Look for the bare necessities The simple bare necessities Forget about your worries and your strife I mean the bare necessities Old Mother Nature's recipes That brings the bare necessities of life
Wherever I wander, wherever I roam I couldn't be fonder of my big home The bees are buzzin' in the tree To make some honey just for me When you look under the rocks and plants And take a glance at the fancy ants Then maybe try a few
The bare necessities of life will come to you They'll come to you!
Look for the bare necessities The simple bare necessities Forget about your worries and your strife I mean the bare necessities That's why a bear can rest at ease With just the bare necessities of life
Now when you pick a pawpaw Or a prickly pear And you prick a raw paw Next time beware Don't pick the prickly pear by the paw When you pick a pear Try to use the claw But you don't need to use the claw When you pick a pear of the big pawpaw Have I given you a clue ?
The bare necessities of life will come to you They'll come to you!
So just try and relax, yeah cool it Fall apart in my backyard 'Cause let me tell you something little britches If you act like that bee acts, uh uh You're working too hard
And don't spend your time lookin' around For something you want that can't be found When you find out you can live without it And go along not thinkin' about it I'll tell you something true
Part of my job scope involves going on business trips to Malaysia every now and then. Since a significant proportion of business is done there, and almost the ENTIRE nuffnang team is in either Penang or KL, I tend to make a trip down at least once a month.
This time around, I was headed up to penang to interview some staff. If you are an experienced PHP/MySQL programmer, come forth! Nuffnang needs you!
Anyway, I thought this time around with my trusty K810i camera phone (It is fabulous), I would document the trip.
Normally, I hitch a ride to the airport, but as eddie was tied up, my dad suggested Iuse the MRT! I was about to call a cab, but I thought, what the heck, lets be a little bit more adventurous.
Eddie dropped me off at dover MRT, and off I was.
I really cannot recall the last time I took the MRT anywhere! Once I got the car, it was bye bye public transport!
It was a comfortable ride for at least half of the way (first half standing), but the only gripe is that it takes a bruddy hour! In total, to get to the airport! All I can say dad is, been there, done that!
If you've got tons of time to spare though, and want some time to meditate, take the MRT. It is quite a pleasant experience going through the heartlands, and checking out the "scenery".
From car, to train, to plane.
Bye bye singapore (I lurpte you)!
GOOD MORRRNIINNNGGG PENANGGGGG!!!!
At the airport, I am picked up by Raja, whom by the graces of Boss Stewie and his parents are assigned to pick me whereever I need to go. Raja is a great guy, married with an 11 year old boy, and likes to call me Mr Ming. Which I quite like actually.
There is no time to waste, and the first stop is 55 Jalan Sultan Ahmad Shah, or NUFFNANG HEADQUARTERS! Menara Northam!
Ok, i know i made it seem really grand, but ours is just a teeny office on the 20th floor. At least we've got a great view.
I step into the office, to find .....
The Nuffnang team hard at work! Aiyah, they knew the terror boss was coming, so they all buck up! (Hahaha, joking lah, they're all great and dedicated workers, and I am lucky to have them!)
After getting up to speed with what they are doing, and setting them various targets, i finally step into me and tiam's room. This is it! My office in penang! I know, there is NOTHING on my table. BUT LOOK AT THE WONDERFUL COMFY SWIVEL CHAIR .... I sit down gently on it, and ecastasy (EH! Dun laugh! i use plastic BBQ chairs in the singapore office K! :-p_)
And as quickly as I get comfortable, the interviews start! WHICH ONE OF YOU WILL BE THE NEXT APPRENTICE? (Their identities have been "masked" so as to protect their privacy, although they were thinking to themselves, I'm not going to work for this voyeuristic kook!).
That is tim 2 conducting the interview. He's pretty darn good at it, and hahaha, you should have seen his piercing expression, I had to calm one of the guys down and say, yo dude, don't be nervous, tim may look like he's ready to take a chunk out of your skull, but really he's as gentle as an ant.
Of course the trip is not just all about work (even though we work from 830 in the morning (boss comes in at 9), and leave at about 8pm (ok so I'm a little bit of a slave driver, but its fun working late! It feels so cosy!).
The other crucial part is the FOOOOOODDDDDD!!!! Penang has some of the best hawker food in the world. BUt my guys ah, even having lived in penang for all their lives, don't know where to find good food at night. So it was off to Gurney Drive Hawker Center.
There, I had, Char Kway Teow, Wan Tan Mee, Ikan Bakar, and Hokkien Mee (ALL MY MYSELF- The hazards of being a businessman- thinking takes calories ok!) FOOD. FOOD. AND MORE FOOD. In penang, you just got to eat first, and think later.
Besides the work and food, there is also pleasure. And nothing gives me more pleasure than waking up EVERY morning to a view like this (CLICK TO VIEW, It is a panaromic photo- my phone camera is so cooool).
Boss stewie modest as he is, always tries to play it down, but his house must be one of the nicest in penang. Perched majestically on the top of a hill, it commands a view that you couldn't even pay for in a 6 star hotel. Some days, if I get back early from work, I look out over the horizon and watch the sky change hues as the sun sets over the mountains. It is beautiful to say the least.
Time passes quickly when you have got things to do. The trip was over as soon as it started.
Ewe Tiam, having just arrived back from KL the previous night drove me off to the airport into the loving arms of a Nandos!!!
Yum! Everytime I have nandos, I remember my times in London, and how it was the first restaurant I had dinner at (with Kelly, do you remember?), when I went there for uni.Warm fuzzy feeling.
So it is goodbye penang. Hello Singapore (I lurpte you long long!). It is irnonic to say the least, but there are two parts of any trip I like the most. The first is the ride to the airport. And the second is the ride back home.
On the ride to the airport, no matter where you are going, there is always this great sense of anticipation, that you are getting out, and going somewhere exciting or different.
On the ride home, as you see the overarching trees on the ECP and go past the skyline, you cannot help but think to yourself, "I'm glad to be home."
Uh oh, getting late now! Gotta go for ieat charity dinner! Quite exciting hor. Ok bye bye!
Many of you will know I can be quite a mcp at times. But there is one woman, I truly respect (excluding my mother), and have always done so.
That woman is Anita Roddick or Dame Anita Roddick. She is the founder of bodyshop, and a champion of many good causes that today we take for granted, but she brought into the spotlight way before it was fashionable.
This is she.
Causes like environmental concern, fair trade, corporate social responsibility, and so on.
I had the privilege of meeting her in my first year at the London School of Economics. I remember it vividly. She had come to give a speech on corporate social responsibility. I went in before, to meet her at a book signing, and spoke to her for a good couple of minutes.
In that short time, I could sense her energy, and love of life, and kindness. It was amazing. She talked to me as though she had known me for years, even though we had just met, and when she signed my book she wrote something personalised for me.
I couldnt remember it, so I took that book out of the plastic covering I had put around it today to see.
It reads, "To ming, life is no more complicated than love and work!"
I remember coming out of the store, walking briskly against the cold london wind towards holborn, and taking in those words.
Perhaps she was going through something in her life at that point to make her write those words. But she had touched me. I was in my first year. In love. Driven to succeed. Could she have seen through me in a five minute conversation?
Nobody has done that in my life. Pure coincidence?
Today I take stock once again, as I did on that short walk to the tube station 3 years ago. When I saw that quote again, it touched me in the same way it did those years ago. Life is no more complicated than love and work.
Dear Dame Anita, I do not know if you will remember a young, impressionable, and over eager asian boy who once had a chat with you at a book signing at the LSE. But as you move on into the next phase of your life, there is one person more who remembers you, and whom you have left a lasting impact on. Rest in peace.
One of my friends in the UK is going through a rough patch in his career path.
I spoke to him yesterday on the phone, and I could sense the apprehension and uncertainty in his voice.
The journey through life is not an easy one.
I've been there, and I've had my days. On those days, time slows down to a trickle (It always does when you're in pain), and things lose their colour, food loses its taste.
It is those days that I put on my buble cd and start belting out the tunes in the shower, in my room, whilst driving my car, and I call my friends to get moral support.
So to my friend, listen carefully to the lyrics of this song, cheer up, and know you have a friend 8,000 KM away who is NEVER too busy to lend a hearing ear.
Because I know I do too. Oh yeah, try singing to it, in the shower! Sway to the blues dude, sway to the blues!
(Don't let it get you, don't let it get you down For this world keeps on spinning 'round)
That's life That's what all the people say You're riding high in April You're shot down in May I know I'm gonna change that tune When I'm back on top in June
I say that's life & as funny as it may seem Some people get their kicks Stompin' on your dreams But I don't let it, let it get me down 'Cause this fine ol' world keeps spinning 'round
I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, A poet, a pawn & a king I've been up & down & over & out But I know one thing Each time I find myself, flat on this face I pick myself up & get back in the race
That's life I can't deny it I thought of quitting, baby This heart wasn't gonna buy it And if I didn't think it was worth one single try I'd jump right on a big bird & then I'd fly
I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, A poet, a pawn & a king I've been up & down & over & out And I know one thing Each time I find myself flat on my face I pick myself up & get back in the race
That's life That's life & I can't deny it Many times I thought of cutting out But my heart won't buy it But if there's nothing shakin' come this here July I'm gonna roll I'm gonna roll I'm gonna roll myself up in a big ball & die Can't deny it That's life
Not too long ago, I sent my bike in to be serviced.
Before I headed off to cambridge to do my A levels, cycling was both my practical mode of transportation and also my time to relax with friends.
My two main cycle buddies and also neighbours, Jivesh and Mark, and my dad and me used to cycle EVERYWHERE. Day and night we would traverse the island, West Coast, East Coast, up North into the heartlands.
Once the car was in, the bike was out.
Well, after having spent 240 bucks on the servicing of my bike, I thought a Sunday afternoon with no fixed plans was as good a time as any to go cycling.
I decided to take the old neighbourhoold routes I used to cycle when I was a pubescent teenanger.
First stop however, was the neighbourhood bike shop. I wanted to pick up a "cyclocomputer" as they call these things nowadays, so I could measure how long and far I'd been cycling for.
Treknology bike shop at Henry park is lika a Toys R Us for any bike afficianado.
The perfect place to "zeng" your bike. So instead of just getting the "cyclocomputer" which costs about 100 bucks, I ended blowing close to 500 dollars on a host of other things.
A wireless cyclocomputer which tells me how fast I'm travelling, how long for, and what distance I've covered.
A bicycle lock to chain my bike up when I go eat ice cream.
A "cat eye" back light, in case I go night cycling.
A detachable storage compartment
New continental road tyres to replace the mountain bike tyres since most of my cycling will be on roads.
And a new seat! I actually got this on the way back, after my sunday ride, cause boy did my ass hurt with my old seat. This little sucker costs 165 bucks! WTF!
Check out my baby! After the bike shop, I headed to my old neighbourhood.
This is my old house! No 2. Holland Grove Lane. It is now rented out, and truthfully, I hope this land and house will always belong to my family and their children.
It may not be the biggest or most glamorous of our properties, but it holds the fondest of my childhood memories.
Playing hide and seek, camping out in the little tikes house, burying my mum's dunhill lighter (back in the day when she was smoking, and me and my brother wanted her to stop, which she did).
Perhaps one day, my children will fill its halls with the same laughter and joy that I experienced there. ahhh. Next, it was off to the Jalan Kebaya Park. Here, underneath this huge tree, me, mark and jivesh used to meet for our cycling expeditions.
Haha, this is quite gay, but I remember how, when Jivesh decided to go overseas to the Uk to study. Right before he left, real early in the morning, about 5am or something like that, I cycled down there to meet him to say bye. It was a cold morning. Vivid memories, but one that reminds me of the importance of our friendship. I paused for a brief moment, underneath the shade of this huge tree, outside the neighbourhood belle's house (no I wasn't the one with the crush on her), and took in the moment. Some things change and some things don't seem to. Next, I swung around the corner to this misplaced temple. Who would expect it in the middle of an upper class housing estate? I remember, how we used to pretend we were undercover cops, racing in, and disturbing the old uncles and their mahjong game. It seemed clandestine to us, how they were smoking and playing mj here, and our boyish imaginations just carried it further. Carrying on, I hit the ulu pandan park connector, and stood admiring some student's graffiti. I remembered reading about this in the new paper, and really do hope that the government will promote more such initiatives to enliven the sometimes sterile surroundings that conformity promotes. Continuing on, I hit the second park of the ulu pandan park connector. Which is actually the more beautiful and scenic part.
Here, storks and kingfishers fly overhead and take the occasional dive perhaps having spotted an unlucky prey. The track took me all the way to jurong. After which I turned back and headed home. It was a refreshing experience to have traversed all those paths I used to trod down so often before. And while I was doing so, I really did miss my cycling companions. Whatever it is, after having spent all that money on my bike, I'm going to make it a weekly occurrance. Work-life balance is important. Therefore, once a week, cycling, once a week tennis and once a week cooking class/dancing class!
As the song goes, "The young ones, darling we're the young ones, and the young ones shouldn't be afraid to LIVE, LOVE, when the flame is strong, cause we may not be the young ones very long."
I'm watching 200 pounds beauty right now, a korean romantic comedy. And I must say, it is a fantastic show.
I love korean movies and "My Sassy Girl" was an all time favourite for me. I've seen it too many times to remember.
*SPOILER ALERT*
If you havn't seen the movie and intend on watching it, don't read this.
Essentially, the movie centers around a fat but vocally talented girl. The first bit really is about how she "ghost sings" for a hot babe, and secretly admires her producer. Hahaha, my friend darren and I are in total agreement, that this is the least interesting part of the entire movie.
I mean ... fat girl hugging hot guy ..... veryyy interesting ... unique .... just not entertaining. I was in and out of my room, on the internet half of the time.
Fat girl loves hot guy, hot guy loves hot girls -----> therefore fat girl needs to look hot.
She goes for "full bodied" plastic surgery (If that is even possible), new boobs, new face, new eyes, new legs, new waist new everything. AND WALA!
Out of the sillicone factory emerges .... ... a thing of beauty!
Hahaha, i mean wowwww! This girl is soooooo hot! She has the innocence and beauty look built into her.
My favourite part of the movie comes when her overzealous driving skills lands her into the back of a taxi.
At first the cabbie responds typically (like how mine did when I rammed his back). Got out of the car, and started feigning inujury (Bloody taxi drivers , when they bang you, its about their family, when you bang them, its about their back).
Hahaha, he does this all the way until he sees that it is a hot babe who has banged into his back. And all of a sudden, it is totally ok. THE FIRST QUESTION HE ASKS is "Are you OKAY!!?"
I'm sorry to admit it, but if I were the cabbie, I'd do exactly the same thing. Ahhh the perks of being beautiful and wearing a skirt.
Watch it if you havn't. I will again for sure ....
Thanks to my pepper crazed intern Huiwen (see below for proof), I have got a new blog template!
Wooooo hoooooooo!
Now, the irony hasn't escaped me. Everyday, I look at dozens of blogs and I admire the effort people put into customizing them. Being the co-founder of South East Asia's LARGEST blog advertising community (yes Nuffnang IS), you would expect better from me right. I mean, the other boss (the infamous boss stewie) even had his blog header customized for him by one of his readers!!!
I decided that enough was enough! So today, I strolled into the office and declared boldly.
I WANT A NEW LOOK FOR MY BLOG!!!!!!
I sat myself comfortably on my 10 dollar plastic chair (yes, I'm cheap - the chairs at IKEA are like just over a hundred for really good ones but I end up just going and buying their cheapo battries instead), booted my laptop, put my fingers together and sat in deep thought.
For all of 5 seconds that is, right before I said to Huiwen, ok Huiwen, this is your task!
This is the result of her effort, and I must say, I like it! One more pack of chickadees for Yang Hui Wen!
Rockie the snake slayer!
FOOD.
FOOD.
AND MORE FOOD.
In penang, you just got to eat first, and think later.
So it is goodbye penang.
Hello Singapore (I lurpte you long long!).
It is irnonic to say the least, but there are two parts of any trip I like the most. The first is the ride to the airport. And the second is the ride back home.
It reads, "To ming, life is no more complicated than love and work!"
The perfect place to "zeng" your bike.
I mean ... fat girl hugging hot guy ..... veryyy interesting ... unique .... just not entertaining. I was in and out of my room, on the internet half of the time.
Out of the sillicone factory emerges .... ... a thing of beauty! 
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