The weather lately has been nothing short of spectacular, it is as if the power that be has stopped knowing how to pace and it is now either a thunderstorm (which is might fine), or a long baut really really hot max weather.

When it’s hot out, I always have one thing in mind, the very thing that made 7-Eleven a household name – SLURPEE! the coolest drink on earth.

To be frank, I have this other habit of enjoying slurpee in the winter when it is cold out too, but that doesn’t really apply to Malaysia.

ANYWAY, lest I digress.. Today I want to tell you about “My Funniest Slurpee Video” contest. How this work, is fairly simple

• Create a video between 30s to 2minutes showing your funny moment with Slurpee (any size and any flavor)
• Upload to youtube
• Register at http://www.slurpee.com.my/slurpeenation-register as a member of Slurpee nation and submit the video
• Video will be reviewed and approved within 24-hour
• You can submit multiple videos
• Get your friends to vote for your videos

This one is my video (very pro wan ok!)

As with any contest, we are also interested in the prizes. Instead of only one grand prize, there’s weekly prizes, grand prize, first prize, 2nd prize, 3rd prize, and even consolation prize!

Weekly prize is RM 500 cash + Slurpee T-shirt, the first one to be awarded on March 25, all the way till April 22. Five in total. The grand/first/2nd/3rd prizes all consists of vacations to Redang, Tioman, Langkawi, and Berjaya Hills. Very tempting!

Furthermore, the grand, first, and 2nd prize winners will also get 52 pieces of 22oz Slurpee vouchers!

So check out http://www.slurpee.com.my/myfunniestslurpeevideo.php, join the SLURPEE NATION, create your video and lets see if you can put u p any fight and be better than mine. hohoho!

I have the super casts of Koyuki and Cheesie on my video ok. Don’t mess!

Tags:  lunch money,  slurpee

Posted by KY | 15 Comments »

Many of us have a preconceived mindset when it comes traveling. It usually involves places that appear in travel brochures, postcards, or even TV programs; then there’s the airport code, bus/taxi rides, and most likely resorts or hotels.

You then visit places of interests, the museums, monuments, art galleries, several shopping places, and perhaps even a famous eatery or two.

from various trips to Krabi, Melbourne, Mabul, Tokyo, Bangkok, Redang

There’s nothing wrong with a typical traveling experience like this, I’ve done plenty myself, and will continue to do more. But there’s a bit of a downside, unless you’re heading to somewhere you have a friend (like when I went to Melbourne and Tokyo, you’re most likely going to behave and get treated like a tourist.

Then there’s Homestay.

Homestay is inherently different from your normal traveling experience, instead of following a tour guide, you stay with a host family and truly experience life as it lived day to day in the particular place. This includes participating in the local activities, culture, and of course, tasting traditional food.

To participate in a homestay right here in Malaysia, there’s our very own go2homestay portal. The portal offers contacts to homestay programs at every state in this country.

homestay activities at Kampung Sungai Haji Dorani, Selangor

Take homestay of the month, Kampung Sungai Haji Dorani. Located a mere 1.5 hours away but a totally different world from Kuala Lumpur. Instead of the concrete jungle with shopping malls and fast food chains, it is a place with lush green paddy fields full of natural and cultural treasures to be discovered.

Instead of visiting museums and tugu negara, you get to experience the life as a paddy field farmer, try your luck in hand fishing, learn to make kite, batik, and get a taste of the local delicacy – nasi ambeng Haji Dorani (this would probably be my favorite)

To participate in homestay at Haji Dorani (or any location listed) is fairly simple. Get the contact via this list of homestay venues that have been registered with Ministry of Tourism Malaysia and just contact the person in charge. Each homestay has their individual rates and packages.

This is actually a pretty interesting concept, and something quite new to me personally, I should give it a go hopefully soon. Check out go2homestay.com for more information.

Tags:  homestay,  lunch money,  Travel

Posted by KY | 19 Comments »

The year of Tiger in Chinese calendar is looming at large, and like many who make new year resolutions for 2010, I too have my own Tiger year wish.

Since it’s a Chinese thing, lets make this wish fit within the auspicious value of RM 8,888. Here goes:

a diving trip at an exotic island

It was 2005 the last time I went for a diving trip at Redang with the guys, we had a whole lot of fun and the underwater world was a really amazing place. For many reasons I can’t exactly pin down, I haven’t dived since, but my wish is to do it again this year.

A comfortable diving trip would cost somewhere in the region of RM 1500 – 2000 depending on location.

Suunto D6 dive computer

To make the diving trip complete, lets throw in a sexy Suunto D6 dive computer. It may just look like a nice looking watch on your wrist, but this baby can do a whole lot more. It can log your dives and calculate surface intervals, show decompression status, and even spot a digital compass you can use underwater.

The Suunto D6 costs about RM 2,500.

full scuba gear (er… for human)

I already have a wet suit, fins, booty, goggle, and the snorkle, so the next logical step is to get a full set of scuba gears so that I don’t need to rent anything other than a tank of gas from the diving lodge. This works out to save money in the long run.

To complete my equipment list, I’ll need a BCD (buoyancy control device), regulator, octopus (secondary emergency regulator), and the accompanying gauges. This should cost somewhere around RM 2,000 – 2,500.

how about a pet that looks almost like a tiger?

So far the diving trip and equipments add up to about RM 6000 – RM 7000, I should still be left with 2k+ or so to work with. I was thinking of underwater photography equipments in my wish list, but perhaps I’ll have a Maine Coon instead!

This is one of the largest domestic cats ever, and can possibly have Cheddie the maltese for breakfast. I might name the fella Tigger, don’t it look so awesome?

I have my tiger stripes on!

So why RM 8,888? Well, Tiger Beer, the official beer of the year of Tiger, is having a Tiger Beer and Nuffnang Run and there are 3x RM 8,888 worth of dreams for the winners. The three prizes are one each for male and female, and a grand prize with an additional RM 1,888 in cash!

What you need to do is not exactly difficult – Write a blog post with the same title as this one “My Dream in the Year of Tiger” and send your name and the blog post’s permanent link to fulfillmywish.tiger@nuffnang.com. 88 lucky runners will be chosen to participate in this auspicious event, the details as follow:

One of the tasks during the run involves the Tiger Beer facebook page too, so do click on the link and be a fan.

Make it happen! I’ll see you there, I don’t know any more details of this very mysterious run, but I reckon it isn’t your usual half marathon type, which is just as well since I don’t think I can complete a 10 km run in one shot anyway. It’ll be exciting!

Tags:  lunch money

Posted by KY | 21 Comments »

Following the successful previous contest (with cash prizes up to RM 5ka piece, I always love cash prizes!), Mister Potato is at it again. Only this time it is even bigger, with grand prize being a gold bar worth RM 88,888!

GOLD BAR! I’ve heard about these mystical thing when I was young, we called it “Kim Tiau” in Hokkien. Those old TV series with the rich tycoons playing with gold bars sitting behind their desk, it was so bling, so surreal.

And now you’re telling me there’s a chance I can win one of these babies? (not the actual picture of the prize)

I think I’d use it as a door stop *evil grin*

If I win the gold bar, it doesn’t mean there’s nothing left for you, my dear readers.

There’re 3 x RM 8,888 first prize, and another 100 x RM 888 consolation prize winners. These are all cold hard cash, and with over 100 winners it’ll be quite unlucky if you actually don’t win.

The contest:

• Get the unique SMS code from the 75 or 160 gram Mister Potato contest edition pack.
• Guess the combined weight (in KG) of Mister Potato, Ortega, the three Mariachis (Unos, Dos, Tres), and the sack of 100 potatoes. Send in via SMS with unique short code)
• Submit as many entries as you like, but each short code is only valid for 1 entry
• for more details go to misterpotato.com.my

Sherlock Homes’ deductive skills is utmost important here. There are clues on the website as to how much these characters weigh in. Let me give you some tips (I shall not share all for I want the gold bar!)

• Mister Potato himself – 33 pounds heavier than a baby elephant (at 105kg), with 2.2 lbs = 1 KG. A simple calculation should put his weight at 120 kg or so.
• Ortega – profile puts him at “about” 132 lbs but definitely below 134 lbs. That’s between 60-65 kg.
• Tres – 40 kg (from the clue given)
• Dos – Dos + Mister Potato = 170 kg, so that should put him at around 50kg
• Uno  - with the Mariachis averaging 48 kg, Uno should work out to be around 54 kg
• sack of 100 potatoes – not gonna give you this one, work it out yourself!

Now excuse me while I go get some Mister Potato, the contest runs from 1st Jan till 31st March 2010, so hurry!

Tags:  lunch money,  snacks

Posted by KY | 26 Comments »

A couple months ago when I was on the futsal pitch:

The ball was on my left leg, and I passed it to the right, I did a bit of a side step, got passed one defender. Now facing the goal keeper who was charging ahead of me, I fired the ball with my right leg, it went.. straight to his knee and bounced right back …. INTO MY LEFT EYE.

It hurt like crap, I think my head was spinning a little bit. The game went on, I substituted myself out, and immediately noticed something wrong. The vision out of the left eye was blurred in a way that was almost but not quite like having a faulty air conditioner in your car during heavy downpour resulting in a fogged wind shield.

My vision was fine the next day, but by night time the foggy condition came back. It was actually quite scary, so I did what everyone suggested (mostly over Twitter, follow me @kyspeaks if you haven’t). I went to the Tun Hussien Onn National Eye Hospital to get it looked at.

Among the well wishers and people who showed concern, there were quite a lot of people who joked about the injury (it’s all good, I would do the same, making fun of other’s misery is one of the greatest joys in life).

A few days later, Cheesie developed this red scar thing on one of her eyes, so I took her to the same hospital to get it looked at. The doctor said it was an allergic reaction to the colored contact lenses, she said it was the karma from laughing at me. I kinda agreed with her, hehe.

After a few weeks of putting eye drops and a return to visit the good doctor, my eyes are feeling good now. Thank goodness it wasn’t something serious.

I have a health insurance policy, so at least I didn’t feel too stressed about being able to pay the medical bill, but this incident made me realized the importance of being covered should anything more dramatic found it’s way to me (touch wood).

Coincidentally, PruBSN engaged me for this advertorial just right after this incident.

The product is called PruBSN Takaful Health.

To be honest, before this, I had no idea what takaful meant. I’ve seen them on highway billboards, and maybe even on newspaper, but the only thing I knew was that this has something to do with being consistent with the Islamic believes.

So I read up on what this is all about and found out a few things about Takaful, especially PruBSN Takaful Health

• It is available for everyone, not just Muslims
• It is based on the principles of  Shariah instead of conventional insurance
• It involves participants reaching a common agreement to guarantee each other against defined loss of damage by contributing Tabarru’ (donation) to the Takaful fund
• Main objective at the end is still similar – to provide protection

One other thing that makes PruBSN stands out is their NCB (no claim bonus) feature. The graphic above demonstrates a 30 year old male certificate holder with a Takaful Health TH200 plan who pays an annual contribution of RM 1,032 being able to get RM 300 in NCB if he did not make any claims the year before. Pretty neat huh?

Get yourself covered. For more, check out PruBSN’s website.

Tags:  futsal,  lunch money

Posted by KY | 24 Comments »