I had this friend who had bad body odour. It was so bad that we wouldn’t sit near him when we went out because we couldn’t really stand his smell. I spotted him wearing the same shirt two days in a row and so I asked him about it. He said “I only change shirts if I wear it for more than 5 hours or I do sports. Its still clean what”. I was speechless.

FUN FACT: The No Sweat Survey commissioned by Rexona has showed that 65% of Malaysians often joke about their friends’ body odour but the brutal truth is that they are actually serious about it. In addition, a staggering 60% of people would hold their breath rather than confronting one’s unpleasant smell.

I think that is quite true. We did joke to that friend of ours about him being smelly but we sort of laughed it off as well. Thankfully, he finally realized and changed. Perhaps someone actually had the guts to tell straight up to him. Haha!

In an effort to improve the public’s understanding about sweat and it’s consequences, Rexona organized a “Don’t Sweat It with Rexona” event where the FIVE main causes of sweat were explained in 5 different stations.

*note: for some reason I lost my photos in my phone and don’t have the photos I took at the event :(  Will try to get some pics up soon* Got the pics below. Enjoy!

(1) Sweat : The first station was a Kinect games station. We could play against our friends in a game by moving around. Light movement such as this is one of the causes of sweat.

(2) Heat : Next was a setup of two beach chairs and some props – floppy hat, shades, beach ball, umbrella – with spotlights. We played dress up and pretended we were at a hot beach while the crew took photos of us using polaroids. I really do like the idea of polaroids at events, it gives a tangible souvenir of your experience.

(3) Stress : Stress is one of the causes of sweat and two inflatable dolls were in place for us to punch and release our stress.

(4) Humidity : This station is one popular station. You could get a hand massage in a closed humid corner. The bad thing is, there was only one person doing the massaging so the line was rather long.

(5) Emotions : This is a little known fact but changes in emotions can also be a trigger for sweat. Rexona treated us to the thriller Dream House starring Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz and Naomi Watts. There were twists and turns to this story.

Short Movie review on “Dream House”: My warning is, don’t watch the trailer. It gives quite a lot of the movie. I expected a horror, but its actually more of a drama. The movie was just ok for me and I won’t really recommend to watch it in the cinema but a friend who watched really did like it so you’d have to make the decision yourself.

I’ve actually been using for Rexona for some time now. I currently like their ‘”Powder Dry” from their Rexona Woman range (left pic). It smells like talc which I think is really fresh. At the event we were given Rexona Women Shower Clean which “has an uplifting scent that keeps you feeling shower fresh and is proven to keep you fresher and drier longer” in both the roll-on and spray type (right pic). The scent seems nice so I’ll probably use it after my current one finishes.

So what do you do when a new album is launched? Press release? Party? Well, if you have an album combining two of the biggest boybands in history, put a unique twist to it and throw a Karaoke night! That’s what Sony Music Malaysia did together with Monster Beats (yeap, those awesome headphones!) at Red Box Gardens!

It was held last Thursday at Red Box, Gardens. Did you know they have an area at the back where you can hold events or karaoke parties. Quite cool actually. We were served with nibbles – nuggets, some tomato and chicken wrap (very yummy) and sandwiches.

To be honest, I didnt really know NKOTB – they were kind of ‘before’ my time – but I did grow up with BSB and later N’SYNC and much later Westlife. Backstreet Boys always had this place in my heart where I knew the words to all their songs and had debates with girl friends on who was the handsome-est BSB. In secondary school I had this rather weird eccentric classmate who was head over heels over BSB, especially Nick Carter. I heard she wanted to become a nun as well but……well, that’s a story for another time.

Anyway, the night started off with two enthusiastic MCs from FlyFM – the official radio station for the NKOTBSB Karaoke Night then all the media and fans were invited to participate in karaoke competition either in Group of Solo category. In fact the FlyFM boys themselves (I think they are part of the Troopers) even sang a BSB song, and quite well at that.

Besides the Karaoke contest, there was also a lucky draw. Prizes that can be won are Red Box vouchers, perfumes, a Blackberry (I can’t remember which model) and, most importantly two iBeats headphones to be given away (pictured on right). Some info about iBeats after the jump

The Karaoke was quite fun but I think that it we ended up having to wait a bit long. So perhaps limiting the groups or cutting the songs shorter would be best. By the way did you know that BSB songs have really LONG intros and/or middle parts, before the bridge. Also, “As Long as You Love Me” was the favourite for the night. For the lucky draw I won a CK perfume and lucky Daphne got herself the iBeats headphones. She also won 2nd place in the Solo singing competition – lucky girl.

Anyway it was a fun night thanks to all the sponsors, especially Monster & Sony Music!

And now..here’s a performance of NKOTBSB at the AMA 2010

If you are living in KL and don’t know what Urbanscapes is, WHERE HAVE YOU BEENN?

Urbanscapes is this awesome festival of music, arts, lifestyle and film all under one roof (well, actually one padang but you get the point). Go shopping at the bazaars, watch local arts perform or see works of art in action!

In previous years, it was held in KLPAC which is rather hard to get to. This year, its held in a bigger and better place – Padang Astaka. And this year, the main sponsor is TM Everyone Connects – the people who brought you “Through My Window”. Plus, you can easily take public transport there.

TM presents Everyone Connects with Urbanscapes 2011
Venue : Padang Astaka, PJ
Date : 16th July 2011, Saturday
Time : 12pm – 12am
Lineup : Azlan & the Typewriter, Stone Bay, KyotoProtocol, Furniture, Ferns, They will Kill Us All, Khottal, Busco, Lapsap, Lab the Rat, Acts by The Movemint (Juzzthin, Figure of Speech, SCBTea, SSK, The Silk Road & DJ Garuda), Tilu, Liyana Fizi & Acts at Moonshine Record Store (Diandra Arjunaidi, Narmi, Asmidar, Darren Ashley, Az Samad, Aiqa Halim)

Tickets are on sale at the door for RM40 (early bird tickets are RM30 but I’m not sure if its still available) but I want to give some tickets to you, my readers for the total amount of….FREE!

There are three pairs, yeap, you heard that right, THREE pairs of tickets to win!

You are REQUIRED to do the below :

1. Follow @Urbanscapes on Twitter
2. ReTweet this: “RT @icednyior: @Urbanscapes 2011 Ticket GIVEAWAY – http://bit.ly/jiEoO3 #zestfulorg“
3. Comment with the link of your Tweet!

So start commenting and good luck!

Terms & Conditions

• Winners will be chosen using a randomizer (random.org) from the list of commenters below.
• Contest closes at 11.59pm on Thursday, 30 JUNE 2011. Please make sure you put in the correct email so that I can contact you if you win.
• If you are the winner, you  need to respond back to me by 12pm Friday, 1 JULY 2011 as I would need details such as your Full Name, IC number and contact number for ticket collection. Failing to do so by the stipulated deadline will forfeit your winning.
• You will have to self-collect your tickets by Friday, 8th JULY 2011 at the Freeform office : Freeform Sdn. Bhd., B-21-6, Block B, Jaya One, No 72A Jalan Universiti, 46200 Petaling Jaya, Selangor MALAYSIA. Tel: (603) 7958-1377
• The judge’s decision is final

Added 30 June : Ok so apparently some people aren’t too sure how to get the link of their tweet. Its easy. Just go to www.twitter.com/yourusername and click on the time of the tweet. Like below. That will load your single tweet. Copy the link at the top and paste it in the comment :)

Also, if you are a private account, please approve my request to follow you or email me a screenshot of your tweet & proof that you follow @Urbanscapes to http://scr.im/icednyior

WINNERS for the Giveaway!

Collected all the comments below and used Random.org to randomize the list. The 3 winners are :

1. @jiesze
2. @ob_af
3. @bennimaru
4. @she723
5. @geekmy

I’ve sent an email to the winners. As mentioned, you must respond by 12pm Friday, 1 JULY 2011 as I need your details to be sent to Freeform so that you can start picking up your tickets next week. Failing to do so will forfeit your winnings and the person after you will get the tickets.

Edit: Gave out all tickets. See you guys at Urbanscapes!

Thank you everyone for participating! If you still want to get tickets, try your luck in the sites below :

• http://www.yogaretnam.com/events/tm-presents-everyone-connects-with-urbanscapes-2011/ (ends Sunday)
• http://bryanlyt.com/2011/06/urbanscapes-2011-free-tickets/ (ends Sunday)
• http://twitter.com/HanieHidayah/statuses/86514073709195264
• http://www.urbanscapes.com.my/news/2011/6/14/urbanscapes-tickets-up-for-grabs.html

I got invited to a Wine Tasting event last weekend (yes I really was the busy bee last weekend. tee hee hee!) at Opus Bistro in Bangsar. Malbec is a grape variety that is grown/cultivated (sorry not sure of the term, I have no green fingers) in Argentina and the Malbec wine produced are of exceptional quality.

The Malbec World Day Event was a series of events which included tasting masterclass, wine tasting, brunch, dinner and tango but I only attended the afternoon session of wine tasting and brunch.

The Brunch was mostly Italian with pastas, lasagna and salad. The carbonara was pretty good actually. Should go to Opus and try out the food there some day.

For the wine tasting, everyone was given a glass of wine with lables of their names. Pretty smart coz I’m sure people will leave their wine glasses then forget whose glass is whose. The bottles were all covered in foil and labeled with letters. we then had to taste each of the wines and rate them.

Its actually my first time doing any kind of wine tasting – I’m more of the hard liquor girl myself – but luckily they had a guide on how to taste wine, which I actually only read/realized after I was on my 6th or 7th type of wine. Haha!

Basically, as you can see from the pic above, there are three steps : (1) See the colour (2) Swirl and sniff (3) Sip to sample. Also make sure you rinse your glass between tastings and also drink water to keep your palate refreshed. Also nibble on bread to recondition your tastebuds for another round of tastings.

We were all given scoring sheets as above. I obviously couldn’t make up my mind on which wine I liked, hence all the scribblies. Oh, also we were given “Cabarnet (Wine) scented pencils” – how cool is that? The scores were all tabulated and the top three favourites were:

1. Wine M – Kaiken Ultra Malbec 2008
2. Wine P – Catena Malbec 2008
3. Wine N – Zuccardi Q Malbec (tied with) Wine T – Luigi Bosca Reserva Malbec 2007

All in all, it was a fun and interesting experience. We also took home some interesting magazines (which I haven’t had the time to even open the plastic yet) and that wine pencil.

If you’re a wine drinker/enthusiast/curious, follow Entwin3 on Facebook for updates on future events and maybe stand a chance to win free bottles of wine. Alcohol + Free = Very good!

I went down to KLCC on Saturday morning. Even after Aree, Jazzy and I were partying till 4am. Ib came over at 10am and we went to KLCC :D Met up with some of the guys for brunch then went over to see the blogger guys at Starbucks. Photo credit to Danny (I edited it a bit).

Attendees:

1. cassplayer – http://www.k-tucky.blogspot.com
2. powerfox – http://briandn.blogspot.com
3. dylanchan1688 – http://www.neversatisfiedwithlife.blogspot.com
4. aaron1kee – http://www.ximplixity.com
5. freezefrost – http://www.criticallyacclaimed.info
6. Jenkin_Yat -  http://jenkinyat.com
7. akiraceo – http://www.akiraceo.com
8. jayhan – http://www.jay-han.com
9. etsuko – http://www.dannyfoo.com
10. heavenhell90 – http://www.bryanlyt.com
11. Mikkiz

12. Cat
13. Haza_izzz
14. sassyset
15. PleaseEnterYourName

PC Fair was utterly packed! Meh! Now I remember why I’ve avoided it for the past 1-2 years. I could hardly walk around. What more with the people all harassing – offering ‘antivilus’, ‘stemix’, ‘waimax’, ‘cledit kat’. Yea, thats how they pronounced it.

See the crowd! Picture credit to DanielK @ Critically Acclaimed

Oh, there was this guy promoting credit cards and I said ‘takpe, student lagi’. Then he said “Betul ke student lagi?”. WTF! I said “I tak nampak mcm student ke?” Meh! What I look old?

Didn’t buy anything tho. Oh wait, I bought a tub of CyberClean because I really do like that stuff. Sticky and good for cleaning small things. There are lots of nice laptops. The Dell XPS looks nice. Wish I had money to buy all the stuff :(

Lately I’ve been:

• Spamming around in LYN forum. So much so that someone said that “I see ur name everywhere there”. Haha!
• Finished watching and downloading True Blood. Season 1 just ended. Awesome series
• Constantly visting Monster.com.my, JobStree and JobsDB. Any other job search sites to recommend?
• Just watched Quarentine – movie review coming up soon (if I dont get too lazy)

Am also currently doing this:

Yea, am finally building up my portfolio. The site’s not ready yet of course. I have yet to put my flash stuff on there. I’ve also been busy working on some freelancing work – which I completed last week and should be getting payment this week. Yey!

Um, my fren from yesterday apologized. okay, Apology accepted. :)

Yey the weekend is here. Aree came back from KK yesterday and we went our for late dinner supper (it was 12am) at Al-Rawsha. Omg i love their lamb kebabs. Today we’re going out to pay her electric bills in Kepong and then going to Curve for my much needed hair trim/cut. Tonight bebudak reban has dinner at 7pm but I’m not sure I can make it.

Oh yea, tonight I will be in Coco Banana with my frens and their scandals (?). Haven’t been there yet. Hope it’ll be fun. Also I’m going to watch Madagascar 2 tomorrow.

Yea the weekend is here! Enjoy people

Phew, finally its over. And everyone – especially the hardworking organizers – can now breathe a huge sigh of relief.

For me, the day started the night before. Aree, Pam, and Jazzy came over the night before and we were baking, smoking (well they were smoking), ordered McD, waited 1 hr for the food to arrive, realized that they forgot 1 large fries, waited another hr for the fries. Chopped, mixed, beat, stirred, realize that we couldn’t melt the chocolate, realized that the coffee refused to brew, cut cakes, put some in our mouths, wrapped cakes in plastic and so on and so forth. Believe it or not, after all the washing up and sweeping and cleaning, we finished at 4am and the girls went back.

I checked my mail before going to bed and realized that we needed to go there around 8AM to set up our booth and secure a place where we would setup our stall. Didn’t realize it earlier because I couldn’t make it for the briefing (I sent Omar as a wakil. Tengkiu Omar ;))

 
Our wares – Seriously so much cakes/goodies right?

So after going to bed at 4am, we had to get up at 7.30 am, drove down to Ampang at 8.30am then deposited the tables, chairs and clothes rack. Then came home, picked my sister, picked up all our goodies, picked up drinks from Tesco, bought tons of ice then headed off to Ampang again.

Set up shop, watched people go by, listened to good music from talented local artists, bumped into friends from persetankan – jasmine, omar, ikhmal, etc – with the sweet Wani, surprisingly met an old classmate – Adam – who was reciting one of his poems.

 
Performances & Bazaar

There was one or two things I didn’t really like. Everyone got the email to start setting up the booth at 8am onwards. I know this is Malaysia but you shouldn’t be an ass and come late and then ask me to move over to the other side and make faces if I look reluctant. Secondly the event was more of a performance, rather than a bazaar. Made me regret just a little because couldn’t enjoy it.

But anyway, there are really good things that I liked. The outside area was spacious and not too cramped. Perhaps it would be better if the inside was bigger so that it could fit more people tho. I absolutely LOVED the fact that we (exhibitors/stall owners/performers) had designated parking. I seriously seriously appreciate that a lot! Committee members were all very helpful and nice – despite the fact that they probably didn’t sleep the night before. I know how hard it is to organize something like that.

Personally, I feel that Wani Ardy’s Hari Bintang Jatuh was a success. It was a experiment for me – learned some things that day.

~ Kudos to the hardworking committee. Very well organized
~ Shoutout to Jazzy, Pam & Feli for being involved. Thanks to Aree who also helped out – even tho she FFK at the last min. lol
~ It was nice bumping to frens. Bella, sorry takleh lepak lama. Afdzal + kawan, thanks for coming, hope u guys enjoyed urself

I’ll be soo utterly busy this weekend.

• Friday evening – breifing on the hari bintang jatuh event (info) in Ampang
• Friday night – Will be up to my elbows in flour, sugar and cream cheese churning out goodies for Saturday
• Saturday – set up gerai and enjoy good music, poetry and shopping!
• Saturday night – I got something up but i cant rmbr as of now
• Sunday – fren invited to his place in Kajang for open hse, my neighbour also invited us for open house and Bebudak reban ayam also have a gathering in Cheras

How am I going to split myself to three on Sunday is still everyone’s guess. I have not confirmed for any of the 3 on sunday, scared too tired by then -_-

Have a fun filled weekend ppl!

The Hari Bintang Jatuh event is THIS SATURDAY!! Whee~

For you guys in the dark, its a day to come and get entertained by acoustic songmasters/mistresses, listen to poetry recitals and shop, shop, SHOP at the bazaar :D For more info, click here.

Anyway, this is the lineup for this Saturday. See you guys there!

12.00pm – INTRO
12.30pm – The Siblings
1.00pm – Shaira Amira
1.15pm – Captain G
1.45pm – Ray & Ash
2.15pm – Dianne Dayanna
2.30pm – The Fridays
3.00pm – Apple Juice
3.30pm – Wak Dol
3.45pm – Rashdan Harith
4.15pm – Rendra Zawawi
4.45pm – Ashraf Ishak
5.00pm – Ana Raffali
5.30pm – Liyana Fizi
6.00pm – Nona Cici Suleiman
6.15pm – Azmyl Yunor
7.00pm – BREAK
8.00pm – Rina S.
8.30pm – Zahiril Adzim
8.45pm – From Cadillac To Geisha
9.15pm – Bintang Batu
9.45pm – Fynn Jamal

I can’t wait! See you there!

Guys and Girls,
If you’re free on the 25th, do come to this event. Listen to talented songstress and musicians, heartwarming poems and for the girls, come shop for goodies :D I’m also opening a booth so this is your chance to get yummy  baked goodies made with love by me ;)

See you there!

ACOUSTIC PERFORMANCES
Para Senandung

Azmyl Yunor / Ana Raffali / Apple Juice
Bintang Batu / Captain G / From Cadillac To Geisha
Joshua Foong / Liyana Fizi / Rashdan Harith
Ray & Ash / Rendra Zawawi / Rina S.
The Fridays / The Siblings

POETRY RECITALS
Pencengkam Jiwa

Ashraf Ishak / Dianne Dayanna / Fynn Jamal
Nona Cici Suleiman / Shaira Amira
Wak Dol / Zahiril Adzim

VIDEO SCREENINGS
Penglipur Lara

A collage of “Ke Hadapan Bintang Jatuh” confessions finally revealed.

VISUAL EXHIBITION
Penghenti Masa

Independent photographers and artists confessing through their works.

SATURDAY MARKET
Pasar Sabtu

Everything under one roof. The best reason to spend your duit raya!

Date: Saturday, October 25, 2008
Time: 12:00pm – 10:00pm
Location: 153, Malaysian Institute of Arts’s Red Bungalow
Jalan Ampang (Behind Pelita Nasi Kandar KLCC)
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Email: kehadapanbintangjatuh@gmail.com [Facebook link]
Admission : RM 10 only
Tickets : Buy them from these people. Tickets are LIMITED!