Category Archives: Uncategorized

Spicy Chicken Wings (Level 1-30)

Posted on May 3, 2009 admin

I just got back from Singapore tonight. Was there over the weekend for some meetings and some work discussions.

Project 365: Day 75, 1st May 2009

Princess on the other hand came down with me to do some shopping and hair extensions (something that is apparently very IN right now eventhough I fail to understand why).

On Friday night Ming took Princess, Pierre and I to this open-air restaurant near the Singapore Flyer’s Club, where we saw some private jets owned by some of the super rich in Singapore. The restaurant we ate in though wasn’t posh or anything. It was one of those casual restaurants filled with young people with most of its tables outdoors.

The specialty of the place was supposed to be their spicy chicken wings, something they take real pride in. Let me tell you how.

On the menu you see at least a couple of pages dedicated to different “levels” of chicken wings. Each level is supposed to measure the hotness (spicyness) of the chicken wing. The higher the level the hotter it is. Level 1 is the least spicy and Level 30 is… if you don’t love your taste buds very much. If you eat above Level 20 of hotness they will actually PRINT out your name and stick it on the wall… I shit you not.

See the wall in this picture?

This is the perfect kind of place for Ming because he LOVES spicy food. Every time he comes down to KL he will go for the Chili Pan Mee and he will max out the chili till the entire bowl of Pan Mee is burning red. He’ll eat so much that he often spends the next day in the toilet “burning his ass” from all the chill he had but he always says it’s all worth it.

I have never seen anyone eat more spicy than Ming but Ming had heard a lot about the hotness of the chicken wings here so he decided to be not so ambitious. He ordered a plate of Level 2 (for me… since I don’t like too spicy) and for the people who like spicy he ordered a plate of Level 10. Still he was gung-ho about it….. all prepared to handle Level 10 and pretty confident too.

Pierre was just as confident.

Shortly after the chicken wings came. This is how my Level 2 looked.

Now I thought that Level 2 was already pretty spicy… well maybe not at first but the more you eat the more it builds up. At the end of just a couple of wings my tongue was burning so hot that even the fried mushrooms I had later on felt like they were spicy.

I couldn’t taste anything else apart from spicy. It’s like my tongue was numb.

But yet… what I had was nothing compared to the Level 10.

BEHOLD!

Notice how much more of whatever hot sauce they put in was on it. It almost looked drenched.

Ming went ahead and started on his first wing. He took his first bite and went

“Hmmm actually it’s not so……. *pauses*…. HOLY SHIT!!!”

And he downed a glass of root beer.

Just around the same time Pierre was having his first piece too and he went

“Aiyo not so bad what…. “

Then suddenly… Pierre jerked and shouted

“FUCK!!!”

And he too gulped his drink down as if he was trying to put out a fire in his throat.

Within seconds Ming called the waiter to order more drinks.

“GIVE ME ANOTHER 3 ROOT BEER… AH FUCK IT JUST GIVE ME 7 OF THEM!!! KIN AH KIN AH!!!! (FASTER FASTER!!!)”

And within 60 seconds… this is how many cans of soft drinks were brought for just Ming, Pierre and Jiresh.

With this kind of response it makes you wonder why they don’t just give the chicken wings for free and charge more for the drinks instead.

The chili was so hot that Jiresh told us that his fingers were burning. That reminded him of something that happened to a friend of his some time ago.

He told us the story about how he was once camping with some friends when one of his friends who was just chopping some chili wanted to go pee in the bush. Without washing his hands he unzipped his pants and started to do his business.

About 30 seconds later he jumped out of the bush screaming in pain from the burning sensation on his crotch. I think he did everything short of putting ice cubes on it to ease the pain.

When we left the restaurant that night, Ming and Pierre vowed to try Level 15 the next time they came back. But just before we left Ming curiously popped a question to one of the staff at the restaurant

“Eh… how big is the difference between Level 15 and Level 30 ah? If can do Level 15 then can do Level 30 ar?”

The restaurant staff replied

“DON’T TRY AH DON’T TRY AH!!! Amitabha Amitabha…” almost like he started praying for Ming.

I guess Level 30 must be really really bad.

I really wonder how these guys did it.

Earth Hour Dinner

Posted on May 3, 2009 admin

Was at the Earth Hour Appreciation Dinner last Thursday organized by WWF.

Project 365: Day 74, 30th April 2009

They showed us how well the initiative worked in Malaysia and estimated 5-6 million people in Malaysia took part in it.

I guess many of you guys have much to be proud of 🙂

Busy Week

Posted on April 30, 2009 admin

It just dawned on me that it’s the end of the week already. This week flew by so fast for me. Had so many things I had to do.

The good news is that this week we finally managed to interview some people who I think are great and seem really passionate about working at Nuffnang. Think our long patience in finding the right people to hire has finally paid off.

Apart from the usual work stuff, I also spent much of this week preparing for a Blog Marketing and New Media Workshop that I’m supposed to conduct next week.

Project 365: Day 73, 29th April 2009

As always I look extremely boyish. Sometimes when I go give talks like this to people who have spent far many more years in the advertising industry than I have, I can’t help but feel like I should be the one in the audience listening to them talk instead of vice versa.

One thing I definitely have to learn though is how to save more money. I’m terribly bad when it comes to saving. I think I save a lower proportion of my income than most people do. I mean I don’t exactly buy any branded stuff and all that but I think I spend way too much money on food. It doesn’t help that I eat out a lot and I like eating at some great restaurants every now and then.

*sigh*

Off to Singapore tomorrow for a half work half play trip.

Have a great Labour Day Weekend everyone!

Rome!

Posted on April 29, 2009 admin

Hello Rome!

Well not actually in Rome but at the Heineken Roma Final 2009 at Metropol on Saturday night.

The front entrance had this big sign with bottles spelling out the words.

And yes that’s Desmondkiu in the picture with me talking on the phone while I was posing. As you can all see, I wasn’t important enough for him to pay proper attention to when taking a picture with.

“A Night in Rome” was an event last Saturday organized by Heineken where they had a very Italian/Roman theme to the whole thing. On the outside of what is a Mercedes Showroom on a regular day, they put up all these backdrops of Rome to make it look as if we were all there.

Adds to the fun of us bloggers to take some pictures. This is me trying to get Princess to pretend with me that we’re in Rome sight-seeing.

She couldn’t take the pretend and just started laughing.

So I gave up on her and got Jia Meei, Li Tat and his sister to pose as tourists with me.

I say we did a GOOD JOB! Agree?

Makes you almost want to go up to and try to sell us a fake Gucci handbag.

Then we quickly got bored pretending to be tourists and just started taking regular pictures

And sitting down to drink.

After enough beers to make me a little woozy we headed inside to where everyone was already waiting for the show to start.

It was PACKED!

The event started off with some opera,

then on to a fashion show with a Roman kind of theme. The models all were dressed up to look like Gladiators … well in their own right.

After the fashion show they brought this group from Australia in called Bumble Bees. There was a guy DJing and a girl who just stood behind him dancing to the beat.

At first we were wondering what the hell she was doing there apart from looking pretty but she suddenly started rapping and fuuuhh we were pleasantly surprised!

In between the performances I got a little hungry so I headed to the VIP area somewhere in the back (I never knew I was a VIP till the later end of the night), where I had a truck load of these cute little burgers.

Reminded me of a really stupid joke somebody once told me

Question: What do you call a happy burger?

Answer: “Bur-Gembira”.

And after eating I felt thirsty so I ended up drinking more and more.

Seriously… the members had this cool computer where you can just tap your membership card and they’ll give you free booze.

I had so many bottles of Heineken I lost count at 5 *ashamed

After some alcohol in my blood I joined the crowd again and found Cindy, Huai Bin, KY and the rest on the dance floor dancing.

I like this picture.

Huai Bin looked scary, Cindy looked sassy and Princess looked goofy… like a cute little baby walrus.

Aww *sayang* my baby walrus!

Korean Drama

Posted on April 28, 2009 admin

Was at Princess‘ place tonight to have dinner with her family.

After dinner we sat down to watch this Korean drama called… something flowers and something boys.

Halfway through the TV show Princess’ mother called

“AUDREY…. come and throw out the trash”.

Princess gave a very sour face. Grumbled and then lazily got up from the couch. I got up to help her but she said turned to me and said

“No!!! STAY!! SIT DOWN!!!”

I think she wanted to make sure that I didn’t miss anything so I can tell her what happened later on. She quickly ran to the back to get the trash and I expected her to come out with a big black plastic bag full of trash but she came out with this tiny little bag.

Project 365: Day 72, 28th April 2009

Then she darted to the front door which was when I took this picture.

Was feeling a bit bored of the Korean drama so I switched channels. I experienced a few seconds of silence until she came back into the house again dashing from the front door, pass the living room and straight into the kitchen (I think to wash her hands or something).

And in the 4 seconds I saw her run across the room like a Warner Bros. Roadrunner, she said

“WHAT HAPPENED WHAT HAPPENED WHAT HAPPENED *realizes that I changed the channel* ARRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!!”

I changed it back shortly. And as punishment I had to massage/tickle her palm for the next half hour.

Scams To Fish Your Banking Information

Posted on April 28, 2009 admin

Received an SMS just yesterday afternoon around 4.04PM saying that I had a payment overdue for my UOB credit card and that I had to call someone named Praba to avoid further proceeding/execution against me. Not sure what “proceeding/execution” means but I think he meant “prosecution”.

Project 365: Day 71, 27th April 2009

The only funny thing though is…. I don’t HAVE a UOB credit card. So I knew it was a scam to just fish for my personal banking details and hopefully illegally syphon money out of my account (little do they know though that I don’t have much money in my account to begin with hahaa).

Anyway I was tempted to play along and reply

“OH NO NO!!! WHAT DO I DO?!?!?!”

But I got distracted with work so I decided to leave it alone.

And about 8.52PM later that night the same number sent me another SMS. This time Praba is says he’s from Kudrat Partners & Co.

Watch out for these kind of scams guys. Bank Negara put up an announcement not long ago warning people of these scams.

Alone At Night In The Nuffnang Office

Posted on April 24, 2009 admin

The Nuffnang office is a place where you’ll see people in almost 15 of the 24 hours of the day. Sometimes some of us end up staying till very late so even at night say 8.30PM you’ll often see at least some of us still around.

Last night the Nuffies went to Hennessy Artistry together. I didn’t go. Chose instead to stay home and play XBOX. Yes I know I’m anti-social.

So right after work they all went to Pavilion for dinner together just before they went for the event. Sue had a lot of work to do though so she decided to stay behind.

This is how the Nuffnang Office looks late at night when everyone is gone. I took this picture some time ago and it was at like 12AM or something when I was working late alone.

While everyone was out, suddenly the electricity supply in the entire office building got cut off and our office went almost totally dark (except for the lights from the neighbouring buildings through our windows).

Sue was all alone and she got a little scared so she called up Nicholas to ask when the rest of the Nuffies were coming back to the office.

Nicholas told her they were coming back soon but added

“Hey Sue, sometimes at night right one of the toilets will keep overflowing but if that happens then just ignore it ok?”

Sue went something like

“HAR?”

And Nicholas went on to add again

“Oh and if you hear like the sound of a baby crying from the toilet then just ignore it ok?”

I don’t know what Sue said after that but I heard from the rest that by the time they all got back from dinner they saw Sue waiting in the lobby of our building with all the security guards looking very traumatized.

Nicholas and the rest all had a good laugh about it. They told me about it over lunch today.

Nicholas was saying

“I don’t understand why some people are so scared of ghosts. I mean if it was me and I heard a toilet overflowing and a baby crying in the middle of the night I would just open the door and shout “THE FUCK IS GOING ON IN HERE?!?!”

Project 365: Day 68, 24th April 2009

I’d really love to see Nicholas do that.

What would you guys do if you heard something like that at home or in the office late at night?

Window Washing

Posted on April 23, 2009 admin

Was in the office today and I happened to look out the window and saw a man washing the windows of the building right next to mine.

Project 365: Day 67, 23rd April 2009

I couldn’t help but think…. “What will happen if it suddenly started raining heavily?”

Carol’s Birthday

Posted on April 22, 2009 admin

Last night I was out with Ming and Pierre for dinner. We were stuck in the office till quite late so we had a late dinner at Jarrod & Rawlins.

By the time we got there we were starving. Ming instructed:

“Eh I’m fucking hungry… Order a horse!”

This is what “a horse” looks like and that’s just for 3 people.

Project 365: Day 65, 21st April 2009

Pierre was supposed to buy dinner that night but we ordered so much I felt bad so Ming and I picked up the tab in the end.

—————–

Today is Carol’s birthday. In Nuffnang we have this thing called “Birthday Leave” where if your birthday falls on a workday then you’re expected to take leave. Most of us don’t normally take it though and end up at work. Somehow at least to me, work doesn’t feel like work.

Carol had to come to work whether she liked it or not though. She just had/has too much shit to do. But I told her to come in a little later since it was a birthday so she could sleep in a little. The minute she walked into the office and headed to her workstation she saw this.

Flowers and a bra.

Project 365: Day 66, 22nd April 2009

The bra came from Yee Hou and Nicholas as part of some private joke between them and Carol. Apparently some time ago one of them asked Carol what she wished for and she said “bigger boobs”.

There were two sets of flowers. One from Huai Bin.

Which even included a box of Godiva chocolates.

And another from…

Her secret admirer.

Up till now I still don’t know who that is. Whoever you are… own up already! Claim your credit!

My Secondary School Report Card

Posted on April 20, 2009 admin

When I was back in Penang last weekend I had the chance to catch up with family and also with some old memories. While going through the stuff in my room I came across this.

My secondary school report card!

Now let me first tell you a bit about my secondary school life. I did Form 1 in Sekolah Sri Inai in Penang, one of the few coed schools in Penang. Yes believe it or not, most of Penang’s secondary schools weren’t coed.

Just like in Primary school, I did terribly in Form 1 failing some 5 out of 13 or so subjects that I took. To make matters worse, I was 13 and my hormones had started to kick in. I had began to start learning that I like girls so I got myself a girlfriend at age 13 and did a lot less studying.

I was so PDA with this girlfriend in school I remember once being called up to the Principle’s office where he and another female teacher talked to my girlfriend at the time and I about sex and how it’s a bad thing!

Back then my girlfriend at the time and I were too young to think about sex so we were like “Are they crazy?”

Yes.. it was still the time where whenever someone in class mentioned the S word, everyone else would go “EWWWwwwwwww!!!”. Such a big contrast right? Just 5 years later in college if someone were to mention “sex” in class, everyone instead would go “WOOOOoooo!!!”

Anyway my worried parents decided to drag me out of Sri Inai and throw me into a boy school called St. Xaviers Institution where I spent my Form 2 till Form 5.

I remember being sad in the first day of school. No more girls dressed in light blue pinafores… just all guys dressed in white shirts and dark green pants. It felt as if someone had taken away my mojo.

They streamed classes in St. Xaviers. To put it bluntly, they put the smart people in 1 and the dumb people in 8.

I expected to be put in 2/1 or 2/2 which were the top two classes for form 2 but I ended up in 2/5…. a not so smart class.

At first I still didn’t really care.

This is how seriously I actually took my studies: On the first page of my report card we were all supposed to put a picture of how we look like when we first entered the school. This is how my picture looks like (with some help from a friend’s artistic talents).

Yes…. we added on the red glasses to make me look like Cyclops from X-Men. By some miracle I never got rotanned for this.

Anyway, after a while I realized that I was actually quite stupid and for the first time in my life I started actually studying. You can actually see the gradual improvements in my grades right in my report card from Form 2 onwards.

You’re all about to see Timothy Tiah’s actual secondary school report card!

Behold!

This is the results of the first test I ever took when I first entered Form 2.

Notice that I failed Geography. Seriously…. I mean that was such a terrible subject in school. Also notice that I got 44 for Pendidikan Seni. When Princess saw that she said “HAH!!! Figures!” remembering the drawings in my old scout log book.

What she didn’t know was that while you think 44 might be a bad mark for Art, I actually was supposed to get a lot lower. 30% of the grade for Pendidikan Seni was theory and 70% on practical (that means actual drawing).

For theory I would get something good like 25 out of 30…. but my Practical was a pityful ase. I would end up getting something like 19/70 which explains why my marks were so low.

A few pages down the report card is where it gets interesting.

There’s one full page that records down the marks for each years’ mid-term and final exams (the most two important exams in the year).

This sheet also shows what rank you are in class and in the entire form.

Pay attention to the ranks first.

In Form 2 I got between 96-130 out of 286 students in the form.

In Form 3 I climbed up from there to 62-81 out of 283.

By the end of Form 3 I was an okay student. Not particularly bright but not stupid either. I got 5As for my PMR which was considered above average but not smart because I think something like 60 out of the 283 students from my school who sat in PMR my year got straight As.

Then Form 4 came and it was time to split us into streams. Against the will of my school counsellor I went into Arts Stream. For some reason even up till today I think, if you’re smart you’re supposed to go to Science Stream. I refused to go simply because I knew then that I didn’t want to be an engineer, a doctor or anything along those lines so why go Science?

Besides I wanted to learn Commerce and Literature as opposed to Biology and I felt kinda assured because a few of the top guys in the form back then who were also my role models were also going into the Arts Stream so I knew that I had some smarter people to teach me if I didn’t know anything.

The first exam I had in Arts Stream was a disaster… not just for me but for everyone! We just had some really bad teachers for some of the classes we had.

For example, it was the first year learning Prinsip Akaun and all the Arts classes were taught by one very very very very very very bad teacher. I mean he was a nice teacher… but just really really bad at teaching.

After the mid-term exams we all ended up with totally shit results. I remember the highest in the form for Prinsip Akaun that time to be something like 70. I got 17. Look at the bright red mark in the picture.

So my mum panicked when she saw my Prinsip Akaun mark and forced me into going for this tuition. By the end of the year, I went from 17 to 96 in Prinsip Akaun.

The joke was that even with an average of 65.9% I ended up getting 2nd place out of 154 in my Arts Stream (partly because everyone else did shit too).

When Princess saw that she was like

“WTF?!?!? How come your school standard so low wan!!!!”

I told her off

“WOI!!! Don’t talk bad about my school! St. Xaviers if I may add is one of the Top 3 boy schools in Penang!!!” *defensive

Then Form 5 came and for the first time in my life I became the 1st in my Form (Arts Stream) with an average mark of 79%. I think the huge jump in the average mark was explained by making the exams a lot easier after they killed us with the ones in Form 4.

Again Princess went

“What?!?!? First in the form so low average wan?!?!”

And I defended my Alma Mater again!

Then she looked deeper into my grades and she saw something amiss

“How come your marks all so high but your average mark in the end still so low?”

Then she spotted the mark that dragged me down

“WTF?!?!? HOW CAN YOU GET 61 FOR MODERN MATHS!!!”

But that it was true.

While I studied very hard and did well in Form 4 and Form 5 there were two subjects that I struggled with because I had a very weak foundation in (thanks to my not studying at all in my earlier school years): Mathematics and BM. I eventually got an A1 in SPM for Modern maths and even an A for A-level maths in college but my BM till today still isn’t as good as it should be =(

Anyway the last exam I took in school which was the SPM trial exam, I lost my position as the 1st in the Form down to getting 3rd. Either ways I eventually did pretty well in SPM which helped me get into a good college and eventually uni.

Here’s what I think about education though. I don’t believe in academic results being able to help us tell who’s smart and who’s not. I believe that it does help us generalize people but that generalization comes with a loss of accuracy. I mean every study or course is one methodology of its own to try to figure out if you’re smart or not. The problem with that is that all human beings are made to be different so while some may do well in exam A, they may not do well in exam B while others may.

That explains why you have so many people like Richard Branson or Philip Green who didn’t do very well in school but are self-made billionaires today.

Closer to home you have examples like Ron Sim of Osim or many other successful entrepreneurs or professionals that never were really good in studies at school but have done well for themselves in life. So I guess if you hate studying or if you’re not very good at it, it’s not the end…

That’s at least what I was thinking while I sat down pondering about life that day.

I think making it in life depends on a lot more than just what kind of grades you got in school. For me I think luck plays a big part… which is why I think I’m one of the luckiest people around.

Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space