To all regular visitors of ahbeng.net, ahbeng knows that he has been slack with updates... but there are reasons why!

ahbeng.net runs on a hacked version of Drupal, an open-source system. Why did ahbeng hack it in the first place? Well, while Drupal had most of the features ahbeng needed, it wasn't exactly how ahbeng wanted it. Furthermore, the HTML it generated at the time wasn't great or search engine optimised. So ahbeng hacked away, not really touching the underlying code but rather how content was presented.

ahbeng has not updated Drupal since ahbeng.net was lauched, and now trying to do so has proven to be a nightmare.

So, ahbeng has decided to redo ahbeng.net, and just go with the defaults. ahbeng will import the existing content into a new drupal installation, and just customise the things the original developers of drupal meant to be customised. No more hacking and slashing.

This would mean some functionality (such as the calendar on the right) will be either changed or lost, and search engines like Google may not like ahbeng as much.

It may take some time, but ahbeng will try his best to stick to the K.I.S.S way of doing things... Keep It Simple Stupid.

During ahbeng's recent trip in Asia, ahbeng came across a couple of celebrities. Of course, ahbeng barely recognised some and didn't even know some of the others, but whenever ahbeng could he would tell them he was their biggest fan in Australia. Miranda was the one who spotted most of them.

The first celebrity ahbeng came across was veteran Swiss army knife Nancy Sit Ka-Yin. She has just about done everything a celebrity could do on TV, except sex scenes, not that ahbeng spent time researching on this. When Miradan approached ole Nancy for a photo, she was very obliging and commented that Miranda was a pretty girl. She didn't say anything about ahbeng's fantastic physique, that's why ahbeng didn't bother to photoshop her infamous mole off.

In Hong Kong, at Time Square, there was a Chinese New Year exhibit featuring pigs, 2007 being the year of the bacon of course. This actress, Angela Tong Ying-Ying, was having her picture taken among with the ham. ahbeng walked past, took one look at her and thought that she was some has-been Cathay Pacific stewardess but Miranda told ahbeng that she starred alongside Ah Wong, one of the celebs ahbeng actually hoped he could meet.

The next celebrities ahbeng saw were the twin rojaks (Eurasian) Soler. ahbeng was waiting for Miranda to get her hair done and was killing time in Timesquare checking out a free concert organised by some producer called Cash. Everyone that performed were professional, although ahbeng didn't know who they were. As ahbeng was drinking his liong-char (herbal tea), these 2 rojaks walked past him and ahbeng saw that they were pretty cool.

Then when they got up to perform, everyone knew who they were except ahbeng. Turns out Soler's an up and coming group, and they were very good performers. Unfortunately, ahbeng didn't have his camera with him so he didn't take any photos.

Finally, whilst shopping in Louis Vitton, mainly to have an idea of what the real stuff looked like so he could compare it to the fakes in Mongkok, ahbeng realised Twins (the group Twins, not the real rojak twins Soler) were also there. Both Ah Giu and Ah Sa were dressed in trackies & sneakers but had makeup on. They're not known to be best of friends, so they were probably working.

No one noticed them except for Miranda. She had seen them in person before, so she recognised them right away. She held ahbeng back from approaching them himself, and to ahbeng's disappointment only asked Ah Sa for a photo. Ah Sa was not overly friendly but wasn't rude either, and turned on her smile for the camera.

Ah Beng then told Ah Sa that he was her biggest fan in Australia, and Ah Sa simply said "Thank you" but gave Ah Beng a genuine smile.

In Ah Beng's haste to have the picture taken nicely, Ah Beng accidentally got mixed up and swapped positions with Ah Sa, thinking it would make a better picture. Unfortunately, Ah Beng got on his non photogenic size, hence the double-chin and winkles.

Ah Beng did not get to meet the celebrity he really, really wanted to meet, the Indian TVBJ guy.

ahbeng's finally back from a 3 week long hiatus which saw him travelling from Sydney to Indonesia for 6 days, then Singapore for another 5 and finally to Hong Kong for 7 more.

ahbeng went to Indonesia primarily because his best friend Simon was getting married, and who better than to be the bestman than ahbeng (who's naturally the best).

Simon cruelly tricked ahbeng into going to Indonesia way too early. His wedding was supposed to be on the Saturday, but he wanted ahbeng to be there for the wedding rehersal. ahbeng discovered that in Indonesian church weddings, the bestman doesn't have to do anything at all. The maid of honor is the one who takes care of the rings and everything else in between.

ahbeng did not want to go to Indonesia so early, but Simon nagged him for weeks, and assured ahbeng that he would be taken care of and entertained. Simon said that he would have all his wedding preparations done by the time ahbeng arrived, hence he would spend time taking ahbeng out for sight-seeing, good food and other cheap thrills (AUD$1 bowling and 50 cent pool).

But Simon's ahbeng's best friend so ahbeng predicted accurately that Simon would not uphold his end of the bargain and leave things to the last minute. So when ahbeng turned up in Indonesia, he went for the wedding rehersal and all ahbeng had to do was to walk down the aisle and sit down on the left side. And at the end, ahbeng had to take a bible from Simon (a church tradition there) and that was it.

ahbeng spent the rest of his time in Jakarta doing absolutely nothing. Simon left most things to the last minute and wanted to visit every auntie he had, so that was what ahbeng did.

Simon and Cicilia's wedding was great fun though. There were dramas in the morning but once that was resolved everything else went smoothly. ahbeng will be making a dedicated post about it soon featuring photos from the wedding.

To make things worse, something Simon's mum bought for ahbeng to eat made him sick and gave him the runs for 7 days, which ruined ahbeng's Singapore time. ahbeng wanted to not only show Miranda Singapore, but to catch up with friends and eat the Singapore cuisine which he missed so very much. But in Singapore, the only sights ahbeng was interested in seeing were clean toilets. ahbeng also had to limit meeting times with his friends to 2 hours as he had to go back to the hotel to lau-sai, and of course ahbeng ate mostly congee (jook), not satay, rojak, roti prata or ice karchang.

So Simon you si-gi-nah... ahbeng gave you 6 days of his life. Why did you have to take 7 more? ahbeng will never forgive you for this.

Other highlights of ahbeng's holiday was spotting Hong Kong celebraties, including old time favorite Sit Ka-Yin, asking Ah Sa from Twins for a photo, and a quick public live performance from Soler.

ahbeng promises there's more to come so please stay tuned.

Many of you have been asking Ah Beng what's going on? Why haven't there been any updates? Why the long hiatus? Where's the Christmas greeting?

Firstly, Ah Beng wishes all his visitors and friends a belated Merry Christmas. If you're wondering why there has been no presents under your tree from Ah Beng, it's because this year Ah Beng made the decision not to buy anything for anyone apart from his immediate family. But Ah Beng is a strong believer that it's better to give than to receive. Hence, insteading of giving presents to his friends, Ah Beng gave himself a super present instead... a Nintendo Wii console.

How good's the Wii? Ah Beng doesn't know. His mum had taken the Wii and now has claimed ownership over it. Ah Beng has been told that the Wii's graphics are not as good as the Xbox360 but the games are different. Bowling and golf from the Wii sports pack is Ah Beng's mummy's top picks.

To compensate, Ah Beng has been playing Gears of War on the Xbox360. Very good game, very tough and while the ending was disappointing it was a good game overall. And if you want to borrow it from Ah Beng, get in line.

But back to why there have been no updates from Ah Beng. If you noticed, most Ah Beng's friends who have their own blog have not been updating, with the exception of Becky (who only blogs about how much she eats). It seems the "no mood to blog" bug has caught up to Ah Beng.

But for a quick rundown of what Ah Beng has done since he last updated ahbeng.net, Ah Beng once again finished another MBA subject at UTS. Ah Beng got his lowest mark ever, which was still a credit, but Ah Beng cannot call himself the 69er anymore.

Ah Beng's still doing salsa lessons. Ah Beng's doing lessons with Miranda now and so had to start from scratch. Ah Beng's instructor is Becky Lee. She doesn't quite understand why Ah Beng likes incorporating ladies styling into his dancing though.

Ah Beng also was Wayne T's best man. Naturally, cause Ah Beng's the best... man. Since Ah Beng didn't take photos, Ah Beng will shamelessly post a link to Jimmy Du's coverage of the day. Keeping Du-ing what you do Jimmy.

More to come from Ah Beng in a later post. Ah Beng will get personal and evaluate 2006, and will announce his new goals for 2007.

Ah Beng's sorry that he has not updated ahbeng.net in a long while. Ah Beng has been busy working on his MBA assignments, organising parties (if you have not been invited there's a reason) and keeping key people in his life happy.

Major Update: Ah Beng's now on Vodafone. As of the 1st of November 2006, Ah Beng told SimPlus to kiss his rear end and headed to Vodafone. Ah Beng's on a cheap $30 plan and is paying an extra $10 on top for a new Sony Ericsson W850i. Of course, the $30 plan doesn't have generous call rates and only $30 credit, but since Ah Beng has been paying for the calls for the past 2 years, he has no intentions of calling anybody.

So you Vodafone people... if you don't call Ah Beng from now on Ah Beng won't friend you anymore!