The Ah Beng named Wingz from Rojaks is planning a blogger gathering for the 30th of December 2006 (Saturday) which I think will be great fun.

It’s going to be held at Federal Hotel in KL.

Now my schedule looks pretty busy for the end of this year so I wasn’t supposed to be going especially since it’s so near New Year’s Eve.

But according to Wingz, I told him earlier that the date was okay and also according to him he planned some kind of surprise for me so if I didn’t attend it, I would ruin his plans.So fine!

I am going… it’s going to set me back by another RM100 but I’ll still go.

There you have it… if you ever want Boss Stewie to go anywhere with you, just convince him that he promised you before (even if he didn’t) and he will go.

And I’m probably going to have to take a flight from Penang or Singapore to KL, but I’ll still go… ISH…

So if you guys want to go and watch me being left out in a company of bloggers, check out Wingz’s post here.

Note to my PA: Julia, please put this down in my schedule for the 30th of December 2006.

I was just reading the latest Time Magazine issue of 6 November 2006.

Now on its cover is our beloved leader for many many years Tun Dr M.

So naturally… as a proud Malaysian, if you ever see a Malaysian on the cover of TIME Magazine… you don’t ask questions.. you BUY IT.

Now there is one thing I really love about TIME Magazine.

Within the first few pages there is always a column that states numbers… for example

1.65 Billion is the amount that Google paid for Youtube in shares.or

1.3 Billion is the population of China alone.

or

38 is the number of people who read Boss Stewie’s blog every day.

or even

2 is the number of testicles the average man has.

This month’s issue had numbers I really liked.

First it said

1,508 Average number of condoms sold per day by South Korea’s Family Mart convenience stores.

and then it went on to say1,930 Average daily number of condoms they sold in the week following North Korea’s Oct. 9 nuclear test, prompting speculation that stress from the test led to a rise in sexual activity among South Koreans.

So it IS TRUE… people have sex more often when they are more stressed.

In times of recession, people will spend less money on most things but MORE MONEY ON CONDOMS.

Which brings us to the next question?

Why do condom brands like Durex bother to do any advertising at all?
(Ok we don’t see much Durex advertising in Malaysia but I saw plenty while in the UK).

They should focus their efforts instead on creating more stress for people all around the world!

WOOHOO!!!

PS: I have set up a little Meebo box on the right so that I could get to know some of my readers so that some of you could tell me what a fat bastard I am.

It’s going to be up for a limited time only and please keep in mind that I might not be able to reply everyone instantly since most of the time that I’m online… I’m at work. 😛

UPDATE: Ok… I know many of you have been sending me messages through Meebo but I haven’t been able to reply on time either because I’m working or I’m away from the computer and by the time I get back… you guys are gone.

My apologies for that.

Since I came back from the UK, plenty of my friends were merciless in pointing out how fat I had become.

Fast forward 4 months later to now, I had lost much of my weight and gained back my toned body thanks to my religious visits to Fitness First which greets me with this sign every time I go there.But I believe in rewarding good behaviour.

Some people who long to keep slim and practice refrain from certain indulgences still do indulge in ice-cream once in a while.

So I decided to do the same.

Yesterday, I walked into Haagen Dazs in Pulau Tikus.
I walked straight to the counter where I took my time to decide what kind of ice-cream I was going to have.

A little less than 5 minutes later, I decided that I was going to have the Green Tea.

The man behind the counter very politely greeted me and offered his help
“Can I help you sir?”

I gave him a quick look and said
“I have decided to go for the green tea. Could I please have the Green Tea for take-away?”.

He smiled and said
“Yes sir… what size would you want? Pint size?”

I looked at him with a bit of disbelief and said
“No… much bigger…“

While glancing at the Haagen Dazs logo high up on the wall that was smiling down at me.He pointed at an empty container which represented the quad size and said
“You want Quad Size?”

I said
“No… much bigger”.

Then he took out the largest container they had and said
“This is the largest we have Sir…”

Unsatisfied, I pointed at the ice-cream in the fridge and said
“That is NOT the largest size you have.

You see all those buckets that you scoop my ice-cream out of? Why don’t you just sell me the whole bucket…”
Showing a little bit of confusion he said
“The whole CAN?!?! … Sorry Sir, I don’t think we can sell you that…”

I insisted and he checked with his manager who agreed.

They priced the whole bucket of Green Tea ice-cream at RM505… a small price to pay for… My Precious.

I walked out of Haagen Daz a happy man…. with My Precious...Loaded it into my car and went home.

At home, I spent the next one hour admiring My Precious.

The label on its top reminded me that I was about to eat 9.46 litres
(probably enough ice-cream to give diabetes to the entire population of a small country).

But I ripped off the top cover in denial and stared at the beautiful sea of green tea…

Ahh there it was… enough ice-cream to last me the weekend.

I quickly changed into my comfortable very very old t-shirt and shorts that I wear to sleep and dragged My Precious with me into the living room.

Armed with a tablespoon, I turned on the TV and got started.To Julia (My New PA): Please hold all my calls.

Boss Stewie is NOT to be disturbed this weekend.

Obesity… here I come….

We do everything ourselves in our little dotcom.

My partner Ming agreed to do our company secretarial duties and I have agreed to take on the accounts.

I spent the last few weeks learning accounting and learning how to use accounting software.

But… accounting software is not free.

Being poor, we’ve explored many options.

I tried using Open-Sourced Accounting Software like Turbocash but it wasn’t very helpful. The only option was to buy the original software (and no… as poor as we are… we don’t use fake software that cost RM7).

Doing some research on the internet and trying out the trial versions of all sorts of accounting software, I decided to go for UBS, which is done by Malaysians (Malaysia Boleh!).

I called up a company in Penang to ask about its price and they faxed me a quotation. That’s right, RM1,749 just for use in a SINGLE PC.

The software on its own cost RM999 but the training and maintenance contract made up the difference. I couldn’t believe it.

I called up the distributor again saying
“WHAT?! I don’t want the whole package!

You have to break it up for me… I just want the software… sure the maintenance contract and all is good but I’m not paying RM400 just for maintenance for a year.. it’s SOFTWARE I’m buying here.. It’s not machinery!!!”.

The woman on the other side of the phone said
“Ok ok.. I’ll sell you just the software alone RM999”.

I asked for a discount and she told me
“Ok… I can give you RM960”.

I hung up and thought to myself that at least I got a bit of discount.

Then I started thinking again.

I started thinking about the whole business as a whole and looked at the list of distributors all around Malaysia that I managed to obtain.

There were so many distributors.

I’m sure a company the size of UBS would insist that it’s distributors keep to it’s listing price and at most only allow a 5% discount.

Then I thought again about the margin of selling each unit of the software ie how much money they make from each unit they sell.

Unlike many other goods, the marginal cost of each unit of software is minimal.

Most of the cost involved in producing the software is in the R&D, so once the company has done its R&D, it’s compelled to sell as much as it could as its price. But since the marginal cost is so low, the margin to the distributor and UBS of selling each product should be quite high meaning there had to be distributors out there who were willing to give a big discount in order to close a sale.

But what do I know… I’m just a little kid who has yet to see much of the world.

I decided to work with my curiousity.

I called up a few more distributors I had on my list and they all quoted me the same price giving only a little bit of a discount.

The memory of me paying the expensive price for my Dreamweavers and Adobe Photoshop months ago came back and I got pissed. I was determined to get a better discount!

I ended up calling all the distributors in Penang and even some on the mainland in KL. Finally, some of them started to offer me the software for RM899.

I called back the distributors I had called before and said that I had another offer for RM899 and asked them if they could match the offer. After many more calls I finally got as low as RM699 from a distributor in the mainland.

Yet, the thought of going over to the mainland just to buy this software was not very appealing to me.

Not to mention, after some negotiation with one of the dealers in Penang which I will refer to here as Mr Tan, I managed to seal myself an offer for RM760 and with FREE maintenace visits should I have any problems.

Also, rather than buying 6 hours of training that I had to use within one month for RM350, Mr Tan agreed to give me private training as and when I needed them for RM60 for two hours.

That means for RM350 I won’t only get 6 hours but instead get 11.6 hours (double the time). I was willing to close the deal with Mr Tan but I wanted the best of both worlds ie the best price, the flexible classes and the free maintenance.
I called up Mr Tan again

“Mr Tan, I have got another offer for RM699 so instead of giving me RM760, if you can match this other company’s offer I will buy the software from you.”

Mr Tan took less than a second to respond

“Ok fine lar fine lar… I will give you RM699. Actually it’s they themselves who said that we’re not allowed to give too much of a discount but since everyone is fighting for it I’ll give it to you for that price“.

We closed the deal and a few days later the software arrived.

Can you believe this little USB License Key cost me RM699!!! Then again, I’m glad I got my 30% discount (with all the extra benefits for free)… or I would have lost another ball.

Of course, I could’ve tried to push it down to get it for RM599 or lower instead.

But I believe that since this guy was giving us free service whenever we need it… squeezing him too hard might affect our relationship and he might be less willing to keep up to his “free servicing” part of the deal.

So yayy!!! I get to keep my right ball.

By the way… have you guys heard? Wingz is looking to employ … hahahahaha

Yesterday I met up with one of my most faithful readers, William.
William studies in MMU but decided to make a trip down to Penang this holiday to pay me a visit.

We agreed to meet for lunch and I spent the morning thinking of where to bring the dude.

At first I thought that maybe I could bring him to a nice place like The Ship
to have a steak like this.

Or even to this nice Italian restaurant at Batu Feringgi called Mario’s.

Where I will always remember that I asked for a “Mushroom Soup” and they gave me a bun that was shaped like a titty with an abnormally large nipple.

Surprisingly, just like all ‘titties’ in real life, what was inside it was yummy.

One of the best mushroom soups I have ever had.

I even thought about the yummy pasta I had at Mario’s…

But before I went on to make the grave mistake of bringing him to any of these restaurants, I remembered that people come to Penang not for its restaurant food… but for its hawker food.

I thought of bringing him to the best beef ball noodle in Penang but it was closed… so we settled for… DUCK (which honestly happened to suck that day)!!!
Over the duck lunch we had, I got to know what a nice guy William is.

He’s one of those guys that is most certainly a keeper (girls if you would like his phone number, please e-mail me at lengmoublogs@yahoo.com).

Yet, what was more amazing was finding out how much William knew about all my blog entries.

He kept making references to my previous blog posts in all my conversations with him.

He even went to the building where I bought my computer software from and thought to himself
“Hey!!! I’ve SEEN THIS BUILDING BEFORE!!!”
Which was probably how he spotted me in real life…

He was probably waiting for me in my office lobby when he saw a man with a mole walk out of the lift and thought to himself

“HEY!!! I’VE SEEN THAT MOLE BEFORE!!!”

And went on to shout my name (William you bassstarrdd).

It was almost as if he’s a “walking Leng Mou/Boss Stewie directory”.

William brought a friend… a nice girl named… Lean Shin… (or some name that sounds close to that).After lunch we popped by Gurney Plaza for me to buy my weekly dosage of magazines which is when I found out the TRUE reason for William’s trip down to Penang.

William ‘casually mentioned’ to me that I am just too free to be reading so many magazines every week.

That’s right… the 22 year old man travelled all the way up north…

JUST TO TELL BOSS STEWIE THAT HE IS TOO FREE.
Thanks William… you basssstaarddd…

Or like they would say in some European countries…

You “BASTARDO!!!”

Oh and I forgot to mention.. William has a blog too.

Feel free to pay a visit and leave the following comment
“BASTARDDOO!!!”

I got the bad news on a Thursday afternoon just half an hour before the clock hit 5pm.

Faced with this situation, I didn’t know what to do.

I was stressed but I knew I had to do something.

Morale in my little dotcom was waning, productivity was falling and if I didn’t find a solution to this problem soon, all the work we’ve done in the past few months would be wasted.

The dotcom that I had big dreams for would burn to the ground. I was scared.

I thought about all the people I would disappoint if this were to fall through.

I thought about my disappointed Father and Mother who believed in my ability to be a successful entrepreneur.

I thought about the uncles and friends who would look at my failure and say
“I told you that you should’ve worked for a few years to gain experience first… you didn’t listen to me!”

And most importantly, I thought about the sleepless nights I would have wondering how our leetle dotcom would’ve changed the world if I had prepared myself for circumstances like this.

The fear or failing so early in the game forced me to pull myself together and find a solution.

I knew that unlike all the problems before, this problem couldn’t so easily be solved over the phone.

I had to get out of the office and head to my supplier’s place right away to find the solution.

I was out of my office and in my car in 5 minutes, racing to the supplier’s place before she shut at 5pm.

Luck wasn’t on my side.

I kept getting red lights at every traffic light junction wasting even more precious time. I reached my supplier’s place at the stroke of 5pm.

She refused to help me at first saying that she was done working for the day but I pleaded with her.

I convinced her that if she were to let our company burn to the ground now, she will lose the big potential of our business in future and that it was in her best interest to keep us afloat.

I convinced her that if she failed to help us now and we survived this turbulence, we will ensure that all her competitors made plenty of money from us and she made none.

She relented at first but she eventually gave in to me passing me the package that I had come for.

With the package in hand, I rushed back to the office.

My heart was filled with fear that I wouldn’t make it back in time.

This time, not only were the traffic lights against me… but big fat Magnolia trucks were getting in my way. I barely parked my car when I reached my office and I rushed up the lift.

Watching the floor number gradually increase, I began to wonder if this was going to be the last time I was going up this same lift with a company to go up to.

The lift beeped and threw its doors open for me.

I ran right into my office to deliver the package in time to find my two colleagues looking at my puffed face with me panting like I had just ran a marathon.

They opened the package in relief to find the solution to their problem.

The Char Koay Teow that will ease their hunger. Now they would be able to work without feeling hungry… Our leetle dotcom was saved… all thanks to the supplier that cared enough to fry us a few more packets of Char Koay Teow before she closed for the day.

On behalf of our tiny dotcom, I would like to say thank you to the nice Char Koay Teow lady.

I’ve been getting an increasing number of e-mails from my readers in the past couple of weeks and somehow most of the time when I reply those e-mails, the responses I get run along the lines of

“Wow I didn’t expect you to actually reply my e-mail!!!”.

Come on guys! What the hell is this about?!?!

Just like how I reply comments, if anyone takes the effort to write me an e-mail I WILL reply.
(Sometimes I may take a little longer to reply but I still do).

What’s interesting though is that one of the readers that wrote to me lately is a very nice girl named “May” from the Netherlands!

Another reader from the Netherlands… WOOOHOOO!!!

The first being Jackson of course (Yes Jackson… I haven’t forgotten you…).

THE NETHERLANDS WOOOHOOO!!!

Where weed is legal and sex is museum-worthy…Note: In case any of you are wondering… as much as I look high in the picture above… I wasn’t… honest…

See??? I don’t look high here right?
Right?

Anyway, on a completely different note… I forgot to mention that my Singaporean business partner (Ming) has set up a blog of his own some time back.

Check it out here and give him some love… his dog just died and he’s very very very depressed.

My friends and I just realised how age was catching up with us.

When we were still students, we used to get high all the time and do rather silly things to keep ourselves entertained.

But in the past year, all of us have ceased student life and started on the new working life.

Since then we noticed that our social life has slowed down.

No longer do we find the energy in ourselves to go clubbing or drinking till late at night.No longer do we even talk about cars or football or girls… all we talk about now is work, work and work.

Over the long Raya weekend, we decided that things had to change (even if it was just for one night).

We got everyone over to my place one night for a drinking and karaoke session.

The night started out slow.

Everyone was being… “grown-up”.

But 1 and a half bottles of Black Label later, the alcohol started to take effect.

Everyone was high… and happy…. until one of my friends suddenly fell to the ground.

Now when your friend falls to the ground seemingly because of excessive alcohol consumption… what do you do?

Step 1: Pretend to be a caring friend and help him up.

Step 2: Bring him to the nearest toilet bowl and get him to puke.

Step 3: Lay him to rest on the nearest couch.

Step 4: Take turns to take pictures with his butt-crack.

Step 5: Upload the pictures on to a blog to share with the world…

Step 6: Apologise to your friend for making public his butt-crack and promise that you’ll never do it again (even if you know you are going to do it again next week).

Ahh… I feel young again…

Let me tell you a story I recently heard from a friend (which I will refer to here as Bush).

Bush was out with his friends at the local char koay teow stall having lunch.

When the time came for them to order, one of Bush’s friends
(which I will refer to here as Entau Bah)

specifically ordered
“Char Koay Teow mai taugeh” (Char Koay Teow without taugeh).Bush thought it was a little weird since most Penang people eat taugeh (though Stewie here doesn’t), so he asked Entau Bah why didn’t he eat tau geh.

Entau Bah calmly replied
“Aihhh… long story lar… dowan talk about it”…

That was an answer Bush wasn’t willing to accept so he pushed harder and finally Entau Bah let it out

“Well ok lar… I tell you. Last time I was having anal sex with my gf. Then when I pulled out my penis I saw a half digested taugeh attached to it… so now I don’t eat tau geh anymore”.DID YOU HEAR THAT?!?!?!?
HE PULLED OUT A HALF DIGESTED TAUGEH FROM HER BUTT (which was probably his punishment for having anal sex in the first place).

The poor guy must’ve been traumatised.
Yet, I couldn’t help but wonder…

What did they do after he pulled out the tau geh from her butt…

I could think two scenarios.

I one scenario, the girlfriend could’ve been a little embarrassed, giggle and say
“Oh sorry about that… must’ve been from the koay teow soup I had last week.”

then take the half digested beansprout from his hand and put it in her mouth.

But I reckon the more likely scenario would be…
“Darling… if you love me… eat the taugeh… or I share with you… I eat half you eat half”.

The poor dude probably has nightmares of him being lost in mountains of taugeh. To the guys who’re reading this, I bet you’re all thinking how you could avoid this bad experience

(Which is perfectly natural since we don’t like to make the same mistake others make right? Well done).

So if the solution you’re thinking is
“Hmm ok I think I better not have (or think of having) anal sex anymore”…

then good for you.

But if you’re thinking

“Hmm.. ok I better make sure my girlfriend doesn’t eat tau geh before we have anal sex”… then… congratulations.. you’re officially more of a bastard than I am

A few weeks ago, my colleague gave me 5 CDs worth of a seminar titled “Hypnotic Selling” by a man named Marshall Sylver.
Knowing that I would soon have to start doing a sales job for my little dotcom, I decided to listen to the audio while working (whoever said men can’t multi-task).

I always fear two things when buying books or going for seminars.

1) That the book/seminar author/speaker turns out to be the Master of the Obvious. For example, books in MPH with titles like “How to be a millionaire?” end up telling you things like

“To make money… you have to buy low and sell high”

In which upon reading such material you think to yourself:
WOAAAAHH.. THAT IS DEEP… Thank you for telling me something I couldn’t possibly have figured out myself.

Why don’t you tell me more things that I can’t possibly figure out myself… that “fingernails grow” or “ice cubes are cold”.
2) That the book/seminar tells you to things that are good in concept but not specific enough to apply in real life.

For example,
“If you want to be a good salesman, every time before you do a sales pitch, visualise in your mind that you do a flawless presentation and believe that the client will say YES. You can only do it if you believe you can do it!“

I don’t know about everyone else but when I read/hear things like that, I feel like not only have I not learned anything from that sentence but that I’ve actually grown dummer just by listening to it.

Ok back to Marshall Slyver.By the time I had reached halfway into his seminar (after forwarding a lot of rubbish), I began to doubt this guy. I looked for him on Wikipedia but I didn’t find anything there.

Then I got suspicious.

I Googled “Marshall Slyver” and there it was.

His website saying how he was one of the most sought-after speakers in the world.

Sure.. it was HIS website.

If I ever had a TimothyTiah.com, I would have it say that I have a penis the size of a whale.

So then I Googled “Marshall Slyver Fraud” and the truth came out.

The man was hardly a sales man.

In fact, he was just a hypnotist performer at Las Vegas.

Now would you take lessons on “How To Sell” from a “Stage Performer” ?
(And NO, eventhough his seminar was called “Hypnotic Selling”, it had nothing to do with how to hypnotise an eskimo to get him to buy ice from you).

That’s like taking flying lessons from an elephant.Now only was he never a salesman, he is a fraudster who wound up in court for “Obtaining money under false pretenses.”

(The story goes that he gave a course that teached everyone to be a millionaire with a money back guarantee. When people went for his course and realised that it was bullshit, they demanded they money back but he didn’t keep up to his word).

This reminds me of Robert Kiyosaki.
We all remember Robert the Man for his book “Rich Dad Poor Dad“.

I remember reading his book ages ago after everybody kept telling me how good his book was.

I read his book with excitement. By the time I had finished his book I felt like a genius.

It was the best book I had ever read (at the time).

He gave me brilliant advice like
“the reason you want to have rich friends” is to get inside stock market information that you can make low-risk profits.

Sounds like a plan!

But after I finished the book I started thinking… ok … how exactly do I apply it to my life?

For example, I know that I’m supposed to have rich friends but how do I get to know them?

(Another good example of telling you something so vague that it’s hardly specific enough to be applicable at all in life)
So I did some research on who he really is and found out that he wasn’t that multi-millionaire that he claimed to be before he wrote the book.

And even after writing so many books, one which was very successful, he is still no where near as rich as he claims to be.

But that’s not all, most of the things that were written in the book about his experiences and even the characters… were all fiction!

“Rich Dad” in the book is as real as “Harry Potter”.
(But I won’t bore you with the details of the Robert Kiyosaki’s fraud, read them here if you want).

At the end of the day, I took the CDs of Marshall Sylver’s seminar back to my colleague and said

“Thanks so much for the CDs dude. I have some bad news for you though… the man is a fraud… and has probably never even sold food to a starving rich man before in his life”.

If my colleague was shocked he didn’t show it.

I then went on to say
“Next time before we decide to listen to anyone else’s advice… try to find out who you’re taking the advice from.”

Then to illustrate my point I said

“If Timothy Tiah gave you advice… you’ll tell him to go dildo himself right?”