ode to the soapbox

i have a friend in the office. his hobby is to participate in contests, you know, those in magazines, brochures, radios, etc etc... and you know what? HE ALWAYS WIN. i'm not kidding! even in those lucky draws, he always win. it's like life's one big wonder, the one that mulder and scully tend to end up investigating...

he's sweet though, he always forwarded us the contests details and even wrote up the answers for us but when the result comes, he still wins. to which i'm not complaining. i won sometimes too, but that's really once in a blue moon kinda thing...

last week, he forwarded us this nokia stripe party invitation details for the launch of their new 5800 handphone. you wear anything with stripes and you are entitled for the lucky draws.. 58 lucky numbers can buy the SGD700+ phone with just 58 cents, and another 58 numbers to get SGD258-off voucher for the phone.

58 cents!

that's just ridiculous.. i mean, that's cheaper than one piece of roti prata, right?

so the party was held in zouk's car park last friday, starting at 10pm. we wore stripe shirts to work and then started queuing for the numbers from about 830pm.

by 9pm we were in.

and my number was 20313.

hmm.. 313? that doesn't look like a lucky number...

anyway, while waiting, we signed up for nokia online music account. not that we really wanted the account but actually to get the free t-shirt. hahaha!! we saw the crews walking around in that nokia music t-shirt and we thought they really look nice.

i got my t-shirt just on time when all american rejects started to play their music on the temporary stage just above where we signed up for the online music account.

yeah that's right. ALL AMERICAN REJECTS!!

can you believe that? when i first read the itenerary for this stripe party, i couldn't believe they would have all-american rejects the band. first, they are such an international artist. their song 'gives you hell' is currently at no-4 on the american billboard top 100 chart. then, this party is held not inside zouk, but zouk's CARPARK!

and i must say, it was not even a nice carpark too. the surface was stony, uneven and rough, no proper borders, and there were even some constructions going on just beside it.

in short, the place WAS UGLY.

but still, there they were, just few metres away from me singing their hit songs. it was surreal, but i was not like those teenage girls who went ga-ga. at most, i just shook my butt once in awhile whilst maintaining my cool hahahaha... to be frank, i had no idea how the members of this band looked like until last friday. i knew their main songs though..





all-american rejects playing on the stage

so in the end i didn't win the lucky draw.

not surprising. i didn't put much hope anyway. so i didn't manage to buy that latest cool touch-screen phone for 58 cents. big deal. i could do a lot more with that 58 cents that i saved.

...like, buying sticks and pike those who won that night.

the night was not totally lost though, i gotta see all-american rejects and their live music, i got cool free nokia music t-shirt, many many bottles of nokia water (which tasted funny but hey, they were free), and managed good gossips with my friends..

oh yeah, my other 3 friends didn't win anything either.

except this friend that i mentioned earlier that always win.

he DID WIN that night, the SGD258 voucher.




...adie