Sabah bloggers got a different treat this year for the annual gathering, unlike the previous three years. It was more grand and complicated than before, (being that I only realized a couple of days before it happened) that this event, glamorously called B2.0, was going to be held over a 2-day, 3-night period! Wow!

Organized by the team at Borneo Colours (BC), the event started with a preview dinner on 28 October, followed by a seminar on the 29th, then a paintball get-together on 30th morning, and a closing ceremony cum winners announcement that evening. Being caught off-guard by the overwhelming activities at a last minute, I only managed to attend the preview dinner (see me mingle here) and the seminar a.k.a. New Media Dialogue. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the seminar itself was more impressive than I expected. In the morning, for some reason just more than half the seats were filled, but by noon, the place was packed.

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Since last night, I’ve been busy uploading and tagging, tagging and uploading photos and videos of this year’s fine Sabah Bloggers Gathering. Seriously, I don’t know where to begin, so I’m just gonna do my story-telling in bullet-form. But before that, here’s how I looked like.

I am Soulja Grrrl. Get it? *ROFLs to self*… Dressed to kill, coz I’m a mean grrrl. And playing too much Half-Life: Counterstrike will do this to you. I also made it a point to have an “official” pose to make things more tacky, like so.

• Enemy spotted! The first costumed guest I saw as I went out the elevator was a Japanese-uniformed dude. And he had no weapon! Dead meat
• My action plan was to get to know as many people as I could, under the pretense that I wanna take pictures of each and everyone who came to the gathering. AND EVERYONE FELL FOR IT! MUAHAHAHAHAHAH! Seriously, though, everyone was so cool, and you can count only a handful out of more than 100 guests didn’t come with costumes. I really enjoyed taking pictures of and with everyone. You peeps really rocked the house!
• The Allies ruled! It was three Allied US Army soldiers versus one Japanese Axis soldier sans ammo. But I’ll exclude the masked terrorists (you people know who you are). And luckily our War Correspondent was neutral, though he did don a US Army colour. Yeah, lucky Axis guy   The cool thing was us army troops – Charlie, Vera and I — were lounging together in the same table. That’s the spirit — stick together, team.

More photos!

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Oh em gee, Sabah Bloggers Gathering is barely a week away! What makes this year’s gathering special is that it’s held on Hallow’s Eve, and you bet everyone’s gonna get crazy with their costumes!

Speaking of costumes, the theme is suppose to be anything really freaky looking, but I’m not planning to dress like that. I worry that my kids may have nightmares when they see their mom dressing up as a boogie (wo)man. Therefore, I am dressing up as something else but no less grrrl-looking, and I’m keeping it to myself till that night comes.

The hot and hunky organizers are doing a great job, yet again. Venue will be the the scenic loft of the classy Imperial International Hotel, in the heart of Kota Kinabalu city. Local supremo guitarist Roger Wang, and Alvin from the Malaysian reality show group Infinatez will be joining the list of entertainers for the night’s show. And, will Nuffnang and our wonderful bloggers from Tawau make a surprise appearance?

So for those of you who are in Kota Kinabalu and would like to crash the party, entrance fee is just RM20 per head. If it’s anything like last year, get ready to delight yourself with some scrumptious food and gourmet/premium desserts! It’s so worth it just for the food itself!

I’m off to pick up my kids, and then do some costume shopping, see you all there!

It’s a miracle that I even got the chance to go to SBG’08 last night, as my better half finally decided that he’ll look after the kids. Since I don’t have a digicam, I had to make do with my humble Nokia N70 camphone. The picture quality leaves much to be desired, so understandably I didn’t take any picture.

Well, maybe just a couple.

The far side where the cool people sat.

My side of the room where the less cool people sat, the exception being Gaman (sabahan.com), my money-making guru.

Or three.

Aleaf and Ricardo shares my sad corner.

Or four.

Boogey on the dance floor with Terry Peter and his posse.

These are just sad, sad photos. I’m just waiting for other bloggers who attended to upload their photos so that I can just leech those from ‘em *sigh*.

One of my main purposes of coming to this gathering is for networking, and I vowed to myself that I would shake hands with every single one of them. Which I didn’t. The large crowd and loud music made it almost impossible. Still, I’d like to believe that I did manage to know a lot of them, compared to last year’s gathering. Nice to see familiar faces, and great to know new ones. We have great sponsors, too!

So, a shout out to the organizers and those I chatted to personally (in no particular order): Elphege and Ben Godomon, Gaman, Joneh, Aleaf, Pai, Ricardo (who happens to be my “uncle” whom I haven’t seen in a long time), Echah and hubby, Eshark, Emelda, Gallivanter, Jacq, Wei Chuen, Fara, Julian, Sumardi, Nur, Robb, “Chegu” Carol, Josie, Margaret, Ratu Syura, Shemah, Clement, Dan, Angriani, Zach, Shueqry, Maya, LadyMariah, … oh I swear I missed around 20 or more people with their cool names! This list will grow I promise.

I hope the socializing will continue through our blogs, and I look forward to another Sabahan Bloggers Gathering next year!

To commemorate Malaysia’s 50 years of independence, I have dedicated this week’s Gem of A Blog to three Malaysian bloggers.

Luke Chong’s The Eleventh Hour features his thoughts on matters facing the world, particularly Sarawak and East Malaysia. Looking past the blog design, I was amusedly drawn to his fascination with the print daily Borneo Post, while his poignant recollection of people and issues from his past and present (like his post on Old Miri) feels more like going on a private trip into Malaysian history. Luke’s sidebar is ridiculously lengthy, but not soon enough will you notice why — the fascinating collection of sometimes funny, sometimes ridiculous, and sometimes the honest and stark reality that is our world commemorated in pictures.

Luke’s site brought me to Jelas.Info (literally translates as “clear information”), a blog by KokoNat a.k.a. Nathaniel Tan who is currently arrested by Malaysian police under the Official Secrets Act and is being investigated by the Cybercrimes Division of the Commercial Crimes Department. I’m guessing it’s not just because he blogs about Malaysian politics’ other side of the coin, but also the fact that he is under the opposition Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) didn’t help, either. I don’t do politics at all. Still, I find posts such as his to be very educational, and I’d like to say educational because accepting the information as true or not is a different matter altogether, and I respect that he does voice out his opinion clearly. Critics and bloggers alike may find interesting on how he was enlightened by Anton Ego from the movie Ratatouille.

If you have never heard of Mount Kinabalu, the highest mountain in Southeast Asia, then Ruhaizad Daud may be able to help you with his Kinabalu Blog. It’s obvious that this is a niche blog that just screams of blogging for money, but how could you resist not reading his posts on the history of mountain climbing and mountain climbers at the “Mountain of the Dead”? His recent post on lethal attempts by climbers far and wide to Low’s Gully will sure to peak your curiosity about Mount Kinabalu, pun intended.

So there you go, my first ever Gem of A Blog. Hope you find them a gem as well.