I love hanging out with bloggers because they do the most insane things.

Last night, the Most Insane Award went to Rinaz for performing the insane feat of conversing with herself over the phone.

(Incidentally, Rinaz also won an award I gave out last year, the Ping.sg Slackiest Latecomer Award. She’s a sly one, sweeping all my awards!)

A bunch of bloggers had been invited by Princess Sabrina to the LG KS20 (which is a mobile phone, in case you’ve been living in the sewers) launch event at Corduroy Cafe (VivoCity).

So, Rinaz was testing the phone by using it to call herself, and then actually having a conversation with herself. What a silly gal!

But I like!

I also liked the free food, the pretty long-legged models, the hanging out with bloggers and, of course, the LG KS20!

But I know you guys only want to see photos of the models, so here they are.

After a yummy buffet dinner, the girls were despatched to entice guests with the mobile phone. They went from table to table and allowed us to play with them (the phones, that is) while they stood by to answer questions.

Sometimes, a model was stuck at a particular table forever. As if the phone were that fascinating.

And then the video interviews started.

First, Rinaz video interviewed Claudia (and everyone else she could hijack) for feedback on the phone.

Then, Farinelli decided to get in on the act and starting hijacking people for video interviews, too. Nic was one of his willing victims, speaking at length about his first impressions of the KS20.

DK decided to be special and modelled the phone by reprising his famous face-on-table pose.

Original face-on-table photo by DK

I didn’t get the angle correct because I couldn’t remember what the original looked like.

All the bloggers were so thrilled that they made him stay in that position forever so they could take photo after photo. But he grew weary very soon and cheated by padding his head with his hand.

We were making such a big hooha that we attracted the official event photographer (behind DK), who came to take photos of this silliness.

And then came the highlight of the night, which, most of the time, is a lucky draw. Two phones were up for grabs, a KS20 and a KF600.

Pretty Estee won the KF600! What a lucky girl! The phone isn’t even launched in Singapore yet so she’s the very first person in Singapore to own that phone.

Some bloke won the KS20. I’m not posting his photo here because I don’t know who he is and, well, he’s a bloke. Hah.

After the festivities, the bloggers hung around the restaurant past their (our) welcome to start on the obligatory camwhoring.

Left to right: Rinaz, Nadnut, Jayden, Sheylara, Ice Angel

Me and Jayden.

Ice Angel and me.

Me and Nic.

Model Nicole and me.

Model Nicole and me again.

I’m going to talk about the phone only after I’ve had more time to play with it, so watch out for my review!

In the meantime, you can read some of the other bloggers’ reviews:

• LG KS20 Launch Event @ Corduroy Cafe (VivoCity), Part 1 (by Princess Sabrina)
• Launch of LG KS20 (by Geekonomics Nic)
• The New LG KS20 + Pretty Model Nicole (by Claudia)

Categories: Regular Blogs
21 Comments »

Will people stop making horror movies already!!

At Golden Village Marina Square last night, they were showing four horror films and one film with a cheesy title: Step Up 2 The Streets. What kind of a stupid selection is that?!

I picked one of the horror films. Better to risk traumatised sleepless nights than to suffer through a teen blockbuster wannabe.

Of course, we could have chosen not to watch a movie and just gone home. But I felt like watching a movie, okay? Even if it had to be horror.

For your general information, I hate horror films for the simple reason that I spook easily. It took me more than a year to get over The Ring. For the longest time, I couldn’t even look at the poster without breaking out in cold sweat.

So I’m a little more than annoyed that we’re now inundated with more horror film selections than I can deal with. It’s like, every corner I turn, I see a horror movie poster featuring a freaky giant eyeball staring at me.

In fact, some corners even turn up dead bodies.

Although I have to admit that the dead body displays admirable marketing finesse, I must say I don’t care too much for it. I really don’t want to see dead bodies every corner I turn, thankyouverymuch.

Oh, stop already!

I didn’t fancy getting further acquainted with Ms Dead Body with her parts scattered around in separate evidence bags, so I chose not to watch Rule #1.

I chose The Screen at Kamchanod because the synopsis engaged my curiosity. I do enjoy a good storytelling, if not a good scare.

But it was a mistake.

The Screen at Kamchanod is a stupid, stupid movie.

It’s based on an actual news report in 1987 of a group of outdoor film projectionists hired to screen a movie in a spooky Thailand forest. The unlucky chaps reported that there was no audience until the end of the screening, at which time a mysterious group of people drifted out of a clump of trees and stood in front of the giant screen. And then they vanished into thin air.

The speculation is that the movie was screened specially for ghosts. Fast forward to 2007, which is when the film starts. A doctor takes it upon himself to unravel the mystery of that news report, in the process exposing himself and his friends to supernatural calamities.

The premise sounds good but everything else is really bad. The plot is weak and uses flashback tactics to try to impress you and gain your attention but ends up confusing you, instead.

You also get a main cast of psycho characters whose motivations aren’t adequately explained, who all seem to have been written into the plot for the sole purpose of conveniently moving the story along to its insipid conclusion.

You’ll probably find yourself spending most of 96 minutes asking questions that never get answered satisfactorily.

“Why is this doctor so determined to solve this senseless mystery at all costs?”

“How did he so conveniently find all the clues and leads he needed?”

“What the hell is wrong with his girlfriend?”

Most of the acting is either really bad or maybe Thais generally talk that way, I’m not very sure. But the actors all look and sound like they’re reading lines off cue cards.

The scare tactics employed by the movie with clever combinations of editing, sound effects and camera placement are quite impressive the first five or so times.

But, by the 800th scare (half of which are false alarms), you’ll be ready to curse the director and editor for giving you heart attacks for no good reason. I would challenge anyone to find me a movie that has more scare scenes than The Screen, but then I would not actually recommend anyone to watch the movie in the first place.

The Screen tries to be literally scream-a-minute the way comedies try to be laugh-a-minute.

Well, we all understand laugh-a-minute. Everyone enjoys laughing. More is better in the case of laughs. But—honestly!—nobody wants to scream-a-minute! It’s not healthy and just plain stupid.

In fact, I was so annoyed by the unending stream of cheap scare tactics that I resolved not to be frightened by them at all. To my credit, I didn’t scream or jump a single time in the entire 96 minutes even though many scenes were actually quite scary. (I usually scream at the slightest provocation, even at non-horror movies and especially at cockroaches.)

Leading actress Pakkaramai Potranan is really pretty, which, to me, is the only saving grace of the movie. She’s a 30-year-old Thai singer/actress who has a website that takes literally forever to load (I quit waiting after 10 minutes).

To wrap it up, don’t watch this movie unless you’re one of those perverse types who enjoy watching bad movies just to laugh at how bad they are.

In the words of the Goonfather, “It’s a stupid show.”

Now, I’m hoping someone can tell me why there’s a sudden craze in horror movies right now. Not only did Golden Village slap horror posters in our faces at every junction, the cinema also chose to screen three horror movie trailers for us before our show started. Like, can you say horror overdose?

We didn’t even get a single non-horror trailer. Do these people (whoever they are) think that people who watch horror only like watching horror and can’t get enough of horror?

Next you know, some freakshow entrepreneur is going to build a horror cinema that specialises in screening horror movies in haunted-house settings. For a dollar extra, maybe, you can get real-life spook effects with your very own ghosts-in-attendance.

Wouldn’t you horror freaks like that?

Categories: Regular Blogs
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When your friends start launching shopping websites within a week of each other, you know some higher power must be encouraging you to go shopping.

How nice!

Now, if the same higher power would rain some money down on me, too.

I already introduced Xtralicious’ shop last week, but I’ll mention it again because her site now has a new look and a new shopping engine.

She’s enjoying great success even as we speak. Most of her stock sold out within the first few days, causing the poor girl to lose sleep as she went into an unexpected restocking frenzy.

Hot on her heels are “the ambiguously gay duo” (as termed by Cowboy Caleb) of The Cowboy Bar. Chuwen and Dzigna launched Style Damsel three days ago.

Looks pretty spiffy, does it not?

Go, go, support them!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Random Picture of the Day

A screenshot of my appearance in TV sitcom Living With Lydia (2004). I played a bimbo beauty contestant opposite the late HK superstar Lydia Sum (not in picture).

The Chinese subtitles say, “If you’re a fruit, what fruit would you be?”

What a fruitcake question!

Categories: Regular Blogs
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At first, I thought that the Goonfather had lost all his marbles.

He sat at his desk, chanting to himself.

“Pata pata pata pon… pata pata pata pon… pata pata pata pon.”

“Stop it!” I told him, “You sound retarded!”

“Hey!” he objected. “It’s a PSP game. Looks cool. Maybe I should get it.”

Then he went on chanting while I rolled my eyes to let him know what I thought of his patapon.

A few days later, the Goonfather slumped into the bean bag with his PSP while I was working on my computer.

After a while, his PSP started chanting, “Pata pata pata pon…”

OMG, he got the damn game. I buried my face in my hands and wept silently while, in the background, “pata pata pata pon” droned on merrily.

Shortly after.

We were in bed one night performing our nightly ritual (the Goonfather on his PSP, me reading a book) when, once again, I heard that confounded “pata pata pata pon” squeaking off his tinny PSP speakers.

What could possess a grown man to suffer such hideously cute drummings in the ear? Curiosity rolled me over to his side of the bed to peer at his PSP screen.

What the hell. As I watched the game, I started laughing and couldn’t stop.

Patapon is the cutest game I’ve ever seen. When I first heard the chanting, I was irritated by the whole cheesiness of it. But seeing it is altogether different.

In the game, you control a tribe of little eyeball soldiers. YES, EYEBALLS. With tiny little arms holding tiny little weapons. Absolutely cute! It’s a rhythm game, so you beat out relevant rhythms on your PSP to command the little eyeballs (to march, attack, defend or retreat).

Each time after you beat out a rhythm, your little patapons will chant the rhythm while they perform your command, so you get an endless loop of chants that go, “Pata pata pata pon… pon pon pata pon.”

It’s a simple game with a simple premise but it’s hypnotically captivating. I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen. I couldn’t wait to hear the next chant. I couldn’t stop delighting as I looked upon the cute little eyeball patapons. I couldn’t stop laughing at the funny things they were saying.

They’re talkative, the little patapons. Speech bubbles pop out continuously as they comment on the battle or on your playing (they’ll complain if you suck).

The Goonfather is known as Lord Goon in the game. Hahahahaha.

I haven’t actually played it myself. I don’t think it’s fun because it looks pretty monotonous, being a side-scrolling game with only one floor to march through in each mission. The Goonfather is addicted to it, but I only like looking at the patapons and hearing their cute chantings. I don’t actually want to play it.

You can go to the official Patapon website to hear the chant.

Or you can watch this YouTube trailer.

While you’re at it, check out this funny TV commercial showing cute Japanese girls playing the game. At least, I think it’s funny. I don’t know because I don’t understand Japanese.

Can someone tell me what they’re saying??

Yesterday, I was at McDonald’s when I suddenly heard a soft “Pata pata pata pon!” straining under the noisy Sunday chatter and radio music blaring in the restaurant.

I pricked my ears (sorta like a dog except I can’t actually move my ears) and there it was again.

“Pata pata pata pon!”

A little girl was saying it.

I finally traced the sound to this table where an Indian man sat with his three kids. The man and his son were both playing a PSP each.

The little girl was watching her daddy play while she chanted nonstop, “Pata pata pata pon,” in time with the music.

OMG.

If I were her daddy, I would strangle her.

It’s super irritating when you hear someone chant it. Actually, the music/chanting in the game is also super irritating if you’re only hearing it. You have to watch the gameplay at the same time in order to appreciate the cuteness.

The Goonfather hasn’t played it for a few days because he’s now addicted to Dynasty Warriors 6 on the PS3 and God of War on the PSP.

But he’s very easy to influence. He’ll probably feel the urge to play it again after reading this blog. Then I’ll get to see more cute patapons!

Sly, eh?

Categories: Gaming Notebook
38 Comments »

I recently gave a friend some homework.

He doesn’t read blogs a lot because he’s always busy doing other stuff. So when I talk to him about blogging trends and terms, he’s like, “What’s that?”

To stop myself from slapping him with the proverbial IRC trout (which, may I remind you people, is actually very passe by this time of the millennium), I gave him homework.

“You must read Sheylara.com every day,” I commanded him.

“Wah, so overbearing,” he said.

“It’s for your education.”

Then he said, “Okay, but must put picture every day. That will help.”

People are so demanding these days lor. You all think pictures grow on trees is it?

But I’m a nice person, so I went to dig up an old photo of me (not very old lah, only about six months old).

It’s not a very good picture, but don’t care lah. A picture’s a picture.

It’s a reason for me to write a blog entry, anyway. I wasn’t planning to today because I’ve been busy all day. But then I realised that if I want people to read my blog every day, I must have a new entry posted up every day, mustn’t I? Oh dear.

I’ll try to do more pictures next week.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll post a photo of a cat, if I can find any cute stray kitties when I’m out.

Which reminds me that I’m late.

Yeurgh!

(Besides posting photos, I’m also very good at making funny noises.)

See you tomorrow!

Categories: Regular Blogs
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