BBQ Addicts’ Rumah Hope outing!

Rumah Hope in Petaling Jaya My friends at BBQ Addicts (who make the BEST BBQ food items ever so check out their FB page) decided to host a BBQ lunch for the kids at Rumah Hope in Petaling Jaya.

The order was: Lydia read some of our blogs raving about BBQ Addicts’ superior BBQ items. She wanted to organise a lunch for the kids and wrote to them asking for quotations. Grill Sergeant Lance decided to sponsor the BBQ and roped in his friends, asking us if we’d like to spend a Sunday at Rumah Hope with the kids. Yes sir of course sir.

I must have asked if they needed anything for the BBQ or home. Someone told me that because of the ‘back to school’ period, the kids needed stationery. Somewhere down the line, I thought of preparing stationery goody bags for the kids.

Off I went to my usual stationery supplier. I told him about what I wanted to do, then picked out items that I thought that the kids may need in school. I’d asked Lance to find out the number of kids below and over 12 years old as they will have different needs.

To cut the story short, my stationery supplier (who would like be unnamed) and I came up with a goody bag for both groups, each costing RM40. He gave me good discounts for the items for which I’m most appreciative!

I rallied family and friends to help in sponsoring the stationery bags. By the end of the day, I had sufficient pledges of donations. Much overwhelmed and humbled by your generosity, thank you! By the time I was ready to collect the items, I had extra money so I got add-ons such as Manila cardboards, art drawing blocks, geometry set, etc. These would be given to the home administrators to dispense as and when they deem fit.

Rumah Hope stationery bag for Under 12 Rumah Hope stationery bag for Over 12
Awesome goody bags for Under 12 and Over 12

Off we went to Rumah Hope! It seems to be a good home, quite well-equipped. The home admins and most of the older kids were at church selling coupons for their upcoming Open Day so there were only a handful of young kids around when we got there. As someone quipped, it’s easy for kids to mingle; just run around with them and chase chase chase.

Time to get the BBQ started! Lance had a new BBQ equipment and it was a challenge to get the fire going. Heheh, didn’t prepare for that leh!! Horng went to get dry branches and twigs which worked. As you can see in the photo, Mrs Cheang and Kim helped by channelling inner qi towards the fireyahhh…

Rumah Hope outing - preparing the BBQ

Rumah Hope outing - 01

Yeap, I had my cousins bring Ryan the Nephew along. The kids were mostly interested in computer games anyway, so iPhones and similar gadgets with games in them were huge hits.

Rumah Hope outing - 02

We had lots of awesome food! BBQ Addicts’ wonderfully marinated chicken wings, satay, Juicy Lucy, mushrooms and cheese, bacon-wrapped asparagus, premium sausages… other volunteers prepared different types of food so there were salad, sandwiches, mashed potato, jelly etc.

Rumah Hope outing - 03

Saw lots of running and chasing, UNO and assorted computer games being played, Haze drawing cartoons for the kids… a huge hit, that!

Rumah Hope outing - Haze at work Rumah Hope outing - Haze drawing anime

There was an arts & craft session headed by Melissa. You’re given a piece of paper, some black ink and straw, then you have to blow the ink to make a pattern which hopefully turns out to look like tree branches. Then you stick little pieces of pink paper to make the blossoms. There was gold dust too… saw a lot of creativity in process.

Rumah Hope outing - 04

Rumah Hope outing - 05

See the completed works!

Rumah Hope outing - completed art n craft from the kids

Time to give out angpows and the goody bags!

Rumah Hope outing - 06

… and a group photo!

Rumah Hope outing - group photo

Thanks everyone. It was a wonderful Sunday, I had a great time. And thank you, my stationery goody bag sponsors. Couldn’t have done it without you, thank you!!

BBQ Addicts has the best BBQ food items ever! Check out their FB page, and a latest feature on them on Goreng.my

Rumah Hope, established in 1994 is a sanctuary for abused, neglected and under-privileged children between the ages of 5-17. The Home relies solely on public funding to maintain itself. For information on the home and activities, check out their website.

Oktoberfest in Malaysia! Souled Out & Sid’s TTDI

Postcard from Berlin - Oktoberfest Thanks to Michael the Great, I had an absolutely rocking time at GAB‘s version of Oktoberfest at Souled Out, Sri Hartamas and Sid’s Pub in TTDI. I think there were a couple other venues, but who can party so much these days?

Not me, I’m old(er) now! 😀

By the way, the photo on the right is a postcard from Berlin.

The party at Souled Out was the launch of the Oktoberfest event. They went all out: food and drink tents, guys and girls in costumes, random spray-on tattoo stalls, rows of tables arranged like the real Oktoberfest in Munich, friggin’ heavy beer steins, a (funnily enough, all English) band to entertain you with jingles and what-not..

Best of all, the heaps and heaps of beeeeeeeeeeeeeer!

Oktoberfest @ Souled Out - Eyeris, Suanie and Kilkenny

Met old and new friends! Saw the Nuffies also, herro!

Oktoberfest @ Souled Out - happy people

Got persuaded by cute chick in Bavarian outfit to have a spray-on tattoo for no reason!

Oktoberfest @ Souled Out - Suanie and cute German chick

The one at Sid’s Pub in TTDI a few days later was also fun, but only after we had our Kilkenny lah, waheyyy!

Oktoberfest @ Sid's TTDI - Fireangel, Eyeris, Suanie

So long time you never see Fireangel hor? Me too!

Oktoberfest @ Sid's TTDI - Niki Cheong, Suanie, Fireangel

Also had the best RM10 smoked pork sausage hotdog ever! Later learned it was supplied by Jarrod & Rawlins, awesome!

So yes, excessive drinking and partying. That’s why I’m back in Original Bootcamp Malaysia 🙂

BFM Sept ’10 tweetup @ Kitchen Creatures, Centrepoint

I am a huge fan of BFM 89.9, the business radio station. Even though it’s mainly about finance and economy and grown up stuff that I don’t really care about, they appropriate a large chunk of airtime for stuff that I find interesting, enlightening and educational. Just the other day, they interviewed Julian Hyde who is the GM of Reef Check Malaysia. I learned bits about coral bleaching and the state of Malaysian corals, which I would never have known if I didn’t catch the interview.

I also felt 10x smarter after that. So everyone wins!

BFM Tweet Up Sept 2010 - Kitchen Creatures
Justin of Priority Comms, DaddyLian, Malek Ali, Freda and Vernon, Harinder, Ben and Niki!

Enough rambling. As I was saying, I’m a huge @BFMradio fan. A couple of weeks ago, they announced via Twitter that they’d be having a tweet up where BFM radio personalities would be present. I did the necessary and scored myself an invite, yay!

It was held yesterday at Kitchen Creatures @ Centrepoint, Bandar Utama. There were familiar faces and I met @vernieman for the 1st time after following him on Twitter for so long.

David Chew and Freda Liu were present, as well as Malek Ali, the dude who got the whole BFM radio thing rolling. I was rather pumped up to meet him, as I thought he did a brilliant job since listening to his interview last year during BFM’s 1st birthday do. In fact the entire BFM crew was pleasant and most attentive to ideas, suggestions and feedback.

BFM Tweet Up Sept 2010 - David Chew
David Chew taking us through the presentation

Some highlights:

  • New BFM website to be launched soon! Most likely after the Raya celebrations.
  • Cleaner, sleeker look and feel with better navigational functions to the new site.
  • “What song are you playing now ar?” will not have to be asked again.
  • David Chew is very funny.
  • Watch the show live via UStream, and selected VOD will be available.
  • Apparently Freda was caught singing on very same said Ustream channel without her awareness.
  • Podcasts available on iTunes
  • Better mobile pack thingy, I wasn’t paying attention then but it will be further improved. Something about mobi and Iphone optimised.
  • Everyone @ BFM pays attention to @BFMradio, has Tweetdeck.
  • Streaming via website is now cross-platform, not confined to just Windows Media Player, YAY!
  • From Friday onwards, listeners can call in to the studio! Just like the good ol’ days! +603-7710 9000

That’s about all that I can remember for now. The most important bit I remember was that, BFM will celebrate their 2nd birthday this coming Friday. A very special day is planned, with famous radio personalities of yesteryears invited to take over the BFM mics! You’re looking at the likes of Patrick Teoh, Faridah Merican and Yasmin Yusoff presenting BFM shows, how awesome is that?? It’s going to be a riot, I tell you.

Friday, 03 September 2010, BFM radio, FM 89.9, 7am onwards. Miss it and kick yourself where it really hurts because it’s going to be awesome! Happy birthday, BFM! 🙂

royal selangor’s school of hard knocks

Yoon Kit kindly invited me to the launch of Royal Selangor’s Spring 2009 Collection. Since I had such great fun at one of their launches nearly 2 years ago, I said yes and dragged a couple of friends along for the ride.

Since the Royal Selangor Visitor Centre is all the way in Setapak, we thought we’d arrive late. Then eyeris guided us through multiple highways and we were there on time! Less than 30 mins from PJ during rush hour! I still cannot believe it…

The last time I was there, I did not make myself a shiny pewter bowl. So I made sure that I did this time round.

Royal Selangor School of Hard Knocks - Horng, Rachel, Suanie, Michael
Horng, Rachel, me and Michael decked in aprons. Photo nicked from Horng

We were given a flat round piece of pewter which we were supposed to mould into the shape of a bowl. It was hard work okay! I had sore arms after that, and still ended up with a sorry excuse of a pewter bowl.

Royal Selangor School of Hard Knocks - Master at work
One of the guides helping me with my bowl cos I suck ass

Royal Selangor School of Hard Knocks - Suanie vs Horng's pewter bowl
Suanie vs Horng’s pewter bowl. He was gloating all the way

Royal Selangor School of Hard Knocks - Suanie and Rachel
Got our ‘accomplishment’ certs anyway. Might come in handy for future resumes

It was nice catching up with Yoon Kit and lovely wife, Wei Kim. Stayed way past our bedtime – after all it was a weekday and we aren’t as young as we used to be.. Thanks for the invite 🙂

My pewter bowl which I knocked into near oblivion is still in the box. I wonder what I can use it for…

Royal Selangor School of Hard Knocks - Ryan's hat of pewter
For Ryan’s head, maybe?

Also blogged: Horng

my rocket cometh a.k.a. jason mraz in kl

Jason Mraz in KL - with Suanie 01 Heh. I know some of you (mostly my friends) have been waiting for this post. Honestly I don’t quite know how to blog it. The whole experience has been surreal and I’ll mostly let the photos do the talking.

The photo on the left is pretty telling, no? 😛

Don’t ask me how, don’t ask me why, but I was at the press conference held at Delicious @ Dua on March 04, 2009. It was held before lunch time, a few hours before his scheduled concert later that night at Stadium Negara. He was very charming throughout the do, amiable and thoughtful; rather like what I’d expected him to be in real life. Not sure if I succeeded in keeping my cool (got an image to maintain and all that :P) but I hope it wasn’t too telling, heh. Was a bit funny when he was taken slightly aback by Reta‘s request to swap hats. Well, at least she tried!

Jason Mraz in KL - press con 05
Jason Mraz being asked a question by Serena C

After work, Reta, Horng and I went to town together. Got stuck in the traffic for a bit (thank you Horng for driving) and managed to get the last parking spot near a temple near Jln. Maharajalela. Walked uphill to Stadium Negara, queued up a bit to redeem tickets and proceeded to the pitt area. I guess Horng will tell you the story of his camera.

It was damn hot okay. We sat down and sweated until the man and his super band came on stage.

Jason Mraz in KL concert - 02 Michael sweating
A perspiring Michael

The first song he performed was ‘Make It Mine’. Then there were others. I wasn’t taking notes. I wasn’t dancing either, because I am not the dancing-at-concerts type. But I did truly and thoroughly enjoyed myself. Like I said, surreal.

Jason Mraz in KL concert - 04
Jason Mraz wants you to pass on some love to the world

Jason Mraz in KL concert - 10
Plucking away at his guitar

Jason Mraz in KL concert - 06 Suanie with Janice
Me with Janice

Jason Mraz in KL concert - 08 group
Group photo! Thanks Kenneth for snapping it

Jason Mraz in KL concert - 13
Jason Mraz loves KL. Original t-shirt design by RandomAttire

After the show (about 1 hour 15 mins), we went to Jln. Alor for supper.

Jason Mraz in KL concert - 16 Reta at supper
Reta with her usual pose

Thanks to Horng for accompanying me. Much love and thanks to Eyeris and Reta — you know what and why! I’ll still buy the beer!

Jason Mraz in KL - with Suanie 02
This one also quite telling, heh

*Full Flicker set of 23 photos accessible here

brand’s blogger challenge: 1st runner-up, second place, number 2

… 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 😛

BRAND'S Blogger Challenge - 01 Team Malaysia at breakfast
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!

BRAND'S Blogger Challenge - 02 Team Malaysia
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.

BRAND'S Blogger Challenge - 03 Team Singapore
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.

BRAND'S Blogger Challenge - 04 Team Malaysia pretending to be thoughtful
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 🙂

BRAND'S Blogger Challenge - 05 Suanie with BRANDS products
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!

BRAND'S Blogger Challenge - 06 Group photo
Group photo, shamelessly nicked from EastCoastLife

And that’s that 🙂

pps bash was ons!

So many photos, so many people blogged (and will blog) about it.

So many familiar faces, so many new friends.

So much laughter, so much hunger (until food arrived).

So blur yet so happy.PPS 2nd Anniversary - Collage 1

PPS 2nd anniversary - Collage 3

Things I wanted to do, should have done, but didn’t :

  • Circulate a bit more to meet more people. I know you shy, but I shy too. All shy shy together lah!
  • Taken a photograph with Aiz. He so cute!
  • Brought my horns. Wanted to but last minute forgot about it as I was late.
  • Ate more of the birthday cake. IT WAS TOP NOTCH DELICIOUS SIAL!!!!
  • Followed Kenny back to his hotel NYAH NYAH NYAH! Oklah, I think he’s going to be really scared of me from now on.

PPS 2nd Anniversary - Collage 3

PPS 2nd anniversary collage 2

PPS 2nd anniversary - Collage 4

Congratulations to the winners, you all rock!
Those who didn’t win, you all rock too!
Those who were nominated but didn’t get into the final three, you all also rock!
Those who weren’t nominated, you all lagi rock!
Those who were there, you all rockers!
Those who weren’t there, you all rocketest!

I LOVE PPS!

And EVERYONE wants to get it on with Kenny and Huai Bin!!!

PPS 2nd anniversary - Collage 5

🙂