Fatt Fatt Fatt Fatt Fatt

mister potato

CNY is just around the corner. As with such Chinese celebrations, auspicious numbers are highly sought after. You know that song that goes “Long ma zing shen, zing yuen mang tang” (roughly translated as “healthy as a horse, with GOLD and silver everywhere”?

gold-bars

Now how would you feel if you have RM 88,888 worth of gold bars in front of you? 

Antarctica ship

Personally, I would go on a trip to Antarctica. 2010 is probably the last year you can do this due to legislations preventing large cruise ships from entering the continent. 

antarctica-emperor-penguin

Contrary to popular belief, Antarctica is a fun place to visit. It’s often dubbed the “last great wilderness” and you get bragging rights. I mean, how many people do you know that have been to Antarctica? None? πŸ˜‰ 

antarctica dusk

It’ll be fun to go on a cruise down down under (down under is Australia, so I took the liberty of adding in another down) and watch the majestic ice caps – a sight to behold indeed. Of course, you’ll also be freezing your ass off, but hey, all in the name of travel eh?

Antarctica is freaking expensive though, so I’ll need that RM 88,888 to go on the trip.

Since I do not have that kind of money in my savings account (it currently stands at RM 1,412.20) I’ll need some assistance to make this happen. 

antarctica-cruise

Enter Mister Potato. They have this SMS contest where you guess the combined weight of Mister Potato, Ortega, the three Mariachis (Uno, Dos, Tres) and the sack of 100 potatoes.

characters

Get to know the characters before you guess! The clues are all in the website. I’m guessing it weighs around 488 kg. That is, of course, a figure I pulled out from where the sun don’t shine.

I need math wizards to help me through this one. 

prizes

Get a 160 gram or 75 gram contest edition pack of Mister Potato and get the unique SMS code inside. I’ve already sent in my entry (488 kgs). You can send in as many entries as you want but each code is valid for 1 SMS. 

clues

There will be clues related to all the weight of the characters so I expect to fine tune my calculations as the alerts is given out. It’s all about inference and extrapolation as you can see from the clue above. You’ll be able to give a (reasonably) educated guess from it. It’s multilingual to boot! 

antarctica-continent

What say you? RM 88,888 is enough for two people go to Antarctica. Tell me what you think it weighs and if you get it right, I’ll share the trip with you!

My name is Legion

tranquil

I was at Belum Rainforest Resort a couple of weeks ago and the tranquility of the place is a nice change of pace from my usual chaotic lifestyle. Just like yin needs a yang, recharging at a place with lots of foliage and Zen-inducing soft, running water is revitalizing.

chaos-in-its-purest-form

Ultimately though, I thrive on bedlam, anarchy, and pandemonium. It’s like that verse “My name is Legion, for we are many (demons)“. I like art which has an element of madness in it – this is why my tattoos are heavily inspired by inner turmoil.

steph_celtic_cross_tattoo

Just a like tattoo, which is in effect customizing your own body, there is a new trend in personalizing your personal effects. You’ve seen self-customized phones and dSLRs by people adding some bling to it, usually via beads and such. However, you can now truly customize your own notebook and MAKE IT YOURS.

flames

One thing about notebooks – you want to feel proud toting it around town. You probably use it while out and about e.g. surfing at your local Starbucks. You don’t want to be discreetly opening your notebook and face the wall coz you feel embarrassed about the dull and drab colors right?

dell-design

Dell just came up with their Studio product range which includes allows you to choose from a wide range of artwork and colors for your notebook. I like the Mike Ming’s Sea Sky design on the Studio 15 coz of the art reminds me of late van Gogh paintings. I’ll want the model with the new Intel Core i7 coz it has a fast processor, a healthy graphics card (512 MB ATI Radeon HD 4570) and a large 500GB hard disk drive.

make-it-yours

They’re also running a contest to celebrate your individuality by self-expression. You create your own design and submit it online! I decided to do one based on my phoenix tattoo with a psychedelic twist to it.

phoenix design

I started by taking a photo of my tattoo and tracing it out before adding in the other elements.

This is the design I submitted!
 

Dell Make It Yours Design

The closing date of the contest is on the 5th of February. The prize is a Studio 15 laptop featuring your very own design and a RM 5,000 cash voucher.

Nifty, eh?  It’ll be magnificent to have a notebook that’s one-of-a-kind coz it’s your own design. You can join the contest here.

MAKE IT YOURS!

(and vote for my design here)

Astro B.yond Bloggers Night

astro byond me toilet

O hai! I iz here terrorizing your female toilet! 

astro byond modestos

The Astro B.yond Bloggers Night was held at Modesto’s, Desa Sri Hartamas last Wednesday. It was a blast – Nuffnangers packed the place to the rafters despite it being a working weekday. 

astro byond murder in the details clues

I went to the venue early in the afternoon. Besides helping Caydence stick up stuff in the toilets, I was slated to be the MC for the on-ground game so I had to be there for the dry run. 

astro byond caydece toilet

You know how much sheer effort goes into organizing an event like this? 

astro byond setup

I used a calculator to work the figures out and it damn near exploded on me. Suffice to say it takes A Whole Goddamn Lot (TM) of effort to make it happen. 

astro byond desa park city

There was a HD New Year Resolution video shoot at Desa Park City a couple of weeks ago to debut at the Astro B.yond Bloggers Night. 

astro byond new year resolution

I was one of the bloggers in that video. 

astro byond hdtv kim

It took the better part of the afternoon under the hot sun to wrap up the shoot. Desa Park City is a nice location but apparently the management does not believe in foliage which provides shade. πŸ˜‰ 

astro byond hdtv camera

The blogger’s NY resolution video was sent off to a studio for post-production and shown in full HD glory during the night. 

astro byond studio

I brought a change of clothes to Modesto’s so I can wear a t-shirt inside the venue. We stuck up all the clues and rehearsed for the re-enactment with Fresh. 

astro byond me caydence start

My car reeks of ethanol so I chucked my shirt into Caydence’s car (coz her car smells nice) before we changed at about 6 pm. 

astro byond shirt

Insider account: 

astro byond board

The Murder in the Details game is a Facebook application that we organized an on-ground activation for (damn big words right? England powderful) and it involves sourcing around for an acceptable murder weapon. I wanted it to be realistic – as in a real knife – but apparently there were apprehensions about having that on stage so I borrowed one from Modesto’s.

It’s a butter knife so it’s not going to kill anyone. Hey, I’m the one being stabbed so no worries on that. :p 

astro byond henry tan

The Astro B.yond Bloggers Night started with a speech from Mr. Henry Tan, the COO of Astro, segueing nicely into the HD video shoot of the bloggers. 

astro byond tvc

I nearly jizzed in my pants when the Astro B.yond HD TVC came on. It’s a very nicely done commercial, and we’re the first to see it! I particularly liked the scene where the football player catches the ball while falling into a swimming pool with another one passing by him. 

astro byond staff

Dinner was served, along with free flow of drinks. I was running around the entire night so mine consists of a few bites of pasta I nicked from Li Yen and Eileen.

astro byond saxophone 

My saxophone tastes funny. 

astro byond asian percussion

The Asian Percussion group came in to do their thing right before the Murder in the Details game. I remember them from the Astro B.yond media launch and was impressed by their performance.

Catch them in action here! This is not HD quality I’m afraid, don’t have such equipment in my arsenal. 

astro byond mc

I was up on stage after that to attend to the Murder in the Details game.

 astro byond playing game

There are four (4) clues which you need to get right by using a magnifying glass to analyze the A4 laminated pieces of paper scattered throughout the area in order to qualify for an (educated?) guess.

The fifth and final clue is the deal-breaker – it’ll be obvious who the murderer is if you spot that so I took the liberty of pasting it UNDER the tables. πŸ˜‰ 

astro byond nuffies

The response from the crowd was fantastic! Kudos to all the people who dragged the Nuffies on stage and identified them as the “murderer” – there were a lot of red herrings (no pun intended) coz every Nuffie was wearing red and we all had Band Aids. Heh! 

astro byond jestina

Jestina was one of the people who were identified as the murderer. How can? She’s like the nicest person I know okay? :p

The murderer is Fresh of Nuffnang. She’s a very nice (ran out of adjectives and F7 in Word is not helping much) person as well, except when she stabbed me. T_T

The re-enacment of the story involved me, Fresh and Robb – basically the story goes like this: 

astro byond dead

Fresh (my wife) walked in on me during an intimate moment with another man (Robb). She got agitated and in a fit of jealousy, stabbed me with a knife. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. >.<

Appalled that her temporary insanity caused the fatality of her husband (so this is what they mean when they say “Till death do us part“) she fled the scene and cut her hand on a piece of glass. Robb, after taking all of 3 seconds to mourn my death, also fled the scene using the same route. 

astro byond fresh

Now it’s down to the winning team to answer questions related to Astro B.yond to snag the grand prize of an Astro B.yond set, a 32″ LG HDTV plus a one year subscription to Astro B.yond until December 2010.

The winner walked home with exactly that – but fret not, Astro has 2 more prizes to give away! You all stand a chance to win the prizes stated above if you write an event coverage blog post. The two best post-event coverage posts will win the Astro B.yond set + 32″ LG HDTV + subscription so let’s see what you have to offer.

murder in the details fb game

While you’re at it, join the Astro Facebook fan page for the Murder in the Details application. There are 10 Astro B.yond sets up for grabs!

If you want to get hooked up with Astro B.yond just surf over to their site or call their hotline at 1300-82-3838 to subscribe.

Hit the Nuffnang blog post if you need further details on how to win the 2 post-event coverage posts. Good luck! 

goodie bags

I left the event at about 1:30 am with Caydence and had a hard time getting my brain to function properly the next day, but I can say with all honesty and enthusiasm – it was a damn good event. I enjoyed myself to the max.

Oi! Don’t look at me liddat k? I’m not being hard sell, it just feels good to pull off an event like this and watch everyone enjoy themselves. 

astro byond me caydence end

It was a lot of fun and I had a great time being the MC. The free flow of the amber fluid helped loads too!

Two birds with one stone

eating-raw-octopus

I’m very adventurous when it comes to food. Heck, I’m pretty adventurous with just about anything. I heard that the local delicacy in Korea is live octopus so I was DETERMINED to try that when I went to Pusan, Korea a few months ago. 

octopus-korea

What happens during the Dining Experience (TM) is that the person (wo)manning the octopus counter takes out the tentacle waving creature of your choice and quickly chops it up. It is drizzled with sesame oil and dried seaweed. You’re supposed to eat it straight away. 

slicing-octopus

I’m not too sure about the anatomy of octopi but it was still moving a good 10 minutes AFTER the woman murdered it. I’m serious! Tentacles were twitching and the suckers were still half heartedly trying to grab onto some fish (or whatever it is octopus eats).

Our Korean translator Kim (who is Korean) wouldn’t even touch it until we persuaded her to. She is aware of the dish, obviously, but she was just concerned about eating it. It’s not just coz of the geli factor but amongst her stated reasons was that a host of bacteria and other disease transmitting vectors could be in the octopus, since it’s raw.

You wouldn’t want to get a case of E.Coli or some rare form of toxin poisoning from stuff eaten by the octopus before it was brutally slaughtered.

octopus-squirming

Well, this is why you need a health insurance plan. Or better: A health insurance plan with INVESTMENT benefits!

Ha! Not only are you covered for hospitalization but you’re also making your money work for you AT THE SAME TIME! How does that sound?

(I know it sounds like I’m an insurance agent but wait!)

It sounds like a win-win situation to me. Haha! Honestly, I love these investment insurance plans. You get covered AND earn a bit of money while you’re at it.

It also benefits you by giving you money back with the No Claims Bonus if you’re as healthy as an ox!

condo

I think the best part (and what differentiates it from the regular PruHealth plan) is the investment aspects since I’m really trying to save up to buy my own place. Paying RM 1,300 for a studio unit doesn’t exactly make financial sense when you can dump in a down payment at a place where you like and buy the thing for about the same amount each month.

The PruBSN Takaful Health rider makes really sound financial sense though. Health and insurance combined. You know that saying? You can be the richest man in the world but if you’re not healthy enough to enjoy it, there’s not much point right? This puts both into a single plan. Check out the Prudential BSN Takaful Health for health and investment all rolled into one!

It’s always better to chuck your savings into investments like this, you can get much more from compounding interest than if you just stuck it in savings. You don’t even need to be Muslim to get on it πŸ™‚

Armpit psychology: How to tell someone they have bad BO

bad bo

I have a friend who has really bad body odor. Let’s just call him Harry for the sake of this post. The worst thing about it is that he seems completely oblivious to the fact.

 

One day, Harry found a bottle of deodorant on his desk. Harry was naturally puzzled by the sudden appearance of an anti-perspirant on his desk. He did not recall buying it. He’s a firm believer in not using body hygiene products, not even soap. He’s not a big fan of showering too, for that matter.

 

He went and asked everyone in the office. Did anyone accidentally misplace their deodorant? Has anyone dropped a bottle of anti-perspirant somewhere?

armpit odor

All he got was averted gazes and downcast eyes.

 

Flummoxed by this response, he went back and thought for a bit before the proverbial light bulb went off over his head.

 

It did not belong to anyone else in the office. People got distinctly uncomfortable when he waltzed around asking if anyone lost their bottle of anti-perspirant. He also recalled a few incidences (it was actually more than a few, but he had selective memory) where people complained about odiferous smells but stopped when he got within earshot.

bad bo oblivious

Come to think of it, he also remembered people discreetly breathing out through their mouths, innocently putting a finger over their nostrils as if concentrating on his words and generally trying very hard to stay upwind of him whenever he was around, usually with greater intensity strongly correlated to his distance to the people in question.

sanex deodorant

He got the hint. He quickly slipped the bottle of Sanex dermo invisible Anti-Perspirant Deodorant into his bag and started using it every the morning. It was better than other deodorants as it respects and protects his skin instead of just deodorizing it. It minimizes white marks on his clothes too so no one would know he’s using it.

 

It was a happy ending.

sanex end

People stopped having sudden bouts of sinus problems and stuffing tissue into their nostrils and all’s well that ends well. Harry says the truth is out there.

THE END

 

Ending credits:

Cast:

sniff armpit

Harry             Poh Huai Bin

Happy New Year 2010

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and auld lang syne.
 

nye 2009

It’s going to be 2010 in a couple of hours. I love New Year’s Eve, it’s a day when you can let your hair down and party like 2009 is going out of style. πŸ˜‰

It sometimes makes you wonder…what’s left when you wake up the next day/year? What’s next you ask?

Well, Ne-Yo is coming to KL on the 7th of January!

Now that’s something to look forward to. It’s going to be held at the Sunway Lagoon Surf Beach and tickets are selling really fast so shake off that hangover and book now! 

neyo-kl

You can get a discount if you’re on Xpax – check out the details here.

Gotta be quick though, it’s limited to the first 5k tickets only!

Roti Kraft competitive eating @ Hassan’s

start

My mother always told me not to play with my food.

hassans

Kraft is promoting their Burger Kraft and Roti Kraft by setting up booths in mamaks around the Klang Valley. I went to catch the one at Hassan’s coz I have (an inflated) faith in my competitive eating skillz. πŸ˜‰

burger kraft

Naturally, I had to try eating it first for practice so I ordered one Burger Kraft. It’s free if you say the tagline “Kasi satu Burger Kraft“. It tasted good – I had no idea just using a premium cheese slice instead of a normal one would result in such a difference.

roti kraft

I also had Roti Kraft – it’s roti canai made with Kraft cheese and this is the one that’s going to be in the competitive eating contest. I like roti cheese and Roti Kraft tastes quite different.

kraft akimbo

You know how some cheese slices don’t even have dairy products inside? Kraft cheese slices isn’t one of those – it’s real cheese. None of that artificial cheese nonsense here.

embedded journalist

Embedded journalist. Heh! These were some people I met at the mamak and sat with them to hear what they thought about the Roti Kraft. It’s mostly positive and a lot of them wanted to join the Roti Kraft eating contest later. Awesome! I love competition. πŸ™‚

mascot

The Kraft mascot came out and made an appearance during the event, greeting people at the mamak and getting them to join the competition.

kind

Oh, how kind of you.

samsung

The competitive eating session is divided into male and female matches and the winner will walk away with a Samsung digital camera.

roti stack

The stage is set with stacks and stacks of Roti Kraft.

dhall

It’s about to get serious.

roti

Battlegrounds!

guys

I managed to eat 3 Roti Kraft in 5 minutes. The winner ate 4. I was just one short. >.<

I think I was talking to much crap at the beginning about my Dhall Theory (TM) instead of scarfing down the food. T_T

females

The female eating session came after that and saw a lot of girls positively stuffing themselves for the digicam.

It started out with very fast pacing…

…which gradually slowed as the competitors started getting full.

The female Roti Kraft competition was much more interesting – it ended up with a tie!

female competition

Thus the two winners (coincidentally the ones I sat with during the night) had to do a tie-breaker game where the person who finishes one Roti Kraft in the fastest time wins.

moral support

Moral support/Praying

This is the tie-breaker video. One of the girls nearly had a reversal after eating that.

final two

Congratulations to the winners!

winners

Kalau Keju Mesti Kraft, Kasi satu Roti Kraft!

me eating

I conclude that it is a lot more fun to watch other people eat competitively than to do it yourself. πŸ˜‰

Tasik Temenggor Discovery Island

Tasik Temenggor Discovery Island

Tasik Temenggor Discovery Island (TTDI) is one of Perak’s best kept secrets. I was told we’re going to an island near Ipoh during the BMW drive and no one believed me. “There are no islands in Ipoh”, I was told. 

Tasik Temenggor rafting

Tasik Temenggor is actually an artificial (as in man-man) lake in Gerik. Xpax has coverage there so it’s a good thing I did a lot of XXL reloads during the drive there. There’s a lot of stuff to in Tasik Temenggor like playing basketball in the lake, fishing and kayaking but we went old skool and did rafting… 

Tasik Temenggor rafts

….on rafts made of bamboo! 

Tasik Temenggor swim

You get on the rafts and use bamboo paddles to navigate. It hardly looks seaworthy but it’s surprisingly stable. Each raft fits two – one at the extreme front and the other at the extreme back, and while paddling requires quite a bit of effort, it’s a lot of fun!

I went for a dip in the lake too. The water is cold and refreshing – perfect for a morning swim!

Samsung Corby Paint Fight

beretta

Most men have a natural inclination for guns. It probably harks back to our hunter-gatherer roots. We like to shoot loud, large caliber projectile weapons for fun and recreation. 

paintball

It’s hardwired into our XY chromosomes. However running around and shooting real guns at each other tend to get a lot of people killed…so paintball was invented. πŸ˜‰ 

stalk

I like playing paintball games and used to have regular sessions going. However, I haven’t seen much action lately with everyone busy with work and all that.

aim

I remember this friend of mine who loves to pull the Dead Man Walking trick (pretends to be out of the game and then suddenly tags you – at close range) so one fine day we decided to ramp him (our markers had that option even though we don’t usually use it). 

tag

I think that was the last time he pulled the DMW cheat. Heh! 

pro paintball

I drove by my favorite paintball supply shop last Sunday (it was closed) and recalled that ramping anecdote. It made me really itch to get on the battlefield again. 

gear

There will be a Paint Fight going on at the Samsung Corby Carnival Day at Sunway Extreme Park on 16th January 2010. If you love paintball, you’ll be pleased to know that you can join with your group and take part in different scenarios and games.

The Samsung Corby Carnival Day is not just about paintball – there are a lot of activities going on and everyone who goes will get a goodie bag. You’re also looking at RM 25,000 worth of prizes, and last I checked, that’s not pocket change, so be there to join in the fun! 

stealth

Join one of the four colored teams and the winning group will walk home with a Samsung Corby cell phone for each of the members while the first runner up will win a total cash prize of RM 3,000. The 25 top scorers will also win tickets to their offline games! 

moving-out

It’s paintball! How can you say no? 

ambush

Just sign up for the Samsung Fun Club here and choose one of the Corby’s colors before uploading a photo of yourself to the gallery page. 

fashion-jacket

Samsung Corby is a phone with that comes with in four different colors (Jamaican Yellow, Festival Orange, Minimal White and Cupid Pink). The best thing about it is the changeable covers – a fashion jacket to express yourself! I also like the One-Finger Zoom and Pop-up SNS which automatically updates you of online notifications on Facebook, Twitter and other social media.

Here’s what you need to do to join the Paint Fight and win one of them phones:

fb-photo

1. Choose a color you want to represent and upload a photo of yourself.

fb-signup

2. Once you get the notification email, start attacking the other teams and defend your own team. I’m in Cupid Pink so I’ve gotta tag the other colors virtually.

fb-attack

3. The scores are tabulated daily and the best thing about this is that you can login daily to claim your 10 virtual pellets. What’s so good about this? You need to shoot your way into the Top 25 in order to win tickets to the Samsung Corby Paint Fight! Recruit more people to get more paintballs.

fb-game

You play the paintball game online to dominate the other colors – the top player from each color team will also win a Samsung Corby when the contest ends on the 31st January!

I’m on the Cupid Pink team since it’s so feminine and deceptive it’ll give me a chance to wrack havoc on the field when we actually play for real. πŸ˜‰ Who’s with Team SixthSeal? Run and gun, run and gun! Go go go! 

attack

Get the details here.

KL Dragons rocked my socks off at MABA Stadium

kl dragons

When I was a little kid, I was fat and short. I still am, but that’s digressing. One of the things I couldn’t do was basketball. I would watch with envy while the cool kids shoot hoops and perhaps subconsciously held on to the idea that basketball players in Malaysia are third rate at best while resentfully sitting beside the court. *sour grapes* 

cheerleaders

Basketball. Malaysia. You seldom here those two words together without condescending references. It reminds me of the Chinese phrase Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which means “talented or dangerous people hidden from view” and that’s exactly what the local basketball scene is like. 

throw

I went to MABA stadium last weekend to catch the KL Dragons vs. Thailand Tigers. The atmosphere was charged and I could hear the chanting of the fans while walking in. It was electrifying! 

defend

Let’s go Dragons, let’s go! 

action

Defense! Defense!

free throw

There were a couple of rough and tumble incidences (as all contact sports SHOULD have) which resulted in free throws.

It’s exciting to watch the players strut their stuff on the court. It’s just one of the things which you need to see so I’m putting the video of the game here just to show you what the ambience is like. 

half time throw

The half time saw people trying their luck/skill/homage-to-whatever-deities-they-believe-in to get a shot in. It’s just like the NBA games, hell, if I know .my has such a vibrant basketball scene I would have watched one of their matches earlier! 

dragons half time

Hot sweaty guys (as I told my companion) and cheerleaders galore, you just can’t beat that. 

dunk

Dunk it! 

half time

It was getting so close in the end that I nearly tripped into the court while taking photos. 

score

Guess what? The KL Dragons won 88-69 against the Thailand Tigers. Go Dragons!

I was surprised at the ability of Malaysian’s finest to (more than) hold their own. I didn’t even know there was much of a basketball scene in Malaysia!  You can check out the KL Dragons site or be a fan on their Facebook page for their upcoming matches. It’s definitely something to be experienced! 

kl dragons cheerleaders

…and the best thing about the game? They have cheerleaders! πŸ˜‰

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