As Suanie Sees It

… also known as “WE LOST!” Well, it was not totally unexpected. Ya lah, sure you think that I’m only saying that because we lost. Well, check with my other team members if you don’t believe me

Me, KY, Red Mummy, Sultan Muzaffar and Babe in the City’s other half, KK

The organisers put us up at the Grand Copthorne Waterfront hotel, and we met for breakfast on Wednesday morning. Had a short briefing, then off we went to Geek Terminal. Apparently it’s a popular cafe for events, and they serve awesome coffee. Turns out to be Illy.

There we met with members of Team Singapore - EastCoastLife, Sheylara, Aaron, Mr. Endoh and Wilfrid. EastCoastLife is the marketing director for MENSA Singapore. If that doesn’t scare the shit out of you when it comes to mental challenges like these and you are on the opposing team, I don’t know what will.

After a short presentation - an overview of the Asia Mental Performance Survey that was conducted by BRAND’S in 2007, the host introduced all 10 members from the two teams. There’d be 7 rounds of games to test our… uh, mental alertness And off we went!

Team Malaysia. Photo shamelessly nicked from Wilfred

Round 1: Unscrambling alphabets to form words. At this point, I was like, whaa… Where was the logic puzzle that I’d tried to brace myself for? So this is going to be like flash games or certain Facebook apps lah? Hah! Not that it would make things easier, but it’d definitely be less embarrassing. Maybe it’s just me, but I’d rather be embarrassed from not knowing how to unscramble words than not knowing the square root of 50. Punca kuasa dua I know lah.

Round 2: Math questions, a.k.a. my 2nd worst nightmare .The first would be a horrifying ghost with a tragically disfigured face chasing me down an empty road at night. Then I’d keep running and screaming and crying because most ghosts can fly and I can’t, so I’d automatically be at the losing end. But I don’t remember the ghosts wanting to kill or eat me or anything; they seemed happy by just scaring my wits out.

Team Singapore. Photo shamelessly nicked from Wilfred

Round 3: Watch a BRAND’S commercial, then re-arrange 5 screen shots in sequence. Tembak only lah.

Round 4: Guess the words. E.g. 18 H on a G C = 18 HOLES on a GOLF COURSE. Funniest part was 12 S of the Z, and KK answered, “12 STRIPES OF THE ZEBRA”. Stunned, then laughter all around

Round 5: Boggle! Or at least a variation of. We didn’t do so well on this one, heh.

Team Malaysia, me pretending to be thoughtful. Photo shamelessly nicked from Wilfred

Round 6: Three bottles of BRAND’S, one contains a chicken, bottles of brands being moved around, guess which bottle contains the chicken. It’s a blink and miss thing. Nearly took my eyes out on this one.

Round 7: Watch a BRAND’S commercial, answer some questions such as, “how many friends were at the table?” If we hadn’t had known that we didn’t possess photographic memories, well… guess we found it out

The final score for Team Malaysia vs Team Singapore was 47:54. Not that bad lah, kan? Hahaha we did try lah… seriously… so, like that lor. Congrats to Team Singapore! Was very nice to meet you guys and girls. We had fun, yah? Can hang out if and when you come to KL

Me with part of my prize! Brand’s chicken essence and bird’s nest

For our efforts, we received a nice hamper filled with BRAND’S essence of chicken and bird’s nest. I gave it to my Pinky, because she really loves their essence of chicken. Plus it was her birthday not too long ago Also received S$120 each. Yayness!

Well, thanks to BRAND’S, Cerebos and Burson-Marsteller for having us. We had lots of fun! Thanks to Winnie for coming over to laugh at me provide moral support. Thanks to those from the media who turned up; some of you were funny :P. Was lovely meeting you, Rinaz and congratulations on your upcoming marriage! Thanks to assorted friends for messaging me in various forms ordering me to do well or else. Thanks to the Scots for inventing kilts; really helpful to those who are in possession of wonderful imaginations. Well, I’m just saying, hah.

And thanks to KY, Red Mummy, KK and Sultan Muzaffar for being awesome team mates!

Group photo, shamelessly nicked from EastCoastLife

And that’s that

On Friday night, a bunch of us went to the SCREAM Halloween party @ Sunway Lagoon Theme Park. Was running a bit late because I had the book launch thingy and KY had something on as well. So sorry Caryn for making you wait for us.

It was a long walk to the party though. Had to walk past the mini zoo, which means taking in both good things and bad things. The good:

Beautiful view of the Sunway hotel

The bad: Animals stink. Go figure.

There were lots of SCREAM actors (a.k.a. people wearing costume and make-up pretending to be your worst nightmare walking around trying to take you by surprise so they could frighten you half to death), quite a number of people dancing too. The only problem was that the crowd was a bit too scattered because it was a large venue. Also, S.a.D. took the stage at 11+ pm; I didn’t think it was a good decision, heh. It was funny looking at them in their costumes, though…

Adib from S.a.D.

The only dude whom I thought was quite convincing was a zombie slouching around with a maniac grin. Xaviera had paint on her face and drawings of cobwebs on her arms. No idea what that was Two Chinese vampires were there, the female eventually won Best Costume.

Assorted ghosts and corpses

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Saturday evening was the Nokia Nuffnang Halloween Party at the Borneo Baruk Club in KL. I got there early because someone told me that he was going early. Turns out I was one of the earliest. Luckily Serge was there early as well, so got kawan to borak a bit.

Then people started to arrive, and it was fun looking at all the costumes there. My favourite was the milk carton who danced the night away! Another favourite was KlubbKid, dressed as Kurt Cobain with gunshot wound and all.

Come… as you are….

Sorry if I seemed a bit anti-social. (1) I memang am a bit anti-social, heh; and (2) I was mostly hanging out with Elfie, Michael and LucyLiu upstairs, pre-occupied with the beer that David Lian got us.

Can everyone say, “I LOVE DAVID LIAN!!”…

The first band was quite good, but like someone said, the songs sound almost the same? The rapping duo was good also, rather funny. I know there’s a third band because I heard them rehearsing earlier. Didn’t catch their performance but they sounded good in the rehearsals.

Would have loved to stay longer, but Michael, Elfie and I had to go to Zouk for another party. By the way, the black feathers you see around the club belong to Kim.

** Click here to view my entire Halloween ‘08 Flickr set, including some photos not published here.

What a weekend! [insert your own sentences here because I don't know how to continue this paragraph]

Sharon from Bates141 invited me to the Dell Studio range launch on Thursday evening at Centro, KL Sentral. I found out that Erna was also invited, so we went together lah. Was a bit malas to take the LRT because it’d been a seriously hot and humid day, and the parking fee turned out to be only RM3.

ST and Kim were there too

The theme was colours, so I wore the most colourful thing in my possession. Everything else is black, black, pink, black, black with grey stripes, black… you get the idea. Met a few of Erna’s industry friends, namely Kevin from T3 and Joshua Justin from CHIP. Colourful cocktails and beer were freely flowing, food was pretty good, company was great, music was a-happening, girls in costumes posing for photos…

Look ma, I found a semi-geisha!

Four ‘best dressed’ people were chosen to go on stage for a dance-off competition, including Erna! They were asked to sing and dance to selected songs; the one that wins the crowd… wins. It was actually rather entertaining, heh

Erna tripping the light fantastic to ABBA’s Mamma Mia

Serena C showing Eugene from FHM how it’s done

Erna won a Dell Studio Hybrid PC in orange. Congrats!

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Gier ajaked me to the launch of The Malaysian Book of the Undead (compiled by Danny Lim), Taxi (by Khaled Al Khamissi), TIGA - Lost in KL (by Bernice Chauly), Kayangan (by Ruhayat X) and Pasca Manusia (by Sufian Abas) at Rahsia KL on Friday evening. Saw Grace there, and we parked our arses at her table, heh.

A reading by Danny Lim while Amir Muhammad looks on

I absolutely loved Ezra’s Halloween costume, because it was something that I would have done if I could be bothered

Ezra’s awesome ‘costume’

I saw Sharon Bakar from afar, and finally mustered up enough courage to go say hi to her. She was not intimidating or anything, but as usual I already imagined a 1001 possible (and some non-possible) scenarios in my head, and that normally doesn’t help. But off I went, thankfully she sort of knows who I am so that broke the ice a LOT. Very friendly lady!

Me with one of my favourite bloggers, Sharon Bakar

Witchy

My friend Oliver is visiting the country, so I thought I’d take him out on Thursday evening to check out the clubbing scene. Why Thursday? ‘Cos (mostly) free mah. Life is awesome, no?

Mike got me a couple of invites to Club Quattro’s preview launch; a new club in town in Avenue K along Jalan Ampang. Since I parked my car near Oliver’s hotel, we walked from KL Tower area to Avenue K, a decision which I’d regret not too long after.

We met up with Mike, Elfie, Kel Li and Nigel there. There were LOTS of people, but getting the free beer was not as tough as one might have thought. Walked around the club a bit, then walked 3 flights of stairs to the Winter Bar upstairs. Don’t think a lot of people would appreciate it, especially if they already had a few drinks. The music was good there though — mostly house. Saw people from Carlsberg/ Tuborg there, and Siao Ling invited me to a Tuborg party at Poppy later. Checked out the ’snowing room’ — something like The Sanctuary’s Ice bar, except that this one has ice sofa and fake trees.

Clockwise: Me with Siao Ling, with Oliver, with Kel Li, the ice sofa

It was a bit slippery and I… uh, slipped Sat on the ice sofa. NOT pleasant at all. Got cold bum. Kel Li and Nigel got caught in the faux snow, which they claimed was soap. Ewww, heh

Said hi to Reta and left Quattro to check out Beach Club. Don’t snigger Oliver’s a tourist mah, and I think it’s absolutely essential for every tourist to check out Beach Club It was raining rather heavily, so we decided to get a taxi to Jln P Ramlee.

Band at Beach Club. Not bad

Beach Club is still Beach Club lah. Nothing’s changed. Beer was more expensive though. Was fun observing people.

Crowd at Beach Club

After an hour or so, we walked to Poppy for the Tuborg/ Josh Wink party. Mike, Elfie and a couple other people were there. Didn’t know who Josh Wink was, but the music was quite good.

I love the free Polaroid service they have at the entrance

Me with Oliver

Elfie, Mike and I

There, I’ve fulfilled my yearly clubbing quota that night. I’m done

David Wang invited me to the preview of Maybank2U 2.0 on Monday at Delicious@Marc Residence. That means me dragging my arse from my PJ comfort zone and leg it all the way to the middle of KL. Figuratively speaking, of course

Same faces, different places

There were many familiar faces so it was a nice get-together. Almost everyone took out their notebooks and made full use of Delicious’ Wi-Fi. Ahmad Shareza, Head of Maybank’s Virtual Banking took the stage and explained the work and processes involved in getting Maybank2U 2.0 off the ground. Apparently they went all out to improve the functionality of the site, including 3 months of intensive and extensive usability study. Which I think is a good thing, because the current Maybank2U website is usable at a basic level, but crap. It’s like an invitation for a Feng Phooey ’sifu’ to come de-clutter your website for better life energy and all that new age jazz. Stick a hideous three-legged money frog at the Northeast corner of the page while you are at it.

But you have to agree that M2U a very convenient service, which was why I started using M2U on-line banking in the first place. Almost everyone I need to transfer money to or receive money from has a Maybank savings account, so that works out fine.

Ahmad Shareza on stage

Check out the new front-page design and layout — doesn’t it look better by leaps and bounds already? The tab links on top is a nice touch. The important links are easily accessible. Information available on a single page instead of having to click to a second or third page to find out how you can do this or that. Overall, it looks pretty simple, neat and clean.

The new look for Maybank2u.com

The only thing I don’t get is the M agent. I think it’s kind of redundant. If it’s absolutely necessary to have a LiveChat option (though I don’t see why because it’s limited to Windows Live), well maybe we could get rid of the bird to make it look semi-professional. The bird is just… wrong. Well, I did add M to my MSN messenger and said something in the window, but there was no reply. Maybe it will be fully functional come the proper launch.

The new Maybank2u.com user dashboard

I’ve only used Alliance and RHB on-line banking services before, and those were before I started using M2U. Alliance was pretty good; straight-forward, whereas RHB just went down the drain after they introduced their security system. You know the one with a card that has two rows of random numbers that you have to collect from your home branch. Then every time you want to do anything on-line, you’ll have to refer to your card and enter this alphabet or that number. Pissed me off till no end. I closed my RHB account half a year ago so I have no idea what they are doing now. Maybe something better, hopefully.

Maybank’s TAC system is okay lah. Not fantastic when you have to wait about 5-10 minutes for the TAC to arrive (especially when you are all giddy with the excitement of wanting to get something done 5 minutes ago) but I’ve never had to wait for more than an hour (unlike Erna).

Who wants to pay my bills for me?

There were some complaints that the new site was a bit slow. But I didn’t experience any lagging; not more than usual. For some reason, I found the old site (okay, current site to most of you :P) slower than the new one. I have no logical explanations for this because it should be on the same server. I don’t even want to look at the old (current) version anymore

Me with minishorts

I think most people will like the new Maybank2U.com. As someone with a vested interest (since I use it all the time), I sure do. Think it’s going to be launched next month. Hope that will give them enough time to iron out all the minor bugs and spelling mistakes