TIGblogs - Lorraine Siew

Well.. I think I've managed to tell everyone(who would listen) about this- so there's not much need for any 'element of surprise'..

The idea of sending Nicol's a birthday present has been around for sometime. 10 years ago, Webmaster Azuan and a few fans made arrangements with Hitz.fm Morning Crew (at that time lil kev and fly guy) to wish Happy Birthday to Nicol on-air.

10 years on, and with Nicol based in Amsterdam, Holland/Netherlands, obviously, it would be difficult to reach her. Of course, you could do it like our friends levidav, who, from last year, started his trend of giving Nicol her early birthday present at the CIMB Singapore Masters.My initial 'idea' was to ask all the popular radio stations in Malaysia to broadcast a Happy Birthday message, get it burned into a CD, and then mail it over to Nicol(cheap and free advertising for the site maa). So at the start of the Malaysian Open, I put up announcement on our site blog, asking for suggestions and ideas for Nicol's birthday present. The response was.. well, so-so lah.

NicolDavidOnline.com was founded by my boss Azuan 10 years ago, and thanks to his generosity, till now it is still solely funded by him- ask him what his motivation is for supporting Nicol for so long and he would give you answers as cliché as when asking Nicol what motivates her.

Anyways, 10 years on, and thanks to the wide usage of the WWW- we decided to order something online. I googled for "Amsterdam florists", and found a good handful of them. The average price for a bouquet of flowers are around $50- Azuan said he would order it-- but we would wait before ordering, due to the fact that he had a London-Denm ark-London business trip. So, on the night of the 25th of August we came online and he picked out an orange bouquet of roses- orange is the theme of our website.

The fact that we ordered it just the day before actually got me worried. The after-payment instructions on the site we ordered from were in Dutch- and so was the confirmation letter. But with the help with some web translators, we did OK. We did request the florist to take photos of the flowers with our message on the card but unfortunately after ordering, the florist went into silent. Boss Azuan did get pretty grumpy...

I told our dutch friend Sander about us sending the flowers, and asked him if he would check if Nicol had received it or not. He said he would check it out. Then he too 'disappeared' for a couple of days.

Five days later..
I woke up on September the 1st(no, I didn't sleep for 5 days), which was also our nation's Merdeka(independence) holiday, wondering what to have for breakfast and deciding on how I would like to mind my business for the day- and as usual- the first thing to do: check my mail.

....

After a few nervous clicks... to one of my favourite vitual hang-out spots.. LOL

reveals... for the FIRST time.. Datuk Nicol David herself!!!!!! on the very freakin' forum that people have been complaning "where's nicol??"

Her post:
Hi Azuan, Wei Mei and everyone at NicolDavidOnline.com,

Firstly, thanks for the flowers you guys sent over for my birthday. I really appreciate it. Also, I have heard some good feedback coming from the site. I'm truly flattered by it all and thanks for your support always.

To everyone who have posted their wishes on this site, thank you once again.

Best wishes
Nicol

p/s : Happy Birthday Wei Mei... Merdeka Baby.

hmm... let me repeat the important part

p/s : Happy Birthday Wei Mei... Merdeka Baby.

p/s : Happy Birthday Wei Mei... Merdeka Baby.

..couldn't resist!

The message we asked to be written in her card was:
Dear Nicol,
Happy 25th from Azuan, Wei Mei and everyone here at NicolDavidOnline.com- rock on!

spot any similarities?

I am totally elated by this, and I still find myself grinning when I think of it. On the first day back to school some friends asked "why are you smiling so much today?" *SMILE*

Although it was TOTALLY unexpected, I was actually wondering when Nicol would come around after all the poking we gave her this year. And I'm sure that she's heard the website being mentioned more times than ever before in the last 6 months.

Oh, and our friend Sander told me that Nicol did in fact receive her flowers on time. And that Nicol told him that she was going to reply to us, and requested that he lay low. So next time you see him on the forum, remember to thank him yea!

Detailed isn't it?
But I want to remember every.single.bit.
Thanks to Azuan for reminding me to blog about it. And sorry if your name has been mentioned more times than what you're comfortable with. LOL!