At the PPS Birthday Bash

Boy, it was packed. I would have liked to have met more people but I'm a bit of wet blanket so I stayed safe in my little corner sucking away at my beer.

FIRST LOOK
The first person I saw when I got there was Lucia. Somehow she seemed like such a familiar face so I went right up to her to say hi. "Who the f..?" she looked perplexed. "I'm James and this is Mae," I said sheepishly. :)

I met Peter. We shook hands and I was suddenly tongued-tied in the presence of this inspiring gentlemen. "Erm... I better go sign in," I told him and led Mae off into the place. On the way I met Bob and his wife, Elaine. Mae and Elaine clicked right away since they've met previously. :)

HEAD HONCHO
I met Aizuddin. He looked exactly like his pictures. Mae is convinced she's met him somewhere. "Maybe I went to school with him in PJ," she said. Feh! This had better not be something behind my back, or heads will roll. Hhehheh! Right there with Aiz at the registration table, I also met this lovely lady Ifzan or Izan, I never quite got her name. And it didn't feel polite to stare at her boob to look at her nametag.

THE SHOOTERS
We then said hi to Jolene who cornered us into taking a photo with her. But I now officially hate her cos she's taller than me. We also took a shot with Huai Bin, which you will find on his blog. But as you can see, when he was shooting us something was wrong with his camera. For some reason, I look uglier than usual in his shot. Dude, get a new camera, okay? Here's what we look like in real life:


with a good camera, we look just like
george clooney and zhang ziyi
THE FAMILIAR FACES
When we met Jeff Ooi, we were truly in the presence of greatness. I mean, that was a great plate of steak he was about to wolf down. Hehh! But don't fret Jeff, you're not so bad yourself. And congrats on the win.

Congrats also to Kenny Sia. I went up to him before the award. "Can you please take off your clothes, so we can be absolutely sure it's really you?" I enquired. He obliged by flashing his navel at us. "That guy is damn hairy," Mae told me later. He was. So was Minishorts - at least that what I think. She was to have come in nothing, but her nothing turned out to be her t-shirt. Damn cop out! And I brought my wife all the way just to see that (we're kinky, what can I say?). I'm considering legal action.

She also pointed out April to me, and proceeded to be the middleman of my short conversation with the young lady. I would have gone up to shake her hand but that might have appeared too eager and Mae would have ended the night with a cold beer down my pants. :)

AT THE BAR
Irene was already inside so we said hi to her. She's more dressy than we remember her. But then again the last time we met her was at our home. :)

Ben was at the bar. "You know my blog?" he didn't believe me. I've read his once or twice and I only know him as Tormentt. Equally tormented was his buddy, Clifford. Clifford was not a blogger but as he said, "After tonight, I will be."

Lainie and Fip were at the bar. But for some reason, I did not see Nessa. You always see Nessa in Lainie's blog. Oh well.

ALSO AT THE BAR
Andreas stood right next to me to order his beer. It took him awhile to finally make the connection that I was that James from LoopyMeals. It also took him awhile to grasp who Mae was. Hmm... somebody stop this man from drinking, please!

We met Jordan and his lovely wife Leen, which made me very conscious of my crooked teeth. Leen's a dentist. The whole time I talked to them, I tried to keep my lips as tightly shut as I could.

THE LEGEND
We were like a couple of groupies when we met TV Smith. Even as we put on a facade of calm, collected demeanour, we were cheering inside. I had read his blog even before it was a blog. You kids may not remember this, but back then TV had a website with an Immigration Checkpoint on the front page. Oh boy.

ONE FOR THE ROAD
We left soon after the closing. We had promised Roma we would be home by 10 pm but as things went, we stayed up till 11-ish. We were on our way out when the beer inside of me decided to come out. :) So I made a dash for the john. There I met Simon. He was all flush and his face was wet. He must have been crying - overwhelmed, no doubt, by his win last night. Hehheh. Congrats dude!

ON HINDSIGHT
The bash was as fun as it could have gotten. But as KY had pointed out, an MC might have helped mixed us up a little more. Mae and I are friendly people but we're not exactly social animals. We're also awfully shy. *sigh* And we ended up not meeting a lot of people we would have like to have met.

From afar, I saw Shaolin Tiger putting a Tiger in his tank. Along with him were Kimberly, Suanie and God whose reputations were impressed upon me as a newbie chatter on Dalnet's Malaysia & Mamak channels. For some reason, I was too malu to approach them. Sorry folks. Looking at some of the photos, it turned out that Galvin was also there. Strange, the one guy I know from this gang, I didn't see. Hmph!

I recognised KY from his blog. I spotted him passing me by once and never saw him again. Any guy who builds his own koi pond is good guy, in my books. I also saw Mack but never got to shake his hand. I had this mental image of an old, distinguished and Malay gentleman whenever I read his blog. Well, one out of three ain't bad. Heh.

BLOGGERCON 2006
The rest of you, I didn't have the privilege to meet. So many people, so little time. Maybe next year. Judging by the sound of things last night, we may have a National Blogger Convention next year. After you, Mr. Aizuddin.