The Carnival

What a really uneventful, totally waste of time and tiring first half of the day it has been. I could have had more fun blasting Zorkian bugs to Pluto and back. I'm sure those bugs would not disappoint.

And it's all because of a badly organized event held by a certain big corporation. And just who are they? Well, Astro, our wonderfully high tech satellite television company, thats who. Today is the finale of the local talent show produced by them called Akademi Fantasia, sort of something like American Idol. And it's into its sixth season now.

I'm not really a huge fan of this reality show but I got a little hooked on it cos Mrs. Spiff is a fan. The show runs over a period of 10 weeks and comes down to the finale today. The finale is tonight and they've been promoting this carnival that they're going to have in the morning at the location of the finals which is in Stadium Putra, Bukit Jalil.

So I thought why not visit it, since it's really not all that far fro where I was living and it would be fun getting to see some of the contestants and the booths they have on offer. Mrs. Spiff, being a huge fan was overjoyed, since she's never been to the previous carnivals before.

So, this morning, we woke up early, checked our blogs, emails and had a quick breakfast and headed to the location. Now comes the fun part. We were expecting crowds of people, loads of banners and buntings, a carnival like situation but when we reached there, the place looked kinda empty. We knew for a fact this was the proper place. So, I drove around the whole huge stadium area (there were 2 different stadiums in this location) and saw some tents that were in the process of being put up.

Ok, no way could they be only just now putting up the tents for the event I told Mrs. Spiff. The festivities were to supposed to start at 10.00am and it was already 11.00am and no way do you set up tents on the day itself. I should know cos I've done events before! But there were no signs at all about this so called carnival, nada, zilch, zero! So, I parked the car and we walked like at least one kilometre around the 3 stadiums in the hot blistering sun to see if we could find the carnival and finally, there it was tucked in this small nook away from the main roads and it didn't look like a carnival at all.

Maybe we were too early or something but there were only a few handful of people there and the booths didn't offer anything carnival like! And the worst thing was the advertising for it. Not one single signage was put up to direct you to the carnival, not one. It's not wonder there was no one around. I think I should recommend my Agency to them so we can teach them a thing or two about advertising and promoting an event! What a waste of time it was for us.

To say we were disappointed would have been an understatement. We were baked in the sun walking like lost tourist looking for the place and to finally find it and see how it was organized was really not the way I wanted to spend my Saturday. I should have just slept in late. At least I'll know better next time. I'll be home tonight watching the finals in the comforts of my own home.

On another note, it really is not cheap going out these days, just that half day disaster of an outing we had cost quite a bit. The amount I paid for the toll, the parking, the drinks and then we did a little shopping as well came up to quite a sum. Everything out there has gone up in price and I don't think I can sustain going out every weekend. Sometimes it's a good thing to have credit cards, it can be a lifesaver, especially this close to the month end. But then it can also be a bad thing cos you tend to max your cards out pretty fast.

Maybe I should send in an application for another card, something that gives me instant credit approval the moment I sign up. I'm sure there are loads of them out there for me to choose from and I know Credit-Land is one site that I can trust to find one that suits my needs. They feature some of the best and most reliable online credit card applications and has been referred to as the authoritative source of consumer information by CNN.com. And it's so convenient to use their comparison table to compare online offers for instant approvals, low interest and balance transfers from the likes of Visa, Mastercard, Discover and American Express.

I guess with the escalating cost of things, having another credit card handy for emergencies seems like a good idea, ya?