Nuffnang

The Picture of Dorian Gray / Pendidikan Seni

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picture

I’m rather proud of this artwork I did. It involved paint, duct tape, brushes, sponges and a lot of prayers to hold it together. It’s an abstract art based on the title of the post so I’ll call this The Picture of Huai Bin.

paint mouth

I’m not known for my artistic skills (understatement of the year). Whenever we had to do Pendidikan Seni (Art) in high school, I would inevitably draw this:

draw

I’m not kidding. I blogged about it back in 2003 in under the absurdly grandiose title Behold, I draw again. 😉

setup

One fine Saturday, Nippon Paint invited a bunch of us to the Nippon Paint Workshop at HomeDec ’09, KLCC. I was the first one to arrive so after checking in, I did some recon around the place and found a lot of interesting things such as regal looking porcelain thrones that is more for art’s sake than for actual crapping.

toilet

When I wandered back to the Nippon Paint workshop, I saw easels being set up around the area. It seems like we’ll be painting today!

paint

The tables were filled with all sorts of painting paraphernalia – some of which I don’t have names for. Art just isn’t my forte. >.<

easels

I thought someone was just going to shove a paintbrush into my hands and tell me to paint. It’ll be like Pendidikan Seni all over again. It took 15 years of therapy and thousands of dollars in medication to get over that stressful period of my life and I still have PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder)!

food

Repressed memories began to resurface and I felt my heart pound and blood rush to my head. Panic attack! Before I tore the hair out of my head and ran screaming out the door, Gladys came in and made us feel welcome with some food and a presentation.

presentation

The workshop by Nippon Paint was held to teach us about colors. I don’t just mean red, green and blue but also about how colors affect moods and how to create the ambiance you want. There are warm and cold colors and color combinations that can be manipulated for the purpose you want.

camwhore

We also learned about how to make our own designs with a variety of materials. I was amazed by how a little self-painted art can really accentuate a wall, room, or space. I saw this pattern that was done to highlight a wall and cover a beam. It was inspiring! It really got me interested in being creative and adding a motif to my future living room wall.

I gleaned a lot of information from the presentation but my particular interest is in this color:

Red

red

Pros
Passion, fire, energy, courage
Cons
Defiance, aggression

You should never paint a meeting room red or office disputes might just explode to a whole new level, with disastrous consequences. It is a contentious color for the bedroom – it ignites passion, but also arguments.

paints

However, I’m partial to red (notice my banner and my phoenix tattoo) due to the symbology associated with it. Studies have actually shown that it has a physical effect – increasing the respiration rate, raising blood pressure and making your heart beat faster.
I’ll tell you why I want red later.

nippon paint teach

Okay, with the presentation over and the basics ingrained (well, at least not totally lost) we were led by the friendly Nippon Paint staff to our easels and started working on our canvas!

sponge

I cut sponges into eye shapes with scissors

duct tape

I used duct tape artistically to define zones

paint face

I used multiple sizes of paint brushes to color my canvas

eyes

I mixed colors and washed paint brushes with water

drip

Hell, I even squeezed paint straight from the tube onto the easel

duct tape out

I almost felt like Van Gogh (except my left ear lobe is still intact and I haven’t succumbed to mental illness…yet) doing all that.

group

I loved the session so much I lugged my piece of art back home to Kelana Jaya on the LRT at the expense of my back. I seriously felt the need to paint and make beautiful things (which is very subjective, ya know :p) for the first time in my life! I already have a project in mind…I’m going to paint my work table! =D

my painting

That’s why I wanted the color red, I’m going to blog from that table and all the positive attributes are the things I want happening when I’m typing out a post. I’ll face my Pendidikan Seni fears and do a little design on the table while I’m at it too!

painting

Hmm…now what creepy sketch should I do? 😉

The farewell cake incident

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carol-cake

I wanted to get a cake for Carol for her farewell but when I logged into Secret Recipe I found out that my credit card order wouldn’t go through. T_T

I haven’t paid my credit card bill this month coz of moving and all that (moving requires $) so my credit card was rejected. I tried making random calls to various Secret Recipe outlets in KL but it seems that only one (after much pleading) would do delivery.

mca

He is the store manager of the franchise at Wisma MCA and agreed to text me his bank account so I can transfer the money to him. I was a bit dubious about this arrangement at first, but I had the blogathon to do last Friday (the day it’s supposed to be delivered) so I didn’t have a choice.

email

Anyway, I banked in the money and emailed him and on Friday (the 13th) he called me RIGHT BEFORE the blogathon and said he couldn’t access his email. >.<

calls

I haven’t even changed, much less gotten into the window display to get at the computers. I panicked for about 1 second before telling him I’ll text him the email contents before lunch (coz I can’t remember everything).

carol-1

carol-2

Thus, on the very first day of the blogathon, while everyone was blogging, I was busy sorting out this damn cake order so Carol would get it on her very last day.

It’s a good thing that the Xpax XXL double bonus is happening coz it’s so much easier to write long SMS (took 6 x 160 characters IIRC) on my BB.

cake carol

All’s well that ends well though. Goodbye Carol! You will be missed. T_T

These things only happen in movies

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I thought stuff like this only happens in movies, like slipping on banana peels. However last night I had the great misfortune of DROPPING my keys INTO A GRATE. You know that kind of drain – you can call it a sewer even. It’s a good meter down and inaccessible so you can’t reach into the bacteria infested water and fish out your keys.

drain

It’s a good thing it happened beside my condo so I got security to use a hook apparatus to fish it out. Apparently, it’s not as rare as I thought…else, why would they have that thing lying around the guard house? Granted, it can be used to pull down rolling shutters as well, but there are none in my place.

keys

It’s a good thing they had that nifty pole lying around or I’ll have had to call one of my friends to come with a piece of steel wire (my first thought). It wouldn’t be very difficult since the Xpax XXL double bonus allows me to make more calls but it still wouldn’t be fun waiting for them to come while peering apprehensively at down the drain and hoping the water won’t wash my keys away. >.<

Live Mannequin blogathon 2009

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4 bloggers stuck in a window display for 24 hours over two days…all in the name of fun!

tangs blogathon booth

Melody here points to where we will be doing our blogathon. It’s exactly where the mannequins will be, except the inanimate ones will be replaced by decidedly more vivacious mannequins (us) for the duration of the Live Mannequin blogathon 2009 at TANGS.

tangs

I want to apologize in advance for my noxious farts, which I’m sure you’ll all get to experience firsthand when we’re in that small enclosed space. Oh yes, that is my Sekret Weapon (TM) to winning this contest. Flatulence. Plenty of it.

Who? What? Why? When? Where?
Alright, the Live Mannequin blogathon is happening on the 13-14th of November. We’ll be at TANGS, Pavilion KL from 10 am – 10 pm on Friday and Saturday for 12 hours straight each day.

tangs bloggers

Huai Bin (me), KY, Cheesie, Wern Shen

Don’t worry about spotting us, you’ll see us alright. We’ll be at the place where the window display is. Right in front of the entrance. There’s a reason it’s called “Live Mannequin blogathon”. We’ll literally be sitting there, decked out in TANGS attire, blogging, tweeting and Facebooking.

tangs 5k coat

Talking about TANGS attire, we tried on the outfits earlier this week and let me tell you the one I’m wearing in the photo below costs way more than my one month salary. Heck, the jacket alone is RM 3,899. Must. Be. Careful. With. 4k. Jacket.

tangs clothes

Hot or not? 😉

tangs video crew

I’m sitting here, wondering how I’m going to deal with one toilet break every 3 hours. What if I get diarrhea? What if I’m secretly bulimic and need 15 minutes to throw up after every meal? What if I’m a raging heroin addict who needs to get his fix every hour?

Kidding on two counts. No prizes for guessing which.

tangs blogathon filming video

It’ll be a lot of fun though! Food will be delivered into the window display so I can demonstrate my famous speed eating repertoire for all and sunder to see!

There’s also going to be a lot of events for us to participate in so there won’t be a dull moment. I’m actually getting more and more excited as I type.

tangs blogathon girl

Hear ye, hear ye! I’ll be at TANGS this weekend so please come and show your support by voting for me. I really need to win that Intel powered Lenovo notebook coz my primary notebook died. T_T

Oh, and you can also win yourself a Lenovo notebook just by dropping by. Check out the Facebook page for details!

This event was the result of a sponsorship campaign between Intel, Lenovo and TANGS Pavilion.

One World Hotel. Two people. Six hours.

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one world hotel

It was a totally impulsive decision. I was chatting to my friend on MSN earlier this week when I suddenly thought, “Hey, won’t it be great to just check into a nice hotel after work tonight and work?”

Of course, working wasn’t the primary agenda of this nocturnal sojourn….watching TV was. 😉

tv

Thus, I booked a room in the afternoon through the Internet and went to pick her up after work. However, a series of unfortunate events ended up with us checking in only after 8 pm.

room service

We were so occupied in…er, our work *cough* that we ordered room service.

lamb shank

The lamb shank was atrocious – almost inedible, but the wine sure hit the spot.

We spent a total of six hours in the room before checking out at 2:22 am and going home coz we both have to work the next day.

It’s such a waste of money right?

Cost breakdown:
Internet RM 30 (told you we were working)
Room service dinner RM 192.50
Hotel room RM 325.00
Service charge RM 32.50
Tax RM 16.25

one world bill

Total: RM 596.25

Watching TV, talking and chilling out in an impromptu hotel excursion: Priceless

The point of my post is that sometimes we do things that may not make much financial sense. However, I’ve come across a promotion that really rewards you. I present the Every Month Bonus XXL by Xpax.

Why XXL? Xpax is DOUBLING their existing bonus when you use RM 50 or more in November and December 2009. Their monthly bonus is now bigger and better. Check out the details here.

I am using the Xpax BB so this is great news for me. At least I’ll still be able to communicate after burning that amount in six hours earlier this week. :p

P/S – Seriously, we did get some work done. Honest. Cross my heart and hope to die. I don’t remember watching TV though. 😉

Project Alpha finale

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This is the final video of my Project Alpha episodes. It’s also the last episode in the show which I dub “The one where I breathed fire using kerosene”. I was hoping for this to be in an episode by itself though. Oh well. This is a 3-in-1 episode which has:

  • Fire breathing
  • Drinks at Helo Bali
  • Wrap party at Euporia, MOS

I actually got very, very excited by the fire breathing and did it several times in a row, much to the consternation of the crew. I guess it must have looked like I have an unusually healthy disregard for the safety of my life and limb. 😉

Fire breathing 

However, it wasn’t that hard – closest I got was a lil burning sensation on my lips when I didn’t expel the kerosene with enough force AND draw back (which is crucial so you don’t burn your lips). It was a lot of fun!

w00t! Now I can do this neat trick at BBQs or functions where an ample supply of kerosene or other flammable materials are available! 😉

martini

Bad Idea (TM)

I may have ingested more ethanol based drinks than I ought to during the wrap party.

me martinis

Worse Idea (TM)

I crashed my car straight after that and it cost me RM 11,000 in repairs. Sigh.

moet

Worst Idea (TM)

I guess you can say that this episode cost me 11k, so go watch it!

Best enjoyed with Streamyx, of course. 😉

Hey, it really works for me – no buffering or crap like that when I watch it with my Streamyx broadband at home. I even wrote a dissertation analogy about the reliability.

Taking things for granted

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youtube

I’ve been using Streamyx broadband ever since “broadband” and “Malaysia” has been used in the same sentence. Before that, I was on 14.4, 28.8 and then 33.6 kbps dial up modems and you really get to appreciate speed when it comes.

Streamyx was the first broadband to hit Malaysia and when I got it, I was ecstatic. Finally! I don’t have to open multiple windows to load webpages and go make myself a cup of coffee and come back just in time to see the first one load.

You know human nature right? You think your girlfriend is the best thing since God made Eve until you marry her and then you start roaming around for bigger younger and better things.

That, my friends, is the root of all problems.

We take things for granted. We forget the great things that made us fall in love in the first place (analogy to broadband here wtf) and start nitpicking at all the minor stuff while ignoring the glaring negative attributes of the new girlfriend (or broadband provider).

This is also related to what I call the Corner Mamak Theory (TM) – eh, seriously I filed a patent for this so don’t use it unless you intend to pay me royalties k? 😉 I will explain the Corner Mamak Theory (TM) in more detail in another post. Haha!

Seriously though, I love my Streamyx, haven’t switched since I started subscribing to it coz it does what I need. Sure, it’s a “familiar” name and you know it’s gonna be there for you so you start taking it for granted and you look at new broadband players with rose tinted glasses.

jestina

Well, it’s a bitter pill to swallow but lemme tell you this, I’ve been through life enough to know that there is no such thing as the “perfect girl”. The “perfect girl” is what you make of it. Streamyx does the job for so that’s why I’m not switching. 🙂

“When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted
or take them with gratitude.” – G.K. Chesterton

The incriminating Episode 6

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This is the episode I have been dreading. Cherie (my ex-girlfriend) came on set and gave the lowdown on how she met me.

I WANT TO GO ON RECORD HERE! That is not how I remember meeting her. T_T 

cherie 2005

The photo above was taken when we first met – Cherie is the one in green. This post describes the event leading up to when I first met Cherie and it does not involve toilets, washrooms, water closets or latrines. None. Nada. Zilch. 

tgif me jojo

I wish Jojo and Michael would just run amok with the editing scissors and cut out the majority of the stuff. Heh! We did a couple of takes and there were things said which can best be described as uncomplimentary. 😉 

tgif cherie

However, there were some good things said too, which didn’t go into the final episode. Can we have an outtakes episode? :p 

tgif shoot

This episode was fun to do coz I had a (more than) a couple of beers while shooting the scene. You see, there’s this thing called “scene continuity” so if you mess up a scene but took a sip (or a gulp) from your freshly opened beer while at it, you’ll need a new one so it doesn’t look weird. 

tgif start

This means you have to finish the current bottle. FML. 😉 

tgif jojo

It was a good scene though, I like this one coz Cherie knows me well. I guess you can say that we’ve been through a lot together – it’s a chemical romance with its ups and downs but at the end, it’s nice that we can still be friends and say “Hey, when it was good, it was great right?” 🙂

Here are the other episodes that I haven’t posted up:

Episode 5

Episode 4

I use Streamyx broadband at home and I love the speed it gives me. I’m on the 1 Mbps package and YouTube videos loads right away. Instant gratification! =D

My Top 5 Treat List

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jestina goon

I was talking to Jester on MSN about my bucket list Top 5 Treat List the other day. It’s basically a list of things you’ll like to reward yourself with. Throw creative stumbling blocks like your bank account balance, credit card debt and other emotional baggage out of the window and just make a list of stuff you’ll like to have.

My Top 5 Treat List:

#1 Dinner at Sugar Mill Restaurant, British Virgin Islands

Sugar Mill Restaurant is voted as one of the World’s Most Romantic Restaurants on Concierge.com and is described tantalizingly as “Love among the ruins”.

Sugar Mill Restaurant

Located in the Caribbean, this would require a flight to the US before another hop on a plane to the British Virgin Islands. Sugar Mill Restaurant is located in Tortola and offers truffles and other premium items on the menu.

It’s carved from a 17th century sugar mill and the interior looks very inviting with its rough stone walls and romantic lighting.

Who will I be sharing this fine dining experience with?

Jester of course!

HOW CAN YOU NOT WANT TO BRING THIS GIRL OUT FOR DINNER???

jestina goon sze mun

Just look at that smile, how can you not help but like her? =D

#2 Go to Sweden and stay at ICEHOTEL for a weekend

ICEHOTEL Sweden

I first read about the ICEHOTEL in an issue of National Geographic while taking a dump and it totally captivated my imagination. I think I had constipation for a couple of days after that from all the excitement. That was a couple of years back and I still get animated every time the subject is brought up.

Imagine a hotel build from scratch every year, with drinks served in glasses made of ice and going to bed in an entire room made out of ice blocks and sleeping on a block of ice with a rug to avoid hypothermia.

icehotel

They even have a section on “How to sleep well in -5 degrees Celsius”! I must experience this.

#3 Buy a Lamborghini Gallardo LP 560-4

Lamborghini_Gallardo_LP560-4_Spyder

I don’t want a Ferrari – it’s just so common its borderline cliché. It’s Lamborghinis for me, thank you. Not just any Lambo either, I want the Lamborghini Gallardo LP 560-4. Just look at the curves on the car and think about the 5.3L V10 under the hood. It reportedly beat the Ferrari F430 Scuderia, the Nissan GT-R and the Lamborghini Murcielago LP640 in an episode of Top Gear.

Lamborghini_Gallardo_LP560

This car is infused with essence of awesomeness.

#4 HALO (High Altitude-Low Opening) jump in the United States

I’m an adrenaline junkie so I’m naturally attracted to things which are likely to cause:

(a) Loss of life or limb
(b) Severe injury
(c) At least the possibility of (a) or (b)

halo

I’ve always wanted to do a HALO jump coz it’s inherently dangerous. It is also very, very cool. Have you watched Tomorrow Never Dies and Die Another Day? Bond was doing a HALO jump in both. The HALO jump is a technique used by the US military to avoid SAM (Surface to Air Missiles) by flying planes high above and dropping personnel at about 30,000 feet.

halo jump

The really interesting thing about a HALO jump is that you have to breathe pure oxygen for at least 30-45 minutes beforehand to flush the nitrogen from your system. You’ll also need an oxygen bottle during the jump. Basically, you jump and freefall all the way down before deploying your chute at a very low altitude for a maximum terminal velocity experience! =D

I’m talking geek, aren’t I? :p

#5 Get a Dell Inspiron 13

soaked notebook

I have extremely bad luck when it comes to gadgets. Two (!!!) of my notebooks got soaked within two weeks coz of a freak thunderstorm that drove rain in ridiculous volumes into my living room. The first was a Dell and it was turned on when the water came in, so naturally, the result wasn’t very pretty. I’m down to my backup notebook which is really slow and I really need a portable and fast notebook coz I like to travel and it’s a hassle to lug a full sized one during my escapades.

dell-inspiron-13

The Inspiron 13 might come across as unusual naming from Dell considering the amount of people with triskaidekaphobia (fear of the number 13) but there’s actually a good reason behind it. It’s 13.3 inches of sleek, sexy hardware running Intel Core 2 Duo processors and Windows 7. The screen is also in 16:9 aspect ratio which I prefer to 4:3 formats.

inspiron-13

Dell’s Inspiron 13 comes in different colors (but I want the Obsidian Black if I win k?) and with enhanced wireless which supports up to 802.11n and a built in webcam, it is great for connectivity on the go. It’s very portable at 2.22 kg. It’ll be perfect for videoconferencing with Jester while at the office since I’m in PJ and she’s in KL. 😉

clipboard

Psst… use this special coupon code (7ZQVQF2RLZRKW3) when you purchase a Dell Inspiron 13 from Dell’s website and get RM 100 instant cash redemption. You can also call 1800-88-0301 to order. The coupon expires 10th November 2009.

dell

Want to win a FREE Dell Inspiron 13 with all the trimmings? Just write a post like this and send it off to dellinspiron13@nuffnang.com along with your name, email address and a permalink of the blog post before 10th November 2009. Get the full details here!

Mama my nen nen got thing stuck inside

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chest x ray

I love this chest X-ray. Pretty nifty eh? I don’t have a light box so I improvised with my window. Check out how my nipple piercings show through. =D

Project Alpha Episode 2 is out!

I finally remember why I’m so rigid in the episode – I was sitting precariously on a stone and couldn’t really move or risk falling down. T_T

I’ll post up behind the scenes photos soon!

Okay, gotta go, just received a BBM on my Xpax BB for breakfast!

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