This week I met up with Shaolintiger for coffee. We were catching up when he was just telling about a few new things he has in his life. One of which is his new car that he’s really really proud of: A Mitsubishi Airtrek.

He was so proud of his new car that he insisted he take me for a ride in it and it was beautiful even on the inside. For the first time in my life, I was looking at a man who displayed an aura of content and bliss as he sat in his driver’s seat. He didn’t need a big house in Damasara Heights, or a BMW or Porsche. All he needed was a car he liked and maybe some time in the future, a house he could call home.

It got me thinking. Being Chinese, we all grow up thinking of how we must strive for successful careers. How we must live our lives to accumulate a lot of money to buy big houses and big cars with them. How we must all one day strive to own our own businesses. These material dreams though come at a cost.

I don’t own a big house nor have I accumulated vast amounts of money but I do own a business. Not a big one but a medium sized one and one of the costs of that business is that it takes away my peace of mind. Weekends never feel the same again because your mind doesn’t stop working even then.

I have many friends who work on weekdays to service their housing and car loans but I see them on weekends and they are truly relaxed. Some of them don’t own a lot on paper but they genuinely are happy. So while money is important to provide a certain level of comfort, how much of it do we really need?

I think that probably differs between people and where we all go wrong is when we start to compare ourselves with others. You may have saved for many years to buy your dream car, say a Honda Stream but one day you see a few of your friends driving a Mercedes E Class and that somehow makes you less proud of your Honda Stream when it shouldn’t. But can you blame us for being like that? For naturally having to compare ourselves with our peers? That’s how we were all brought up.

Remember how in primary school your mum would compare you to her friend’s son or daughter who was doing better than you in school. So we all grow up comparing ourselves with one another and when we do so we sometimes pay too little attention to what we should be grateful we have and too much attention to what others have.

If you can imagine a group of Tai Tai’s comparing who has a more expensive and exclusive bag and who has a bigger diamond. The ones with the least to show of the group probably still has a Chanel and a diamond ring that most of us don’t have but she ends up feeling a little bad about it because all her peers have more expensive items.

I think the root of happiness is being happy with what we have in a material sense and achieving a good balance in other areas in life like family. I know right now that I could never be truly happy with all the money in the world if I didn’t have a family, with wife and kids that I love and who love me as much in return. Having happiness after all is what success should be measured by right? Not money. But happiness.

What do you need to make you happy?

Whew today was quite a day man. I was driving all around Klang Valley all day going for meetings after meetings but you know what the best thing was? I enjoyed every single one of them meetings.

I think I’m blessed. Blessed that I work with people I really really enjoy working with. I mean I have meetings with people who are smart, reasonable and fun people so it’s always a pleasure meeting them.

I ended the day catching a movie with Princess. While the Nuffnangers were all in 1-Utama watching the Nuffnang Screening of Phobia 2, I was chicken shit. I saw the trailer of Phobia 2, realized how scary it looked and I decided “FUCK NO!”.

So Princess and I went to Pavilion instead to watch our long awaited movie. Time Traveller’s Wife.

A lot of people were telling me that the movie sucks compared to the book but I thought it was really quite nice. The only thing I didn’t like was the ending though. The ending scene in the movie wasn’t what happened in the book and the ending in the book was just a lot more original. I don’t know why they would change the ending.

Oh well I guess we may never know.

—————

Another thing that’s new to me lately is my latest addiction. Every time I go grocery shopping, this has got to be one of my favourite aisles.

Now if you’ve been reading my blog from a long time back you’d know that I’m a big Yakult addict. One a day at least, sometimes more though I try not to have more than 2 in a day like I used to.

I’ve lately decided to switch to Nutrigen though. Just to try it out a little. The whole switch was a bit of a gradual transition. First I decided to buy like.. just one pack of Nutrigen and the rest Yakult. Then as I grew to like Nutrigen I ended up taking more and more and just this week I’ve completed my switch to just purely Nutrigen.

Funny because when I was a kid my parents used to buy me Vitagen. Then when I grew up I started drinking Yakult and now I’m drinking Nutrigen. It’s almost like I’ve been through all the drinks in this category.

Think I’ll stick to Nutrigen for a while. My fridge is pretty stocked up too 🙂

Does anyone else drink Nutrigen?

———————–

Hey Everyone,

Ok before I start let me just say. You know how in the previous blog entry I posted some videos of Ray William Johnson up.

I ended up with getting like… 0 comments (well until the last minute I got one. One… out of 3,000 of you guys who read this blog a day) which is a whole new record. I don’t think I had ever gotten 0 comments in a blog entry before. Sure sure I know what you guys were thinking. You were thinking “As*hole… simply do one entry, dowan comment!”. But hey!!!! I liked his videos. Haha

Anyway on to today’s entry.

—————-

You know sometimes when you’re a blogger and when you think you run out of things to blog about, I find the best thing to do is just bring your camera with you from the start of the day till the end and make it a point to take a picture to document everything you did that day.

Then at the end of the day when you start looking at all the pictures you take, you’ll realize that you have a story to tell.

Here’s my story for Saturday 🙂

Princess and I woke up really freakin late. We missed breakfast. Not only did we miss breakfast, I think we missed lunch too. By the time we were out for lunch, it was past 2.15PM.

We went for lunch at this coffee shop in Imbi.

After lunch we headed to Gardens.

We were supposed to meet Ah Quah there for a drink at Alexis but we got there early so we did a little bit of shopping.

After buying our CDs, she went to this little stall to buy a hat for her Mister Potato advertorial coming up next. She’s supposed to look like Mister Potato.

Or Mrs Potato. *ponders*… wait a minute… I’m watching you Mister Potato *waves fist in air*.

Then along the way she started shopping for some other stuff too.

Like this little hair band thing.

She was trying to decide on whether to go for the light pink one or the dark pink one. I told her that the dark pink might look better because her hair colour was kinda light so it provided more contrast.

She ended up buying the light pink one though. It’s one of those things where sometimes the girlfriend asks your opinion but she doesn’t really want it. She just really wants to make you feel included in the decision making process. It’s eventually up to her anyway.

Shortly after we bought our CDs, Ah Quah called to say that he was here. We met in Alexis where I had my favourite Pavlova.

I know a lot of people here know Alexis is famous for its Tiramisu but try the Pavlova, it’s awesome.

Ah Quah was telling us about how when Lee Min Ho came down he was one of the people who acted as his bodyguards for his trip here. That means he would follow Lee Min Ho around and do crowd control.

If you don’t know who Lee Min Ho is. He’s one of the actors from the Korean version of Meteor Garden called “Boys over flowers” or something like that. I remember watching it once on TV and remembering how they made all the guys look so good looking its no wonder Malaysian girls don’t find our local guys good looking anymore.

Hmph.

Apparently Lee Min Ho has this little stuffed toy that he brings around wherever he travels. His PA would carry it for him and he hugs it to sleep every night. I haven’t seen it so I don’t know how it looks like but if you see a lady carrying a stuffed toy next to him in an airport or something, that must be it.

With a full stomach and after having caught up on a lot of things, Ah Quah left. Princess and I went to do my favourite thing of the week.

Grocery shopping! Yay!

We went home after that to have dinner (made with the chicken we just bought). Then watched the DVD of Michael Jackson’s concert that I had just bought.

After dinner it was time.

Time for us to go to Bukit Jalil for DiGi Music Live to catch the All-American Rejects. It was drizzling when we left our home and we were expecting it to rain but I decided that rain wasn’t going to stop us.

We met up with David, Hui Wen and Judd (one of our Nuffies from the Philippines) there.

We also happened to meet one of our readers. She reads both our blogs 🙂

I think her name was Lynette.

Thank you for reading us Lynette.

Also met Vox, Benjicajess and some otherfriends there (Ah didn’t manage to get a picture with you guys. Will do next time).

When we got there, AAR was just about to come out to perform. The crowd… was freaking WILD!

Halfway through the performance it even started drizzling but nobody gave a damn. Everybody just sang along and clapped with their yellow DiGi clappers… which I thought were really cute by the way.

I took a video of them performing my favourite song “I wake up every evening”.

Apologize if it was a little jumpy. I took this video from my phone camera and at times I was jumping along with the crowd which explains the simulated earthquake.

I also kinda ruined another concert video again by singing along but I couldn’t help it. Everyone was singing along too and that made me want to join in. Check out the video and look at the cute little yellow DiGi clappers. I was trying to get my hands on one but didn’t know where to find it. Almost resorted to clobbering someone in the face and snatching it from him hehe.

At the end of the night, I thought it was really cool that DiGi planned this concert just for its DiGi Music subscribers. Thank you DiGi, for the wonderful concert.

So that everyone… was my Saturday. How was yours?

They’re cracking me up so much I’m tearing. Both Princess and I are laughing like shit.

His name is Ray William Johnson and I think this guy is great. Let me show you some of the videos he shares.

*worried.

See the rest of his videos here.

I remember my first blogger event. It was way back in 2006 when Jolene had asked me to attend it. Long before I had even started Nuffnang.

It was meant to a blogger gathering at Burger King in KLCC.

Everybody went there, bought their food then went to this area that was closed off just for us. We felt like such VIPs!

Then just about a year after, Nuffnang had one of our first blogger gatherings in Food Loft, Penang.

We didn’t have much money then so we managed to get Food Loft to sponsor us the venue and some food. They closed off most of the restaurant for us and again we felt like VIPs!

In March 2008, Nuffnang planned the first cross-border blogger event that involved 200 bloggers in Malaysia meeting up with 100 Singaporean bloggers who came down from Singapore to the event.

Over 300 Nuffnangers attended the Chipster Pajama Party.

It was one hell of a party.

Last Saturday though, I attended the largest and grandest event that Nuffnang had ever undertaken. The Nuffnang Asia-Pacific Blog Awards 2009 sponsored by Pringles and held in Uniquely Singapore. Also thanks to the other sponsors that night: Canon, Exabytes, Link Hotel and AsiaPRWerks.

The gala dinner involved over 400 people with Nuffnangers dressed their best, all there to see who would take home these awards.

The entrance was a red carpet where our Nuffnangers walked down having their pictures taken on many sides.

Some Nuffnangers even brought their children and they too came well dressed.

One of our Nuffnangers from Australia even brought her cute little daughter all the way to walk down the red carpet.

We had Nuffnangers from all 4 countries that Nuffnang is in show up.

Here’s Candice and Violet from Nuffnang Australia. Both came with a contingent of Nuffnangers from Australia.

Hannah here is from the Philippines.

She’s this bubbly little girl who came up to me and said she reads my blog and leaves comments sometimes! I remembered her and I was so excited I had to take a picture with her later on.

And last but not least, we of course had our platoon of Nuffnang bloggers from Malaysia and Singapore.

The event started soon enough with a welcome speech from Ming and a short speech from me.

Man I totally winged the speech. I prepared something to say the afternoon before and showed it to Ming but he didn’t like it. So there I was standing right next to Ming smiling away but inside my head trying to think of what to say.

Finally the time came and the words just somehow came out of my mouth. Benjicajess took a video of this and fortunately I didn’t end up looking too stupid.

Then it moved on to a video we made that illustrated the growth of Nuffnang. We haven’t uploaded that video on YouTube yet so I’ll share that maybe next week when we do 🙂

The rest of the night went really really well and I gotta credit Ming and Nuffnang Singapore for that. I like the way we presented the nominees for the Awards with a video to showcase each nominated blog.

Here’s how one of it is like. An video taken by one of MrGadget’s friends (I presume) who was seated near the stage when he won the Best Geek Blog. Congratulations Mr Gadget.

Some more pictures from the night.

Here’s Allan Wu who was the emcee for the night

Allan Wu is the host of Amazing Race Asia. I heard all the girls were going crazy over him.

Here’s Joanne Peh and Xiaxue at their tables.

Joanne Peh ended up winning the Best Celebrity Blog and Xiaxue went home with 3 awards that night. She won the Best Original Blog Design, Most Influential Blog and Region’s Best Blog.

Budiey and Beautifulnara sitting next to each other. Both nominated for the “Best Entertainment Blog”.

Here’s Ming and Joanne Peh outside the ballroom after the Awards.

If you don’t recognize Joanne Peh, she’s one of the actresses from the famous Singapore drama “Little Nyonya”.

Kennysia who won the “Best Entertainment Blog”.

Kenny damn funny lah! When Xiaxue was giving her acceptance speech for the “Best Original Blog Design”, Kenny barged on stage and took the mic from her.

Then he said.

Everyone laughed so hard. Good one Kenny.

A section of the ballroom that night.

Patty who works at Nuffnang Philippines and Hannah again who’s a Nuffnanger there.

Here’s Beautifulnara, Rina and David.

And some other fellow Nuffnangers!

Here’s Monoxious.

I was reading their tweets about going to the Nuffnang Awards just before I met them.

ieatishootipost who won the “Best Food Blog”.

Some of the fashionable bloggers.

Xiaxue winning her one of her awards, presented by Marytn from FrankMedia.

Picture of Alodia, Mark and Ashley from the Philippines.

Princess and me.

Princess looked really cute in her dress. She even had a little hat on her head. Look on the left.

Ming’s parents and sister came that night too.

It was the first time they had ever attended a Nuffnang event. They were feeling really proud about Ming.

My parents weren’t able to make it because my Dad’s birthday fell on the same weekend and he had to entertain some of my relatives that went down to Penang just for his birthday.

And lastly… a picture of Ming and I.

Hope you guys enjoyed the event!

If you’d like to see more pictures of the Nuffnang Blog Awards, click here.

If you’d like to see the full list of winners click here.

I’ve been meaning to write about the Nuffnang Blog Awards but I’m waiting for pictures from our official photographer so I’ll save it for the next few days ok?

Here are some other things I’ve been busy with lately.

Yesterday was my father’s birthday. Right after the Nuffnang Awards in Singapore I flew back to Penang just to have dinner with him then rush back to KL early next morning.

On Monday morning I had to leave for the airport by 6.30AM to catch a flight back to KL. I was in the KL office by 10 something.

I had to get there because some of the Nuffies from Nuffnang Philippines were visiting the KL office and we had some things to catch up on.

Everyone was busy working with some of the Malaysian Nuffies.

Here’s Carlos, busy busy man.

He was one of our photographers at the Nuffnang Awards.

Meet Judd!

I think he’s single and available.

And here’s Patty, Anne and Eric having a discussion with Nicholas. Our teams were exchanging ideas and learning from each other all day.

Some of the Malaysian Nuffies held our almost weekly brainstorming session and this time we included some of the Filipino Nuffies.

We’re having so much fun. Went for dinner at Duck King today too. They loved the food but Patty said she the highlight of the day was the Durian Pancake I ordered during lunch at Shanghai 10.

Another highlight of the day though was a special delivery we had.

I realized this morning that we ran out of MAMEE in our snacks cupboard so I called Pierre and asked him if I could order some from him. He sent me a few boxes that reached me by the end of the day and refused to take any money from me.

The Nuffies thank you Pierre.

It was the first time the Filipino Nuffies were trying Mamee Monster. They loved it. Before Eric left he even stole another packet of it from our snack cupboard.

I know I know we eat a lot of snacks in our office.

It’s all part of being a Nuffie 🙂

Ok everyone, off to bed now. Have a long day of more work to do with the Nuffnang Philippines team tomorrow.

Good night!

I’ve been meaning to write about the Nuffnang Blog Awards but I’m waiting for pictures from our official photographer so I’ll save it for the next few days ok?

Here are some other things I’ve been busy with lately.

Yesterday was my father’s birthday. Right after the Nuffnang Awards in Singapore I flew back to Penang just to have dinner with him then rush back to KL early next morning.

On Monday morning I had to leave for the airport by 6.30AM to catch a flight back to KL. I was in the KL office by 10 something.

I had to get there because some of the Nuffies from Nuffnang Philippines were visiting the KL office and we had some things to catch up on.

Everyone was busy working with some of the Malaysian Nuffies.

Here’s Carlos, busy busy man.

He was one of our photographers at the Nuffnang Awards.

Meet Judd!

I think he’s single and available.

And here’s Patty, Anne and Eric having a discussion with Nicholas. Our teams were exchanging ideas and learning from each other all day.

Some of the Malaysian Nuffies held our almost weekly brainstorming session and this time we included some of the Filipino Nuffies.

We’re having so much fun. Went for dinner at Duck King today too. They loved the food but Patty said she the highlight of the day was the Durian Pancake I ordered during lunch at Shanghai 10.

Another highlight of the day though was a special delivery we had.

I realized this morning that we ran out of MAMEE in our snacks cupboard so I called Pierre and asked him if I could order some from him. He sent me a few boxes that reached me by the end of the day and refused to take any money from me.

The Nuffies thank you Pierre.

It was the first time the Filipino Nuffies were trying Mamee Monster. They loved it. Before Eric left he even stole another packet of it from our snack cupboard.

I know I know we eat a lot of snacks in our office.

It’s all part of being a Nuffie 🙂

Ok everyone, off to bed now. Have a long day of more work to do with the Nuffnang Philippines team tomorrow.

Good night!

Hey everyone,

I took quite a number of pictures but I don’t have much time to blog now because we all have a tight itinerary today. So I’m just going to give you a quick update with some pictures from the awards.

I’ll write a more detailed entry next week.

This is Ming and I with the girls from the blog who won the Best Blog Shop: Bonito Chiko.

Our host Allan Wu from Amazing Race Asia giving Kenny the award for “Best Entertainment Blog”.

A picture of all the nominees for the awards that night. They were all invited on stage for a group picture at the end of the night.

Princess with Kenny, Ringo, and Benjicajess.

And a group picture of the Nuffies that were there that night. Thank you guys for pulling off a great show.

To the ones that Nuffies that couldn’t make it… we missed you 🙂

Update more soon. It was a great night. Lots to write about.

Sorry no time to update. Getting all ready to go for the Nuffnang Asia-Pacific Awards in Singapore tonight. I’m so excited and a little bit nervous. First time we’re having an event of this scale.

Hope it all works out. Will update more when I get back ok?

Have a great weekend everyone!