The Silent Room

I woke up groggily that late Sunday morning. Showered at about 10 am, and only got out of the house sometime around 11 am. Drove right to OU to join the proposed blogmeet.

Even after arriving fashionably late, it was very nice of them to welcome me into the crowd. When I joined their table outside, I immediately noticed a hand raised high up, palm in my direction. In response, I simply flashed my million-rupiah smile and held my own hand up, expecting to see a familiar face for the hand’s owner. Well, unfortunately, I didn’t really remember which held their hand up, but it was nice to able to spot Albert and Leo a.k.a Dustyhawk right away.

Quickly scanning the crowd, I quickly caught sight of Redzuan a.k.a. DJPhutureCyberSonique, Sashi, Edrei a.k.a. Kamigoroshi and of course, Andreas. And then I moved on to meet faces fresh to me.

It started with Kaz [who sat conveniently close to Sashi and Redzuan], which ended up a bit silly on my part;

Me: Hi, I’m Fazri. You are?
Kaz: Hi. [nods] Kaz.
Me: Sorry?
Kaz: Kaz.
Me: Guess? I can’t guess!
Kaz, Redzuan and Sashi: KAZ!
Me: Oh! Kaz?
Kaz: Yeah.
Me. Oh ok, sorry about that.

And then it was Jess, and the scene above repeated itself, much to the amusement of the 3 guys. The rest went pretty well, it was nice to finally meet Peter Tan, Jordan [who was 'admiring the cheesecake I was having' when I first noticed his presence], and Grace Shu, since I have read up on their blogs, but have yet to meet in person. Like Kaz and Jess, there were also bloggers whose blogs I’ve never came upon before [I'm sure this is mutual :D], but they were pretty cool once we exchanged words. David [dude, your camera pwns!], Jocelyn, Chet [she's just so adorable I feel like I could just teman her to go shopping :p], Adriene, and Marita.

There was also Renee [lovely lady, works at Zoo negara, scolded me after I told her how I fed the monkeys during my last visit], Wuan [Peter's wonderful girlfriend], Leen [Jordan's dentist wife. My orthodontic past only meant that I got along quite easily with her], and Little K [Jocelyn's daughter], who were non-bloggers at the time.

We were a rowdy crowd. After exchanging quick chats with Andreas and Edrei, I moved on to Redzuan to get a first-hand scoop on his accidentally renovated apartment. Undescribable, man. A superb cross between a sad splat and a lucky break, I tell you. Sashi, Kaz and I were clutching our stomachs by then.

Went to get myself a cream-based Caramel Frap, and chatted up Andreas again. Andreas was proudly wearing a t-shirt that has his Blogspot url printed on it.

Me: Cool stuff, man.
Andreas: I think someday someone might just come over and give me a good beating from the back after seeing this blog address.
Me: Yeah, and he might go “SO YOU’RE THE ONE WHO BLOGGED ABOUT MY POPCORN!!”

Heheh. He quickly noticed the sheer whiteness of my Frap, and asked what it was. After letting him have a sip ["I like sweet stuff, even if it IS bad for me" - Andreas], he immediately confirmed its name with me before getting one for himself [word of mouth, mwahahaha...*beams*]. He seemed to like it.

I can’t remember how it happenned but Peter beckoned me to join him and Andreas for a quick chat. Exchanged backgrounds and ideas with both men, it was a great experience. Renee then joined us. The funny shit was, Andreas and I were seated, while Renee was cheerfully talking with me while standing up. Suddenly, Andreas got up, and pulled a chair for her. Chet gave me a little scolding for not getting Renee a chair earlier, and I couldn’t help but feel sorry for my silliness at the time.

I can’t remember who pointed it out, but we realised that Andreas accidentally took a pair of chairs from Nando’s next door into our messy crowd at Starbucks! We’re sorry, Mr. Nando!

Andreas and I continued to brainwash Renee so she would start a blog, and Andreas made the killer move by handing out his business cards, and wrote Petaling Street‘s url behind Renee’s copy. Did I mention that we also managed to convince David to ping PPS? Hahaha, I’ve never felt so proud to be a blogger.

Meanwhile, Albert was there to entertain the crowd with his kubes, and a little bit later, Dusty and I got ourselves into another Flashing Duel. Simply put, it’s how two sibling cameras [Canon A60 and A70] see who flashes more efficiently. The winner gets to snap the loser’s image, and the loser gets a white screen from the winner’s flash!

Quite a few of us decided to retire early, and the rest of us split into two groups. One group went to one place, and the rest of us [Me, Albert, Edrei, Dusty, Andreas, Jordan, Leen and Sashi] went to Arena foodcourt. Dusty and I spotted a Japanese food stall, and we saw…

RAMEN.

We both went into an OMFG-WTF-I-MUST-HAVE-THAT-RAMEN-CAUSE-I-SELDOM-GET-TO-GO-TO-FUNKY-PLACES-SUCH-AS-THIS frenzy for while before we recollected ourselves to get some seats. Edrei decided to have the same ramen with us. We instantly felt like a bunch of yuppy Narutards [a term coined for Naruto fans] enjoying a bowl of ramen. It was good, seriously. It had deep fried chicken cutlets, a tiger prawn and some veggies [I specifically said NO TAUGEH, mwahahah!!]. They even gave us a cup of green tea for free, not that I liked green tea, though.

Me: Is it true that green tea is an acquired taste?
Jordan and Sashi: [nods]
Sashi: But I don’t like green tea. [grins]
Jordan: Me neither. [grins wider]
Me: It figures -_-

Really, it was a whole lot better than Mr. Ramen, which served a less-than-impressive tasting bowl of ramen to me last time I went there. The only thing to complain about Arena‘s ramen, is that they don’t give spoons, so we drank the uber tasty miso [Japanese soup] right from the bowl. That was SO satisfying.

And then, we parted ways, leaving only me, Albert, Dusty and Edrei. Went over to Toys R Us to get a birthday gift for someone [hehehe]. I was browsing around when I came to the Gundams section. I was pleasantly surprised to see figures from Gundam SEED Destiny [Sword Silhouette Impulse, Blaster Impulse, Rey's Zaku Phantom and Luna's Zaku Warrior]. But I was more captivated upon sight of nice big box that says:

FREEDOM GUNDAM: METEOR UNIT 01

If it wasn’t for the scary 3-digit price tag, I would’ve bought it for myself. For that slice of time, I had flashbacks of how cool Freedom was in the days of SEED, lol. But then again, I went to the original plan and got the gift. There was a minor confusion and delay on our way out of OU, but it turned out fine.

Sent Albert and Dusty over to Bangsar Putra Station and drove Ed home to Melawati [poor guy had a terrible day] and went on home.

The drive home wasn’t too pleasant as the sky was cloudless and the sun was beaming its heat rays right into my face and upper body, making driving very uncomfortable ["Buat pertama kali, air-cond Proton tidak memadai" - Albert] and I was sweating, even with air-conditioners at maximum. Reached home around 5, and went straight to have a cold shower. Home is where the PC -I mean, heart- is.

It was a very nice way to pass the Sunday by. Thanks for coming and hope to see and hear more from you!

More stories here:
Andreas’ – Bloggers Meeting In Starbucks
Jordan’s – Invasion Of The Bloggers!
Chet’s – What A Day
Dave Yoong’s – Persatuan Persaudaraan Bloggers
Edrei’s – Gathering After The Darkest Night
Leo’s – 1Utama Bloggathering
Peter’s – When Bloggers Meet