ping.sg regulars are one crazy bunch.
To me it seemed that as we met each other, especially me meeting others for the first time, there was some sort of magical click. Half an hour and we're like old friends. Maybe it's simply because we are all bloggers.
Why Meetup 3.1? Because miccheng said so lor.
Ok la I agree with it, because it's really using the Buybuttonz fair as an excuse to meet haha. BlogOut and Village Talk are bigger events so we'll save meetup 4 and 5 for those ya.
I was serving at church in the morning, so I came down to Far East Plaza only at like 3+ pm? I still cannot for my life distinguish between Far East Plaza and Far East Shopping Centre. I always thing the Plaza, the really hip and fashion-y Far East, is Far East Shopping Centre. And vice versa. So when I walked towards FESC, and finally saw the English neon sign, I uncontrollably blurted 'Oh for fuck's sake!' and made a convenient turn at the traffic light to walk backwards.
Running through my plan for the last time, I walked into FEP and found that my guess was correct. Rinaz was right, the big white tent outside advertising Buybuttonz is abit misleading. No one would know that there are booths inside, and in fact the turn out was rather poor (but don't care la. We go there to TCSS anyway). Also, most people out of habit and assumption thought the booths were down at the basement, which they took for Level 1, because everything hip was there what.
So anyway I saw the ping.sg booth immediately. It's easy man, just locate the booth with the most laptops (there were 5 on the roughly 120x80cm table lol. Super clutter hoo0~!). And I walked past and pretended to hesitate and frown at the computers, all displaying the ping.sg homepage, which Uzyn edited to auto-update every 5min, saving us the trouble of F5-ing. Although I did not recognise him at that point, arzhou aka Adrian was standing beside me, and as he later lamented, was excited to see someone finally interested in the booth. I was the first or second 'real' visitor, he said. He opened his sales pitch with 'Hi do you blog?' and I answered with a wary 'Yyyes...'. I think he was relieved, and he proceeded to move on to 'Have you heard of ping.sg?' to which I gave a confused 'no'. At that point, the great Uzyn took over and in about three breaths rattled everything off to me, included how there was a live stream recording, how the whole site worked, we register, claim our blog, blog, ping, pong, etc. And I looked at him and I said, '...... ok.' I forgot what happened in between, but I finally said, 'Nah I'm just kidding with you la. I'm Farinelli. ^^'
Probably wasn't so nice to get them falsely excited over a pseudo-visitor, but I really didn't know about the poor response then (to the whole fair in fact, not just our booth). Uzyn having found out that he just wasted his breath(s) went 'Oh man oh my God what the fuckkkk... OY GUYS,' he hollered, bringing me to the back of the booth where dk, nicole, keropokman, ECL and her boyfriend, miccheng and arzhou were (sorry if I missed anyone out), 'guys! You know who this is or not? Farinelli!' Everyone was like 'Ahhh! Ohhh! Aw man... oh my God.'
So ya sorry to make you all so happy ah, think got visitor.
And except for keropokman and arzhou (whom I mistook for Hendri), I picked everyone off and identified them one by one. They all looked at me nervously and asked 'How you know?'
I read blogs.
And after that Uzyn and arzhou took turns to diao me. Uzyn kept calling me anonymous blogger. Hahaha sorry la. Don't angry k.
As the hours passed, I talked to everyone there about alot of things. ECL and her BF left, Hendri came, tstar left, but not before ridz returned (so weird when the met each other everyone at the booth was like OOOOOOO~). Clappingtrees dropped by, then veron, and then rinaz. Oh and Uzyn's girlfriend Sek Ling also came back in time for dinner. Ok I'll just say this for the last time. So sorry if I miss anyone out at any point. Can't remember all of it and I also never take photos. Quite wary about the quality of my photos in indoor environments, so unless I'm quite confident the lighting is good or it's a not-to-be-missed moment, my phonecam stays in my pocket.
I asked not long after I arrived where tstar was, and arzhou pointed her out to me. When she looked up he got her attention and pointed her to me, and I said hi.
20min later: Oh you're farinelli ah? Oh hi! I'm tstar.
Moving right along, meeting rinaz was also amusing. She came to the side of the booth where I was sitting, and gave a breathless 'Hi!' And I was like... 'Hi...' And she was like 'No, hi!' and she waved to dk, and when I found out she was rinaz I was like 'Oh um hi. I'm farinelli.'
As a personal note, let me deviate by saying I was very pleased to find a vendor for Lexean magazine. My household (in fact I think my block) received a complimentary copy of the second issue, and I was very impressed by it. So it was great that I got myself a subscription form (and a complimentary first copy weehee). And also the famed mini Voodo doll keychains made an appearance at a booth. They were selling at $1 each, so I bought 5 and got 1 free. How can anyone be afraid of them? They're so damn cute la!
Moving on, we packed up at 6pm and left for dinner, but not before taking some crazy pictures.
We went to Indonesian restaurant Ayam Penyet Ria at Lucky Plaza. The restaurant had to split us into two tables away from each other, so at my (smaller) table was me, ridz, nicole, hendri, dk, veron, chernjie and miccheng. Since most of us were new there we all put in an order for their famed ayam penyet - IFC: Indonesian Fried Chicken.
Mmm... shiok isn't it? I was pleased with my camera for not graining up. The chilli you see is a delay attack. Very deadly stuff. The spice hits your tongue about 3-4 seconds after you taste the rest of the flavours and man, it's not something to be trifled with. I had singled out the fried taukwa to try first, and scraped the chilli off, leaving only a thin layer adsorbed on the taukwa. And that already made me abit uncomfortable. Imagine swallowing one glob for it. Goodbye my love, 我的愛人再見...~
After that unsatisfied that we were split up, we adjourned to the Starbucks next to Borders for drinks, where Trecilla and her husband joined us. I can't believe I forgot to get my Harry Potter book pre-order there!!! Argh now I must see when I'm going to town again. Freak. Anyways at Starbucks Uzyn used his laptop's SD card reader to view the pictures on a bigger screen, and man they were funny. Rinaz took her card out to view too, getting us all excited for nothing when she freaked out that there might be naked pictures inside and wanted to check the card first before letting us see. Later she started recording crazy videos of all the users (I SUCKED in my interview. First question already tio stun). When Uzyn and Sek Ling got up to leave, I also decided to leave, not wanting to get home too late.
It was an awesome meeting you guys. I already can't wait to see you all again at BlogOut. LOVE YA LOTS~!
PS - Pictures coming soon. I'm dead tired sorry.
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