Missed watching Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian? Well, you can either go to the cinema to watch it again or you can pay a visit to Night at the Museum LIVE! at Lynton V Harris Scream Park, Sunway Lagoon and see some of the main characters come to life! No, am not kidding you. This Hollywood blockbuster movie is the latest attraction added to the hair-raising scream park.

It will begin with you meeting the bald version of Larry, the museum night guard at the receiving dock of the Smithsonian Institution. He will then show you the way to the basement of the Federal Archives where the crates from the Museum of Natural History are kept. A sombre mood will accompany you as you go through the storage area but once in a while, a character that resembles General George Armstrong Custer will pop up out of nowhere and be gone within seconds. Walk a little further and you’ll be surprised by one of Al Capone’s men who forces you to move faster to the Stone Age exhibit.

Since the museum is designed like a maze, you brain just wont stop playing tricks on you. You’ll start to wonder what’s coming up next around the dark corners. But this is not the case when you reach the Stone Age exhibit. Though you may get carried away by looking up and admiring the dimly lit T-Rex skeleton head, don’t forget to pay attention to the caveman which I assume is the Neanderthal from the movie. Another thing not to forget is to cover your ears because this is the part where your friends are mostly likely to scream their heads off!

      
Move along and say hello to the Teddy Roosevelt statue in Hall of Busts before coming face-to-face with Kahmunrah’s heinous henchmen from the movie. Napoleon Bonaparte and Ivan the Terrible are on the wall of the Art Gallery as well. Seriously, Ivan the Terrible looks like a Malay ghost in Chinese traditional garb while Napoleon Bonaparte’s outfit looks one size bigger. Funny, yet the both of them are still able to scare you and your friends before directing you to your next destination which is the Gate of Kahmunrah. This is where you’ll meet the evil tyrant Kahmunrah who looks more like Akhmenrah in the movie. He will then try to frighten you with his evil laughter and make you walk through the Door of the Underworld in the dark. At this point, you may feel relieved knowing that you’re finally getting out of the eerie Scream Park but there’s something lurking in there and waiting for the right moment to come up to you. So beware!

      
After going through the four different phases of creepy experience from Angoscia Theatre of Fear to the zombified inmates of Prison Break LIVE!, the Night at the Museum LIVE! is not that scary but it’s enough to give you multiple heart attacks as you try to find your way out of the park. It claims that the terrifying journey will take at least 20 minutes to complete but don’t bet on it if you were to go with your scaredy-cat girlfriends who keep tugging at your arm and freeze whenever a creature appears. 

      
The Night at the Museum LIVE! is here to stay throughout 2009 at the Scream Park, Sunway Lagoon. Call 03-5639 0000 for more info.
     

Frankly, am not really a book freak. So when Steph told me to read Dan Brown’s Angels & Demons before watching the movie, I sort of hesitated at first but she said it was the kind of book that you will never put down once you started reading it. Intrigued by what Steph told me, I borrowed the book from her and started the Angels & Demons journey for the coming weekend.

Although I found the intro to be quite slow, I have to admit that it still has the ability to sustain my interest. The plot started to get more interesting once Robert Langdon and Vittoria gathered at CERN, at the scene of her father’s death and found out that one of the vials of antimatter is stolen. I seriously don’t remember the last time my hands were glued to a book, and this book did that to me effortlessly with its fast-paced twists and turns that kept me turning the pages while enlightening me with some of the great artworks of the past like Bernini’s famed Ecstasy of St Theresa sculpture. And when I was done with the book, guess at what time it was? It was freaking 4am in the morning, so Steph was right!

Extremely excited to watch the movie after reading it, I gave up my beauty sleep and logged on to the Net instead, just to check out the Angels & Demons movie trailer. Yes, it got me even more excited to check out the movie with familiar scenes from the book, and the hot Ewan McGregor as the Camerlengo. Though Ron Howard could have gotten a better-looking actor to be Robert Langdon instead of Tom Hanks but I hoped the film will do justice to the great book that I’d just read.

Finally the waiting was over and I booked tickets to the Angels & Demons movie on the very next day after it premiered. Excited, I wrote on my FB shout out about it and got lots of replies telling me to stick to the book, not to be disappointed with the movie and watch for the sake of Ewan McGregor. Well, I reckoned then it couldn’t be that bad bcos I enjoyed watching The Da Vinci Code, so perhaps this movie would be better.

Ignoring what peeps said and full of enthusiasm, I went to watch it with a couple of friends and oh wow, it was really exciting.

So exciting that I actually slept for half an hour at the beginning because all the cast did was drone on and on about the Illuminati. I slept not once but several times! It was way too slow and of course, they changed the storyline which wasn’t to my liking. Most of the interesting parts in the book were not included, like the part where Vittoria’s father’s head was mutilated and Langdon’s battles with the Assassin. The Assassin and Commander Olivetti are nothing like the ones described in the book. They even took out the irritating BBC reporter that made the story more interesting! The only thing that I found great about the movie was the effect of the antimatter after it was blown up in the sky and shook the grounds of Vatican City. That’s it. Other than that, the movie was just a huge disappointment.  

The day is finally here, NOT only to watch Jason Mraz performing live for the first time ever in Malaysia at Stadium Negara but to actually see him in person, up close and personal (not quite up close and personal though because CLEO didn’t manage to get an exclusive interview with him. Sigh.) at his PC before the concert.

Not sure what to expect and ask at the PC, I turned to Steph (who is Jason Mraz's biggest fan) and the rest of the CLEO team for some questions. After equipping myself with a few questions, I make my way to Delicious @ Dua where Jason Mraz’s PC will take place. Not many members of the media were there when I arrived but I was feeling slightly embarrassed when I saw the huge DSLR cameras that the press photographers were using compared to my compact, so-called mini DSLR camera. I put the embarrassment aside, because I knew I was there to snap lots and lots of photos of Jason Mraz and this mini camera of mine would do just that, perfectly.

The waiting was finally over when Serena C took the stage and announced that she was the host for the PC. In my heart, I knew she was the envy of every Jason Mraz fan at that time. Without wasting time, I made my way to the front row so I could get nice photos of him and a few minutes later, he appeared from the back stage donning a brown fedora with gray v-neck tee and cargo pants to greet the Malaysian media for the first time.

After a brief introductory session between him and Serena C, the PC continued with Jason Mraz signing a framed poster and handing it to Martcensia (the event organiser that brought the talented singer to Malaysia) before opening the floor to the Q & A session. Staring at him through my viewfinder, there wasn’t the slightest sign of diva-ism about him...he looked down to earth and humble. A plus point for the multi-talented Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter I would say, and the way he answered the Q&A proved what I thought about him was probably right.

When asked about his biggest musical influence growing up, he said he grew up listening to a radio, so whatever that was hot on the radio from MJ’s Thriller to Pearl Jam and Nirvana to Dave Matthews Band. Basically, he was always in love with songs and songwriters. When asked on what was his worst pick-up line, Jason Mraz didn’t hesitate to answer at all and said that any pick-up line is the worst pick-up line. Hmmm… I wonder how many guys will agree to that. He continued that even if you try a pick-up line, that in itself was already bad. He believes that one should just talk, just have a conversation (yeah guys, spare us the nauseating and lame pick-up lines that you googled online or memorised from some chick-flick movie and just talk to us!).

On choosing his duet partners, Jason said that the first criteria was that he needed to get along with that other person, and the fact that the partner had to be a grounded individual. From what he gathered through his brief conversations with Colbie and James was that they were very humble, they were polite and soft spoken individuals and he felt that they would make a great collaboration. True enough. Lucky, the track that Jason Mraz collaborated with Colbie Caillat is really soulful number and is currently climbing up the chart.  Then comes the million dollar question that every girl who is head over heels in love with with Jason Mraz would like to know – "What can a girl do to impress him?" Well, good news gals. He said to just be yourselves. He likes it au naturel. He doesn’t need a lot of make-up and he certainly doesn’t need fancy clothes. And if you’re wondering what’s up with the fedora on his head, well it’s just one from his hat collection and he’s been into the hat fetish for many, many years.  

The Q&A session ended with tasty refreshments from Delicious and I couldn’t stop smiling from ear to ear when browsing through the pics that I had snapped with my mini camera. They’re in it yo! And since I only had one media pass for the concert, I decided to give it to Steph to have a great time that night with her Mr Mraz.       

I bet she did :)

How would you feel if your boss and colleagues were to suggest that you do a Mohawk hairstyle?

A) Totally excited about it and I just can’t wait to do it.

B) I find it very peculiar coming from my own boss.

C) All of the above.

             My answer is C. Totally baffled by their suggestion yet at the same time, there was a part of me that was interested to try it out for a change. Yeah, a mix of emotions swept over me but everything stops the moment I took look at Jena Malone’s pics at some red carpet event that were emailed to me. This was my first reaction: “Holy s***!” It’s certainly not the kind of spiky hair that I had in mind. It was extremely short with both sides shaved to less than 1cm in length with only a little hair at the top of the head. I had never done anything radical like that before and I wasn’t sure if I would be able handle the haircut.

Yet the thought of doing it went back and forth in my head for almost two weeks. Then one fine day after looking at those pics again, I braved myself for what was probably going to be the most drastic haircut I would ever have had in my life – the Mohawk. After printing out the pic, I made my way to the salon and informed Calvin (the stylist) about the hairstyle of my choice. Flabbergasted and worried that I might not be able to pull it off, I had to convince him on why I wanted the Mohawk so badly. After a long convincing explanation from yours truly, he finally picked up the electric hair clippers and it was good riddance to my Rihanna-gone-bad hairstyle.  

The whole time that Calvin was shaving my head, I dared not set my eyes on my head and kept telling myself that it’s just a haircut and that my hair would eventually grow back if I didn’t like it. Finally, the moment that I had been waiting for arrived. I looked up and there it was, the new me with Jena Malone’s edgy Mohawk on my head. Honestly, it didn’t look so bad. He showed me how my hair looked like at the back and the sides which I actually found quite interesting. It looked good especially when viewed side profile. Yet I was still nervous since it was the first time I was doing it and probably needed some time to get used to having almost my whole head shaved.

 I knew that when I chose this hairstyle, I would be putting my hair out there as an object for people to look at, ridicule or admire. The first reaction I got was when I passed by family sitting at the bench near an escalator in the mall. Till today, I cannot erase from my mind the way they looked at my hair with those popped-out eyeballs and dropped jaws that were almost touching the floor. It was really funny!

As I continued walking in the mall, I sensed several pair of eyes on my hair and noticed that some guys and gals, older and younger people too, actually turned twice to have a good look at my hair. Although it was kind of uncomfortable having people staring at my hair non-stop, I felt proud in a way, because: 1) I knew I had a cool hairstyle that stood out from the rest, and 2) I’d just proven to the world that I have guts! Trust me, it’s not that easy to carry off such an extreme hairstyle especially if you’re a first-timer like me. But if you have a high dose of super-confidence and lots of guts to pull it off, everything will turn out just fine. It’s your hair and if you’re not proud of it, then nobody will be. It has now been three months and I’m still very much in love with the Mohawk ’do!

P.S. If you wanna give yourself a Mohawk, please check the office manual first.