The H-Factor Speakers when they are not on stage

Reached G Hotel about 12pm and got ourselves checked in before we head off for a quick lunch and briefing on the day’s agenda. With the H-Factor workshop happening on Sunday, the team including the speakers is taking every opportunity possible to do as much publicity as we could and the venue of choice was the Queensbay Mall on the other side of the island.

Dinner only appeared at 9.30pm when we head back to the hotel after Queensbay, initial plan was to go to the famous stalls along Gurney drive but heck, feeling tired, I wasn’t in the mood to walk all the way to the edge of Gurney drive just for food. It was off to G Cafe for dinner or rather what’s left of dinner before taking a rest. At midnight, headed down to the Ballroom to have a run through on the next day’s activities and where I should be positioned before hitting the sack.

Hannah Tan who made it all happened!

The next morning, a quick breakfast and a quick dash was made to the 2nd floor ballroom for the workshop. The crowd build up as time draws near before the entrance opens and like packs of hungry wolves, the crowd rushed into the hall trying to get their best seat as near to the stage as possible. If only they do the same when they were at school. LOL

8 Speakers in total came on to talk to these students about what they had to endure to succeed in their chosen field and the type of rewards they reap now after spending all those time working and not giving up for it. You could feel the energy in the room as the crowd don’t even want to go off for their lunch and tea but rather sit through it all to hear what these 9 speakers have to say.

Hans Isaac thrilling the crowd with his horror story

By 6pm, it was all over. The workshop had ended and the crowd just rush forward hoping to get some photos with their favorite personality. AS for myself, i start to pack and leave the venue as fast as I could so as not to have any of these fellows trample onto the gears.  A quick debrief and a quick dinner at G Cafe later, we were off on our way back to KL. It was a tiring weekend but it was good stuff. Enjoyed myself, made some new friends and learn something new. Next stop, Johor!

Let’s hope that it’ll keep dropping…

Drop! Drop! Drop!

They should have announced the fuel price drop earlier so I don’t have to pay RM2.45 per litre when I went to pump yesterday. LOL

Players warming up before the game...

That’s what I asked across the blogosphere some time back and I got a reply from KY inviting me to join him and his group for their Thursday night game. It was fantastic to be back in the playing field.

The last time I played before I join KY, Yatz, Shiang and gang at this futsal ground in Seksyen 14 was back about 2 or 3 years back at the court in Taman Megah, but as friends all start travelling oversea to work, the team sort of disappeared.

Comparison between then and now, the pace of the game has picked up since, the speed of the game was much faster than before, either that or I’ve gotten much slower. BWAHAHA…. I believe the game has gotten faster and not me getting slower. Strategies are more important also these days compared to the time when I first started futsal where if you could slam the ball as hard as you can towards goal, you’re bound to get a goal to your name.

These days, if your team don’t have a good strategy, you won’t last 5 minutes without having a goal scored against your team. With 5 a side, we would normally play 1 striker, 2 midfield and a defensive player with the Goal Keeper playing the supporting roll if he’s confident enough about getting back to the goal mouth to protect the goal when the need arises. Well, that’s basically it in a way. As every week has a different rotation of players, we don’t really have a fixed team where we would be able to play a standard coordination but then, by playing with a mixed group, it was fun in the sense that we get learn new style of play and strategies to suit the different players.

Game at play

Do you play futsal? How was your game? Do share…

Anyway, here’s another thing, on the way home from work one day, there was a bloody huge jam in front of Uptown along Jalan Damansara. As I get near to the thing that got the whole of Jalan Damansara jammed up, it was a great ball of fire.  Ain’t no any type of fire but a BMW on fire!

Great Balls of Fire

It wasn’t the first BMW I saw on fire before, back in the school days I’ve seen one just outside of the school. According to the owner, he just got there, parked the car, got out to wait for his child to finish school and it just went up in flame. I still remember, the BMW was white! I remembered cause I was one of the keypohchee who got himself a fire extinguisher so that I could go out of the school compound to catch a closer glimpse of the fire.

The 2nd time, it was when I was on my way to work, along Jalan Sungai Besi towards Astro at 6am. I was driving behind this car when it suddenly just stopped and the driver got off before it went up in flames! And it was a BMW! I was like what the heck is going on here? There were 3 other incidents before this latest one but it wasn’t really an interesting sight. Here’s my question, why is there so many BMW going up in flames compared to the many other cars out there?

Right before my eyes, I’ve been seeing BMWs going up in flames, aside from car races, I’ve not seen many other cars out there, be it Continental or Japanese makes that I saw going up in flames. I’m not talking about those that was caused on purpose but… you know what I mean…

Any guys here could give an insight to why is this ‘phenomenon’ happening?

It all started with the idea of wanting to have a place where I can put down all my thoughts as well as a little collection of what I’ve done in my life as a reference later on in life, also for my clients to flip through. I started with a website, but then I got lazy of updating it because it involves a lot of HTML editing and a lot of loading of FTP program to upload the stuff online. That was way back in 1996.

Appear in Time Magazine? Yah Right!

In 2006, I got myself into this blogging phenomena that was breaking out all over the world using free blog sites available online also for that same purpose, a place to document my journey in my work as well as a gallery of sort the things I do and the images I captured. From then, I figured I’d need something where I can have more control, a place to call my own. That’s how I got mikeyip.com started.

I was asked by Robb to write a couple of words as the featured blogger in Nuffnang.  Well, who would want to turn down a chance to gloat about himself eh? So Thanks Robb and the Nuffnang team for selecting me as the featured Blogger of October.

This whole blogging journey for me started because I got fed-up of constantly needing to compose my stuff in HTML and uploading it (ok fine… I’m just plain lazy), after my own site died (that domain has since been purchased and turned into an online sports store.. sigh), I sort of got out of this updating a website about myself thingy until I found a nice free blog platform to use. But then as people and companies start to take notice of my work, I was advised to get myself a domain because it’ll give me better control of things. Well, that’s how it all got started with the  mikeyip.com thing.

Did I regret getting myself into all this? The answer’s NO! I’m actually quite glad that I started a blog as I’ve made some new pretty neat friends through blogging and through blogging also I get to share my work with anyone who’s interested. It has also open up doors for me too allowing me to explore the potentials that I was told I have (I’m still figuring out what it is) and to share my work with my readers.

Since then, blogging has gotten me into writing for a few local magazines, photography work taking photos of some famous people, food, events and even corporate stuff. I’m not famous yet though but heck, I shouldn’t be complaining, right? Thing I plan to embark on later on is do a bit of travel writing, that is when I actually start travelling though (hint hint to any travel magazine looking for writer/photographer?). I can just hear my dad’s voice now in my head telling me “I told you so… last time chance to travel, all you want is stay home, now… want to travel so much… tsk tsk tsk…”

Caught Unaware by a fellow Photog

I don’t have a fixed way of writing on my blog, sometimes, I write well, sometimes, my England is so bad that I don’t even want to read what I wrote myself. In fact, you’d see more photos on my blog than text because I just feel that photos speaks more than words (and I just realized that I don’t have many decent photos of myself because I’ve always been the one behind the camera). It’s not that I don’t write a lot, I actually do, most of the time; I just kept it as a private post so it doesn’t appear in the main pages. In a way, I want to share who I am with anyone that’s interested but then, not share too much that I’d feel naked.  The things I post onto my blog also varied a lot, from my journey in life to salsa dancing, from photography to food.

Come October 6th, the first 32 years of my life would have come and gone but I feel the real journey of my life has barely touched the surface of what there is. I do welcome all who are interested to follow me in this journey, welcome to the world of …  mikeyip.com

Ham Chim Peng & Fried Glutinous Rice

This stall near SS2 Chow Yang is quite famous, ain’t because there’s a hot babe cooking at the place and all but because of it’s Yau Char Kuai and Fried Glutinous Rice among others. This guy normally start preparing at about 8pm, his son would by then will also be there to take down orders, yup… take down orders for what you want, whether it’s the Char Kuai or Ham Jim Peng and so forth.

The Stall

They’ll then let you know that it’ll take about 5 to 15minutes before you can get the order. By 8.30pm, it’ll be full swing for the family as the wife will constantly turn the Char Kuais and all in the hot boiling pot while the main man prepares the dough for cooking. The son, also named Michael, will then packed the orders in and hand over to the customers.

The Boiling Pit of Death

They have worked out such a fine system that things wouldn’t stop moving and cooking unless they have finished that particular dough. Normally the Yau Char Kuai is the first to go followed by the Glutinous rice and then the Ham Chim Peng.

The Portrait

As for myself, I normally dropped by the place at least once every 2 weeks or so to buy them. Sometimes, I’d drop by at dinner time and place my orders at their home (it’s just above the shops right behind their stall) and return at a later time to collect the orders.

All gone into my Bottomless Pit

This time around, my craving was the Ham Chim Peng and the Fried Glutinous Rice and that’s what I ordered. Their standard never dropped, it still taste as good and I still enjoy it as much as before.

Yau Char Kuai Stall @ Chow Yang
Jalan SS 2/6
Petaling Jaya, Selangor

Ratings:
Food – 5/5
Service – 4/5
Cleaniness/Ambience – 3/5
Value for Money – 5/5

Click here to read what was written on that site. Anyway, thanks to Robb that I got it made into this month’s edition, only 12 spots a year, a very coverted space that many bloggers are fighting to get a seat on.

One thing for sure after looking at the whole thing is, I need to get a decent photo of myself as soon as I can. I’ve always been taking photos of people but never one of myself (as in just by myself without any other people around me).

Any photographers want to shoot me on a strobist session for free?

The Perfect Reception in our humble mind, would be invitation to all family and friends from near and far, for a good round of dinner at … the healthiest place in town, the local KFC joint.

The whole idea is just simple, a small table by the door to allow guests to walk in, sign on the guestbook and drop in their much appreciated Ang Paos, gifts would be rejected as money is much more appreciated.

Guests would then be greeted by the couple, thanking them for the ang pao and invite them to proceed to the counter, to order their food. Each individual will be served only Dinner plate, any extras, the cost would be borne by the guest.

Space is available as per allocated by the restaurant, it’ll be a first come first served basis and any late comers that could not find themselve a place to seat, will still be invited to place their ang pao by the reception counter and allowed to ‘tapau’ the dinner plate so they could eat at home.

Before any guests leaves the venue, they get the privilage of taking photos with the couple and the KFC mascot, each photo is available to be printed on a 5r size at the cost of RM5 per print.

Guests are allowed to hang around for as long as they want, but preferably, they get lost as soon as they finish their dinner so that we could maximise the floor space to allow more people to come in, thus enable us to gain more profit from the ang pao collection.

Guests would have to leave no matter what happen by 12am as the restaurant would have to be closed, if guests would like to continue their kfc feasting and drinking, the guests are all invited to the couple’s home, provided, they bring their own alcohols.

That, we would safely say. would be the most perfect Wedding reception, from the couple’s point of view.

Disclaimer…. there is no such thing as disclaimer, this idea is copyright protected, any couple caught stealing the idea for their own wedding reception would be charged in court.

PS:. StrippedSteph would like to note that she prefer to only accept ang pao of RM100 and above only or white gold or platinum with at least 1karat diamond. No yellow gold allowed as it’ll make the wearer look like aunties and ah peks. LOL

Earlier today, Canon a leader in photographic and digital imaging solutions, today unveiled an impressive range of consumer imaging devices that cover all needs from capturing of image to printing and long term storage.

The 38 models launched comprises Canon’s exceptional camera range for all users which are the IXUS 980IS and 870IS, PowerShot SX110IS, A2000 IS, A1000 IS, EI, SX10 IS and SX1 IS and the professional EOS50D and the much awaited EOS 5D Mark II. Compact photo printer brand, Selphy also added two new models ES3 and ES30 which offers more creative options for home photo printing.

For Canon’s camcorder segment, three new High Definition models were introduced; the HG21, HG20 and dual flash HF11. Also a new entrant into the market would be the 6 binocular models; 8×25 IS, 10×30 IS, 10×42L IS WP, 18×50 IS AW, 15×50 IS AW and 12×36 IS II which boast the use of Canon’s unparalleled lens technology.

In the printer segment, new single function, all-in-one and laser shot printers entered the market either as replacements or new models. PIXMA iP1980 is aimed at the lower end market whilst the iP3680 and iP4680 is targeted to at the mid-end market. Six All-in-One printers; MP245, MP486, MP545, MP628, MP638 and MP988 will be in the market. PIXMA MP628 and MP988 have Wi-Fi connection capabilities built in to suit the new age user for wireless connectivity.

The Laser Shot series new range includes the LBP5050/5050N and LBP3250 which offers faster and sharper printing with added connectivity capabilities. The new Printer range also has energy conserving features that would help both the environment and the pocket.

As a conclusion to its consumer imaging package, Canon has also launched additions to its CanoScan family namely the CanoScan 5600F, LiDE 200 and LiDE100 that allows for Auto Scan mode which intelligently detects the document type and saves the scanned copy with suitable settings. The package is completed with the high powered XEED SX80 that ensures exceptional contrast and colour-rich pictures courtesy of Canon’s very own AISYS optical system and in-house manufactured LCOS panels.

It took them quite awhile to start the event, arriving at the venue at 10am, it felt like ages before the organizers invite the guests into the hall for the launch where Mr. Liew Sip Chon, President & CEO of Canon Marketing (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd kicked off the event with a short speech followed by Mr Donny Ling, Head of Operations, Assistant Director of Canon Marketing (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd.

The presentation of the products was done with the models coming out with the respective products to show the guests and media rep. The end came after the they’ve showcased everything from the camera to the latest binoculars launched at the event with the bosses of Canon posing with the models and the new products.

The Q&A session with the media followed with some strong questions being thrown at the bosses of Canon, mostly in relation to the 5D Mark II.

You can view some of the photos taken from the event here.

Now the catch for this party is, you’d have to bring along your phone and headsets as the whole idea of being ’silent’ is by getting you pumped for the party via your headphones. huh??? Must be some crazy idea by Nokia to get people to tune in to their services. My guess? Via the Bluetooth on the phone? By Nokia giving every single one of the party goers a Nokia phone each (please say it is true so I can throw away my brick phone)? It’ll even be better if Nokia could give me a new phone on that night as a present so I could give it to my mom as her birthday present too! After all, her birthday falls on the 31st of October! Really it’s true!!! Coupled by the fact that I’m a cheapskate of a son (Such a scary thought isn’t it to have me as a son).

Anyway, looking at my schedule for the night, I doubt that I’d be able to reach there in time as I will be at another event just down the road from BBC which I hope will finish by 5something so I could rush over for this event! If not, then, I’ll just make a grand entrance to the party then.

Now, as for who I’m going as, I’d say …. as Michael Jackson? He’s scary enough eh? Furthermore, I grew up listening to his music and yah … we’ll just stick to that point of I listen to his music alot last time. And if I didn’t have time to change after my earlier event, well, then I’ll just come as myself. It’ll scare the shit out of everyone! Yeah, I’m that scary, believe it or not…. - not kopi 0 light from Ripley’s. Either way, it will be a murderous time of the night once I get into the club.

Now, for the girls, if you have no idea what to wear, let me help you out here ok? See, I’m such a nice person, even help suggest on the right type of costume for you to wear.

Suggestion 1… Naughty Schoolgirls …

Suggestion 2…. Witches …

Suggestion 3 - Nun ….

and the last suggestion (4th) would be….. The Slave Princess  …

Now, as for the guys…. here’s what I had in mind for you all ….

I’m sure all these tips would come in handy. See you at the Halloween Party! shhhhh………

October 6 is the 279th day of the year (280th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 86 days remaining until the end of the year.

Let’s see what’s so significant about this day and the events that happened on this very day over the years.

• 1976 - Michael Yip was born in the University Hospital

You want proper history lesson? Click here! I’m too lazy to even cut and paste all those dates from sites like Wikipedia even though it’s just two clicks of the mouse.

On this day in 1976, the famous person born (aside from me of course) is Barbie Hsu of the Meteor Garden fame. So yeah, in my book, two famous person was born on this date back in 1976. Barbie Hsu and …. myself lah.. who else? Not too bad eh?…

To tell you the truth, I couldn’t remember this day back in 1976 very well. How was I delivered into this world? Who’s the doctor that tended me? Which ward did I sleep in? Which nurse molested me when she bath me? I can’t remember all those details. Why is that so? Shouldn’t we remember these kinda details as it’s so important to us? It’s our birthday right?

Did you know what song was the no. 1 song to hit the air waves on the day you were born? Well, back then in 1976, Wild Cherry’s Play That Funky Music was the no. 1 hit English song then.

Anyone know what’s the no. 1 chinese song that was playing back then? I tried searching for it but Chinese words appeared on most sites and me being uneducated in the chinese characters have no idea what’s written on those sites.

Anyway, fast forward to present day, 2008 to be exact, what did I do? Um… I was placed in a small room with no windows but a sliding door doing nothing but just staring into the camera’s view finder. Was it fun? Heck NO! Did anything happen on this day? Nope… Will it go down into the history book as a day that people should remember? Definitely, especially when people want to know what happened to me on this day.

Anyway, the bright side of things is, I did get alot of online birthday wishes from all these people I got to know from all those places I’ve been to. Thanks a bunch to all of you who left messages on my facebook (my FB profile is available on the right panel of this blog). At least I had an earlier celebration in Singapore to make up for this day I missed. It’s true, you ask me what happened on this day, I can tell you I’ve not the faintest idea, by the time I left that small room, it was already the 7th of October. Whatever happened after 9.30am on the 6th of October? I’ve no idea.

Anyway, last word on this post is … Happy Belated Birthday to myself! (freaking lame)