As Suanie Sees It

(Click here for part 1, click here for part 2)

We reached 1U at 9 p.m., which would give us enough time to transfer and upload our photos onto the website. I think we were the first couple of teams to arrive. Quickly latched on to a laptop as our marshal, Andrea had previously informed us that there would be only 4 laptops available.

Don’t kacau me! Photo by Jason Chan

Pinkpau tension. Heheh, I love her expression

After that, it was makan time + hanging around while waiting for the results.

Me scolding Kim!

Frankie and me with our lovely marshal, Andrea

Me with Eevon and David Lian from Text100

Then the results! Each runner-up team gets a RM500 Robinsons voucher (plus we all get to keep the N82 we used during the race) so it was all good. I was waiting for our team to be called, but it was not until Andrea got hold of me and yelled, “50-50 chance of winning!” that I began to think that we might win this thing!

Turns out, we did!

Yay!

You know the cliche used whenever people win stuff and they’d say they did not expect to win? That night I understood what it felt like. It was also a bit of a thrill (afterwards, because honestly at that point in time, I was too tired to care) because I’ve never won anything major in my life.

Laughing at Fairuz

Pinkpau, Kim and me after everything…

Thanks to everyone involved for everything I had a whale of a time Am taking Erna with me to Hong Kong in early June, because we were supposed to go to Bali last year but we canceled at the last minute. Am giving my N95 to my sister (I still love it lots!) and she is giving her N73 to my mom.

Now, back to work!

(Click here for part 1, click here for part 2)

(Click here for Part 1)

At 2.30 p.m. we gathered at the Nokia exhibition/ event area over at the new wing of 1 Utama.

Me and my teammate, Frankie in Team 7

Erna came to cover the event, and to cheer us on.

Me with Erna. Photo stolen from Erna

A few of us went to Starbucks 15 minutes before the event was scheduled to begin. Damn selamba, kan?

Smashpop and Pinkpau with me kacauing @ the back. Photo by Jason Chan

Group photo of all 8 teams. Click on the photo above for a larger version.

As we were given our N82 the night before, all that was left was to collect our SIM cards from our marshals. Although each team member had a phone to use, only one SIM card was provided; data-only Maxis 3G. We were to use our phones to take photos etc, and we were to upload the photos to the Soul Of The Night website.

At 4 p.m. Mr. Andrew Cheong, MD of Nokia Malaysia flagged off the hunt by uploading our clues onto the SOTN site. Our tasks were as follow:

i) Discover a good place for live entertainment in the Klang Valley
ii) Discover a good spot for night view of KL
iii) For games in the evening, where do people go?
iv) Discover an eatery that serves great food
v) Discover a place for great evening shopping (bonus task, optional)

Sounds easy right? Yah I know last year’s competitors must be fuming a bit, because they went through a WHOLE lot worse Well we were given up to 9.30 p.m. to complete the necessary tasks, including uploading of photos onto the website and returning to the flag-off spot. We were also given the use of a Nissan Cefiro and a driver; though the team members would need to give the driver instructions on where to go (i.e. even if he knew how to get there by himself, we’d still need to tell him where and how to go). A marshal and cameraman were to accompany each team to heaven and hell, heh.

It started to rain as we rushed into the cars. The night before I’d skimmed through the magazines in the hotel room, and came across a place for archery. Sounded interesting and unique (well, to me lah, since I am not a sports person at all), though I was a bit hesitant on the ‘games in the evening’ part. I mean, you can shoot a bloody arrow at anytime you want, provided that the place is open for business, right? Whatever lah; it was raining and I doubt anyone would be playing football in the open since we Malaysians are so scared of the rain — sikit-sikit hujan, lari lintang-pukang cari tempat teduh So I directed the driver to Maju Junction in KL, taking the TTDI road to Jalan Parlimen and Jalan Raja Laut.

Having had to park in a proper parking space (else the driver would go back to 1U if he was told to buzz off by random pak guards or the police), we rushed into Maju Junction and asked some people where the archery place was. Found it, and there was one person shooting arrows, and it turned out to be the owner. He okayed us taking photos.

Chinese Legolas in action. Click the photo above for a larger version

After he shot a couple of arrows, we wanted to snap a close up of the target. We went near the few targets closest to us but could not locate his arrow. Finally we realised that the owner was shooting at the targets at the end of the line, which were about twice the distance from the targets you see in the photo above -_-” . Power. So he smirked a little as we asked him to shoot at the target closer to us.

Thanked him and went on our way. Initially I thought of going to Central Market as they always have random buskers etc along the streets. Not that I’ve been there to witness it for myself before, but I saw it in CINTA THE MOVIE so it must be true But as we took a couple of wrong turnings because I am noob around the area, we decided to ditch the Central Market plan and headed for Jalan Bukit Bintang instead. You know the corner of Maybank opposite Lot 10? Well every time I pass by the area, there’d be large groups of people, in particular teenagers gathered there, and once or twice I’d see them dance and whirl and spin and whatever their young bodies would allow them to do.

Parked the car along the lane beside Planet Hollywood and made a dash for Maybank. Two buskers were performing, there were lots of teens hanging around, but that was it. After taking a photo of the buskers (later I found out that another team had the same idea), we approached the teens and after explaining to them what we were doing, we asked them if they could dance for us. They grinned a lot, but were a bit shy; I guess it was because of the cameraman. Then one girl basically told them DO IT, heh, I liked her a lot. All in all, 3 boys did some dancing and shuffling; it was actually quite fun to watch them.

Good sports! Click the photo above for a larger version

I thought there would be something more along Jalan Bukit Bintang — maybe some guys blowing bubbles of those bubble making machines, or… well, something lah! There were only a lot of random dudes offering massage services. I guess it was too early lah; I know the fun people would set up shop come night time.

But that hope kept us walking till BB Plaza, until I felt that it was enough, and led us to Jalan Alor. Took a photo of the famous frog porridge stall (and ingredients), thought it would be okay for the food task. Andrea our marshal asked if we wanted to eat there, and when Frankie found out that I do not eat frogs legs, he kept bugging me to try because he insisted that it was delish but I said no because FROGS LEGS ARE DISGUSTING THANK YOU.

I’ve seen frogs being skinned alive @ the SS2 pasar malam. Bleurgh. Click the photo above for a larger version

Headed back to our cars, and I made a turn for the Arab Street, trying to get inspired by the various shops and eateries. None came. Then it started to rain rather heavily. We’d forgotten to take along our umbrellas, so Frankie, Andrea and Steven (our cameraman) put on the plastic raincoats that were provided to us, and I bought a small brolly for RM10. Got directions to Traders Hotel, got back to our car and off we went.

We reached Traders Hotel at 6 p.m. I’d heard of Traders Hotel’s SkyBar and how it offered a splendid view of KL. But Frankie reminded me that the task was for ‘night view’, and it was obviously still too bright to be night. Blah. So we decided to go makan. Frankie suggested Sri Paandi, because his relatives took him there the last time he was in KL, and he was pleasantly surprised that you could get unlimited helpings of rice and assorted veges for only RM3.50. The only thing was that he did not know how to get there, and neither did I. So I suggested the banana leaf rice restaurant in Bangsar, as it was a place I knew how to get to.

Unfortunately I missed a turning along Federal Highway because I was trying to upload photos onto the website via 3G. So I directed the driver to take the first turning after the arch (that separates KL from PJ), going into Jalan Universiti. Frankie used GPS and managed to locate Sri Paandi in Seksyen 11. All’s well that ends well, eh? Heh. Frankie was a bit disappointed though, because he wanted to see Bangsar. Don’t think he’d been there before. Next time lah, ar.

The host giving us the thumbs up. Click the photo above for a larger version

Found out that the banana leaf rice cost RM4 instead. Doesn’t matter, ‘cos it really looked good. At this point in time, we rested for a while. Frankie ate everything on the leaf while Andrea and Steven had a burger from a nearby stall. Service was a bit slow though, heh.

Sri Paandi’s RM4 banana leaf rice. Click the photo above for a larger version

Andrea paid for the meal (we were given RM100 allowance) and we decided to go to either Hilton or Le Meridien for the night view. As we turned into KL Sentral, I noticed that Le Meridien faces KL, and I thought that it would have a better view. So we managed to park in front of Le Meridien (you really get what you pay for — the people there were fantastic), ran towards the reception area and pleaded our case. A couple of short phone calls were made, and we were allowed to the 33rd level where the Royal Club Lounge was located. Unfortunately we found out that we could only take photos with a glass barrier, so we did the best we could. Then the host of the Royal Club Lounge, a really nice girl whose name is Aishah (I think) suggested that we try the 8th level, where the swimming pool was. Awesome suggestion, as we took a couple of really nice photos, IMHO.

View from the Le Meridien, 8th Level, with the National Museum in sight. Click the photo above for a larger version

So 4 tasks completed, now on to the bonus task. I couldn’t think of anywhere really special (as in, REALLY special) to shop in the evening, and settled for The Curve’s street mall. I like the place lah, just that it’s not FANTASTICALLY unique, if you get what I mean. And I’d hoped that there would be a couple of early performances in Halo Cafe so we could substitute the earlier photos we took for live performances. No such luck.

The array of tents selling assorted stuff @ The Curve. Click the photo above for a larger version

It was nearly 9 p.m. and we rushed back to 1U. Spotted Team 3 (Kim and Fairuz) next to us at the traffic light turning into Lebuh Bandar Utama. Luckily our driver was super awesome and faster, heheh. We managed to get back to the flag-off area and got ourselves a laptop to upload the photos, because it was kinda hell trying to upload them using 3G.

You can see our uploaded photos here.

I was invited to participate in the Nokia N82 Wireless Adventure II, held last Saturday, flag off at 1Utama. The reason I agreed was because I wanted to get my grubby hands on the N82, which IMHO is a really awesome phone especially with the Xenon flash capability for the 5 megapixel camera. That is the only thing I find lacking in my Nokia N95, which I really, truly love; though at this point of time, most of the applications I use are yet to be available for the N82.

When I said yes to the thing, I didn’t really know the details of the hunt/ race/ adventure/ event. So I didn’t know what to expect; perhaps my vision was clouded by the promise of a brand new N82 at the end of the day. Sorry ar, I can be shallow at times.

The evening before the event, David and EeVon from Text 100 invited a few of us to dinner at 1U’s Delicious. That was where I met a few other participants, and also where I found out that Delicious is no longer under Ms. Read. David gave us the skinny that there would be 8 teams in the hunt, 2 members per team. One member is an invited blogger/ journalist, and the other member was chosen based on an audition held earlier. Thanks to Pinkpau, I had salad and chicken with creamy peanut butter for the first time.

The briefing was held at OneWorld hotel, where we met our randomly selected team members. My team member was Frankie, a 24 y/o MMU student from Melaka. Team 1 was Ariq from Harian Metro and Sharon, a senior designer; Team 2 was Pinkpau and David, Team 3 was Kim and Fairuz who’s in media & marketing; Team 4 was Lai Sin from Sin Chew and Hooi Han; Team 5 was Aref from NST and Sabrina, a Dentistry student; Team 6 was Sam from The Star and Sadat Foster; Team 7 was me and Frankie and Team 8 was SmashPop and Szetoo.

During the briefing, taken using PanoMan via N82. Click on the photo above for a slightly larger version

We were briefed on the rules and regulations of the event tomorrow, as well as instructions on how to use the N82. Nokia very kindly and graciously ( ) paid for a hotel room at OneWorld for me; I got a deluxe room on the 12th floor, yay! The shower was so best!

My room for the night! Should have taken the photo from the entrance la, but whatever. Click on the photo above for a slightly larger version

Discussed with Frankie regarding the hunt for a bit, then went back to my room as there was nothing else we could do until we get the clues. Back in my room, I went on-line for a bit but couldn’t do much as I could only get connected to EDGE. Tried to watch TV but didn’t know how to operate it. Minibar was locked Spotted some magazines on the table and skimmed through it with hopes that bits and pieces of venue information could be of help the next day.

Slept rather late but well, woke up at 9 and called FA to wake her up and to beg her to come to 1U and take my laptop home. She agreed under protest, heheh. Took a photo of the view from my room:

Room with a view. Taken with my N82

At the first AMBP gathering, I was given a door gift which included a KL Guide by Discovery. There was a pull-out map, and I took a couple of photos of it because we were only allowed to use the N82 (in anyway we wanted, short of contacting other people) during the hunt.

I thought of going to the Coliseum because apparently it’s a classic place. Taken with the N82

Checked out at 10.45 a.m, walked towards Starbucks in the new wing to meet with FA, chilled for about an hour, went to Guardian to replenish my Strepsils, then headed to Bakerzin for a very lovely lunch with the participating and organising teams. Food is always great.

If I remember correctly, it was during Brendan Pereira’s time when the front-page stories on Monsterblog thing was implemented. The idea was for us to blog a newsworthy story taken from NST every working day, and a link would be made available on the said story on NST online edition. This move improved Monsterblog’s hits by leaps and bounds, and along the way we managed to score a Google Page Rank of 6. Yay.

Fast-forward to the demise of Monsterblog: I blogged about the BERSIH and HINDRAF rallies. I don’t recall my blog postings to be particularly negative, or that I wrote anything out of line. One could call my postings on Monsterblog to be almost tame

In early December 2007, we found Monsterblog to be inaccessible. At first we thought that there was some problems with the server, as we have had this problem before (something about MySQL couldn’t handle bla bla bla). Left it at that. But the next day or so, I was told by someone to call a number; the company that registered Monsterblog’s URL. The guy on the other line was a tad worried (and rightfully so), because according to him, the police visited either the company or the company’s head, asking about Monsterblog, if they owned it etc. Turned out that a police report had been lodged on Monsterblog, presumably related to the BERSIH or HINDRAF postings or comments. The domain guys freaked out and removed the pointers to the DNS, and that was the last of Monsterblog.

We asked around, and someone told us that there was no police report lodged against Monsterblog. But two days later, the person called to say, yes the police report just got in. Apparently or allegedly or supposedly, ZAM was the one who lodged it, and Monsterblog was only one of the few blogs that kena-ed. Until today, we’ve not seen the police report so we do not know what it was really about.

I discussed with a couple of people, and we unanimously decided to let go of Monsterblog. Not because we were afraid, but mostly because we have other shit going on. The fun was over, thanks for the ride A couple of weeks later, Mr. Little Birds told me that he heard that the operation (operasi, a.k.a. mass-tangkap) was canceled. So, that was that.

But it was no fun living each day waiting for someone to turn up at your door, okay. More respect to those who face it everyday and have it worse.

So again, that was that. And again, the ride was fun; sometimes tedious (it’s not that fun to have to crack your head every morning thinking what to write, especially during the slow days when the news weren’t that happening) but overall it was good. I learnt hell of a lot during this time, and I got to know a lot more people, and made some good friends along the way. But there you go, that was the story. Not very spicy right? Now you all can go to Peter’s blog and whack him for deluding you all that this would be akin to a Korean drama.

To end this, here are some random recollections/ notes:

- At one time we had the brilliant idea (heheh) to showcase bloggers. So I rounded up some people I know, got in touch with Joan Lau (ex-editor of NST Life & Times) and she kindly loaned us a photographer, May for the shoot. Borrowed some lovely clothes and accessories from Cats Whiskers and Sharizal hooked us up with his friend, Suzanne @ galleriizu for the venue. For reasons that I don’t remember, the posts never went up. But the photos were lovely, and here’s a group photo:

L-R: Raksha, Fireangel, Reta, Erna and Val

Of course there are other photos, some of which are really awesome IMHO but you’ll have to ask the respective bloggers for them.

- NST loaned us their auditorium to host MOSSA’s first roundtable to address the growing interest in open standards, open source software (OSS) and the Malaysian government’s announcement on adopting a neutral technology platform policy. It was moderated Dato’ Lee Ow Kim, Chairman of the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM) ICT and Multimedia Committee, and the turnout included some major OSS advocates heavyweights. Even Uncle Jeff made it, though he didn’t blog about it (for valid reasons that he told me later). So, I was quite happy lah.

Florian Reuter at the roundtable. FR is a software engineer at Novell Inc., currently focused on OpenOffice.org. Photo by ST — I cropped and compressed image quality

- Random e-mails from random people asking me random questions, such as “Please tell me the timetable for SPM exam.” Wtf?

- Mack Zulkifli is no longer with OSB.

- Trolls, a couple in particular who threatened me harm et al. I kept all, ALL your emails and print screen of your comments including timestamp and IP addresses before I deleted them, okay?

- E-mail from a lawyer’s office in Singapore, demanding that we take down a couple of comments by one individual, claiming that the comments were defamatory to their client. So I had to print the whole damn thing, took it to NST’s legal counsel (who is btw IMHO a gorgeous male specimen, heheh) and he provided some free advise. But I think the whole thing also caused the editorial team to think twice about the relationship between Monsterblog and NST.

oO time for lunch. That’s all I can remember for now. If I suddenly remember anything else, I might include in the comments, or not. Anything else anyone wants to ask, feel free to e-mail me. Kthxbai.

** Click here to read Part 1, click here to read Part 2.

Okaylah, maybe I was not being entirely honest. In actuality, not *all* of us were bloody excited about the project. There were queries, apprehension and doubt; the main uncertainty was remuneration. Who the eff writes for free, right? We have our own blogs for that purpose. Before I make it sound like we were on a mission to save the world as opposed to contributing to a group blog (the uncertainty and doubt, whoa), Joyce for example makes a living writing and… erm, stuff (okay, I know she takes photographs as well). She could easily use the time blogging on Monsterblog to write pieces that guarantee payment upon publishing. But somehow me and maybe a couple of other people managed to convince her that this could and would really work, and it would be a really awesome project etc etc. I guess most of us thought that way; we were convinced or we convinced ourselves that Monsterblog would shake it like a Polaroid picture, and hopefully with that comes the monetary compensation.

It was decided that there would be two or three blog posts everyday. Each day of the week was assigned to a couple of sections: e.g. Monday would be entertainment and news, Thursday would be sports and food, etc. I think the first posts that introduced ourselves went up on 13th July 2006. Shannon Teoh was (last minute-ly) assigned to write something about Monsterblog on NST, which he did, which came out two days later. There were a few reactions on the blogosphere; some of them positive, some of them negative, most of them negative. Well, honestly speaking, NST wasn’t (isn’t?) the most loved newspapers around. So I guess a lot of people had fairly good reasons to form their own conspiracy theories. Although there were no legal papers to link NST/ eMedia/ JARING to Monsterblog, the fact that it’s widely seen to be hosted under the NST umbrella is more than enough to make people suspicious. Of course we all knew that lah. But I guess I was unprepared for misunderstandings that till this day has yet to heal. Don’t want to elaborate here, you can ask me privately if you want.

Fact #1: From its birth till its demise, there has never been any directives from NST to take down any blog posts on Monsterblog.

Fact #2: From its birth till its demise, no one has ever told us not to write about anything, with the understanding that common sense prevails.

Fact #3: Comments were moderated, but from its birth till its demise, I think about 80% of the comments got through. Most of the comments that we deleted were due to trolling, and a couple were due to possible legal matters. And some were really, really lost in cyberspace.

The initial focus was to get the hits up, which would then justify inserting any form of advertisement (err, I know it’s duh ). There was also a lot of waiting around, mainly for the big Monster portal which would be handled by NST/ eMedia to be launched. Which would make Monsterblog part of the Monster project, and more things could be done, bla bla bla bla bla. The team continued to update Monsterblog, but the waiting got a bit tiring and naturally the team became smaller.

In September I joined my present company, OLSB, brought in by Mack Zulkifli who had been working there a few months before me. Since the Monsterblog project was spearheaded by Mack, I got more involved in it, updating on a more regular basis since I was allowed to do so at work. In between that, there were a few meet-ups at NST to discuss the ‘progress’ of Monsterblog. Then Brendan Pereira left NST, and everything was put on hold for a bit because everything was discussed with BP. Then Syed Nadzri took over, and understandably had more important things on his plate than Monsterblog.

Sometime in mid-2007, I met up with Zainul Ariffin, who impressed upon me that neither NSTP nor eMedia would continue any relationships with Monsterblog. The impression that I got was that there was no place for Monsterblog anywhere within NSTP or eMedia at that time, and it would be better for us if we’d go off and do our own thing, without us having any ties to NSTP/ eMedia and vice versa. Another impression was that the editorial did not know how to, or had no time to layan Monsterblog because some things were out of their control, e.g. comments. And my impression was that they’d rather not risk it at that time. Maybe in the future, they could and would have something like Monsterblog, who knows, but that time was not the time for it.

Now, Zainul had been nothing but nice and kind to me, and I wrote all the above without malice or [insert negativity here]. It was just what happened, or the way I saw it happened. But that was not the reason for the demise of Monsterblog.

End of Part 2, because it is 1 a.m. and I need to sleep

** Click here to read Part 1, click here to read Part 3.