What's harder than trading Guinness for work? haha
Thanks to ShaolinTiger's Twitter feeds and the pictures he attached on Twitpic, i had a chance to catch a glimpse of what i badly missed - alot of Guinness and world master brewer - Fergal Murray - demonstrating how to pour a perfect pint of Guinness Draught.
Before working in the industry, beer is just beer to me - white or black, tiger or carlsberg. But you'll be amazed to find out that there's just so much behind every beer that you drink, especially a Guinness Draught.
There is so much heritage in the drink, let alone the skills required to pour a perfect pint of Guinness. The level of beer & foam is measured in meticulous precision, glass cleanliness is a factor too and there's a skill of designing a shamrock on your foam with the beer tap.
mmmmmmmmm Guinness, just writing about it makes me feel better of being absent. Here are the pictures i stole from ShaolinTiger.
When the world was battling the economical meltdown, Malaysia dwelled on a tree in Ipoh.
Now when the world is combatting the H1N1 or swine flu or whatever fuck you wanna call it epidemic, Malaysia debates on which terms to use in the media. H1NI? Swine flue? Does it make a fucking difference?
“We in the ministry will continue to use the easy-to-understand term. We will use the A(H1N1) terminology but for subsequent mentions, we will proceed with the term ‘swine flu’,” Rais Yatim told reporters after the launching of the “1Malaysia” logo by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak here.
And 1 Malaysia is another joke. SIGH. Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s concept of 1 Malaysia, disparaged so relentlessly by the opposition since its introduction, was distilled this morning into a cultural song-and-dance and this song is expected to be played regularly on all government television and radio stations.
Najib's trying to hypnotize us!
But dude, we got Astro & the web now... the new generation of ppl dont give a fuck about free to air TV no more dawg.... You're just waisting our tax money creating those unecessary bullshit to try and brainwash the nation.
d Italiannies was first opened in One Utama and as its name suggests, its a restaurant specializing in Italian cuisine. No doubt they've been cashing in over the years and have also reinvested in many new branches at the Curve, Sunway, the Gardens ... etc
I've been to most of their outlets as I too am a big fan of pizza & pasta and they all serve pretty decent food EXCEPT the branch at the Gardens, Mid Valley. If you've never been there, i put 100 bucks on the table that you're gonna regret it, especially if you're having their pasta.
I can understand if they've got an Italian cook assigned to their most premium outlet but raw pasta just dont cut it with malaysians. Raw pasta as in pasta that's not cooked properly, when its hard to chew on the floury core of the noodles.
And worse if its not even an Italian cook - which just means they got inexperienced cooks.
And here's how empty it is on a Saturday evening. a a a a On a brigther note, PRIME at Le Meridien Hotel, KL Sentral serves the best steak i've ever tasted in town. Nice ambient, good service (although the waitress couldn't get the meaning of 3 quarters done - she only understood medium well), comfy dining chairs, sparkling water, cosy ... just the place you wanna be after an overwhelming week of work.
a a a a This is an 8oz US center cut tenderloin. a a a a Australian Black Angus tenderloin aa a a a Jo sneaked a picture of me chewing on the medium well baked, 2 inch thick beef. a a a a Now that we've covered where not to go for lunch (or dinner) and where to go for dinner, im gonna cover some magnificent places to head to for supper. I dont know if its just me but i love my supper and I only get a chance to have it on weekends because on weekdays, every dinner is equivalent to supper.
If there's brunch for breakfast + lunch, what do you call dinner + supper? Dupper? haha.
Anyway, there are not many places in KL that serves noodles which are not soaked in soy sauce. KLan's are just not used to eating noodles when they're not soaking with soy sauce but i prefer it without the soy sauce... like it plain and white.
Like this... it's called the Mee Raja (King's noodles) and you can get it at Murni in SS2. Noodles with shrimp, artificial crab meat, chicken and a mixture of vege. Mouth watering!
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a Appreciating the company, I brought Jo to the movies at the Gardens and we watched 17 Again. If you've never been to the Signature at GSC, i put another 100 bucks on the table that when you come here, you'd never return to the cinemas you used to go to.
17 Again was boring.... if you're not headed to the Cinema for Transformers, dont even think about going... there's just nothing to watch.
I invite all of you to take a look at this video. It was just shared today morning at the Eyeblaster digital day conference by a very credible speaker Rahul Thappa, the Leader of Mindshare Malaysia.
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Have you seen the video?
a) Yes (pls proceed to read on)
b) No (pls watch the video before you proceed)
Have you imagined ever in your life that this is the kinda technology our kids are gonna live with?
Im sure your grandparents have never imagined that today, you can watch any video posted on the web from all over the world on your mobile phone with a few clicks. Im sure they have never imagined that today, you can watch your naked neighbour sunbathing on her rooftop in the comfort of your bedroom.
Anyway, back to the technology shown in the video - if you think about it, the technology is very simple. It's just image recognition that recognizes the gestures of your hand, or the toilet paper or the book or pretty much anything else.
And by recognizing the image, it triggers an action - whether is snapping a picture, connecting to your mobile phone to search for information, or showing you a watch. At the end of all these wonders, its just image recognition - connecting to a computer sitting in your mobile phone. So no big deal, just that the combination of a mobile & image recognition is just so vitally deadly!. Like what you're seeing now.
Of course, the final piece is the mini projector that projects the results on any screens.
This product is out in the US already at the price mentioned in the video, Nokia is launching a phone with a projector and everything seems to be coming in place to put this piece of technology in the mass market.
But can you imagine with me.....
- One morning you wake up together with your wife on bed... and she has your tagged pictures on Facebook from last night all over your naked body.
- When you wake up in the morning and your tummy is killing you, you sit in the toilet for ages and... you're reading the papers projected on the toilet door in front of you.
- One day in a work interview, the interviewer decides to know a little more about you she puts on the device. And the device (recognizing you and pulling info out from a blog post you wrote) tells the interviewer that you had a one night stand with her daughter while she was drunk last night.
- Advertisers spend 10million a year on advertising & celebrity endorsements but every consumer that walks to that advertiser's product see a red light projected on it and nobody buys it. This time around, the online influencers (ie bloggers) will be the Ronaldos & Hiltons of the current world.
- Your wife comes home late one day, you open the door and it says she just had an affair because she shared it on Twitter.
- If you're a politician like Chua Soi Lek and one day you're addressing a press conference with pretty much the whole nation watching you live and you suddenly have footages of your sex scandal projected on your white shirt - on National TV.
- You're in the army and you were sent by Bush to invade Iraq. You land in Iraq and the thing tells you that there's no nuclear weapon and you were sent there to bring the oil home.
The world's gonna be so fucked up hahaha.. but of course you can see it from many other perspectives.
Google thinks it has made a breakthrough in "computer vision." Google's new landmark search research uses clustering techniques to match similar photos of famous landmarks, such as the Acropolis.
Imagine stumbling upon a picture of a beautiful site in Europe filled with ancient ruins, one you didn't recognize at first glance while searching for vacation destinations online. Google has developed a way to let a person provide Google with the URL for that image and search a database of over 40 million geotagged photos to match that image to verified landmarks, giving you a destination for that next trip.
The project is still very much in the research stage, said Jay Yagnik, Google's head of computer vision research. The company plans to present a paper Monday at the Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Conference in Miami detailing its work in proving that large, scattered sets of data can be used to make accurate assessments of individual images.
"This is a fundamental advancement in how we look at computer vision," Yagnik said. To create the "landmark recognition engine," Google took advantage of the 40 million or so images in Picasa and Panoromio that were geotagged with the locations of famous landmarks, like the Eiffel Tower. It also assembled images from travel guide sites such as Wikitravel as a base of landmark photos that had been verified by experts.
With all that data as a backdrop, researchers figured out a way to find the most representative pictures of a landmark using a clustering technique to group images taken from similar perspectives, as well as toss out "noisy" images such as a picture of your family on the street in front of the Eiffel Tower that doesn't really show the landmark.
Then, when given a fresh image to analyze, the system uses pixel-matching techniques to find small patterns within that image and look for similar patterns within verified photos of landmarks. Google said it has been able to return an accurate result 80 percent of the time, not only naming the landmark but allowing it to supply additional information about the place.
Google is by no means certain when, or if, this research will turn into a product. It is excited, however, that it has found a way to use computers to process large sets of data available on the Internet and return accurate information about images; doing this with text, of course, is what has made Google Google.
First one's not really a bottle of whiskey, but a round of tequila pops which i've not had for a very very long time. We were at a karaoke in Singapore two weeks ago.... and unbelievably, that was actually my very first time in a karaoke in Singapore which is not surprising because i hate karaokes because the only songs you can really sing to are either oldies or Chinese songs.
Anyway, back to the Tequila pops - the first round of a dozen pops that came in, all of em were at least 3 quarter full, some of em almost full. So we went "eh... how to pop?" to the waiter and he got all confused. He went like "This is tequila pop?" and we went "yeah, but how to pop?". Totally clueless, he went to get his manager who got them replaced with half filled glasses... that was more like it... he left the room and we were ready to down the pops.
When we laid the coasters all in place ready to pound the glasses on the table, the manager suddenly walked in the room and appologized in much humbility. He said to me with a humble and smilling face "Sir, just to let you know that im gonna put this round of pops in a seperate bill" ...
I got all confused because we've paid for the previous bill and there's no way it could be in the same bill.
I wanted to go "No, same bill pls" but out of professionalism, i went "Yes, seperate bill" and he smilled back like he's hit his KPI for the day...wtf
Second one's over a few bottles of whiskey last night at velvet underground. Edison Chen was actually there and he sent hundreds of heavily made up and slutty dressed girls to the club. Man, you should come to KL every weekend, Edison if that's what you can do.
Anyway, for the first time in my life, i saw with my own eyes a homo in action. He was a Malay guy in a suit and looks like he works there at the club. He approached a good friend of mine (who was with me), and who's straight, and introduced himself. My friend, as usual, entertained him and in response, the homo asked where my friend lives and before my friend could answer, he guessed it... right - Kepong... HAHAHA... my friend very entertained went "Haa? ada muka ah?"... while he was high, the homo went straight to the point - "Are you gay?" .... and then adapting to the ackward situation he went "Where are all your girl friends?" to neutralize the situation.. .. what the Fuck, did you hafta make me experience that
And i was quite surprised that Zouk was selling Scotch Whiskey and single malt Whiskey at a Rm40 variance.... we're talkin about a Chivas and a Glenmorangie. How to sell the Chivas like that?
Third's over a bottle of whiskey, which wasnt supposed to be pouring into the flamming lambo i was sipping up from. Thanks to somebody, i sipped up flamming McCalan and when it kicked in, sent me straight into a toilet cubicle. This is precisely 11 days ago on my birthday.... the fuck.
Two nights ago, again over a bottle of whiskey, despite my phobia of karaokes, I actually sang in a karaoke.... and did alot more than 1 song... HAhah wtf.... at least i wasn't dancing on the couches and spilling private stuff over the after-party supper AHHAHA.
As the people of Iran take their desent to the streets, a related revolution is erupting in the web.
All week, Twitter avatars, Facebook mugshots, websites and blogs have been going green in solidarity with Iranians protesting the results of the election, in which incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has claimed victory.
Not eco-conscious green, but literally, the color green — as in that funky iridescent hue seen through nightvision goggles.They're popping up in all shapes, sizes and forms and will continue to spread like a global epidemic - sure reminds you of H1N1 dont it. But this epidemic, you can't contain with isolation wards or prevent with face masks... its unpreventable, its globalization to the more advanced stages, thanks to social media & the web. A revolutionary tool that Obama embraced to become the first black president in the states, a tool that can now drive political changes.
I've still not read an explanation of why green but as support to the cause, my Twitter profile picture has gone green. a a
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It's been an amazing week after coming back from Adtech. Last Saturday, Mindshare was crowned agency of the year at the most prestigious media awards in Malaysia. This marks her 4th consecutive agency of the year win.
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I was terribly proud to be involved in the win, except how my picture came out on adoi magazine. Man, what an angle. Plus, look at who's trying to pin me down.. AHHA
Im proud to have also contributed to the win, by bagging the GOLD under the 'best use of a small budget' category. The win was for a very meaningful campaign Tim and myself embarked on in the early days of Nuffnang. The campaign model has then been used to roll out many other succesful campaigns.
ddd a a Thanks to iHub for designing this popart for my birthday - picture is taken from my old Facebook profile picture.
I was away in Singapore for a couple of days in an advertising conference and left my car in my workplace basement.
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This is how it looked like when i came back.
a a I believe those pictures sticking on the windscreen are of Adam Lambert's or however you spell it.. it's certainly not within my interest to find out. My colleagues found out about how i like to stare at gays so they thought of sticking some of them on my windscreen so i can stare at them all the time whilst im driving. Lack of sticking them the wrong way i guess.
The eyelashes & lips must have been the work of Audrey... i have got very little doubts about that. Audrey can very soon turn into an official English adjective.
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I was out with Tim & Ming some weeks ago when Tim was trying to buy a handbag for Audrey and when Ming and myself saw the bag he went for... we went "that's so Audrey"... same goes to the lashes man... "so Audrey".
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But sincerely, thanks alot for the surprise guys (all of you who were involved) - i can feel the love! HAHA love you all
a Ad tech is a digital marketing conference for marketers & agencies to seek new opportunities and media owners, publishers & technology providers to promote themselves and create sales leads.
For the 2nd year running now, it's been held at Singapore for the convenience of the SEA audience. In previous years, its only held in various parts of China and the travelling time & expenses becomes a barrier for smaller agencies to attend.
In Singapore, you see people from every Tom Dick & Harry agency from Malaysia... everyone, which of course makes the event merrier.
The content didn't turn out to be quite what people expected though. I asked some Singaporeans what they thought of the content and one said "Last year was bad, this year is worse". Alot of them actually left after the keynote presentations - which means USD470 just to attend two 1 hour sessions - and first of the two turned out quite bad.
I asked another Singaporean what he thought and he answered " he he " with a sarcastic smile.
But well, i didnt think of it as negatively. At least, i got to network around with new media owners and technology providers, most of them driven here recently from the west which is suffering from saturation and low demands. Also got to catch up with business partners and friends who are working in other markets now.
I particularly remember an analogy a representative of Friendster, Ian Stuart, presented when asked what was the difference between Facebook & Friendster. He went "I see Facebook as the living room of the house and Friendster as the bedroom" ....... wtf? Which means i keep my trophies in Facebook and porno DVDs on Friendster? LOL
Publishers and media owners also bought space and established booths to showcase their properties and services.
What i also enjoyed was watching CNN from my hotel room with this scenery over the left side of my bed - the Esplanade of Singapore.
This is how it looked at night.
In Singapore this time was also the first time i had cold crabs. Like cold crabs with their red shells still on em. Was certainly not quite used to the temperature of what you expect to be hot and steamy but it turned out to be pretty good. Had it at a pretty decent restaurant called ONE 15 at Sentosa Island, thanks to iHub media.
Coicidentally, my birthday fell on the 2nd day of Ad tech so on the night of the 1st day, we parties at 7atenine on the Esplanade. Wasn't totally my birthday party - merely a hint - but was a more interesting digital conference than whatever the professors and whatsoever directors & chief executives could offer at the conference.
Now that was the birthday hint........ fucking Yogesh! haha
The party at HQnine, TTDI Plaza last night was the culmination of a very successful Standout campaign Tiger embarked on to position itself as the beer of choice for the modern day drinkers. To compliment the campaign, Tiger beer also released limited edition bottle wraps with very contemporary street designs.
Prior to the event, Tiger beer campaigned for the limited edition bottles through modern day lifestyle magazines and top dailies, subsequently inviting all Tiger lovers to congregate and interact with one another in an official Facebook community for Tiger beer fans- http://www.facebook.com/tigerbeer
Less than 2 months after its creation, more than 12,000 Facebook users have joined the community, interacting with each other on the Wall, sharing pictures and communicating with the brand.
Last night's Standout party was also endorsed by popular media personalities, celebrity bloggers and members of the media.
a a a Susan Boyle also has a hidden talent, apart from singing, that's yet to be discovered. But with the flash lights from the media after last nights event, it would no longer be a hidden talent. Well as you can already see, this is our own Malaysian version of Susan Boyle and he... yes he is the author behind the very popular kennysia.com a
Back to the hidden talent, Kenny Susan Boyle excels in pantyhose-tug-of-war, a tug-of-war game you tug with your head, not your hands, and tug a pantyhose, not tug a rope.
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Even poppy lost to Boyle hands down.
a a a Mix.fm DJ Jojo Struys co-hosted local artiste Liang for the night. Jojo was losing her voice on stage and still sounded like a kitten in Liang's 8-cylinder powered voice on full force.
a a a Fourfeetnine posed for the media, how she is a Standout in life, like this. I still cant quite figure out what she was trying to do but it would have been much easier if it was a puppy on this pose.
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a This is my my colleague's brother's girlfriend, Suet Li. Everytime i see her, it reminds me of the advertorial she wrote for Oreo.
a a a These 2 from the right are the co-founders of Nuffnang, Tim & Ming. The cute japanese girl, Audrey, is seeing one of the co-founders, is also my team mate at work and we're also clients of the co-founders. So that's the relationship between the 4 of us. a a a a You seen 300? One of these Spartans lost in a tug-of-war with the 48 year old Susan Boyle. Shame to the spartans!
a a a a This reminds me of Venice. See Pin, the golden pork chop was the Standout queen of the night
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This was another contender for Standout queen, a belly dancer. Clean shave but no cleavage so *buzzer* too bad, you need to focus at the right place next time babe.
a a a a Ringo came as.....
a a a Happy Birthday dude!
a a a a Cecelia Cheung dumped Edison ever since their private pictures leaked on the net. Ever-since, she's been seeing....
Went down to Melaka last weekend on a road trip and it was a blast, totally! Was headin down for 2 days of Freedom, a "rave" held at the A Famosa Resort. I really just wanted to experience a rave in Malaysia.
I was told not to have too high an expectation as the previous "rave" my mates attended ended up in a pool of mud. So i went to Freedom with basically zero expectations and just literally took at as it was.. and it was alright. Definitely far from Godskitchen and BassStation but on local standards it was alright.... just that it didnt fucking sell alcohol. A rave with no alcohol? it's like a sea with no fish.
But it still attracted a massive crowd, most of them at a high a level higher than being drunk and at least 70% of them Malays. Talk about criticizing international acts performing in Malaysia with short skirts, and you let your people take Ketamine, LSD and ecstacy at rave parties. nvm..........
Rave scene
Secondary DJ Console.
Primary DJ Console.
Seriously, what i enjoyed more was the after parties at the bangalows - much more than the rave party. I was at a mates place on both nights where he had his personal console and it spun till dawn ... no cops, alcohol to drugs available, massive projector screen, swimming pool, garden... definitely better than the hot, sweaty, long walk, no alcohol rave party.
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On Sunday, we also managed to catch a glimpse of Melaka and what really caught my attention is the existence of the traditional looking bangalows you're quite familiar with because you've seen them in your history books.... with sharp protruding roofs and some of them hosting trishaws. Baba and Nyonya, Portugese shit.
This house's got a trishaw in it.
Even the newer developments retain that sharp looking roof... talk about preservation and heritage.
They say Nyonya food is really lavishing so we didnt miss the chance to drop by a Nyonya restaurant for some snacks
This restaurant we discovered by accident, called RESTORAN NYONYA MAKKO had best in class snacks.
Their fried tofu and a minced meat and spring onion topping is fucking delicious! The contrast of the chewy salty minced meat and the tender sweet fried beancurd just gets on your tastebuds.
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The dish behind was Mango slices with some tangy sauce with lots of chilli.... mouth watering.
And gourmet chicken springroll ... or something like "lobak"... like never tasted in KL before.
And this.... i've never tasted in my life and by far one of the BEST deserts i've ever had. It's sago in gula Melaka.... and its as simple as that. But the gula Melaka (some sort of brown sugar) was just heavenly tasty and the sago was amazingly tender it just melts in your mouth with the gula Melaka.
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