Just another Serendipity

Saper nakkkk??

Spider Pig

Hans Zimmer

Bwahahahahahaaaaa.... tak kosser aku...

Changing theme songs...

From

Daughtry's Home

to

Linkin Park's What I've Done...

Aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye!!!!

Haru biru....

Goreng Garing nyer...

Jerry C Canon Rock Cannon

Wa no komen... lu dengar jer.... :D

Hey... Congrats!!

Yeay.. yeay..

To Rehot and Im....

Aiseh... diorang dah gi Jogja... mana sempat tengok post nih.. hihiihihihiihii...

Meet Little Becky...

Rebecca Barry

She is one cute lass from Dublin... I'm sure some of you have bumped into her on the net if you are adventurous enough to explore the world of pranks. For those who are not familiar of what she's good at, take it like this - she's the female version of Bart Simpson who pull pranks at Moe's Tavern.

Currently, there are a few sites hosting some of her prank calls. I have some of the clips and am sure there are more out there. She's not just another random caller who makes calls and recorded herself. Somehow, she's associated with a Dublin based radio station much like what the local Hitz.fm is doing now - employing children to pull pranks on people to make it less suspicious.

Anyway, here's one of her best pranks pulled for a demolition company.

Becky - Demolition Company

Rebecca Barry @ Little Becky

Boy, I wish I can ask her to do the same for my office... mueheheheheee...

Simply Awesome!!

The first time I heard this tune, I was like....

"What the heck was that?? I LIKE IT!!"

Set You On Fire (Widescreen)

... and played the tune over and over again.... serious havoc siol...

My hats off to the Shuvit Team!!

So, what's next Steve??

Ko hentam jer lar Steve... bagi orang gelak kat ko jer..

Steve Jobs (SNL Spoof)

Kalo cam tu, sebesar mancis pun dah leh muat banyak benda dah..

Prank Call : Grandfather Clock...

Let's try something a bit different... you've heard about podcast before, right? If you've experience it, with the wrong kind of presenter who want to tell his/her little diary history about the mundane life they are going through, then... it's BOOOOOOORIIIINGGGGGG!!

Here's something different...

Prank Call - Clock

Prank Call

Obviously, not done by me... I don't take credit for it.

QotD: Fridge History

What's the oldest thing in your fridge?

Urghhh... I dunno.... may be a speck of dust or some used barf bags that I forgot to throw away...

Anyway, I'm just making these up, as currently... I don't have any fridges to tell a tale or two.. wakakakakakaaa....

Get A Clue!

This article is from The Star Online (http://thestar.com.my)
URL: http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/7/7/lifeliving/18126704&sec=lifeliving

_____________________________________

Saturday July 7, 2007


GET A CLUE

ROSE YASMIN ABDUL KARIM

Been anywhere around the country lately? Visit Malaysia  2007 is fast on its way out, so if you haven’t, you may want to give treasure hunting a shot and kill two birds with one stone. Treasure hunting has an almost fail-proof allure. From Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, to the real-life hunt for plundered diamonds and priceless porcelain in the once pirate-infested Straits of Malacca, men have long been beguiled by clues, mysteries, and the promise of adventure and fortune.

 In Malaysia, you don’t need Jack Sparrow’s magic compass to lead you to that proverbial pot of gold. All it takes is a cryptic mind and a sharp wit.

 Treasure hunting today is something of an intellectual challenge, where groups work together to decipher sneaky clues. A Clerk of Course (CoC), or hunt master, charts a route using tulips, and participants are given clues, often in the form of riddle or puzzles.

 The answers are usually found on signboards, monuments, or buildings along the route. Sometimes, teams are also required to solve riddles that require specific items (called “treasures”) to be handed in. The winning team is the one that scores the highest.

 Rohana Mustaffa, 45, an assistant editor, dabbled in her first hunt a decade ago.

 “As an amateur, I had no clue how anagrams and cryptic clues would feature in the questions, but my team and I came prepared,” she recalls. “We learned beforehand how to read tulips (maps). In our second attempt, we were in the top four and, finally, during the Bernama Hunt, we were crowned champs,” says Rohana, who now competes regularly with her team, Men In Black, made up of husband Zukri Valenteno, 45, Raj Kumar, 45 and Govind Nair, 53, who is also a CoC.

 CoC Y.S. Khong points out that a hunt is generally too difficult for one person to solve, but with a team working together, you’ll see the light go on many times, he grins.

 “What hooks me is the joy and satisfaction of cracking the questions that seem almost impossible to answer,” says Rohana. “My team and I are not competing with other participants; rather, we are up against the CoC,” she adds.

 Khong, an event manager, says treasure hunts took off in Malaysia in the 1960s. “The British army organised treasure hunts to add colour to their weekends. Questions were simple: how many coconut trees are there in Ali’s garden or how many lampposts are there along Jalan Bangsar? The quest would end with a barbeque by the beach or a beer fest at a local clubhouse,” he explains.

 Since then, treasure hunts have gone through a series of facelifts.

 “The first hunt I organised was in 1974, for the Malaysian Motorsport club,” he says. “It started out with riddles, later I introduced anagrams and now, it’s a combination of devious wordplay.”

 There have also been changes to the rules of the game.

 In the early 1990s, participants had to surrender their handphones to ensure no one got a leg-up from external resources. “Confiscating handphones does not stop participants from getting to one,” says Dominic Roche, CoC of Time Out Solutions, an event management company

 Journalist Nair, shares the same sentiment. “It’s not practical to set a law that can’t be policed.”

 Despite gadgets being allowed, Roche and Nair agree that treasure hunts today are much tougher. In the early days, trivia questions were popular and drew on team members’ stored-up base of knowledge. Now, the answers are cleverly disguised, so even with Internet access, they remain a challenge.

 “Even if you have all the latest IT gadgets to help out, you can’t win the hunt if you don’t have the knowledge or the ability to interpret what the CoC is asking,” says seasoned treasure hunter K.K. Chai.

 “It is just like doing crossword puzzle: how much help can one get from the Internet?” asks Chai, who has taken part in more than 200 hunts, his first in 1998, during the 5th Kiwanis Treasure Hunt (now in its 24th year).

 Nair says red herrings are usually thrown in to distract participants from the answer. “Two different signboards may seem to offer the answer but one might be closer to the clue than the other.”

 “The clues must unfold itself and not be staring right back at you all the while, which doesn’t make you feel very clever breaking it,” says Roche.

 “Usually my team are not worried about the lengthy questions, instead we are wary of short, multi-layered and multi-dimensional questions, with little clues,” says Rohana.

 One look at the questions, and a regular hunter can sometimes guess who the CoC is. Thus, the challenge is for a CoC to remain unpredictable.

 “On a recent hunt, I asked participants to spot the picture of a frog. A Giordano signboard fitted the bill but the picture in the question paper was a mirror image,” says Khong. “What I wanted was a reflection of the Giordano picture on a tall glass window building across the road.”

 Talk about elaborate.

 “When it comes to the treasure section, the idea is for participants to bring back an item, but it could also be something intangible,” says Roche. “We have asked hunters to bring us a high-five, but we don’t mean the bread. It was worded in such a way that they were suppose to high five us at the checkpoint.”

 Questions can also be literal.

 “Regular hunters are very good at the cryptic questions, but their strength can sometimes work against them,” says Roche. “In one hunt, the cryptic word the regulars deciphered was Lipton, but the giveaway phrase was “Have a Break”, which the non-regulars quickly identified as Kit Kat. Kit Kat was actually what we were looking for,” he says.

 Clues given out in paper form remains popular, but other innovative ways are catching on.

 “In a hunt sponsored by a telecommunications company, a few clues were sent via SMS. In another hunt, teams had to tune in to a radio station for the questions; others put up riddles in the newspaper,” says Nair.

 Even the scoring system has been given a twist. To even the playing field, some CoCs initiate creative scoring. Sometimes fewer points are awarded for tough questions and more points are given for the easier ones. This allows the semi-regular hunters to stay within chasing distance of the masters.

 “When there is a tie-breaker, we sometimes call the top teams up on stage to compete in a trivia. It’s just them and the challenge, no other resources for the number one spot,” says Roche. Sometimes the teams are even asked to sing, dance, play games, or perform a dikir barat.

 These days physical challenges similar to those in the Amazing Race are being incorporated into treasure hunts. Veterans haven’t quite warmed up to these.

 “I feel this eclipses the fun because the original treasure hunt is not about rushing or racing,” opines Rohana. “Imagine the chaos when 80 or more cars with four members each, rush against time to complete their task. In their hurry, they may end up violating traffic rules and becoming a nuisance to the public,” she adds.

 Games of chance are another new element introduced to determine the winners, and may include such challenges as coconut bowling, coin throwing, five stones, archery, shooting darts while in a blind, etc.

 “This was apparently added to give equal chance for all to win prizes, but it hurts the true-blue hunters who spend hours unravelling clues and score, say, 50 points, only to lose 30 points within five minutes in a game of chance,” laments Rohana.

 “I have had experience organising the Bernama hunt, where families and novices took part,” she adds. “We did lucky draws, simple fun games during dinner for extra prizes, prizes for special efforts, family categories, etc – all without hurting the regular hunters. In the end, almost everybody took home prizes, and this encouraged them to come back for more hunts.”

 Among the prizes avid hunters like Rohana and Chai have taken home are air tickets, holiday packages, cash prizes, electrical appliances, home theatre systems, and even a water scooter.

 On one hunt, however, Chai got more than he hoped for – a life partner. “My wife, Margaret Sha, was then with another team that regularly featured in the top, and that was how she caught my eyes. I sort of ‘stole’ her from them,” he chuckles.

 Roche thinks the sport has become commercialised.

 “It’s quite obvious who the regulars are, so we give them accolades and put their names up on the Hall of Fame link on our website. But some people have asked us to take their name off because they feel victimised – sometimes when they sign up for hunts, organisers turn them away,” he adds.

 “I feel if you are a master, you should stay away from some events. If you don’t, the sport won’t develop. No one wants to spend RM180 and come back with nothing but good memories.”

 CoCs normally adjust the difficulty level of the questions depending on the crowd.

 “If there are many first-timers, we cannot make it too tough, because if they cannot answer five questions in a row, chances are they will give up,” says Khong.

 Newbies will find treasure hunts a struggle in the beginning but Roche is confident they will learn to get it right over time.

 “A common feedback I’ve gotten is: ‘There’s a lot here I enjoy but I was also sweating while I was in it’,” says Dominic.

 Untrained minds, however, often produce unexpected answers.

 “One question I asked recently on a hunt was ‘Who opened the Pasir Salak Complex?’ The answer was Raja Nazrin, but one team took it literally and wrote ‘Pakcik Ramli, guard on morning shift.’ They had the whole hall laughing for a good two minutes,” says Nair.

 So what does it take to be a good treasure hunter? “Familiarise yourself with the cryptic clues, practise cryptic crosswords,” Roche recommends. Nair suggests having a team comprising people of various backgrounds. He says it is also advisable to nominate a timekeeper so teams can pace themselves.

 Rohana advises first timers to read up on the background of the event organiser and study old tulips and questions.

 “It helps if the team members have knowledge on all subjects like sports, economy, films, music, etc. Also, make sure all team members attend the CoC briefing because the COC will give tips.

 “Before submitting the answer sheets at the checkpoint, double-check the answers. If the answer to a question is ‘Pulau Pinang’, and you write ‘Pulau Penang’, the CoC’s won’t say, ‘Oooh, you’re really close’. No, they will say ‘Bzzzt! Wrong answer’!”

Brain Teasers

Here are some common word plays used by CoCs.

 Trivia: Questions could relate to famous people, events, places, movies, songs. With trivia-type questions, it helps to be well read, to have someone who could google the answer on speed dial, or to have a handheld with wireless Internet connection.

 Anagram: Anagram clues are very popular. Look out for anagram indicators which are words that convey the meaning of mix or mixture, for example, cocktail, dirty, confused, mad, crumpled, deranged, blend, brew, patchwork, mishmash etc.

 Substitution: Substitutions are somewhat similar to homophones, but sometimes whole words are substituted with letters and vice versa, for example “s” for “ass”, or “o” for “nothing or zero”.

 Subtraction: In this case, removing certain letters gets you to the answer. Indicators are words like “left”, “exit”, “disappear”, “abandon”, “fade” etc.

 Addition: Addition is reverse of subtraction. Indicators are “went in”, “into”, “needed”, “stumble” etc. Initials: In this type of question, answers are derived from taking the first letter of the words that make up the whole sentence, or part of it. The Indicators are “heading”, “originally”, “initially”, “firstly” etc.

Think you’re up for the challenge? Sign up for these upcoming treasure hunts.

Krista kindergarten and childcare
Date: Sunday, July 15
Route: KL to Port Dickson
Fee: RM290 per car (for Krista teams), RM330 per car (for open)
Tel: (03) 2141 7575
Fax: (03) 2141 8575
Email: info@krista.com.my

Seputeh Hindu Youth Organisation
Date: Sunday, July 29
Route: Jalan Berhala
Brickfields to Bukit Kiara
Fee: RM240 per car
Tel: (016) 257 6004 (Latha), (019) 353 1749 (Nathan), (016) 375 4749 (Nages)
Email: hyoseputeh@yahoo.com

Atmah Motor Treasure hunt
Date: August 25 to 26
Route: KL to Bayu Beach Resort Port Dickson
Tel: (017) 3131 136 (Pavananthan)
Email: info@atmah-hunt.org