The past few years of my lives, I have been attending more and more weddings of my friends. Everyone my age or younger even seems to be getting married. Heck last year one of my best friends Pierre got married and next year Hasan, another one of my best friends will be getting married.

Lets not forget KY and Haze who are getting married too.

When it’s happening around you, it’s only natural that you start thinking about it. At the same time because a lot of the people I hang out with are older than me I hear a lot about how married life is like and I’ve learned of so many of my friends who got married and are cheating on their wives/husbands now. Some got divorced, some are still together.

It really made me wonder… is being married to one person for the rest of your life really hard? That’s what we were all brought up to be like. You know… when we were in college or in high school… that was the plan. We grow up, meet somebody, marry that somebody and have a happy family together. So whenever you heard about divorces, you think to yourself that they were just a bad couple. But then I start hearing it happen to friends whom I always thought would make it and I wonder then if it could happen to them… what makes us think that it would never happen to us one day many years into our marriage? Heck are we better than Tiger Woods or Bill Clinton?

I love Kitteh and I have never cheated on her or given her any reason to feel insecure that I might but is it too early and naive for me to say that I will never ever cheat in a marriage one day?

So I woke up one night thinking about this and I pulled myself out of my bed and sat on my study. There I opened Google and typed in the words “Why do women….”

And immediately the top search on Google Suggest was “Why do women cheat”.

Goes to show that I’m not the only one asking Google that question. Then I came across an article on AskMen. I didn’t end up with one answer but 10 answers on why women cheat on men. Click on the link to see the full 10 questions.

Sure some of the answers are because of “not enough sex” or “bedroom boredom but most of the reasons seem to center around the notion that women cheat for emotional reasons. Because they feel neglected, ignored or underappreciated. Because they feel emotional withdrawal, lack of intimacy or revenge on their man’s cheating. So basically according to that article… if a woman cheats… it’s almost always because the man had treated her wrong.What the hell?

Then I decided to do a search on “why do men…”

and look at the searches that were suggested by Google. Lots of women there searching on why men cheat it seems. Even many searching on “why do men like breast” but that’s a whole other issue there altogether. The most interesting article I found there was this one.

They listed 9 reasons but the number one reason was this:

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The No.1 reason: Men crave sexual “variety,” according to David Buss, professor of psychology at the University of Texas and author of The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating (BasicBooks).

“They’ve evolved the desire to be with different women,” he says.

That’s because it’s very simple for men to reproduce (one act of sex versus nine months of pregnancy for women), so to create as many offspring as possible they’re biologically programmed to mate with many women.

“The ‘payoff’ in reproductive currencies [kids] of a short-term mating strategy generally has been higher for men than women,” Buss says.

So after thousands of generations, “this has forged in the male brain a desire for sexual variety.”

Other top reasons men cheat? They’re unhappy with their mates – and extramarital sex is cheaper and easier to get these days, Buss says.

And “power wives” beware: Being married to a high-profile guy ups the odds he’ll wander.

“Women are attracted to men who have power and status, so public figures usually have plenty of opportunity,” Buss says.

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There is actually a “biological explanation” on why men cheat… well among many other non-biological reasons (and not that this should be used as an excuse in any case). If you read on the article though it tells you the 9 other “excuses” men give for cheating like : “She’s not what she used to be, she’s a ball buster or it’s just the thrill”.

So with all this knowledge… what is it that we really need in order to have a good faithful marriage? What does it take? And how likely is that in life?

I just came back from the Guinness Arthur’s Day Launch. Had quite a lot of Guinness to drink with some great friends. Man it was packed!

Here’s Kinkybluefairy and Adam C with Kitteh and me.

You guys remember Arthur’s Day last year right where we had this huge party in Sunway Lagoon Surf Beach with the Black Eyed Peas performing. Well this year… they’re having Timbaland over!  TIMBA-FRIGGIN-LAND!!!!

I wonder how that must be like though, considering that most of his famous songs are with him being featured by other artist or vice versa. Either ways I’m sure he’ll be good to watch. In the mean time, guess who I met at the launch. Here’s a clue: “Sexy’s her name”.

That’s it! Mizz Nina! I saw her and wanted to ask her for a picture but was shy… so I gulped down some Guinness… well liquid courage… and I went up and asked her. She obliged. After I took that picture lots of others followed suit to take pictures with her. She was kept sooo busy!
I told her that I’m a big fan and that I’m so glad she’s Malaysian. In case you don’t know who Mizz Nina is, check out this song!

Know it yet?

So what’s your name… hey baby what’s your name!

Such a great song.

Trivia: Did you know that Mizz Nina’s Dad is Tan Sri Azman Hashim. The 11th Richest man in Malaysia and the owner of AmBank.

I just recently heard about this story over drinks with some friends but it’s one of those stories that happened to a friend of a friend. So I’m not sure how accurate it especially once you hear how unbelievable it could be. Basically this guy went to Thailand and he met this really pretty Thai girl. He fell in love quickly with her and after being in a relationship for some time, they decided to get married. They had the whole wedding ceremony thing and all.

Some time after their marriage they decided that it was time for them to have kids. So they started trying to have kids.. you know.. shagging and all but as much as they tried the natural way, she just couldn’t get pregnant. So one day they decided to see a fertility doctor and the wife did some tests. When the results came back, the Doctor told them that of course they can’t have kids because the wife didn’t seem to have a reproductive system. To be exact, the wife was… at some point… a dude… yes a dude.. as in a MAN (before her sex change operation)! After 2 years of marriage, the husband for the first time had found out that he had married a man and had for all this time been shagging a man. Now this is where I don’t understand or maybe because I’m a bit ignorant on how all these things work.

If a man does a sex change… can he actually have a vagina? And even then… how could the husband not know over 2 years…. I mean… how good was that sex change operation?

What do you guys think? Is this story true or false? If it’s true… how???

Happened today:

*While at the Nuffnang screening of The Expendables (which was a great action movie that hardly needs a plot to be entertaining).*

Short trailer of upcoming movie REPO Men came up.

Kitteh: Ehh what’s this movie about again ah? I’ve seen the trailer before.

Me: There it’s about the future where people can rent vital organs to sur….

Kitteh: OHHHHhhhh!!! *eyes open wide* YAH!!! I REMEMBER!!!….

*3 seconds pass of silence pass*

Kitteh: Eh… to do what again ar?

Lesson of the day: Sometimes when Kitteh says “OHHHH!!!” and you think she gets it… she doesn’t always. Hehe my cute Kitteh.

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I was on MSN today and this friend of mine I knew back from university messaged me out of the blue. I haven’t seen him online in a very very long time. You know how the old spam bots on MSN will just send you links and ask you to click on it?

Well this one is a lot smarter. It actually talks to you almost like a real person. And here’s how it went.

I was really suspicious of him right after he asked me to join a dating site. So when I asked him who he was and how I know him… the bot obviously couldn’t answer and he just never answered me from there. For all you know it could really be a real person behind that. Either ways it shows how much smarter these spam bots are these days.

Be careful of things like that guys!

Hey Everyone!

I cannot begin to tell you how busy I am these few days it’s crazy! Because I was in Singapore most of last week for the Nuffnang Country Manager Summit, I came back with backlogged workload that spans as far as KL to New Mexico. Not only that, we had done some good planning during the Summit in Singapore and now that we’re back, it’s time to execute everything. At night is the only time I really get some time for myself and my nights are being spent doing one of two things:

1) Watching Desperate Housewives in bed with Kitteh and Dug.

You guys know Dug right?

There’s nothing like spending the night after a long hard day’s work in bed just watching the lives of the people in Wisteria Lane. Kitteh pointed out the other day that our lives have become so predictable… so routine “boring couple”. After we’re done with Desperate Housewives though I plan to lobby with Kitteh that she watches 24 with me. I’m yet to watch the latest season of 24 but I’m beginning to feel that everything is slowly becoming a little repetitive. Like.. there’s a terrorist act, then there’s a traitor in CTU or FBI or whatever… and then Jack wants to go out there and kick all the bad guy’s asses but some idiot leader is holding him back. Still… I would watch Jack kick ass for another Season.

I’ve also been trying to get Kitteh to watch Lost starting from Season 1. That’s probably one of the best TV shows ever made in my opinion. Will someone please tell her that?

Speaking of TV though, I switched on my TV this morning over breakfast and saw Notting Hill on HBO.

Anyone remember that movie? Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts. Mann… movies that are set in London like that make me miss London. It’s funny how we change. When I was studying in London I used to hate being there. Didn’t like the gloomy wet weather and always missed home. Now whenever I’m really stressed and wish I could find a place to escape to I think of London. London is the only place in the world to me that is so foreign and yet so familiar.

It just still feels like home to me…

2) Well the second thing I spend my nights doing is… playing… Starcraft II.

Whenever Kitteh says that she has some work to do or goes to wash up after work or something a little joy in me is lit up. I get to play some Starcraft! Yay! I used to be really into Starcraft, I was really good in it too. Now though I think that I’ve kinda grown out of it a little bit. Like I don’t get as much joy playing it as I do for some of my other XBOX or PS3 games or even watching TV series. I do however still love playing it because of the nostalgia it brings back to me. Plus a lot of my friends are playing it now so it becomes a bit of a social thing when you play online together.

Okay guys. Now I have to go for dinner. Catch you guys soon ok 🙂

I met up with an old friend of mine lately. Her name is Michelle. I was 14 when I first heard about her existence. She was staying in a house just a few doors down from my cousin’s house back when I was still a secondary school student in Penang. We were outside my cousin’s house just playing around when we saw Michelle’s car open the gate and go into her house. My cousin then said “The girl who stays in this house.. is damn hot!”.

I then began to hear about her from friends in school. How this girl from Methodist Girl School was perfect. Like she was pretty, top in her class and also a school or maybe even state tennis player. I don’t remember how I officially met her but I think it was through some other friends many many years later when I was in college. It was just before we were about to start university in London together (she, going to LSE) and so we kept in touch and hung out quite a bit in London. We used to do a lot of stuff together… but after graduation she got a job in London whereas I came back to start Nuffnang with Ming. I hadn’t seen her since until recently… and I think some 3-4 years might have passed since I last saw her.

Now she’s off to another high paying job somewhere else in the world but she managed to stop by Singapore for a day and paid me a visit at our office. Ming who also knew her, set up the lunch we had that day. It was really nice seeing her again and it’s funny how things panned out huh. From the time when I first heard about her some 12 years ago… and now.

On another note, yesterday I was at Sunway Lagoon for the Sony Cybershot TX-5 event with some Nuffnangers.

We had about 100 Nuffnangers with guests there for some games so some of the Nuffies and I went along.

The TX-5 is the camera Kitteh is using now and she seems to love it not because it’s a great camera but because it’s “clumsy-proof”. Like it’s water-proof, dust-proof and shock-proof so you can be clumsy like Kitteh and still have a working camera at the end of the day.

The games they played that day tried to highlight that. Like they had this game where mockups of the camera were put inside this box full of … some kind of liquid and stuff and you had to dig them all out to find them.

Or this game where you tried to throw cameras into these round boxes.

Or this one where you’re supposed to find these cameras in an ice-box. That pink one there is Kitteh’s real camera.

Or another one where you had to take an underwater photo with the camera.

I spent the rest of the afternoon after the event sleeping… I don’t know what got into me, just got really tired and sleepy. When I woke up though I played Starcraft 2… until I got nagged by Kitteh.

Halfway through the weekend already… man weekends just fly by too quickly.

I’m going to end this Baywatch like picture I took of Huai Bin at the Sony Cybershot Event. He came fully prepared with his trunks!

Have a good weekend guys.

I have a new present!

Yay! Here’s the story. For the past few weeks or even since a month or two back, I’ve been going back to this store over and over again to look at this new watch that I’ve really grown to like. It’s called ToyWatch. Now it’s not a Rolex or Omega or anything. If anything it’s something like a expensive Swatch.

Wow… how often do you hear Swatch these days at my age? Back when I was in school I remember Swatch used to be the “In” thing man. It’s like you’ll hear stories about how this guy who bought his girlfriend a Swatch and you’ll go “WOAH!!!!”. Just like how “G-Shock” and “Baby-G” was such a hit back then.

I wonder if it’s still as popular among the high school kids these days. It’s gotta be right? I’m sure they still sell like hot cakes.

As you grow older though, things change. Just like how “Guess bags” used to be high class. These days, all the girls around me are talking about Miu Miu, LV, Balenciaga and the likes. Watches though have evolved… from Swatch to guys I know wearing Tags, Rolex, Omegas, Panerais… man you name it. I think those watches are nice and all but it’s just so much stress having to worry about wearing something so valuable on your wrist. Imagine wearing a RM30,000 Rolex and getting mugged or even getting your hand chopped off because someone wanted to steal your Rolex. It would be soooo not worth it.

Anyway my desires are a lot lower. Instead… I started craving… this ToyWatch.

ToyWatch is this really young brand that I grew to like after I did more and more reading up on it. It’s supposed to be an “anti-luxury” brand where they would take the designs of high class premium watches like Rolex or Patek or so and then make cheaper “toy” versions of it using ceramic or plastic.

I fell in love with this black and white one that cost RM1,300 but I didn’t dare buy it on the spot though. It’s still a lot of money to splurge on myself so it took me so many repeated visits back to the shop until even Kitteh began embarrassed of going back into the shop. She began to feel that the sales staff there already started recognizing us as the couple that would go in, look at the watches, get our fingerprints all over the display but walk out 5 minutes later without buying anything.

Well last weekend… I DID IT!!!
And now I proudly wear it.

It’s this fun, bright and trendy watch that actually looks really cheap. In fact if I ever get mugged one of these days (touch wood), I think there’s a good chance that the robber might even just look at my watch and let me keep it. He’ll probably think I got it as a free gift after buying a lot of Koko Krunch or something.

Of course unlike a Rolex or something, this watch probably doesn’t retain any value but hey it’s just a fun watch to have. I was feeling stressed but now I feel a lot better though. Retail therapy helps.

What do you guys think of my new watch? Hehehe. Makes me feel young again.

Whew I have been really busy this week so I’m going to make a really quick update on what I’ve been up to. Last Sunday morning was the earliest I had been up on a Sunday for a long time. I was invited to the Malaysian Student Leaders Summit to be on a panel talking to students about taking “unconventional career paths”. With me was musician and CEO of Tune Talk, Jason Lo. Funny guy I tell you…. makes a lot of money too!

Also with me was Juana Jaafar from Unicef.

I thought I could’ve done a lot better but I had fun in the event nevertheless. Jason Lo saved the day with his funny antics.

The next morning I was up early again! This time to catch a flight to Singapore. I’m in Singapore this week for the Nuffnang Country Manager’s Summit. It’s the first time we’ve having this but it’s basically where all the Heads of Nuffnang Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines and Australia meet once a year to exchange what’s been going on in their respective markets and to plan for the future.

I’ve been having quite a lot of fun lately. I mean it’s great to get an update on how Nuffnang is doing in each of the countries. Each country reported really good growth in the past 12 months and I’m so glad that 2 years ago we decided to quickly expand to Australia and Philippines. Today Nuffnang is a lot more stable as a company because of these other markets which makes us not totally dependent on one market now.

So I’ve really been seeing the inside of an office for most of my time here. The only time we get out is for meals. So that’s the only pictures I have… of us at meals!

At the end of Day 1, Ming brought the team to this really kickass Nasi Lemak in Singapore. Some really really good food!

Then on Day 2 (Tuesday), we went for this Chinese restaurant that had the best sweet sour pork ever!

Some of the Singapore Nuffies tagged along too.

Interestingly enough, most Nuffies are on Blackberries.

Right in the middle of our afternoon meetings though, Esther and Elisa surprised us by making us this really nice cup of ice-cream. Yummy!

Here’s Kruppy enjoying it.

Kruppy is the Country Manager for Nuffnang Australia, based out of our Melbourne office. Yes… he’s as charming as he looks.

Whoops now I have to jump into a conference call. Sorry guys, catch you guys soon!

Not too long ago, I had dinner at Neroteca, one of my favourite restaurants. It’s just off Cangkat Bukit Bintang. Unlike it’s fine dining restaurant Nerovivo, Neroteca is a little more casual… in a bistro kind of way and I like the quaint feel of it. If there’s one thing I really like that I don’t find in KL too often is small quaint restaurants with great food. You can find so many of those in London or even in Melbourne sometimes… you know, off some alley or something you find this little restaurant with just a few tables with with gorgeous food.

The reason I was at Neroteca that night though was because of Leon. Let me give you some history on my friend Leon. Leon is an old friend of mine from Penang… but he now lives in KL half the time. He graduated from Purdue University with an engineering degree. After that he came back to Penang and easily found a job at an engineering firm. He worked there for a few years until he finally realized that his passion was in the stock market.

So he quit his job one day, taking with him whatever savings he earned from his engineering job and just focused on investing it. So while all of us are working, Leon wakes up any time he wants in the morning, goes to the gym or live his life however he wants. Then whenever he finds the time to, he sits down and studies the stock market to see which stock he should invest in. Once he makes the decision to invest he leaves it for a while and just watch the stock price over months or years. In the mean time, he’s the biggest party animal I know… in Penang he would be out partying like 2-3 times a week and man did he live the life.

Now he’s come down to KL too and he’s been partying just as often. So anyway just recently Leon asked me and another friend of mine Gin for dinner. Gin is the other guy in this picture.

The reason was because a company he had invested in about a year ago just got bought out. So as a result he made money and he wanted to buy his friends dinner! How nice of him!

I imagine that to be the kind of life Leon has. Like he invests in all this, some make decent returns, some may even lose but sometimes he makes one killing and that’s all the money he needs to enjoy his life for another year or so.

Still when your friend asks to buy you dinner, you don’t exactly want to take that for granted so we ordered decent stuff. We didn’t pop a few bottles of French wine open. All I had was just a Pesto Penne Pasta… simple.. but fantastic!

Neroteca just has the best pasta I know of in KL… and it’s not particularly expensive or anything. I think it’s about RM28 or something.. which is more or less the same as a lot of other places. Only that this pasta has very very high quality ingredients. You can feel it.

And for dessert, the waitress recommended their famous Tiramisu.

Tried it out, it was okay… but I still kinda prefer the Alexis one.

The dinner and the company that night was just lovely! Thanks Leon for the dinner. Hope you make more money in the stock market in the future.

You guys remember Pierre and Lay See right? They’re both good friends of mine. Last year I attended their wedding in Malacca,you guys remember which one right?

The wedding where I got tortured along with a lot of other guys. And the wedding where I learned I will never again be a “heng tai” again. You  know, being forced to getting my legs waxed…. having lipstick put on me… kissing a guy… and all that other shit does that to you.

Earlier this year I went to Melbourne with them.

And last weekend I paid them a visit in Gleneagles. Visits to hospitals are normally sad. Because it’s a place where sick people go… there is however one occasion where going to a hospital is actually a happy thing and that is when you get the “gift of life”.

Lay See who has been pregnant for the past 9 months, just gave birth to a baby girl.

I could see it in Pierre’s eyes. Suddenly everything else in the world mattered a bit less… to make room for this one little blessing that came. It’s beautiful! I always believed that when we’re young all we do is work hard and chase careers or money. Once we have kids though, our lives change a little and all we really look forward to is seeing our kids grow old. Money and career all take a secondary desire. It’s true! Pierre himself was thinking of buying a sports car 9 months ago. Then he found out Lay See was pregnant and he didn’t.

The gift of life!