Month: January 2013

Melbourne & Sydney, December 2012 – Gavin and Christina’s Wedding

We started off Gavin Tan and Christina’s wedding with the traditional Jip San Leong. We had to battle the evil chi muis at a cold open space area of a hotel. The evil chi muis had imports from Malaysia and Indonesia. The Malaysian chi muis were brutal as usual.

It was probably one of the longest Jip San Leong sessions I’ve ever gone through. We had to apply make up, wear granny lingerie, eat fruits off a body of a heng tai, do a catwalk and go through a box with something possibly gross blindfold.


Ugliest person alive. Gavin in a mankini.


Steve “Mango Sticky Rice”.


Om nom nom

After an hour of so, we battled through the tasks and managed to save Christina from the evil chi muis.

We didn’t have much time after the event as we had to rush to Gavin and Christina’ s church ceremony at St Mary Star of the Sea, one of the largest and oldest parish churches in Melbourne. It was quick and unfortunately Gavin didn’t do a big blopper on stage.

Gavin and Christina had their dinner reception at this vintage mansion called Butleigh Wootton. They had it decorated nicely.


Each table had a little frame with a chapter of Gavin and Christina’s life together. Ours was “Chapter 7: Fancy Dresses” Gavin was quoted “I would do it if it weren’t for my wrist. And the whole hip shaking thing. And the V-necked tight suit” (in response to an invitation for salsa dancing).

If I had a choice, I’ll add Gavin’s famous quote, which came out when we were in a club, “HE GRAB MY COCK! HE GRAB MY COCK!“.

He was quite worried that we will sabotage his wedding. He made sure his presentation was in movie form so that we could’t fiddle with it by adding pictures like this:-


That’s not Gavin by the way. It was someone that looks like Gavin, cutting Kenny Sia’s hair.


Almost 10 years of friendship. Flew across the ocean to attend his wedding. Wore lingerie for him. And he got my name wrong. F*** you, Gavin.

Food was awesome. There was a live band. Great wedding video and photos too. I’m glad I didn’t miss it.

To Gavin and Christina, Congratulations to you both and much happiness on your wedding day. May the love you share always continue to shine.

The Year 2012 at a Glance

2012 had been a good year. I got married, moved to a new home and started my own law firm.

My firm was up and running within two months. Work had been trickling in rapidly thanks to friends and clients’ constant support and referral. I have clients from my old firm trusting and following me to my new establishment. I also have clients who were excellent paymasters. One even pays me the day after I issue the bill! I must thank all of them for the great support.

January
I got married on 14.1.2012. It was held at the Grand Ballroom of Crowne Plaza Mutiara, Kuala Lumpur. It was attended by friends and family of over 400 people.

A day after my wedding, I tendered my resignation from my old firm. Few days later, I was flown to Fukuoka by LexisNexis SEA, a multinational legal information provider, to attend the LexisNexis Customer Engagement Workshop at Fukuoka.

February

My yearly social media reflection article on Putik Lada “What lies ahead for social media” was published.


My Putik Lada article was the most read article in The Star online on that day.

Stay tuned for this year’s article in The Star’s Putik Lada!

March

I was interviewed by BFM Radio on the topic “Msia I Can Series: The Right To Your Privacy“. I was reliably informed that the podcast was one of the top hit links on BFM Radio.

In the same month, my firm commenced business.


My office.

April

My article “Grave repercussions for internet users” was published in LoyarBurok. It was a turning point of my legal practice. The article caught the attention of the media and soon a campaign was started to seek for the repeal of s. 114A of the Evidence Act 1950.

May

I attended the International Trademarks Association (INTA) held at Washington D.C with my wife. It was the first time I attended the conference under my law firm’s banner. We also stopped by New York City.


The trip was fine except that I accidentally cut myself on the forehead and had allergy probably due to dust mites/beg bugs.

I also attended the Marcus Evans Intellectual Property Conference at Marina Sands Bay. Many thanks to Eddie of eLawyer for the free ticket.

I met many in-house counsels of many large or reputable companies. Frankly, I didn’t get any work from people that I met through this conference. Some law firms paid US$10,000 to US$40,000 just to attend this event. Hope they got some work!

June

I was featured in The Malaysian Observer.TV (also known as www.mobtv.my), an internet TV portal and also Malaysiakini. Again, it was about s. 114A of the Evidence Act 1950.

I also spoke at the LegalTech forum. It was my first time speaking for my law firm. It was about “Social Media Marketing for Lawyers”. Presentation slides can be downloaded here. Unfortunately, it was a small crowd.

July
Wife and I attended Timothy Tiah & fourfeetnine’s Wedding.

August

I climbed Mount Kinabalu and conquered it with altitude sickness.

FCL&Co also had its first attachment student. Chia Ann joined us for a month. We wrote an article together and it was published in the December 2012 issue of The Bridge, a quarterly magazine published by the Malaysia Canada Business Council.

September

I spoke at the International Malaysian Law Conference (IMLC) and shook Tony Fernandes billion dollar hand.

October


#Stop114a campaign in the China Press.

I wrote the “Personal notes on the #stop114A campaign” blogpost.

November


My wife and I attended the Nestle Gala Night. We won a 40 inch 3D LCD TV which was sold for RM2,500.

December

My wife and her friend launched an online party ware store called “Think Party Thoughts!“.

My wife and I travelled to Melbourne to attend Gavin Tan and Christina’s wedding. We also stop by Sydney to visit Sui Lin.

Lastly, my inaugural column Bread & Kaya was published on Digital News Asia. It’s my first permanent column.

2013
I notice that I’ve been slacking in recording my life through the 2012. I hope I won’t repeat the same mistake in 2013.

I also hope to have a little one by this year. But there’s no rush.

I hope 2013 will be as good as 2012.

Melbourne & Sydney, December 2012 – Overview

Gavin Tan aka Gayvin Tan invited me to his wedding in December. He came back to Malaysia for mine. I definitely had to go for his.

We took Air Asia to Melbourne. It rained when we left the house and we were stuck in a 2 hours jam to LCCT, Sepang.

No trip is complete is complete without any oddity. While in the boarding room, we had a strange person kneeling with face down for a long time. We couldn’t make out whether she was a bag or a person. Suddenly, she woke up thinking that the plane has left and tried to run to the tarmac.

Melbourne city is not the city I used to know. It changed quite a lot. Artisan cafes have popped up in the city. The good ones usually have long queues. My favourite A1 Chinese restaurant is gone. No more egg chiffon duck rice.

My wife and I stayed at Wei Chen and Sui San’s place at Albert Street. It was formerly an old brewery and now converted into an apartment. Wei Chen had kindly vacated him room for us while he slept in the living room.

I also took the opportunity to meet two of my business associates in Melbourne. One of them was nice enough to invite me to their office. The use colour coded system for their files. Each category has a different colour. It made their office pretty colourful.

We spent a lot of our time at artisan coffee joints trying what the Hipsters call “soul food”. To me, it’s basically food with plenty of bacon, potatoes or butter.

And it’s all awesome but I came back few KGs heavier.

After Gavin and Christina’s wedding, my wife and I made our way to Sydney via Tiger Airways. We stayed at Sui Lin’s place at the city. We did the usual touristy things.


We visited one of my buddies in Castlehill, Sydney. He cooked us dinner.

After Sydney, we went back to Melbourne and plonked at Sui San and Wei Chen’s place again. Lynnzter and Mid Sized Ben (both got married this year too) organised a dim sum lunch with the Melbourne gang at Tai Pan at Doncaster East.

They even serve battered durian. Gavin Tan is not a fan of durian so I made sure his hands smell of durian before leaving the place. I rubbed some durian on his hands while he wasn’t looking. WAHAHA.

Wei Chen sent us to the airport on the last day. The flight back was rather uneventful except that the lanolin cream that I bought for my mother got confiscated (6 bottles!). It seems that I cannot bring in any liquid exceeding 250g into the departure lounge. Strangely, the same lanolin was sold in the departure lounge!


Other than lanolin, I bought my stash of coffee beans!

Anyway, the trip was awesome. Many thanks to friends who gave their time and space to comfort and entertain us.

Bread & Kaya

In mid December 2012, I was invited by A. Asohan and Gabey Goh of Digital News Asia to contribute in a monthly column in the DNA Insights section.

According to Gabey, the insight section is where senior industry figures are given the platform to voice their opinion about something, be it an issue or developing trend, in the ICT industry which they feel is worth elevating the profile of.

My column’s focus is on Malaysian legal news relating to intellectual property, cyberlaws, franchise, data privacy and the like.

I first met the co-founder of Digital News Asia, A. Asohan, at the forum on “Section 114A Evidence Act: Crime-busting or Online Control” at the Chinese Assembly Hall in June 2012. We were both on a campaign to get 114A repealed.


At the forum


We went to the Parliament a few times to persuade the MPs (Member of Parliament) to repeal 114A. Read my blogpost “Personal notes on the #stop114a campaign”

I’ve not met Gabey before but she interviewed me on a particular piece when she was still in The Star newspaper. I guess they read my articles thus they decided to invite me as a regular columnist.

At the beginning, I couldn’t think of a name for my column even after I finished the first draft of my article. I had names like “Sue the rock!” and “The Twitterjaya Act 2013” but it wasn’t suitable. “Sue the rock” came about when some kids at the climbing gym screamed that while I was climbing.

Fortunately, my wife, who is good with words, came up with the name “Bread & Kaya” – a Malaysianized word of “Bread & Butter”. She initially suggested “IP Bread & Kaya” but I shortened it to “Bread & Butter”.

Without further ado, an excerpt of my article below. The rest of the article can be read at my blawg.

PDPA: Businesses have responsibilities and burdens

  • PDPA comes into force Jan 1, 2013, and companies have three months to comply
  • Many have waited, and now may not have enough time to processes in place

    • WELCOME to the inaugural Bread & Kaya column!

    The term is a Malaysianized version for bread-and-butter. This column aims to be your bread-and-kaya serving of legal news relating to intellectual property, cyberlaws, franchise, data privacy and the like.

    You may have read some of my articles in The Star’s Putik Lada column or in LoyarBurok. If this is the first time you’re reading my articles, “Hello.”

    Without a doubt, 2013 will be an interesting year for businesses. Many new laws and regulations will be introduced, and the Personal Data Protection Act 2010 (PDPA) is one of them.

    [Read more]