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Both Malaysian and Singaporean are still badly shaken by this piece news. Foreign registered vehicles can no longer fill up their petrol tank within 50km of the border effectively from this Friday.

Many Singaporean make weekly trips to Malaysia border towns like Johor for the cheaper food and petrol. Now with the ban, many might just stop visiting Malaysia altogether. Many business in Johor is going to be hit hard if Singaporeans decided not to visit. This had many Malaysian worrying about their business.

With the price of crude oil reaching a record high, Malaysia Government have came out creative ways to prevent the subsidized petrol benefiting foreigners instead of Malaysians. One suggestion is to use the Malaysia Identity Card to activate the petrol pump before refilling. But this are expensive to install at every oil station.

Indeed it is a harsh and unpopular decision which must be made for the good of Malaysia. Any petrol station found breaking the rule would be fine and jailed up to 3 years.

The only comforting news is that this ban would only be temporary till the Malaysia Government came out with a better management system for the fuel subsidy.

More information could be on found on The Star.

Is it pure coincidence or is Nuffnang trying to convince more bloggers to join them after the big blunder that Advertlets had made in the beginning of 2008? Starting on the 13th of January 2008, Nuffnang will kick start it’s exclusive program Nuffnang Gliterati for it’s exclusive members.

What is an “exclusive Nuffnang blogger”?

An exclusive Nuffnang blogger is a blogger that has NO advertisements from any other ad network that originates from South East Asia on his/her blog.

How do I apply for the Nuffnang Gliterati club?

You do not need to apply and will automatically be included as a Nuffnang Gliterati as long as you do NOT have any ads from any other ad network that originates from South East Asia. Our crawlers will automatically include your blog in the club within 48 hours.

Note that if an ad from another ad network is placed on your blog at any time, our crawlers will pick it up within 48 hours and you will automatically be removed from the program.

Why You Should Join The Nuffnang Gliterati?

1) Payment Rates for both Cost Per Unique Visitor and Cost-Per-Click.

The less ads a blogger has on his blog, the higher share of voice and the less each ad will have to compete with other ads for attention. Hence, the higher the CTR and the higher the value of that particular ad space on the blog.

That is why for example you will never see 8 different ads on the same page on a newspaper unless it’s in the Classifieds where each advertiser pays a small amount.

As a result of that, Glitterati Nuffnangers will earn 20-40% more than ordinary Nuffnangers.

2) Payment Terms

In the advertising industry just like in many industries, payment from advertisers come from specific terms like 60 or 90 days. In the past, Nuffnang has used its cash reserves to pay off bloggers for campaigns that we still have not been paid for by our clients. Due to the great increase of bloggers in the Nuffnang community, we are no longer able to provide this service for all our Nuffnangers and unfortunately will have to restrict this service to Nuffnang Gliterati.

However, all Nuffnangers will still be paid in a timely manner as stipulated in the Program Table.

3) Advertorial Opportunities

Many bloggers know that while banner ad campaigns earn a decent stable income, it is advertorials that pay the most. Each advertorial depending on the advertiser, commitment and traffic can earn a blogger a minimum of SGD 50 to SGD 1,500 not including freebies that may sometimes be included.

In the past, advertorial opportunities were available for all our Nuffnangers. However, due to the high demand for advertorials and the need for us to narrow down which blogger of the thousands will get advertorials, only exclusive bloggers will now be eligible for advertorials.

4) Community Events

Nuffnang is known to organize the biggest community events ever which range from free movie screenings, lunch meet ups and many more. We find that in many of these events, many Nuffnangers would like to bring guests along with them and we at Nuffnang would like to oblige as much as we can.

As such, 70% of the seats for each event will be allocated to Nuffnang Gliterati AND the guests they may bring.

5) Contests

Contests among Nuffnangers have been something we’ve been having quite a lot with many bloggers winning everything from free meals at Friday’s to mobile phones or even the upcoming contest of a free trip to Gold Coast. With the high demand for these contests, we will give priority to Nuffnang Gliterati with 70% of the prizes to be allocated to them and the remaining 30% to be allocated to non-Nuffnang Gliterati.

6) Innit

Innit is a tool developed and hosted by Nuffnang to add the additional service of driving traffic to any Nuffnang blog. This tool will now only be restricted to Nuffnang Gliterati since it is within our best interest of our community not to indirectly drive any traffic to a future competing network.

The vast majority of the Nuffnang Community is already eligible for the exclusive program so there isn’t much to worry about. All of us at Nuffnang sincerely hope that this new initiative will show how much we do appreciate your loyalty.

Will bloggers start moving towards Nuffnang by serving only Nuffnang ads once Nuffnang Gliterati starts? Nuffnang Gliterati not only affect Advertlets but Grabmyads as well. Have Nuffnang officially started a war with all other South East Asia Advertising Network? Will Nuffnang break any Competition Act in Singapore or Malaysia?

Would you serve only Nuffnang Ads from now on?

Has Advertlets closed their doors after just a year of operation? Their domain had expired and was not being renewed. Did Josh forget to renew Advertlets domain? His forgetfulness had caused a major disruption in the blogosphere. Thousands of blogs could not load and have been redirected to their registrar’s domain parking page.

I have always been a been a believer of Advertlets but time and time again, Advertlets have disappoint her supporters. The first time I encountered problems with Advertlets was when their ads redirected visitors to my blog to another site. Then came the slow loading of the ads which makes my blog load slow as well. And now THIS!

HOW COULD A COMPANY HAVE FORGOTTEN TO RENEW THEIR DOMAIN!

This mistake is going to cost them. Thousand of blogs are affected! Have Advertlets became so proud of their achievements that they have overlooked this? They have lots of explaining to do to their publishers and their customers!

I learn of the disaster from hanneng’s blog. It took me awhile to remove all of Advertlets ads unit. For now, the Advertlets ads unit are not coming back till they resolved this issue and provide a satisfactory explanation to us, the publisher.

Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek had resigned after admitting that he was the man in the widely circulated sex video. He had also quit as the Member of Parliament for Labis in Johor and stepped down from all posts in his party, the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA). Was this a political plot to get Dr Chua Soi Lek out of upcoming General Election?  Did Malaysia just lost a capable Minister?

I was quite shocked by The Straits Times report on Malaysian Minster Admits to Sex Video, Won’t Resign. In fact, his confession had shocked the whole Malaysia. Would the people still support him and his party even if he stayed on? The Minister involved usually would resign or force to resign after such a scandal was out in the open. It was a PR nightmare for both the Minister and his party, especially if the General Election was on the way.

The first part of the said DVD was an hour long showing the 4 different angels. The bed, living area, bathroom entrance and the main door. Second part of the DVD shows the couple having sex. Reports from Channelnewsasia said that the DVD were believed to be CCTV recordings from the hotel suite and was taken 2 years ago.

Was the ex-minister Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek a victim of a political conspiracy? According to the article of The Straits Times, the woman in the DVD was rumoured to be romantically linked to a political rival of Datuk Seri Dr Chua. The Malaysian Police would conduct an investigation into the scandal.

The dirty side of politics.

Just how are you going to enjoy 31 days of off just by taking 8 days of leave? This article from in today’s The Sunday Times got my attention immediately. Since most of us are having a 5 day work week, I decide to share this article with you guys and gals today.

Just take eight days of annual leave, tag them to a few public holidays and you get a series of long weekends that add up to 37 days off work. Even without taking any leave, there are already four long weekends. Singapore Idle, indeed.

It is all thanks to the fluky way public holidays fall next year. Apart from Hari Raya Aidilfitri – a Wednesday – all the days off are close to weekends, so taking an extra day adds up to a four-day break.

The first long weekend is already under way if you have taken tomorrow off, but the next one is not far off.

Chinese New Year falls on Thursday and Friday in February, so by taking an additional three days of leave, you can enjoy a nine-day break.

Click on the image to enlarge (image from The Sunday Times)

With so many long weekends ahead, it is a good time to plan your travel plans early as well. No wonder travel agency are having lots of travel promotions for next year! I practically work only 11 months next year if all my leave are approved. Isn’t that great?

Did the SMRT driver actually saw a phantom ghost jumping onto the tracks of Kranji station on Christmas day or a vision of some sort as he was pulling into the station? Was there really a phantom ghost replaying their own death? This piece of news was never reported in detail on the Straits Times. Just a small write out on their online portal.

TWO MRT stations in the north on Tuesday were disrupted following separate reports of a man’s fall onto the tracks.

At 9.43am, the southbound train service between Yew Tee and Woodlands was disrupted when the train driver spotted someone falling onto the tracks at Kranji station, a Singapore Mass Rapid Transit spokesman said.

The authorities could not find anyone after an extensive search of the area.

Normal train services resumed at 10.53am, but within minutes, it was disrupted again when witnesses saw a man fall onto the tracks at the Marsiling MRT station, one stop away from Kranji MRT station.

The man, believed to be in his 40s, lost part of his leg after being hit by the train and was rushed to National University Hospital.

Source from Dec 26, The Straits Times online portal.

Are they hiding something from US? This piece of news had caught the attention of blogger, Simon Tay of Singapore Paranormal Investigator (SPI). He speculated some possible reasons why the body of first victim was never found.

1. Ghost appeared that indirectly gave “warnings”
2. Ghost appeared that re-play their own death
3. Ghost appeared to take more victims
4. Another guy that happened to fall into the MRT tracks but might have enough time to move himself to avoid the train and climb back up without anyone knowing.
5. Mass hallucination of all those at the platform and video cameras might catch nothing in the tapes.
6. The MRT official got too tired and see wrongly.

What other possible reasons can you think of?

Want to know what it was like to be the first to react to an accident in the Grand  Prix? Want to experience the adrenaline rush of the Grand Prix? Always wanted to attend the Grand Prix but could not afford the tickets? Meet the Race Queens up front and personal? Now you can!

Why should you be seated in the audience seat when you could experience the Grand Prix first hand? Singapore Sports Council and Singapore Motor Sports Association (SMSA) are looking for 800 marshals to be trained for the Grand Prix in Singapore happening from Sept 26 – 28.

Among the 800 chosen ones, 40 key marshals would be send to the Australian Grand Prix to familiarise themselves with the marshalling duties. So who are eligible to apply?

1. Applicants must be at least 18 years old and above on Jan 1, 2008.
2. Have access to the Internet and a valid email address.
3. Be physically able and medically fit in order to perform his/her duties.
4. Be fluent in spoken English.
5. Fulfil ALL training/briefing hours.
6. Be able to commit time for the 4 days of the Event (Sept 25-28 2008).
7. Successfully complete and pass the e-module assessment (if shortlisted) In the case of senior officials, it is required that they complete and pass all other necessary assessments.

So if you think you have what it takes visit www.singaporegp.sg for more details. Closing date for registration as senior officials is Jan 6 and officials is Jan 31 2008. Did I mention that you would not be paid during the 4 days of the event?