Astro B.yond Bloggers Night!

"Experience like never before,
See like never before,
Hear like never before,
Touch like never before,
Feel like never before."

Astro has recently launched its HD broadcast service (previously known as Astro HD) as Astro B.yond on 18 December 2009.Modesto Sri Hartamas

As it was still relatively unknown to most subscribers at that time, Astro has launched a Blogger's Night event at Modesto Sri Hartamas on 13th January with the help of Nuffnang to recruit the bloggers.The stage of the event.

Before that, thank you Nuffnang and Astro because I got invited. Woohoo!

The event starts at 7.30pm but arrived on scene about half an hour later with fellow blogger MichL. (Wanted to ask Wee Sheong to join but he was at Penang at the time...)

Me

As we arrived late, there was no place to park the car and we had to resort to valet service which costs RM10 compared to RM5 if we found the parking ourself.

Me

MichL

After registering (and writing our New Year's resolution), we were greeted with a scene of many people who seem all so familiar.( a high percentage of the attendees were bloggers)

Bloggers armed with DSLRs

We met up with Samuel to catch up on what we had missed in the first half an hour which thankfully (for Malaysian timing) we didn't.

MichL, me and Samuel

The event started slightly after 8pm with an opening speech by the emcee.
(sorry, Jojo Struys was not the emcee but she was present)

Later on was the speech by Astro COO officially declaring the event and showing the official TV commercial for Astro B.yond which was shot in HD(obviously).

Astro COO giving his welcoming speech and officiating the event.

There are currently 5 channels available in HD which are HBO HD, History HD, National Geographic HD, AstroSport HD and ESPN HD.

(which promises that the 2010 World Cup will be available in HD here. Something for the football fans to shout about)

The bloggers were also part of the event as celebrity bloggers such as sixthseal.com , beautifulnara , Shaolin Tiger , Red Mummy among the featured.



Blogger's intro to HD.

When that was over, everyone who attended had free food (buffet style) consisting of pasta, sphagetti, roasted lamb,chicken, fried mushrooms and eggplant.

The free food.

Did I mention about free flow of drinks which includes beer?

While we were eating, we were entertained by drummers who went on stage to give us a lively performance.



Drummer's performance

Right after the drummers went off stage Sixthseal and Rocky went on stage to give us a briefing on the on site game to win the 32" LCD TV by LG and a year's worth of Astro B.yond subscription.



The game is called Murder in the Details which has a Facebook game with the same rewards.

Basically, we have to find 5 clues which are printed on A4 paper that can only be viewed using the supplied magnifying glass to find the culprit to a mother case ala Sherlock Holmes style.

As the game required a team of 5 people, me and MichL made some friends with the other bloggers namely CWKen , Aaron and Gary.

Behind: Gary, Aaron, Ken
Front: MichL and me.

After running around in circle around Modesto with 19 other teams (there were 20 teams in total), we managed to find 4 of the clues with me being the clueless one as there were many people blocking the way.

We managed to find out from the clues that the culprit is a female Nuffie wearing a band aid in a red dress which sounds easy except that there are quite a number of girls wearing red on that day.

The worst part is the band aid part of the clue was fake and only served to mislead us as a team got kicked out of the game for getting the wrong culprit. (Ouch!)

Luck was not really on our side that day as we were talking to the culprit before the wining team managed to take her away. Haiz....

The wining team were then subjected to a question and answer session which was finally won by Eric Yong.

The winning team

After the winner was crowned, the scenario for the game was re enacted.

It seems that Sixthseal and Rocky had an affair under the whims of a business partnership which was found out by sixthseal's girlfriend which is Fres and sixthseal was stabbed.

Thankfully, I got it all on video for those who are still blur.




Rocky and Sisthseal's "relationship".

Found out by Fres.

Sixthseal's death scene.

After all that, there event was officially over but me and MichL stayed around to check out who were present and noticed that Benjicajes and Jojo Struys were also there.

MichL, Benjicajess and me.

We managed to take a photo with Benjicajess but not with Jojo Struys as she seemed pretty busy with two cameramen shooting video for Project Alpha 2 (presumably).

We both left the event at 10.30pm and had lots of fun there (although I didn't get to finish my plate as we rushed to join in the game).

Thank you Astro and Nuffnang for inviting the non-celebrity bloggers such as me to this event and I hope that there will be more in the future.

Peace!

:)