Day #22 - 16 September 2007 - Mission accomplished!

The evening papers had our pics! FINALLY! Yeap, they were on tomorrow's (Mon) papers and to be on the stand tomorrow. Better late than never! =)

I spend the whole day just going around and eating. First, we headed to Jalan Kuchai Lama to have the famous beef ball noodle for brunch. Then we went for aftermeal drinks at Coffeebean nearby. We spent almost 3 hours there just sitting and chatting there before we headed back for the 7pm news.

Nope, nothing came out on telly. Surprising..I tell you...ah well, during tomorrow's show, the winner will be announced and our lives can go back to normal again. Hehe. Good game guys...good game despite those sucky moments! Let me know if there's another one...

Day #21 - 15 September 2007

For the first half of today, I stayed at home. I wanted to catch more winks as I was really tired from the night before but my mom got some technicians over to fix up new air conditioning units. Hence, I was up since 8.30am to monitor the ongoing works.

My sister got up around noon so I left and had my facial in TTDI after a fairly long dormant period. The buka puasa foodfair went on when I was leaving the facial centre so I walked around and looked at all the food. Goodness, there were certainly a lot of food trading going on. I got myself laksa (different from the Penang laksa that I usually take) and headed directly to Joanne's place as we planned to attend the MCA concert (Malaysia Jiwa Dan SemangatKu concert - http://www.mca.org.my/English/InTheNews/Pages/MCAconcertforMerdeka.aspx). I got the free passes a few days ago in Midvalley Megamall.

Four of us headed towards Merdeka Square where the event was held at around 6.30pm and managed to get some pretty nice shots of the Tun Abdul Samad building there which was still brightly lit up by the lights put there for the Independence celebration at the end of last month. We had a picture with the lovely Celcom promoters as well. Hahaha, due to our attention-grabbing hairdo, one of the MCA guys noticed us and ushered us into the VIP area. We'd secured top seats in the VIP area. It was just 2 seats in front of the stage. There weren't any rows set up there but they put 2 chairs for us there, thinking we were the biggest fans over there.

Many approached us that night asking which fanclub we were from and who do we support. We said we were independent. Haha. There were many Chinese artiste performing that night as listed in the link above. I gotta admit Penny Tai performed well that night.She actually came down from the stage and infront of our seats and I practically just ran up to her with my board. Luckily, I hadn't knocked her with it but the cameras from the media were just flashing away.. could I have been caught on camera..? Keke. I particularly enjoyed Hacken Lee(pic below - in white) as well as Beyond’s Steve Wong Ka Keong(pic below- in black) with his band.

The guitarist really rocked the bass. Too bad Point Blanc did not turn up to perform. I was anticipating his songs which I'd heard before in his latest album: Straight to the Point. They're pretty good.We even got to meet the publicity director of MCA, Dato Liow Tiong Lui! We were bound to get some press on this, being where we were..and there were video and camera people going around! Ironically, tomorrow was the last day of this competition. So, whether or not our pictures come out are printed..in time, we had a great time!

We left around 12 am after getting more shots of the lovely fountain there and went to the famous beef noodle place with the cowhead at Jalan Alor for dinner. Yea, we starved again..... I got back home around 2am and hadn't slept till 4am to watch out for the 3am news on TV2. Yes, this competition had made me go more than beyond what I usually do! Unfortunately and surprisingly, there was no mention of the concert in the news!

ISP is all covered in mud towards the bottom. It can hardly even stand up by itself as the support at the back of ISP was in a really bad shape!

Day #17 - 11 September 2007

An interesting read - http://www.xanga.com/alvinb/614768773/item.html Haha. I'm sitting here at Old Town White Coffee Cheras just chilling out and laughing at the pics posted on the MixFM site. You go girl, Joanne!!

http://www.mix.fm/oap/07/mix_livingisp/gallery.asp - middle row last pic

http://www.mix.fm/oap/07/mix_livingisp/gallery.asp?category=246&id=120&whichpage=3&pagesize=15# - see middle row-2nd and 3rd pic

I'll give her my devoted support to WIN! This weekend's the final weekend...let's see what antics the rest are up to. I'm taking a backseat from now on. Season called me and said he'll do some investigation on my RHB-related complaint... I hope so..that costs me press coverage as I have bought 5 newspapers last Friday and ALL of them came out with pics from RHB. This is excluding Star/NST/Malay Mail which my friends buy (So I won't) but I bet the same pic came out there..without me..

To the rest still in the race, GOOD LUCK! Churn out some good stuff for the rest of us to look at! ;)

Day #16 - 10 September 2007

Today was another day of inactivity after learning that those who went up Genting (after much encouragement from MixFM that there'd be press/media/crowd there welcoming with open arms as there was a Grammy Award-like event there organized by EraFM, sister radio station of MixFM) last Saturday night were handled quite roughly and not allowed to witness the event! Like leading lambs to the slaughter...

My office had some visitors hence I did not bring ISP down.

I feel quite demotivated as well by the above fact and the fact that the MixFM website had not updated their site of pics since mid of last week...I did upload a lot of pics over there. I do wish the scoring of this competition is more transparent!

I watched E! (mindless entertainment!) for half the night and the other half finishing a book which I started few weeks back! Yeap, more chilling out...I'm no longer going out of my way to bring ISP around seeing that they weren't getting good response! For the contestants who made it to top 15, good luck and keep chasing! Tomorrow's another day! I hadn't even bothered to check newspapers/websites for any pics/news over the weekend..

Day #15 - 9 September 2007

I spent the whole day indoors. Basically, I woke up late and hung out with a cute guy. OK...TWO cute guys... one big and one small. Haha. ISP were sun tanning in the sun on my lawn.

Day #14 - 8 September 2007

As said, I was up early and in Berjaya Times Square by 8am to support my two childhood friends, Joanne and Alvin who were planning to audition for 'One in a Million'. In case you didn't know what it was, it's similar to American/Malaysian Idol which was recorded by 8tv, a local tv station and no, it's not part of Astro either...

So, Joanne brought ISP there and since I arrived so early and no one knew exactly where the venue was, I left ISP in the car as I went around looking for the venue. Turns out it's on 6th floor and there was a tiny crowd say less than 20 ppl when I arrived at the place. Everyone was holding pieces of white paper which I assumed were song lyrics to practise with but I was empty handed. Turned out they were registration forms which I had no idea needed to be printed earlier as well. I kept waving an 8tv crew away who asked me for my registration form, saying I was just a supporter.

Alvin arrived not long after that followed by Joanne. People started forming their own lines at that point of time as there were no instructions but to 'just wait around'. There were suddenly 2 lines leading to the door leading the the auditioning area and Alvin/Joanne started their own queue. Haha. Typical Malaysians. Suddenly, this lady wearing an 8tv tshirt said..the queue should start from here -gesturing to one direction of one of the queues and all those from the other queue hurried to the existing queue. There were recording crew with huge equipments going around which DID go around recording (perhaps us too but I hadn't caught the news for the past hour or so) and finally, that lady walked over to us and told us to put ISP away as it was 8tv's area and ISP was promoting another broadcasting station. Hehe and I thought they wouldn't notice as we could be overshadowed by the buzz going around!We put ISP next to the railing by the side but note: we were not chased away! Thank goodness for that. Joanne was right infront of the rolling video camera recording and I managed to get her while she's walking in.

That's Alvin above in the queue beyond the door..haha..THE PURPLE DOOR. If I recall correctly, 8tv seems to use purple a lot on their channel. I can't be too sure, hadn't watched telly in a while now..that channel, especially.

Eventually Joanne/Alvin did not go through with it as they were told to surrender RM5 to have their pictures taken. Now, it was a small amount but really, there was no instructions saying that a picture has to be surrendered (that could have been prepared beforehand) and we had no idea when the waiting will be over. We made a count, if everyone paid RM5 and there could be thousands of contestants (by the time we walked away: around 10.30am plus, there was a long queue which stretched towards the other end of the floor), a huge contribution can be made towards the RM1 million contract which was the grand prize of this reality show!

So, we all walked away and had Mcdonalds Breakfast meals. Hehe, and had fun posing for silly shots after that with the giant M there.

It was barely 11.30am when we finished our breakfast. So, we decided to catch a movie. We decided on watching Knocked Up. It was a pretty hilarous and decent movie which didn't really get a lot from the scissors *if you know what I meant*. Put the movie on for above 18 yr old young adults and it'll serve as an eye opener!

I had a wedding dinner to attend at Berjaya Times Square so I was back there this evening sans ISP. Yeap, I decided not to bring it along as to make people around me less uncomfy...I was hinted to about that matter.

Day #13 - 7 September 2007 - more kicking out!

I went to MATTA fair during lunchtime since it was less than 5 LRT stops away. I did not bring ISP along as I heard over the radio this morning that 2 fellow ISP carriers went there and were barred from entering, even after buying entrance tickets. How can that be?! http://iamlivingwithikaserenacandpietro.blogspot.com/2007/09/792007.html What MixFM should/could have done earlier was to alert all the public shopping places/malls/centres or publish on newspaper/media that something like this was going to happen and hence, everyone will be more receptive or/and aware towards this! I did spot Ann going around with the ISP and yea, she wasn't allowed in as well too.

Yes, I know...I did not live up to my pledge but I did go to the MATTA fair to look up some info for a trip to ZhuJaiGao, a scenic spot in China. If I brought ISP along, I would be denied entry and hence, I would not be able to get the information I wanted!

Nope, no pics today. I was feeling pretty disspirited (if there's a word like that) by the whole kicked-out issue... I'm looking forward to an early sleep tonight as I've gotta be up early tomorrow morning and a full day ahead!

Day #12 - 6 September 2007 - bad publicity time!

As mentioned yesterday, I went to RHB press conference in One Utama today as they were launching their Bonanza Craze (Jaclyn Victor and a band member of OAG were there- I circled Jaclyn who was on stage when I was busy walking around asking the RHB customers there to take pics to get the moolah towards the back area of that fair) and the group comm team staff actually CHASED ME OUT saying that I shouldn't be sticking close by to the press there etc etc. She clearly knew what I was involved in and what was the objective of this contest I'm in. I am quite pissed off now as I don't see why we cannot do that!! a) RHB is sponsoring us b) we're tirelessly outdoing ourselves trying to get the publicity c) getting chased and being treated rudely is NOT the way to go! I'm planning to write a letter of complaint and publish it to the press!

That aside, I managed to get some pics for my own record and for this blog. The sales RHB staff were sweet and polite, nevertheless. And the press members (NST,Star Business, Borneo Post, Nanyang, China Press, The Edge, they were all there) were curious about my plight there..I could have emailed them about them and appeal but now, I don't feel like doing it. I'm more keen on writing about what happened...sponsors...they call themselves...

When the entire thing was over (it only lasted say 30 minutes? talk about press conference... and Jaclyn/OAG didn't perform as well), Joanne and Ira (another 2 contestants) came by. We managed to take pics together. It's a rare moment, 3 ISPs together! And 2 lucky spotters managed to get us all together! Vernicer (search http://www.deviantart.com/ with the term: by:passionheart and her photo gallery is there), a budding photographer helped us take some of the pics below. Thanks loads Vernicer! BTW, your handwriting really looks like my sis'! Seriously...
And yes, I'm still upset..I left a few voicemails for Season (project manager of this competition) and Ramesh Nair (MixFM's programme manager) whose nos were given to me after I called a MixFM DJ up about my horrid experience. Needless to say, they hadn't gotten back to me...

I had loads of press at arms length and RHB group communication team staff actually CHASED ME away. I saw another ISP carrier who was around but he didn't stand throughout the entire event. If you guys saw the papers, there were pics taken infront of the Bufori..I was behind the guy in suit on the right.

Oh yea, I added tanglungs for ISP but Pietro's kept falling off. I guess he didn't really like it. =)

I brought ISP to Santini KLCC for happy hour drinks after 7pm and sat there with my excolleagues eating our rice paella and having many pints for 2 hours plus..no spotters. Upset till I chose not to take pics that evening.

Day #11 - 5 September 2007

Still undeterred, I pushed on. 10 days had passed and I know a lot of ISP carriers already had given up. After much contemplation and reflection on past experience, I chose to go to One U as the crowd there were more receptive and knowledgable about MixFM and the security there wasn't so uptight.
I went to Nail Parlour to get some nail polish which claims to prevent nail breakage for my mom (I'd promised to get her specifically that since she saw it on my Shape magazine and being consumers, we all fall for advertised products!). After that, I basically walked around just looking to be spotted. Hehe, a few spotted me which I'm happy! A pretty lady stopped me and asked for a picture as I was looking at the directory planning my route around. She said her 6-year old daughter listens to MixFM on the way to school everyday and she's excited about the whole ISP thing. How sweet! So- here we go- 'Li-Shern, your mom took this pic for you!' So, we took a picture together and I mentioned I will include her on my blog. MixFM, if you're reading this, part of your audience are 6 years old so please, be decent and set a good example!
Here's one at the Johnson Baby fair at the concourse, I did try to approach the bunch of kids with their parents and voiced my plight but they were shaking their heads (those kids..really) and didn't want to have their pics taken.

I continued my rounds around the New Wing and discovered RHB themselves were having a roadshow on their RHB Bonanza Craze. I managed to get some of the RHB sales staff who were lovely people to take a pic with me beside that box where customers can stand inside the 'cash tornado' and grab moolah! There wasn't much people around that area and I managed to get some guys who were LKW students (Sharjeel, Nicholas and Sean) nearby to spot me as well ie. cajoule into taking our pics to get moolah! To my surprise, only a handful out of the RHB sales staff I met there knew there were ISPs going around and what I was doing with ISP over there. However, one was kind enough to let me know that there would a press conference tomorrow with Jaclyn Victor (Malaysian Idol winnder) and OAG (a local rock band) and I should turn up to meet the objectives of this competition. I thanked her and said I'll be back tomorrow for that!
I went to the Old Wing to drop by the Taiwan Fastfood place which sells one of the best seasoned chicken in town: XXL Crispy Chicken (located near the TGV cinema entrance) minus all the flour and oil and MSG.. and another spotter approached me! Hehe, I had to cajoule her, Sue and her guy friend, Kar Meng into taking a pic with me as she just stood by to admire ISP. Of course, meeting all those spotters, I did provide advice on how to obtain the cash and all.
After that, I left One U as I had a movie date at Midvalley Megamall. Something funny happened at the junction outside One U (the major junction with traffic lights). Anyhow, while waiting for the light to turn red, I looked to my right and lo behold, I saw an Indian guy in the car and right next to him was a board resembling my ISP! I was so delighted that I started to honk repeatedly and I guess he heard me so he turned. I kept waving and pointing to my ISP lying behind me and then his. Haha. He wound down the window and we had a short talk between us. Ok, I wouldn't advise you guys to follow what I did..it's entirely stupid,crazy and dangerous. Only ISP carriers are entitled to do that...and honestly, I think we (the ISP carriers) lived up to that! He said his sister who was the actual ISP carrier was still in One U with the front portion of the board and he's just fetching the back portion back home. It was easier for her to carry just the front part. Haha...so ISP, you're being carried in halfform around town as well apart from being decorated, written on, carried on backs ie. The traffic lights turned green, we both yelled GOOD LUCK and both of us departed on our own ways.
I reached Midvalley Megamall and collected tickets which I purchased online to watch Ratatouille. I went to the arcade there for a short bit as my date wanted to play 'The King of Fighters' for a short bit. So, I happily paraded ISP there.Ratatouille (pronounced as Rat-a-tou-iee) was a delightful movie! Another movie to watch for you movie freaks out there! The food looks really surreal and I was marvelling at the technology behind it as well...every hair looked real on the rat and there was a water scene that you should watch out for...amazing! And Eiffel Tower looks amazing even on 2d animation and...very real. Before Ratatouille started, there was a short Pixar animation called 'Lifted' which I watched off youtube a few weeks back (my sis gave me the link). Just run a search on 'Pixar Lifted' on Youtube and you should be able to watch it as well. I didn't mind watching it again, it was quite funny. Despite having an argument with my date as he wasn't comfortable with bringing the ISP into the cinema and I eventually had to put ISP back into my car to avoid further conflict, the movie did lift my mood a little..and his as well. Yup, ISP carriers everywhere are facing emotional as well as physical damages. The bruises are coming back now but I hadn't captured any pictures as I was too sleepy by the time I got back home. People around me were getting irked by the fact that I'm carrying ISP everywhere I go and some aren't too comfortable with the whole idea...

Day #10 - 4 September 2007

I managed to obtain a VCR (yes, this is already an obsolete item...) to watch the tapes recorded of TV3 Ambang Merdeka which was broadcasted on Merdeka Eve and Merdeka Day (thanks to Edmund's mom for recording them for me during my absence in KL) at 2 am this morning from Su as we went her back to her place before her flight today.

Haha, imagine trying to set up the VCR with my telly. At first I tried to hook up to my tv using the yellow-white-red wires I managed to find in my cupboard somewhere from the PS2 set and play an old VCR tape just to test it out. It appeared really bad and Su did tell me that it had been sitting there unused for FIVE years.

I managed to find the cleaning tape for VCRs at home but the liquid had dried up. It's like a normal VCR tape but instead of black film-type tape inside, it's white fabric-type tape in place of that black film. You're supposed to put a few drops of that cleaning liquid on it and run the tape in the VCR for a few seconds. I saw a few brown spots on that cleaning tape as well. Haha, there's a mini mushroom farm growing too.

So, I went to Jusco with ISP and tried to find some cleaning solution to use for VCR. No luck. I did manage to spot one VCR machine which is still selling for RM300 (meaning it still has that much of value! surprise surprise!). At the end, I bought the cleaning fluid for cassette players. I suppose they should work the same. I went back home, put some drops on the white tape of the cleaning tape and ran it on the VCR for few minutes. I tried playing the tapes again but it wasn't clear as well. It turns out that the tape was recorded in an extended mode ie. you can use a 2-hour-long tape to record for 4 hours. Some compression thingie I guess. So, everything was fastforwarded in speed even though I was playing it on normal play speed.

Hence I had to go back to my recording source and play the tapes there. I hogged Auntie's machine for 3 hours plus to go through every single minute of the tape and of course, I fastforwarded through the advertisement section! To my disappointment, no, I didn't appear. They must have left me out. Somehow, I wasn't surprised since mixfm was displayed across the top of ISP and mixfm is from Astro...no way TV3 would wanna broadcast it. Anyway, shall look out for Astro recording crew next time. I watched through an entire 2 hour black/white movie called 'Leftenan Adnan' and another 2 hours of a locally recorded gameshow. This was recorded on Merdeka Day itself between 10pm and 2 am. And then I sat through another 3 hours of 'live telecast recording', squinting at the screen for ANY sort of ISPs (I saw none). I did see a few recorded clips of other people but not me. But it did instill a certain sense of pride when I watched Pak Lah repeatedly holler 'Merdeka!'! =) It sounded exactly like Tunku back 50 years ago which was shown a few times on other segments of the tape, all in blackwhite display on that square. Ah well, I tried, I suppose.

Disappointed and eyes dead tired, I didn't go out for the whole day....and had an early sleep. I did get a call from a MixFM staff asking what have I been doing (o yes, for the readers out there...they do DO spotchecks on us) and I said I was gonna watch recordings..this happened on my way to Jusco.

Day #9 - 3 September 2007

Getting back to Kuala Lumpur, I knew I had plenty of catching up to do. First of all, plenty had happened over the past few days in Kuala Lumpur alone, not to mention nationwide. Merdeka..one of the highlights of the year if not the biggest! Surely other contestants are splashed across the newspapers and tv for appearing in the Merdeka celebs.

So, early morning I was up despite the tiring journey we've been through for the past few days. Why? We've got some party to attend.... the pics below said it all. Needless to say, we ran into some issues with the event's PR saying that we were on the wrong grounds. We're just introducing some new friends to ISP!
After that launch, we headed towards KLCC's food court to catch some brunch since we went to the launch on empty stomaches. On the way there, a security guard approached us and practically told us off for bringing ISP along. We then mentioned that we wanted to have a meal at the foodcourt and then he relented by saying that we got to carry it face inwards and to leave AFTER having the meal. Joanne and I left without having that meal. Talk about the cheek..it wasn't that we were handing out leaflets or anything to promote. It's the same concept- if you're wearing a shirt with Levi's printed across, you're expecting to take it off in public places? Man.... the guard even said that he mentioned the same to another 2 of my friends yesterday (Sunday). LOL, sorry security dude, I don't know which other 2 friends but I assume he meant another 2 recruiters. This competition's beginning to get ugly response from certain parties. Since Joanne was on halfday, we didn't bother to pursue it and went to eat chicken horfun at Imbi, loads nicer than most food we can find at the foodcourt! ;)

After brunch, I headed back home and rested a while. We went to Uptown midevening with Aleks (thanks for tagging along and being a delightful companion) to collect new jeans I won from an online Levis contest. These jeans are from the Skinny Fit line which Jolin Tsai, a Taiwanese artist promotes on the ad hanging in local Levi's stores. Well, I'd have to cut my legs into 2 to at least look nice in this pair..I did send word out to close friends to try and I'd sell it to them at half price but there weren't enough time for most to do so and most of the shops in KL/PJ have sold out their stock on this style.. so I guess I'm having a limited edition pair of jeans which I can't wear...well, not at least now. As I'm telling my galpals, I'm gonna hang this up and look at it everyday as I work on my legs..lol. Anyone who's interested in this pair: size 27, pls feel free to post me. Waist and hips fit fine, a lil loose...just that my big calves doesn't really go with this cut! Ika and Serena were there during the collection as well, so if you both are interested, feel free to let me know..we're living under the same roof now you know. We all enjoyed bubble tea after that on the way back home. Tonight, we were having drinks and supper at a mamak at Tmn Desa to bid Su who was going back to Hawaii where an accident actually happened right infront of the mamak place. No press though- unlucky for ISP.