This Spring Festival holiday, I “eat full nothing to do” and was browsing the web when I came across some freebies online and decided to put them together to create my first iPhone skin. It’s called “Go Green” based on the theme of the icon set.

I haven’t actually tried this out on my iPhone yet because I am going to upgrade my firmware later this week so there’s no point installing it on my iPhone, you see. So if it doesn’t work as well as it looks on my screen, just leave me a comment but please don’t diss me. LOL

I have included the download file in this post; credits are duly given in an attached text file. Enjoy and Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Update – 20th Feb, 2010: This Go Green iPhone skin has been tested on my own iPhone and it works as you can see from the updated screenshot above. So, go ahead and install it!

Download: Go Green iPhone Skin

No, I did not conveniently forget to blog these past 1.5 months. My blogs are always at the back of my mind even when I am busy chasing Beyond the Realm of Conscience, the latest TVB drama that stars Kevin Cheng, but for the past six months, Snoopy has been terribly ill, I am terribly ill from taking care of him and I am sure you are getting nauseous just reading about it.

Anyway, a couple of days ago, I received this temptation from Maybank and Maxis. These two companies have collaborated to entice me with a hard to resist exclusive offer of an iPhone 3GS. The first thousand Maybankard holders who take up this offer will get to save at least RM250 signing up for any Maxis iValue package.

As a 2G iPhone user, I am just waiting for an opportunity to upgrade my iPhone but seriously, an iPhone 3GS is luxury and I cannot justify splurging so much on a device and rewarding myself when I haven’t been working hard for the past six months, if I worked at all!

One thing that’s stopping me from signing up with Maxis on this iPhone 3GS promotion is the inability to port my Celcom number. I understand that I would need a new number that carries a prefix of 012; probably due to branding. At the same time, I do not wish to have two mobile lines. One is sufficient.

Another issue I have with Maxis iValue 1 is that I would only get 500MB of data for free per month. I don’t know how much that is but that definitely isn’t enough if Streamyx goes down. I’m not prepared to get a surprise when the bill comes at the end of the month. Sigh… I guess I am going to give this a pass, unless someone pays for the iPhone 3GS. My birthday’s coming up, you know? *ahem*

I purposely went to Kinta City last evening to video their Wushu demonstration which was held in conjunction with Chinese New Year 2009. Although the programme sheet stated that this series of events will start on Friday, 9th January, 2009, I don’t know why the emcee mentioned that yesterday, 10th January, 2009 was the first day of these Chinese cultural perfomances. Perhaps the events were cancelled on Friday (and I thought I missed them) or maybe it was a slip of the emcee’s tongue.

Anyway, the show, which started at 8pm, kicked off with a few sets of Wushu demonstrations. I liked it that we were not made to wait for long minutes between sets, like what happened during the Chrismas shows in Ipoh Parade last year.

However, there was a couple of boys who sparred with each other in slow motion as if afraid that they would chop off each others hand accidentally. Basically, they looked like they did not have confidence with their equipment.

Then there was a Tai Chi performance. It was slow, but heck, it’s Tai Chi.

Then finally, there was dragon dance. It’s too bad that this wasn’t included in the programme sheet so many people did not know about, although the emcee did mention it at the start of the show.

Unfortunately, by the end of the dragon dance show, I ran out of memory on my camera. But luckily, I have backup! These still shots below were taken with my iPhone and boy, am I glad that they turned out “not bad” worrrr….

This time, I was there slightly early and managed to get a good spot on the second row. I was standing, which was fine with me, but it was jam packed and I couldn’t move AT ALL. What pissed me off was when suddenly the couple who sat in front of me suddenly STOOD UP whilst I was recording. Argghh WHY??? Spoilt my dragon dance video!

The dragon dance was very fast paced towards the end which was not captured on video but I am sure you can see the flurry of colours in the series of photos below.

By the way, all these were performed by the martial arts troupe of SMJK (C) Sam Tet, Ipoh, Perak. They perform lion and dragon dances during Chinese New Year or on other auspicious occasions. We used to engage them for lion and dragon dances at our house yearly on the first day of Chinese New Year but had to stop after adopting Snoopy and Dino.

If you are looking for a martial arts troupe to perform lion and/or dragon dance in Ipoh, do support the troupe. You can go to the school to make enquiries.

I did a search and the listed address with the Ministry of Education is No. 5, Jalan Gereja, 30300 Ipoh, Perak. Tel. No. 605-2545457. It’s so weird, all my life, I thought their address was Jalan Sultan Idris Shah. Guess we learn something new every day.