I Joined Qatar Airways Photo Contest

Qatar Airways is organizing a photo contest called Qatar Airways Reflections Photo Contest that will end on 30 June 2012. There are 4 categories to choose and submit, namely Magnificent Cities, Vibrant Culture, Breathtaking Nature and Exciting Journey. Frankly, I do not know how to gauge what the organizer is looking for.

Below are my submissions for the contest. Since it is a global voting contest, and it is open also to professional photographers, I think my chance is close to nil. Anyway, it's good to try and see if miracles can happen how many times in a person.

The first picture was submitted under the Vibrant Culture theme. This picture is to show on the Chinese Northern China lion dance, which is different from the Southern China lion dance, especially in the appearance and movement.

               

                                                                               

               

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The 2nd picture was posted under the Magnificent Cities theme. I noticed that I was the first to post a picture of Stockholm, Sweden, and I thought this picture is suitable because of the overall nice view of a part of the Old Town, known locally as Gamla Stan. Since Qatar Airways flies to Stockholm daily, it fits to put this beautiful picture to attract more people to see how pretty this city is, especially Malaysian who are very unfamiliar with the Scandinavian countries.
 

               

                                                                               

               

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Celcom BlackBerry Torch 9800 - Yes, I Want!

I must confess that I only know Blackberry (BB) after I saw in the papers that President Obama is using it. There is even a book written on Obama's Blackberry by Kasper Hauser. Before this, we were more familiar with Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Samsung phones, but now, we can also find a BB long distance cousin by the name of "Blueberry" from China.

My first encounter with a BB was the unit that I won from a contest jointly sponsored by Celcom, and the model was Blackberry Curve 8520. After using it for some time, I knew I had became a fan, and I bought another for my spouse so that we can do BB Messenger. Frankly, the thing that captured my attention and interest were the keypad and its distinctive BB look.

Nowadays, the waves of smartphones is hitting everyone like tsunami, where everyone is thinking of having one. Blackberry Torch is the latest kid of the BB family, and it comes with the same look as his siblings but with additional touch screen feature. I am used to touch and type feature because I carry 2 phones due to my work nature; a touch screen phone, and a Blackberry Curve.

I think both touch screen and BB keyboard complement each other, rather than competing with each other. With a full 3.2 inch touch screen, I can browse and pinch through websites effortlessly, while zapping between pages. Besides, playing the multimedia such as video or audio player would be easier to control and maneuver with touch screen.

As a heavy SMS user and blogger, I would definitely rank having a QWERTY keyboard as a must have. I might feel awkward updating my entries and updates in Twitter and Facebook without punching on the keypad. I also used it quite often during my game session. It is really having the best of both worlds in one tiny smart gadget.

I would recommend to sign up for a data plan if you own a BB, especially in this digital age. If you notice closely and study thoroughly, Celcom actually offers some affordable packages that comes with an offer of the newly launched BB Torch 9800 phone at eye captivating prices. For the beginners or potential user of phone web surfing, the basic package of Celcom Exec 50 is sufficient for you to kick start the habit. The monthly commitment is not too taxing, only RM118 per month and this includes call and data packages.

What's more, it comes with an irresistible offer of BB Torch 9800 at only RM1,688, with a saving of RM500 compared to its promotional RRP price of RM2,188.

At the recent Celcom Blackberry Torch launching event on 29 October 2010, "craziness" and "8" were the words of the day with offers such as RM8 for a brand new Blackberry Torch for the 1st 10 customers to sign up for Celcom Exec or Celcom Biz. I believe the first 210 customers must have camped at Pavilion the night before, as the next 100 customers got it for RM488, and the remaining 100 customers got it for RM888. This made me recall a memory of the long queue I went through at overseas, where I was in the queue for 4 hours just to enter the museum for free.

The offer also comes with a FREE Limited Edition BlackBerry Torch Door Cover, FREE BlackBerry Torch hard casing plus FREE Call Me Tones for 1 month worth RM5, games, apps for BlackBerry®. Just Dial *118#, and select STUFF FOR BLACKBERRY!

Extreme Cheesy 6

 

Everyone will be crazy about Pizza Hut's new offer: Extreme Cheesy 6 Pizza. I remembered few years back, there was a similar pizza promotion by Pizza Hut, and I gave 110 marks for it - 100 marks for the tastiness and additional 10 marks for the memory. I can still remember how good it taste.

Number "six" is usually associated with good things (as below).

Pizza Hut is very clever to select the best six cheese to offer on their pizza, and this time, the 6 Cheesy stars are Cheddar, Mozzarella, Parmesan, Provolone, Monterey Jack, and Romano. 

 

 

Not only was I crazy about the tasty cheesy pizza, even my baby was as enthusiastic and she can't wait to take her first bite at the pizza.

I’m crazy about Cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeese!

Are You Moist Enough?

I learnt that a girl must do the basic three-step skincare for the face everyday without fail – cleanser, toner, and most importantly moisturizer. This is what most of the guys should learn from their female partner on taking good care of one's skin. However, for most guys, it is usually splashing with water (cleanser) and wiping with towel, and expect the water double acts as toner and moisturizer. The more health conscious guys will use tissue or handkerchief to wipe. Others may just opt for a quickie by swiping their face on the sleeve, both left and right!

Often, people care about their face more and neglect moisturizer for the skin on the rest of our bodies. This causes dry areas appearing on places such as knees, heels, and elbows because of built-up skin cells in these areas. Beneath the surface, it is important to note that healthy skin is 90% water. Therefore, it is important to keep our skin with enough moisture by applying the correct lotion and eating healthy. Getting moist doesn't mean keeping the skin sweaty or oily.

 

Fear not if you are starting to worry about getting dry skin, as Vaseline is unveiling its new body lotion range catering to different skin needs, with variants like Total Moisture, Healthy White, Intensive Rescue, and Aloe Cool and Fresh.

With enough moisture protection, it helps to give our skin the strength and flexibility to protect our body. This flexibility allows me to tweak my fingers, and bridging my index and little finger with ease.

Make a Memory with Your Inner Child's Imagination

I like to travel, and I was fortunate to be able to save enough to see the world, slowly. To me, traveling means learning, and I believe in continuous learning. So far, I only got to explore in some countries in the European region, namely Spain, Sweden, France and Italy, but I do hope to go to more places, especially the States. I was captivated by the architecture and landscape in those countries, and capturing them in picture was the usual stuff any traveler will do.

Eight years back when I first made my solo backpacking trip to Spain, I brought a Samsung camera with dozens of film. At that time, photos need to be developed before we get to see the pictures. Therefore, I ended up with hundreds of photos after the trip, and they were stashed clumsily in my cupboard. Then, while I was surfing on the internet recently, I saw some people creatively use scrap book theme in their blog. It struck me with an idea to utilize this concept to create my first solo trip scrap book.

I am new to scrap book making, and I found that the Memory Book Page Protectors offered by C-Line Products is very suitable for this purpose. Pictures layout can be done independently, and slot them nicely in the Memory Book. I think having the Memory Book Flip Page Page Protectors would also be a good idea because it has an additional panel at the side of the page for me to put extra notes and captions. What's more, I can have it thick or thin because it has Universal Hole Punch and Extended Binding Edge that allows me to add or remove pages easily.

As a person who's slightly inclined to designing, I would have plenty of room to play with the photos and designs that I can best put down. Not only photos, I also have bus and metro ticket, post cards and commemorative stickers from museum and art houses. 

My girl commented that my Memory Book is boring because it was written using blue or black ball point pen. Things will be better with colors, artwork and graphic decorations added in. I reckon that the Sanford PrismaColor Double Ended Markers and Crayola Heads 'N' Tails Markers would work wonders with their different variance of colors. She will be glad to lend Daddy a hand in decorating the Memory Book.

BlackBerry Bold Mari Sini

If you have read the book "Secret", you would know that one of the secrets taught is about the power of visualizing on what you want to achieve. I can't recall how exactly they worded them, but in simple terms, just write or put in front of you what you dream of achieving, and face and think about it everyday. Eventually, the dream will become a reality.

Frankly, I do believe it but I haven't have chance to prove it. I entered the Digi Hari-Hari BlackBerry Mari contest yesterday, 14 September and this should be the best time for me to prove it. I will put the Digi BlackBerry contest ads on my blog and make sure I look at it everyday until they announce the result.

Give me around 10~15 days to return with the good news. I am visualizing myself as one of the 10 lucky winners to own the BlackBerry Bold 9700.

Let's Join The Enveeus.com First Contest

This is my first time reviewing a Malaysian blogger's blog. This blog belongs to a lady who aspires to be a successful writer and online business person, and goes by the name "Enveeus.com".

Ms Enveeus is currently holding her first contest for fans. I really think this is somehow a new trend and what she is doing is quite unseen in the Malaysian blogosphere. Anyway, I salute her for taking this bold move.

The one reason that I think she will be successful in this venture is the prize money. This contest is open to local and international bloggers offering prizes in either Ringgit or US Dollar. It really is a handsome one, and the amount definitely beat those offered by sponsored review websites such as Social Spark, and Microworkers. Furthermore she'll be writing back a review for the winner. Even the 2nd place winner gets to have a link placed at her website for 15 days.

Another mouth-watering offer is a special prize (hope she gives some preview of what to expect) for the most creative blog post. Hurry and act quick! This contest is already in the running and it will end by 30 September.

Final note to Ms Enveeus: Wish you Good luck and All the best, and hope you achieve the dream that you are working hard for.

These Are My G

These were my entries for the "What's Your G" contest by McD. Just for fun, and hope I can get all the 65% of the votes from the judges. Don't think I can get any of the 30% from Facebook and definitely not the 5% from photo or video uploads.

The main pulling factor for me is the cash prize. Hard cash is still the best, with no hidden cost and conditions.

Ganbatte kudasai!