ASIMO at Queensbay Mall - Nov 2008

ASIMO stands for Advanced Step in Innovative MObility. When I first hear this name a few years ago, I knew its a creation of Japanese. Probably cos of the SI and the MO sound. :p

ASIMO is on a roadshow here in Penang's Queensbay mall and me and the usual gang of friends went to witness it.
Reached there quite early in the morning as we're suppose to go shoot sunset nearby but failed cos its cloudy and it drizzled.

There's quite a crowd gathered around the stage and also around the center court area 2, 3 levels above as well. Most of them were children accompanied by their parents. We're not children, at least I know my main purpose is here to 'shoot' ASIMO with my D60.


ASIMO was being introduced by the host and later on received and performed some moves as instructed by the host. This includes, walk, run, run faster (6km/h), kicks a ball, carry water cup in a tray, dance to the crowd, balance on 1 leg.

I must say that ASIMO's motion is surprisingly smooth, not those jerky transition movement you would expect from some real life robot, absolutely no pause when he's making a turn when walking. I am impressed!

Some of us were given a paper mockup project to assemble ASIMO and the lucky 5 'family' will get a chance to shoot photo alongside with ASIMO!

We failed miserably but with Shang Yih's help, we got in to join one of his friend who happened to win! yay! we are family~, hahahahhahaha.. I handed them my camera cos we're not allowed to take the photos ourselves.

Some of us managed to buy some gifts from the merchandise booth next to the stage. Overall a fun experience.


Honda, truely meant 'the power of dreams!' when they created this robot! way to go! May your dreams take you further!

match

A while ago I heard a short story on the radio, its worth a sharing. It goes like this ...

A match stick worth only a few cents, probably not even 1 cent.
However, a house or a building is probably worth a few thousand over.

But a match stick that light up could potentially destroy the building that worth a few hundred thousand times more than it.

Put it this way, no matter how talented or good a person is... if he failed just once to control himself and said out hurtful words or did regrettable actions... his image will be forever tarnished.

Everyone of us has a kind of match sticks... can you control yours?

Penang Bridge Run 08

Went to the Penang Bridge Run on 17th Nov 2008 with my fren. This was one of the more exhausting excercise I've ever did in recent years...

My previous participation was 7 years ago.. wow. time flies! I have some extra 'challenge' on the day of the event partly becos :-

1) I slept for 3 hours only prior to the run, registration time ends at 4:15am, I slept at 12am after I fetch my mum back

2) I brought my DLSR with me (naturally) hehehehe...

3) I found out that I left my sport shoes at work and I wore sandals.... zzz =_=!!!

Its a very very very exhausting and tiring race... I'm still plastering myself with medical pain relief pads all over my body... haih...

There was a lot of people that turned out for the event.. a much much much larger crowd, all my other frens joined fun run (in orange shirt).

Well, I joined half run.. (25km) but only managed to finished it in 4 hours (3.5 hours was the maximum given time)....uuuhh..

I am soooooooooooo glad when I see this sign

so when I reached the finishing line.. I found out that there were no medals.. (no surprise here).. but no cert of participation as well!!.. what the ?!??!.. uuuhh

Its not mine...

Yeah... my consolation prize was 1 can of 100Plus and its not even chilled

I must admit, riding in one of this was really tempting at certain times when my legs were cramping on the bridge

Participant reaching for refreshment

But at least I've got these... heheheheheheh...

I think I managed to snap some of my favourite shots here... so no regrets for me for carrying the camera and bag along... hope you guys like it!

peace... :)

Gurney Plaza New Wing

Went to the official opening of the Gurney Plaza new wing with ah bok, reach around 1pm carpark was full. I'm just gonna summarize the entire visit in points below. : )

• New wing has its own carpark, to get there simply turn into the multi stories carpark of the original place, turn in from the 6th floor carpark into the new wing's and proceed there. Aparently new wing has more parking floors than the original one but somehow narrower. Includes roof top parking spot as well.
• New wing built on the ground along Gurney Place, lots of restaurants like McD, Domino's pizza, A&W was not at their original position nor could be found so far although Sushi King's are established at a different location now just below Sakae Sushi. : )
• Parkson departmental stores are located on the new wing as well with some of the floors connected to each other. (1st and ground floor so far, didnt explore much)
• Original Parkson departmental store has been given a facelift as well to match those of new ones.
• New wing appeared smaller because of the given landsize and gives an overall cramped feeling.
  
• Some retail spaces are still pending renovation while most of the place are already being occupied.
  
• Christmas decos are up.
• No new bookstores in the new wing so far.
• Switch (Apple computer) outlet will be moved from the original complex to the new store at the new wing.
  
• New restaurants seen so far are Sakae Sushi and Swenson pending opening. Nando's are located near the entrance from Gurney Place and occupies 2 floors!
• Multiple entrance are possible to the new wing with openings from the previous Chopper Board's location which are the same for each of the floors below it. Chopper board is still on the old location but appeared smaller and Bak Kut Teh King are opposite of it.
  

Overall okay, I'll still frequent the old place more mainly because I really uncomfortable walking in a narrow space. But I would like to add that Sakae sushi does offers nice window view to the new park beside the new wing. : )

Ladies will be pleased to know that there's a lot of retail outlets carrying numerous brands to satisfy their hunger for shoes, bags, cosmetics, etc.

Excuse some of the photos here as I really feel ackward carrying dslr and shoot in a mall. Btw, there's camera fair with promotions going on the groundfloor of the plaza as well for those interested to get new snapping device. :)

Chopper board now sits on 1 corner of the new entrance

The day would be perfect without introducing our fren here to the donuts...

P/S: Big Apple's at the LG floor of the original mall... :)

NCS Team Building 2008

Okay, went to the team building event which was held at Paradise Sandy Beach hotel. Lots of people, went with Penny.. got into the same group with her. Didn't know the rest of the people there.. well, almost 98% of them actually.


My team was C2, the team victory shout was came out by a funny guy which sounds something like this...

"1,2,1,2,1,2,3... 3,2,3,2,3,2,1....
1,2,3, 3,2,1... Team C2... NO.1!"

Its a bit lame.. but it gets the message across. Was elected by the team as the leader as they said I'm tall enuff to be one.. >_<

Gaming sessions was held by the beach, total 4 games.

1st game led by me, team member queued up, blind folded, only i can see.. I'm at the end of the line... guided the team to navigate thru the beach area to collect props for points. use sign language like touching shoulder to navigate left or right, touched arm to signal members to squat down and try to pick up whatever stuff they can.

2nd game, we're given a roll of fishing string. a cup was placed at a center of a marked square, team members are not allowed to go in, use string to tie around the cup, tried to lift it up and pull it to the other side and dump it into a hole. Wasn't fast enuff, lost to team C1. Break time for some snack... rushed for water and sat down with Penny for some sandwich. Break lasted around 15 - 20mins.

3rd game, led by Penny... carry a person or "mummy" across an obstacle course of ropes tied around 2 poles. Each member must be carried across the course and u-turn back to starting position. I was the last to be carried so... yea... was very very very exhausting game.. >_< (but i got carried by 4 girls at one time... =_=!!) We've won the game.


4th and final game - use 4 rope that tied to a center rubberband... 4 members, pull each string to enlarge rubberband so to fit plastic cup. carry over to the other section where team members use the same device (not hand) to stack the cup up. whoever that stacks the highest wins.... we poured sands in each of the cup to make up for the increased height. unfortunately, base was not stable so the height had been compromised. in the end, lost to the other team who does their building in slower pace but still within time limit. :)

Took a few shots and head back to the ballroom. Received debriefings and my team and another are tied for the champion as we've got 5 extra points from the start for able to assemble a full 20 people group first. well, that's not fun to me.... doesn't feel like a real win... as each other 'loosing' team each won 2 out of 4 games as well. In this case, the real winner to me is some team that can win all 4 or 3 of the games. But anyway, it was a good effort by the team and got the prize...

keychain~ yay.. better than none. then come the NCS employee awards ceremony...
Had our buffet dinner which was nothing to be shouted at... so so only then we took a group photo as well.

A tiring but overall okay experience for me as we get to know other people from the same company as we are too. Great job guys if you're reading this!

"potato, tomato, tomato, potato... team C2, PAK BEH TOH!" .... LOL