After giving a lot of thought I’ve decided to dedicate my blog to a technology+lifestyle blog. I guess that will actually let me share quite a lot more events in my life rather than just mundane topics pertaining to technology, gadgets, geeks, nerds and… (you get the drift I suppose). So my first lifestyle post is actually going to be on my experience at the Guinness 250 years celebration at the Mines Convention Center. It certainly was an event that I won’t forget in a while.

The event happened on the 22nd of August 2009 – my best friend and I were excited for quite some time for this event. I was lucky that I was on a business trip to KL during that time so that I could actually make it for the event. I thought I was excited but boy was I wrong! My best friend was very well prepared for this event. He had actually made specially designed t-shirts for us to wear at the event. I couldn’t believe the amount of effort that he had actually put in to make this a memorable event for us. Talk about being a Guinness fan!

Check out our “designer” t shirts:

Front view:

Back View:

Cool huh? That’s what the folks at the event actually thought too. They were like… “You guys must either be hardcore Guinness fans or must be working for Guinness!”. Yep they were right, we are hardcore Guinness fans (and secretly hoping to work for Guinness one day). The event started off quite slowly actually. I was looking for more like a party atmosphere but was kind of disappointed to see that the event was arranged more like a Chinese wedding. There were about 150 tables and 10 people were randomly assigned to each table. This was a far cry from our experience at St Patrick’s day a few months ago.

The Emcee made most of the announcement in mandarin and there were quite a few Chinese shows. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t have anything against it. Just that my expectation was totally different from the atmosphere at the event that night. The food was OK and nothing to shout about. But here comes the best part – the free flow of Guinness Stout. Even though it would have been cool to have been sipping on some Guinness draught I believe it might have been a logistic nightmare to be serving glasses of draught beer to more than 1500 people at the event.

Now back to the table that we were sitting at. Initially we didn’t have much to talk about. I mean imagine 10 complete strangers sitting in the same table with nothing in common except – Guinness. But that was the magic touch. After a couple of bottles, we were talking practically anything from grandmother stories to crazy drunken night stories. The best part – we didn’t even know each others’ names. Everyone seemed to know when they were required to respond and what to respond like magic.

Towards the end of the event, we were pretty much warmed up and it was almost like we had forged some kind of a brotherhood. Around midnight we exchanged pleasantries and a brief good night with the ever famous last words – “Drive Safe!”. Yes, we enjoy Guinness responsibly. My best friend and I were well prepared for the event. We actually took a cab to the event and hence we weren’t required to drive back home. We were pretty much one of the last to leave the convention center and I leave you with some final pictures of us posing proudly in front of our favorite brand in the world – Guinness! Yes, and that’s me on the left !