24seven Bloggers Hat-Py Party

I’m not exactly big on celebrating new years, so technically I wasn’t really celebrating New Year’s Eve when I went to the Blogger’s Hat-py Party at the Singapore Art Museum a few days ago ;)

An aside: Maybe it’s because I’ve been playing a lot of Assassin’s Creed II lately, but when we went into SAM — which is housed in a colonial-era convent school that had monks and everything — my mind went something like this:

1. Look for the building’s highest point, which is where the viewpoint would be located: a mini-dome with a cross
2. Look for possible feather and glyph locations on the way: rooftop, around the cross
3. Identify the fastest routes for Ezio to make it up to possible feather and glyph locations

I did actually figure out all of that, and before long I was looking out for bales of hay to jump into in case enemy guards spotted me. I think I’m experiencing the bleeding effect! /aside

At any rate, I went with my minions cronies usual gang of suspects, but with new additions! I’d met Lysistarielle (of Tiramisue.com) before at STGCC — some of you might remember her as Poison Ivy. But Arrch I’d never met before, so if you’re reading this, hi Arrch! :D And of course the wonderful Seriously Sarah, Joelyn Alexandra and Avariel were along for the fun.

Arrch, Lysistarielle, Sarah, Joelyn, and Avariel

The theme: hats! Everyone had to wear a hat or headgear of some kind, hence the rather amusing name of the party. (Arrch had a Scribblenauts hat, which makes him a ton of awesome.) I wore a Mario hat, mainly because I could. Hahaha.

And what if you didn’t have a hat? 24seven.sg had a solution to that…

"24seven made me wear this because I forgot to bring my hat"

Bwahaha. The photo doesn’t accurately capture the sparkliness of the hats.

At the registration area I met people who I’ve only read about, which is always kind of strange. It was a bit like when I met Neil Gaiman, except this time I could breathe and talk at the same time! So I didn’t make a complete fool of myself in front of Ivy (of Nanyate.com), Claudia (Claudia.sg), Diana (MoleMole.sg), and Tech65.org guys Jerrick Lim (who is really big) and Hisham.

And I met lots of other bloggers, most of whom I don’t know the names of. But suffice it to say that there were many awesome hats and wigs in attendance:

Wig-eration!

Moar wigs

They opened up the dinner buffet early because it was kinda late, and everyone was hungry. It was nice food! I don’t have any pictures though. There were roasted small little round potatoes that looked like meatballs, but they were extremely yummy. They’re a bit like chocolate; you pop one into your mouth, and then you say “just one more” and before you know it…

The main party was in the Glass Hall, which housed an exhibition of works by patients with mental illnesses. I can’t really appreciate art — I’m not posh enough, and the written word has always been my area — but I was fascinated with some of them, both as a visitor and as someone who has dealt with mental illness firsthand. I’m not sure whether it’s a charity exhibition, but some of the works were very poignant.

This was one of my favorites:

'Angelic portrait of myself' by Eric Sean (white glue and sand)

At any rate, there were some games. We were sent into the gallery to take photos, and I believe this particular gallery was featuring art by Filipino artists. One of the activities was to find a picture that was made with an M16 bullet, which was this:

One of pieces from the 'Headshots' series by Alvin Zafra

A portrait of a young Imelda Marcos

And, since everyone in attendance was a blogger, it involved a lot of tech…

Well she -is- taking a photo, just not of the art

And then back to the Glass Hall for some music! We  got the chance to see two really good bands perform that evening. The Black Diamond Ninjas did some rather sad songs, and Only After Coffee performed some really boppy country songs.

Black Diamond Ninjas

Only After Coffee

We ended up sitting on the floor, and I can safely say this is the first time I’ve ever done that in a museum :P We also voted for the craziest hat – congrats to the winners, your win was well-deserved.

There was bingo! I love bingo, even though I didn’t win anything.

So close to full house!

There were lots of lucky draws too, and the prizes ranged from Sentosa ride tickets to $500 Singtel vouchers and all other sorts of interesting things. It was like everyone around me was winning something except me, hahaha.

Joelyn won the grand prize, a Samsung Pixon 12 handphone! A really good Samsung phone too, not some random old model that no one wants. Her reaction was hilarious. The emcee read out the lucky number, and there was silence… And suddenly a very loud “HUH?!”

Bwahaha. I couldn’t stop laughing at her afterwards.

As the saying goes, when you’re having fun, time flies. And it did. Soon it was 10:30pm and we were taking a big group photo, silly hats and all, and it was time to go.

But because Sarah was wearing an awesome shirt, and we had name stickers that were just the right size… We left with this (:

It actually says Buffy under the sticker.

A great way to kick off the new year, no?