Early tomorrow morning I’m hopping on a flight to Shanghai. I’m going to be in Shanghai this week for a conference and for some work stuff there.

Funny thing is my friend Hasan is there in Shanghai right now too and will be there for just about as long as I will be there for this week. He’s on holiday though.

He sent me a text this morning
“Dude.. no one here speaks Engrish!”

Then like a few hours later he sent me another text
“Dude I just met this random chinese chick and I’m having lunch with her now. She speaks damn good english , but if I get kidnapped you know why”.

I replied him a little late, like 1 hour later because I was a little busy saying something like
“WOOHOO!”

Then he sent me a very short reply
“Dude I just got conned”.

I guess there goes another story of being cheated in China, this one involving a friendly random english speaking Chinese girl.

So my little bag is packed.
My passport all set.

And enough Chinese currency to last me for a while.

Only thing I’m missing is my heart.

Feels so heavy leaving home again…. But I guess when you gotta go work, you gotta go work.

During my second year of uni in London, I shared a flat with two very wonderful ladies. One, a Malaysian girl named Gene who was studying law at Queen Mary University and another, a british born Chinese girl named Julia who was in the same course as I was at UCL: Economics.

Julia is a pretty interesting person. Her family is from Hong Kong but she was born and raised in the UK. So she speaks English with the strongest English accent possible but when she speaks Cantonese, she sounds as if she grew up in Hong Kong.

Well this week, she made a short trip to KL just to pay me a visit.The last time I saw her was two years ago at graduation and I didn’t think I’d see her again so soon. We spent a lot of time catching up on what we’ve both been up to (she’s now in reinsurance) and also on what our other uni friends have been up to.

You know things like… is bla bla still together with bla bla… or what is Sheila from UCL doing now… etc etc. Most of my old uni friends seem to be doing quite well career wise, although some of them who were working in the financial sector in London got laid off recently due to the economic crisis.

While she was down I took some time off to take her shopping at Pasar Malams, Sungai Wang, Sunway Pyramid and also to try some local food. We even made a trip all the way to Klang to have the famous Klang Bak Kut Teh.

I was expecting a response like
“WHY THE HELL DO YOU GUYS PUT PORK IN YOUR TEA?!?!”

But it turned out that she actually liked it!

Ended up taking pictures of it too… and she’s not even a blogger.

Here’s something interesting.

While I was in London, I spent a lot of my time with my friends from the UK, Hong Kong or other countries. All of them always felt that my Malaysian accent sounded weird to them and Julia used to poke a little harmless fun at me here and there.

But these few days while she was here she realized that everyone here spoke English like me… and I never thought I’d get to say this in my lifetime but.. . Julia… now you’re the one that speaks funny 🙂

We took some time off our busying around KL to pay a visit to our 3rd flatmate, a nice girl named Gene who has now become a lawyer at one of the top law firms in the country pulling in big bucks.
The three of us caught a picture, a picture that we all agreed will be the last in a long time to come until one of us gets married.

I sent Julia off yesterday after her short trip… we said our goodbyes, hugged and at the end of it all, I think she’s glad she came over.

Bye Julia!

You will be missed!

In the past few months while I have been working on putting together Nuffnang Philippines, Ming has been keeping himself really busy too with another installment of our Nuffnang expansion plans.

We’ve always dreamed of making Nuffnang a regional blog advertising network and regional to us doesn’t mean we start announcing that we accept bloggers from all over the world and call ourselves an international player, anyone can do that. It means we actually set up physical offices in the respective offices with staff there to better service the market in that country.

So since a few months ago Ming has been working together with two very experienced digital marketing Australians (Martyn and David) to set up the team and operations in Nuffnang Australia. After months of preparation, setting up a team and looking for people to add to our office in Melbourne, at 12.00AM today we finally launched Nuffnang Australia.

Among some of the first few bloggers to join us in Nuffnang Australia is someone pretty familiar to some of us here closer to home… Karen Cheng.

Here are some pictures of the Nuffnang office in Australia that I managed to steal off Ming’s blog.

It’s housed in this nice 3 storey building along with the offices of Frank Media.

and here are some pictures of how it looks on the inside.

Dammit I wanna go work there some day too.

There’s even a nice chillout area or their version of the “Nuffie’s Corner”.

I’m really excited by all this.

Less than 2 years since Nuffnang started off in a small Penang office, today we have grown to have offices in Penang, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Manila and now Melbourne. It’s exciting being at the front seat of a company that is growing so fast.

Now that Nuffnang Philippines seems to be picking up and growing really quick too, I can’t wait to face all the challenges we’ll have in our operations in a 4th country: Australia.

Thank you for having us Australia!

I woke up this morning looking for some news to read online.

I went to the usual mainstream sites and then to Digg where I sometimes find some interesting stuff there. This morning I saw one of the Top 10 entries had the title “The Top 10 Worst Places To Get Caught Having Sex”.
Naturally the curious me clicked on it to take a look and they started listing the places, in a courtroom, on top of a police car etc etc, if you’re curious click on the link and go read it.

Anyway I quickly scrolled down to see what the number 1 worst place to have sex was and funny enough it was… on a set of train tracks.Now the impulse thought that crosses your mind when you see something like that is
“WHO THE HELL WOULD DO SUCH A THING?!”

But well the article came with a true story. Apparently in South Africa, a couple was getting it on on the train tracks when a train started coming their way.

The train conductor happened to see them on the tracks a distance away and knowing that the train won’t be able to stop in time, he shouted at them to get out of the way.

And what did the couple do in hearing the conductor shout at them and the train roaring towards them?Naturally if it were you… you would get the fuck out of there right. You won’t even bother getting dressed… leave your mobile phone and underwear behind for all you care!

Well this couple decided to finish up with their shagging instead and probably hump faster or something. They ended up being run over by the train.

Now so that there’s no confusion if anyone ever thinks of shagging on our local KTM tracks, if the train comes and you hear a conductor shouting at you… you don’t finish up.. YOU GET THE FUCK OUTTA THERE!!!!!

But for the fun of it, lets do a poll. Answer the poll on my sidebar to see first if you would do it on a train track and if you would get the puck out of there or try to finish up if you saw a train coming in. Then compare your results with everyone else who reads this blog.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Sometimes I can’t help but ponder about my future.

I ponder about the struggles I am going to face and the joys that I will have.

I ponder about where my career will take me. How much farther Nuffnang will grow and where it will be in 5 years.
I ponder about the money I will make and the money I will lose.

I ponder how the ups and downs of business will be for me, and how experiencing success or failure will change me.

I ponder about which friends of mine will leave during the hard times, and which will stay.

I ponder how my parents will age and how much time I have left with them.

I ponder how I will take care of them and love them as they grow old.

I ponder how my brothers and sister will grow up and who they will end up marrying.

I ponder who will be walking down the aisle to me one day and what her smile will be like.

I ponder how much I will love her and how much she will love me too.

I ponder how beautiful it would be to wake up next to her every day for the rest of my life.

I ponder how sad I will be when I see her cry, and how happy I would be when I see her laugh.

I ponder about the many places in the world that I would love to take her to.I ponder about being with her “For Richer or Poorer” and “In Sickness and In Health”

I ponder about what I would do if I ever lost her.

I ponder about the family we would have together and how our kids will be.

I ponder if I will be able to provide my family with the best of everything but yet something tells me that at the end of the day, all they will ask from me is my love.

I ponder if my children will love me as much as I will love them.

I ponder about the places that I will travel to for work and the time I will spend away from home.
I ponder if I will ever make a mark in my life.

I ponder if I will make a positive impact on another person’s life.

I ponder about the regrets that I will have in my life and the mistakes I will make.

I ponder about the lessons I will learn.

I ponder about how I will miss the memories I had gained in the past…

But I look forward to the ones I will make in the future.

I can’t wait to live life!

I was at Sunway Pyramid yesterday for a hair cut. Gosh it was the longest time I had ever spent in a hair saloon in the 24 years of my life. Total time spent: just over 2 hours.

I went there just with the intention to get a hair cut and have my hair dyed. But as the hair stylist took a look at my hair, she noticed that I could use some various hair treatments for my sensitive scalp. Treatment that would solve some problems I was having.So while I was reading my book she kept recommending this and that and eventually before I knew it, at the end of the 2 hours I had spent a bomb on my hair.

I jumped when I saw the bill but then I thought to myself that after all the 20 odd years of my life that I have had hair, I never spent much on it. Most of my life had me spend max RM5-RM10 on a hair cut so I thought.. okay fine why not. Besides whatever problems I had with my scalp was miraculously cured right after the treatment.

Now let me say this… there is something I absolutely love about cutting your hair in a hair saloon. I LOVE the part when they wash your hair. GOSH… all the scrubbing and head massaging always makes me feel like I’m floating away to a far far away dream land.

At the end of my 2 hour treatment, wash and hair cut… this is how I ended up looking like.

Do I look even more like a little teenage boy?

While I was getting my hair cut, the stylist just had to ask me
“So are you still studying or working already?”

I told her that I’ve been working for about 2 years now though on second thoughts, maybe I should’ve told her I was still a student. Maybe she would’ve given me a student discount.

Hah!

Have a Happy Sunday ahead everyone!

A few days ago I was at this office building for a meeting. I parked my car in the basement carpark and the machine gave me a ticket that looked something like this one from KLCC.

So fine… I went for my meeting and about two hours later I was ready to leave. I first headed to the Auto-pay machine to pay for parking. I put in the card and the machine said I needed to pay about RM4.00.

Fair enough, I put in a RM5.00 note and soon after the change came out. I took the change out of the machine and went down the elevator into the basement where my car was parked.

Then as I was walking towards my car… I noticed something. What did I miss out?

Can you guys guess?

I TOOK MY CHANGE BUT I LEFT MY PARKING TICKET IN THE MACHINE!!!

I rushed back up to get it praying that it would be there but by the time I got back, it was missing. Someone had already taken it. Why would someone wanna take my parking ticket? To save his RM4.00 on parking?

So I went back down and had to pay the penalty for losing my ticket. The penalty… RM50.00 for just 2 hours parking.

Aihh.. I guess they call this tuition fees.

First things first, lately I noticed quite a number of bloggers are coming up with their own businesses. Latest one I’ve seen is from Nicole herself who just started what she calls Nicolekiss Boutique. Check it out.

Last Saturday Nuffnang Malaysia worked with Nokia to hold our own Halloween party we called the Nuffnang Nokia Silent Halloween.
Most of our Nuffnang events in the past had very crowd-centered kind of games but we had a slightly different format this time round. On top of the games with some great phones to give away, we had the Nokia IAC bands perform live.

and we had our very own silent-rave where everyone listened to the same song on their ear phones and danced to the music so to the outsider it looked as if a crowd of people were just dancing on their own without music. I wanted to go as Stewie from Family Guy but since there was a music theme going on there I decided to go as Kurt Cobain. The guys at Absolut Pitch were nice enough to dress me up for it (if you ever need a costume for anything call Gabriel at 014-6433401) .

So this is how I looked like. Apparently this is exactly how Kurt Cobain dresses like (although I’m sure his hair wasn’t as blond).
And you know what. To make things worse, Klubbkidd Joe came as Kurt Cobain too.. and his outfit looked so much more intense than mine.

Check out some of the other costumes.

We had an Ayumi Hamasaki, a Joker-Style Barbie and Bjork!
and even what I think is Dark Angel.

A pirate!

A Marilyn Monroe and uhmm… a butterfly.

A joker nurse and someone even came as a milk carton LOL

Our emcee Liang came as Elvis

The three ladies who were in the running then to win the best dressed female.

Two of whom were lucky to win some of these Nokia phones along with the best dressed males for the night.

We also had a Hitler

And even a Dr. Evil

And this is one of the cutest outfits that night in my opinion.

Goldfinger went as Scary Spice and Mehlin went as … PINK.. (well okay red…)

The best part about the party was that along with the many agencies we worked with to put this party together (MediaCom, JWT and Text 100) a group of the Nuffnang team who could make it for the party led by Robb were in charge of putting the party together.

Everything from putting up the props to handling registration and the thing that impressed me most was how all the Nuffies worked so well as a team to put this together.

There were no egos or politics when it came to working together, and nobody complained about anyone doing more or less work, everyone just helped out and we had so much fun and laughter doing it.

One of the greatest asset of Nuffnang.. is truly its people.

To the rest of the team who didn’t get to make it that night… no worries.. there will be another time!

Hope all the Nuffnangers there that night enjoyed themselves.

I know I did.

If you want to see more pictures. Click here.

With the world economy in bad shape, everybody is wondering when the many of us here in Malaysia will start to feel the heat. Some people say it won’t hit us, some people say that it’s already beginning to hit us and some people say that the bad times will come only in the first half of 2009.

When bad times come, everyone is affected. Companies who find themselves in trouble will cut their costs from their marketing budgets to staff count. At Nuffnang though, eventhough I’m personally expecting some sort of slowdown in the first half of next year, we still find ourselves hiring in order to keep up with our current growth.

Everyone is so overworked here.

Allow me to illustrate.

This is how Nicholas looked like not too long ago.

This is how he looks like now (well some sort).

This is how Pinky looked like when she first joined.

This is how she looks like now.

So as a result of that we still find ourselves needing to hire a few more Nuffies all around our offices though the process has been a little slow since we find it a little harder than expected to find people who can blend in well with our team.

Last week I actually interviewed a potential Nuffie for our KL office who was then working at a multinational and after some time making sure she not only had the skills but was able to work well in our team, I offered her a job.

I e-mailed her to tell her of the job offer to see whether she would take it. Her reply:

Hi Timothy

Sorry, I can’t accept your job offer. Reason being is that I don’t think it’s the right time to change jobs now with our current economic crisis right.

By the way, thanks for the offer, I do appreciate it. And glad to meet your Nuffnang team. 😉

I understood the merits of her decision. I mean there she was working in a big multinational that has been around for decades through thick and thin recessions. And in this kind of economic climate, if you were looking at stability, would you pick the big multinational that has been around even before you were born or a fresh new young company called Nuffnang.

Just two days later though she sent me another e-mail

Hi Timothy,

Is the position still available? My current company is cutting people and I guess I’m one of the unlucky ones. If the position is no longer available it’s ok…

I guess the bad times are starting to kick in.

Hold on to your piggy banks guys.

Last week I found myself at the launching of Heineken’s “Be Prepared” game at TTDI Plaza. It’s an online game that they just put up on their website (www.greattogether.heineken.com.my) but one with a little bit of a twist.
Instead of one of those flash games you play on your own, this one required that you get together with another 2 of your friends to work together and play the game. A game like that requires the full attention of an actual launch event though we all know it’s mainly just an excuse for people like me to go drinking.These are the kind of events where just about everybody who’s anybody turns up in. Most of them there that I took pictures with made me vow not to post their pictures on my blog so the only one that was nice enough to agree to it was this very capable man named Adrian who started KLue magazine years ago.

Please ignore how red I was. I wasn’t … uhmm… high on booze or anything. I was just… blushing.

Soon enough a mini-competition there got started among teams of 3 put together from the people there. Everyone there got together to form a team.

The crew behind some of the magazines there like KLue, Catcha and Newman got together to play
Some of our Nuffnangers were there too.

Tock, Joshua and Andrew formed a team they called “Nang United”.

KY, Suanie and another friend of KY’s formed another team that eventually won the free trip to Krabi they were giving away that night.

I came back home a little excited that night but managed to play down my excitement and go to bed first.

The next day at work I paid a visit to the Heineken site to check out the game they had going.

Now I gotta give Heineken some credit, their site is pretty cool. When you first get there a dockpanel video starts playing right away holding your attention for a bit. How they manage to stream it so well with my struggling broadband speed is beyond my understanding.

Without being too distracted from the reason I was on the site in the first place, I clicked on the “Be Prepared Game”. The introduction for the game is pretty cute and it looked like it was some kind of game meant to get people together to do stuff.

I mean games and all are fine as long as they’re fun to play and of course it helps if there is some sort of incentive. That’s why we all play games right?

Why do so many people play WoW? Sure it’s fun and all but after a while I’m sure it gets pretty routine and the only reason why you continue to play is so that you can tell your friends that you have whatever magical item they come up with or that you have 20 Level 60 characters on WoW.

In the case of “Be Prepared”, the incentive was 3 tickets to watch the Heineken Star Final, an exclusive UEFA Champions League Final viewing experience.So fine… that’s enough to incentivize me. The game objective?

Well turns out that I basically have get a lost beer delivery truck to the supermarket and then once I finish my part I have to get a friend of mine to continue from there.No problem since I have many friends.

I played the game anyway.

Turns out to be quite cute and easy to play. Just drive my truck around on the map but I kept getting lost or making the wrong turns so I didn’t get what I thought was a good time (at least not good enough to win). So I uhmm.. “cheated” and tried the game a few more times until I made perfect turns and at the end of my final try… I did it all in 56 seconds!
So then okay I was supposed to pass it on to a friend to finish the game. I took a quick look on my MSN list and decided to ask some of the people there.

My first pick… Nicholas Chay.
After a few more conversations like this I have decided to give up on my friends who can’t even play a game with me!

So now I’m going to open it up to you guys.

Please help Boss Stewie play this game. I’ll have to play it over again but I memorized the map already so I should be able to do it in that time or better. If you wanna join me, just leave your e-mail address in my comments or e-mail me at lengmoublogs@yahoo.com and I’ll send you the invite.

And… I just have to say this… PLAY PROPERLY AH!!!! DUN MAKE ME LOSE!