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 [...]]]>

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?

This year they doubled the space, with wider aisles and better positioning of high-traffic areas so that the snaking queues wouldn’t jam up the whole hall.

It was special for me too, because I cosplayed for the first time!

I arrived early because I thought it was going to be crazy crowded, but it wasn’t! The crowd at 9.35am was positively microscopic compared to last year’s, where it stretched across two floors.

Of course, this was probably because the doors opened at 11am – it was only about an hour before that, that the place really started to fill up.

Entry was free, so there were two lines: one for buying the event guide, and one for entry. The first 100 people to buy the event guide for SGD 4 got some freebies, which is always nice. There wasn’t any pre-registration, which was the main cause of last year’s issues.

I was in the first 15 people or so, but I was kinda peeved that people were buying five (!) guides at a time to get the freebies. Hello, people! What about the poor schlubs waiting at the back?

Anyway. I got my guide (I only bought one, so don’t yell at me!) just before 11am, so I headed to the back of the second queue. My semi-famous friend Seriously Sarah had just arrived, so I joined her in line. Then the doors opened, and hello gorgeous!

Nintendo retain their prime spot at the very front of the hall, so the first thing we saw was Wii demos! They hadn’t really started yet though, but that was fine.

Sarah and I went about; she’d been there the day before so she was a lot more familiar with the place than I was. Neither of us had suited up yet, being supahsikrit and all, and we managed to get some freebies (:

We got to see the 501st Legion opening up the day on stage!

501st Legion, Singapore Garrison - can you see Vader?

There was the Imperial March as they did a short loop of the hall, and then they had a short talk about what the 501st Legion does and why you should join Lord Vader and the dark side the Legion. They’re basically a community service organisation with a heavy Star Wars theme, and some of the awesomest cosplayers I’ve ever seen.

And then I met my friend Hafiz, who popped by for a bit before an event of his own, and then we made the poor boy wait while we suited up XD

The result:

Sarah as Harlequin (DC) and me as Mario (Nintendo)!

That was awesome fun. That’s a 1-Up mushroom I’m carrying, btw – it gives Mario an extra life in the games.

Quick mushroom primer!

Red (Super Mario) – makes little Mario grow into big Mario aka Super Mario!

Green (1-Up) – gives you an extra life!

Yellow (Mega Mushroom) – makes Mario into a giant Mega Mario who can crush everything – blocks, pipes, enemies, platforms, anything – for a limited time. Only in New Super Mario Bros, I think.

/quick mushroom primer

And we walked around a bit before splitting up – Sarah to join the folks at Movie Mania, and me with Hafiz to try out the Wiis! He didn’t really get the hang of it, but that’s normal for when you first try the Wii.

Hafiz tries out Virtua Tennis 2009 on the Wii

I got to try archery Wii Sports Resort, and I must say that MotionPlus is pretty cool. Looking forward to seeing more games that make use of MotionPlus.

Wii Sports Resort demo booth - there are other Wii and DS titles to try too

And then we camwhored a bit, because it was too fun not to.

A rare camwhore moment

And then the real Mario & Luigi mascots showed up! That was pretty awesome – whenever they came out, everybody wanted to take photos of them.

Mario, Luigi and Mario

They were demoing Guitar Hero on stage, so that was pretty cool to watch – especially since one of them was a classmate.

Guitar Hero: Legends of Rock

We went to the stage to watch the noon-time show put on by the folks of Movie Mania – Snake Eyes vs Storm Shadow from GI Joe! But we did get some pictures of the Movie Mania folks, whose costumes always amaze.

Storm Shadow, Darth Maul unmasked, Snake Eyes, Qui-Gon Jin (I think)

Storm Shadow, random army man, Reno of Movie Mania, random army man #2, Snake Eyes

And, perhaps my favorite picture that I took:

Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow

And then we met up with Nerwen but Hafiz had to go for a talk of his own. We wandered around a bit before going to stage at 12pm to watch a little show by the MM folks.

That was pretty damn cool. It started out with Storm Shadow chasing a poor lady, and Snake Eyes coming to her rescue. After a pretty awesome stunt fight, Storm Shadow won – but the lady called in reinforcements: Chicken Little Jedi!

Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow duke it out

That was really kind of weird, and after that I couldn’t see anything because (like Mario) I was too short. I do know that Chicken Little Jedi won in the end, probably through sheer weirdness.

We went to the G&B Comics booth to get the giveaways and buy some comics, but we got split up. We eventually found each other at the queue for Brian Bolland’s autograph. We joined it quite early, but I do know it eventually stretched so far that I couldn’t see the end of it.

And because Mr Bolland is famous for illustrating the Batman classic The Killing Joke, it was only fitting that a certain someone show up in-character…

The Joker, comics version

I didn’t get to see him after that, but I was told that the same cosplayer eventually changed into the version seen in The Dark Knight. (EDIT: It was a different person as The Dark Knight‘s version.) I did see a flash of purple coat and green hair though.

It was a pretty long wait, so when he came everyone was quite eager for autographs.

Mr Bolland prepares to sign a gazillion autographs

Poison Ivy and Harlequin walked past, so Mr Bolland took a picture of Mario, Ivy and Harlequin – that was pretty awesome, and probably one of my personal highlights of the day.

Poison Ivy and Harlequin

And after the signing, we were just in time to watch the Coscon on the competition! STGCC hosts the Coscon cosplay competition, so the announcer had the unenviable task of saying “Could the Coscon cosplay competition competitiors please gather” several times. Nerwen and I managed to get seats in front of the stage, so we watched the entire show.

Today’s theme was movies, which is basically all Western-based entertainment – the anime/Japanese category is tomorrow, which probably explains why it wasn’t so crowded today. The judges were Reno and another guy from Movie Mania (he had a camera), and there was a guest judge all the way from Gotham City  – Batman!

Batman sweeps onto the stage

The individual contestants were quite awesome, and the group ones were quite funny. There were three groups: a Star Trek contingent of Data, Neelix and a possibly Spock (I can’t remember) attempting to fight off a Borg called Seven of Eleven. They were assimilated in the end, though; resistance is futile, after all.

Another group was the two Jedi we’d seen above, except one was Darth Mual ‘unmasked’ aka without makeup. A lot of people weren’t impressed by that, but the resulting stunt fight was what won them the competition – that was a really serious fight, with falling off the stage and all that. Seriously cool, and everyone was pretty impressed after that.

But my favorite – and, arguably, the favorite of a lot of the guys – was Harlequin and Poison Ivy, because Ivy was hot and she flirted with Batman. That was pretty funny; she sat on the table and went “So, Batman, I think we can cancel the competition, hm?” and he was like “I’m not affected by your charms!”. And then she got miffed and threw her rose at him. Harlequin had her awesome rubber chicken that was really funny whenever it squawked.

Later, when the groups came back on-stage for the final judging, Batman offered her the rose but she very deliberately snubbed him. That was hilarious.

We didn’t stay to vote for the invidividual contestants, because by then it was past 4pm and we hadn’t had lunch yet. I was starving; I’d scarfed down something at 9am, so I was pretty much running on empty.

We ended up at McDonald’s, after much delay because everyone wanted photos with me/Mario ): I’m sorry, Nerwen!

As we left the con, we saw this:

Two Rorsachs chatting

I believe the wooden sign was the ‘The End is Nigh’ one, too.

When we got back to the con, it was 5.15pm and Hafiz was back, between appointments again. We did some shopping, and then Nerwen went home while I went to meet my parents for dinner. (I ate two meals in less than an hour. Guh.)

My parents wanted to see how the con was compared to last year’s, so I brought them back. I wanted to watch the scheduled Nintendo Showcase at 8pm, so before that I wandered around a bit to do a bit of shopping.

While I was at the capsule stations, wasting money contemplating the Mario-themed ones, I was approached by my Guitar Hero-playing classmate! L asked if she could do a short video interview with me for Nintendo HQ in Japan, since I was dressed up as Mario and all. She asked me a few questions and her videographer filmed it. Mostly it was about whether I thought MotionPlus was a good addition.

Then I went back to join my parents, but it turned out that the showcase was cancelled. I was disappointed, but things happen, I guess.

When we were leaving, Mario and Luigi were outside, so I managed to grab another picture with them – that was pretty cool.

So that was it! I won’t be going for tomorrow, but do check out the STGCC at Suntec Ciy, halls 401 and 402. It’s awesome fun and there’s lots of stuff to be had!

And there's always the swag.

EDIT: Now with video! This is the Snake Eyes vs Storm Shadow vs Chicken Little fight at noon, courtesy of Team SEJA.

Verner Panton: The Collected Works is a travelling exhibition by the Vitra Design Museum from Germany, currently in Singapore at the National Museum until July.

Verner Panton (1926-1998) was a Danish designer who really pushed the envelope of household design. The exhibition includes more than a hundred pieces of furniture, lighting fixtures, textiles and documents. Fascinating stuff.

His work is fascinating. I thought furniture was going to be boring, but I was so wrong. His designs are a little retro but very functional, using color to announce their presence. The best term I’ve come up with to describe any of is “Ikea on steriods and LSD”, because it has that Scandanavian practicality but in bold, bright colors and plastic.

The children's play area

The exhibition had a children’s play area directly outside the gallery, with colorful jigsaw mats that could moved around and stuffed blocks with interesting information about color. There was also an activity booklet for children aged 6 to 9.

The Panton chair

Panton is most famous for his Panton chair, which was the first chair ever to be made out of a single piece of plastic. I know it looks unstable and uncomfortable, but there were a few in the exhibition that you could actually sit on, and I can tell you that they’re not unstable or uncomfortable. They’re quite comfy, actually, and they don’t wobble when you shift your weight.

Panton also designed light fixtures, some of which look quite spectacular. I read that his designs focused on delivery light in a way that wouldn’t produce glare, and his use of colored lights to create atmosphere is fascinating.

Panton was, at one point, also a big fan of modular furniture, which was basically furniture that were made up of different sections that could be rearranged at will.

Flying Chairs

Which isn’t to say that his designs were boring. Some of it was clearly experimental, and maybe with a little fine tuning, could have gone into production.

The highlight of the exhibition was probably Phantasy Landscape. Originally shown at the Visionia 2 furniture fair in Cologne in 1970, it was partially reconstructed for the travelling exhibition.

There are no real words to describe it, beyond wonderful; I don’t have any pictures as my camera battery died, but you could actually go inside and interact with the exhibit, which was primarily organic shapes created out of wood and a sort of wool-type material.