How often have we missed doing something we really wanted to to because we thought we didn’t have the time? When was the last time we put off calling mom or a brother or talking to a friend in need for days because of a lack of time.

My teacher once said that the only time one doesn’t have time is when one is dead. I’ve seen friends who were going to pass on develop a new perspective on time when they knew it was limited. Minutes in a day, family, personal relationships, doing things they’ve always wanted to do became so much more important as they rushed to make the most out of limited days or months. Those who were strong enough were lucky. Others who weren’t lay in beds talking about how they wished they could do this or that.

Reading Tuesdays With Morrie reminds me again that we don’t spend enough time doing things that matter. Some of us have forgotten to enjoy life, to be happy and to tender to our other needs as we rush about a daily ritual of earning money to accumulate this and that.

In my late twenties I was so preoccupied with working hard to buy a nice house and car that I lost myself in that chase and struggled to keep up with the tide of loans and bills.

Mitch Albom wrote about the hunger to gobble up new things and shared this … “These were people so hungry for love that they were accepting substitutes. They were embracing material things and expecting a sort of hug back. But it never works. You can’t substitute material things for love or for gentleness or for tenderness or for a sense of comradeship.”

It seems my happiest moments were in the company of friends doing simple things like talking and doing silly things which didn’t cost an arm and a leg yet that didn’t register.

Over the last six years, I’ve rediscovered the joys of giving, doing things for other people and receiving thanks and love in return. Its hard to describe the feeling when someone gets better because of help you’ve extended or when you can see how much of a difference you’ve made in lifting a person out of the dumps they thought they were in. Sometimes all it takes is a few moment spent talking and I’m sure we all have a few moments to spare.

So I end this train of thought with a quote and a question.

“If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?” ~John Wooden

Do we really not have time or can we take a little time away from other things for some moments to do right by ourselves and others?

Love this campy cabaret-styled music video by the Land Transport Authority of Singapore!

Had a great dinner with Sonny, Joseph, Soon, Gillian and Frank at a wonderful Thai Restaurant called Erawan. After we were done Joseph introduced a game to all of us which had us laughing our heads of.

Here’s how it goes:

1) everyone puts 5 coins on the table

2) each person takes a turn saying something he or she has never done before with regards to sex

3) each person who has done it before gives one coin to the asker (if you’ve never done it before you get to keep you coins)

The idea is to see who looses their coins the fastest. This person is likely the most sluttiest.

The person who hoards the most coins is the most well-behaved or deprived.

Things that came out:
- I’ve never had a threesome.
- I’ve never had sex with a woman before.
- I’ve never been in an orgy before.
- I’ve never done it with a black man before.
- I’ve never swallowed semen before.
- I’ve never been fisted before.
- I’ve never been whipped in bed.
- I’ve never done it in an airplane.
- I’ve never done it in a car.

Among the six of us I was the third person to loose all my coins so I don’t think I’m that slutty although it took quite a bit of brain cracking to figure out things I’d never done with regards to sex.

The couple at the table had funny looks exchanged when they found out certain things about each other while the rest of us cracked up almost till the point of tears.

Highly recommend this silly game to get to know friends better.

The past few weeks have been rather hectic. On top of work, friends, the occasional tennis, Nick and traveling to & from Singapore I decided to pick up silat. That’s the reason for the long gap between this and my last post and I apolgise for the silence.

When I was a kid I learnt judo for a couple of years in Japan and it was a really defensive form with no attacking moves like punches or kicks. The last few years saw me trying out a couple of different martial arts classes in commercial schools and I couldn’t really decide what to sign up for.

Silat is the form I decided to go for and I must say its quite interesting how it works so many things into a series of training routines. My first class I almost passed out from going around and around in a circle with my partner at a faster and faster speed. My second class I kept getting winded during sparring rounds. My latest class I got accidentally kicked in the balls. This was after I was deliberately kicked in the chest because I tended to leave me chest unguarded. It’s not easy keeping up my stamina with a kid 21 years younger.

My teacher did say …. we learn from being hit. I only understood what that meant when I felt pain from the kicks and my mind decided I shouldn’t be leaving myself open to these attacks anymore. Now I vow to move learn to move much faster and not let myself be so open to kicking attacks.

Now I’m gonna rest a bit to recover as much as I can before class again on Monday.

While I was watching Lena Horne youtubes with mom and dad we stumbled upon a series of videos where different singers take on the ABC song. Here are three of my favourite ones starting with Lena Horne’s version.

Lena Horne doing the ABC and doing it straight.

Pattie Labelle doing the ABC gospel style!! I love this version the best!

The Pointers Sisters doing it!

YouTube really fuels my tennis addiction.

Here’s some good advice for developing a good 2nd serve to improve confidence

Some other advice to help play better by focusing on being smooth

I just recontracted with Singtel Mobile. At the point of recontracting I noticed the new post-paid plans for the iPhone offered free voice mail, free autoroam and free caller-ID display so I asked about this.

Their reply was, “You’re recontracting as an existing customer so you’re not eligible for this.”

I found it a bit strange that this company which has been in this business a long time didn’t understand the theory of rewarding loyal customers which is a basic tenet in customer delight. I didn’t see the logic of giving different set of benefits to customers purchasing the same product technically when both sets of customers could see clearly the favouritism. I let this slide. I thought it’s not worth pursuing as I was distracted by thoughts of rushing back to play with my new iPhone.

Two days later, I get an SMS informing me that I’d been signed for for Traffic Alerts and I should unsubscribe for this to avoid being charged $3.21 after the promotion period.

This coupled with the nagging feeling of being short-changed by not being eligible for $25 savings a month made me go ballistic.

I promptly called 1626 to unsubscribe from all services and alerts then transferred to an operator who told me when customers recontract they automatically get signed on for these “offers”.

You can imagine how I reacted given that I was already ballistic. I demanded to be taken off all such unwanted services as I considered it spam and made a point that they noted down my EXTREMELY INTENSE displeasure as a customer complaint.

Singtel Mobile, not only do you NOT reward loyal customers, you blatantly try to get away with loading new paid services onto them. What kind of short-sighted profit focused company are you?

As one of the giants in the telco industry do you not understand global best practices of not signing up customers on things and services they did not request for? This is even more so for paid services.

I left Singtel many years ago to move over to Starhub. The ONLY reason why I came back was because of the iPhone. Now you’ve given me reason to leave you a second time permanently. This is the last time I renew my contract with a company who is clueless about good customer service.

Singtel Mobile major fail! Sort of company with majorly warped ideas about retaining customers.

A couple of my friends got together and opened a guesthouse in Kuala Lumpur. They threw a slumber party for friends to celebrate this which I thought was a wonderful idea as I got sleep in their rooms and experienced first hand the coziness and quietness of the place. The guesthouse has little details left over from the original house which gives it a nostalgic atmosphere as well.

My friends say it’s a no frills kind of place but I think with the decor of the rooms and friendly ambiance it’s a little on the luxurious side of no frills. Of course the place is Wi-Fi enabled and there are even 2 internet stations upstairs making it easy for guests to get connected.

I believe a trip can be made of broken by the location of the place you stay. Sahabat Guesthouse is really centrally located as it’s walking distance to the great clubs and bars along Changkat Bukit Bintang, some really great shopping at Pavillion and the most amazing food just round the corner at Jalan Alor. Despite its central location, the guest house is nestled in a quiet area where many locals live.

We all were free to pick which room we wanted to spend the night in so having arrived early I chose the Suite which has it’s own balcony and is the largest of all their rooms. They have a total of eight rooms; 2 standard rooms, 3 deluxe rooms, 1 superior and 1 suite ranging from RM120 – RM180 per night. All rooms have their own attached toilet.

Yam cooked up a storm and the food was delicious as always. Pictures of us having a great time are below.

I tweeted about the slumber party and someone tweeted back that it would be a great place to take up for a hens-party or a birthday party. She was right. The slumber part was great fun as we all made a lot of noise laughing, playing and run around to each others rooms. We designated one of the bigger rooms as the hang-out area.

Just to make sure we weren’t making too much noise I actually took a walk around the front and back at the height of our rowdy slumber party and I can safely say you can trust buildings of old to take into consideration noise pollution.

So if you’re looking for a nice cozy place to stay at a great price or are thinking of a place where you can book out all the rooms which won’t be too hard on your wallet, try Sahabat Guesthouse.

Check them out at their website http://www.sahabatguesthouse.com.

I really like this TED talk because Seth helps shed some light on consumer behaviour in this time of information overload and shares ideas on how to cut through the clutter.

Ads work on the interruption model of getting a message across. But when people have too many choices and not enough time, the most natural thing to do is to ignore messages. If I can only make my clients understand this we could be doing so many things differently in our campaigns to engage the public. It’s really quite an effort trying to move clients to communicate in the form of telling to engaging and interacting.

Seth also thinks that some brands should stop marketing to those people who ignore you and start marketing to those people who care about you and these are the innovators and early adopters.

It’s been awhile since I flew on a Singapore Airlines aircraft. Flying regularly between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore on a monthly basis, it just makes more financial sense to go by JetStar as I get 60% savings most times.

I recently caught a SIA flight and I was pleasantly surprised with the features available in economy. You could plug in your own audio + video via iPod or USB in every seat.

I really like these options they provide. This plus the on-demand music choices available that span quite wide genres and movies would be a reason I’d fly SIA to longer flights above 6 hours. Being cramped up in a budget carrier that long with not much to do can really drive you crazy.