Paper Bag (Hunger hurts but starving works...)

Poor people can't afford to be fat.

Seriously, if you don't have Gates or Hilton or Lim (of Goh Tong fame) as a last name, think twice before you sink your teeth into that deliriously creamy looking brownie from The Coffee Bean.

The reason why I'm saying this is because about a month ago I was over at Giordano shopping for a new pair of khaki pants. They were having a 70% promotion or something back then. But guess what? The largest size on promotion that they have is 28. And let's just say that I'm not *clears throat* exactly a size 28.

During my exams last November I put on a substantial amount of weight. It was a tumultuous time where a generous supply of Secret Recipe's cakes accompanies my reading of the photophosphorylation process and the various types of esters. 

I gained about 5kgs in just a month. And I didn't bother to really lose them because I had this thinking that "Fuck who cares? As long as I can fit into my clothes from last year's Chinese New Year (albeit the fact that they were tight around the edges and I can no longer fit into my favourite pair of jeans) I'm happy." 

But I was just deluding myself you see. And this little I-can't-get-an-item-on-promotion-because-I'm-not-a-size-28 incident really put things in perspective for me.

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Kate Moss was once criticized for saying this:

"Nothing tastes as good as being skinny feels..."

She was lambasted for shedding a negative image on the perception of body image. But I would just like to post this question to you optimistic people; Was what that Miss Moss said very far from the truth?

The media and society goes on and on about how body image is not about everything in life. Sure Vogue Australia might feature more voluptuous models. But it is really in a superficial light that even borders on being hypocritical when you can't get a freaking 70% mark down just because you're not small enough.

Okay, let's just bring this discount dilemma down a notch. Try walking in to a Marks & Spencer store and note how much floor space they accommodate for women with a voluptuous figure. And to think that half of the world population out there does not have a body like Kate Moss and Robert Pattinson (sorry he is the only skinny bastard *cough* with painted abs *cough* that I could think of from the top of my head).. 

You see, we not-so-skinny people are not exactly the minority here. So why only one-twelfth of the floor space at Marks & Spencer and marked down prices for only a size 28?

I recently extracted my wisdom tooth and had to go on a soft-food diet for about two weeks. In a way, its kind of a blessing in disguise because I shed some weight and went down 5 sizes. 

However, the truth remains that I'm not a size 28 and neither do I think I'll ever be and want to be a size 28. But I'm not exactly rich either. And like I said, the poor can't afford to be fat.

In this particular scenario, to misquote Fiona Apple; hunger hurts but starving works.

I'm not asking for much. All I'm asking is for a bigger floor space at Marks & Spencer for all the voluptuous women out there and a promotional tag price for sizes above 30 at Giordano.

Fashion Fever

Got an exclusive invite to attend the 'Confessions on a Runway' fashion show from the oh-so-awesome Shaz Mukhtar (the deejay from XFM) last week. The event was held to commemorate the release of the movie 'Confessions of a Shopaholic' on Astro's Star Movies channel.

I tag along my friends Julian G and Nigel to attend the event with me as it would be really awkward if I go alone. Julian had the impression that they were going to preview the movie (okay maybe I might have led him to believe that they were going to preview the movie). Hahaha sorry JG! At least the goodie bags were awesome right? =p

Here are some photos from the event courtesy of Nigel:

The entrance to the fashion show. 

The fabulous runway.

Julian told me that the runway looked like the Penang bridge. It kind of does, doesn't it?

Guests were all served a variety of food and beverages. Haha we didn't know, so we went and get some dinner first before the event. 

Julian and I trying our best to look socialite-ish with our sparkly blue drink. Aha fail, I think we need to look more smug next time JG =p

Julian with Nigel at the media photo area.

Nigel is such a natural at striking poses! Hmm...I think I should take classes from him instead of Michelle (Michelle is charging RM100 per hour btw)

Ahah I'm into message print tees at the moment. So yeaahhh even if they're far from fashionable I don't give a shyte. I'm the exception not the rule =P

You people are probably bored of seeing photos of my friends and I. We are after all just regular people not models. Haha here some photos from the catwalk.

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Met up with Shaz during the event and he introduced us to his friend, Azaria Loh. She was the mastermind behind the whole event. And she was really cool and sweet. No I'm just saying this because she gave us some really cool gift bag.

The whole event wrapped up around 8.30pm.

From left: Azaria, me, Nigel, Julian and Shaz.

And now to the gift bags...

The pink one has a miscellaneous of stuffs and vouchers from Astrolife.

Whereas the blue one contains

A complimentary spa at True Spa!

...and RM100 voucher from A Cut Above!

This pretty much concludes my entry on my very first fashion show. It was really an exhilarating experience seeing the clothes and the models strut down the runway and dissecting all the latest styles first hand. Thanks again to Shaz for the invites and Azaria for the amazing gift bags :)

And of course to Julian G and Nigel for wanting to come with me to the event and have a sweated random banana experience (haha it's an inside joke).

White Teeth

Zadie Smith's debut novel has got to be one of the most original novels I've read in months. Haha but then again, the stuffs that I've read in recent months apart from my Biology and Chemistry textbooks were some pretty lightweight stuff that ranges from the Percy Jackson series and Kinsella's 'Can You Keep a Secret'. =P

To simply put it, 'White Teeth' is a rollicking good read.

It is intelligent, hilarious, quirky, serious and wise all at once!

I took about a month to finish this book. Not because it was boring or hard to comprehend. But more because I took my time to savour every word and sentences. 

Read this book or don't read anything at all.

Beg. Buy. Borrow. Steal.

...just don't do it from me :)

P.S: I've finally updated The Scene in a Bubble after a long hiatus. Check it out.

The Way I Are

 It's official! 

'Happenstance & The Reason Why' is now known as...
 

'Chester's Chin'

It's because I've just realized that my name is actually an alliteration. Ahaha no not really. But don't worry, the link is still the same :) It's just a name thing.

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DISCLAIMER: Some of the photos here are courtesy of Ms. Cleffairy of 'Over A Cuppa' fame who has been kind enough to grant me permission to re-publish some of her photos here. Thank you, you're awesome and sorry I left out  the credits before this. It was unintentional :) And a special mention to Garfield for pointing out my error. Thanks dude. x)


As some of you who read my predicament on dress codes might know, last Wednesday saw me attending a party with my dear friend Zhee Chuan at the Borneo Rainforest Club @ Sunway.

The exterior of the club is kinda modeled after the tribal houses in Sarawak.

The party was held to launch the new web portal iTalk Whoa from the folks at TM company. Guests that night comprises of an odd group of select bloggers (one of them being me =p) and members of the media.

Zhee Chuan and I got there early actually. So being the Malaysians that we both are, we decided that we'd just prowl around Sunway Pyramid first as we don't want to enter the party scene THAT early.

(Party Rule 101 - Its alright to be fashionably late)

Now whoever who came up with that rule should just go f*ck themselves and die in the process. Because when we both got there, the place was already packed with guests.

After signing up our names and collected our gift bag, we proceeded to find a vacant table. The atmosphere was kind of dark and the lighting was very dim. Haha I relayed this information to Darryl and he gave me an incredulous look before saying "Duh, its a club!".

Anyway, it was really fortunate that I decided to go for the nerdish look that night and wore my black-rimmed glasses. Phew!

I'm just going to post up some photos from the event.

Guests were welcomed by this banner at  the entrance.

The buffet table! Food was decent IMHO...it was not spectacular but it was decent enough :)

Tiramisu and creme brulee at the dessert table. It was pure indulgence I tell you! But when I finally finished the dessert, I was hating myself. It was so deliciously fattening. In the words of Anna Wintour, "Someone's gotta go to the gym."

A game being played out during the event after the media Q&A session. Some lucky bastard walked away with a new phone after the game.

An interactive section was set up with laptops and internet connection for guests to try out the iTalk Whoa portal. What did I do with it? Of course I got log in to my iTalk Whoa account. *cough* and also nudge Michelle up on Facebook *cough*

Yours truly at the interactive station.

Bunkface was the special musical performer that night. They rocked the crowd with their hits 'Prom Queen' and 'Through My Window' among others.


The whole affair wrapped up around 10pm.

Zhee Chuan and I trying our best to camwhore after the event. Hahahahaha FAIL miserably! I think after this we better take classes from Michelle.

Yeaahh, after hours of fretting, I decided to go minimal ala Calvin Klein. Basic black tee and jeans.

The gift bag!!!

...and it's a customized limited edition headphone! Zhee Chuan say it probably costs about RM20 or so. So yeaahhh, not bad lah. Thank you TM!

Last but not least, I would like to thanks Ms. Jaclyn Chew for the invite to this fabulous party.  :) And a million thanks to Ms. Cleffairy again for the permission to republish photos from her awesome blog.


P.S: Michelle replied me in Facebook. Apparently, camwhoring lessons do not come cheap. Perhaps I should try out for French no?

P.P.S: Tell me what you guys think about the new name. Prefer the old one better? Voice it out :)

Like Whoa

This is NOT an advertorial

Have you ever felt that sending en email and chatting with your friends can be a bit of a hassle? Or perhaps you optimistic pollyannas find that updating a status on Facebook and Tweeting at the same time about that new Taylor Swift song to be a bit daunting?

Well luckily for you poor addicts whose social life pretty much depended on our existence on Facebook, email and what not, I’m going to let you in on a little discovery that I’ve made.

*drum roll please*

Presenting, the new and interactive portal, iTalk Whoa!

iTalk Whoa is really a heaven sent from the folks at TM Company. Blending the services of internet and also mobile communication in a one-stop solution, you are getting the best of both worlds here people!

Okay, are you guys curious now? You’re probably wondering what is iTalk Whoa, yes? Hahahaha alright fine, I’m going to satisfy your curiosity now.

iTalk Whoa is basically a portal that lets you stay connected to your friends without (wait for it, wait for it)…the hassles of logging in to multiple websites!

Now how awesome is that?!

This means that you can send an email, stalk your friends on Facebook, chat, send SMSes and even make a long-distance call…and all of this within a singular portal by using iTalk Whoa.

So, who can use the iTalk Whoa service?

You! (No, not you, yeah you there. Hey you! Yes, you, who is reading this right now.)

If you’re reading this, chances are that you have internet access. As the iTalk Whoa is basically a web portal, anyone who has a basic internet connection can access this service. And this means that you can access the service from anywhere around the world.

Exciting much?

Personally, I find it to be heaven sent. As a budding writer myself, I have to constantly send emails to magazine and news editors , look out for unsuspecting victims on Facebook to feature in my stories, make calls to set up photo shoot…the list goes on and on and pretty much on…But with the iTalk Whoa service, I can do all this from a single portal. Now, that is pure genius baby.

The email attachments capacity is simply brilliant. At 5MB, this means that I don’t have to send multiple email attachments. Plus the call and SMS rate is affordable to boot.

You’re probably going “Shut up, Chester, I don’t want to know about your writing assignments. Tell me more about the features of this portal”

Okay, so here it goes. I’m listing the features according to the importance based on an urban-living young adult *cough Me cough*

• Seamless integration with social networking sites managed within the iTalk Whoa interface. Translation: Facebook!!!!
• Integrates with major webmail services such as MSN, Yahoo! and Gmail
• Keeps all your social appointments (parties, ‘yam cha’, shopping) organized with their unique ‘Calendar & Task’ application.
• You can make voice calls direct from your PC. Plus, their calling rate is insanely affordable.
• You can send text messages direct from the portal.
• Enable multiple chat servers to integrate in a single IM chat. This includes the likes of Yahoo Messenger and Windows Live Messenger.

Okay you’re probably getting excited now. So what do you have to do to enjoy all these cool featured in the iTalk Whoa service?

All you have to do is head on to www.iTalkwhoa.com.

When you’re there, click on the ‘Get WHOA! Now’ button and sign up. The application is relatively simple and hassle free

What are you waiting for? A revolution is not televised you know. So go check out iTalk Whoa now.

To be continued...

T-Shirt

Dress codes can be a pain in the ass. Just this morning, I find myself rummaging in my wardrobe for close to an hour just to figure out clothes that will fit the criteria stated in the dress code.

Here is the deal.

I've been invited to a special media launch party tomorrow at Borneo Rainforest @ Sunway. And the dress code stated:

"Casual in black & orange"

There I was, staring at the bold letter words and thinking to myself. "Wtf? How casual is casual?" And so I started to search frantically through sites like Style.com and The Sartorialist and flipping through my copies of GQ.

But there is a problem. The clothes shown on Style.com and The Sartorialist and GQ are gorgeous, don't get me wrong. But they didn't exactly state the dress code. Besides, if you were to wear any street wear from The Sartorialist to say a club at Sunway, chances are that you will be deemed a lunatic. 

So yeah, fashion advice is a no go from those three sources. A preposterous notion really if you think about it.

(Apparently, we are not very high cultured in our dress sense)

I flirted with the idea of dressing up in those long-sleeves semi-formal shirt and jeans. But ahah its semi-formal. I don't really believe in such thing as being overdressed. But then again, I don't plan on being overdressed at my very first media party.

Hmm...decisions! Decisions!

Anyway, what I'm trying to convey to you optimistic people is very simple. If you ever hold a party in the future, save your guest the hassle of fretting over the clothes by being more precise in your 'dress code' description. Throw out terms like 'Jeans & T-shirts' or 'Cocktail dress & Semi-formal long sleeved shirts' instead of the very vague 'Smart casual' and 'Formal'.

Save us the hassle people! After all, we are not very high cultured in our fashion sense.