It hit the old soft spot I tried desperately to hide. I promised myself I wouldn’t give in. That I would steer clear and never to turn back. But I can’t resist anymore.

I’m doing slave work for BK Magazine again. What’s the bait? iPhone story.

So let’s get to the point.

We’re looking for Thai iPhone application developers. Can be a farang doing a Thai app, can be a Thai geek doing an inter App. Can be old, young, adept or amateur. We just want to hear your story. Heck I want to hear your story. I have been downloading the special iPhone Development 101 podcasts from Stanford in hopes of gaining fame and fortune one day. If I had the time. Or the effort.

So please if you guys know anyone who makes iPhone apps (in Thailand only please), or if you’re happening to have your own in the making, contact BK Magazine at tech@asia-city.co.th or me for more details.

Just came back from a special BK staff dinner.

It was more special than any other parties we had as BK crew as it was my last. Today, Friday the 13th, marks my last day as a staff writer for BK Magazine.

Sad. I know.

Ever since I realized my love for writing, I always had BK Magazine in mind. It’s a funny publication, it’s bitchy, it’s honest and most of all its style fits me as both a writer and a reader.

The BK internship back in Oct ‘06 was the start of everything. I had just finished my last classes as a college student and I found myself not doing anything much other than shopping, blogging, and hanging out at Bua’s. I applied for the internship with no expectation at all.

I didn’t even plan to make the job stick. While I was doing my internship I was also studying for GRE, preparing myself for a grad school in LA. Then the job happened and over the course of two years, I went from an intern to editorial assistant to new media girl and then to a staff writer.

BK Magazine is probably the best job any fresh graduate could ever ask for. I did my first cover story when I was still an intern, I got to write about stuff I know and care about (blogging, technology) and not to mention all the freebies, parties and food. And really, if I wasn’t forced to use a Mac in the art department, I wouldn’t have become a convert.

Of course as a writer, having just one publication on your CV is kind of sad. And BK being a weekly magazine, it meant absolutely no free time for me to take on any freelance work as most of them require you to go out for interviews or do research on a weekday. I had applied for many publications and I got discouraged each time they touched on the points of it being free, being only 30-something pages thick, and on the fact that my hard work on a cover story or a feature gets trashed within a week.

Despite the work load, and the occasional disappointment when I see my cover stories get used as umbrella, window wiper, picnic seat, placemats, or origami materials, it has been a great experience. The people at the office here are not coworkers but rather friends whom we share the same interests. Of course we have bosses, but seriously, where else could you find a boss who would allow you to dress him up for a Facebook photo-op, or a boss who you could talk Jailbreaking to and share a bag of Goldfish with without giving you a “go-back-to-work” look? Where else could you have burping competition with the staff, do chicken dance as you walk to get your coffee, have afternoon gossip session, reenacting The Sound of Music while doing proofs, or be allowed to decorate your work station with fluffy pink Hello Kitty toys?

That’s probably the hardest thing to give up when I decided to leave. I don’t think I will ever find such comfort at a work place like that again and that scares me. It’s not just leaving a job, it feels like I am leaving friends and the scene I have grown so accustomed to over the last two years. Being at BK was much more fun and educational than my four years in ABAC ever gave me.

Well, I guess it’s time to move on. It’s just like graduating. BK was probably my halfway house between college and the real world.

www.bkmagazine.com

I’ve been so obsessed about editing this blog that I forgot about posting this.

Electro Underdogs Cover Story

Another article that I utilized my own surroundings for a story.

Released just in time for Culture One, it’s about why Bangkok electronic scene is not happening. There were some things I wish I could add, or keep, but the feedback has been great so far so there’s nothing to complain. The process of writing it did put some strain on my life a bit though but it all worked out fine.

The festival starts quite early, like 3pm. Personally, the Thai acts to look forward to this year are Gene, Nannue, and The Diet Pills if you’re into The Ting Tings kinda music. I saw Gene live a few weeks back at a Dudesweet event at Santi Chaiprakarn Park and I think it was more than awesome. I like his post-Futon music so much more.

The BKMag website is down so click here for the text if you can’t find the copy in town.

Funny how Jetso was just telling me in the comments that my recent traffic soar would contribute to my AdSense check.

Lookie here, my latest BK shebang is about making money online.

All this time I’ve known the Lost Boy, and even live-blogged the bombings together once, we never really sat down and talked about his blog.

After I interviewed him about how he makes money through his blog, I’m fascinated. There’s really some good money on the air if you can make your blog stand out enough to catch it.

Well my blog will of course never make as much money as his or anyone’s, it’s so unfocused, has no real sense of core value, and I don’t even know who my target is. Sometimes it’s bitchy, sometimes it’s girly, sometimes it’s geeky, I’m even confused myself.

I think I’ll just stick to my offline job.

Whatever that means.

BK Party is tonight at Indus. It’s not as big a deal as the last one, we’re just launching the new magazine design (coming Nov 2) to clients, giving out our annual Readers Choice Awards, and soft-launching the new BK Website.

The new website will also allow readers to sign up for an account and participate in forums, and comment on our feature stories and blog posts so sign yourself up for one now.

BKMagazine.com is also trying to be THE place for Bangkokians to look for events and restaurants and we’ve been making our interns the “upload slaves” for the past few weeks so now when you don’t know where to eat or what to do, you can go do a search at the new website.

And since blogging/web thing has been added to my job description it means I would have to divide my blog ideas between two places. Bitchy, annoying, daily whiny stuff about Bangkok can still be found here but something about work, about what BK does and writes about (nightlife, food, etc.) will be posted at BKMagazine.com.

I’ve been told to blog live from the event. Since people can’t really be there, log on to BKMagazine.com at 6pm and you’ll get to experience another live blog from GnarlyKitty, just less whiny.