Very Random Posts | Bo Liao Sia |

My New LG LED Monitor W2486L

2010-01-31T23:57:00.006+08:00

Hellooooo blog. I have been so busy the past few weeks I have not been able to update you, so sorry about that. I even missed your 1 year anniversary last week he he. Ha ha, boliaosia.com is 1 years old! I have renewed the domain name for another year, so I guess I will still be blogging for a long long time heh. Updates will be less often or shorter than before I guess, since I will be busy at work and maybe play most of the time. You know I only blog when I am bo liao, have nothing better to do or want to share some good stuff he he. No work related stuff on this blog though. (In case employers are reading my blog …. Hi!)

Anyways … Speaking of sharing good stuff, there is something I have been using the past 1 month plus which I really like and want to share with anyone reading my blog. My new 24 inch LG W2486L monitor!!

I actually received this amazing monitor from LG as a trial last month and have since been using it every day without fail. I guess it’s hard for someone to avoid using a monitor if he surfs the net every day =P. I’m actually looking at it while I am typing this sentence i.e. I’m using it now la. It is certainly better than my previous monitor (also 24 inch) and I love it a lot!

My room before the monitor arrived looked like this …

Really messy and cramp with 2 monitors – one 24 inch, one 17 inch. Plus rubbish around and messy cables.

That was my pc setup before the arrival of the LG W2486L ….

I was really excited when the monitor arrived at my house and immediately went to take some pictures of the box and most importantly what’s inside the box =)

In case you are interested in the packaging of the monitor, I took pics of it from different angles. There is a post it note which has my name on it at the side of the box he he. In the box, you have the monitor (duh), the monitor stand, vga cable, dvi cable, power cable, installation cd, manuals and stuff. Too bad there is no HDMI cable included.

So … let’s get on to the star of this post …. THE 24 INCH LG W2486L! It really looks very nice … easily the best looking monitor I ever had.

After screwing the base in and placing it upright, you can see how beautiful this baby looks. The back of the monitor and its front border are glossy black, the stand is red and it has red lights on its buttons (okay not really buttons but sort of like touch screen buttons). The power button is shaped like an eagle eye with a matching red light. Very elegantly designed indeed. There are 2 HDMI connectors, 1 DVI connector, 1 VGA connector and an audio out jack. I use both of the HDMI slots. 1 for my PC, the other for my ps3 =) You can also plug in your HD Setup box from Starhub or Mio and make it a TV he he. It’s like a Full HD TV! There are no inbuilt speakers though, so you have to plug your own speakers into the monitor’s audio out jack. If you have digital speakers than no problem …. Just connect them straight to your HD setup boxes, Xbox 360s or PS3 =)

Some Specs of the monitor you might wanna know ….

Size / Resolution – 24 inch / Full HD 1920*1080
Colours – 16.7m
Contrast Ratio – 2000000:1 (Waaa!)
Response Time – 2ms
Panel Surface – Anti-glare

For more specs and features click here.

Because it’s a LED monitor it is able to have a super high contrast ratio of 2 mil to 1!! The LED technology also enables the monitor to consume less power and be slimmer and lighter than your usual LCD monitors …

The monitor can be tilted forwards and backwards and is only 20mm thick … thinner than my $1 coin! As seen in the pictures above, it is also thinner than my previous 24inc and 17 inch monitors. Because it is using LED technology, according to the information they provided, the monitor uses around 50% less power than its previous model and it’s Eco-Friendly. I can’t confirm those claims though, because I dunno how to test them lol. We just have to read and believe lor. It does feel good knowing that you might be saving electricity though heh.

So … how does my computer table look like right now?

At first, I tidied up the table and rearranged the monitors to this ….

I used the new LG monitor as my main PC monitor and the older Acer 24 inch monitor as my TV. The 17 inch is just lying around somewhere in my house at the moment. If I add another monitor, I can do this …

Coooooool

However, I found it a little too overcrowded for my small table though so I rearrange the monitors again to this …

Now the table has only 1 monitor and it looks much neater. This will be my computer and gaming area. So where is the other monitor?

I shifted it together with some small tables I found to the bottom of my bed to form my TV area he he …

So now I have 2 entertainment areas in my super small room =) Don’t worry, Kimi still have her own area to sleep.

Now that the room is arranged, I can finally use my new monitor!

As a PC, because of its really wide screen, I can actually easily multitask, arranging the programs neatly on the screen. Good for people who likes to watch DVDs and chat at the same time while surfing the net or for work and projects … just mix and match =P

I tried using the Starhub HD Setup box on the monitor and everything looked good, just like a Full HD Lcd TV. Gaming and videos on PS3 looks great too. I completed Uncharted 2 using this monitor and now I am playing Bayonetta and have no problems so far.

Here is a video I took while I was trying out the Dante’s Inferno demo I downloaded.

Seems like a really cool game … very God of War like. Sorry for the background coughing ... was quite sick when I took the video =P

I really like this monitor and I definitely want to keep it if possible. As I have mentioned before, I received this monitor as a part of a trial and when I received it, it was not out in Singapore yet. I’m not sure if it’s out now, but do check it out if you want to upgrade your current monitor. It’s worth it. =)

In case you were wondering where all the rubbish went … they were all shifted to the table beside =P

PS: If you have bought the monitor and find that the colours look little weird when viewing pictures in windows vista, check this site to solve the problem. It helped me solved mine =

From the Christmas 09 to the New Year 10

2010-01-07T22:44:00.015+08:00

Oh man, it’s been a long time since I last blogged (again). Miss me?? (dun vomit) Training/work, exploring both the Mio TV and Hubstation HD setup boxes, playing Uncharted 2 on PS3, and celebrations and outings here and there have kept me so busy that I neglected my dear little blog. I have completed Uncharted 2 and there are lesser celebrations at the moment (until Chinese New Year) so I guess I have a little spare time to blog heh. I think I shall blog about what I did during the Christmas and New Year period …

I have already talked about Mio TV in my previous post so let me now talk about the Hubstation HD setup box which I received recently. As mentioned in my previous post, I got the hubstation HD free for 1 year and 3 months free subscription of the HBO pak after being the first few fans who responded to Starhub’s fan offer on their facebook page. =) The Mio TV box is also free as I signed up for the early bird special (free Champions League, Europa League and Serie A for the rest of the season!) he he. I love free stuff! Anyways, it my first time using hubstation and like the Mio TV box, I love it! I like how I can easily record any show anytime I want, and watch another show while recording it. I also like how I can record by series and record HD content in addition to standard definition programmes. It’s so easy to use and definitely very useful for those working and constantly missing their favourite tv shows. I can even rewind live tv!! It is something like Tivo right? Pai seh I never use before. Don’t call me sua ku!

HBO HD is also really cool. It’s HBO in HD!!! Ha ha. All the shows you see on HBO are shown on HBO HD at the exact same time, only much clearer! All the movies look so gooood ….. except the super old ones heh. And yes, you can record the shows on the Hubstation HD =) No need to buy blue ray movies or ahem download stuff and waste disk space heh.

On to gaming .... I bought Uncharted 2 after selling 2 of my old games and I really like it! One of the best games on PS3 I feel. It’s been a long time since a game has kept me interested long enough to complete it lol. I played it on my new, super nice, LG W2486L monitor which I received recently (more about that next time) =) Since I have completed it, it’s time to sell it and get another game he he. What should I buy? Hmmm ….

Besides work, exploring Mio TV and Hubstation HD, playing Uncharted 2, I also had a Christmas BBQ with my UWA mates, watched a few movies, ate Sakae Sushi, played UFO catchers, and had some little drinking outing …

On most Christmas eves, I would usually stay at home and watch TV. I did something a little different this year … my UWA mates had a BBQ session at Pasir Ris Park on Chritmas eve. It was quite a last minute thing but luckily we managed to book a pit.

Everyone had to bring their own bbq item (potluck) and a gift to exchange. I made a poster for the event and posted it on Facebook events he he. We also had discussions there regarding food and stuff so as to avoid bringing the same food. Skali everyone bring hotdogs lol.

I ordered around 200 sticks of satay (my fav food of all time), lots of Otah, charcoal, fire starters, aluminium trays and some other bbq stuff from City Satay … great place to order from for lazy and car(less) guys like me. Fuss free, no need to think, just order and enjoy he he.

The satays and stuff arrived earlier than the planned bbq session starting time, so I went to the place early. My sis soon arrived and we sat at the BBQ pit and waited for the others to come. We didn’t want to start the bbq first out of courtesy …. erm no …. because we didn’t know how to start the fire lol. You know, I’m the kind of person who goes to a bbq just to eat and not cook. =P

Luckily for us and our noisy stomachs, Jun Wee arrived next and we found out that he is the bbq pro. We realised that we only had 1 thong for the food and no thongs for the charcoal, so poor Jun Wee had to use his hands to arrange the charcoal and use tissue papers to start light the fire starters. The BBQ would not be able to start without him man … thank you Master Chef. Luckily, back-up tongs arrived later, and we (okay Jun Wee) were able to add charcoals more easily.

So … besides the delicious satays, what other goodies were available at “The Christmas BBQ at the Pasir Ris from the PM to the AM”???

My sis brought stingrays and squids, Jun Wee and gf (now fiance :p) brought his mum’s specially marinated chicken wings and clams, Iska brought his home-cooked spicy fried rice. Wayne brought sweet potato, marshmallows and some beer, Weida and gf brought drinks, Shawn brought plates, cups and utensils, but was really late so we had to beg from other bbqers, Rayne and husband brought salad and some more beer and Ling Zhi brought Jelly dessert. There was one very important thing missing from the list of food …….. hotdogs!!! We had a discussion on Facebook to prevent everyone from bringing hotdogs and now we don’t even have a single hotdog lol. Is this the only bbq in the world without hotdogs?? The closest things we had to hotdogs were the Taiwan sausages brough by Darren. Only 2 packets though =P

We ate till 12 plus, wished each other Merry Christmas, and had the gift exchange session. I got a towel from Darren. I think I have the same set at home lol. We then tried to form words with the sparkers on the floor but failed miserably lol. Lucky we managed to take some cool looking shots with the help of Jun Wee (again). He adjusted some settings on my camera and we were able to take the pictures of the words “UWA XMAS 2009” formed by sparkers.

After that, we ate some more, drank some more and went home …. after packing the place up of course. Hope we can have some sort of gathering again next year. =)

The day after Christmas, I met up with shawn, Wayne and Iska after my training/work for a movie and chilling out session. Before the movie started, I continued my Sakae Sushi adventures by asking my friends to eat at the Sakae Sushi over at Citylink mall.

As usual we ordered chanwanmushi and drinks to start the eating session. Then we ate some red plates, fried tempura (Ebi), fried vegetables (Kakiage) and fried salmon. The main course was the Chicken Sukiyaki and some donburis (rice with food on top =P). It was my first time eating the Chicken version of the Sukiyaki (usually I eat the beef one), and I find that it tasted just as good as its beef version. The sweet soup is simply irresistible he he. It was a little weird eating at Citylink mall where lots of people are walking around though. I think if everyone were to order Sukiyaki and sit outside, it will attract lots of people to eat at Sakae. It smells so good.

According to the Sakae Sushi Facebook fanpage, they are going to come up with a new chawanmushi called the Ikura Chawanmushi!! I’m so going to try that when it comes out in the new menu.

After Sakae, we went to the UFO catcher paradise (dunno the name of the place - the place with lots of UFO catchers) at Marina Square and I saw a very interesting UFO catcher heh. It’s called Robo Catcher.

Instead of your usual UFO catcher way of “catching” the stuff toys, you are given some time to control a cute robot to lift the toys out of the barricade. You can try to lift the toys up as many times as you want within the time limit. In case you are interested, I took a video of the machine when Shawn was playing lol.

I think we spent more than 10 bucks on Robo Catcher and won nothing lol. In fact, I think I wasted around 20 dollars at that place without getting anything lol.

After wasting money at UFO catchers, we went to watch Sherlock Holmes. I was really tired by then and slept through half of the show =P The rest loved the show though, so I guess it’s my fault for being too sleepy. After the movie and my sleep, we went for some drinking talk cock session.

I had another drinking talk cock session with my sis and Wayne on Wednesday and spent New Year’s Eve at home with dad, mum and kimi counting down (as usual). Watched the countdown show on channel 5 and jumped around with coins in my pocket when it was 12am, 1st January 2010 for good money luck. I also ate some noodles as usual for long life. I know I’m very pan tang (superstitious). At least I managed to see some of the fireworks from my house even though it’s very far away from Marina. I also got to hear some nice songs from Da Mouth. One the songs Na Qu, has been stuck in my head for the past week man …

In case you missed it ...

I like the song and the dance sia =) Get it get it on get it get it on ..... na qu na qu na qu .....

On the very first day of the year 2010, I went to watch a Hokkien concert with my mum and Shawn.

The concert had actors from 2 of the Taiwan hokkien dramas on channel 8, Love 爱 and Unforgettable Memories 意难忘, which are very popular with aunties and uncles he he. I don’t watch the dramas but just accompany mother la lol. Some of them sang really well, some not so good, but I’m sure my mum and all the other uncles and aunties enjoyed the concert he he. For those who have watched the show or have someone in your house watching Taiwanese dramas, I’m sure you will find this song familiar ….

I ask sky I ask sky!!

It’s the main theme song of Love!! The guy who sang it was really good and it sounded exactly like the version I hear on TV every week! That was my highlight of the concert he he. At the end of the concert, everyone got on stage sang the song again lol.

Okay okay, I shall stop here for now (time to sleep!) … in my next post, I think I will tell you more about the really cool LG 24 inch monitor I received from recently. So big, so slim, so beautiful …..

P.S: I still love my HTC Hero!! Please download Handcent if you have an android phone .... its awesome!!

(Images Taken From: Katherine’s digital camera, my digital camera, my HTC Hero, Sakae Sushi Facebook)

End of School Life Special: Part D (My Bo Liao Guide to Forming a Good Project Group in School)

2009-12-16T17:56:00.012+08:00

Part A - Introduction + The Project House
Part B - My Random Group Project Visuals (part 1, part 2, part 3)
Part C - My Random Presentation Slides (part 1, part 2)
Part D - My Bo Liao Guide to Forming a Good Project Group in School

Oh man …. It’s been a long time ( > 10 days!) since I last updated my blog. I have been so “busy” exploring Mio TV and the free programmes which will be available for 1 month. Want to watch English Premier League on TV next season so had no choice but to sign up for the Football Frenzy package. My family have to see which other channels (besides the football channels) are nice to decide whether we want to subscribe to them before the free preview ends he he. My favourite channel so far? WE TV. Too bad WE TV stands for Women’s Entertainment TV and I’m not a woman lol. To make myself feel less gay, I shall psycho myself to think that the word Women is actually “wo men (我们)” which actually means “We” in Chinese he he. Call me a laggard, but it is the first time I get to use Video on Demand and find it really useful indeed. I love it when some channels allow us to view their programmes anytime we want. Movies and tv series are available on demand too which is really cool. Hundreds of episodes of my mom’s favourite Taiwanese drama 爱, is available on one of the Video on Demand channels lol.

This Saturday, I will also have the chance to explore the Hubstation HD from Starhub with 3 months free HBO Pak subscription =) I actually get to use the Hubstation HD free for a year without signing any contract! Can’t wait to finally explore the Hubstation which also has Video on Demand. The hours spent camping at Starhub’s facebook fanpage has paid off lol. They have fan offers (TV, mobile, broadband) every week for those who become their fan on Facebook, you might want to check it out if you haven already. Some of the phones on offer are really cheap if you manage to be the lucky first few to click on the offer. Too bad I have just recontracted my plan and can’t get a new phone anytime soon. At least I got free Hubstation HD for 1 year and the HBO Pak which includes HBO on demand, HBO HD (yeah!) and some more for 3 months =) See .. I got good lobang I share with you okay. =p

Okay enough about my TV exploration …..

I have found some time off my “busy” schedule annnnnndddddddd it’s now time to finally wrap up my “End of School Life Special” with the final post of the series: My Bo Liao Guide to Forming a Good Project Group in School!

In my 6 previous “End of School Life Specials”, I have …

Showed you The Project House which was the base for most of my group meetings

Showed you MY Random Group Project Visuals including some individual ones

Showed you My Random Presentation Slides we used for presentations

Sooooooooo, how do you form a good project group in school?

By good I mean a project group which gets along well and do well in terms of getting good scores for projects. For me, having fun, while doing our projects are just as important as getting good grades. We shouldn’t form a group with the prime objective of being the best in terms of grades. Having a group consisting of all the top students might guarantee that you will be the highest scoring group (or maybe not heh), but if you do not get along well with the people in the group, what’s the point. No fun getting good grades when there is no group celebration after that right? Happiness is more important, so form a group with happy members first then aim to be the best after that.

How to gather people to form a group on the first day in school when most people don’t know each other?

Just look at the person you hope to be in the same group as you, smile and give him or her the people’s eyebrow, point at the person and point back to yourself several times, nod your head and wait for their response. It may be a girl or guy you find attractive or someone you feel might have the same interest as you. Just try your luck and you might just end up in the same group and be lifelong friends or maybe even your future spouse ha ha. =)

After the first ever semester, forming a group with people you like will be much easier heh.

Note: I think it’s better to have a mixed group with guys and girls. If you have an all guy group, you might end up having too much fun and find it hard to complete the project in time and have to do lots of last minute work. Last minute project work might be fun, but too much will be torturous. =P Girls are usually more serious and hardworking, and will make sure work is done along the way. It’s impossible for me to be in an all girl group for obvious reasons (I’m a guy la!) but I feel that there might be a lot of tension and quarrels might occur on a regular basis. Of course, if you are comfortable with an all guy or girl group just go ahead and ignore what I have just written. Just my 2 cents, don’t flame me he he.

Different roles in a group you might want to have when forming future groups - once you get to know your course mates better.

8 roles not according to order of importance:

1. The brains

Have at least one above average student in your group heh. You don’t need to have a group filled with top students but if everyone in the group (including you) is clueless, good luck to you.

2. The one and only one group leaderEvery group needs a good leader who is respected. He must a good student who knows what the objectives for the projects are, how to solve problems and make decisions which all group members will accept. Try not to have a group where there is more than one person who wants to be the leader. There can only be one alpha male (or female) in a group as having 2 or more of them in a group might result in conflicts. Lucky for me, I have always been in groups with great leaders he he. I call them the boss.

3. The secretary of state

Assign someone to be the secretary who will take down all the important information during projects discussions and share the information with all group members. This person must be neat and organised, or else there might be a breakdown in communication.

4. The English teacher (or whatever language the project must be in)

This person must be good in English. The person will read through the whole compiled report to check if there are any typos, spelling or grammatical errors in the report and make it more cheem.

5. The joker

Even when everyone in the group gets along well, there might be conflicts during discussions due to difference in opinions. If you have a group member who is really funny, and will try to crack some jokes along the way or when he or she sense that something bad is going to happen, it will help in easing the tension. Jokers are usually very sporting and will be willing to sacrifice themselves to be the model in project visuals for the sake of the group.

6. The creative director

This person must have lots of lame ideas to contribute during project discussions. Out of hundreds of lame ideas, one might actually be really good and will make your project legendary. Beware of the mood swings the creative directors might have every now and then, especially when everyone doesn’t like his ideas.

7. The makeup artist

Although the content of the main report is very important, the way the report is presented, the extra accompanying visuals and the presentation slides will help your report stand out from the rest. This might earn you some brownie points and gives the marker the impression that you have put in a lot of effort into the project. The first impression is really important heh. The makeup artist must be proficient in MS Office applications and photoshop. If he or she has a mac and likes to design, it would be even better. I really like those presentation slides made using Keynote, its soooo cool. Wish I had one.

8. The others

The others.

Note: Some members can take on multiple roles. Everyone has to contribute in writing the report.

Once you have formed a group, find a great project meeting place where everyone can be comfortable in, like my project house. =P

You can’t always be in the same group due to change of classmates and schools, but you can try to observe your current members to see what roles they can be in, and try to suggest to them or to the leader during the first few project discussions. Once you get to know more people in school by making friends, getting to know more friends from the friends you made, listening to gossips at places like the canteen, tutorial rooms, lecture theaters and secret smoking corners etc, secretly liking a certain guy or girl, then you can try to be form your dream team or squeeze into one.

Once everything is in place ……………

Have fun and get to know your group mates better!! I love doing school projects!!

(The poster Sean (me) has done over 30 group projects, and has been in around 10 different groups in his poly and uni. Most of the time happy and scoring well. Please don’t flame him if you disagree with anything in his Bo Liao guide. Please ignore typos and grammatical errors as he is lazy to read through what he has just written)

I have finally completed my “End of School Life Special" series!! Just in time for the next chapter of my life … Chapter 3: W.B.M (Working fulltime before marriage). Yes, I have actually found a fulltime job last month and will be starting very soon! =) Won’t be blogging about my job though in case there is a conflict of interest. I don’t mix business with pleasure he he.

Time to continue my TV exploration!!

P.S 1: Watched Broadway Beng and loved it. I ask sky, I ask sky ……

P.S 2: Starhub finally brings in the iPhone and gives it 17 free TV on mobile channels after I sold my iphone …. Oh man. Lucky I can watch Tv on Mobile on My HTC Hero too sia. I guess TV on Mobile will look really nice on the big screen iPhone has. Lucky new Starhub iPhone users ….

(Images Taken From: My previous posts, Can't Stop The Bleeding, Deviant Art: tristin, Wikiality, Flickr: ♠NiJoKeR♣, Flickr: anatomist)

End of School Life Special: Part B (Random Project Visual Part 3)

2009-12-03T22:57:00.010+08:00

Part A - Introduction + The Project House
Part B - My Random Group Project Visuals (part 1, part 2, part 3)
Part C - My Random Presentation Slides (part 1, part 2)
Part D - My Bo Liao Guide to Forming a Good Project Group in School (tba)

It’s my sister’s birthday today. Happy Birthday Jiayi!!! May all your wishes come through and your luck be power-uped. =)

Today is also the day I post the second last part of my End of School Life Special. Sorry for the long wait from the previous post of this series, I had other things to post about. Although the header states Part B (Random Project Visual Part 3), it’s actually the second last part of this series as I have already finished Part C. For every part in the series so far click here.
I have already explained what this part is about. If you want to read what I wrote again please go to my End of School Life Special: Part B (Random Project Visual Part 1).

In this part of the series, I post the rest of the random visuals I did in school. Some are made very long ago (years) some quite recently. So let’s see the boliao random visuals I did during school shall we …..

Let the action begin!

First is a set of posters for my poly’s open house. I made the poster for my course. Looking at them now, it doesn’t look very nice he he …

Here is a poster a made for one of the subjects during my poly days. We were suppose to make some public awareness poster I think. Can be regarding anything and I chose my favourite place … the toilet. This poster should be placed at all Male public toilets in Singapore!!!

This is an Electronic Direct Mailer I made during my internship at Tangs marketing department. I sent this out on the second last day of my internship and the response was great! I got really nice gifts in return so the treat was worth it. =p Joking joking, even if no one gave me any gifts it would still be worth it as I had a great time there and learnt a lot.

This is a logo I made for our imaginary brand for our advance e-commerce subject.

My group used a Dilbert comic strip for a visual illustration for one of the topics and made a service blueprint for a company for our Consumer Services and Retailing module.

We were required to come up with a phone and market it and thus the birth of the hPhone … too bad watching TV on Mobile wasn't one of it's features he he.

Our lecturer wanted us to market Popiah in a foreign country and the country that my group got was Japan (my favourite of the lot!). I like this visual a lot as I think it’s the cutest of them all he he. I like to act cute can.

I had to draw the turnip mascot (inspired by Mario’s turnip) on a piece of paper and trace it out without the pen and board thingy. It was troublesome but I like the process and the outcome =). Not sure about the accuracy of the Japanese translation though. It supposed to be something like “wrapped turnip” in Japanese.

That’s all for the Random Group Project Visual Part i.e part 6 of the End of School Life Special. Hope you enjoyed it. Visuals are usually not required for projects unless stated but we make them anyway for brownie points =P Although they look very amateurish, I had a lot of fun making them he he.

One more part to go!! Next part …… My Bo Liao Guide to Forming a Good Project Group!! (I dunno what to write sia)

P.S: Please note that these slides are for our school projects, and the companies mentioned are not involved in what we have included in our projects. Cheers. =P

(Images Taken From: My previous school projects)

Anime Festival Asia 09 : Cosplay Pics

2009-11-30T01:23:00.005+08:00

In my previous post, I posted many pics I took from Anime Festival Asia, but I left out something very important …. The cosplay pictures!!! Luckily, this time round, I took quite a lot of pictures of cosplayers as compared to my previous trip to License2Play (1 pic) so I decided to dedicate an entire post for these really dedicated and creative individuals. Last time, I was too shy to ask them to pose for pictures but this time I managed to "level up" my courage to ask them for permission to take pictures. I found out that as long as you ask them, they are more than willing to oblige and you will get a really nice pose from them facing you, which make your pictures better looking. I did take some photos of cosplayers without asking though, but only when they were like many others taking at the same time and they are give their best pose =P. No sneaky unglam shots from me he he =X

Cosplayers … I really admire their dedication towards their passion …. their love for Anime. To prepare those beautiful costumes they wear really requires lots of effort, creativity and money too I guess. To cosplayers around the world, especially those in my post … I salute you!!

Let’s see those I have taken and tried to photoshop to make them look nicer as I don’t have good photography skills and a pro cam ha ha.

There are lots more cosplayers that I did not manage to take pictures of, hopefully I can take even more pictures in future events I attend (if someone accompanies me he he). Sorry about the few non-cosplay pics I have included ha ha.

Hopefully I will be able to find people who can accompany me to next year’s Anime Festival Asia. =) By then I will have a DSLR cam, more experience in Maid Cafes and we can power up our food together (instead of us guys freezing due to shock) and hopefully more money to spend on the items on sale there.

For more proness pics and videos of the cosplay competition, click here.

On a side note …..

My room’s TV went ku ku yesterday and I wasn’t able to turn it on. Luckily a hero came and saved the day …. My HTC Hero!!

Because of my phone and TV on Mobile, I was able to watch the live match between Arsenal and Chelsea in my room this morning he he. Chelsea is looking unbeatable this season, too bad it’s not the team I support. All those who know me know that the team I support will forever be Newcastle United and I’m really happy that they are doing very well in the Championship this season. They are like the Chelsea or Man United in the Championship!!

I changed my MSN status to “Newcastle United is Top” some time ago and didn’t have to change the status since then lol. Hopefully they win the competition this season and lift the trophy =) Something they haven’t done since I started supporting them around 14 years ago! I thought that I wouldn’t be able to watch them play this season, but was pleasantly surprised that Starhub shows championship matches every week on Goal TV and majority of them are Newcastle matches! Woooo hoooo! Go magpies!!! Goal TV is on Starhub’s TV on Mobile too, which allows me to watch their matches live when I’m not at home he he. In case you are wondering …. Yes, you can see the ball while watching on your small mobile phone’s screen =p Those who have not tried can try watching next Sunday’s midnight match (aka Monday) for free as TV on Mobile is free every Monday! You even get $1 off Golden Village movie tickets for activating it on Mondays!

And ….

I just brought Kimi for grooming recently and she is looking cuter than ever with her t-shirt on.

I will try to finally complete my End of School Special this week and continue my 7 Days of Perth Special posts next week. See ya!

(Images Taken From: My Digital Camera)

I went to Anime Festival Asia 09 & had Power-uped food

2009-11-27T22:56:00.011+08:00

Selamat Hari Raya Haji people!! Hope you enjoy your long weekend this week. Public holidays are the best when it falls on Mondays or Fridays right? =)

Last Saturday, I was part of history by witnessing the revelation of the first ever mascots for the Youth Olympic Games. However, the reason why I was at Suntec City was not because of this event …. I didn’t even know it was going to happen until I heard Daniel Ong’s voice at Suntec lol. I was at Suntec City last Saturday because I went to the Anime Festival Asia 09. =)

Shawn had some complimentary tickets and asked if I wanted to go and I said yes immediately he he. How could I miss such an exciting event? Cosplays, maid café, anime, figurines etc etc … hey, I would happily pay for the tickets if he didn’t have them free (provided someone goes with me). So Shawn, Wayne, Ben and I went to Anime Festival Asia 09!

The last time I went for an event with cosplayers was the License2Play event, also at Suntec City. I managed to post only 1 miserable picture of that event, so I was determined to take many more pictures this time.

(The only pic I posted for License2Play last time lol)
As you need to pay to be able to go in (except for us and maybe some others =P), the place was not as packed as License2Play which was a good thing for me. I hate crowds, especially at IT shows where you can’t even walk properly and have to squeeze through people to get to see the products you are interested in. I wouldn’t mind paying to enter IT shows sia he he … dun flame me!

I’m sure if you need to pay, there will be less people who will bring their whole family to look and see and don’t buy anything at all heh. Just use the money from entrance fee to have some lucky draw or instant win thingy for every ticket so that people won’t complain so much =P The last IT show had around 1 million visitors – This equals to 5 million dollars worth of prizes! Actually, if the organizers keep half the money, they would still be giving out exciting prizes lol. People queue up to buy toto for a chance to win 1 mil but have nothing to see, now you pay $5 and can see IT products and get a chance to win 1 mil plus other exciting prizes too! Oh nooo, seems like a good deal …. skali got more people attend the fair instead of the crowd lessening. =P What was I thinking? Maybe they should keep 4mil and give lousier prizes instead … Can I organize my own IT show? There is Sitex this week by the way. I will not be attending this time round he he.

Anywayz …. Back to topic …

Since it was not as packed as License2Play, I was able to take more pictures of the place, cosplayers, displays and all. =) In my License2Play post, I said I wanted to buy a DSLR so that I stand a better chance of taking better pictures and look better when I ask cosplayers to posed for a pic but I haven’t got one yet lol. There were a lot of people with DSLRs at License2Play and I think there are more at Anime Festival Asia .. it seems like almost everyone there had a DSLR! Everyone are becoming pro photographers nowadays huh. However, I had a rather decent compact camera I bought for my trip to Australia in September, and together with my determination to take more pics this time round, I was 10 times more thick skin in asking cosplayers to pose for pics he he. Hope I can have my very own DSLR cam next year so I can take better pictures though.

Soooo …. Let’s see what I took this time round!

We walked around the place looking at the lovely figurines, artwork, anime related stuff on sale etc and I took some pictures here and there.

There were different areas for different interests like the Bandai Kids Land for kids, drawing booths for wanabe (mostly very good) artists, toys, a stage for events like the cosplay championship and the I Love Anisong concert.

It seems like there are lots of figurines and other products of Anime which I have not watched before so I was a little lost. I only knew those older anime like Dragon Ball and Naruto (which I still watch) he he but was still able to appreciate the beauty and cuteness of the things on display heh. Gotta watch more Animax on TV on Mobile to update myself =P It seems like they are showing the latest episodes (same week as Japan!) of Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood and Inu Yusha The Final Act every week.

I took some pictures of figurines I know and don’t know as they all look really good and kawaii. I used to buy a lot of these stuff when I was younger but I’m too poor now ha ha. I still buy gashapon items and play those UFO catcher machines though. Don’t think I will grow out of them lol.

Dragon ball, Gundam, Naruto, Ghost in the shell and other Anime related figurines and models – I’m sure Anime lovers would be able to find something they like. I see a lot of $100 plus Bleach swords being snapped up by Anime enthusiasts … rich sia.

As much as I enjoyed looking at all the exhibits, cosplayers and stuff, I got to admit that the highlight of the day was the Moe Moe Kyun Maid Café. =p I have read about these places and saw videos of the maid cafés in Japan but it was my first time actually visiting a maid café. I know there is one at Chimes, but I have not been there before. There were strict restrictions regarding taking of photos and other hanky panky actions but I managed to risk my life and take a few pictures he he. Don’t believe me .. see this video!

Sorry, the last pic is not from the maid café but one of the artworks being displayed he he … couldn’t resist posting the pic =)

Everyone had to order a meal to be able to dine 1 hour in the café, so all four of us ordered a meal which includes a free Polaroid picture with one of the cute maids!! Food ain’t that important as the experience so I won’t talk about food lol. They greeted us masters (they really called masters lol) when we were shown to our seats and drinks promptly arrived. Okaerinasaimase, goshujin-sama!! Aka welcome home, master!! If you ordered coffee like my lucky friend Wayne, the maid will help you add sugar and milk to your liking … that’s what I call excellent customer service!

It was fun seeing the maids serve other customers while we were waiting for our food. All of them were friendly, pretty, cute and made sure we were happy with our food. When our food arrived, the maid who served us POWER-UPed our food!! She said some things which I can’t hear properly (probably due to being stoned by shyness) and casted a spell on our food to power it up! We were all shocked as it was our first time experiencing this and the food definitely levelled up in terms of taste after the power-up lol.

Don’t believe me … see the video!!!

I’m in the video, but only for like 1 to 2 secs in the background lol. My friend Shawn was the star of the video clip though he he. See to the end to check out his very “honest” answer when asked which is better – food or the maids?

We have to go back next year for some more power ups!!

After more Anime Festival Asia exploring, we got hungry again and went to the Sakae Sushi at Suntec City for some Japanese food!

There was a 1 for 1 red plate promotion for Sakae Sushi’s 12th Anniversary on when we visited the outlet so we ordered some red plates along with the standard chawanmushi and some other sushi and ala carte food. Still thinking about the lovely maid who powered up our food, we tried to power up our food at Sakae Sushi too lol. I don’t if it’s due to our power up but all the food tasted really good ha ha. Favourite food of the day – Soft Shell Crab Crepe.

After eating till my pants was tight at Sakae Sushi we went back to Anime Festival Asia for a little more exploring and shopping.

I bought a pack of UCC Evangelion coffee and a big pillow for my sofa. I know the design is a little pervy (see above) but the pillow is very comfortable. I sit on it when watching tv with my father in the living room he he.

We also went to Marina Square for some UFO plushy catching. The shop has so many kinds of machines which tempted me to spend over 10 bucks. I only got a really small cookie monster scooped up from one of the machines in the end he he. The bigger one in the pic above was given by Shawn the pro UFO catcher. Sorry, I really can’t resist spending money on a UFO catcher when I see one.

Okay it’s the end of today’s post …

Wait a minute ….

Where are all the cosplay pics??

It will be posted in my next post ha ha … sorry, this post is getting a little too long (too many pics and talk cockness!) so I decided to split it into 2 and dedicate an entire post to the cosplay pics I took he he.

Here is a little preview …

I promise that the pics will be better than my single license2play pic he he.

Next post coming up very soon!!

(Images Taken From: My Digital Camera)

Singapore Youth Olympics 2010 Mascot Revealed! I was there!!

2009-11-22T23:29:00.004+08:00

Lyo and Merly to be mascots for inaugural 2010 Youth Olympic Games

SINGAPORE: The mascots for the world's first Youth Olympic Games in Singapore next year have been revealed.

One is a male Lion called Lyo and the other a female Merlion called Merly.

The mascots were officially introduced to much celebration at Suntec City on Saturday.

Doing the honours was Community Development, Youth and Sports Minister Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, who brought along his three-year-old son.

A contest, won by two Singaporeans, was held to name the mascots.

Lyo is short for "Lion of the Youth Olympics," while Merly gets her name from "mer" meaning the sea, and "l" and "y" standing for liveliness and youthfulness.

Besides Singapore, the mascots will travel to five cities around the world as part of the global torch relay for the Games.

Dr Balakrishnan said: "It is an interesting play on fire and water and the lion and merlion. So there are aspects of which we clearly can identify with as Singaporeans, but really what we hope is these mascots will be embraced by Singaporeans as well as the visitors who come."

It took about six months to design the mascots. Plush toys of the mascots will go on sale at the official Olympic store at Takashimaya starting Sunday.

- CNA/sc

Source: Channelnewsasia.com

I actually got to witness this historic event when I was at Suntec last yesterday! I was walking around Suntec City when I suddenly heard Daniel Ong announcing that they were going to reveal the mascots. Being a typical kaypoh and kiasu Singaporean, I rushed to the area with my friends and took a video of the moment they revealed the mascots!!

Heng ah .. anyhow walk also can become part of history lol. It's the first ever mascot for the Youth Olympics ... Revealed in Singapore (the first ever host) and I was there!!

Sorry, I couldn't go to the middle to take the video as there were a lot of people who were more kiasu than me. I only took a few photos after taking the video and there are all around the same.

Luckily Sports Minister Dr. Vivian Balakrishnan was facing my direction he he.

More about the 2 cute mascots ....

Mascot 1 - LYO

Star Sign: Leo (duh)
Dream: To win a gold medal in an international basketball championship (impossible for Singapore?)
Personal Motto: "Never say never"
Favourite Food: Chilli Crabs and Chicken Rice with lots of chilli (no chilli for me)
Fun Stuff: His paw is shaped like Singapore Island.

Star Sign: Aquarius
Dream: To become an environmental scientist
Personal Motto: "You can achieve anything if you pour your heart into it!" (how about striking toto)
Favourite Food: Ice Kachang (I love it too!!)

more info at Singapore 2010 Youth Olympic Games official site

Who do you like more? I think I like Merly more as she likes ice kachang. Youth Olympics, opening of the two IRs .... next year will be a very interesting year for Singapore. =) Too bad Singapore never reach world cup =P

Anyways .....

So what was I doing at Suntec with my camera with me?

I shall not reveal the reason till the next post but I will give you some clues.

This is the ticket you need to get in to the event I went.

It has something to do with Anime, which can be viewed on my mobile phone on the Animax channel courtesy of Starhub's TV on mobile. =)

I'm sure those who went will know what event I'm talking about he he ....

All shall be revealed 2 - 3 days later!!

(Images Taken From: My digital camera, Singapore 2010 Youth Olympic Games website)

Random Vids 1

2009-11-15T23:41:00.009+08:00

Hello there. This post will be the first of many random videos I will be posting (I always say this lol). I used to have a Random Japanese Videos section, but I guess I will change it to Random Vids instead. So ... instead of only Japanese videos, I will just post random videos I see on Facebook, youtube, links from friends etc etc ...

Lets start the ball rolling shall we ...

1) Time for Miracles (From the movie 2012)

Just watched the movie and loved it! Love this song too ... Adam Lambert!!

2) iPhone band

Missing my iPhone already heh

3) 超級白 Chao Ji Bai

Really sounds like something in Hokkien ;)

4) Prison Break - Dog Version

Really clever dog!! i hope Kimi doesn't try to escape sia

5) When TV goes Wild

Free TV on Mondays! Check out Starhub's website

That's all for today!

P.S: I have changed the number of post displayed for the main page and the labels to 5 (3 for random videos section) so that the pages will load faster and you won't have information overload when you click on random videos. Previously it crashed my browser but no problems now! =) Go click and find out!!

Bye bye iPhone .... Hello HTC Hero

2009-11-13T23:45:00.004+08:00

Hi there. Do you notice a little change in the navigation bar on top?

If you have been to this site before, you might have noticed that there were 5 sections on the navigation bar - My Bo Liao Life, Random Videos, Entertainment, News/Articles and iPhone. I have made some changes to it recently. I removed the News/Articles section as I don’t think I would be posting anything on that anymore and replaced it with the Link Exchange link (just click to see how to exchange links!). I also changed another one of the sections …

Since I no longer have an iPhone, I have changed the “My iPhone” section into “My Phone”. I don’t think I will own the same phone for more than one year due to my bad habit of recontracting my mobile phone plan and getting a phone, so it’s best that I change the section to “My Phone” instead. This way, all my experiences with my new phones can be placed at that section. =)

Enough on blog update, now back to phones!

Before I show you pics of my new HTC Hero, let us all say goodbye to my previous phone … the iPhone 3G.

It’s a really good phone, almost perfect, definitely the best phone I ever owned even though it’s not the 3GS model. However, I wanted to try the android OS, so I had to let it go. I have found a kind and caring Apple lover, Wayne, to take good care of my iPhone 3G. I hope he will have as much fun as me using this baby. I will miss you iPhone 3G.

So bye bye my iPhone ………. and Hello HTC Hero!!!

I bought the white version of the android based HTC Hero after renewing my plan with Starhub. As a Hubclub member, I get to recontract my phone every year so I think it’s certain that you will see me changing my phone every year he he.

I don’t really have any complains with the phone at the moment, it does the things I need it to do.

As you can see in the pics, it has more buttons than the iPhone and a track ball. The extra buttons were a little hard to get used to at first, but after using it for 2 weeks, I am now more comfortable with them. I like the search button. When you press it, the google search box will come and you can easily search for contacts, messages, email, information on the internet etc. Google, the makers of android, is your best friend! The screen is the same type of touch screen as the iPhone (capacitive touch screen), which is one of the main reasons why I switched to this model instead of others. After using the iPhone’s capacitive touch screen for almost a year, I think I cannot go back to using resistive touch screens. I’m sure those who own an iPhone would agree with me. You just can’t get used to the resistive screens after using the finger friendly capacitive screens.

As seen in the screenshots above, the interface is quite different to the iPhone. There are 7 “pages” where you can place your stuff. You can fill the pages up with apps and make it look similar to the iPhone or you can add widgets to make it a little more interesting =). You can also use your own wallpaper. You can add widgets and wallpapers on your iPhone too but you have to jailbreak it, which I think is a little troublesome and it slowed down my iPhone 3G. Maybe the 3GS can handle it better.

You can view all your programs in the programs tab and you can view all your notifications (email, sms & others) by sliding your finger from the top to bottom …. I like! The android os which my HTC Hero is using also has an appstore called the android market. It is not as user friendly and does not contain as much apps as the appstore though. I can’t access the paid apps here in Singapore so I can’t really compare the quality of the apps, but I think the apps on the iPhone should be better heh. They have so many really good games from big name developers at the moment. Maybe android will catch up soon heh. It has enough bo liao apps to keep me entertained though lol.

Anyways, who needs to play with apps when you can watch TV on your phone …

When I go out, I can watch quite a number of Starhub channels with TV on mobile. There are my favourites like all the 3 football channels (football channel, goal tv 1, goal tv2), my father’s favourite CTI TV to see all his Taiwanese variety and political shows and some channels like Animax and the Asian Food Channel which I don’t even have on my cable subscription! There are other channels too. If you are interested you can click here.

A few days ago, when I went out with my father to help him with some work related stuff, I took out my phone and surprised him with the live streaming of the CTI TV channel he he. I used it in the car and while we were waiting for some drawings and had no lag in both situations. =) Being able to watch tv channels on the go really helps to make my father a little more patient when waiting for the drawings.

I will try to play around with my HTC Hero more next time and post some updates. Android 2.0 is coming to Hero soon I think, so I can get to have a new experience soon after using version 1.5 he he.

(Images Taken From: My digital camera, my HTC Hero)

The Birthday Steamboat

2009-11-09T02:17:00.006+08:00

Last week, I celebrated my birthday in traditional fashion. Another steamboat at home with my family! I think I have been doing the same thing for many donkey years but I still like. A nice simple celebration with my father, mother and sister =) Steamboat rocks!! This year’s steamboat is sponsored by my sister as a birthday present to me. Thank you Jiayi!!

Before the steamboat, I had a yummy salt-baked chicken for lunch. My father bought it from Tampines Mall along with my birthday cake he he.

In the afternoon, my sister and I went to the supermarket to buy the food for the steamboat plus some other of my favourite food. We bought quite a lot of food and the cashier thought that me and my sister were going to eat all the food by ourselves lol. We got back just in time for dinner and prepared the steamboat! Okay most of the preparation was done by my sis he he.

We had prawns, various mushrooms, slices of pork (shabu shabu styled), cheese hotdogs, shark meat (dunno just try), toufu, vegetables and some more. Just put them all in the pot, and let it do the magic …. My favourite food in the steamboat?

I love it when steamboats have this kind of fishball and will usually take a lot of it. Delicious! But that’s not all ….. Besides the steamboat we also had Satay and nuggets!

Satay is one of my favourite food of all time and fortunately we were able to find a stall selling them at one of the coffee shops. They were really good!! Nice tender chicken and mutton satay!! I can eat at least 50 sticks of satay if anyone once to sponsor me thank you. The nuggets were quite tasty too. We bought the cheese flavoured once out of curiosity and used the oven to make it crispy. =)

So the night was spent eating the steamboat, watching some tv and blowing my birthday cake.

Thank you papa, mummy and sis for being with me on my birthday!! I hope this tradition continues forever.

Presents time …

This year, I have the usual ang paos from my parents and Fei bought me a t-shirt he he. I also had an early “birthday present” from Starhub …

The kind folks over at Starhub gave me a Nokia 5800 to try out the TV on Mobile service. So kind of them to do this. They also waived off my caller ID service fee for six months when I recontracted my plan … totally unexpected and cool. I love surprises! Hubber for life! Ha ha. The TV on Mobile service was smooth and easy to use on the Nokia 5800 - just sms to 6757 and click on the link they send you =) …. Too bad I was already planning to recontract my phone line and get the HTC Hero, so I passed the Nokia to my mom who wanted a new phone. I prefer capacitive touch screen la pai seh. I downloaded a cute theme for her from the Ovi store lol.

I didn’t know the Nokia has its own store like the iPhone’s app store now ….so sua ku la me heh. At the moment, Apple’s store is much better though =P. Even the android market I’m using now is not as good. I’m getting used my new HTC hero now though and I’m loving it the moment. Too bad we don’t have paid apps in Singapore yet. When will it come out ah?? For now, I can only be a cheapo and download those free apps he he. The Nokia 5800 supposed to come a card which will enable me to download unlimited music for a year but I lost the card!! I wanted to try out how it actually works, but too bad I don’t have the chance now. =(

My dog Kimi also had a birthday present for me ….

She changed her bed sheet for the week to match mine. So sweet and cute!! Thanks Kimi!!

(Images Taken From: My digital camera)

End of School Life Special: Part C (My Random Presentation Slides Part 2)

2009-11-03T01:33:00.006+08:00

Oh oh. Its been more than a week since my last post … I have been “busy” watching tv shows, J dramas I bought, celebrating my birthday and of course finding a job. I have a job interview on Wednesday and hopefully I will get the job. Dear blog, I’m so so so sorry about not updating you as often as before. I promise that I will update you at least 2 times a week for the next few weeks of even months. I love you blog.

For this post, I continue my End of School Life Special with Part C2 of the special series!!

Part C2 will carry on from the last post which showcased my random presentation slides. Last time I showed you 5, and now I will show you another 5 of my presentation slides I made in school. I usually customize my powerpoint presentation slides to match the topic or company the project is about, although sometimes, I get lazy and use readymade templates for the slides. The selected slides below taken from my group project or case study presentation slides are mostly the ones which I customized. Nobody wants to see those readymade templates which you can easily find right. Hope you like them. =)

These selected groups of slides are the next half of 10 powerpoint presentations I will be posting. The first 5 can be found by clicking here.

1. Anti-Drink Driving Slides

2. Best Buy Slides

3. ERP slides

4. AEC Slides

5. Dell slides

Nothing much to crap about for each set of slides so I decided not to say anything and let the pictures do the talking. Once again …. Just SEE and GO.

2 more to go in my End of School Special. Next post in the series (don't know when): Its back to My Random Group Project Visuals!! It will be part 3 and last of the random visuals before the final series post - My Bo Liao Guide to Forming a Good School Project Group

On a side note ….

There is a major change in my life … something that will alter my lifestyle, how I do things, how I look at the world etc etc. I didn’t have to make the change as life before the change was great. However, I felt that the time is right to let go of something wonderful, almost perfect in place of something new which may or may not be as good as or better than its predecessor.

My itchy hands struck again …..

Despite having a phone which I felt was almost perfect and declaring my love for it through some of my blog posts, my bad habit of wanting to try out new gadgets led me to changing my iphone to this new baby ….

I have only used my new HTC Hero for a few days and have not really explored all the functions and potential of the phone so I can’t comment on whether it is better than my iPhone or not. What I can say at the moment is that I like the interface and widgets of the android based phone but I’m missing some of the apps and the Safari browser I had on my iPhone already he he. Hopefully the upcoming firefox browser will be better than the one they have now on the Hero. One thing I couldn’t do with my iPhone which this phone can is using Starhub’s TV on mobile. =) I used to be able to use this service on my old windows mobile based phone but had to live without this feature when I was using my iPhone. I’m glad that I can once again watch Starhub’s channels on the go and will definitely be using this more often when I go out, or maybe even when I’m at home lying on my bed heh. The connection seems more stable than the last time I used it. No lag experienced while watching so far sia. Will try at more places in the future. =)

More about my new Hero and TV on mobile in future posts. =)

P.S: Please note that these slides are for our school projects, and the companies mentioned are not involved in what we have included in our projects. Cheers. =P

P.S2: Starhub TV on Mobile is free every Monday!!

(Images Taken From: My previous school projects, My digital camera)

Random Japanese Videos and lots of Sakae Sushi

2009-10-23T01:51:00.015+08:00

Hello. Once again ..... It's time for some random Japanese videos!

Recently, lots of my friends have been sharing really interesting videos in Facebook and some of them are Japanese. Today, let me share with you some of them in case you have missed them in Facebook, or none of your friends shared them, errm or maybe you don't have a Facebook account (is that possible?).

Terrifying Sniper Prank on Japanese TV

Poor guy. I wonder how I would react. Pee my pants??

Hidden Hot Water Prank on Celebrity

Be careful wherever you are he he

Japanese "Quiet Library" game show

I love the slapping machine he he. I think people should really try this in libraries or maybe in parties he he. So fun!

Pankun & James make Ramen Noodles

Pankun the monkey is damn talented! I only know how to make instant noodles ...

There are lots more Pankun and James videos on Youtube!!

Baby Bear Who is Scared of Everything

So cute but feels so cruel at the same time =)

Sticking to the Japanese theme …. My Sakae Sushi adventure continues!! Armed with my new Sakae Sushi card with Sakae dollars inside, I recently ate Sakae Sushi not once, not twice but three freaking times!!!

Round 1 was with my mum at Sakae Sushi Suntec …

Because of the significant amount of Sakae dollars I had, I didn’t care about the price of the food we ordered. I just asked my mother to order anything she wanted and I did the same thing too he he. We didn’t get much sushi this time round, leaving our stomachs to be filled by the food items on the menu. First thing we ordered was Chawanmushi (a must!), then my mother ordered one of the ramen (I forgot which one sorry!) and I ordered a Yokubari Gozen bento set (nice) ... We also ordered some sushi, Soft Shell Crabs, Shisamos, Unagi Tofu and a Dragon Roll. I think the staff there must be thinking we are mad lol. We tried our best to finish all the delicious food (except for the weird tasting Dragon Roll) and almost managed to finish all. We could hardly walk after that lol.

Next round was at Sakae Sushi Wheelock Place after my Sakae Card was recharged …

This time I went with my sis after attending an IR career talk (still looking for that perfect job by the way).

Like my mom, I told my sister to order anything she wanted he he without caring about the price. As usual, we ordered chawanmushi to kick start the eating session. Because I love it the last time I ate it with my mum, I orderd the Yokubari Gozen bento again! Lol. My sister ordered Sukiyaki and we also had some sushi. I really like the Sukiyaki soup man, damn shiok.

We ended our meal with some Mochi Ice Cream for dessert but I got a shock when I was about to ask for the bill. I realized that I forgot to bring my Sakae Card!! I tried asking them if I could use my IC number or the Sakae card number but they said they needed to swipe the card …. Oh man. Luckily we didn’t order as much as Round 1 and my sis brought her credit card. It was supposed to be my treat and I was proudly asking her to choose whatever she wants, but she ended up paying for the meal lol. I have already promised her that I will pass her my Sakae card the next time she plans to visit a Sakae restaurant and she could use up all the Sakae dollars for that month he he. Sorry sis!

Moral of the story: If you want to hao lian, please double check to make sure you are able to. Malu lah me.

2 Rounds of Sakae Sushi is not enough, so I went for a third round!

Unfortunately, I can’t use my Sakae dollars for Sakae food delivery but that didn’t stop me from ordering food from that cute little green frog. Last Saturday, Donald came over to my house to play some Guitar Heroes 5 (just bought!) and my sister had a group project meeting at my house (aka the project house). We ordered a Yume party tray (containing lots of sushi), a Terriyaki chicken pizza, one of the donburi(for Donald) aaaaaaannnnnddddddd some Chawanmushi of course. Everyone were satisfied with their food and Donald and I proceeded with our “disturb the project group meeting guitar heroes session”. Lets rock!!

More Sakae Sushi adventures next time, when my card is refilled =P I ♥ Sakae Sushi!!

Back to random videos: I think in the future, instead of sharing just Japanese videos in a single post. I will gather interesting videos I see on Facebook from whatever country and post them once in a while. There are so many interesting videos my friends are sharing and I'm sure you will like them. Funny, touching, educational, cool etc etc so many kinds of videos on Facebook nowadays from friends who love to share. =) I shall call the posts ....Random Facebook Videos!!

Take it …. and Go!

(Images Taken From: My iPhone, My digital camera)

7 Days of Perth: Day 2 – Graduation Ceremony and a little bit of Perth City

2009-10-15T14:03:00.005+08:00

Welcome to part 2 (second day duh) of my “7 Days of Perth” special. On my second day in Perth, we attended my graduation ceremony held at my Uni. We walked around a lot, which resulted in me having really painful ankles. The damage to my legs got worse every day due to the constant walking around in uncomfortable shoes. More about my legs in future posts heh.

Using a map he brought, Donald used his excellent navigational skills to guide us to Regalia Craft, the place we rented our graduation attire from. We walked through Perth City and lots of shops and finally reached Regalia Craft after walking for more than 30 mins (maybe longer). I don’t think I can make as good use of the map as Donald as I am really bad with directions. Without Donald, I don’t think I would be able to go around the different places in Perth. Too used to being brought around by tour guides in the past I think he he.

The amazing thing is that after walking under the sun for so long, I didn’t sweat at all! I think I have already mentioned how much I loved the weather in my last Perth post but I will say it again and maybe again in future posts …. I love the weather here!!!! In Singapore, almost every day is a hot day and I try my best to only walk around at night. I thought I hated the sun, but I think I only hate the sun in Singapore. The excellent weather didn’t prevent my feet from being sore though heh. I haven’t walked so much in a very long time. Maybe since my time in the army heh.

After collecting our gowns from the very efficient Regalia Craft, we ate our lunch at McDonalds lol. First meal at Australia and we had to eat food from the fast food restaurant with branches all around the world (anyone haven’t heard of McDonalds? =P). It seems like they have different choices though and we all tried different kinds of wraps not seen in Singapore before. Food are placed in takeaway bags even if you eating in the store. I guess they do this so that it is easier for people to clean up before they go. Maybe they should try this in Singapore. Unlike Singapore, I think you have to pay for extra sauces. Too many kiasu people in Perth? =P

After eating, we did some grocery shopping on our way back to the hotel. We went to a supermarket called Woolsworth. You know the one which was sued by Apple for having a similar logo? Personally I don’t think they are trying to copy the apple logo and they should be allowed to continue using it. Maybe Apple should sue everyone who sells apples too …

Anywayz, we bought lots of different snacks, instant noodles and some drinks there to taste test them and fill our stomachs in the hotel. The instant noodles were okay. The names of the noodles were interesting (there is even a Singapore Curry flavour) but the taste is not that fantastic. I guess I was expecting too much from cup noodles lol. The milk shake we bought were delicious though, sooo thick sooo tasty. I wonder if they have them in Singapore. Anyone knows where to get Brownes Supa Shake??

I also saw a UFO catcher shop in the same building as Woolsworth!! You know I’m the kind of guy who can’t resist playing those machines when I see one, so I changed some coins with the cute Taiwanese shop assistant (sooo pretty) and tried my luck. I won a Mashi Maro soft toy after spending around $5!!! It was the first soft toy I won in Australia but it wasn’t my last. More about other stuff toys I won in future posts he he. Mini side quest – the UFO adventures. Guess how many I caught by the end of my trip? Stay tuned to find out he he.

After resting in the hotel for a while, we took a bus to my school for a little bit of exploring and my graduation ceremony. We went around the campus for a little sightseeing and took lots of photographs. I feel that the service standard of the bus there is much better than Singapore’s. You get greeted when boarding the bus, you get change when you don’t have the exact amount when paying cash and can even pay with big notes, you can top up your EZ Link type card in the bus itself and it is not as crowded as those in Singapore. Maybe the cars are cheap and not many people take the bus. If you happen to be going to Perth for a holiday, take the bus around and you will know what I mean. =) Not sure about other parts of Australia though.

A little research: Western Australia is sooooo much bigger than Singapore but their population is less than half of ours?

According to my friend Wiki:

Western Australia
Land Area: 2,529,875km²
Population: 2,224,300

Singapore
Land Area: 710.2km²
Population: 4,987,600

Okay … Western Australia (where Perth is at) is more than 3000 times bigger than Singapore and has less than half of the number of people. Lol. By the way, we are the third most densely populated country/region in the world. Squeeeeeze! Surprisingly, China with their billion plus plus, are ranked only 75. Maybe only the cities are crowded. Too bad in Singapore, there is no option to stay in rural areas =p

Is Singapore aiming to be number 1 lol. Woo hooo? :(

So maybe the lower density allows them take their time to serve each passenger. =P Oh well, back to school …

Because I was taking an overseas degree course, that was actually my first time in my uni’s campus lol. It is really BEAUTIFUL, with old European styled Harry Potter like buildings (and some modern looking ones) and lots of trees and flowers around. At certain parts of the school, I think one can mistake the place to be a park. Such a nice environment to study in, too bad I didn’t get to enjoy it. =(

I bought lots of stuff from this store for my classmates back in Singapore, my sister and of course for myself too. Hoodies, jackets, cups, decals, key chains etc etc …. I think the owner must be wondering why this student is buying so many things lol. =) I was acting like a typical tourist in a tourist shop and he was a happy man. I also got a prepaid phonecard there which was really useful, highly recommended for tourists. With that, I didn’t have to worry about freaking out when I see my next phone bill back in Singapore. That was actually the first time I have used a prepaid card and I will definitely lookout for prepaid cards whichever country I go in the future. Sure beats using those troublesome international calling cards and better value than using auto roaming.

Graduation ceremony was quite boring and I think I almost dozed off when they were playing some music. The place it was held in was really nice though. I felt like I was in a church heh. I was pretty nervous as I didn’t know anyone who sat around me and got no one to talk to, but I felt much better after going on stage and not making a fool out of myself by slipping or something. =P We had some refreshments after the ceremony and headed back to the hotel. Legs pain ahhhhh!!

This brings us to the end of day 2 …. Day 3 in my next “7 days of Perth” special!

Next time on the special “7 days of Perth” series – Harbour Town and Some more

P.S: Yay! Argentina won today and Newcastle United will have 2 players (Gutierrez & Coloccini) playing for them in the world cup despite being in the Championship he he. Thank you Maradona!!

(Images Taken From: My digital camera, my iPhone)

End of School Life Special: Part C (My Random Presentation Slides Part 1)

2009-10-09T02:35:00.007+08:00

Hee hee ha ha. Sorry for not posting for such a long time after I said in my previous post that I will be posting more often. I shall not over promise in the future. Since that post, I actually got an interview and a job offer but I think the job is not for me. I also got sick again =( This time I had cough, sore throat and more recently, diarrhoea (spell checked)!! I also went out a little, partied a little, drank and ate a little (okay quite a lot) and went to a IR (Integrated Resorts) Jobs preview session. I might be working at one of the first 2 casinos in Singapore next year. I want to be part of history! We shall see how it goes he he.

Okay, back to the topics of the day, my very confusing End of School Life Special …. part C1: My Random Presentation Slides!!

In this post, I will switch on my slack mode and just show you some pics of the 5 of the group project presentation slides I made (mostly). I usually customize my powerpoint presentation slides to match the topic or company the project is about, although sometimes, I get lazy and use readymade templates for the slides. The selected slides below taken from my group project or case study presentation slides are mostly the ones which I customized. Nobody wants to see those readymade templates which you can easily find right.

These selected groups of slides are the first half of 10 powerpoint presentations I will be posting. The next 5 will be shown in the next post.

1. Esprit Slides

2. Samsung Slides

3. Tampines Clicks Slides

4. Osim hPhone Slides

5. PicknPay slides

I know it’s not as good as those pros and mac users la, but nonetheless I enjoy making slides and if there is a job that just requires me to make powerpoint slides I will apply for it man lol. Don’t like giving presentations though. Unfortunately, my course and maybe future job require me to give lots of presentations. I’m more of a behind the scenes guy heh.

Nothing much to crap about for each set of slides so I decided not to say anything and let the pictures do the talking. Just SEE and GO.

5 more sets of presentation slides coming up in the next post (no fixed date) which I think are better than these early batches of slides I made!

P.S: Please note that these slides are for our school projects, and the companies mentioned are not involved in what we have included in our projects. Cheers. =P

(Images Taken From: My previous school projects)

7 Days of Perth: Day 1 – Just Arrived

2009-09-30T18:01:00.008+08:00

Hello my friend, sorry for not updating since Wednesday. I have been going out quite a lot since I came back from Perth, and got sick a few days ago. I feel a little better now and I’m ready to update. I have started sending resumes around, and hopefully I will get some interviews and a job soon. Since I have some spare time now while waiting to be offered a position I am interested in (hopefully), I will try to update my blog often. I have yet to complete my End of School Special series, but do not fear … I will post the next part soon after this post.

This post is the first of my 7 part Perth trip special. I don’t have a photographic memory, but I have made some notes on my iPhone during my trip to help me remember details of the places I visited and things I did. Hopefully it will assist me in giving an accurate account of my Perth holiday. It is a trip I really enjoyed and I hope you will like the loads of pictures that I will be posting. =) Let’s begin shall we …

I have been to many countries when I was a kid but believe it or not, this is actually my first time leaving Singapore in 10 freakin years! Because of this, I tried to be extra careful not to exclude any important items when packing my luggage. The checklist I made and the constant nagging by my mother helped made sure that everything I needed was with me before I leave my house. I thought I had everything until my father asked me something when I was in his car. When he asked me if I brought my specs along, I realised that I left it at home after putting on my contacts just like I do every time I go out! Its okay if you are coming back at the end of the day, but I will be gone for 7 days and I can’t live without it. How can I watch TV in the hotel without my specs on when I take out my contacts at night!

Lucky there was still lots of time due to my kiasu mother, and we went back to take the specs from my lovely sister who brought it down stairs. (My mother was feeling very proud of her kiasuness after it proved useful, constantly reminding me of this incident in Perth.) Lesson learnt: Nagging can be a good thing (once in a while …).

After taking my specs, everything was finally in place and we went to Changi Airport Terminal 1 to meet up with my friend Donald and his mum. To save money for shopping, we decided to take Jetstar instead of the more expensive Singapore Airlines, hence the Terminal 1 departure place. Mr Cheapskate is willing to sacrifice SIA Girl and in-flight entertainment for more money to spend in Australia. =) My iPhone has pics of pretty girls and all the entertainment (games, movies, music) I need anywayz =P.

After checking in, we did a little duty free shopping and I had some Kaya toast and half boiled egg to fill my stomach with some Singapore goodness before my long flight without free food. I thought I would miss the food in Singapore when I was in Perth but honestly speaking, I didn’t, as they had lots of food I like there (Singaporean food included). More about the food I eat next time. After some random photo taking to try out my new camera bought specially for this trip, we went to the boarding room to go onboard the first budget airline plane I have been on in my life. I don’t think there were budget airlines 10 years ago right? He he.

It was not as bad as I thought heh. There were leather seats and sufficient leg space (for a short guy like me at least =p). My mother said this plane was better than the one she took to Thailand so maybe I’m lucky. Air stewards and stewardess not as good as those in SQ and some other airlines I took before, but not bad lah. No free food on board but you still can get some if you are willing to pay. It’s quite ex though … should have brought some food to eat.

The 5 hours flight passed by rather quickly as I entertained myself and my mom with games on my iPhone. I also took a short nap as it was quite late. Lucky the time in Perth and Singapore is exactly the same so I did not have to adjust my timing.

We reached Perth around 12 plus am and I immediately fell in love with the weather when we came out of the airport. It was cold but not too cold, around 15 – 20 degrees Celsius. I can wear the jacket I bought and walk around the whole day under the sun and I won’t excrete a single drop of sweat =) In Singapore, I sweat even when I’m lying on my sofa watching TV! If only Singapore has four seasons (not the Four Seasons hotel hor…).

Kenny (Donald’s Girlfriend’s cousin) fetched us from the airport to our hotel (Sheraton). He has been studying in Perth for the around 6 months and was quite familiar with the place. He talked about his experiences in Perth and where he would bring us when he had the time after school. Kenny is a really nice and fun guy and I’m sure our trip won’t be as enjoyable without him bringing us around.

Donald had a discount for the hotel rooms so we only paid 120 bucks a night per room. I think is very worth it considering its location and rather nice rooms. Thanks Donald! There are 2 big beds in our room which I feel is enough for 2 and all the other standard hotel stuff. We unpacked some of our stuff, watched some TV and it’s the end of day 1.

Not much about Perth in this post sorry … This is just sort of an intro and I guarantee that there will be more on Perth (pics and all) in my next post!! Unlike Day 1, I start my day in Perth on Day 2, so obviously everything will be based on my experiences there right he he.

Next time on the special “7 Days of Perth” series – My UWA Graduation Ceremony and a little bit of Perth City

(Images Taken From: My digital camera, my iPhone)

I'm back!!

2009-09-23T19:24:00.004+08:00

I’m back!

I reached hot and humid Singapore on Monday morning and ate Wanton mee in the airport before coming home. The Perth trip was great and I really enjoyed myself there. I took 1000 + photos there and will post them up soon =)

Some things that happened during the week I went missing …

1) I received my degree in Perth

2) Got to know a guy named Kenny (Donald’s gf’s cousin) in Perth who brought us around. Great guy.

Going on a 1 week holiday. Desitination Perth

2009-09-14T13:17:00.005+08:00

Bye bye Singapore! Boliaosia.com will be taking a 1 week break without any posts. I will be going on a 1 week holiday (14 Sept to 21 Sept) to Perth Australia! It’s actually a holiday/convocation trip and it will be the last week I get to enjoy myself before starting the process of job hunting when I come back. Although I have been to many countries in the past when I was young, this is actually my first time venturing out of Singapore in 10 years!! Yup, I never even go to Malaysia sia. I feel like a frog in the well.

Preparations are more or less than and I will be flying off in a few hours time. I bought Jetstar tickets to save cost but found after I bought the tickets that SIA had a new promotion which is only slightly more than Jetstar … Suay sia. It’s around 1 hundred bucks more nia. Okay lah, at least I can use the hundred bucks to buy more stuff (trying to think positively).

I bought a new camera for this trip yesterday at Comex. Shawn and I went in the last hour to see if there are any last minute good deals. Some people call it kio sai (pick up shit). It seems like that were a lot of people just like us who wanted to kio sai as it was hard for Shawn to get a parking lot. After twisting and turning around the car park for quite some time, we eventually got a parking lot and went to buy our stuff. Shawn bought a LG 42 inch TV and I bought the Fujifilm F200 EXR. I chose the camera after reading lots of good reviews about it and it was within my budget (okay stretch a bit and need to borrow he he). I’m just a simple point-n-click guy who needs a good idiot proof camera. =)

Here are some pics of my old and new camera …

Pic of my old cam (actually my sister’s) taken by my iPhone

lousy iPhone cam does not work well in this lighting =P

Pic of my new cam taken by my old cam

This is how my new camera looks like. I think it looks good =) I like the feel of it.

Pic of a Nikon D90 (ar $2k!!) in right in front of me in my house

Shot taken with my new camera. I think it looks good, considering that it is the first time that I'm using it. Idiot proof check - PASS!

Although I have a really nice DSLR camera right in front of me, I can’t use it heh. It belongs to my cousin in Australia and I’m supposed to pass it to her when I’m there. I don’t know how to use it anyway heh. Too cheem lah. I might get one in the future though, provided I have the money and skills.

Okay got to go bathe soon and head for the airport. Boliaosia.com will be back around the 22nd of September or a little later!!

See ya guys =)

P.S: Because of my convocation, I can’t attend the Singapore Blog Awards ceremony =( My friend Jasmine and her boyfriend will be going to the event on my behalf instead. Hope they take lots of pictures of the event and maybe pictures of the model bloggers too =P

I ate a lot and saw a car race a plane

2009-09-13T15:46:00.008+08:00

I received some vouchers recently after winning some contests and was lucky enough to be invited to see a race between a car and a plane. Last week, I used the vouchers (both for food) and went to see the amazing race …

These are the vouchers I received from Sakae Sushi for their Sakae Monthly Bloggers Affair. I forgot to take a pic of the other voucher which is a Fish & Co from Omy pai seh. Thank you Sakae Sushi and Omy for these vouchers. I love vouchers!!

Using my first voucher …

The Fish & Co voucher could only be used at the Heeren outlet and only on a certain date but those requirements didn’t stop me from using it. I’m too cheapo lah. =) My sister and I went shopping at Orchard on the “voucher day” so that we could have a nice dinner after a hard day’s work of walking around Orchard Road. I bought a nice jacket from Top Man Ion (great service!) for my holiday/convocation trip to Perth and a shoe for my graduation ceremony. Along the way we also ate a lot of snacks he he. I was gaining back the weight I lost from my sick spell really quickly.

At Fish & Co, I ordered “The best fish & chips in town”(that’s the name of the dish) and my sis ordered “mussels, garlic & lemon butter” and a soup of the day. It wasn’t my first time eating the fish & chips and I love it just as much as the first time I ate it. We also ordered drinks and a hot fudge chocolate cake for dessert. Yummy =) After using the voucher, this meal only costs around $30. Good deal!

In the same week, I also witnessed a race between a car and a plane …

I was lucky enough to be one of the bloggers invited by Nuffnang to attend this special event. The race is between a Porsche 911 GT 3 and a Boeing 747 and it’s the first time something like was organized in Asia! I’m actually allergic to the sun but didn’t care as I don’t think I will have another chance to witness something like this ever again in my life sia.

I asked my sister to accompany me (again) since she is as free as me at the moment. We got our “boarding passes” from the lovely Nuffnang staff and headed to the boarding room! First (maybe only) time I’m in one without actually leaving Singapore. When we arrived at the boarding room after some security checks, there was a band playing really nice music and food too! I really felt like an invited guest there he he. There were also some games to play and a group of dancing models to keep us entertained before being transported to the grandstand seats at the runway by buses. We got a free cap and safety vest before boarding the bus!

Lucky they provided us with caps to protect our faces as the place was really hot. I forgot to put sun block and my hands kenna sunburned. At the grandstand seats, each section had a model and I think our section had the prettiest model =D, there were also cute cheerleaders for guys like me to see while waiting for the race to start. As the grandstand seats were located at a runway, there were planes passing by us every once in a while heh.

After being stuck in the same spot under the hot sun for more than 1 hours (I think), the preparations were done and the race was finally starting. As my camera is rather lousy (those entry compact point-and-shoot kind), I didn’t try taking pictures of the race. My sis used the camera to take a video instead.

The Porsche driven by Yuey Tan, won the plane by just milliseconds! It was really cool seeing the Porsche suddenly pick up a lot of speed and coming from behind to win the race. I also like the part when the plane took off after it reached the finishing line.

To view more pro videos and pictures of the race, you can join the Changi Airport Facebook fan page.

Although I got a really bad sunburn (see pic), I really enjoyed the Changi Airport Race and don’t regret attending the event. Besides the flakes of skin falling out of my itchy arms everywhere I go, I also got a goodie bag, a cap, a safety vest and a photo with models for keepsake =) The Changi GP festival at Changi Airport is still on now (till 30 September), you might want to check it out.

Changi GP Festival

A few days after the race, I used my vouchers from Sakae Sushi …

My mom and I went to buy all the stuff we need for our trip and I treated her to lots of food at Sakae Sushi with the help of my $30 voucher =) For the first time, I just ordered what I want and took whatever sushi from the sushi belt without thinking of what colour the plates were. It’s the first time I tried some of the sushi and dishes and I love most of them. The Enoki Niku Maki is really nice, favourite food of the day. I had flu that day but the wasabi soy sauce mix cured me! Wasabi is great for flu. =)

Total bill was $60 plus but it was reduced to only 30 bucks (again) after using the vouchers =) Soooo worth it considering the amount of food we ate.

This is not the end of my Sakae Sushi adventures as I have recently received a Sakae card.

Because I am one of Sakae's Sushi's e-Journalists, I have received some Sakae dollars in my card courtesy of Sakae Sushi which I can use at all Sakae Sushi, Sakae Teppanyaki, Sakae Izakaya and The Pasta Shop by Sakae outlets in Singapore! The Sakae card which you can apply at Sakae Sushi outlets also allows me to get rebates and discounts at their outlets. You can see the full list of member's benefits over at their website. =)

Thank you Sakae Sushi for selecting me as one of the Sakae e-Journalists and for providing me with this card! It’s amazing that a guy like me can be associated with the word journalist lol. Can I put that in my resume? (joking) =P I will definitely continue to order food delivery from you and try to visit the outlets more often!

Check out their website (sakaesushi.com.sg) if you want to win Sakae Sushi vouchers and get selected as one of their e-Journalists. They have a fan page on Facebook too!

Who should I invite on my next Sakae adventure??

(Images Taken From: my iPhone, my digital camera)

Singaporeans in One Million Star 5 超越星光大道 5 PK challenge - Special

2009-09-12T18:15:00.003+08:00

Intro to Singapore One Million Star PK challenge
Singaporeans in One Million Star 5 part 1
Singaporeans in One Million Star 5 part 2
Singaporeans in One Million Star 5 part 3
Singaporeans in One Million Star 5 part 4

Part 4 is not really the last part of the PK challenge after all heh. In this episode, 6 selected PK challengers from the first 4 parts of the PK Challenge are brought back to challenge the final 6 contestants on One Million Star 5. No one will be eliminated from this part onwards as the top 6 now go into the points accumulation round.

The PK Challengers and the top 6 are grouped into 2 opposing groups. The group with the higher points gets a prize. This should be the last part of the PK Challenge this season. Enjoy it!

Check out how the 4 Singaporeans fair in the PK challenge special!

超级星光大道第五季―對―踢館賽 special

Tay Kewei 郑可为 vs Cecilia Liang 梁曉珺

Intoduction

Performances (results next vid)

Olivia Ong vs Rose Liu 劉明湘

Tay Kewei's results + Olivia Ong performace

Rose Liu's performance and results

Ng Chee Yang 黄智阳 vs Ami Yang 楊駿文

Performances and results

Rachel Chua 蔡艾珈 vs Rachel Hsu 徐泳琳

Performances

Results

The PK Challenger ends with this episode and the Singaporeans have done quite well. Rachel Chua and Olivia Ong are among the more impressive PKers this season. Olivia Ong even managed to win Rose Liu this episode ... cool.

I'm sure we will see more of them in the future!

This is my last post for this season's One Million Star. If there are Singaporeans involved in next season's competition, I'm sure I will post episodes of them in it. =)

(Images Taken From: My iPhone, Starhub One Million Star Page)

My "Expert" Singapore Idol Predictions: Piano Show Top 24 (Group 2)

2009-09-09T21:35:00.003+08:00

Last week’s predictions
Last week’s episode on official Singapore Idol 2009 blog

Welcome to boliaosia.com’s quick Singapore Idol predictions. I’ve got only 30 min to blog before results are out gotta do it fast!!

This week the second group of 12 performs to fight for 6 spots in the top 12. Last week one of my favourites Syltra Lee got through after she was saved by the judges. This week my other 2 favourites Charlene Torres-Tan and Mae Sta Maria will be performing. I hope both of them will join Syltra Lee in the top 12. All of the 3 contestants who went through by viewers’ votes are guys last week. Will there be a female contestant going through by votes this week? I will try my best calling and hoping that one of my favourites will be the first female contestants going through by votes.

I got 5 out of 6 correct last week with my “expert” predictions, which I think is rather accurate. Will I be as lucky today? As usual I won’t cheat with my predictions (I swear). By the time I click the post button it should be around 10 minutes before the results show. Will anyone be spying on my blog to see if I get the correct predictions this week?

Your second group of 12 ...

My quick Predictions based on my boliao scorecard:

This 6 will go through to the next round.
(In alphabetical order)

1. Charlene Torres-Tan
2. Faizal Isa
3. Mae Sta Maria
4. Samantha Lee
5. Sezairi Sezali
6. Sylvia Ratonel

I won’t reveal the details of my scorecard, but the top six will be my choice to go through be it being the 3 most popular idols or being saved by the judges. One of my favourites Mae Sta Maria should be save as she would at least be saved by the judges. I have voted quite a lot for Charlene Torres-Tan and I really hope she goes through. I thought she did well but somehow the judges didn't like it.

Notice that I have included more females in the list of 6 despite 3 guys going through by votes last week. I’m going to go against the trend and predict that 1 or 2 girls will go through by votes this week. Maybe the female voters have spent their al their money last week and it’s time for the male voters to strike back. =P
Will I be right??

(Post button clicked on 9.45pm Wednesday 9 September 2009. Will not edit my predictions I swear! I'm very honest. Wrong then wrong la lol)

P.S: Sorry I’m not making any predictions next week as I won’t be in Singapore and can’t watch the show live. Pai she.

(Images Taken From: Singapore Idol Official Site)

Singaporeans in One Million Star 5 超越星光大道 5 PK challenge - Part 4

2009-09-08T02:18:00.007+08:00

Intro to Singapore One Million Star PK challenge
Singaporeans in One Million Star 5 part 1
Singaporeans in One Million Star 5 part 2
Singaporeans in One Million Star 5 part 3

Its part 4 (last I think) of the One Million star season 5 PK challenge and 3 Singaporeans remain, just like how it started heh. Only Rachel Chua from the initial 3 remain though and she is joined by Yutaki Ong and Olivia Ong.

Check out how they fair in part 4 of the PK challenge!

超级星光大道第五季―對―踢館賽 part 4

Yutaki Ong vs Rose Liu 劉明湘

Performances (results next vid)

Olivia Ong vs 曾梓淞

Yutaki results + Olivia Ong's performance

曾梓淞's performance + results

Rachel Chua 蔡艾珈 vs Rachel Hsu 徐泳琳

Performances

Results

Next Episode Preview

It seems like it's the end of the PK challenge but 4 Singaporeans will be back singing next week! The final 6 one million star contestants go into the point accumulation round, but they will still be competing against 6 selected PK challengers. Of those 6 challengers, 4 are Singaporeans!! Rachel Chua, Olivia Ong, Tay Kewei and Ng chee Yang are the 4 who will be competing again in the next episode!!

Jia You!

(Images Taken From: My iPhone, Starhub One Million Star Page)

End of School Life Special: Part B (Random Project Visual Part 2)

2009-09-06T16:59:00.013+08:00

Part A - Introduction + The Project House
Part B - My Random Group Project Visuals (part 1, part 2, part 3 tba)
Part C - My Random Presentation Slides (tba)
Part D - My Bo Liao Guide to Forming a Good Project Group in School (tba)

Wow I got BBQed alive while watching a race between a car and a plane. Suffering from severe sunburn now lol. Pain ahhhhhhhhh!! It was worth it though. More about that next week he he. Today’s post is about part B2 of my End of School Life Special – A 4 part (extended to 7) series about my group project life.

This third post is Part 2 of Part B (My Random Group Project Visuals) and will feature project visuals with my project mate Alan! He is the joker in one of my groups in poly and I think his long hair makes him look like a star, so my group members usually get him to be our model. Some of the visuals have my other group mates in them too. I’m not in any of them as I’m a camera shy person and it would be a little weird for me to design posters with me in them.

Let’s begin Part 2 of Part B now! =)

I have already explained what this part is about. If you want to read what I wrote again please go to my End of School Life Special: Part B (Random Project Visual Part 1).

I shall now copy and paste the next few sentence from my previous End of School Special post. Ctrl C ….. Ctrl V > {Okay, these are visuals from 4 of my projects for part 1 of the Random Group Project Visuals. Some I have done many years ago so forgive me if I forget some information regarding it. I will just crap my way through like I usually do and you won’t notice anyway, unless you are one of my previous group mates he he.}

There is a video for one of the projects he he. Go see if you like it =P Alan, if you somehow found out about this post and are reading this now, Hi Hi, you are so handsome like model!! Thanks for your free modelling!!

I will try to shorten my commentary on each project for this post due to my laziness. I have been busy watching J Dramas and Animes …. Sorry =P Maybe it’s better this way too. You can finish reading this post fast and move on to a less bo liao activity.

Okayyyy … lets finally move on to the first project ….

1. KoolWerkz

For this Integrated Marketing Communications project, we have to really test our limited photoshopping skills and come out with a direct mailers for café owners and managers, ads and point-of-sales materials (if I’m not wrong) for KoolWerkz. Basically, our job is to beg them to take in this brand of ice cream. KoolWerkz is actually a brand from Temasek Poly and the ice cream is invented and made by Temasek Poly students (I think heh). They just came up with a 97% fat free ice cream (a few years ago when we were doing this project) and we were supposed to come out with a creative brief.

Mr. Alan is not used much here, only appearing in one of the pictures. See that guy in the “Mirror & Basin mock up” above? That’s Alan posing in our school’s toilet ha ha. The cartoon character in the instruction sheet is inspired by him too he he. I think it’s drawn by Alan. So cute hor. I wonder if they still have this ice cream over at my poly.

2. Journey to the East

This project is for our entrepreneurship module where we have to come out with a business plan with all the marketing plan, fanciful accounting and stuff. We used Alan’s idea of a Chinese fast food restaurant and got him to be the mascot of his fast food restaurant. We got him to pose, cropped him out and place his modified pic into the logo. The logo is featured prominently on the store design, website and packaging etc.

There are Chinese fast food restaurants in Hong Kong and I hope someone really opens a fast food restaurant like Journey to the East with home delivery service. No … food courts are different from our fast food restaurant! I want kung pao chicken rice (at McDelivery rates) delivered to my house now!!

3. Tampines Clicks

For this project, we had to promote this website called Tampines Clicks which is no longer available the last time I checked lol. I think it’s because they didn’t use our idea. It’s a website that allowed residents of Tampines to blog on if I’m not wrong.

We suggested having an Amazing Race type of event for schools around Tampines to take part in to promote this website. Banners, posters and outdoor ads will be used to inform people about this event. As you can see, out dear Alan is in the poster, banners and the outdoor ads. Even the pair of legs you see in one of the outdoor ads belong to him heh. Teck, Elizabeth and Monica joined in the fun and appeared in the banners and posters. We actually printed out quite a large banner for our presentation to score some brownie points and got chosen to present in front of our cohort =P I heart our slogan! Create, Connect, Clique!! =)

4. Sony Ericsson

This Sony Ericsson project is for our Sales Management module. We are suppose to investigate consumers’ perception towards the Sony Ericsson range of Walkman phones in Singapore, conduct a detailed analysis of their market share and come up with short and long term sales objectives and ways to fulfill them. As you can see from the images above, there aren’t many visuals made for this project. However, we can also see that once again, Alan is the model of the day. Look at Alan, dressed up in different clothes for different occasions. Clothes are sponsored by Alan’s closet.

Although we didn’t have many visuals for this project, we did make a commercial, which set us apart from other groups then heh. This amateurish commercial made with Windows Movie Maker (you know, the free video editing program you get with your Windows) was shown to all marketing students, increasing Alan’s popularity in school. It was the highlight of our presentation and lots of cheers and laughter could be heard when the video was played.

In the video, there are 6 scenes, and some for 2 scenes we couldn’t actually film at the intended location as our commercial making budget is $0. The first scene is shot in my room, second scene (exercising) at my school’s gym, third (on a plane) we can’t possibly board a plane and film so we did a very bad impression of it, fourth (chilling out) is at my house’s void deck, fifth (at a club) in my mother’s room and the last scene is at some random place I forgot. I actually like what we did with the clubbing scene with Alan as the DJ and the very corny looking DJ console. The lighting effects really made it look like a club I think heh.

Here are some behind the scenes pics of the clubbing part ..

As you can see, the DJ console is made of LDs, CD, boxes, cardboard sheets and our poster lol. All recycled stuff we found in my house. Love how it looked in the video though he he.

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Okay, I shall stop my nonsense now. This is the end of Part B2 of my End of School Life Special. 4 more parts to go!

In my next End of School Life special (god knows when I will post), I will take a break from showcasing my past project visuals and switch to PowerPoint slides I made during my days as a student. There will be 2 posts on PowerPoint slides and I will then switch back to the last part of Part B (My Random Group Project Visuals). Confusing? I love confusing people.

I also love projects and designing amateurish visuals for it!

Next time on my End of School Life Special – My Random Presentation Slides Part 1. Stay tuned!! Might be anytime from 1 week to 1 month later!!

One of the slides I actually used (taken from my old nufc post) …

(Images Taken From: My previous projects, my previous post)

My "Expert" Singapore Idol Predictions: Piano Show Top 24 (Group 1)

2009-09-02T21:33:00.008+08:00

I’ve got only 30 min to blog before results are out gotta do it fast!!

After a week which feels like forever, we finally get to see the first group of the top 24 perform. As promised in my previous Singapore Idol post, I will give my “expert” predictions like I did for last season’s American Idol. I wonder why they put the results show on the same day as the performance. Will it be the same for the spectaculars? I hope not. Is it fair?

I think I’m usually right around 60% of the time but no one cares anyway. I’m just doing this for fun and for my own personal satisfaction if I get my predictions right heh. It will be harder for me to predict with the results coming out so soon but I will try my best.
So who will go through?

My quick Predictions base on my boliao scorecard:

This 6 will go through to the next round.
(In alphabetical order)

1. Farhan Shah
2. Jannah Shaharuddin
3. MJ Kuok
4. Malaque Mahdaly
5. Syltra Lee
6. Tabitha Nauser

Maybe: Nurul Huda

I won’t reveal the details of my scorecard, but the top six will be my choice to go through be it being the 3 most popular idols or being saved by the judges. Not sure if it works, but I will make some adjustments for next week if it proves to be extremely inaccurate lol. What I can say is that one of my favourites, Syltra, gets the highest points tonight he he (no biasness involved here). She is definitely safe tonight as she will at least get "saved" by the judges.

Will I be right??

(Post button clicked on 9.43pm Wednesday 2 September 2009. Will not edit my predictions I swear! I'm very honest. Wrong then wrong la lol)

P.S: Love the new judges' Big Gulp cups

(Images Taken From: Singapore Idol Official Site)

Singaporeans in One Million Star 5 超越星光大道 5 PK challenge - Part 3

2009-08-31T16:11:00.011+08:00

Intro to Singapore One Million Star PK challenge
Singaporeans in One Million Star 5 part 1
Singaporeans in One Million Star 5 part 2

It's another week of PK challenge over at One Million Star, and Singapore have sent some reinforcements to assist the 3 remaining SG PK Challengers, Yutaki Ong, Rachel Chua and Ng Chee Yang!

In part 3 of the PK challenge, Tay Kewei 郑可为, famous background vocalist for Asian pop artistes such as David Tao, Amei and JJ Lin together with Little Nonya theme song singer Olivia Ong were invited as PK challengers.

Check out how they and the 3 existing PK challengers fair in part 3 of the PK challenge!

超级星光大道第五季―對―踢館賽 part 3

Yutaki Ong 王顺达 vs Ami Yang 楊駿文

Opening plus performances and results

Tay Kewei 郑可为 vs Cecilia Liang 梁曉珺

Performances and results

Olivia Ong vs 李杰宇

Performances (results next vid)

Ng Chee Yang 黄智阳 vs Rose Liu 劉明湘

Olivia results + Chee Yang's performance (results next videos)

Rachel Chua 蔡艾珈 vs Eric Lin 林育澤

Chee Yang's results + Rachel's performance

Results

Only Yutaki, Rachel and Olivia made it through this week. How will they fare in part 4? Can't wait!

Jia You!

In case you want to see Kewei's youtube video of her cover of 方大同's 愛愛愛 (as mentioned in the show). Here is the video!

There is a link to her blog at the Youtube video page!

One of the songs from the album Olivia Ong released in Japan (as mentioned in by Tao Zhi in the show)

P.S: Tonight got Newcastle United match live on TV!! First time this season as Starhub don't usually show Championship matches. Will definitely watch it later!! Howay the lads!!!

(Images Taken From: My iPhone, Starhub One Million Star Page)

My Singapore Idol Favourites at the Moment

2009-08-28T01:32:00.011+08:00

The time has come for me to once again reveal my idol favourites. This time I will announce my favourites for this season’s Singapore Idol! I was really sick since Tuesday (high fever and cough) and had lots of medicine to take. Sorry if anyone missed me. =p
I have to take a total of 6 medications (5 different kinds of tablets & 1 cough syrup) after my meals, some 2 times, some 3 times a day and they made me very drowsy. I was so drowsy that I actually watched an entire episode of Growing Up without changing the channel on Tuesday. Lucky I slept a lot in the afternoon on Wednesday and managed to gather enough strength to watch the fourth episode of Singapore Idol, which revealed the top 24. Episode 4 was the most drama mama episode so far and I love it. Just like American Idol, I love to see the emotions showed by the contestants when they were told they are in the top 24. I love the idol first: duet self composition round. Some of the songs by the contestants sounded really good (I think some of them already have some original songs written before this round).

Now that we know who the top 24 are, I can reveal who my favourites are based on what the producers want us to see on TV, reading some information on the net and watching Youtube videos. I am usually very good at choosing favourites who will go far as I think I represent the average voting viewer lol. Some of my favourites in American and Singapore (okay I just realized, why not Singaporean ah) Idol early in the competition include, Bo Bice, Blake Lewis, David Cook, Adam Lambert, Sylvester Sim, Hardy Mirza, Daphne Khoo and Jasmine Tye. Although there are some (I shan’t mention) which I support early who went out in the first voting rounds, I’m usually very good with this ….. really he he.

So, without further ado, it is now time for me to reveal the 3 Singapore Idol contestants who are my favourites at the moment ... (they usually end up being my favourites for the rest of the season)

(In alphabetical order)

1) Charlene Torres-Tan

Charlene Torres-Tan in Fernando Torres’s jersey - From her Facebook Fan Pag e

She is sweet looking and has the girl next door feel. She seems friendly on her Facebook fan page too. I’m sure lots of other guys will agree with me and vote for her if she performs well. If you are wondering why she has “Torres” as her middle name … It’s not because she is madly in love with Fernando Torres and added his last name to her name. The reason why she has a Spanish sounding middle name is because she is mixed. According the her Facebook fan page, her mother is Filipino and it is a tradition for them to adopt their mother’s surname before their Chinese surname. It seems like she is a Liverpool and Torres supporter though from the picture above. I guess lots of Liverpool supporters will support her heh.

Sorry I can’t find any videos of her on Youtube. The only videos I can find are of Fernando Torres heh.

Maybe her supporters can modify and sing the Fernando Torres song when cheering for her.

Charlene Torres-Tan’s Facebook Fan Page

2) Kelly-Mae Sta Maria

Kelly-Mae, already looking like a star - From her Facebook Fan Page

She got into the top 100 in Australian Idol which I’m sure is really difficult as they have a population of 20 plus million there. According to her Facebook fan page, she has won some awards and in the process of recording her own album. She is married to an Australian husband who would learn how to make Char Kway Teow for her and fly over to Singapore to support her… so sweeeet. I don’t think being married will affect the number of votes for her as seen in last season’s American Idol (Married Kris Allen won), as long as she performs well. Love her voice and style.

Check out this video of her on Youtube ...

Kelly-Mae Sta Maria’s Facebook fan page

3) Syltra Lee

Syltra with her band Aurigami (cool name) - From Aurigami's Facebook Fan Page

Rocker chick Syltra is in a band called Aurigami and appeared on Live and Loaded in episode 5. She has lots of videos on youtube, some covers some originals. Visit her youtube page to listen to her version of songs like Poker Face, If I Ain’t Got You and Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow. Her original songs are really nice too. I think her band performs regularly at Acid Bar, not sure if they do now with her idol commitments. I’m sure she will be one of the more creative contestants and will make the songs she sings her own.

Umbrella & Single Ladies Medley

Can’t find her facebook fan page there is a Aurigami fan page though. (*Update: I found her fan page! Syltra Lee fan page)

Sorry ... unlike last season’s American Idol, there are no guys in my 3 Singapore Idol favourites heh.

Contestant who did not make it whom I will miss: Miss “I not Ah Lian” Rachel Gan. Too bad she screwed up the last audition.

Just like last season’s American Idol, I have compiled the top 24's fan, group or personal page (if there is no fan page) on Facebook specially for you. =)

Girls
Charlene Torres-Tan – I support
Fathin Amira – I support
Frances Maria – I support
Gabrielle Ferdinands – I support
Jannah Shaharuddin – I support
Mae Sta Maria – I support
Malaque Mahdaly – I support
Nurul Huda – I support
Samantha Lee – I support
Syltra Lee – I support
Sylvia Ratonel – I support
Tabitha Nauser – I support

Guys
Benjamin Chow – I support
Charles Wong – I support
Douglas Wong – I support
Duane Ho – I support
Farhan Shah – I support
Jonathan Cheok – I support
Justin Jap – I support
MJ Kuok – I support
Ryan Lee – I support
Theodore Teow – I support

Mine
Boliaosia – I support (=P)

Blogs to read if you are mad about Singapore Idol:
The official Singapore Idol 2009 Blog
The unofficial Singapore Idol blog aka Summerr in the Shower

Both have lots of juicy news and information on the show and the contestants. They upload the latest episodes too!

Other sites you want to go to ..
Singapore Idol Official site
Singapore Idol Official Facebook Group
Singapore Idol Official Twitter Page
Hardwarezone EDMW Singapore Idol 3 Discussion Thread

To carry on with my Idol tradition, I will try my best to give my “expert” predictions after every round. If you have read my American Idol predictions, you will find out that they are pretty accurate. Okay lah I think around 60% correct …. quite good right? For the piano shows, the results will be out 2 hours after the show, that will make my predictions a little more challenging, but I will try my best. Don’t worry, I won’t cheat and will make an effort to blog my prediction within an hour after the performance.

The first half of the top 24 performs next Wednesday!! Syltra Lee is in it!! Go Syltra!! You will have at least one call from me heh. It will be the first time we actually hear some of them sing … maybe some will impress me so much that I will change my favourites he he.

Who are your favourites??

(Images Taken From: My iPhone, Official Singapore Idol site, Charlene’s Facebook Fan Page, Kelly-Mae’s Facebook Fan Page, Aurigami’s Facebook Fan Page)