Davidistheman.com

And yes, after finally bouncing back and forth from ECPod to Blogger.com and trying to see what's the best for readers all around the world (I'm hopeful aren't I?), Francky has helped me move to my new blog, hosted independently. The new blog is something simple, something easy for me to just post entries, and the domain that I got (well, Francky got for me), is too full-of-myself.

So yes, check me out at

DAVIDISTHEMAN.COM


uhhuh, this domain sure was available.

None of the other david's thought they were the man.

Speech from Former CEO of Coca Cola

You heard it, from the man himself.

Beijing Football and more

After having that good blogger weekend gathering, since we spent quite a bit on the bloggers, we actually racked up quite a few meal points here and there that we could use to redeem good food. So we went back to the hotpot place that we took the bloggers to and had a feast ourselves. hehe





and as if that wasn't good enough, that night itself, Wangjing invited us to her restaurant/cigar bar at the Financial Street area, and treated us to a full western style meal including salad, soup, mains, dessert, and wine.

Since it's a cigar bar, she and her cousin gave us a tour and introduced to us the different cigars there were. We had a 5min crash course and now i feel like I know a shit ton about cigars!! Wahahah...well I like that feeling that I know, even though I really don't.

This is their biggest cigar. Not for sale.





The next day (Saturday) we did our regular routine with Jason and gang. Dinner was at Beijing's K-town Wangjing. (Yes, Wangjing came along to Wangjing for dinner too, haha). After dinner, what was supposed to be a chill night, ended up having red wine with cheese, then going to another place for flaming dr. peppers, and then to another place to dance and after that I excused myself to go home while the rest continued.





Yep this is a random pic of Montse and I in a Nike store. This is the new Montse, new and improved version, compared to her fatass +13kg version a year ago. She's all out to flaunt. Am going to do some quick advertising for her here, she used to be the face of a lot of FMCG products in Philippines - shampoo, soap, hair coloring, etc, and get paid loads for it. Now she's a strategic planner for McCann Healthcare, single, available and ready to mingle. Interested, please leave a comment below and I'll forward it to her.





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Yesterday was the first time I've been to a football game EVER. It was awesome. Beijing Guoan vs Tsingtao. Of course the majority of the stadium was all Beijing Guoan supporters.










The Tsingtao supporters were only....





...yep that much. So for their protection, there were guards sitting all around them to protect from the Beijing Guoan madness. The vulgarity at the game towards the Tsingtao fans, were...awesome. You learn quite a few vulgar words at these games, it's a good vocab picking up place.


Beijing Guoan only in the last 30 minutes scored 2 goals. Imagine what would happen if Tsingtao scored instead? hhmmm




Niubi - this is what's written on the stadium door -




Just say it to anyone in China. Then see their reaction. hehehe

Top Blogger Gathering

Last weekend was a fruitful weekend. This is not supposed to be publicized since it's a more "closed" event. We just wanted to build better relationships with the more influential bloggers and let them know exactly what we were doing so they could support us. Since not many people read my blog I guess it's ok to share a few things.

The 2 day event started on Friday evening where Julia and Eric, went to the airport with this:



Yep, it's one of the posters to let the bloggers coming from other parts of China to identify us at the airport. We had 3 coming from outside Beijing. We then all went to Blue Frog at Sanlitun where it was the first time we met most of them and had a good night chilling, dinner, and drinks. Most of them have heard of each other but just not met them in person.

The next day was a whole day packed with activities. We started the day at a hotel meeting room where we really just sat down and presented what Nuffnang was to all these Chinese bloggers. Surprisingly they were all very supportive and also brought up many interesting concerns and questions.





Yep, I was sitting down most of the time, then as soon as I stood up to make some points, I saw Kingston take a pic of me.



We then adjourned to lunch at this awesome steamboat place near the Nuffnang office. It hadn't been open for long but we found it since we walk pass it everyday. It looks SUPER posh and expensive but actually it's priced very reasonable. I sometimes just spend my whole Saturday afternoon in there on their couches for Dimsum and doing some work on my laptop.





Lunch made us all too full. We then went to Nanluoguxiang hutong and Houhai to just walk around and enjoy the weather. Weather was really perfect that day. After all that walking we ended up chilling at a bar and having Tsing Tao in the afternoon.



Starming and Me:


Rachel and Kingston:




Then the fun started happening when we got bored and decided to buy some cards to play. Kingston was all about wanting to gamble, but not everyone wanted to do that, so we suggested, why not instead of betting cash, we bet push ups. NYAHAHAHAHAHA....

U can imagine, we were raising each other's push up amounts til it got quite insane. hahaha. And the bloggers were sporting enough that they actually did all the push ups they "lost". Kingston being the big gambler ended up "working out" a lot that afternoon!




We were all hungry again after all that working out, we went to dinner at South Beauty, a very famous restaurant in Beijing and then went to KTV after that where everyone let loose and chilled before heading home.


We were all really happy that all the bloggers had fun and we hope to have more of these in the future. Hopefully then it'd all be sponsored by advertisers!!!



Oh one more picture before I end this, before leaving Houhai, I just had to take this picture of this old "auntie" belting out some old-style songs so passionately in the middle of everyone at Houhai. It's just something they all do.

Shuangjing Dinner

Go just got back from Dalian in the morning yesterday and said, why not go for dinner? I normally go for kickboxing in the evening, but since I already went 3 days in a row, I decided to be lazy and take a break to go have dinner with him. He came to the office to meet up with me first and since Julia was still here she joined us for dinner.

We went to Shuangjing for Shabushabu. This chain joint, is always packed. It's cheap and tasty steamboat. 3 of us ate for RMB100.




I'm starting more and more to like the Shuangjing area, there are a lot of apartments there and it's very close to Guomao CBD so after work, a bunch of people go there to eat dinner near their homes and then chill around there before just heading back around that area to go home.


After dinner, we were just outside of the mall to enjoy these 2 dudes playing acoustic guitar and performing. Singing and playing. Pretty damn good I must say, no one claps though, so Go and I just kept clapping and "wwooott-ing" after every song hehehee.






Then it gets weird. Across the street, people were also outside, but not young people, a bunch of old people out there singing into a microphone with background music in an out-of-tune fashion. I looked at Julia, surprised. She said, yep that's how China people roll.





Then it got even more weird. This group, had lyrics on a wall, with NO music, and just singing outside themselves. Yep, that's lyrics on the wall and they were all singing.

Weird.


Well, as long as they enjoy themselves. I think that's the most important.

Back to Blogger.com / Family trip to Beijing

After my 6-7 months at ECPod, I have decided to move back to a more user-friendly blogger.com even though my chinese readers won't be able to read this unless they use a proxy. But given that a lot of chinese users do use proxies and VPNs, it shouldn't be that big of a problem.

My parents and sister were here in Beijing for the first time ever! I took them around town for the whole week last week, which left quite little time for me for work, but it was fun nevertheless. We did all the main attractions - great wall, forbidden city, walking outside the temple of heaven, bird's nest olympic stadium, and shopping at silk street market, yashow, and hongqiao pearl market. Heck they didn't even get enough shopping at those places that they had to go to Carrefour in Beijing to shop. haha

These are a few pictures from their entire trip here.

Taking the bus to the great wall - all dozing off the 1+ hour ride:



We finally arrived at the great wall, SOOOO MANY PEOPLE...coming to see a wall. I have 4 at my apartment. The dude on the far right, was standing at a point marked "hero of great wall" or something like that, because it was on a cliff:



Look at the amount of people:



Our personal tour guide, Wang Jing. She was super helpful throughout my family's trip, coming with us to the great wall and forbidden city and explaining the history behind it. She's going to Spain for her masters in Spanish so good luck to her!:



Me and my family at the background:


This shit is tiring:

Forbidden city with Mao's face at the back:




Who says blackberry's can't take artistic shots?


Bird's nest at the back:



The olympic torch:


The focus is not on my dad, but if you zoom into the kid at the background, the mom basically just spread the legs of the baby girl, and because in China, diapers are expensive, kids pants have a big hole at the bottom so that they can "unload" anytime. The baby girl was "spraying her fountain" just like that:




One of the crazy buildings next to the Olympic park, that's the top of the dragon head, and the following buildings behind them are like the body of the dragon (hidden). The building in front is the "water cube" - aquatic center for the Olympics:



Last friday night I took my sister out for the first time without my parents, so that she could experience the "young" life and not just the touristy stuff. We started off with this party somewhere in a industrial area. My friend was spinning at this "warehouse" there, they had free flow drinks and chuanr, and people were getting haircuts in the middle of the party:



Very artsy. Haha. After that we went to Punk at Sanlitun to show my sister the more upscale electro scene at Opposite House hotel. All in all, I think a very productive trip. I saw a lot of Beijing sights myself, but probably won't do it again. So friends coming to visit, I'll take you guys to stuff that the locals do, not what the tourists do.

Too tiring. haha

ECPOD

So since most people in China can't view blogspot.com anymore, I have started blogging at ECPod.com. However, I can't put no pictures up yet coz the system doesn't support uploading pictures from c:/. Waiting for the day they do. So if you all wanna know what's going on in my life,

davidwong.ecpod.com

I think I might update here once in a while. But I need to turn on my proxy to get here, and new friends in China won't be able to see. So....

davidwong.ecpod.com guys. woohooo

Ain't nothing stopping me from golf

Quick post before I go out to the driving range. God really is trying to stop me from playing golf today. Somehow or another there has been barriers one after another.

I went to work today all ready for my afternoon golf with Tommy Hoo, a dude I met at the golf course like 1 year ago and out of all the friends that are normally available to play during the weekdays, he was the only one available today. So, after lunch just as I was about to leave the office to go play, BBSHHHHHH......rain. Big time. Went back up to the office to get the umbrella, and walked to my car. Shoes were all wet when I got into the car.

Left the office and traffic was insane at the Jalan Duta roundabout near the hockey stadium. I was at a standstill (fine, i moved 100m) for 30 min. Just not moving at all. Found out that some dude left his Estima right in one lane and leaving only one lane to move getting out of the round about.

After getting out of the jam, thought, phewww...finally i'm driving at last. Still raining though. But rain don't stop no golfer. Only lightning does. And just as I was exiting the NKVE at Bukit Jelutung,



Yep. That's my car. Skidded and smashed against the fender. These are some more pictures:







and this is how the accident place looked like:


Instead of taking chunks off the fairways, I take chunks out of highway-side-grass.

During the skid, before hitting the fender, the only thing on my mind was, fuck...this looks like i'm going to hit quite bad and I can't go play golf. After the impact, the car was still running. So optimistic me said, well the car still can move, I think i can still make it to the golf course. We'll deal with the damage later. Called my dad (well it's his car), and got directions from him to take the car home asap. Sigh...

So i'm going to the driving range now. (in my dad's usual car)


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I got new shoes. woohoo!

Malaysia so short sighted.

From MSN Malaysia:

Malaysia to monitor Internet for 'harmful' blogs

Malaysia has formed a task force to scour the Internet for blog postings deemed harmful to national unity, authorities said Friday in the latest of a series of actions against new media.

Home ministry deputy secretary general for security Abdul Rahim Mohamad Radzi said the unit would involve the police, Internet regulators, the information ministry and the attorney general's chambers.

"It is a mechanism that will coordinate these various agencies to help monitor what is being said in cyberspace and to take action against those that are trying to stoke racial tensions and disunity," he told AFP.

Abdul Rahim said the group would also monitor alternative and mainstream media for similar content.

"There is a disturbing trend now appearing on the Internet where some people are inciting racial unrest and causing confusion and this will damage the peace we have in the country," he added.

Abdul Rahim cited the recent case of a Facebook page that insulted Muslim Malays. They make up the majority of Malaysia's multicultural population, alongside large ethnic Chinese and Indian communities.

Police are also investigating ethnic Chinese rapper Wee Meng Chee for sedition, after he posted a three-minute rap on YouTube criticising a Malay headmistress accused of making racial slurs against minority students.

The government has ordered a probe into the case which caused anger among Malaysia's minorities, who complain their rights are being eroded as the country becomes increasingly "Islamised".

In another case, Malaysian journalist Irwan Abdul Rahman was charged this week over a satirical blog which made fun of the state power firm Tenaga, and faces a year's jail if convicted.

The prosecution caused a stir because unlike the mainstream press, the web and online media in Malaysia have remained relatively free, despite occasional raids, bans and government criticism.

Major newspapers and broadcasters are closely linked with the ruling coalition, so the Internet has become a lively forum for dissent and debate.

The government in 1996 pledged not to censor online content as part of a campaign to promote its information technology sector.

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Malaysia: There's a fucking reason why people are saying shit on the internet. Suppressing these expressions aren't going to stop racial disharmony, in fact it's just going to make people find a way to express them at other outlets, like maybe, burning your fucking royal palace down? Since you want to regulate what we say on the internet, we could always just do what this Cuban blogger is doing:

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Article from MSN Malaysia again:

Cuban blogger Sanchez calls media prize a 'shield'

Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez said winning the media watchdog IPI prize of World Press Freedom Hero is a "protective shield" that will help her break "the wall of censorship," she told AFP Sunday.

Cuban blogger Sanchez calls media prize a 'shield'

"For someone who three years ago started opening cracks in the walls of censorship, my first feeling is that of enormous gratification," Sanchez said of the award she was given Friday.

The recognition from the Vienna-based International Press Institute, which hailed her defiance of press restrictions and commitment to free speech, is "also a shield to keep daring" to put out news from the closeted Communist isle.

Sanchez began her blog Generation Y, which now counts over one million readers, in 2007. However, access to the site was banned in Cuba in 2008.

To bypass this, Sanchez, who celebrated her 35th birthday Saturday, emails her comments to friends abroad who post her notes on the Internet.`

In 2008, Time Magazine in the United States named her one of the 100 most influential people. The following year, her blog was listed as one of the 25 best blogs of the year by the magazine.

The future of Cuba is "where the power of the Internet can be used to promote freedom of expression," Sanchez told AFP, adding that the IPI prize was an additional "incentive" to keep going.

"Gradually the circle of censorship is in the process of breaking down. I am very happy. I will continue," she said.

Alison Bethel McKenzie, director of the Vienna-based International Press Institute, said Friday that Sanchez's "tremendously important work provides a glimpse into what is otherwise a closed world."

She "represents a future where the power of the Internet can be harnessed to promote free speech," McKenzie said in a statement.

Harassed and beaten on separate occasions, Sanchez has noted on her blog that she is constantly watched by state security agents.

But she refuses to stop writing: "If you are insulted by the mediocre, the opportunists, if you are slandered by the employees of the powerful but dying machinery, take it as a compliment," she has written.

DW Apparel - Nuts

In my one year of not working, in between working at Healthy Homes selling Rainbows and Nuffnang selling online ads, I was playing a lot of poker and decided that there are so many terms in poker that could make some pretty cool funny tshirts, where the design if directly translated, would mean something in poker.

However, due to insufficient planning and lack of funds, we ended up making too many tshirts, with no means of selling them. The tshirts were made with some pretty good quality stuff (we went to the same manufacturer of tshirts as Mercedes-Benz, who were selling their apparel in stores for RM100 a shirt)

So some investments were made but never really turned out to return, and therefore instead of putting more money in to sell these shirts, I thought, getting another job would be way better to reaping those lost money back.

However, these shirts and their designs still mean a lot of me, and people who have seen them have always said it was nice, even though they didn't know what it meant outright. Poker players who knew the terms would after translating the designs into the terms would go, "aaahhhhhh....i get it" haha.

This is one of the designs that we successfully produced:


Nuts - our all time favorite design. Simple and strong. The word "nuts" in poker means the absolute best hand for that round. So say for example, there is 5d 7d Kh Js 4d on the board, and you're holding AdKd, you have the "nuts" as you have the Ace high flush, in which case there are no better possible combination than that.

If you had no idea what 5d 7d meant, the first character is the number of the card, and the second character is the suit. So 5d means 5 of diamonds. K = King, Q = Queen, J = Jack, T = ten, A = Ace. d = diamonds, s = spades, c = clubs, h = hearts.

Flush means the 5 card combination all have the same suit. (all hearts in the example above)
Ace high flush is the highest possible flush, with A as the highest card. So if someone has a K high flush and you have the A high flush, you win.

Flush is bigger than a straight or any pairs, or trips; but smaller than a Full house or Quads, or straight flush.

I think all these are pretty similar to Big 2 if you play that card game.

But yeah, that's what "Nuts" mean, the best hand for that round of poker. I'll share the other designs with you guys soon.

If anyone's interested in getting a tshirt with the design above. Let me know! You can get them for RM20 or you can buy all 200 pieces that I have for a cheaper price!

Dedicated to Huiwen

Dear blog visitor (I say this because I don't think addressing you all as readers would be appropriate as you probably aren't),

First of all, thank you for clicking on my so amateurish-done-skyscraper-size-static-non-flashy banner done on Microsoft paint that I was too cheap to put on a normal paid Nuffnang ad unit but instead dumped it onto the so very few charity ad units in Singapore. (Probably get screwed for this as it takes the meaning of charity away from these ad units) I know the ad creative could be so much better but due to my limited drawing skills, it ain't gonna happen.

Next, if you actually got here from a Churpchurp campaign (well at least I paid for something), and you have no idea what Nuffnang banner ad unit I was talking about, here you go, for your reference:


Now this blog post is actually dedicated to Huiwen/the country manager of Nuffnang Singapore/my girlfriend for her birthday. I doubt she's reading this so if you'd be so kind to just tweet this post to her at @davienne, she might be able to catch this on her birthday today (Aug 13)

Just to tell you a little bit about her, for the benefit of you who are still wondering, who is Huiwen? She's runs the show at the Nuffnang Singapore office. I met her just about a year ago when I first joined Nuffnang Malaysia (Yes I know I'm not suppose to shit where I eat). Since this is my blog post I'd make it very skewed towards my benefit - I could not help but notice that she started showing some interest in me and so I made it easier for her and let it happen. (muahahahahahhaa....). End of story.

Ok seriously now, over the past year, even though we're staying in different countries, I guess we've somehow been seeing each other every few weeks or so. Learned a few things about her. She likes dogs. Well or so I think.


No that's not her dog Scruffy, nor is that my dog, Shasha. That's Mini, my friend Evelyn's dog when we went to her brother's house birthday party sometime last year. That was the only picture of a dog and her that I had.

Here she is trying to look hot,


I guess if I remember correctly, this picture was the process of her getting ready to look like how she looked like in the banner you clicked on. So, job well done to the person doing it. (I have no idea who it was)

We don't have much pictures together, as we both don't really carry cameras around except for our phone cameras which kinda suck. The theme parks make it easier on us that they help us take pictures during our ride so that we can buy them if we'd like them but I'm still too damn cheap to buy it so I basically took a picture of the picture that they were displaying for us to buy when we got off the ride.


(Huiwen, if you want a copy of this, let me know I'll send it to you for free!)


Dear Huiwen,

If you ever get to read this, (if you did, this means Churpchurp and Nuffnang banners really do work even with a super-duper-tiny-ass-freaking-small budget, I'm talking way below the minimum media buy) when this post goes live and you read it the time I think you would be reading it, I would be on the way down to Singapore to celebrate with you what's left of your birthday.

You've been amazing at everything, at how you handle your personal life, work life, friends, family, colleagues, gaming peeps, me, etc. You've also been extremely tolerant and have the patience to put up with the stupid shits I say or do. I can't say that I'm going to stop or reduce these stupid things, because I actually thoroughly enjoy being irritating! (Damn, how irritating is that? muahahahahahaha...). I know I drive you nuts.



Anyway, let's finish off the post with a nicer picture that I found. Something decent for both of us.


Happy Birthday dear!

xoxo
David