showed up. It was about then that we decided it was time to stroll to the gates so we packed up and walked over. When we got there we realized that half of us in our group did the self check-in but didn’t get a stamp that we needed in order to cross the departure gate. We split up, one group led by Desmond and another group led by me.

I waited for them for a while until I realized that I was at the wrong Departure Hall entrance. Singapore was under International Departures but its entrance was all the way on the other side. When I learned that I started walking to the new entrance. Then I got a call from a friend of mine who was the earliest of us all. He was already at the gate. He said “Oi… I board the plane first ah. They’re already calling all your names’.

It was then that I realized how late we were so we ran. Once we got past the security check point we noticed the door was already closed. I ran towards the door and they let us through. I couldn’t see Desmond’s group at all so I thought they were far ahead of us already. So in the darkness of the morning we all ran from one side of LCCT to our plane which seemed to be at the other end. Throughout the heavy foosteps and panting we kept wondering “Of all times…. of all times this time our plane had to be the one at the furthest end!”.

Some 200-300 metres of running later we arrived at our plane. There I stood on the tarmac in the darkness while our plane’s door was already CLOSED. Everything went slow motion for me as I slowly lifted both my hands in disappointment! I had missed the flight just by 10 minutes and probably would have made it IF IT WEREN’T FOR THOSE DAMNED EGGS!!!

Then I heard a voice call out to me. I looked to my left and noticed an Air Asia staff looking over at my wondering what the hell I was doing. She said “Excuse me Sir! Wrong plane. Your plane is over here.” *gestures.

Still in slow-motion I turned my neck to see further down to my plane was another plane parked with its door wide open. The light from its cabin bursting out into the darkness. It was like I just saw the Gateway to Heaven. I breathed a sigh of relief and rushed over there but the nice Air Asia staff “No need to rush no need to rush… still early”.

I got on board the plane and noticed that Desmond and his group wasn’t there yet. So I called Pinky who was with them.

I wanted to ask her to tell everyone to FRIGGIN RUN  but she wasn’t answering the phone. I later found out why.

Because she WAS ALREADY RUNNING… along with all of them.

Here’s what happened according to Desmond’s side of the story.

After we left Old Town and split up so that his group can go get a stamp on their tickets Desmond wandered off. First he went outside the airport to have a smoke. After that he strolled back into some shop there and bought some cigarettes. Then he walked back to the place where he was supposed to get his ticket stamped and saw the longest queue there. That’s when he realized that his cigarette was going to be one expensive cigarette. In a stroke of luck he managed to see Pinky at the front of the queue so he managed to ask her to stamp his ticket.

Once the tickets were stamped, madness ensued. They rushed to the departure gate. Once they passed security cheque point and passed their ticket to the attendant at the departure gate the guy warned them “Lari ah! Jangan Jalan !”.

So they did as told. Just like how I had done some few minutes before them. They were running the LCCT Marathon. Every Air Asia staff they passed by shouted
“LARI LARI LARI !!!”

Like they were given so much encouragement they couldn’t stop!

Finally they managed to get to the plane on time. The minute they sat down and buckled up the plane started moving. It was 6.15AM sharp when the plane’s door closed. We had all made it just by a minute or two.

Desmond said this was the first time he had to chase after a plane. It wasn’t mine… but this was one of the most exciting. I’ve seen worse though. I know of a couple who even 30 minutes before their plane takes off in Penang they can drive out and have breakfast at a Bak Kut Teh stall nearby.

Do you guys know anyone like that who’s very chill on taking flights?

I’ve been really busy in the past week man. I can’t even describe the things I’ve been doing. Here are a couple of things that I’ve been up to though.

1) I’ve been watching a LOT of documentaries. Haha! I can’t believe I missed out on all these things. In the past I would always only stumble upon some good ones when I flip channels on Astro but I hardly watch any TV these days. So I totally missed out on that. But remember when I blogged some time back about geting Astro Byond PVR?

Well two things have happened since then. One is that the contest ended and the winner Nor Iman or http://www.eyriqazz.com is now going on a nice holiday trip to KK.

The other thing is that… I’ve really started integrating Astro Byond PVR into my daily life. See I love watching documentaries but not just any documentary. I go on Discovery Channel sometimes and find the stuff I love but sometimes I find stuff about Egyptian Pharoahs or even Wildlife which really doesn’t interest me at all. What interests me is modern history, modern weapons, extreme machines and stuff like that. So my favourite 3 channels on Astro are Discovery Channel, Discovery Science and History Channel. These 3 are all enough to satisfy all the knowledge I want in the world. I look at their schedules and then I just pick and choose what I like to record on my PVR.

I even watched this documentary last week about the Top 20 most feared weapons in the world in which the B-2 bomber came in tops.

So every few days when I come home from work and have dinner I’ll turn on the TV  and instead of flipping channels for something interesting to watch I’ll just pick one of the shows I’ve recorded and watch it. Two things change the way I watch videos today. One is YouTube of course and the other has gotta be Byond PVR. I especially love that it’s so easy to use too. When I was overseas on business one day I heard that a TV interview I did some time back was going to air. I just messaged my sister and taught her in a few lines how to record it for me and even she was surprised at how easy it was to use.

Really love my Byond PVR man. One of those gadgets that I never thought I would need but I’m glad now that I have.

2) Met Ning Baizura Today!

This Monday morning Ning Baizura who’s now a part of ChurpChurp dropped by the office to pay all the Nuffies a visit. When she walked into the office everybody instantly recognized her but everyone tried to be professional and not act awed or star-struck. So we had a chat with Ning and then we invited some Nuffnang bloggers over to meet her and they had a bit of a Meet and Greet session about her.

They asked her about her new album launch and her upcoming concert later this year at KL Live (Details on that later). Then after all that was done we finally told the Nuffies that they can now come in and take pictures with Ning. Suddenly everyone rushed.

I managed to get a picture with Ning myself too and she got me a copy of her latest album.

I first met Ning some few years ago. I had just finished dinner with Shorty at Alexis in Gardens when I saw her walking in. Then I just shouted like a fan boy (at least this is how her husband Chris remembers it) “NINGG!!!!”.

She stopped and talked to me for a while then they asked me about what I did. I mentioned Nuffnang and she knew what I did so we exchanged cards. Then just recently Chris called me up to catch up and we decided to organize a meetup with Ning in our office today. Ning is really down to earth in person… no air about her in spite of being one of the most well known artists in Malaysia for the longest time. So glad to have met her.

You can follow her on Twitter here or be a fan of her on FB here.

I know I know. No update for quite a while but I’ve been sooo busy. Promise an update soon. In the mean time… read this article.

Hhaha…. now nobody can say Starcraft is a waste of time. I never knew Starcraft 2 in the Silicon Valley was akin to chess. I should play more now.

Okay so let me tell you guys about my Krabi trip in pictures.

1) The resort I was staying in was called Centara Grand Beach Resort. What’s cool about it was that eventhough it’s part of the mainland, it was surrounded by mountains like this.

So the only way to get to the resort was by boat.

Or for the more adventurous there was a trail you could hike through the jungle called “Monkey Trail”.

2) The hotel’s visitor information card had warnings all over it about the “Monkey Trail”. It said how because of environmental laws they weren’t allowed to improve on the trail so it was dangerous and not to be used as an alternative route to Au Nang, the small town right next door on the mainland.

On the second day though I managed to convince Shorty to go with me on the Monkey Trail. Halfway on the trail, she wasn’t happy.

It started with a lot of steep steps to get on to the mountain. Then a long trail through the jungle like that with wooden planks. The trail was so run down that some of the wooden planks were missing so you really had to watch where you were stepping. I let Shorty walk in front so I could catch her in case she fell back or something.

She was walking so slow up the ramp at one point she was holding back a couple of Australians that were hiking right behind us. So I struck a conversation with them. Shorty wasn’t very talkative though. She said her legs were so tired they were shaking. Exercise and Shorty is like water and oil. They never go together.

So to make up for it I bought her a coconut during lunch.

Shorty loves coconuts.

3) After lunch we were just walking around the shops in Au Nang. We passed this luggage bag shop and Shorty saw a bag that she just had to have. So 10 minutes later we were out walking on the street with this bag.

She called it the cow and all the way we were making sound effects for her cow bag. Moo…

4) Even brought it on a TukTuk ride with us. Look how excited he was. Moo…

5) The TukTuk brought us back to the pier to get a boat back to our resort. Shorty put her hat on me and took this picture.

I was looking very touristy. I actually never ever wear socks and sneakers like that unless I’m playing tourist.

On the boat back, this is Shorty awkwardly creeping up next to the driver and pretending to drive the boat.

6) At the resort beach with Shorty later that evening.

7) We were just standing on the beach letting the waves engulf our feet.

I left my flip flops behind somewhere so they won’t get washed away. While I was standing there in the waves though I suddenly heard Shorty scream “AHH AHH AHH!!!”. She was jumping up and down and pointing at the water in front of her.

I looked only to see one of my flip flops floating away in the sea. I ran after it and managed to get it back.

Otherwise I would have only one flip flop left the whole day.

8) Meet Roberto.

Roberto is a pianist from Philippines that we met on the resort. We met him on our first night. Shorty and I were having dinner at a restaurant in the resort when we heard some beautiful music coming from a piano. At first we thought it was from the stereo up above because we couldn’t find the piano but when we looked hard enough we found Roberto in a piano hidden at a corner.

This picture was taken with him the next morning.

9) Went for my birthday eve dinner with Shorty at a Japanese restaurant in our resort.

We were walking back to the room after dinner when I noticed the Concierge desk was empty. So I quickly asked Shorty to sit there and pretend to be the hotel concierge for a photo.

10) The next day we went to the shooting range.

Shorty shot a 9mm and I got myself an M4A1 Carbine.

This was the result I got.

Not great but I guess it wasn’t completely out of the park.

The rest of the day we went for a foot massage, head massage and a spa. Man I love Thai massage, they’re like the best!

My favourite part of a massage is at the end when they massage your hand and head. Feels sooo sooo good.

11) After a day out at town again we went back to the hotel. We headed for the beach again.

Shorty took a place at a hammock by the beach while I just sat in the waves and played around in the water.

After some time at the beach I went for a swim in the hotel pool.

Shorty gave me her waterproof Sony Cybershot camera to play around with so I was taking lots of pictures underwater.

This is Shorty’s feet.

And this is me. Only after taking this picture did I realize what an idiot I was.

Pay attention to the words on my goggles. Notice it says “Please remove protective film”. I had just bought this pair of goggles that afternoon and totally didn’t realize that I had to remove a layer of film on it.

Sort of like buying a new shirt and forgetting the remove the price tag. Something I have done before too.

12) I was swimming in the pool was Shorty was reading her kindle on one of the deck chairs nearby. Then I realized we were missing something. So I asked Shorty to go order some fries and a drink each so that we can have a drink while chilling at the pool.

Aww man that completed the experience.

That was our last evening in Krabi. And one that completed it all.

After just 3 nights in Krabi I felt all ready to go back to work.

We met this Australian couple there who was on holiday on all the islands around the area for some 4 weeks. I don’t know how they do that. Maybe I’m too much of a city boy but I can only do a few nights in a nice beach resort. After that I start getting eager to go back home or go do something. I can spend much longer in cities though. Like a week in New York or London is no problem to me.

Anyway guys that was my Krabi trip in pictures.

Thank you Shorty for the wonderful surprise trip.

The whole journey took me 2 car rides, 1 plane ride and 1 boat ride before I caught a glimpse of our resort.

At first I thought that this was a secluded island on its own but I just realized today that it’s actually part of Au Nang, except that it’s separated from the town by a big mountain. So in order to get there you have to trek through some run down jungle trail or go by boat. The resort we’re staying in takes pride in being able to be there in that protected part of the island. So apart from our resort, there really is nothing else there.

There are no cars, no bikes, no nothing. No jet ski or anything motorized either. The closest thing we have to a car there is one of those electrical buggies that help us carry our bags to our rooms. At first I couldn’t believe it. How could it really be that there’s nothing around us? So I pulled out my iPhone and did a GPS location find. This is where it found me.

Notice how there is NOTHING around us. I’m sure there are some even more secluded resorts but this has got to be the most quiet resort I had ever been to. Actually this is the first kind of holiday of its kind that I’ve really been to. I mean sure I’ve been to Phuket and all but Phuket isn’t exactly a very quiet ulu kind of place. There’s so much to do there (if anyone even suggests that Penang is Ulu imma go find you and throw a plate of Char Koay Teow at you).

On this trip, there wasn’t anything to do. Sure there are some stuff like rock climbing or visiting caves or diving but Shorty and I don’t do any of that stuff. So I came to this island expecting to do nothing but just relax. That was Shorty’s intention really. I guess she thinks I work hard sometimes and it’s good for me to get away from things.

So let me show you some pictures of the resort. This is the long stairs up to everyone’s rooms. Everyone’s rooms are put in little villas on a hill. So in its effort of being green and all there are no elevators or anything. You wanna go to your room you climb a hill.

On the stairs there are these little statues.

Shorty thought that this one of a crab looked cute so she got me to take a picture.

This is the swimming pool of the resort.

I think there are actually two pools in the resort. This is one of them. I wanted to go swim in there today but it started raining. I think it’s the world telling me that it doesn’t want me to exercise and that I should just be fat.

This is me outside some of the villas.

Now let me show you our room. There are different levels of rooms at the resort. Everything from our room up to even having your own 3-bedroom villa. Of course because we’re not billionaires or anything we went for the average room there and it was already really nice.

When you walked into your room there’s a little patio area where you can sit and have breakfast or something.

And an outdoor balcony where you can sit and admire the view.

Inside the room the first thing you see is the bed.

It actually overlooks a big window that looks out to the sea view or more specifically… this view.

Then there’s this big walk-in closet.

The bathroom is huge too with a really nice bath tub.

And a shower area with enough space to shower a small dinosaur.

So there you have it everyone. Now the sun is setting and it’s time for me to run off for dinner now.

I have one more day in this quiet spot in the world.

Enjoy your week ahead everyone!

Hey Guys,

Just a quick one before I go. Shorty’s taking me on a surprise trip. Well a surprise trip that ceased being a surprise because David from Nuffnang China MSN’ed me last night and said “Hey heard you’re going to Krabi, have a good trip”. I went “I’M GOING TO KRABI!?!?”.

Then I tweeted about it and in 2 minutes Shorty messaged me and I quote “WHO TOLD YOU!”. She then went on to make death threats on the person who told David. David felt so bad in the end he said “Please just send a bomb to me in Beijing now” so that he could blow himself up. Heh. He was joking of course.

Okay I gotta run off to the airport now. Beach holiday here I come!

Whew… this week has been one helluva week. It’s been a lot of fun though. One of the things new with me this week is I finally managed to get my hands on some of our ChurpChurp premiums. Like this.

Can anyone guess what this is?

Some people who see it think it’s a keychain, some an eraser, but it’s actually a USB Drive. You can open up the ChurpChurp bird and up comes a socket. We made it overseas and had them ship it over to all the countries in which ChurpChurp is in. Because they’re pretty expensive to make we don’t have that many to give out but if you want one, you can join this little fun contest we’re having on the ChurpChurp Facebook Fan Page.

It’s just meant to get our Churpers to post up pictures of themselves if they think they’re cute and we’ll let everyone vote to see who they think is the cutest.

The winners get a USB Pen drive and this ChurpChurp plush toy.

Here are some of the pictures they posted up.

Not surprisingly the steep competition is from the girls 🙂

Check out this guy! So confident of his body.

Unlike me who dare not show another shirtless picture of myself online ever.

—————

I’m going away this weekend. Shorty is taking me away on a surprise holiday. I have no idea where I’m going except that it’s a beach resort. I don’t even know if I should be bringing my passport or not.

So this weekend it’ll just be Fatty and Shorty.

PS: If you want to join the ChurpChurp Cutest Thing Contest or just check out the photos people are uploading, click here.

I’ve been flying all over the place lately. It’s crazy! I counted that day… every month I spend at least 10 days out of 30 overseas on business trips. Traveling is fun and all but sometimes it kinda makes you miss your routines. Miss your friends too.. that whenever they wanna ask you out you’re never around. So much that sometimes they even assume you’re not around and don’t bother asking you out whenever they’re planning something.

So when you travel around a lot like me it takes an extra effort to keep in touch with friends.

I’ve been away so much lately for conferences and also for setting up new offices in other countries. In 2008, we expanded Nuffnang from just having a presence in Malaysia and Singapore to Australia and Philippines. It was a big gamble for Ming and I at the time. We took whatever little money we had earned from Malaysia and Singapore and plowed everything we had there into Philippines and Australia. Then we spent the last two years growing those markets and making sure both Nuffnang Philippines and Australia stand on their own feet. Today both Nuffnang Australia and Nuffnang Philippines are profitable and are on their own feet.

So we’ve decided to spread our wings again… and last year we started setting up an office in Beijing for Nuffnang China.

China is a huge market so before we went in guns blazing we spent many months doing research, finding out how we can create a community of bloggers there and how we can add value to the bloggers there. That’s why before we’ve even started selling ads or anything there we’ve been holding blogger gatherings to talk to bloggers there and find out more.

After a lot of preparation and talking to many bloggers we’re finally comfortable enough to launch. So last week we did a soft-launch of Nuffnang China. The response has been great so far. Within the first week we signed up over 1,000 bloggers and more and more are joining us each day. It’s still a drop in the ocean for the huge number of bloggers China has but it’s an encouraging start.

Lots of people have told us about China. How very few companies in our industry have actually gone to China and succeeded but Ming and I decided that if there was any time we were going to try, it has to be now. Leading the team for Nuffnang China though is the very capable David Wong that we sent from our Malaysian office.

Exciting times ahead for us. Good luck Mr Wong!

Check out the Nuffnang China website here. It’s like the rest of our Nuffnang sites but in Chinese 🙂