k r i s a n d r o

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!!

I have always been skeptical of locally produced shows. The predictability of the script, the cheesy visuals, horrendous camera skills, half-baked acting & amateurish sound effects, just to name a few. And in some cases, especially in TV serials, I see ALL the bad elements I mentioned come together. It’s no surprise that I have not been watching any local TV show consistently and I seldom ‘risk’ buying tickets to a local show in the cinemas.

All thanks to molemole for telling me that Sheylara was giving out free tickets on behalf of Blog Aloud, I quickly emailed her and msn-ed her almost concurrently to enquire on the availability of two shows, ‘Money No Enough 2′ and ’12 Lotus’.

Luckily, there are still tickets available for ‘Money No Enough 2′ and I asked for a pair for the show at Vivocity on the 7th Aug. FREE tickets! Although I am skeptical of local productions, the lure of a free movie, the good impression of the first installment of ‘Money No Enough’ and Jack Neo were good enough reasons for me to go for it.

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I brought KuKuNehNeh (KKNN) along for the movie and boy, did we enjoy it! I wont reveal the story here as I HATE people who review movies and reveal the plots which totally spoils the movie experience. The script was predictable, the CG was cheesy although commendable for a local production and the advertising was too blatant for my liking. But Jack Neo did magic with the way he told the story. The issues he showcased were close to the Singaporean heart and channeled through incredible acting by the cast, especially through the malaysian actress, Lai Ming, who played the role of a mother in the movie. She was funny, she was believable, she made me tear. Credits to Mark Lee as well for he was the best performing local lad in the movie for me.

Jack Neo

Mark Lee

Lai Ming

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Jack Neo appeared in the theater after the credits rolled and his presence made the event even more worthwhile. He answered questions to the best of his ability and tried as much as he could to answer them in English. Molemole helped me and KKNN take a picture with him together at the end of the show.

I Had a Hand On Jack Neo And He Had His On My GF

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I know that the critics have been harsh on the movie but I think it is definitely worth the money for a movie that will tug at your heartstrings. Thanks again to Sheylara and Blog Aloud for the tickets.

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.

A week back, I saw that bloggers like Ah Wei and Miss Loi recieved calls from omy.sg, telling them of their placement as a finalist in the S’pore Blog Awards. At the back of my mind, I was hoping that they will call me soon but…

DUNCH HAVE LEH!!!

Days passed and Monday came but still no call. So it wasn’t any surprise when I went to the site to only find that I was not a finalist in the ‘Most Entertaining Blog‘ category.

[Screenshot from omy]

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I know some will think that I am a pompous fellow and say,

“You think you blog very well meh?”

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I actually thought that I was deserving to be at least in the top 10 to garner some votes. Note ‘THOUGHT’ is in PAST TENSE. After spending some time thinking about it, I think every blog that omy has chosen should be deserving to be in the finalist. Blogs are like books or movies. Taste in them will vary from person to person and I guess the panel at omy didn’t think too much of mine.

Oh well, I shall move on…

… and conveniently remove the omy Banner from my sidebar.

WAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAAHHA!!

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Do vote for Sheylara and Rinaz in the category! I think they are deserving!!!

[Note: Everyone please help me fill in the Nuffnang poll on the right side so that I can understand you guys better!]