k r i s a n d r o

This came to my attention when Claudia messaged me over WLM saying that I should visit this particular website and look at the link. I am quite sure Claudia wouldn’t send me a porn link during office hours and so I clicked on it without hesitation and got directed to a local website and my eyes popped out of their sockets and my jaw dropped to the floor when I saw the company logo.

This is the company logo of the new website Muilee.

 

For those who are familar with the company that I am working for, your jaws must be dropping too as well.

Presenting, Yebber‘s logo…

 

WAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA!!!!!

In order to not bring trouble onto myself, let me just say that I find the logo of Muilee very, very similar to Yebber’s. I am NOT implying in any way that they blatantly copied Yebber’s logo of course. Obviously there are differences in the logos!

I just notice someeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee similarities that I will like to mention.

Oh look! Similarly coloured subtext! Oh wait! It’s actually in different shades. Muilee can’t be copying Yebber! No wayyyyyy!

 

Oh look! EXACT coloured text! Oh wait! It’s actually with different letters. Muilee can’t be copying Yebber! No wayyyyyy!

 

Oh look! EXACT coloured symbols and white letters inside! Oh wait! It’s actually flipped over with a much pointed tip. Muilee can’t be copying Yebber! No wayyyyyy!

A company’s logo is their brand and being that important, I am sooooooooo sureeeeeeeeeee that MuiLee can’t have copied Yebber’s logo that blatantly.

 

No wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy~~~!!!!

Thanks to the Su Min of Text 100, I got invited to attend a Blogger event at HBO Asia office for a tour and preview of one of their latest additions to the HBO lineup, Flight of the Conchords. I am a big fan of many, many, MANY TV series and I haven’t heard of Flight of the Conchords ever. It wasn’t until Claudia posted an entry about the show that got me interested. And boy! It was hilarious and entertaining!

 

“Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie – a.k.a. Flight of the Conchords – may be “New Zealand’s 4th Most Popular Folk Parody Duo,” but in the USA, finding someone who knows their act is about as easy as finding a kiwi nest in Central Park! To rectify this oversight, Jemaine and Bret have moved to New York’s East Village to conquer America, one fan (literally) at a time.

In this irreverent half-hour musical comedy series new HBO series, Jemaine and Bret (playing naïve, fictionalized versions of themselves) move to downtown Manhattan, where they try to land gigs and pursue relationships with elusive women, both with marginal success. As we see, the duo’s innocent, misguided efforts rarely yield dividends, but they do spawn an abundance of plaintive Conchord tunes about life, love, and the pursuit of an elusive music video.”

-Extracted from HBO

 

I arrived with Claudia at our destination and bumped into Nadnut on the way to the HBO Asia office. We were greeted warmly by the Text 100 & HBO crew and plenty other bloggers joined us like Jerrick, Nicholas, Hillary, Rinaz, Sheylara, Musxzart & many other bloggers accompanied by their +1s.

The HBO crew took us for a short but informative tour around their superb office and we got to see the various departments and crew that are responsible for bringing life to the movies, series and trailers that you see on HBO. In the sound editing room, a volunteer was asked to do a short recording and guess what? I was ‘volunteered’.

Into the recording room I go and I was asked to grunt, “ARRRRRRGHHHHH!!!” 3 times.

Not being sure how I sound as my ears were muted from my voice, I went out to see that the sound guru was ready to incorporate my grunt into the trailer. Roars of laughter filled the room as my voice was in heard in that HBO trailer. Seeing that he could squeeze more laughter from the crowd, he played that portion of the trailer a few more times to the delight of the ‘I-can’t-believe-this-funny-shit’ crowd.

The genre of the trailer was ‘Horror’ by the way.

We ended the tour of the office at the lounge that many employees will kill for to have and stuffed our faces with the delicious food catered by Absolutely New Zealand. After having one too many of their fabulous desserts, we plonked ourselves on the comfy couches and watched 2 episodes of Flight of the Conchords. What a great way to end the event!

[Image from Claudia]

 

Some pictures of the stuffs in the goodie bag!

Flight of the Conchords OST! WOOO HOOO!!

Flight of the Conchords premieres on HBO today at 10.30pm! There is also a video contest in which you can take part to win a Mac Book Air!!

This is a proper review of the HP 2133 Mini-Note (HP Mini) and not like the last rubbish review I did. And this is definitely a review based on my true opinions of the product, even though I did win it from the Ping Awards II. Be warned though! I am only a half-past six geek and I am better at talking about himbotic stuffs like how many idiots there are in the MRT every morning. So please bear with me if this review is not up to your expectations.

I managed to squeeze some time out of my schedule to collect the HP Mini last thursday and if not for the crowded bus ride, I would have whipped it out in excitement to play with it. It was only till I reached the office when both my colleagues, Claudia and Andy unboxed the HP Mini for me and they would have been mistaken to be having orgasms from all the “OOoooooooo(s)” and the “Ahhhhhhhhhhh(s)” when they saw it. Both of them own laptops and their immediate reactions was coming from the fact that it is so small!

HP Mini VS My Hand

I know it is a bad way to compare the size of the HP Mini to something since my hand is rather large. But I just want to remind you people on what they say about guys with large hands…

WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA!!!!

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And you know what? The people at HP gave me the top of the line model from the HP Mini series!

1.6G Processor!!! 2G of Ram!!!!

But…….

Windows Vista Business?

The bane of all new PCs and laptops – the Windows Vista. It is akin to buying a brand new Lamborghini and fitting it with one tonne of parts. Chio (Beautiful) but useless as it is S.L.O.W. Not to mention that it is buggy. 7 Days with it and it crashed 5 times so far. If only it came with WIndows XP pre-installed!

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The other thing that one will notice immediately apart from its size is the built!

Great finish

Upon looking at it closely and handling it, I found it to be very sturdy and a little heavy for it’s size. I am not one who can determine what material a product is made of with a knock or a bite and so a quick google search reveals that the HP Mini is made of aluminum all round and the internal structure is protected by a magnesium alloy. The surface of the LCD is also made scratch resistant which means that if my girl decides to damage the HP Mini because I spend too much time on it, the HP Mini should be relatively safe.

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The HP Mini looks moderately pleasing from the outside but I think the finish on the inside makes it one of the most aesthetically pleasing UMPC I’ve seen. I did say ‘one of’ right? The Mac fanbois look to be ready to slit my throats with their Macbook Air.

Gorgeous ain’t she?

The cool power button

People are quite used to seeing people whip out notebooks in public places but not this one. The size and the built turns heads whenever I take the HP Mini out. OKAY FINE! It could have been due to the kaypoh (nosy) nature of Singaporeans but… but it really turns more heads than usual!

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Nicely sized for laptops

Extends all the way to the edges for easy cleaning

The keyboard is 92% full sized and it is comfortable enough to type on for long durations without feeling the need to strangle someone to loosen the stiff muscles.

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Speakers on the LCD face

Most laptops I have seen have their speakers on the face of the keyboard or around the sides of the base. The HP Mini has the speakers right where the sound should emit from. The front! I think this works well especially to the audiophiles as it makes more sense to have the sound propagating from where you are seeing the image from. The power of the speakers is also good. I haven’t had the chance to increase the volume beyond half of what the HP Mini can offer.

One problem which might be only particular to my unit is that the covers of the speaker (the one that my finger is pointing at on the pic above) keeps popping out by a couple of millimeters. It could be an issue of bad assembly but I am not sure. Not a big problem, but I keep pushing it in so that it can stay flushed with my screen. I don’t have OCD. Really.

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One of my last gripes of the HP Mini is of the touchpad.

HP Mini’s Touchpad

The left and right click buttons are unconventionally located on the sides of the touchpad instead of the bottom and it takes some getting used to. My lack of experience with a laptop might prove to be a bonus in this as I should be able to be accustomed to this faster than people who are so used to the conventional placements. The touchpad seems to be over sensitive at times and undersized while the “I-don’t-know-what-is-the-proper-name” scroll thingy that you see on the right side is super laggy. And when it does detect that I am trying to scroll, it becomes overly responsive as well.

Special Button

I took sometime to figure out what that button is. Once activated, it actually disables the touchpad and the purpose of it is to actually prevent users from accidentally activating the touchpad when you are typing for long hours. Not a problem for me so far as my hands don’t seem to have the problem of touching the touchpad when typing.

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One final and biggest problem I have with the HP Mini is that the batteries don’t last very long. I use the HP Mini a lot on the go or when I am in my room and even when I am doing my ‘business’ (Ewwwwww! I know!). And I use it mainly for surfing which means the wifi is constantly on. Such usage brings the life of the Mini to about 1 hr 20 mins to 1 hr 30 mins or even lesser sometimes. I wished HP had provided me with the 6-cell battery instead which can theoretically bring the battery life to twice the amount which makes it in the acceptable range for a mobile computer.

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In summary, apart from the big problem of the short battery life (*cough* 6-Cell Battery HP? *cough cough*) and the other small nuances, I love the HP Mini to death. It’s small and light for me to bring it almost anywhere (toilet not forbidding)! It’s not much of a workhorse because of it’s small screen and slow OS & processor but it definitely meets the need for blogging and surfing on the go (and while doing ‘business’).

Once again, a big thank you to Ping.sg for bringing in the sponsors, Waggener Edstrom and HP for the prize, and to the people who voted for me!

Before I end this, I shall leave you guys with my favourite website.

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WAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAH!!!!!!

 

After months of preparation and anticipation, Ping.sg finally had their 2nd Anniversary and Awards at Fig & Olive on Saturday!

The committee were at the venue early but we were running around like headless chickens sometimes. Everyone helped one another and we managed to complete our tasks in time. My slaves, Hendri and Miccheng, helped me finish up on the table tennis bats which were given out as award trophies.

Sylvia hooked the committee up with a lady named Caressa who made us such great looking and tasting cupcakes! If I wasn’t battling the fact that my love handles are starting to look like the edges of the cupcakes, I would have had seconds.

People started trickling in and everyone had their chances to meet up with the bloggers that they come across every now and then in the Ping community. Everyone had name tags that helped identify each one of us and due to the evil blogger by the name of Wendy, I had this tag.

Everyone loves to hate a Chao Ah Beng and hence I got quite a lot of poofs from the pingsters. But I wasn’t the most hated! The winner is actually…

Diana’s lovely daughter, Shervon got the most POOFed award! WAHAHAHHAHAHAHA! Not that she is hated though. Everyone wanted the little girl to win something. =P

The awards were hosted by the laugh inducing duo, NTT & Mintea. Despite a few cock-ups here and there, the awards were given out at a very nice pace. I was nominated for quite a few and I expected to return home empty handed after awhile as other bloggers walked away with their prizes. But I manage to win the “Most Entertaining Blog Award!”

And with the votes of the great crowd there, I won the “HP Blog of the Year”!!!

I TOTALLY DIDN’T EXPECT IT! I only remembered being in a daze as I walked up to receive my prizes which consists of….

…..and the biggest prize of the night….

This has to be the most awesome thing I won so far in my life! And no better time than now when I am actually looking to get an UMPC to blog and surf on the go. Thank you to the great people at HP and Waggener Edstrom Worldwide for sponsoring such a prize!

Melvin! If you are reading this, get me a new set soon! I can’t wait to caress it!

Sorry if this post felt very truncated and bullet like. I am so bloody sleepy and I cannot write this post as well as I should. But before I end this post. I will like to thank the following people. Uzyn, Daphne & the committee for organizing such a memorable event. Claudia and Miccheng for preserving the memories in pictures and video.

But most of all,

I want to thank all the readers who nominated and voted for me. Without you guys and girls, I would be just a regular guy with a blog.

Now, I am a regular guy with a blog, armed with two ping pong bats, a glass and a HP MINI!

WOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh! And please watch this great lipdub video created by Rinaz for the Anniversary!

Ping Lipdub Project from rinaz on Vimeo.