Optimus Prime In a Glass Kandang

(Sorry I have to 'borrow' your photos for now, Tian Chad! I'm in Bali now and my own photos are in the laptop at home!)

If you were at Mid Valley on two Saturdays ago, you would probably have seen some weird dude wearing an Optimus Prime helmet, trapped in a glass enclosure at the Astro B.YOND PVR booth with four sofas and three other bloggers; screaming and waving frantically at people to vote for him.

Don't be alarmed, it was only me, trying to get as many people at the Astro B.yond PVR blogger's challenge, in which the four of us - me, Beautiful Nara, Red Mummy and 3iling - were confined to that little 'kandang' (as Astro's @azarialoh called it) for 8 whole hours, with only tuna sandwiches for lunch (though they did feed us Krispy Kreme donuts later. :D)


(picture taken from Tian Chad!)

Of course, the challenge was not just about surviving 8 hours in that glass kandang – we were also there to try out the new Astro Byond Personal Video Recorder (PVR), which was actually pretty cool. It lets you record any Astro program you want so you can watch it later; rewind parts or the show you’re watching, or pause a show to go and take a leak (hey, if you got to go, you got to go, eh?).



Not only that, we had to do quite a number of 'tasks' as well, ranging from blogging, posting on Astro's Facebook page and tweeting about the event to try and get people to come visit the booth to support us, to treasure hunts, and er... wrestling matches. But more on that later.

Anyway, some of the easier tasks were blogging and tweeting, and I even managed a little Movie Not-Review in one of the tasks, which was to write a short program introduction for the Astro Facebook page. Mine was Art Heist, which I didn't watch, BTW, but hey, the synopsis was online, and it has Ellen Pompeo before she became famous! Easy peasy. :D

Getting people to LIKE those posts was a different matter though. Red Mummy and Beautiful Nara's daily traffic far outstrip my WEEKLY one, so naturally, they had lots of people liking and commenting on their posts and tasks. I think I came in last in almost every single one of them. T_T

Came to a point when I almost gave up even TRYING to get people to comment and like the post. So demoralizing to see the others get like 40-50 comments in a jiffy, while I only mustered about 20 plus each time. T_T

(Also I think I lost all those tasks in the morning because all my regular readers don't wake up until after lunch... T_T)

Anyway, the afternoon segment was more fun for me, because all my friends finally managed to wake up for lunch and head over to Mid Valley to support me! YAY!

There was Kimberlycun, Elfie, Sotong, Suanie, KY, Haze, God, Peter Tan & Wuan, Hantu Bola Din, Nigel... thanks for braving the mad mad jam at Mid Valley to come see me make a fool out of myself, guys! And special mention to Fireangel, who circled the parking lot for 45 minutes before giving up. :-( Thanks for trying! *hugs*

Zoe even came with a cute little signboard for Optimash Prime! WOOT! (I think Optimash has more fans than I do. :-( ) (I'll post a better picture when I get back home!)

Oh, before that there was also a poster war and a campaigning session where Red Mummy's Red Legion of Fans were campaigning loudly together with Beautiful Nara's. In the end I had to resort to using the Optimus Prime helmet and Optimash to try and garner some sympathy votes...

But that tactic backfired spectacularly when some families voted for Eiling instead, because I scared their kids. :-(


(picture taken from Tian Chad!)

But Never fear! Huai Bin and the Nuffnang gang also had some NON-traffic related tasks, the first of which was a treasure hunt where we had to find some buttons around the booth, then pull people into listening to the AStro B.yond PVR pitch (reminded me why I HATE doing sales).

There were also some tasks that revolved around learning how to use the Astro B.YOND PVR decoder functions, especially the RECORD function. It turned out to be pretty simple to use – if you’re familiar with the Astro remote, you should be at home with it (in fact, I found it easier to use than the usual Astro remote) One of the tasks was to find a program, and then record it. Navigation of the programs was simple enough, and the recording was pretty simple as well – just find the program, and then press record. No more missing Glee because you had to go to a party with freeflow! YAY!

And last but not least, there was THAT WRESTLING MATCH at the end! Whose idea was that eh? To have all four of us FIGHTING for the remote control to record a show. Whoever got it first had an automatic 300 points, after which the rest could grab it from him.

I got it first, but when my 30 seconds were almost up, I had an ingenious plan to hide the remote on TOP of the Astro backdrop so no one else could get it. MUAHAHAHAHAH!

Unfortunately, such dirty tactics are frowned upon and I think it cost me 150 points. :-(

In the end, it was all to no avail, because RED MUMMY won the Astro B.YOND PVR service as the winner of the blogger challenge! The rest of us? We got some nifty Discovery Channel laptop bags, and a T-shirt. Sigh.

But never mind what we got, in the end it was great fun being stuck in that place with those 3 other bloggers. Great job, Astro, for organizing a great event!

PS: For more information on Astro B.yond PVR, go check out www.astro.com.my/byond. Oh, and go join Astro's Facebook page as well... it might have MORE embarrassing pictures of me in that glass cell...