Yes, I’m going on another holiday… AGAIN.

I’m leaving Thursday evening. This time it’s to Auckland, New Zealand.
My sister moved to NZ with her family earlier this year. I have not seen her for yonks and my travel bug is itching me again, so it’s the high time for me to pay her a visit.
The only problem is that my bank account is dwindling flat and Auckland isn’t exactly the cheapest destination to fly to. Flying the conventional way via Malaysia Airlines to Auckland would have set me back at least RM3,200. That is a hefty sum I could not afford.

Instead of crying and bitching about the expensive fare, I decided to just rough it out. Here’s a poor man’s guide to travel to New Zealand. It’s not the easiest way to get to New Zealand, but hey, I paid RM800 less travelling this way.
Take AirAsia from Kuching to Johor Bahru; board ‘The Smiling Bus’ from JB down to Singapore; smile at those IMF/World Bank delegates at Suntec City on your way; next day, take the MRT to Changi Airport; from the airport, board Air New Zealand all the way to Auckland. Then on return, repeat the same process ALL OVER AGAIN.
Man, what a long and arduous journey just to get to New Zealand. It’s like I’m travelling through Middle Earth.

My precioussssssss.

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Have you ever walked into a news stand, and noticed how sometimes all the magazines have the exact same model on the covers?

It’s like one month, all the magazines have Amber Chia on the cover. Next month, it’s all Hannah Tan. It’s as if all the magazine publishers decided to come together and run a concerted campaign for these ladies.
I’m still waiting for my chance to grace the covers of the magazines here, although I’m pretty sure that’s about as likely as a fat boy rejecting another slice of pizza. By coincidence however, I did manage to appear on four separate publications this month.

I must admit, I still get a kick out of being interviewed by newspapers and magazines. Apart from being recognised on the streets constantly, doing interviews is about the only other time I actually felt like being a (pseudo) celebrity. It’s a huge ego masturbation for me, and god knows how important that is for a guy with balls the size of coconuts.
First, was the September 11th edition of StarTwo on the Perils of Blogging.

A few people have warned me how my blog could land me into trouble one day because I write about “sensitive issues” like the results of an online poll. These are the same people keep telling me to “delete this entry” and “delete that entry”, which I find a little unnerving. Are these people coming to kennysia.com to read what I have to say, or are they coming in here to watch me delete my entries right after I posted them up?
Maybe I’m the only one here, but I’m getting more positives out of my blog than negatives.

KLue Magazine approached me to write for them after they came across my blog late last year. The money is quite minimal compared to what I earn for my day job, but honestly I enjoy every minute I spent writing my column for them.

Seeing my name on the credits section of such a popular magazine gives me an inexplicable rush of satisfaction everytime. Another case of ego masturbation.
My face made a surprise appearance in this month’s FHM Magazine as well. Don’t worry, I was not in a bikini ok? (Then again hor, Malaysian version of FHM never featured chicks in skimpy bikinis one. Damn sien. Don’t they know that FHM without pics of chicks in skimpy bikinis is equivalent to drinking iced lemon tea – without ice, lemon and tea? Singaporean FHM is heaps better.)
At least, it’s something not blog-related for a change.

From left to right: Cheesie, me, Kid Chan, Shan and Sorryiforgotwhatshisname.

The photo was taken at the Martell Rise Above party when I was in KL. Cheesie and I were guests of wedding photographer celebrity Kid Chan, who was there because he was nominated for an award.
You gotta admire Kid Chan for his networking skills. I watched him in action. The guy can just walk into a room full of strangers, make small talks with all the powerful personalities and leave with a good impression on everyone’s mind.

I had an awkward moment when he introduced me to Miss Malaysia Universe Melissa Ann Tan. Kid Chan said to her something along the lines that I was the only “celebrity” he knew present at the party, to which the beauty queen could only react by staring at me in puzzlement, wondering who the hell I am.
I had a hard time fitting into the party because it was too atas from what I was used to. It even had to involve all the atas people like Xandra “Atas” Ooi and Jojo “Atas” Struys. In fact, it’s so bloody atas until it had to be held in an atas venue like KL Tower.

As if that’s not atas enough, they set up a friggin’ hot air balloon at the top of Bukit Nanas, so you could literally “rise above” the rest of KL and yell at the top of your lungs “OI! I AM MORE ATASTHAN ALL YOU PEASANTS, UNDERSTAND?!?”
How thoughtful.
The magazine appearance I am most excited about though is this month’s issue of New Man Magazine.

Darn thing took a full TWO WEEKS after it was published to arrive on our Sarawakian bookshelves.
JoyceTheFairy, Lainie Yeoh, Jeff Ooi and myself was interviewed at this place in Damansara called “Friendster Cafe”.
Yes, there’s a Friendster Cafe in KL. And all these while I thought it was only us Kuching people who can come up with extremely unimaginative business names.
Who knows? Maybe next time there’s gonna be a Xanga Bar, Blogspot Shop and Multiply Motel.

New Man is definitely one of the most entertaining magazines out there. Anyway, I won’t publish the entire article for the sake of copyright, so do get a copy of New Man at your nearest news stand if you have the chance.
Suffice to say, I like how the article turned out, especially when they took MY quote and put in BIG ORANGE FONTS. Whoa, like the things I said very important liddat.

Reading that interview masturbated my ego so much, it bukkaked all over my magazine.
So anyway, I was left there reading my stained mag, cover to cover, grinning like an oaf, only to turn back to the cover and saw these words.

WHAT! GEEK ISSUE?! Darn you Mr Editor! How could you con us into a doing an inteview then put us in your GEEK ISSUE!?
That is like asking me to be photographed for a Marie France ad, only to be have it used in the “BEFORE” section of their weight loss ad.

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Things like this don’t happen everyday.

I went out on a routine Saturday night, chilling out at Mojo with some friends over wine and local music. Friend of mine brought along a pretty hot chick, someone I’ve never met before (or so I thought). Tasteful clothes, great waist-length hair, clearly a fashionista.
My friend left for a while, so he asked me to entertain his female companion in his abscence. I helped him out, but I got frustrated after 5 minutes because I felt she was being too stand-offish and mysterious.
Kenny: “So where were you at before you decided to come home to Kuching?”
Girl: “I was… somewhere.”
Kenny: “Where?”
Girl: “Somewhere lah!”

Speaking of which, one of my pet peeves when striking up a conversation with someone new is when the other person deliberately avoids answering even the most rudimentary questions about themselves. It makes me feel like a terrorist.
Doesn’t matter. I bid farewell to my friends when the night drew to a close and gave no further thoughts to the events going on that night.
That is, until my friend sent me an SMS the next day asking me to call him back urgently.

It’s so urgent he even wrote “back” wrongly. I wondered why he wanted me to call him black when he’s clearly Chinese.
I rushed out to meet him, thinking someone’s probably critically injured or something bad happened. Then I found him sitting idly by at the coffeeshop having his lunch. I asked him what’s so urgent, and he told me to wait.
A few minutes later, someone joined us at the table – it’s the hot chick from last night. She had called up my friend early in the morning, telling him there’s something important that she wanted to tell me personally.

“Do you still remember me?” she asked me in Mandarin. Strange, because last night I was speaking to her in English.
I looked at her once. I looked at her twice. “Last night was the first time I met you,” I said.
Cold sweat started forming on my forehead. A million wild thoughts going through my head.
Who is this girl? Why does she sound like she knows me? Have I met her before? Did I owe her money? *gasp* Did I once make her pregnant?

She gave me a resigned smile and told me her Chinese name. It rang a bell in my head. A school bell.
“We were classmates from Primary School, remember?”
Really? But she looks so… different now. I didn’t have much memory of her because we weren’t close in school and I left shortly after completing Primary 5. I didn’t even ask her to leave a message in my cute Little Bob Dog autograph book! Come to think of it, I don’t even keep in touch with much of my primary or secondary school mates now. Most of them probably don’t even know about the existence of this blog.
Then she added, “you once gave me a farewell card. After that, you just left and I never saw you again. I suddenly remembered who you are from last night because your voice sounded very familiar.”

This is awkward. Here’s a hot-ass fine-looking lass chatting with me happily about things from 13 YEARS AGO, and there I was staring at her blankly without the faintest recollection about her. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?!
Sien. I’m just gonna end this blog entry abruptly. I’m still reeling from the shock ok? Can’t be bothered ending it with a funny one-liner.
I think I shall go bang my head against the wall right now. Bye!

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Taking a break from my Hong Kong adventures to quickly update on my weekend.

So last evening I was invited to Rachael’s 17th birthday party.
Yes, that’s right. A 17th birthday party.

How am I supposed to interact with a bunch of kids 7 years younger than me. When you got a 24-year-old doing attending a birthday party of a 17-year-old anime character lookalike, lots of things can go wrong.
Like how no alcohol is at the party. Like how out-of-place you feel in front of all the other Form 5 kids. Like how well-behaved you have to be in front of her parents.

Rachael’s party had a very old-school feel to it.

For a start, I didn’t even know where her place is.
The only clue she gave me was this.

Lousy! No road names, no postal address, how to find liddat?
Lucky I’m smart. And smart people figure stuff out easily. 😉
Despite the 7 year age gap, I actually had fun.

I’ve known Rachael for a while now but only through the internet, so I didn’t quite know what to expect at her party.
I most certainly didn’t expect to meet Sharon, who’s one of the finalists at the recent Miss Sarawak World “Pigeon”.

Damn. I feel like a dwarf standing next to Snow White.

This is wrong. I’m surrounded by a bunch of gorgeous girls taller than me and I’ve never felt sadder.

This is Rachael holding onto the birthday present I gave her.
In Malaysia, just because you’re the fairer sex doesn’t mean you’re exempted from National Service. Rachael is one of the lucky ones being drafted to the army camp to serve Mother Malaysia, so I thought what better present to give her than…

… a high quality plastic M16 submachine gun made from China. Hehe.
Must give them young ones a head start, ya know?
Of course, no birthday parties are complete without a playing prank on the birthday girl. Here she thought I was taking her photo when in fact I was shooting her a video.

Click to watch video of Rachael being fooled into believing she’s posing for FHM. And me singing a half-arsed version of the song “Happy Birthday”
Happy 17th Rachael!

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Went to have my blood test done last week.

I was sick and a couple of people had commented that I was displaying symptoms of dengue fever. It’s a possibility since the Aedes Death Squad has been spotted spraying fumes around my work area. To be safe than sorry, I went to the lab to find out what’s wrong with me.
Settled for the RM270 option for a full blood test with all the bells and whistles. Like most men, I’m scared shitless when it comes to having foreign objects poked into me, needles or otherwise. Hey, if they’re gonna poke a needle in me, might as well make it worth my while right?

Anyway, I got my report back yesterday in a spiffy gloss little folder. Yea, that’s what you get for RM270. A glossy folder.
I’m an AB positive. According to some dodgy Japanese blood-type personality test, that makes me cool, controlled, sociable and popular. Yeah, right.

Good news is that I’m pretty healthy overall. Red and white blood counts are normal – no dengue. In fact, no signs of any forms of diseases. Blood glucose is low. Good cholestrol is high, bad cholestrol low.

The bad news is that I got an overdose of protein in my liver. Attribute that to my meat-arian lifestyle. Should I do something about it or should I not? I lift weights so I need all the protein I could get.

I’m impressed by how comprehensive the report is. They’ve even tested my urine and tell me stuff like what colour it is.
Yeah, always wondered what the colour of my pee was.
I love it how they described it so elegantly, as if it was wine.

“2006 Chardonnay, light with earthy undertones.”
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While at the Rainforest World Music Festival, I attended this workshop by the Malaysian Dhol Federation on this energetic punjabi dance called bhangra.
It was damn difficult ok! Who said Indian dance is all about screwing the light bulb on one hand and patting the dog on the other hand?

It’s more like screwing the light bulb on one hand, patting the dog on the other, making a turn, doing Bruce Lee and having an epileptic fit all at the same time. It’s ridiculously difficult. But everyone was there dancing like they were on a Bollywood movie set and there I was too stunned to do anything.
Sabrina, the girl who interviewed me on Channel [V], was keen to see me shaking it. She said “come on Kenny, just imagine two big buttons over your head, and you’re pushing it.”
Alright then Sabrina, this is for you. Kenny Sia doing the bhangra.

Somehow I still don’t think I look very natural.

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Headache. Nausea. Dry cough. Flu. Weakness. Vomitting. Cold sweat. Rapidly changing body temperature. Loss of appetite.

I think I’m getting pregnant.

This is not a paid advertorial.

I got a package sent to me by courier earlier today. If it’s sent to me by courier, I’m guessing it’s gotta be something important.
Check out who it’s from.

adidas Malaysia!
Can you believe it? Apparently my “Teamgeist ball looking like sanitary pads” entry found it’s way via inboxes all the way to adidas’ regional office and it landed on the desk of Anna-Rina from their communications department.

In return for me making fun at their product, they’ve decided to send me a pack of gifts as reward. I don’t quite understand the logic behind it either but hey, I got freebies! That’s all that matters.
How come Osim never gimme anything when I poked fun at their uZap? Stingy bastards. 😛

Here’s what’s inside the package.
First up, a football jersey.

But too bad it’s a little too small for me to wear. Gotta shed a helluva of weight before I could fit into this one.

I like the pen and holder they gave. There’s a tiny hole in the centre of gravity of the pen and you’re supposed to use that balance the pen horizontally on the pyramid shaped holder. It’s pretty cool. I’m planning to put it on my office desk to make all my workmates jealous.

There’s this T-shirt with the adidas tagline emblazoned on the back.
“Impossible Is Nothing”
Yea yea, impossible is nothing alright, except when the bloody referee awarded the penalty kick against Australia with only 40 seconds left on the clock. WTF!
Blah! Don’t talk to me about that match. I’m still damn tulan about it.

Then there’s this elegantly compiled mini-folder detailing adidas’ involvement in the FIFA World Cup for the past 30 odd years, in full colour glossy photos. It even come with a CD containing high-resolution snapshots of their products. I presume this was what’s given out to the press worldwide for their coverage into the World Cup.
I got the left overs.

Kaka! Kaka lai!

Finally there’s the adidas Football Lookbook contains pretty much the same thing, except it’s hard-covered and comes with this cute keychain of a pair of football shoes.

Too small for me.
Doubt I could find any use for it, but at least I can now play World Cup with my fingers.

It’s never too early to train for World Finger Cup 2010

Overall, great football memorabilia from a company with a good sense of humour. 🙂 And I certainly appreciate that. Thanks!

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Times are hard to come up with your own business logos. Remember WWE Engineering?


When I spotted this signboard here at a 24-hour food court here (Siang Siang Foodcourt in 3rd Mile), I was happy ‘cos I thought Burger King has opened up a branch in Kuching.

Upon closer inspection though, I realised something didn’t quite look right.
Heyyy… that’s not Burger King. Since when did Burger King operate out FROM A STALL?

What the hell? It’s a Ramly Burger stall lah!

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Hello from Miri, Northern Sarawak.

I’m here for work. It’s my first time back to the oil town in about 4 years. Much has changed since then.
Last time I was here, the Miri airport looked like old Kuching airport, Curtin University Sarawak was still being built, and kids were listening to tetno music. Now, their airport looks like KLIA, Curtin Sarawak is up and running and kids are still listening to tetno music.

Why do we have to make all the airports here look like KLIA?

Here’s the obligatory I’m-in-a-foreign-land-partying-with-some-hot-chicks photo.

Meet Renee and IngHui (No that wasn’t my hand holding the cig. [role model kenny]Don’t smoke kids![/role model kenny])

I’m loving it over here. Met up with some friends the evening I touched down and they brought me out to The Balcony to show me how Mirians party. Boy, was I smashed or what. And it was only a Wednesday night!
The nightlife here honestly pwns Kuching’s big time, thanks in large to the friendlier and more cosmopolitan Miri crowd. Why can’t we have the same in Kuching?

To be fair to my female readers, here’s eye candy Arthur Akal.
The last time I met Arthur was when he was in Kuching for the Rainforest World Music Festival. Here’s a guy who could just sit in a pub doing nothing and have girls just wanting to get to know him. Jealous lah.

Watching the World Cup is more exciting when you’re with these people, and especially when the match was such a heart-stopping one like the one between Germany and Poland.
Thanks for a good time, guys. Let me know when you’re in town so I could return the favour. Cheers!

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Update:
It was tough selecting a winner out of 140+ entries. Most are interesting, but a lot of entries failed to capitalise on ‘stupidity’ or what is it that they ‘want’. Then there are those who didn’t respond to my request for their postal addresses.
There’s a few we particularly liked though.
Like jo who pooped in her pants when in kindergarten, and made her teacher smell everyone’s arses to find out who the culprit was. Or mini_me who dressed provocatively to her driving tests hoping to entice her examiner’s err… “gear stick”, only to fail when she clumsily forgot to put her seatbelts on the whole time.
But in the end it was WenYong, who in wanting to have some peace and tranquility in the house, stupidly gave a brand new Motorola Razr to his sister just so she could stop hogging the house phone. Only to have his sister chat on the phone, MSN and SMSes on her new handphone all at the same time.
For his foolishness, Mia and I are sending WenYong two premium tickets to watch Jamie Cullum live in concert at the Suntec Singapore Conventional Hall this Thursday.
Let’s just hope he won’t bring his sister along.
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Good news for kennysia.com readers in Singapore!
Thanks to Mia, I’ve got TWO top-tier tickets (worth SGD$296) to watch Grammy-nominated jazz artist Jamie Cullum LIVE in Concert to give away.

Superman was late for piano practice

The concert is to be held this Thursday evening, 15th June at the Suntec Singapore Convention Hall. Mia had these complimentary tickets for me, but I couldn’t be in Singapore to catch the show so I’m giving them away to you guys instead.
To be in the running, just leave a comment below answering this question.
“What is the stupidest thing you’ve ever done to get something you want?”
Lame, I know. Just wanna see how creative you guys get. Heh heh.

Contest closes 9am Tuesday (tomorrow) and is applicable to Singaporean residents ONLY. Must include your valid email address hor, so I could e-mail you to get your postal address.
It’s nice being a reader of kennysia.com, isn’t it? I also want.