Lawrence Kao | Junior Entrepreneur | Nice Guy

Found on Facial Porn - You caught me!

2012-01-30T14:37:00.002Z

Analytics are a funny thing. Sometimes, we do it because we're actually researching. Most of the time, we check them out because of pure vanity reasons. During my experience in advertising, most people like looking at the beautiful Google chart and kind of just take it on the surface, which is funny and then when campaigns don't work, they can't understand why. That's for a different post and certainly not for this blog, mainly because I don't like to talk about boring things and analytics can get pretty boring... holy moly why am I investing so much time into analytics... damn you analytics, damn you.

Okay, basically, I started looking into this blog's analytics today, specifically search terms. Apparently people are coming via Facebook, Google+, etc. but nobody is really coming via Google Search. In fact, in the last month, only one person came to the blog via Google Search. And the hilarious thing, that term was... you guessed it:

Gee golly, if only I wrote about something as interesting as that.

I hate my life.

India, the team and 10 Digital | The Q4 Roundup Part 4

2012-01-24T13:16:00.001Z

I'm not going to lie, this is going to go back into my memory a bit, as it was 2 months ago, but I feel I need to catch people up on what's been happening. In fact, many people mistakenly think I'm in London, which I can completely understand. No, I'm not ignoring you, I'm just not in the country you're in, unless that country is India. With that said, when I do head back to London, don't expect a phone call. I will probably be back to ignoring you then.

This is what it will look like when I ignore you. Me, with a smirk and a wine glass, not answering your phone call.

After flying back to Mumbai with Lewis (you remember him, one of my business partners) in tow, we quickly got back to work. The first thing we had to really figure out was... well now what?

Lewis's drink of choice when making decisions? A fruity mocktail. Yes, you read correctly.

Quick Recap:
We have this online fashion retail company in Mumbai. However, India's laws on foreign direct investment are minimal at best and because of certain laws, Lewis and I aren't really allowed to own the company we helped create. We've always been prepared for this possibility and the three of us also own a consulting company, for this backup plan.

Back:
I think the biggest disappointment is that we really believe in Red Panda. We have sales and we have products consumers want. People like our service and we started picking up some great key partnerships. But there is a little bit too much uncertainty for us to be comfortable with. I mean at some point, we're going to be running out of money.

Christmas in Mumbai is a choo chooing good time.

Karan, Lewis and I got together to brainstorm a few different ideas to see how we can move forward and the two leading ideas quickly became:

1. Groupon Aggregator for India
This again is a product but one with very low entry. We would avoid lots of things such as selling products, retail and customer complaints. We would essentially avoid many of the problems and hassle of retail but still stay in the same space. Further, nothing like this in India exists. In fact, nothing like this exists in many emerging countries (or countries that are established but the 2nd tier cities). Think about it, who's doing this in a small German city?

The idea basically comes down to the fact that we now get too much crap in our inbox. Do I really need another coupon to for botox injections? Well, that depends right? So why not aggregate all of these discount and coupon websites and pre-filter them for each person's taste? I'm a genius right? Wrong, this exists. In the UK alone, there are almost 800 coupon type websites and so people have been capitalizing on this idea for a year or two now. So yes, I think there's massive potential for this idea in areas where it doesn't exist yet.

2. Digital Production Company / Digital Agency
There's always been talk and flirtation from other companies of us turning into a digital partner. Whether it's London agencies wanting us take them into outsourcing hell or Indian agencies needing an injection of digital ideas and talent, it's not hard for us to join the conversation.

The day before we left London, an interesting conversation happened between Red Panda and McCann London about possibly outsourcing the digital work. Let me preface this first. I don't believe anything McCann London says. They are a great agency that helped launch my advertising career and I will always be grateful to them for that, but they are also a bunch of tricky McTricksters. In fact, the entire advertising world is based on layers of truths, half-truths and un-truths. How can you trust anybody? After seeing other people take credit for my work in a blatant lie, I just can't believe anyone. So when McCann came to us, I was happy, but I wasn't excited.

To make a long story short, if you want the long version, well, hit me up on Facebook or Skype me. Better yet, take me out for coffee, I'd love to meet my 12 readers.

The Birth of 10 Digital
The easiest way to generate revenue, which is good because survival is a key component to entrepreneurship, was to start 10 Digital, a hybrid agency where we would pair creative talent from London with powerhouse (and cheap) backend development of Indian programmers. And boy can I say, the response was immense.

We quickly found ourselves being flown to Delhi to have meetings (that's right, I don't pay for my own flights) to setting up multiple conference calls with London. Everyday there was a new opportunity; it felt like there was a huge surge of wind under our wings again. And the biggest thing was that it wasn't that hard. Having had direct experience in the industry we knew exactly what we had to do. Further, we knew exactly what we wanted to do.

For some reason, I'm sticking in irrelevant photos, but you know, here you go. I had bacon, turkey and stuffing for Christmas. Sure, it cost me an arm and a leg, but I had what all you chumps in the US and UK had, but with warmer weather.

Agile and Extreme Programming
A lot of people in advertising the word agile around a lot. Because you know, it's cool. We worked in a really agile manner. Unfortunately, there are some agencies that think agile means less middle men involved. Sure, that's part of an agile team. From self-organizing teams to direct contact with product owners, but it's not just about having small teams for the sake of having small team.

This is almost too true to too many people. I feel for them.

Other companies run 'agile' departments by cutting out documentation, processes and actually create chaos. I've even heard of many agencies send only Project Managers to Agile courses, basically defeating the entire purpose of being Agile (rather than send a department of people that have the same skills, which are no skills, you should send an entire team with different and multiple skills).

I wonder how much money has been wasted since the creation of Agile development?

I think one of the great things about starting up your own company is that not only can you try to do things in a better way. Sure they may not be, but at least you get a shot at it. And I think what's great is that, well with things like agile, it's that nobody really knows what they are doing because every organization is different. So it's a constant work in progress, which is what makes life great.

Hold your horses
Before you go to sleep thinking all is right in the world and 10 Digital is going to be this successful production, let me tell you, it's not. In fact, 10 Digital is mobilizing and changing and evolving and not what you think a normal company is going to be. In fact, it's probably not going to even end up being in Mumbai. A lot has changed and we're still figuring things out, but what's to be sure is that we won't be in India for much longer and the story is far from over. But right now, that's the Q4 roundup. When I get another wink, I'd like to share what's happened in the last month, that is, if you're still around ready to listen.

Peace out.

Day I have no idea + 2 | Back to the L-D-N | The Q4 Roundup Part 3

2011-12-21T12:22:00.002Z

It was strange going back 'home' to London, but it was a great feeling. The city opened its (rare) sunny arms to me as I happened to be in town for possibly the best week of the apparently terrible British summer. There was only one real thing I 'had' to get done, which was renew by Business Visa so with no real plan, I pretty much just hit the town for inspiration. From museums to eateries, I visited many familiar and great places that I missed about London. And of course, my wandering led me to the place I spent so much time, BBH London.

I don't know what it is about the Hare and Tortoise Salmon Box, but it might be my favorite dish in London. It's crazy how fast I can inhale this thing. Furthermore, I bet this isn't the first time I posted this dish on this blog either. I probably have just taken this same picture many times before. Whatevs.

A little too familiar?

It was quite strange, this idea of visiting BBH. I'm quite a sentimentalist but at the same time, I don't want to be seen as one of those people that can't let go (because honest, I can't). I'm not a fan of visiting my old high school, university, anything really until enough time has passed and a natural magnetic attraction brings me back. The problem is, just walking around Soho, I inevitably will bump into old colleagues and so with so many of them asking me to come by, I took a deep breath and strolled into the building.

First of all, I wasn't entirely sure why Matt and Mark told me to come up and take a photo with their awards. I mean, the campaign Big Awards are a creative thing. I don't even think my name is on the entry. Second thing is that I look like I have boobs in this Primark shirt. A prelude to something later perhaps? :)

I have to say, BBH has always been a class act. Whether in London, New York or Mumbai, they are always great to me. In many ways I still feel part of BBH I suppose. I mean, I work out of the Indian office. I have meetings with the Managing Partners whether that's to talk strategy or organize drinks over the weekend. I can surely say life would be more difficult without the black sheep. So walking into BBH was interesting, because everything looked pretty much exactly the same.

Whenever I'm in the Soho area, I have to visit this sex cupcake shop. It's a hoot and a half.

As I was sitting on the couch, super planner Lynsey walked by with a big smile on her face. Her words, "It's like you never left." Shocking, but it's kind of true. There have been times at the agency where I may not see people for months. As other people walked past me, I wondered if they even knew I left the agency, probably not I suppose. After having a short chat with Jase and JB, they invited me to come back and have a chat about my Indian experience. One of those 10 things I learned so far things.

I think it went something like this:

I'm not a huge fan of Bollywood films
Doing a product placement type business ruins the movie watching experience
We've changed the business model a bit to solve problems 1 & 2
I don't care for a billion dollars, how about just a million? Or how about just surviving?
You have to be okay with being poor
It's kind of lonely
There's a difference between selling and making the cash register ring and the difference might be finding loopholes or breaking the rules to get it done
Indians don't trust each other or anything
There's a job for everything in India
I've had many wonderful, sobering and remarkable stories from my first 6 months that have helped me grow personally and now I know a lot better what I fine important in life.

[Note: I found my list. Changes reflected above, boom town.]

National Liberal Club

One of my favorite people in London is my friend Naomi. She's a writer, a video game designer and overall super smart person that you can kind of say anything to. Interestingly, we have virtually no shared friends. In fact, I've never even hung out with her with anyone else before. Also interesting is that she's Jewish and my other great friend Natalie that I tend to hang out with alone is also a Jewish woman. We were asked if Chinese and Jewish people had good relations or not. Apparently we do.

There's virtually been no beef between the two 'peoples' in their modern history that we know of. Instead, stereotypes are typically based on good traits like Jewish people are incredibly hard workers and are really good at business. Or Chinese people are hard workers and are good at math. That's probably I get along so well with Naomi. It's also great because I don't really hold back with her. And for some odd reason, she pushes me in ways to be a bit more bold. She's so good at what she does, I figure if I'm hanging out with her, maybe I'm that good too. That to me is priceless.

So on one of the last days in London, Naomi hits me with an email that says, "Do you want to have a ridiculous night in London?" So like, how can I turn down that invitation. Without knowing what I was getting myself into, I agreed and cleared my schedule. Basically, Naomi was being honored by some organization and it was to take place at the National Liberal Club.

Right, so let's set up the situation.

I had no clothes at that point. Another small thing I did in the US was pick up a bunch of clothing samples so I literally had no clothes with me. In fact, I had to go to Primark (which is the cheapest retailer in Britain) to buy £2.50 T-shirts to wear. Over a week in London, I had one pair of jeans, four pairs of boxer briefs, five T-shirts (4 from Primark), a Tommy cardigan (I knew it would be cold) and one coat. I didn't even have a toothbrush.

"National Liberal Club eh? Aren't they like a pretentious members-only club?" I asked.

"Everything will be okay," she texted back.

"OK…" I replied.

It was a disaster.

At first, they pretty much refused me entrance. What? You mean I can't be wearing Gola sneakers into this place? Talk about being liberal huh? After talking may way through the doorman, who was a total tosser (which means he masturbates behind the counter when you're not looking) I made it upstairs to be welcomed by the group. The room was full of men and women dressed up for a nice dinner Oxford style.

Holy moly I thought. This is ridiculous. I am literally in a Primark t-shirt.

We get into the dining hall and that's where real trouble began. The waiters were being real A-holes. I wasn't allowed to eat until I looked the part.

So the first command they gave me was to put my coat back on. Do you know how uncomfortable it is to sit in a wooden chair with my heavy coat on? It was ridiculous. Everyone at the table was confused. Why are you wearing your coat? Are you too cold?

Seriously? Really?

Look, I'm not trying to break rules here, so I told them I would leave and catch up with Naomi after dinner. But Naomi was the guest of honor. And I was her guest. So now I'm stuck in this impossible position. I had to stay, but I couldn't stay. I couldn't help but laugh the entire time. The members of the organization asked the chairman, who also happened to sit on the board (or something) of the National Liberal Club, to officially complain.

Oh great, that's exactly what I need.

A few minutes pass and the result is, if he can borrow a tie and jacket from the club, then I could stay. I told them, I am not wearing a tie with a T-shirt.

That is RIDONKULOUS!

But that was the only way. So I just thought, let's go with it. They bring me downstairs back to the tosser and he looks me up and down and refuses to lend me a tie. His reasoning was that I didn't have a collar. I know right?! I get sent back upstairs and at this point I decide to just leave. But remember, guest of honor thing, can't. So I sit down and put my coat back on. They end up finding this handkerchief from a back room, so Tosser and Waiters won't realize what's going on and I tie the most ridiculous thing around my neck ever. Actually, I think I did a good job. This one thing actually bothered me a bit. All these other guys are wearing cheap suits, clip on bow-ties and oversized shirts.

Here I am, a dude who can tie bow ties in his sleep, owns tailored and fitted suits and probably a guy the club would love to have as a member and I'm being told I can't do this or that. They found me a suit jacket and once everything was put together, yes, I looked ridiculous, but I also was a pretty damn good sport turning a bad situation into a hilarious one. I introduced myself as a fashion entrepreneur, which nobody could believe and after a few clever jokes, everyone started coming around. Even the waiters couldn't help but laugh and we became friends. Hey, I don't want to look like I came in from off the streets, I'm just an entrepreneur.

You would totally invite me over for dinner at your fancy members only club right?

Massive Respect

One event I really looked forward to was Tove's roommate's (basically this guy took over my room at the flat) comedy night. He's an aspiring comedian and I had no idea how this was going to turn out. The crazy thing is, it was on a Sunday, a day notoriously known for anything but comedy. And you know what, it was pretty darn good. It is certainly not easy to get up on stage and try to make people laugh. The irony is, everyone knows that's your job and that's when things get tricky. Sure, anyone can get a laugh out of someone by using a bit of surprise to their humor, but to contrive such a thing and pull it off as if it were spontaneous, that is just incredible.

Tove even had the chance to play this measuring tape game. She was doing so well and then decided to cheat and that's when the crowd turned on her. Never cheat in a British pub game. You will get owned hard.

This comedian played a psycho ex-girlfriend. Strangely, she was so good, it made her extraordinarily attractive.

Tove moments before cheating at the game. Shame on you.

Some random London greatness

I'm not a Twilight fan, but the concept of this just looks amazing. 550 mins :)

I'm ready to surf.

It was quite runny, like a diarrhea coming out of your butt hole.

Pretty average Saturday don't you think?

Ech-Aye-Double L-Oh-Double U-Double E-En spells Halloween

Somehow, I found myself in London during Halloween. My original plan was to just sit back and chill. I mean, I had to get ready to kick some major butt in a week's time when I was back in Mumbai. Unfortunately, when an entire country of people egg you on for not doing anything big for Halloween, the apparently very American holiday, well you rise up to the occasion. And in my case, hopefully I made a few others rise up too, oh *I'm sooo bad*. xoxo

(Can't believe I'm leaving that in there).

The thing with Americans, or at least my set of friends, is that it's not good enough to buy a costume. In fact, we hate that. They are terribly expensive and a cheap way to get out of a fancy dress party. We always make our own, even if means spending more time or money, to come up with the best costume possible. In fact, last year I wore my red panda kigu suit and it made me sick. I hated it. Two years ago, I was Ash, the Pokemon trainer and I loved it. So that's how I role. I thought it I had nothing in London, what could I possibly dress up as? I know, Britney Spears.

Tove had everything from the shirts to bras to high heels. The only thing I truly regret was that I didn't have blonde hair. I was so mad at myself for that. So without further ado, here's what I look like. I have a feeling these pictures will haunt me for the rest of my career, but you know what, screw it. Hallow-queen is the biggest Halloween party at Oxford, so I'm just doing the same thing as Britain's future Prime Ministers and business leaders.

My mother must be so proud of me. Yuck, look at that chubby chub chub tummy.

Tin Tin here looks like he's going to rape ma later.

Two women ignoring me. I get that a lot.

And instead, they are talking to this guy that's dressed up as a guy. So weird...

Britney can get down at the party as well. I seriously don't understand why girls weren't dancing with me more that night. I just absolutely perplexed. I'm dressed as one of them!

Day I have no idea + 1 | India Commentary | The Q4 Roundup Part 2

2011-12-20T11:52:00.002Z

Why India is India

I suppose if this entire India journey has taught me anything, it's taught me two things.

1. I have some guts to completely go guns a blazing putting my life and career on the line.

2. It's not always a good idea to have guts :)

This is not an unusual sight during your lunch hour in India. First of all, Lewis is sitting on the floor eating rather than sitting at the table. Apparently earlier in the day, the police came asking for bribes or something and then made them take away all of the chairs and tables of the restaurant. You have another guy climbing a tree to fix a light by using a rubbish bin that is secured between a tree and a broken road. This guy has guts too.

Vegas Baby

When I was in my early twenties, I loved to gamble. My favorite game was Blackjack because it was fast. You could go up fast and you could come crashing down fast. I'm not one of those guys who like to sit around, see how slowly I can lose chips. Many people have told me it's why they prefer poker or craps, and sure, I like those games just fine, but I'm a quick hitter and the old 2-1 is perfectly fine for me. I'll be the first to admit, I can't count cards. I've thought about learning and practicing, but that just seems like a lot of work being put into something I don't do often. I highly doubt I will turn into a shark that will be running the tables anytime soon. I also don't have a desire to have a big guy name Little Jim beat the living snot out of me. So instead, I'll play as smart as I can and hope lady luck is on my side.

If you do play my way, then you pretty much know the basics of when to double down, when to pass, understand the importance of first base, yada yada yada. And if you play a lot and win on occasion, then you also know what I mean by the hot streak. It's when things are going well for you and you decide you're going to start laying down the chips in a big fashion and hope your temporary hot streak continues, because everyone knows, if you just lay down $10 chips every time, you're a dead man.

Over the years, I've lost my taste for Blackjack and tend to stay away from the tables. Hey, if we're at a bachelor party in Vegas, I want strippers in my lap, not chips on my table. But if everyone else wants to gamble, I'll 'invest' into your good time. I'll throw down a fun $300 with the expectation that it's bye-bye birdie, but you know, it's your party, not mine. I've decided until I've made enough money to not care about it, or I've learned to count cards, why get involved in a losing game (I wonder if this is why I stay away from relationships too). The sad thing is, even though I've learned this lesson and have applied it to the fast world of Las Vegas, this lesson hasn't translated into my professional life. I didn't realize it, but that's what this is, India and Red Panda is my new Blackjack.

If I hadn't come to India, I would never have witnessed Sudi's incredible hand flexibility.

This was one of the more awesome and awful things I've seen. And I've seen some strange things.

The reason why Vegas is so shiny and bright

Oh I can remember so clearly now when Karan said, "What's great about Red Panda is that we'll know if it can work quickly. With a .com startup, it'll be low costs to entry, produce and test. If it doesn't work, we can walk away without really any damage done." (His words were something like that.)

Here's the quick breakdown of our situation:

-We would develop a website quickly

-We'd test the market with some key items, even if we lost money on them, we'd know if they could sell

-If it didn't work, something else would work

Just before we left for India, we found out a few key pieces of information:

-Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail in India is not allowed

-Duties are a killer for foreign imports

-Funding in India was like .Bomb bubble 3.0

I don't know why I couldn't see the signs, maybe I did but rationalized them the way I do a bachelor's party, but I decided to play the game anyway. Imagine our venture as a trip to Vegas. You know the house is stacked and is against you (India and its government cannot get its act together. Either approve FDI or don't. Stop jerking your country around). The table minimum for this weekend is $30, not the normal $10 (Duties are a killer unless the company bribed India government officials like I'm sure Uniqlo is doing at the moment). It it doesn't work, we could always walk away and not lose very much (Only I wasn't really playing with $300, I was playing with 10s of thousands plus I'm not earning income). And finally, if we do run out of money, our rich friend would probably toss a few chips to keep the weekend going (that is unless you're friend is an old school VC and doesn't understand the web at all but thinks he does because he has a Twitter account and 89 followers).

I highly doubt this is a photo they'd show in the investment brochure, a naked girl taking a poop by a tree. What I can't believe is how quickly I was able to whip out my phone and capture the moment before walking past her. Sorry for the blurry image.

We made the bet anyway

The thinking was, if we went into India early, established ourselves pre-FDI approval, we could gain an upper hand. If these relationships could be established, business set up and ready to go, we could be flying once FDI gets approved. And that's exactly what we did (those last hundred plus days you've been reading about).

We have the makings of a real business. We have logistics setup including multiple shipping companies for emergency situations. We have inventory, enough Red Panda bags and tags to last a lifetime and all the other trimmings. And the biggest thing, we have orders coming in. I suppose what we didn't really think about was once we were ready for India, would India be ready for us?

As our first 6 months past, and it was time for my visa to be renewed the news started reporting rumblings of FDI. In early October, they were optimistic. By late October, it had be halted. In early November it was past. A week later, it was held up in court. A few days later, it was punched through. And soon after, it was completely rejected. What can I say:

That Is India.

I know over the last year, I've gone from ultimate optimistic to sad, disgruntled maybe even incredibly cynical pessimist. Perhaps it's not that bad, but it's hard not to look at this entire funny situation and not shake your head. Honest, I don't care if FDI is passed or rejected. I really don't. What I would hope upon Indians and people who might want to do business is some clarity. Should we invest time, energy and cash or not? Some countries such as Singapore and China have made it very clear. With India, not so much. And so whenever reports talk about twin tiger-dragons or whatever, I will always ask, who's the second tiger-dragon? Because I know it's not India. A tiger doesn't think twice about his decisions. He doesn't tuck his tail between his legs while stalking his prey.

What I love about the whole situation is we went in with a brave face and India called our bluff. Nice playing.

One of the things I love about India are the random animals in the streets, sidewalks... anywhere really.

This goose has some big balls.

"Honey, do you think I should take the Volvo to work today?"
"Oh no dear, I need it for groceries later. Take the Mustang instead."

At least we're smarter gamblers

There have been times in Vegas where I felt like I just can't win. Maybe I was up hundreds of dollars only to see it dwindle down to nothing in a matter of minutes through double downs and bad luck. When I was younger, I would have sadly thrown in my last $40 of chips just hoping the casino would win to end my misery. That's when you know you've hit rock bottom. I mean, $40 is a lot money. It's a nice sushi dinner. It's half a Kindle for Christ sake. And yet in Vegas, you throw in the chips hoping to donate it to the casino as quickly as possible because you feel that defeated. The smart thing to do is to save it, spend it on a show or Bellagio buffet. Thank God I'm 30 and not that kid in the casino. While sitting on the plane heading over to London, there wasn't even that much to think about. I kind of knew what I wanted to do. I just hoped the other gents would agree.

Stay Tuned for Part 3 of our Q4 roundup. Next destination: London!

Inspiration of the day. Love the style.

2011-12-20T07:44:00.001Z

Jake Davis Test Shots: Adrianne Ho from Jake Davis on Vimeo.

Just a visual reference test. Watch the video.

Day I have no idea | California | The Q4 Roundup Part 1

2011-12-06T15:04:00.001Z

I've let this blog slip in the last two months and I'm pretty consistent (I'm always a bitch - wait, do you get that Freaks and Geeks reference?) so you must be worrying, holy crapola, some insane but be brewing. In the past, sure I could get away with not updating people for a month with very little things happening (especially the love life, oh so sad), but this India / Entrepreneurship life is very different making these last two months quite outlier-like months (but not relating to love life, just life in general you silly goose). It also might seem that I've been off this blogging thing and therefore have faded into social media oblivion, but that's actually completely untrue. So, to answer all of my 15 fans as to what has happened, where I've been and possibly what's next, get ready for a 4 and a half hour blogging rant (I'm famous for this right?). And that's just for tonight. I will be breaking this 'incredible' story over the next several days with posts, pictures and thoughts.

I hope this is worthy of a printing out and reading on the toilet, but I'm rusty.

Bitch Please.... I'm from California*

The trip to California was intense. We were finally making a breakthrough with Red Panda. Investment bankers were calling, partnerships were made and we felt like there were so many possibilities with the business. Timing my business visa expiration perfectly with my friend Dara's wedding reception, I thought this would be a great natural break for me to recharge a bit and head back to the streets of Mumbai with some newly discovered vengeance.

*This was quite a popular Facebook Group back in the day when Facebook wasn't crawling with a bunch of losers as opposed to me calling you an actual bitch, bitch.

Strangely, this kind of looks like a typical TV series house, but it's where I grew up. Palm trees and all. The minivan used to be brown though, so not sure what happened there.

I haven't been back to Irvine High School in over 10 years. Everything just looked a little smaller than what I remembered.

You have to be excited for Friday Night! Lots of memories here, from the marching band to the popular kids in the front trying to arrange homecoming decorations. Look at the high production value.

Tove the Tourist

I always say things like: If you're ever in town or want to come on holiday with me, you're totally welcome. In fact, I've said this on many an occasion with my Oxford classmates upon graduation. I said this in a mass email to BBH London when I left the agency. Whenever I say this, although I mean it, I don't actually think anybody will take me up on my offer. I mean c'mon, humans are not wired this way for several reasons:

People are comfortable with their own lives and sometimes find holiday travel a burden
Who the hell wants to follow L-Dog into the depths of vacation hell?
Lawrence has the worst organization skills on the planet, going on holiday with him would mean going on the holiday with myself, but Lawrence is tagging along (I'm a pretty decent manipulator)

All of this is well and good because it made me sound like a nice guy giving me maximum pointage on the friendship scale yet never having to play my chips. That was until I met Tove and she decided to take me up on my offer… twice now. The first trip was when Lewis and I moved to India, well chronicled in this blog here, and this second time is this OC trip.

Having a much younger brother that's way more successful than you is generally a disappointing thing. But then sometimes he takes you to his work place, which happens to be the Fox Lot, and then it's actually a pretty cool thing. This area is designed to look like New York, it was pretty sweet.

I am throwing in this random picture of my brother in action. I've never seen him work until I saw this.

I couldn't help myself, I had to answer the Bat Phone.

Well, if karma is finally catching up to me, then let's do it proper. Let's figure out what to do, from heading hot dogs at Pink's, to hitting up the local Del Taco, to spending a day at the happiest place on Earth - Disneyland.

I took Tove to Del Taco as her fast food visit. I did not do this on purpose, I just didn't have a car and this is the only place that's walking distance. Somehow, this became her favorite eat of America. I'm not gonna lie, Del Taco is great, but I never thought it would be somebody's favorite eat.

The greatest hot sauce in the land. Oh how I love Del Scorcho, that's the black one.

You know, LA's coffee isn't half bad, and the picture of the bird is bad... Michael Jackson's Bad, which is rad.

For the middle of a weekday, the line wasn't too bad. Usually it goes around the corner.

Pink's used to stand for three things: 1. The best tasting hot dogs; 2. A legendary cheap eat; 3. Classic hot dogs with funny Hollywood names. Unfortunately, I think they've slipped on all three fronts. Inflation, over exposure and just super lame names (maybe advertising has changed me) has turned this once fine must-visit destination to a pretty good should-vist but don't have to destination.

I had a lot of food that day. I started to die by the afternoon. But could you blame me, I had two of those things plus some leftovers from the others.

Tove's Sw-English provided plenty of fodder for the night's laughs. Tove, "I want to do 5 guys." Yes Tove, yes you do.

And when she does 5 Guys, it looks like this.

Overall, 5 Guys falls short in comparison to In-n-out. But their fries are miles ahead. If only they could combine to make the ultimate meal.

Dara and Danny's Wedding

I have to say, I was a little disappointed at myself. Not because this was a bad reception, oh no, not at all. I suppose my communication skills or bad time to assume things need to improve. I think the worst part about it is that I know this is a problem for not only myself, but most people and yet I fell trap to this once again. Yikes!

Basically, my visa was to expire the end of the month, something like October 20th (thereabouts). Dara's wedding + reception 1 was something like October 7th and reception 2 was a week later. Now, logistically, it made more sense for me to go to the second reception, which is what I did exactly, except I completely neglected wedding protocol. I mean, you're supposed to be doing the wedding + reception 1 bonanza right? It's the reception that has the room for most (and least due to blackouts) surprises and memories. And if I've learned anything from Tim Riggins of Friday Night Lights is that you should never leave room for regrets or pass up a chance to make some memories. I'm sorry Tim, I've failed you severely this time.

The cool table... or the table I'm sitting at. Probably more the latter than the former.

Our little dessert tray.

Jungle Boogie. A very nice reception. Love the lights.

Once I got back home and started hanging with the KTC gang, I instantly realized the error of my ways. From friends having gaps in memories to just incredible stories, I knew I missed out on something special. Generally a sensible man when it comes to alcohol, this propelled me to go Pearl Harbor (oooo, bad reference?) on the open bar. The formula was the perfect opportunity for me to go from wine to champagne to cocktail to shots to wine to shots to shots to shots to hurl-city. When it was all said and done and I got into a cab (who the hell gets in a cab in Newport) I looked at the clock… 12:30. What the...

Loving the Skull vodka bottle. It's made for Drunken Shakespeare, not that Drunken Shakespeare exists. But if it did, I'm just sayin'.

Two things remain consistent here. 1. Tove's eyes are closed, and that's just classic; 2. I still look 21. I was so happy to find my old grandma blockers that I bought at the swap meet from when I was 17.

I never would have said I missed Rubios Fish Tacos, but once I had them, oh man the nostalgia flooded right back.

The 6 Crew

Probably the biggest surprise and thing I've completely forgotten was how much I missed my old college friends. Does this make sense? Not trying to be insensitive here, but life sort of moves on with or without you. Time goes by so quickly that I forgot how long it's been since the 6 of us have been together in the same room. It doesn't feel this way because we have seen each other individually or in smaller groups since Chris's wedding in 2008, but we haven't actually been together since then (and to be honest, I don't even think we were all together then). After my moving to Oxford and Chris's to Seoul, nothing's been the same.

Then an email came from Chris asking if it was true I was going to be in town. After confirmation (I sound like a pilot or something) he decided to change his work schedule, fly down to Irvine to hang out for two days. Of course the group has grown now with wives, girlfriends and fat cats and dogs, but it was like old times. I even managed to talk a few of them to ditch work so we could hang out in LA the next day (your names are hidden to protect you, haha). It was quite an extraordinary 48 hours. Nothing crazy happened, but something significant.

I had no idea you could pay parking meteres with credit cards now. That is bad ass.

There were a few very good looking ladies outside Sprinkles. Maybe not these ones in the photo here, but just in general.

The nipple candies on these cupcakes weren't very good.

I wasn't lying about the cats (possibly about the girlfriends though).

Boy, you must be getting bored. I will say this, although my friends are certainly no celebrities, they are some of the more impressive people I've ever met. One's an incredible foodie blogger that has reached a certain limited online success (I've had people ask if I know this guy, which of course I gladly take his mini-fame and say if I did, would you sleep with me? Probably unlikely to work. Epicuryan: http://tangbro1.blogspot.com). Two other studs work for Google and pretty much change our world on a daily basis as A-grade developers. Gosh I wish I was like them. Another was a bad ass programmer and decided to import sexy high-end cars. And finally, one friend used to design websites for porn stars. I'm not saying they are all high class, but I am saying they each have a story to tell, and that's what I like.

Happiest Place on Earth
I've never been the biggest Disney fan. There are those people who have every VHS, DVD, Special Edition, Limited Edition, Re-release known to man. I'm not one of those. There are other who always buy annual passes, tickets for friends, 2fers (that's 2 for 1 tickets) for the family. I'm not one of those either. However, I am a fan of innocence and childhood nostalgia. I like the idea that magic can exist and does exist. Now that I'm older, I appreciate 'nice' things a lot more, because it's not always easy to get things from difficult and complex to just plain nice.

This is the reason why I like Disneyland so much. Compared to the other Southern Californian theme parks, and believe me we have the luxury of choosing amongst multiple ones, Disneyland is just the best one (although Universal Studios has really made a great push in my book the last few years). It's clean, safe, charming and sweet. Sure, I'm paying $200 to have fun, but at least it's cheaper than Vegas.

Look who am I?

Of the dozen times I've gone to Disneyland, I've never visited the Haunted Mansion with the Nightmare Before Christmas. It was pretty cool and a very welcome change.

I thought Tove would love Disneyland as much as what I'm showing above. But I think she thought it was pretty good.

Possibly one of the top 3 rides of all time? Not sure...

Stay Tuned for Part 2: Why India is India

Indian Creativity is Lacking, Sorry but True

2011-11-10T08:01:00.002Z

Whenever I talk to anyone about "Creativity in India" I generally get two types of responses that are completely polar opposite of each other. Either they fervently agree with me and hope India will focus on creating more schools and programmes focused on creativity, art and entrepreneurship or they are disgusted by my bigoted comment and think my western views have poisoned my mind.

But because you are one of 12 people that read my blog, here's my attempt to win you over to my side that India lacks creativity.

You know what, my bad. Indian cinema is creative. No Hollywood filmmaker would be able to come up with a murder suspense film called 9/11.

This film poster was plastered all over the busiest street in Mumbai in the center of Bollywood. Will this film break box office records? At this point, your guess is as good as mine. With films like this being produced and marketed, I really don't think I'm wrong here. This is the type of idea that I hear all the time from friends on a weekend at a party drunk (that is if they were trying to be incredibly insensitive or politically incorrect).

The reason I make these statements isn't because I want to cause a stir, they are merely observations. I also happen to observe that America is pretty terrible at math. FACT. But it's not the observation that's important, it's what we will do about it. What can the new companies expect of their students. If businesses who hire graduates are asking for free thinking creatives, then universities will have to respond, otherwise their students will be ill-equipped to join the work force and become productive members of the new business society. This also presents a huge opportunity for schools like Hyper Island to creative companies to come in and capture a large part of this market.

Perhaps, that's what we're up to next? :)

I now understand Ricky Martin a lot better now | BBH London

2011-11-02T17:17:00.001Z

If you look closely, I am not Mark Lewis. Mark Lewis is white, I am Chinese.

Last Wednesday, 26 October, was the Campaign Big Awards. It's primarily a creative awards ceremony showcasing the best creative advertising work in Britain. And most of you well know, I was a pretty crap advertising strategist until I got about average my last year in it.

Even then, I pretty much just rode the coat tails of my friends Mark Lewis and Matt Fitch. But that's what great people do, they ride the efforts and take the credit of other men and last week I did the same. The Google Voice Search campaign won two Campaign Big Awards, a silver for Integrated IT (what the hell does that mean?) and a gold for Outdoor. So there you go, add another one to the list and by all means advertising industry, please keep them coming.

This reminded me or an interview with Ricky Martin when he used to be famous. They asked him why he went from being a successful soap opera star and ventured back into music. His response was that although he loved to act, the payoff was too distant and he missed that during his child star days.

During the height of his fame, all of those women in the crowd wanted him. Ironically, he only wanted that one guy to the bottom left.

As a musician, he could go onto stage, rip off a couple of numbers and the panties (and now we all know men's boxers) would start flying. It's quite ironic that I kind of know what he's talking about. I mean, I'm only now seeing the rewards of (hard) work that probably started almost a year ago.

You know, I'm thinking about taking these awards back to India and making some cheap copies so I can put them onto my desk.

Day 156 - 157 | BBH | Getting ready to fly

2011-10-12T13:49:00.000+01:00

It's been a random few days. With meetings lined up, preparations to head home as well as trying to just get everything in order to leave Red Panda for a few weeks, I've had quite the high anxiety, which sucks because my life is all about being simple and chilling out.

With that said, I think everything is good and I'm ready to go. I also have been thinking very heavily about these everyday blog posts. I just don't think it captures the true feeling of what is happening. The daily and weekly ups and downs of a startup are not captured well enough through a few pictures and captions.

I've thought about changing this into a videoblog, but then who has the time? Further, Red Panda will be going through some very cool massive changes soon and I can predict that it will be killing us to make those things happen. Well, the next time I post, hopefully I'll be home in Irvine.

CALIFORNIA!!!! CALIFORNIA!!!! HERE WE COME!!!!

Day 155 | Khar | Haircut

2011-10-12T13:37:00.003+01:00

I debated for days whether or not if I should get a haircut in the US/UK or in India. In the end, I thought my hair couldn't last another week, so I bit the bullet, printed out a picture of my hair from the past and got it done. The girl who ended up cutting my hair was really cool. I thought she was going to give me her number, but no, she just wanted my business. However, the next day, I went to the coffee shop and randomly bumped into her and we had a really good time. And bam, that's when I got her number. Boom town.

Day 154 | Khar | A sad dog

2011-10-12T13:32:00.002+01:00

Strangely, I haven't noticed this dog before, but since taking this photo, I see him everyday now. As you can see, his front left leg is seriously injured. My heart really goes out to these poor animals. Everyone on the street probably thinks I'm insane for taking pictures of stray dogs.

Night 153 | Bandra | Clubbing, sorta

2011-10-12T13:30:00.000+01:00

Sushma ordered a house wine, they brought it inside a Blender's Pride bottle. Kind of weird. Kind of cool.

We went to a place called Zenzi. The Miami Ad School kids wanted to hang out where the cool people in Mumbai hung out. Some reason Paul thought this would be the place.

Walter (as well as myself) was shocked to see so many Ex-Pats in the place. There definitely was a high concentration of good looking women that night.

It turned out that it was the last night ever as they were shutting down. So there was smoking indoors, crazy amounts of people and just a general lack of rules to the night.

Sonya is confused and I don't blame her. If I had to give a one word review of Zenzi, it would have to be: Weird.

Day 153 | Santacruz (W) | Keymaker

2011-10-12T13:26:00.001+01:00

I love seeing these random huts on the side of the road where people do various jobs. I want to learn how to duplicate keys.

I went to this guy specifically and he wanted to charge me double. I told him I was from BBH and I need a better rate as I've given him plenty of business before and pretty much that's when he realized he's actually been to my house before and helped fix the locks and made keys in the past. Talk about trying to create customer loyalty.

I'm not trying to take a picture of the school girl but the motorcycle police pulling somebody over. I've never seen that in India before strangely enough. I mean, how do you break a traffic law in India? Isn't that every 2 seconds by everyone?

Day 152 | India | Another Week, Another Festival

2011-10-12T13:21:00.001+01:00

Clearly we've entered festival season and it seems like every week is another God being honored by dozens of people in the streets.

I'm not saying you shouldn't have these festivals, but with so many of them happening (especially with seemingly similar rituals, like getting dunked into the ocean) don't you think the Gods are feeling a bit commoditized?

Day 151 | Pali Hill | Chomping on festival food

2011-10-05T15:11:00.002+01:00

Because of Festival Season and the soon to be Diwali, everyone is starting to celebrate. In Calcutta (or the now changed Kolkata) apparently the best looking women come out to eat the best looking food. Guarav insisted I joined them for lunch. It was quite heavy with oily breads, currys and mutton dishes. Unfortunately, I had just had lunch 30 minutes before so I couldn't eat too much. But I crammed as much as could and felt so terribly afterwards but Calcutta street is pretty great.

I could not believe Mandar was wearing a thick jumper. Dude, you realize the sun is shining brightly outside right?

Day 150 | Khar | A random festival

2011-10-05T15:05:00.003+01:00

The great thing about India is the tons of random celebrations and festivals that go on. Does anybody do any work other than plan parties?

With Sonya, a blonde haired German, the crowd's attention quickly went from the show to her. If you're a blonde woman, people will definitely pay attention to you.

Day 149 | Sushma's | Flipkart's Packaging

2011-10-05T15:02:00.001+01:00

Flipkart is one of the biggest success stories in India. Essentially, they are the Amazon.com of India selling all categories from books to mobile phones. I was excited to see Flipkart's packaging as I heard it was supposed to be stellar.

I have to admit, it's really professional as it should be with great cardboard branded boxes, nice shipping labels and awesome bubblewrap.

The book had a 30% discount and came within 5 days, even though it was an international book. I wonder if we'll ever be a 10th of what Flipkart is today.

Day 148 | Baycity | The kids move in

2011-10-05T14:14:00.001+01:00

Carpenters came to our place to fix it up. But honestly, I think they break more stuff than they fix.

This bed was okay, until they dropped it and the nails came loose. Am I paying labor charges for this? Yes.

What's great about India is that you don't need proper plugs for the wall, just cut the end off and stick it straight in.

This part really made me angry. They didn't bring a flat head screwdriver and kept asking me for one. Dude, who's the carpenter? They ended up hammering in the screw and made the glass shelf a bit weak.

Unable to properly build it, I told them to stop. But they didn't, so instead they borrowed my Swiss army knife. At least it gone done.

All of this was done so students from the Miami Ad School could come and live with us. We've been really lucky. Mumbai is the hardest place in the world to find decent accommodation. I mean this blog has mentioned it before some places are horrendous. And if it comes to short term housing, it's going to cost you a lot of cash to stay at anything decent. So the solution was to move in with us and they could help pay for our rent. I mean, we really need the cash, we're poor entrepreneurs.

This beggar would not stop bothering Paul even after he gave her son his frozen yogurt. They just kept walking with us. It was both amazing and annoying, but funny.

Day 147 | Bandra | High Security

2011-10-05T12:59:00.003+01:00

India is one of those countries where there's a job for everything. Whether it's standing there to take your money and 'watch your car' to pressing buttons in an elevator, the entire value chain is covered by somebody. And all of that is great, but I do wonder how effective it is. Every building has multiple security guards and that's generally a good thing. But what I love most is that these security guards find cozy places and comfortable positions to sleep at night. Pictured here is a security guard that has managed to get two chairs together so he can 'comfortably' protect the building during the night.

Day 146B | Paul's Place | Leaving BBQ

2011-09-30T20:06:00.002+01:00

The final night in my room before I move over to Lewis's room. Long story, but basically two Miami Ad-School students are moving in to help pay for some of the rent. Now I know what it's like to be a poor entrepreneur. You'll do crazy things to try and survive just a month longer. I think it's going to be exciting. Hello Mr. Fan, how are you? I'm doing fine Mr. Light. I certainly am going to miss Lawrence.

So I found out this cheapo camera I bought from Mark Lewis's brother has some crazy "FUN" features such as this comic book speech bubble theme. So I started going nuts. First the rickshaw driver was going off, then Sushma and finally Ban. Okay, so they weren't, it was just in my head, but the speech bubbles make it feel like that right?

Everyone at the party thought i was taking pictures of them, and in a way I was. But really, I just wanted to see them pretending to talk to each other like a comic book.

For some reason, Paul's shoulder had something to say. And that tree in the background, yeah, it had a few words for Chico.

Everyone was smiling at the BBQ, but let me tell you, it was not a BBQ. When Paul first told me about it, I imagined ribs and steaks, burgers and sausages. This Indian BBQ, well first off, it didn't even have a grill. Let's call it fine catering next time.

Sanjay got so drunk he dropped his bottle. And as he bent down to grab his bottle, he fell over. Greatest moment of September for me.

Talking in a doorway is the best way to stay safe at a party in case there's an Earthquake.

Day 146A | Walk to work | Props to this lady

2011-09-30T19:55:00.002+01:00

Not only is she balancing a lot of stuff on her head, another woman is passing her a baby to hold. Incredible balancing act.

Day 145 | Office | Vaseline heaven

2011-09-30T19:53:00.001+01:00

Normally, I would only buy a small jar of Vaseline, like the one I have on the left. But since there were a few extra, I took one of the big ones. What am I going to do with that beast?

It's tough to see, but this woman was making a bunch of things she is planning on selling tomorrow. I love people getting their hands dirty and working hard.

Day 144 | At the Office | Coffee is amazing

2011-09-30T19:47:00.001+01:00

Sometimes I make a poor cup of coffee and today was one of those days.

But I found it absolutely amazing this milky film would float in the coffee and stick to the side, back and forth, back and forth. Pretty awesome.

Day 143 | Aura in Bandra | This is what we compete with

2011-09-30T19:44:00.001+01:00

Two thoughts: 1. This is the kind of store we need to compete against. They have thousands of T-shirts and low priced items. Some authentic, most fake and some rejects. Many Indians I've talked to don't mind. 2. I can't believe Bollywood Actors shop in stores like this. You learn something new everyday.

Day 142 | Khar | Action on my street

2011-09-30T19:41:00.001+01:00

When I was a kid, I asked for a bike to ride to school. In India, you can ask for a donkey.

I wonder if this donkey has had a good life or not.

As I came home, there was a lot of commotion and then a woman fainted. That was kind of weird.

Day 141 | Bandra | Adopting some strays

2011-09-25T16:55:00.002+01:00

Today was meant to be a lazy day with lots of rest. But when Krupali called me up for a pet adoption fair, I thought it would be great opportunity to stretch my legs and check out some of the stray animals that I always feel bad for in India. After all, they didn't screw up their country.

There were lots of people at the event, almost too many.

It seemed like it would be a good opportunity for pet food, toys and other product brands to market themselves, but there weren't too many sponsors.

By the time I arrived, all of the puppies were adopted already. Many dogs like this fella sat alone waiting for a new owner.

They had many cats and kittens as well. From what I was told, many Indians don't see cats as good pets or are at least not yet used to adopting stray cats, so if you are a cat lover, then you are in luck. There were tons of them.

Nobody wanted this dog because he had a burn mark on his back. I think if I ever adopt a dog, I'm going to adopt the one that's hurt, because the good looking ones haven't learned enough life lessons yet.

A lot of people liked to poke their fingers into the cage to touch the cat. Yeah, as if it's life wasn't bad enough, now I have idiots poking me. Take me home or just go along your merry.

This little kitten was soooo small. I think I was a little tempted to take a little kitten like this home. With that said, I wasn't that tempted. I barely have enough money to feed myself.

I ended up hanging out at Costa Coffee to read my book. I noticed another little stray, this little girl sitting there.

She kept coming in and out waiting for somebody to give her some money or food. I felt quite bad for her and decided that I'd buy her some fruit when I went to the side market.

Right as I bought some bananas and was about to give her some food, a street vendor whipped up a tasty treat for her. She was enjoying it very much and I was really happy for her. Again, I highly doubt she chose this life. I realize stray girls and boys like this can be annoying and they make you feel terrible, but really it's probably their parents that are to blame.

After the little girl incident, immediately I heard lots of honking and saw this donkey eating food that was spilled in the middle of the road.

Oh, there are two of them! I can understand stray dogs and cats. I can understand kid-beggars. But stray donkeys? Who owns these two?

Day 140 | Lower Parel to Khar | Now that I've given you a tour, I'm going to try and rip you off

2011-09-24T17:42:00.000+01:00

It's always fun getting a taxi driver who thinks you're new to the city and shows you all the sites you've seen many times and then at the end tries to rip you off. Gotta love India.

The "Famous" Dadar station. Which is like saying, The famous Slough station. Wow, thanks for showing me a place where people commute to work.

It's so famous, I had to take a picture of the train station.

Can't remember why this is famous, but I can assure you, it is.

I think this is the Dadar Metro Market? It was actually a better market than what's shown. Lots of stalls and people with various fresh produce.

This little girl has a huge backpack on. I remember those days, having 5 text books in your bag about to break your back. I felt bad for her. She doesn't look like she's having any fun.

Day 139 | BBH | What happens when a baby comes to work

2011-09-23T17:35:00.001+01:00

First all the girls get all crazy and start holding the little thing.

Then a crowd of them father.

Then the guys feel reluctant to join in, but do so anyway.

Day 138 | BBH | Dried Mango

2011-09-23T15:01:00.002+01:00

When I was a kid, my dad loved buying these very salty and sour dried fruits. Most of the time, it would in the form of a plum, but there were others that came through the door. I just remember people, and by people I mostly mean my mom, thinking it was the most unhealthy thing in the world. But I suppose in those days, we didn't have a lot of money so it was the little things that counted most in life.

Today, I saw a guy come in with a briefcase full of dried fruits and it reminded me of my youth. I of course loved to have the occasional dried plum from my dad so purchased some dried mango. Although the Indian and Chinese versions of these dried fruit snacks are quite different, they are similar enough to help me reminisce about my childhood. After having a few, I realized these are probably really unhealthy for me and it will probably be the last time I buy something like this.

Gosh, I'm turning into my mother.

I felt bad for this guy, he just sat there for hours. So I checked out his merchandise.

He suckered me into buying some dry raw mango.

Note: I just had another one and I realized I now know the exact taste. It tastes like this Mexican salt I used to have as a kid, something I used to buy from the ice cream man. It's called Lucas. http://www.mexgrocer.com/brand-lucas.html

Yes, I'm half Mexican, I'm from California.

Day 137 | High Street Phoenix Mall | Ritu Kumar Fall/Winter Collection 2011

2011-09-23T12:13:00.001+01:00

Actress Dia Mirza walked up the stairs saying hello to everyone and turns to me and says, "Helloooo," in quite a funny way. I don't think she expected an Asian face to greet her. Won't lie, she's pretty gorgeous. At that point, I was only thinking about how I could score a date with her.

Karan Rai is the first celebrity to arrive to the show.

Karan, you do realize that's a poster and not real people hanging out in a field right?

Might as well get a picture before things kick off.

Day 136 | Khar | Swan Lake

2011-09-20T14:15:00.004+01:00

As I walked slowly to work this morning, I noticed this special bird poop shaped like a duck / swan. I thought that was pretty awesome.

You know how sometimes you lay in a field and you look up into the sky at the clouds to see what shapes they make. Well, today I learned you can do the same while walking and staring down at the pavement.

Day 135 | Bandra | Can't get a ride

2011-09-20T14:10:00.003+01:00

I was feeling a bit under the weather so I decided to run some errands out in the sun while I had the chance. So I left the office and stood outside and couldn't find a rickshaw for the life of me. Finally, I flagged down a taxi and went to the store.

After the store, I waited for another solid 10 minutes and no rickshaw. I decided to walk in the direction back to the flat until I could find one, only I couldn't. This was the strangest thing ever. I kept walking and no rickshaws and no taxis. I turned left and found lots of shady areas near parks and schools and there they were, rickshaw after rickshaw, abandoned or with people sleeping in them.

I guess when the sun is out, everyone takes a nap. I kept walking and stopping trying to get a rickshaw every few minutes and it took so long I eventually made it home without picking up a rickshaw or taxi. Everywhere I looked, they were turning people down, turning people away or completely ignore you. I used to feel bad that these guys would try to rip you off, I mean they are poor right and need the extra rupees. I'm starting to change that stance. Beggars can't be choosers and during your prime business hours, maybe if they weren't so lazy, they would have a bit more change in their pocket. It was incredible, I had to laugh about it.

Girls: Are you available to take us to town? Driver: No, I don't like making money.

Man: You know, if you went to work now, when everybody was sleeping, you could get so many more fares. Driver: I'd rather shoot the bull and complain about my life in the shade.

Me: I wonder if this rickshaw could... oh wait, nobody's in it.

Rickshaw 1: I don't like driving around alone all day. Rickshaw 2: That's okay, tomorrow, let's meet up and take a nap together.

Day 134 | Bandra | Sunday Brunch

2011-09-18T17:50:00.003+01:00

I've been obsessing lately about the Fox show So You Think You Can Dance catching up on Season 7. It's been bad because I've staying up until 2, 3, even 4 am to watch this show. So as I woke up Sunday for brunch, I just didn't think I could do it. But then I thought, you know, we only live once. You can't just sleep through life right? So climbed out of bed and I was sure glad I did.

Some cheese and crackers. I never had Nutella really, at least not in large quantities but it was really great this morning. I suppose it's great every morning?

Marderi and Aditi didn't want anyone else in the kitchen, fine by me.

We even had bacon this morning.

I didn't realize the Weasley's had made it to India.

If I owned a TV set, this would be great news. Less than 24 hours huh? You know, it's scary how powerful American media influences the rest of the world. If you truly want to be globally famous, you have to do it in LA. Wait, why am I here in India again?

Day 133 | Khar (W) | Armcycle

2011-09-17T19:59:00.001+01:00

As I was waiting for a rickshaw, I saw a dude with an Arm/Hand operated bicycle. Now, this isn't exactly uncommon or course, I've seen this type of thing before, but what really made me curious was that this guy had a completely messed up right hand. Sometimes, beggars will have mutilated limbs or burned skins (sometimes by their own doing other times not) and I think this guy might have been the case. One time Paul took a picture of a guy in one of these and he demanded a tip for Paul's photo.

I only saw him briefly, but I think he had two good legs, so why this Armcycle when he only had one hand to control it with? Why am I calling it an armcycle? I'm a bit disappointed I couldn't whip fast enough to capture him coming towards me.

Not going to lie, I wish I had one of these things. It would speed up my morning commute or at make it more fun.

Day 132 | Cyberweb and India | asian hair crazy guy

2011-09-16T16:57:00.000+01:00

Everyone once in a while, I do a little vanity digging and today was for this little blog here. Looking at the analytics, I actually was able to drive 4 click throughs for a really hot search string: asian hair crazy guy. I'm ranked 6th in Google Images. I am certainly proud.

I have to say, my hair isn't as crazy as some of these other guys, so I have a lot of crazy catching up to do.

Last night, I enjoyed my dinner at quite a funky little restaurant in Khar called Fellas. I like eating there, but I haven't done so in a while because of two reasons: 1. Their delivery times aren't very fast; 2. I live next door to them and just think it's cheaper to eat at home. But, they do have good things going for it from a nice TV set for sports, a chilled atmosphere and healthy food options. You can see why I like it.

Loving the vintage Hollywood theme.

Bob Marley posters won't ever hurt.

You know, I thought this Capsico sauce tasted fun... hey wait a second?

One of those restaurants that keeps dogs around. Very California.

And this morning was the beginning of Friday free day so I decided to kick it off at Cinnabon. That was a mistake. If you eat an entire one yourself, your soul actually dies a little bit. Oh man was I hurting this morning. But I'm glad I did it.

Boy do I wish I ordered the little guys.

It was awesome af first, but it quickly became a disaster.

These kids were playing some kind of game like, throw rocks at the wall as hard as possible.

I don't understand these Mumbai road block at all. Some terrorist blows something up (even if it's in another city) and these cops have to put up barriers. I was even stopped a few weeks back, yeah nice one buddy, you caught me and my umbrella considering I was in a rickshaw that goes 10 mph. You know, if you just avoid this major road Linking Road and go through the side streets of Bandra, then you don't get stopped. Even I know this and I've been here for like 10 minutes. What are they thinking? This is the reason why traffic sucks in Mumbai.

Day 131 | India | Getting Advice from Indians

2011-09-15T18:05:00.001+01:00

One thing that's great about Indians is that they love to give advice. Have you never tried Eidley (no idea if that's right) or 3i4oru3nc (I'm not going to even try). And I love it, because I will go and try it. But there's always another Indian right around the corner to recommend a better place, or another place, or this thing or that thing.

The conversation started with Bash introducing me to South Indian food.

It ended with Vishal and Bash betting if the street down the road had a restaurant or a stall. Loved it.

On another good note, USA beat Russia in their Rugby match. Woo!

Day 130 | India | Land of Photoshop

2011-09-15T18:00:00.001+01:00

Today was a day spent entirely looking at my screen nonstop. It was only 9 short months ago when Red Panda was staring at each other in the face thinking, who's designing our website?

With the three of us having full-time jobs and not enough design skills between the three of us to crop a bean from a piece of poo (yeah, I can probably do that now), we were stuck. So we shelled out £200 to get a website smashed out.

Well, today we sit here and we no longer need to spend that kind of cash. Not gonna lie, I never thought I'd need photoshop skill to start a fashion retail company, but necessity breeds... okay I can't say anything smart. I tried to think of something, can't do it.

Sexy submenus... (and by sexy I mean pretty normal, but that's the point right?).

Day 129 | My Desk | Ticket Booked, it's OC Time Bitches

2011-09-15T17:52:00.000+01:00

If I was the President of the United States, this would be interesting. But I'm not, so prepare for crap itinerary.

People to see:

Elaine King - I was really sick one year and went back home for 5 days. Being a doctor Elaine was going to treat me, but then, oh wait, it's my day off. Can't do it. Thanks Elaine, thanks. Ryan, Scott, etc. - My Final Fantasy 2 friends. David Sun - 163 richest man in America, yeah why not, let's throw him onto the list. Fran Hazeldine (to lure our way into BBH LA) - Tove is obsessed with checking out BBH LA, I'm sure she wants to work there. Aunt Jenny and Stitch's - You know, doing some work. Scott Lembke - My brother's co-worker. I figure he's in the top 10. Mr. A and IHS - Going back to the roots. Veronica - One of those people that you know are better than you in every way. Ryan, Jeff, Ping... - Gotta do something with the boys. CP and the gang - Probably wedding and karaoke. Robbie and Mike - They'll be around for something.Jitin - Hopefully he'll get off the couch and meet me.

Talk with Luke the Tax Man - Yeah, that's going to be a fun meeting.

Things to go to:

Disneyland - Happiest place on Earth.Hollywood Blvd - More like Bollywood Blvd.Mann's Chinese Theater - I guess.Santa Monica Beach or some other beach - I don't get enough beaches in my life. Melrose / Beverly Hills - Love the TV shows (not true) so why not?UCLA or UCI campus - Learning is yearning (doesn't make sense).USC Football - A game would be nice.Baseball or Bball tickets? - Angels, nope... NBA, yeah right. Movie at Big Newport - Moneyball.Universal Studios - Probably not enough time.Costco - I need to buy some vitamins. Walk the dogs - I actually miss those two quite a bit. Wish I could spend more time with them. Show at Hollywood Bowl/Walt Disney Concert Hall - Random, this is a Franklin thing. FOX Lot - It's good having a family member working for Rupert Murdoch. The Grove/Farmer's Market - Everything in India's a farmer's market.Apple Store - iPhone 5?

Things to eat:

Del Taco - A must.

Chipotle - A must.

BJ's - hehehe

Father's Office - This is a maybe. It's cool, but we'll see.

In-n-out - Every time we come home, this is stop number 1. I suppose why break tradition?

Philly's Best - Give me that goooey cheese.

Cut/Mastro's - Can I afford this now? Take it off the list.

Pink's - Juicy hotdogs.

Jamba Juice - White gummybear.

Langer's - My brother is introducing me to this place.

Roscoe's - I'll probably gain 5lbs by now.

Swingers - Love the film.

Chinese Breakfast, 99 Ranch - For 100 we try harder.

Day 128 | India | Mid-Autumn Festival

2011-09-14T16:25:00.003+01:00

Sometimes the problem with being international is that everyone expects you to celebrate every holiday. With western holidays like Christmas, 4th of July and President's Day to Indian Ganpati and Eid and now Chinese ones like Mid-Autumn Festival, it's like there's always something going on. I suppose learning about all these different holidays and experiencing the food and traditions is why I do what I do. My mom sent me an email first thing on Monday to remind me of the festival and sent me these pictures. I still find it weird when my parents send me emails that I would normally receive from friends or co-workers. But it was certainly nice of her to send.

I think I know where this photo album is going.

Hey look, it's like a painting of the moon. Get it? Clever.

Balloon or oddly shaped gigantic lollipop?

Is he even going to fit?

Who the hell would roll dough that far up the table?

We saw this already.

Quidditch.

There are better ones.

I like the other guy better.

Fatty.

He's got a banana in his cereal bowl.

Reminds me of some kind of crop circle symbol.

Nice painting buddy.

That's a little small to play volleyball with.

So instead, they turned the game into crystal ball reading.

If only my lamp was as bright as that.

Well, at least now it's about the size of a volleyball.

Almost there.

Is this Luke Walton's younger brother?

I bet the Phoenix Suns are taking notes right now in preparation for next year's pre-game pump up videos.

"Imagine if we had players do tricks with basketballs, but animated a sun over the basketball, so like they're doing tricks with the sun. And you know, we're the Phoenix Suns, so like, it makes sense!"

It's almost like ET.

A little heavy right?

2 minutes ago, the moon and this guy was in a shoving match. 2 seconds ago, this guy cut the moon up... Bitch.

I once had a T-shirt that looked like this.

Day 123 - 127 | Bandra Lonavala Juhu | A range of peace to chaos

2011-09-12T14:45:00.003+01:00

Wednesday | Day 123

We've seen it before, a caravan of people carrying a Ganesh statue down Linking Road.

But this time, they thought it was cool I was taking photos of them, so they gave me some sweets.

Thursday | Day 124

It had been raining so long, I've forgotten to look up. This used to be a problem when I studied at Oxford. It was such a beautiful university but because of the rains, you never looked up. And you would miss great architecture.

And similarly, I didn't actually realize how much green was on my street. Tall trees, big bushes, it's actually quite cool.

And when you look up, you see other things too, like tall buildings.

I wonder how it would feel to live in a light blue colored building?

Living on the top floor of this place would be pretty awesome right? I wonder if they got a pool up there?

Friday | Day 125

It's never good when it's late and you find three firetrucks outside your building.

Luckily most of them were just hanging out, so it was fine.

Saturday | Day 126

On our way to Lonavala we saw a bunch of run down housing. Not sure if they are slums, but if they aren't, they aren't much better.

This billboard makes a really good point.

Magnalal's and Purohit's are two big Chiki and Fudge shops, which is what Lonavala is famous for. But Maganlal's has franchised itself so much there are probably 10-20 franchises on each street. In this photo, on the left, you can see two Maganlal's. No, they aren't the same shop. They are separate. Crazy right?

I was a huge fan of the Chikki's. I ended up buying two boxes.

The fudge is really popular as well, but I didn't buy any. You can sample all of it, it's probably so cheap to make they don't care at all.

Once you start, it's hard to stop. They are very addicting. In fact, I'm eating some now, just because I saw these damn photos.

There's a truck stop style restaurant where they use half chairs half bed type seating arrangements. This place is not cheap. But you can have some hookah with your meal, which apparently is really popular. Everyone was smoking it up.

Delicious quail. It's like a small duck. A bit too much sauce though. I prefer the purity of a bird.

A really nice little girl who helped us park. There are a bunch of kids who bum rush your car and want you to have some corn and tea at their parent's shops. It's quite cool actually.

Lion's Point. It was pretty windy and cold. In fact, it felt like London. If only Mumbai's weather was always like this. (I realize I'm standing in a really weird way.)

What are the camels doing here?

Karan talked me into buying some fried vegetables. It wasn't half bad.

We made our way to this huge dam, which was the other Lonavala attraction.

This is clean right?

At the top of the dam.

Sunday | Day 127

Linking Road was quite the party.

They wouldn't let me walk past without getting me in the face either. It wasn't as bad as "An Idiot Abroad,"

People on the street (and companies) were giving away free snacks such as popcorn, bread rolls and water.

Tons of small and large groups of people get together and go through a series of rituals and praying. Randomly, every Ganpati has rain, no matter how good the weather is at the beginning of the day. It's just how it is.

The kids love it and go nuts running into the water.

These guys were clamoring me for a picture.

These kids were a bit more shy, but I bet in a few years, they will be forcing me to take a photo of them too.

I got super wet.

This old dude on the left had a statue on his head for the entire 5K walk. He was dancing and singing the whole time and never needed to hold the statue. So when he made it to the beach, naturally he went nuts. These guys got super dizzy after spinning around. It was quite funny.

A smaller statue. But I actually like the small ones.

This guy was crazy. He would not stop dancing and even rushed me and grabbed my arm and wouldn't let it go. I won't lie, I was a little bit afraid.

Oh, you didn't need to build a school in my name. Thanks though.

Day 122 | India | I have Vaseline in my eye, but that's okay right?

2011-09-06T16:54:00.002+01:00

Yesterday, I thought my contacts were getting a bit dry and so I took them out to soak. As I lay in my bed, I thought to myself, wow, there's lots of debris just floating around in there. It was quite uncomfortable. So much so that it kind of feels like I got punched in the eye.

Around 6am, I woke up and that heavy feeling was still there. I fell back asleep and this morning, I took a good look and couldn't figure out the pain. Strange things go into your head when sensitive areas like your eye and your, well you know, private parts are hurting or swelling or whatever, and this was no different. Finally, I think I found out what happened. I think at some point during the day, a mosquito had a snack on the inside of my upper eyelid. Damn, how did it get there? Good effort friend.

Everyone kept saying, put some ointment on it... like what? I don't think this kind of thing exists! So, I'm rubbed in some Vaseline around my eye, but inevitably I can feel it's on my eye too. Now, I know that Vaseline is edible, having worked on the brand for a total of 2 days. So I figure, it's okay if it's on your eye too right? And if this does work, we have a new use for the miracle petroleum jelly.

Sometimes being a bird would be bad ass. You wouldn't care what you ate.

Day 121 | India | Ganpati Day 5

2011-09-06T07:53:00.000+01:00

They say two things are for certain: death and taxes. Well those people who say there are only two things that are for certain haven't lived in India. Because everyday at around 6pm, loud drums, singing and dancing happen during Ganpati. Welcome to Day 5.

As I was walking home, I noticed there was a Ganpati happening up the street so I decided to check it out.

Elephant statues of all sizes are available. I've been told it comes down to social status and wealth. Clearly, the richer you are, the bigger the statue and the more jewels might have.

Quickly from behind us, a group of crazy young men started running our way!

Got to give it to them, rain or shine, they are dancing and screaming like no other.

Soon, I got engulfed in this righteous celebration.

All of them wanted me to take their picture. I've noticed this thing, Indians loved getting photographed.

And none of them would leave until I shook their hands. Nice of them.

Day 118 - 120 | India | It could have been so much better

2011-09-04T18:24:00.000+01:00

I was actually waiting for a really exciting blog post for today. I was going to head down to this giant Ganesh statue, fight through hundreds if not thousands of people and really experience the craziness of an Indian religious event, but Turkish Airlines ruined it.

The first thing everyone should know is that Turkish Airlines makes the worst commercials ever. They are so bad that I think they would have been better off using 10-year-olds for a brainstorm to come up with their idea than whomever they used (unless they actually used 10-year-olds in which case, I'm sorry, but I highly doubt it).

Now in places like the US or Europe, they actually use mega sports stars to promote their brand and it's not as bad, but it's still terrible mostly because they use the same jingle in the song. Sorry, but Kobe and Messi just went down in my book as sports stars because they represent the airline. The words to the songs are:

"We are Turkish airlines... we are eternally yours... we are Turkish airlines... we are eternally yours."

Like seriously? What the hell is wrong with you? Why did you repeat the same line twice? And why are those the lines in the first place? Did you honestly pay an agency USD $200,000 to make that? Sometimes, I am so glad I left the industry. But the ad isn't the reason why I'm mad. I'm mad because Turkish Airlines had an accident in India and has now grounded all the planes.

No, I get that I shouldn't actually be mad. The people stranded, they should be mad. Paul's supposed to be on holiday, he should be mad. Dan's supposed to be heading back to Australia, yeah, he should be mad. But me, well, I think it's just the fact that every time I think of the airline, the song comes into my head and I get a little irritated.

So Paul's driver Antony was supposed to take me to see Ganesh but because of the plane situation, he had to be on standby the whole day, so I instead wasted the day watching "Supernatural" and sitting at the office not working but surfing the net. No, it wasn't actually a waste, but I certainly didn't move the business forward. I hate myself.

Friday Night

Sometimes when I tell stories, people get glossy looks in their eyes. Luckily, it wasn't me this time :)

Pearl is posing, Sushma is pretending to listen to something interesting from Pearl. What a sham those two are.

Sam and Rohan enjoying a drink together. Sam's a great host by the way, will not let you not have a drink in your hand.

70s song or 80s song? That's the question.

Isn't it obvious? Both!

The excitement caused massive spillage, which also gave me the opportunity to take some butt photos.

Eventually glass was broken and the night ended.

Saturday

For some reason, our flat is always really moist to prevent mold (and to be honest, I ain't doing a very good job) we have to open the windows and turn on the fan all the time. But still, my suits and sweaters get destroyed all the time. One of the things I hate about India.

A Ganesh party in the street.

The caravan was pretty long and lastest a long time.

Some cool drummers.

Sunday

At the butchers. You know, 1.1kg of tenderloin only cost me Rs 260, or like $6. That's extraordinary right?

Day 118 | India | Love this man

2011-09-02T18:43:00.000+01:00

On my way to work, I saw a man on a donkey.

So I sprinted up the street to catch up to him.

I want a little dude to ride to work.

Day 117 | India | Like Oxford Street during Christmas

2011-09-02T18:40:00.000+01:00

There were tons of lights put up on my street. When did that happen?

I imagine it's for the Ganesh festival but...

... As I walked down the street it looked like an advertising thing.

And across the road, they were putting up political propaganda posters. Well, I did appreciate the bright lights.

Day 116 | India | Bodyguard with Vicky, his mom and Vandana

2011-09-01T16:37:00.000+01:00

For the past two years, Salman Khan puts out a big blockbuster for EID (Muslim holiday). This year, was the film Bodyguard... I hate to say it, but no subtitles means I won't be attending another Hindi movie any time soon. At the same time, it was good to pass out some Red Panda flyers while we waited for the film. I hope those 10 people I talked to actually visit our website.

We went to dinner afterwards at Bungalow9. It was really great.

Vicky claims two things: 1. I talk about him more than any other outside person on this blog; 2. I take the worst pictures of him. I'm okay if both are true.

Hey, there I am!

Day 115 | India | Red Panda goes luxury

2011-09-01T16:24:00.002+01:00

During the early days of Red Panda, we had many debates over whether or not we should go luxury, in some cases we wondered if we should only go luxury ala Net-a-porter style. I think without a rich husband or the right contacts in the luxury world, it was always going to be a difficult company to pull off. Further, it just meant that we wouldn't be the celebrity A-list look company that we are today.

So the next question we asked ourselves was whether we should go luxury at all? Would people find it jarring that you can have a Jansport backpack placed next to a Burberry bag? But most of these debates came when we were silly people without a real company. I suppose at some point reality took over and what is reality? Well, you do whatever you can to make it and you constantly define yourself by the actions you take rather than the vision you have talked about.

I'm sure we will continue to debate over this issue, but when Karan got wind we would be able to bring in John Galliano and Chrome Hearts Eyewear onto our website, I won't lie I was very excited about it. Whether we stay this way or not, on Tuesday, well, we went luxury.

I have to admit, the more I look at these Chrome Hearts sunglasses, the more I want them.

I wonder if I'd get more girls by wearing expensive eyewear?

Bollywood Legend Amitabh Buchchan wears these. They seem quite trendy for him.

Super funky tips, love them.

Hopefully our Red Panda fans, the few that we have, we come to appreciate what we're doing and how hard it was for us to source these sunglasses.

I can totally picture a wealthy liquor baron wearing these John Galliano's.

We also had a nice dinner at Paul's place.

Arvind listening to the stories of BBH London.

Paul and Russell discuss the results of a difficult meeting (probably not really).

Getting ready to eat... Yum!

Day 114 | India | Deepika Padukone

2011-09-01T15:55:00.000+01:00

Sushma and I were talking about famous people that went to your school. It's quite interesting to hear about the differences and similarities of celebrities of different countries. Her classmate, is the incredibly hot Deepika Padukone. Even as a student, Deepika apparently stood out from the crowd. It didn't matter if it was in street clothes or a sports uniform, you could just tell she was a bit better.

Deepika is a Top 5 Lawrence Kao's future Indian girlfriend candidate.

There was some more shit written here, but I was asked to take it down. I'm okay with that.

Day 110 - 113 | India | Photo shoot to big dogs to tiny ants

2011-08-28T18:14:00.000+01:00

I'd like to make a few comments on the business, but I just don't know exactly how to put in words what's happening other than the events themselves.

A lack of technical resources to not only get the website looking sexy, but just getting website to a standard we're happy with. I think I've just been staring at it too long, but nothing feels like it's really changed in the last few weeks.
Marketing needs attention and cash, but where do we get either of those? Who's got the time to hire new people?
As we start to carry new and more inventory, how do we actually expand in a way that doesn't make us go crazy as a company?
Lewis is in London (and it doesn't seem like he's having the fun he needs).
Karan is in Spain (a deserving holiday break from the madness).

With that said, the business is still going fine. Orders are coming in. Products are getting updated and uploaded onto the website. And I'm watching more TV than I've ever watched in my life... Hello Smallville Season 9.

Day 110 | Thursday: Photo shoots used to be harder, it's like... not anymore

Things like this cappuccino used to be the norm. Luxurious norm, but norm nonetheless. I decided to treat myself to one right before a great meeting we had with Oyestyle.

We just got some new products for the film Mere Brother Ki Dulhan. What does it mean? Not sure, something like my brother's bride or something like that. Hmmm, family, weddings, yeah sounds like a Bollywood film.

I remember the first time we did this. I was a bit nervous and unsure of things. This time, we hardly even talked as we set it up. If this fails, at least I can be a PA for a photographer I suppose.

Raj was standing outside, so I dragged him in to take some photos. Thanks sucker.

Day 111 | Friday | With people dragging their feet to the club, I decided to walk the streets of Mumbai

As I walked past this "shed" I heard voices and realized people were living in there. It's times like this, I realize I don't actually have it that bad.

This is a club called Shiros. It was retro night. Do you know how much I hate dancing to retro music? Further, retro music means retro people, why am I here again?

Welcome to 1970... or not 1970. The DJ couldn't even mix the songs correctly and every time the crowd got bored, he would hell, "Are there any Michael Jackson fans?" and then play the most random Michael Jackson song. Yeah, seriously, what are you saving Billie Jean for, you're great exit?

Fairy lights to distract you from the fact that the place isn't very packed at midnight. Wow, I'm bitter.

If you break a glass and the janitors come over to clean it up, you should always grab his broomstick and pretend it's a microphone.

Day 112 | Saturday | God peed a lot today

The water went up to my calf. Not as bad as New York.

It was actually quite a lot of fun.

Hey Mr. Cow. At least somebody had the decency to cover him up.

The next holiday coming up is to honor the Elephant God Ganesha. So for the next several weeks, people will be marching the streets, banging on drums and causing traffic jams. India doesn't need infrastructure.

Rain won't stop their spirit, I love it.

Probably the coolest thing I've seen in a long time. Only Rs 30 per ride!

Day 113 | Sunday | Ants are really cool

I found a bunch of ants in my trash can. As I was cooking dinner, I got curious as to wear they were coming from and found a tiny hole in my wall. It was awesome. I decided not to kill any of them. As long as you just want my trash, go crazy ant guys. Then there was a dead ant that was being hauled away, but because the hole was too small and tons of ants were coming out of the hole, this one ant ran around for 5 minutes confused. So I took a video that I will post soon. In the end, he wasn't going anywhere, so I had to get rid of the dead weight. But I swear, I didn't harm a single ant that night.

Day 109 | India | Watching men work

2011-08-24T18:32:00.000+01:00

Today was originally a busy day with tons of meetings all over town (and even outside of town).

Karan thought it would be cool for us to deliver a shipment on our way to the meeting and I agreed. But on the way, we met some untimely potholes. Even to this day, I'm still surprised by how these puddles can form so quickly. It didn't even feel like it rained that hard.

We're trying to find the office, but had a bit of trouble. You can't tell, but it's raining right now. Yeeeek! (What the hell is yeeek?)

I watched these guys work for quite some time. It was interesting to see them carrying buckets of (or more like plates full) of this tar stuff. I don't actually know what it is. I couldn't take my eyes off them.

And we all know in a few weeks, if there are more rains, the roads get ruined again. I really wish I had an answer that could help them solve this problem a bit more permanently. I suppose, it's not my cause to get involved in.

Day 108 | India | You know those same people you always see on the way to work?

2011-08-24T07:34:00.000+01:00

I've talked about how getting to work is always quite a adventure. Although it's less than a 10-minute walk, it always includes weaving through traffic, motorcycles and rickshaws. Dozens of horns are beeping at you and you never know if there's going to be pouring rains or the sizzling sun. However, after taking this journey many times, I've settled on one specific way to get to work. As a result, I'm always passing the same "people" on my way to work.

Being the open person I imagine I will soon be saying hello, shaking their hands (or petting their heads) and giving them a friendly smile very soon.

I pass this cow every morning, rain or shine.

As the rains died down, the dogs came out to pl... er... sleep. Everyday, these knuckleheads are laying right around this area sleeping the day away. Oh man do they have great lives.

As I was heading for lunch, I noticed this guy hanging on the building next to mine. I'm sure he was going to put up a sign or clean the windows or something, but at the time he was just hanging there chilling out. I'm not going to lie, if I was up there, I wouldn't feel all that safe.

This reminded me of when I was in London, where a guy had a really long stick to clean the windows, instead of dangling from a rope.

Reference to the London Version:

Okay, so maybe you can't get as high up as I had remembered.

Day 107 | India | Krishna Janmashtami Holiday

2011-08-22T17:46:00.000+01:00

I'm going to admit something terrible today, and it's that I'm quite smelly. In fact, I hate myself right now. It's not even fun. You see, I thought today was a holiday. I mean, it is a holiday, a Hindu holiday but I thought it was one where people stayed at home. If you're hanging out in the streets, you see kids running around, large groups of teenagers acting cool and marching and stuff, it's madness. And annoyingly, it stops traffic. Why don't they organize it? I mean, it's a holiday after all. You know this will happen.

Being a holiday, I didn't plan on working as long. I thought a short 6-8 hour work day, get the things I needed to get done out of the way, and go home and rest (for some strange reason, I've been feeling mega tired, even though I always get plenty of rest, go fig). As I took out some jeans and a T-shirt I haven't worn in a long time, I realized they smelled, well a little off.

Side note: This is one thing I hate about India. I know it's not just India, I've heard stories of this in other places in South America as well (basically anywhere it's humid) but your clothes don't dry properly. Further, if your old clothes, jeans, jackets, etc., always check them because chances are, there's mold on them. Yeah, that's how it is. One of the top 10 things I will remember about India, this just happens to be a bad one.

So I thought, I'll give these damp smelly clothes a shot. Nobody will be in the office, I'll wear it once then toss them into the washing machine. Big mistake. Once I get into the office, everybody was there. It's one of those holidays like Columbus Day where we recognize it, but don't celebrate it I suppose. So here I am, a little over 8 hours later (damn, I missed my prediction of 6-8 hours) feeling terrible and smelly. Sometimes, I hate myself and decisions I make.

Kids stand on each other's shoulders for this holiday and make a huge pyramid. It was quite impressive. There's a white guy on the right side filming. He must have thought it was impressive as well.

As the top kid came crumbing down, all the other kids got mad and excited at the same time. But seriously, what did you expect was going to happen?

A truck full of youth jumping out of the truck to join the fun. The driver got mad at them. Again, did you not expect this to happen?

Not exactly sure what the shirts are about. It's not for that protester guy is it? He's ridiculous.

Day 106 | India | Hanging with the Dhirs

2011-08-22T14:23:00.000+01:00

These days, work has gotten a little monotonous. My sole purpose heading into work was to write film descriptions, photoshop images and upload them onto the website. Fun! Because I knew I'd get bored pretty quickly with this rather mundane job, I texted an acquaintance I met a few months back at Vicky and Vandana's wedding.

However, like planning to meet up with a few of Vicky's other friends, they had to cancel at the last minute. Hey, why break tradition I say. So with nowhere to go and food not defrosted yet (well, you know, I planned on eating out) I called Vicky to make up for this and he obliged.

In some ways, it reminded me of the days at Oxford when we would come up with crazy ideas. Some were for Red Panda, others were for Cause Entertainment. And a few were just completely random. One thing I have noticed is that the ideas seem to be a little bit more informed. We are four years older now after all. And I think with time, our talent and experience is more mature. At the same time, we've also become a bit more cynical and in some cases, less bullish, and that's not a good thing.

This rickshaw driver tried to rip me off by asking for two extra rupees. So instead, I said, "No, you give me two rupees." He was confused. After threatening him and looking up the rate card, he gave up, gave me two rupees and drove off. Don'e mess with L-Dog (ruff ruff ruff ruff... that's me barking).

We're thinking about selling the Hrithtik Roshan Just Dance bracelet. Would you buy it?

Vicky chillin' like a villain.

Vandana is embarrassed. Thanks for a nice dinner and evening.

Day 105 - 106 | India | Alone in India

2011-08-20T18:23:00.000+01:00

Let's start off by saying that the title of this entry does sound a little sad. But I hope you aren't feeling sorry for me in any way, because it's not meant to evoke that kind of response. With that said, it's sort of the reality I chose to start a company in a foreign country.

I remember when I first moved to London, many days were the same. I spent Saturdays at the British Library and Sundays having a delicious cake at the British Museum. It became ritual. I knew the museum so well that when friends came, I could take them on a guided tour... guided by me. If you were only in London for a quick 2-days, I knew exactly what you needed to see and what you didn't. That's how well I knew London because well, I frankly didn't have anyone else to hang out with. So out and about I went.

Actually, I once thought of an idea to make friends by making an ad for myself. This flyer contained my activities of past and future and I actually made one friend out of it. I stuffed the flyers into my building's mailbox and although many of these ended up on the floor or back into my mailbox, I got one hit. You know, in a building of 25 people, 1 hit ain't bad. If you're a marketing professional, my 4% hit mark means that I'm a pretty bad ass copywriter, you know, in case you need some freelance work.

I really thought I needed a break from Red Panda. Other than Ahmedabad, it's been days and days of non-stop Panda. With progress feeling like it's slowed (in reality it hasn't, but when you're alone, weird thoughts creep in) I wanted a day of air conditioning and movies. After watching 'Easy A' - a good bad movie I must admit - I started watching the Vogue documentary 'The September Issue' my power went out. What the hell right? Too stupid to realize I should have checked the fuse, I decided to get out of the flat and walk the streets of Mumbai.

Not feeling very creative, I found myself back in the office. And although I didn't do too much work, I did do a 20-minute SEO job and a few other bibs and bobs and now just too lazy to leave the office. Actually, one of these days, I'm going to bring a pillow in and just sleep in the office... no seriously. It's just easier that way.

I'm going to make a decision to spend more money in India. This might prove detrimental to Red Panda, but you know what, screw it. It has to be done. I'm going to travel a bit more. Eat a bit more. Just do things a bit more. Otherwise, whether I succeed or fail, I'm going to be leaving India not having seen anything other than BBH. And as cool as this office is, I might as well have stayed in London right? If you're in India and you want to hang out and do whacky stuff that I do, I suggest you contact me. It's okay if we haven't met yet.

Day 105

I didn't have much of a Friday Free Day, but I did eat two doughnuts, and it was awesome. I have to say, with a lack of doughnut shops in Mumbai, there's serious room for a competitor like Krispy Kremes or Dunkin' Donuts.

Day 106

I'm not going to lie, but I feel like Tommy Hilfiger is a bit confused in India. Every time I'm in the store, there really isn't anybody in there. They're always on sale but there isn't much to buy. I also don't feel very inspired. It's say, because their Regent's Street store is similar in size but pretty nice.

I did find this TH ballerina pretty interesting though. A little funny, a little nice, a little everything. It was around 3,000 rupees or $75.

Day 103 - 104 | India - Ahmedabad | From fashion to Ghandi

2011-08-19T16:47:00.001+01:00

Before I get into Jitin and days 103 and 104, I just like to thank Sushma, Aditi, Asha and Pearl for sneaking my ugly ass into Lakme Fashion Week's Pre Launch party. It was fun with the King of Beers, I mean King of Good times I mean the Emperor of Good times.

Can you believe Kingfisher beer's tagline is Emperor of Good Times? How confusing is that.

I love two things about this: 1. Our cheesy smiles. 2. How we're in a rickshaw heading to Lakme Fashion Week. Soooo stylish.

I think the media was confused whether they should take my photo or not. Lesson: Always rock up somewhere with full confidence (and a bow tie).

Day 103

The dude wanted to welcome me with some flowers, so I took his picture.

You wouldn't know it, but this is a restaurant. But you can do all of this cool prayer stuff first if you want.

I'm a big fan of Kaos, I mean cows.

The entertainment was wicked. It took this guy a year to learn this trick where he puts wood sticks into his mouth and forms an umbrella all the while balancing the umbrella between his nose and mouth. We gave him 20 rupees for his great effort.

Day 104

My hips and back were dying. And I suck at this. Why am I doing this fashion thing again?

Jitin was a natural.

I think Jitin was both more and less inspired by Ghandi after this trip. On the one hand, he had all his buddies living with him in quite a nice place. On the other, he created his life long legacy after age 46.

Goat Pack!!!

Hanging with these kids was pretty cool. They asked how I was able to get my hair the way it was. I told them clay. They didn't believe me.

Cow piss, yum.

The Dhanani family minus Jitin (who's taking the photo). Thanks for an amazing two days.

India | Day 102 | Give me energy

2011-08-16T15:23:00.000+01:00

You know it's a bad day when you have to begin it with errands. Oh my goodness I cannot believe how difficult this became when the answer is actually so easy.

So the last tenant ran up our bill like crazy town (I thought we were the ones running a tech company) but to keep life simple and not hassle our tenant (yes I know, I should call them, I've already been harassed by the office) we're trying to pay the whole thing.

But Reliance has this weird policy where they only allow you to pay under Rs 10,000 by credit card online. What?

So I tried calling them to pay by phone.

"Sorry, you can't pay by phone. You need to log online to..."

Seriously?

I tried doing all the things they wanted, nothing work. SMS, no, drop off check, sure, what's the address? Like seriously, instructions here? In the end, a few co-workers and I realized there might be a local drop off window we've seen when passing around Bandra. So I went there, and there you go, easy-peasy.

I was starting to get mad but then I was reminded by a friend, "If you can make it in Mumbai, you can make it anywhere." And you know what, she was right. I started thinking about the problem: USER EXPERIENCE!

Can you pay my bills, can you pay my electricity bills?

There was an assumption and great movement to move service centers out to India. I'm a big fan of it. But the country really lucked out. I don't think it was necessarily that they were a great service country rather some of them spoke English being dominated by England. But the next step that they must take is to empower employees to think through problems. They are treating them as mindless monkeys better to read a script than to listen to a customer.

Before every conversation, they warn you that they are recording you for training purposes. Well, if anyone ever finds these recordings, I bet they would make for a hilarious mix tape. And this goes for everything. User Experience, whether it's on the phone or on their websites just do not exist. And I'm constantly told that lots of great websites are built by Indians. User experience does exist.

Here's my theory, it's user experience designed by somebody else. Perhaps it was beautiful script written by somebody else and Indian programmers were able to make it come to life beautifully. This has been a problem I've had when talking with many people. Indians are great at their jobs if you tell them exactly what to do. Inevitably this will impact Red Panda. My hope is that we'll be able hire people who can solve problems on their own. I suppose we'll have to educate them to be able to do this, but I think it's that next important step for India's customer service and user experience.

India | Day 95 to 101 | Back to the Max(imum City)

2011-08-16T14:42:00.001+01:00

Note: I never start off with a note, so this must be important. Let me just say this, I get obsessive about things. It can be anything. It can be obsessive about a juicy steak, taking out my dogs running, or losing 10 lbs. (when have I had to do that, you fatty). One thing I've been obsessing by is a web address. But then what? And I've been contemplating this whole Tumblr vs. Blogger vs. Posterous thins. Oh my begeezus, it's been killing me. However, last night I've had revelation. In fact, I was so excited, I couldn't sleep, and I'm the master of sleeping anywhere (planes, cement benches at the marriage counsel in Mumbai, anywhere)!!

For now, all you need to know is this:

If you want to read about my Indian adventures, you should just stay here larrykao.blogspot.com
If you want to type in less stuff, lkao.me, that'll get you here. At least it will once the DNS server updates
And if you want to really know me, stay tuned as lkao.me will evolve into something only an ego-maniac (that's me by the way if you haven't noticed) can come up with

Ohhhh, I'm so excited for you.

Recap:
So once you fall behind, you're just always behind right? I think the only way to get us back into the present is to do another mega blog. That's right, get your printers ready because you're going to want to be printing this bad boy out for another Tuesday morning session at the Water Closet. It's the best way to read blogs don't you think?

Last we left off, I had just arrived at the airport. It was Day 94 and I was exhausted. Immediately I jumped into a taxi (who tried to rip me off) and I was slammed with Mumbai traffic. However, there is no rest for the wicked, so after quickly unpacking and getting cleaned (that's code for getting into a cold shower) I was refreshed and ready to go.

Russell's birthday and another cake smashing. How fun!

One of the great things about London was meeting my LG monitor again. I love her so much, I decided to bring her along. I can't believe the ridiculousness of having a, 11" MacBook Air and 24" monitor.

For the first time in my life, I can say, "Mine's bigger than Lewis's." Hey, he's tall alright!

Day 95 (August 9): Sampling the Goods
Today was a big day because it was the first time I got to check out our new line of limited edition Opium sunglasses from the hit Bollywood film Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (did I get that right? Damn Gina, it's like I know Hindi already). I didn't get a chance to try these suckers on before I left for London, so I wanted to see what the samples look like. Well, what do you think?

And our website launches
To be honest, I thought we were going to launch while I was in London. Of course, extra time means more bugs that can be fixed and more styling to be added. This beta website of ours is starting to really look like it should. I miss the days when we had extra programmers and designers. So for a team of three, I'm quite impressed what we've done in about 3-4 months of time. Hell, maybe we should start up a Digital Advertising agency instead. Red Panda Consulting anyone??? (Okay, I confess, we have already put into motion this firm. You know, it never hurts to be prepared).

Excuse me, Mr. Hrithik Ro... oh it's you Lewis. I couldn't even tell.

Not gonna lie, I'll be rocking these.

Something weird happened on the street. Three rickshaws were ramming each other in the rear. The guy in the middle was sitting in the back seat (like where passengers sit) while leaning over to steer. Can't see it, but it's worth remembering for the future. I love India and its action.

Day 96 (August 10): Holy moly, we got 3 orders on our first day!
The started pretty normally. The website launched with no hiccups over night. Probably because nobody went to the website, I mean, why would they right? I wanted to show Hitesh (a bad ass Producer at BBH India) some blue wayfarers from the film as he was interested. But what started as a pretty innocent "what do you think of the shades" conversation turned me into a used car salesman as lots of people started to get excited (by the way, this is probably the best thing about working inside BBH. It's not the resources they give us, but the fact that we have somebody to actually share the wins and losses with). In the end, it was my man Shabbir who laid down the cash for the first ever Red Panda sale.

At the end of the day, rich off our first sale, we headed home to make ourselves a hearty dinner (for some reason, every meal this week was horrible. Chicken that didn't have its blood drained properly to beef that tasted funny). And quickly we realized, we have our first online sale. Holy... what do we do? As we tried to organize the paperwork and email the right people, we noticed a bug in our system. Although panic wasn't really settling in, the realization that we actually had to do things right from now on did. Then Lewis looked at me confused, wait a second...

"Did we just get another order?"

With two orders coming within 10 minutes of each other, we began to feel paranoid, like somebody was out to cheat us (that's probably Lewis's Britishly sceptical nature, I even spelled it the UK way for him). But as it turns out, it actually was a first sale. We immediately phoned Karan and we rejoiced on the phone. Oh, there would be little sleep for any of us tonight.

On my way to work each day, I have to play 'Frogger' with the traffic. It's really not fun, even if it is a 10-minute walk.

Shabbir is the proud owner of Opium Wayfarers and Red Panda's first sale!

Welcome to the world of cool.

"I approve this message," - Shabbir

Day 97 (August 11): The Horrorshow (and not in the Clockwork Orange kind of way)
As I started walking into work, I hadn't even gotten to the main road of the office and I get a call from Lewis.

"The first order was never going to go smoothly."

Oh brother. What happened? What was such a happy moment 8 hours ago has not turned into a guaranteed day of panic. Lewis says,

"The shipping company doesn't ship out there. It's out of their zone."

Wait a second, Mirakle doesn't ship where? I thought it was all of Mumbai?

"Apparently this isn't actually in the center of Mumbai, it's outside of it."

Well, with my new chilled out attitude on life, I told Lewis not to worry. I'd be in the office in less than 5 minutes and I'll handle it then. As I walked into the office, I see Shabbir (Sale number 1) standing over Lewis. I could only think to myself, he's either really happy with the sunglasses or he's here to take advantage of our free returns policy. God I hope it's not a return.

As I walk up to him, he asks, is there a defect? The sunglasses aren't exactly straight. You know, of course we've all seen our glasses or sunglasses bent, not straight, not quite right, etc. But I never had to deal with it. Usually the optometrist adjusts it or we deal with it, but how do you tell this to your friend and first customer?

I told Shabbir I'd take care of it and took his sunglasses with me. Now, it was time to focus on the shipping issue. It wasn't that Mirakle couldn't deliver our first order (so it was our first case of Indian Chinese Whispers. So is that just Indian Whispers?), it was just that it was an expected distance for the price they were quoting. And yes, even if they couldn't deliver there, we had other contingencies in place. So after a few conversations with Dhruv, everything was fine and we were all set to deliver on time (actually, we generally recommend shipping in 5 days, in this case, it would take 2-3 days. Yes, Red Panda and Mirakle rock the house).

In between the rains, I quickly grabbed the sunglasses and ran down Linking Road to find the nearest optometrist. HOW DO WE STRAIGHTEN THESE LENSES?

I was so fortunate to find a really nice guy who told me, 99% of the time, there's nothing wrong with it. "Sorry, what, you want to charge me 1% of the cost?" I seriously couldn't understand the guy. After multiple same question, same answers fired back and forth, he took the sunglasses away to the back. I started grabbing sunglasses all over his store from Ray-Ban's to Police to Calvin Klein. Some were straight, some weren't. So boldly decided to follow him in the back, to see what he was doing.

It turns out, many sunglasses come in not straight (glasses too). Each of these guys have a cool (and by cool, I mean neat, not brrrrrr) little blow dryer that gently warms up the plastic or metal of the frames so you can mould them to the shape of your face. Very cool. I just learned something.

Very happy with what he had done for me, I thought to myself, maybe we should buy one of these machines ourselves. Luckily the guy had no idea where to get them from, so that squashed that terrible idea quickly.

Knowing that Mirakle was supposed to come at 2pm, we had our work cut out for us. It was non-stop heart throbbing photoshopping and editing. Once we printed everything, Lewis drops the bomb...

"Somehow, I've broken the invoice system. It's not printing out right."

As Lewis jumped right into fixing the invoice, I started creating the return slip, it was hectic and chaotic. As it reached 2pm, we still weren't done. Karan jumped in, organized the wrapping paper, got the red bows ready and started to wrap. After a few attempts of everything, we got everything properly placed, taped and sealed. Wooo, only four hours for 1 order.

Step back: It took three people four hours to get our first shipment out the door. Now, you probably think we're idiots, and we probably are for using 12 man-hours for one shipment, but you know what, it's a learning curve. Mr. He-Cannot-Be-Named-For-Privacy-Reasons will never know how much sweat, effort and panic was involved in getting him his sunglasses.

Luckily, we rescheduled shipping with Mirakle reducing our action for the day, phew.

Packing, sealing and shipping is clearly a two-man job.

It was a tough day, so Lewis decided to cheat on the last day of his Five Factor Fitness diet by eating a huge cupcake.

And then there was one.

Day 98 (August 12): First shipments and payments collected
Roshni and Partha were all very excited for us when they got wind of our first sale. Roshni even busted out the baby dance, incredible to watch. They asked us why we weren't more happy about our sale, and well, should I have gone into that whole story from the previous day? Let's just say, until we get the cash, we don't really consider it a sale.

With the latest shipment of sunglasses coming in, we were able to pack our second order. What a breeze. Sure, we forgot things and my personal letter took a little while (for some reason, I feel like I have to create a new letter for each customer; I'm sure this will change), but it only took 30 minutes, talk about efficiency right? Oh I can't wait for the day this becomes a 5 minute job. Exhausted with a minor victory, we went to Sanchos for a celebratory meal and beer. It was also Lewis's big send off as he was off to London next morning.

Roshni does the baby dance in celebration of the first completed shipment.

"Don't mess with Red Panda or we will go gangsta on you." - Rosh, August 2011 (This message is approved by Red Panda)

A celebratory dinner at Sancho's. I'm 100% okay with this picture taken and a beer in my hand. New Year's Resolutions were meant to be broken when you're in business.

Day 99 (August 13): Lewis heads home

Just as Lewis heads home, 5,000 Red Panda bags get delivered to our flat. Well, we have a lot of selling to do.

Day 100 (August 14): Movie magic
With an exciting week behind us it felt weird to have the team broken up into different places. I decided I wanted to get as much content onto the website as possible so we can continue with new business leads and films. However, I virtually had no contact with another human being on Friday or Saturday, so I had to do something otherwise it would truly become a depressing state.

Anticipating this, I tried sending out a few feelers. But with a few friends feeling ill (or avoiding me) and other friends canceling on me (or avoiding me), I decided to enjoy India on my own... at the movies! Rise of the Planet of the Apes deserves its 82% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Streetball, Indian Cricket style.

I was a bit afraid they would either find it weird I was taking photos of them or the ball would hit me in the face (you know, that weird law of attraction between balls and heads, hmm sounds more sexual than I wanted).

We're hoping to work with fashion design company S2O to sell their line of clothes. That would be good right?

PVR - I love this theatre.

Is Avatar film of the decade even without 3D? Lord of the Rings anyone... even Wall-E!

Like at a baseball game, everyone stands for the National Anthem. I thought it would be weird taking this photo, but I'm promoting India right now. I think it's okay.

Lots of people waiting for 'Apes'.

A few so-so European models promoting a new film. Sadly, they wouldn't tell me the name of the film. What's the point of promoting this then?

Day 101 (August 15): Happy Indian Independence Day
Oh boy do I wish Lewis was here today. I would have just given him crap all day. You English punk!!! He would have loved that.

I love the patriotism.

The strangest Spanish omelette I've ever seen. It tasted okay.