PR insider for bloggers: How to get invited to PR events
Bloggers are now getting invited to events organised by PR agencies for the clients.
In Singapore, it seem those who are invited are the “In Group” bloggers from Ping.sg or those who are usually hitting the Top 10 at the same blog aggregation site.
If you do not qualify in either category, here are some tips, from the inside, on how you, as a blogger, can get yourself invited to such events.
Tip 1: Improve your “About” page
When PR selects a particular blogger to an event, the PR person needs to submit a brief to the client in order for the client to understand who the blogger is.
To assist the PR person, you, as a blogger, should fill up your “About” page accordingly with as much details as possible.
The essential details should include your name and your email address. If the PR person have selected your blog and can’t contact you, how would you expect the agency to invite you to the event?
Unfortunately, most PR would not put the invitation in your comments field as they fear that the event might end up too public.
In the about page, you should include a description of your blog and what interests you. This would have the PR person to have a better understanding of your blog and you as a blogger, thus increase your chance of selection.
Tip 2: Use a public webstats page
In the PR industry, it is still a numbers game. The more readers or visitors you have, the more likely you will be invited for the event.
Hence, its advisable to share your stats with a open webstats page. These numbers will provide further justification to have you invited for the event.
Otherwise, most PR person will make use of Alexa.com to get an estimation of your blog numbers and this estimation may not best reflect the true popularity of your blog.
Tip 3: Send an introductory email to the PR agencies
Take a look the bloggers that have been invited for these events and you would most likely see the names of the PR agencies that have organised the events.
Some of the agencies, in Singapore, that have invited bloggers to events include Waggener Edstrom, Ogilvy PR and EASTWEST PR.
Go to their websites and email them a quick description of your blog and yourself. They will definitely keep you in file and select you for events in the future.
Singapore Toy and Comic Convention Cosplay winners
From left, Third place, winner and second
This blogger was at the first Singapore Toy and Comic Convention on Sunday and managed to catch the finals of the cosplay:anime finals.
You have to pardon this blogger’s ignorance of the characters the top three winners were trying to portray. If you are knowledgeable of the anime characters, please drop a comment.
Cute wins another competition
Is it just me or Singaporeans prefer “cute” in general? Cutie-pie here won the hearts of the audience with a cute rendition of some Japanese anime tune. I thought the guy below with his extravagant cosplay costume would have won the competition straight on.
“Fallen angel” came in third
Also seen at the Singapore Toy & Comic Convention:
Stormtroopers taking a break from hunting Jedis and playing a game of Wii Tennis
Magic: The Gathering enthusiasts
Comic artist demonstrating their fine arts on the spot
For more photos, click here.
Blogger babes at CommunicAsia
Protected: Fake or not?
Just for laughs
Got this in the email… I dont know how true it is, but I think the laughs are damn worth the time it takes to compile this news from 365 days of 2007!
Yes, it’s that magical time of the year again when the Darwin Awards are bestowed, honoring the least evolved among us. Here then, are the glorious winners for 2007:
1. When his 38-caliber revolver failed to fire at his intended victim during a hold-up in Long Beach, California, would-be robber James Elliot did something that can only inspire wonder. He peered down the barrel and tried the trigger again. This time it worked…..
And now, the honorable mentions:
2. The chef at a hotel in Switzerland lost a finger in a meat-cutting machine and, after a little shopping around, submitted a claim to his insurance company. The company expecting negligence sent out one of their men to have a look for himself. He tried the machine and he also lost a finger. The chef’s claim was approved.
3. A man who shoveled snow for an hour to clear a space for his car during a blizzard in Chicago
returned with his vehicle to find a woman had taken the space. Understandably, he shot her.
4. After stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a Zimbabwean bus driver found that the 20 mental patients he was supposed to be transporting from Harare to Bulawayo had escaped. Not wanting to admit his incompetence, the driver went to a nearby bus stop and offered everyone waiting there a free ride.
He then delivered the passengers to the mental hospital, telling the staff that the patients were very excitable and prone to bizarre fantasies. The deception wasn’t discovered for 3 days.
5. An American teenager was in the hospital recovering from serious head wounds received from an oncoming train. When asked how he received the injuries, the lad told police that he was simply trying to see how close he could get his head to a moving train before he was hit.
6. A man walked into a Louisiana Circle-K, put a $20 bill on the counter, and asked for change. When the clerk opened the cash drawer, the man pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in the register, which the clerk promptly provided. The man took the cash from the clerk and fled, leaving the $20 bill on the counter. The total amount of cash he got from the drawer…$15.
(If someone points a gun at you and gives you money, is a crime committed?)
7. Seems an Arkansas guy wanted some beer pretty badly. He decided that he’d just throw a cinder-block through a liquor store window, grab some booze, and run. So he lifted the cinder-block and heaved it over his head at the window. The cinder-block bounced back and hit the would-be thief on the head, knocking him unconscious. The liquor store window was made of Plexiglas. The whole event was caught on videotape.
8. As a female shopper exited a New York convenience store, a man grabbed her purse and ran. The clerk called ‘911′ immediately, and the woman was able to give them a detailed description of the snatcher.
Within minutes, the police apprehended the snatcher. They put him in the car and drove back to the store. The thief was then taken out of the car and told to stand there for a positive ID. To which he replied, ‘Yes, officer, that’s her. That’s the lady I stole the purse from.’
(And they wonder why tigers eat their young!)
9. The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked into a Burger King in Ypsilanti,
Michigan, at 5 A.M., flashed a gun, and demanded cash. The clerk turned him down because he said he couldn’t open the cash register without a food order. When the man ordered onion rings, the clerk said they weren’t available for breakfast. The man, frustrated, walked away.
***A 5-STAR STUPIDITY AWARD WINNER***
10. When a man attempted to siphon gasoline from a motor home parked on a Seattle street, he got much more than he bargained for.
Police arrived at the scene to find a very sick man curled up next to a motor home near spilled sewage. A police spokesman said that the man admitted to trying to steal gasoline and plugged his siphon hose into the motor home’s sewage tank by mistake. The owner of the vehicle declined to press charges, saying that it was the best laugh he’d ever had.
In the interest of bettering human kind please share these with your friends and family .. unless of course one of these individuals by chance is a distant relative or long lost friend. In that case be glad they are distant and hope they remain lost.
Remember—– they walk among us!
Spotted at 4 Seasons Hotel, Bangkok…
…by SmartBrain during the launch of “AMD Phenom X4 and Spider”…
What will they come up with next? And whatever the outcome, I hope our hardworking SmartBrain got her number…;)
“Journos like you” do not get to go on this junket, part two
Atos Origin. That is the name of the company who would undoubtedly has won 2007’s junket cancellation excuse of the year award if there was one and this post is a story about why they should so be honoured.
Cancellations happen all the time. Sometime the unavailability of the speaker is genuine, other times they want “Mr Editor” but needed a good reason to get rid of “Mr Reporter”, not that there is anything wrong with that. Only giving a nice, civil reason is preferable to an elitist slur calling the journalist, “people like you”.
A while back, around a month ago, a PR agency in Singapore contacted Smartbrain inviting him to view the Atos Origin operations centre for the Beijing Olympics. Little did any of us expect that it would soon descend into an acrimonious exchange of messages.
On 30 October, Atos Origin asked Smartbrain where to return his passport in a strangely terse email that made no mention of the travel arrangements. Later that day the country manager (who I have been advised not to mess with as his business partner turned father in law is a well known arms dealer) sends an apology to say (nicely) that the trip has been cancelled. Smartbrain asked why, but got no response.
On 31 October, Smartbrain asks again in an admittedly colloquial and short email, “Knock knock, anyone there? Any reason the trip was cancelled?”
Apparently that touched a raw nerve and this was the reply from Atos Origin in full, except with names removed.
Khun [Smartbrain],
I think your attitude towards us is quite a surprise to me. Let me remind you that its an opportunity for the newpaper you work for to attend this, and the cost is being paid by Atos Origin. I certainly do not need to answer to you, and justify why I have personally cancel your trip. I would have no problem in giving you the reason, why I have cancel this trip, but now I can tell you that I do not like your attitude, and do not want to associate something I feel very special for us, with people like you.
[Country Manager].
To which Smartbrain replied immediately after his hands stopped shaking:
Wow.Talk about hitting a raw nerve. Sorry… I usually have my emails quite colloquial and I would like to remind you that it has been more than 24 hours since I got the cancellation and not have had any explanation as to why it was cancelled. Anyway, thanks for letting me know that you personally cancelled my trip because of not wanting to associate the event with “people like me”.
I am still trying to understand what “people like me” actually means, but…
Because of your trip, I had to pass up two other trips overseas for [vendor] and [vendor] so I do consider my time invested a major investment, not just for myself, but for my readers.I think that out of courtesy I at least deserve an explanation, but as you so eloquently put it, you do not need to give me one. Fair enough.
Perhaps the other journalists you work with work only on money and free meals. I plan my work mainly around interesting stories.
Was the cancellation because you managed to get me rejected for a visa? Or was it for some other reason. That is what I wanted to know.
While I appreciate that you are paying, I would also like to point out that I did warn you from day one of the problems that the Chinese embassy have with issuing J2 visas. I did warn [PR Agency Person] from the outset that the rules state you need a “letter from a competent Chinese authority” to back up the visa application. In the case of [a Chinese IT company], they got me a letter from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs acknowledging their event. I did suggest a number of alternatives, such as the Olympic committee even.
In particular, I was appalled at your staff’s attitude to the visa application. [Dumb blonde secretary] said she would apply for a tourist visa, hence my first email warning you of the difficulties you may have. She said that it is easier to get a tourist visa and even went so far as to say that the letter I got from the [publication] (which included the invitation letter from [PR Agency Person]) was not needed as it was not a business trip. When I requested the day flight, the immediate reaction I got was that there was no such flight.
TG614 is the flight I took last time to Beijing and it was a day flight.
If anything, I think I should be the one feeling irked at you for the outright lies (that there is no day flight) and attitude you have in maybe getting me blacklisted from the Chinese embassy in applying for a tourist visa where a journalist visa is required.
..
I’m still wondering what made you hate me so much. My colloquialism? Perhaps. The fact that I wanted you to obey the rules for the visa? Or the request for the day trip. Never mind.
My only regret is that I really, really supported your relative in his fight against the previous regime and it saddens me that such a great man has a relative like yourself.
:)
[Smartbrain]
On a side note, it is interesting that the Country Manager cc’d the Vice-President of Atos Origin on the “people like you” email. That makes one wonder if it was a slip of the mouse, pressing reply-all without thinking, or if the higher echelons of Atos Origin actually agree with that reprehensible point of view. At the very least, they have not apologised for it.
Also, to make the timing clear, the event was cancelled before the “knock-knock” email so his dislike of my attitude must have preceded that email, not stemmed from it.
For the record, Smartbrain has never dealt with Atos Origin before; never written about them; never even seen a press release from them on his desk to ignore; never met with the country manager before either in this job, or in his previous job.
Would Smartbrain accept another Atos Origin invitation to an event or press conference? Probably not for an overseas event in which they painfully remind us that they are paying for it and that we poor “people like you” journalists are beggars who cannot ask any questions of their hosts. But for a press conference, definitely and my first question would be, “What did you mean when you emailed me on 31st October referring to ‘people like you’?”
The case of the missing iTouch.
Talk about stars acting as prima donnas.
The star of today’s Apple press conference was the iTouch and it didn’t turn up as promised.
You know, that iTouch. Its that iPod that has the iPhone interface without the phone.
Well, the iTouch didn’t make it to Singapore shores in time for the press conference.
According to Apple’s PR, the iTouch just finished production in the US and couldn’t make it in time for the conference.
HTC is rumoured has taken the opportunity to confirm that its star product will appear on Thursday night. Rumours are that it is the iTouch evil twin which you can actually make a call with.
Congrats to Terence Tan who won the fatty Nano during the press conference.
(NB: Strange but truth, the(new)mediaslut doesn’t know which publication Terence Tan represents though)
Protests at IDC event Cow 2.0 event
Smartbrain went to the IDC Asia/Pacific’s Business Optimisation, BI, BPM and SOA conference 2007 today despite not receiving any invitation from IDC.
The interesting thing was that nobody, in the hallways at least, was talking about BI, BPM or SOA, but rather attention during coffee breaks was focused on politics. One anti-charter and pro-Thaksin protester sat in, red shirt proclaming her loyalties, which meant that those in the know were talking about her, and the visitors from Singapore were asking Smartbrain about the political situation.
The arrest warrants for Thickskin Shinybutt, sorry, Thaksin Shinawatra, and his wife are a hot topic. On Tuesday, 14th August, he and his wife failed to show up at an initial hearing on a corruption case regarding the purchase of a piece of land.
The accusations and irregularties aside (the Land Department opened on a weekend to push the deal through before a conveyance tax rise came into force the next working day and the land value shot up as the then pro-Thaksin Bangkok governor repealed a low-building only law almost immediately afterwards not to mention the main accusation that the bid was stitched up and not legal – politicians and wives of politicians cannot do deals with the government), the reason the arrest warrant was issued was simple. He did not show up at a court hearing.
The hearing would have been simple enough. Is this your name? Are you the accused? Do you plead guilty or not guilty? Say no the last question and he would be on his way back home to Manchester City.
But no. Thaksin is above the law. He had to challenge the courts by saying it was not safe to return. His lawyers also claimed that Thaksin didn’t get the court summons as it was not delivered to his real address.
The courts had little choice. Allowing for either excuse would have set up a dangerous precedent so now Thaksin is a fugitive. His crime? Not showing up at a court hearing.
Sometimes it is the simple things in life that matter. No, the 2,500 extra judicial killings, the Tak Bai and Krue Se massacres, the abduction and disappearance of anti-government activists, the rampant corruption and nepotism, none of that got him in trouble (yet). His crime is skipping an arraignment hearing (in which he would have been granted bail automatically), but it is a crime nonetheless.
Tomorrow on Friday, the pair may get another pair of arrest warrants for now showing up at another arraignment hearing, this one on asset concealment for one of his many companies. Politicians have to declare their assets.
A few years back, Thaksin famously forgot to declare some assets held by his cook and gardener and the courts back then ruled him “unintentionally non-compliant”, an ruling that has set a dangerous legal precedent. Tomorrow, it will be interesting to see how the courts rule now that his reign has ended.
Most of the media seem to agree that asking for extradition on this no-show would be a tad difficult, but most also concur that the government needs to get the 2,500 extra judicial killings into account to get the UK government to act.
Knut has taken over SAP
Smartbrain went to the SAP summit 2007 in Bangkok, expecting the worst. After all, can any company be more boring than SAP? Can any industry be more boring than Enterprise software?
Cuteness greeted Smartbrain at the entrance.
An army of SAP bears
Electra is an SI doing SAP implementation.
Symantec joined in with the bear necessities theme.
IBM launched its new database, named ddb2b, the successor to db2.
No dumped chips here, just balloons.
In the wake of the EU Commission’s ruling that Intel has been selling its server chips at below cost in an anticompetitve move, HP showed off its new Superdome, the Itanium-less Superbox. SAP promises to be platform neutral, but this may be stretching it a bit.
Last weekend…
Boo headed to PIKOM PC Fair and later, Low Yat Plaza in search of a good, cheap notebook.
The plastic hand is about the size of a regular human hand, so you can imagine size of the U1010 convertible (which is also a tablet eeeek! Of COZ its a tablet!!)… touchscreen, Windows Vista Basic, Intel processor, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 5.6-inch display, 0.61kg etc …….(yummmmmmm but solid state memory, when?…….when??) Me want…ME WANT!!! (Retailing for less than RM5000)
Boo continued quest for notebook at Low Yat…but prices were not much different. A new branded notebook at PC Fair (with mainstream specs - 512MB, 60G-80GB HDD size, below Pentium Core Duos) were going for about RM1799, same as at Low Yat. (After Da Woof’s prompt - mainstream in this context is what that Boo saw a lot of at PC Fair and LYP on that particular day, for Boo’s friend type of usage. For Da Woof, its "Intel CD, 1GB RAM and 80GB HDD, no less :P")
The most popular notebook we saw was the latest Acer Aspires with new ID designs…(very, very nice!), and (from what we saw that day) these were the cheapest around as well at RM1799 but usually cos they used and used AMD processors and/or Linux OS.
On the rare occasion there was a lower price, it would be by about RM50 cheapr and had a free colour printer thrown in. Once we stumbled upon a booth that offered that. The booth right next to it, was RM5 more and WITHOUT a free gift.
When we asked about it, cheaper booth guy slowly pulled the placard away and adjusted the price to match (but it still didnt have a free gift!)
Was the booth with free colour printer, some sort of gangster and the other salesman had to adjust price or risk being bashed up?
Or do they both have the same owner, who used that kind of gimmick to give the illusion that customers would be getting a good deal??
Boo don’t know :(
The Girlz of BuyButtonz fair 2007
BuyButtonz concluded their BuyButtonz fair for bloggers at Far East Plaza in Singapore yesterday.
Flyers distributors for BuyButtonz.
(Photo courtesy of Douglas Fun of www.demoments.com)
Prior to the trade fair, Miccheng of the Lazy Serial Entrepreneur blog commented on the BuyButtonz’s Ts & Cs which he was critical of some points.
As part of ChainFusion’s blog engagement policy, via Pacific West, they were quick to address Miccheng’s concerns (look at the comments field of the same entry).
BuyButtonz fair visitors appreciating the t-shirt design from Wanton Doodles.
(Photo courtesy of Douglas Fun of www.demoments.com)
At www.larrylim.net, the Singapore SEO consultant described Pacific West of engaging Ping.sg as their official media as "clever marketing hype created by Andrew Peters".
Andrew Peters is the MD for The Pacific West .
However, Larry also highlighted the wordpress.com problems that Andrew encountered on the eve of the launch.
themediaslut notes that this highlight the risk companies using free hosted sites, like wordpress.com or blogspot.com, where the site can be taken down at any sign of any terms of service violation that could beyond their control.
Companies should not be so stingy as to host their blog on a free website. A new wordpress blog with domain only costs SGD8 per month on some hosting site and it takes only ten minutes or less to set one up.
Luckily for Andrew, he was able to come up with a quick recovery with a new blog at aplink.beezy.biz and he is now in the process of setting up his own blog at www.aplink.biz .
The team of Ping.sg at the BuyButtonz fair.
(Photo courtesy of Douglas Fun of www.demoments.com)
Blogger engagement seem to be the in-thing nowadays. Ping.sg, a meta blog aggregator, was appointed the official media for the event.
Pacific West made use of the easy-to-use streaming site, www.ustream.tv, to stream the day events. A streaming window was prominently placed on the ping.sg.
However, the bandwidth provided by Wireless Sg was very bad and caused laggy upstream to ustream servers. This created laggy stream on Ping.sg site and others who could easily paste the codes onto their blog. Audio was a way no-no because of the bandwidth.
With event over and done with, Pacific West and Chainfusion should continue engaging the bloggers on what BuyButtonz really is and how it works for them as an easy online payment gateway.
With a better understanding of BuyButtonz , maybe online retailers can smile as beautifully as her all the way to the bank.
(Photo courtesy of Douglas Fun of www.demoments.com)
HP beauties in Korea
Its been awhile since themediaslut posted photos on this blog but HP recently invited a few ASEAN tech journalists to Korea to attend a press conference about their HP Touchsmart PC and Vista touchscreen notebook.
Vista, who cares? Meet the real stars…
And if you were wondering if tech journalists have a lot fun at an event, check out their schedule.
Its like a two days packed event, filled with briefings and interviews, which left the journalist no time to explore any part of Seoul.
Day 1
| Time | Activities | Venue |
Day 2
| Time | Activities | Venue |
Slingers skins Crocodiles with 11 point win
The Singapore Slingers woke up from their new year slumber to beat the Townsville Crocodiles 114-103 in a Australia National Basketball League ladder match yesterday at the Singapore Indoor Stadium.
Guards Off.. Slingers No 14 Brad Davidson (left) vs Townsville No 4 Kelvin Robertson
Compared to the match on Wednesday, the determined Slingers looked more energetic and played with the purpose to prove their critics wrong.
Townsville No 4 Kelvin Robertson attacking the board with Slingers No 35 Marquin Chandler attempting to block
Leading the charge was Slingers’ No 23 Mike Helms attacking the boards and scored a total of 34 points.
Showtime! by Slingers’ No 23 Mike Helms
In the second quarter, Helms made a aggressive block shot that the crowd got could only cheer in awe.. Unfortunately, themediaslut was fast enough to take that shot.
Helms jumping tall trying to tip the ball into the basket
Townsville’s No 4 Robertson stole the ball from center court, charged downtown and wowed the Townsville’s supporters with 2 points.
Disappointed Townsville’s supporters booing a referee’s bad call towards the end of the game.
Show Time! by the Singapore Slinger Girls
It was a Harvey Norman Appreciation Night at the Slingers game and the Slinger Girls were dancing to the beat of the Harvey Norman tune most of the time.
The Slingers game provided Harvey Norman the alternative to another usual boring Dinner and Dance appreciation night.
Slinger girls adding an oriental touch to their routine
L is for consumer
Lenovo today launched their series of desktops and notebooks to the consumer market.
Koh Kong Meng, Director, Strategy and Operations for Lenovo ASEAN launching the Lenovo desktops and notebooks for the consumer
Melody Chan, one of those Asian Amazing Racers, hosting the launch
These Lenovo models spot a big revolution jump in PC and desktop design.
Lenovo taking the home office approach for their demostration
For example, the Lenovo Q Series come with a Jog Dial that allows users to control their multimedia feature of the desktops.
Left: The Lenovo Q Series on display. The Q Series starting price is at S$1,599
Right: A close up of the Jog Dial.
Another change to the design to a notebook is the Y400 series that spot a hidden touchpad.
Look Mom! No Touchpad. There were no price announced for the Lenovo Y400 notebook.
Lenovo has made a tie-up with AsiaSoft, the distributors of MapleStory and World of Warcraft, to bundle a starter unit of the online MapleStory game for the Y300 and Y400 series. This starter pack will also include 10,000 A cash (MapleStory Currency).
There were also rumours that Lenovo might do a similar tie-up with AsiaSoft for the upcoming launch for the World of Warcraft’s expansion pack, Burning Crusade, in January 2007 but this was just hopeful thinking by the WOW crazy journalists there.
But if Lenovo do have a tie-up planned, themediaslut might consider buying the Lenovo desktops.
Other photos
themediaslut love the new Lenovo model..
Want a closer look at the Lenovo model?
What were your expecting???
Update: SG PR drinks moved to Nov 24 2006
(Update: Damm this PR peeps.. cannot make up their minds one… so fickle minded one.. lol no lah just kidding. You all know themediaslut love you peeps!!!
Apparently, due to popular demand, a majority of the PR who want to go can only make it the week after next. So the drinks will be on
Nov 24, 2006. Same place, same time.)
Aaron Koh of MediaConnect Asia has informed themediaslut that there will be a year-end PR drinks session on Nov 17 at The Boulevard Bar, Red Dot Traffic Building, Singapore and it starts at 630pm.
This round of PR drinks is initiated by Mike Liew of Upstream Asia .
Mike Liew:
2006 has been a relatively quiet year for these drinks (the only session held this year was in late April, and we had four rounds last year!) but don’t let this stop you from having a great time this time around.
So grab your colleagues and friends from the PR and media business, and join us at The Boulevard Bar as we drink ourselves silly and trade the latest gossips.
If you are in Singapore and working in the field of public relations, drop by The Boulevard for a drink and networking session with your peers in the same industry.
If you are a student majoring in communications and want to find out more about the PR industry in Singapore, drop by. But if you are 18, you can’t drink!!!
Email aaron(at)mediaconnectasia.com if you are going to drop by.
Wanted: themediaslut!!!
It was a dark and stormy night….
We had a call from HQ that themediaslut has struck again.
This time HQ suspects themediaslut to be responsible for the death of of a journalist, taking over his identity, gatecrashed an event, took photos and her innocent victim on posted on her blog of the same name.
How cunning and evil!
HQ said themediaslut had already left, but we, the FOX crime enforcement unit , were left with the task of finding evidence to get us one step closer to themediaslut.
We arrived to the sence in our trusty black van. As we stood out the van, we could smell the stench of death. It was too calm.. too calm…
The Crime
HQ brought us straight to the body. themediaslut had left her mark. One straight blow to the head that all themediaslut took. There lies an innocent journalist, waiting to make his mark in the industry, only to be silenced.
One dead journalist… from the mainstream perhaps?
The Evidence
This time round, themediaslut was a little too careless… She left too many things behind for us to bring back to the lab.
Careless, very careless…
Left: The Hammer, the final blow…
Right: Shoes from the victim.. Bata… definately a no-no for themediaslut
Right: Leather high heel… themediaslut wouldn’t be caught dead in that… too slutty she will say..
The Suspects
HQ gave us a few photos but we don’t think its any of them…
Witnesses
We spoke to the witness at the scene of the crime but they say they heard nothing… no screams.. nothing…
Left: "themediaslut took out her big DSLR camera and told us to smile.. so we smiled"
Center: "What? Murder!..I am here for the free drinks.. themediaslut also told me she killed for a drink…"
Right: "themediaslut told us her favourite all time show was Kojak.. heard a remake will be shown on the new channel 86 on Starhub.."
No one knows who or has heard of themediaslut… no one..
Its back to the labs for us… but one day… we will get themediaslut.. we will…
TGS 2006 Booth Babes
E3’s ban on scantily-clad booth babes contributes to its decline. Good thing the Japanese are smarter.
A few days back, Mike featured Tokyo Game Show 2006 cosplay cuties at Asian Sirens. Now, enjoy the booth babes.
Post Thaksin celebrations just out of Bangkok
It’s been a while.
Smartbrain has not been publishing much on TMS for the simple reason of being manically busy. But work took a back seat lately to the celebrations that have been sweeping Thailand now that we are free from the most autocratic leader in recent times. Plus, since there were no mass rallies, it was not that fun anyway.
Actually, Smartbrain had bought a new lightweight aluminum ladder for the protests originally scheduled for yesterday, but that was cancelled for obvious reasons (i.e. Thaksin did get indeed get out).
Life will never be the same again. No more shouting Thaksin - Get Out!, no more spending hours in traffic travelling to mobs in the city, no more choking on Bangkok’s traffic fumes while we protest and suddenly the Thaksin-Get Out ring tone seems soooo yesterday.
These pictures were taken at a junction out of Bangkok, half way to Khao Yai.
Pictures from Bangkok show piles and piles of flowers and water bottles given to the liberators.
Out here, most people simply stopped to take photographs, creating a mini-traffic jam.
Smartbrain saw them on the way out and bought them a box of doughnuts on the way home.
Virtually everyone on Smartbrain’s IM lists in Thailand are celebrating. Virtually everyone outside of Thailand cannot understand why.
In a nutshell, nothing could have got worse with the status quo. Well over 10 billion Baht of projects were abused and delivered but never really used. Projects were going to people because of connections rather than capability, oh and who can forget the fact that we still do not have 3G or the fact that the broadband here is among the slowest, least reliable and most expensive anywhere.
Plus, 5GHz wifi is still illegal.
The list goes on.
What does this have to do with Thaksin? Everything. Incompetent leaders were appointed in the IT industry for their, er, prior work in Shincorp rather than their technical excellence, while capable people who did not agree were sidelined and promoted into inactive posts.
But enough of that.
Today, let us enjoy the celebrations and freedom. Freedom to walk the streets without being stomped on by drug-running pro-Thaksin goons, freedom to go to a mosque in the south without being shot, stomped on and murdered in cold blood, freedom to disagree with the government (not there is one though) without being gunned down and becoming a statistic along with the 2,000 odd others killed in the "war on drugs."
Oh, and freedom to bid on government projects without paying a kickback and being investigated for tax evasion, money laundering and everything under the sun just to keep you from working.
And who can forget that we can also save lots of money on software promotion instead of seeing it handed on a golden platter to movies which were half-finished anyway in the name of "promotion of the animation industry."
We are also free to submit projects now to the powers that be, safe in the knowledge that they will not be taken and sub-contracted to us later with half the money taken up by some politically connected board member.
But for now, more pictures of celebrations about 50km North of Bangkok.
Thailand coup latest (20 Sept 2006, 01:21)
Military coups and states of emergency are weird experiences at the best of times. They are particuarly weird when there is very little information in the local vernacular about it.Many Thais are only waking up this morning to discover that the nation’s military launched a coup against the controversial Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra last night. The coup was launched when 14 tanks surrounded the central government compound and locked down the civic centre of Bangkok. Thais knew something was wrong last night - all Thai language television channels suspended normal programming and replaced it with patriotic music and written messages urging all to remain indoors.Only those with access to cable TV - a small minority - caught the news on a specialist Thai news channel or the foreign news channels CNN and BBC. I experienced the weird phenomenon last night of being asked to explain to normal Thais what the BBC was saying about their own crisis!
Then, at midnight exactly, CNN and BBC were taken off the air. Word on the street at 11.30pm was for all people to be indoors by midnight or else.
As at midnight, it had also emerged that mobile phone service across Bangkok had been cut, preventing SMS texting and, presumably, the capability to form mobs (Internet connectivity is low here, SMS rules).
All that we really know was that the coup was apparently undertaken out of loyalty to the monarch and to the cause of democracy.Thaksin was hanging on after a deligitimised election victory earlier this year in an effective caretaker capacity and there has been much talk that the only reason a coup hadn’t happened to date was because of the King’s anniversary celebrations, now long gone.
With Thaksin in the Americas for various multilateral meetings and a particuarly brutal bombing this week in the southern city of Hat Yai, following an apparent botched assassination attempt on Thaksin that many say was faked to frame elements of the military, the time was a ripe as ever for a coup. The big question for Thais today is how much the entire military supports the coup.
Thaksin has moved supporters into various bits of the military - and for his faults, Thaksin is genuinely popular among the rural masses and a people’s choice as PM outside of Bangkok and the city’s military and social elites. It could well be that the military contains fifth columns that support Thaksin, and which support his call for a state of emergency, leading to everyone’s worst nightmare - an intra-military conflict for control of the nation.
In such a situation, the country is again - as so often before - likely to be forced to turn to the monarchy to find a solution to its crisis.
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