Yeoh Siew Hoon blogs about blogging – that's one sure way to fight brain rot, innit.
I had dinner last night with a singer friend who thinks that if she just sticks to her music career in tiny Singapore, her brain will rot.
"It's so unchallenging," she says. And so to ensure brain atrophy does not set in, she is constantly putting herself through school. When I saw her last, she was studying psychology. Then she took up a teacher's course and is now a certified teacher and trainer.
Inspired by her, I decided to set myself a mission this morning. I decided to do research into this event which, when I first heard of it, intrigued me because of its name - the Nuffnang Asia Pacific Blog Awards.
Nuffnang, I learnt from their website, from means "very good" or "really good" - "based on new dialect emerging in London (Jafaikan)".
Digging deeper into my new subject of interest, I consult the Urban Dictionary which tells me that Jafaikanis the language of British people who talk "in a fake jamaican accent and use words like 'bizzle' 'blad' ‘shizzle' 'innit' etc etcetc".
For example, "chill out blad, look at them beanies cutchin over there innittho" or "You what mate? oh right youre a f..... Jafaikan yeah"?
Enriched by this newly-acquired piece of knowledge, I dug deeper and found out that Nuffnang claims it is "Asia Pacific's largest blog advertising community, representing 100,000 bloggers regionally, with offices in five cities".
In other words, "don't play play, we no small fry" - this in fake Singaporean speak by Malaysian.
It was started by two 20-something-year-old partners - Cheo Ming Shen and Timothy Tiah, who were both named among Businessweek's 25 top entrepreneurs in 2007. Apparently, they started it when they realised "irrelevant ads were being served in most local blogs. They are annoying and will not benefit anything to the readers".
Their first awards recognised the top blogs in 12 categories. Up to 10,000 nominations were received and 50% of the votes came from the public and 50% from a panel of judges. (Straight from Nuffnang's mouth)
The night's biggest winner was one Wendy Cheng (xiaxue.blogspot.com), who won both the Region's Best Blog and Most Influential Blog,
I didn't get to meet her personally unfortunately but on her blog (pictured), she's shown as a curly-haired blonde Coco Lee-lookalike. Her last entry - I read it at 8.15am and it says her entry was posted 2 hours ago so Wendy's a bit of a nightowl- said, "Oh so sleepy! Gonnazzzzz now. Xoxo."
Just beore that, she said, "I'd pay 5,000 dollars upfront to not get periods for the rest of my life but still be able to conceive normally."
She describes herself as "I'm an awesome blogger and my awesomeness is impossible to summarise into this tiny space". She blogs about everything really - what she does, what she eats and cooks - there's a recipe for instant noodles, who she hangs out with.
What Xiaxue - it means "snowing" which probably explains the blonde hair - does is obviously of interest to fans - her site claims 20,000 views daily and it carries an ad or two.
The other winners? Here they are - please feel free to visit them and tell me about them.
- bonitochico.livejournal.com from Singapore for Best Blog Shop
- ieatishootipost.sg from Singapore for Best Food Blog
- ladymelbourne.blogspot.com from Australia for Best Fashion Blog
- childhood101.blogspot.com from Australia for Best Parenting Blog
- ironwulf.net from Philippines for Best Travel Blog
- mrgadget.com.au from Australia for Best Geek Blog
- joannepeh.com from Singapore for Best Celebrity Blog
- kennysia.com from Malaysia for Best Entertainment Blog
- xiaxue.blogspot.com from Singapore for Best Original Blog Design
- xiaxue.blogspot.com from Singapore for Most Influential Blog
- dedoodleblog.blogspot.com from Malaysia for Best Hidden Gem
Me, I think I've learnt enough about this one subject. Onto the next ...
Yeoh Siew Hoon, one of Asia's most respected travel editors and commentators, writes a regular column on news, trends and issues in the hospitality industry for 4Hoteliers.com.
Siew Hoon, who has covered the tourism industry in Asia/Pacific for the past 20 years, runs SHY Ventures Pte Ltd. Her other writings can be found at www.thetransitcafe.com
Get your weekly cuppa of news, gossip, humour and opinion at the cafe for travel insiders. 4Hoteliers was the "Official Daily News" of WIT09 - www.webintravel.com 
